Doesn't the group dynamics depend on how the people are split up? I'm thinking of something along the lines of agreeing with a comment and the list of people that agree with a comment being considered one team. In comments down that thread anyone on the top-level post gets associated with posts by that team, although they could disassociate themselves from certain messages. Groups would be tenuous and transient. You could even allow wiki like editing of comments by members of the same group.

I'm interested in forms of discussion that will scale up (with more than the tens of active participants we have at the moment), and also leave something useful for people to read later on.

I'll create one, should be either under "new rooms" or "social", named "LessWrong".

To help those interested, KGS is an acronym for Kiseido Go Server, url is http://gokgs.com, where you can either download a java app or use the one with your browser. Registering is not needed.

So, let's hope something good comes out of this.

This is offtopic, but anyway, since there seem to be many here that play online go, how about creating KGS room for lesswrongers? I'd be interested in playing with you guys. (This seemed partially related as so many mentioned "go" in some way in their responses. Dunno where else to throw a suggestion like this)

edit: Started a new thread here. If you're interested in playing with lesswrongers, reply there!

During a sleep experiment, I used to record my mental performance by a simple arithmetic game. Start with a 3 digit number, subtract 9, then 8, then 7...so on. Time yourself in the task. If the result is ±3 seconds to my average score, means I am quite active.

There is never a situation where they are the criminal but an adult wouldn't be, as opposed to, for example, buying alcohol. So the harm falls on their lovers, not them.

But in most places, sex between two minors is illegal (edit: below a certain age, not just below the age of majority), and both are liable. And while court cases are rare, punishment at school and at home is common, and most teenagers have to vet their romantic partners with their parents.

More generally, and more importantly, minors have substantial privileges. People are legally obliged to care for them and ensure they have a certain standard of health. Schools are obliged to educate them for free.

Like Alicorn said, these are privileges that should be extended to adults. In many countries, a standard of free health care is guaranteed to all. In some countries, university education is free to all citizens. I'd like to see more of that.

Crimes against them are punished far more severely.

But this is only necessary because they're prevented from defending themselves the way adults would. Most crimes against young people (it's silly to call 16 year olds "children") are done by someone the law forces them to be in daily contact with, even if they hate that person. Such as parents and family and schoolyard bullies. (Most people aren't allowed to veto their K12 school, class, or teachers.)

Their own crimes a punished (usually) far less severely

If we're taking the US as a reference point, I would argue that adults should be punished a lot less for most crimes...

It may be worthwhile to separate general goods and evils from specific opportunities. The protections you list make children safer from things that are bad for everyone - violence, poor health, inability to get educated. These are, arguably, things that everyone should be more protected from. Saying that children have more of these protections than adults says something about the inadequacy of protection for adults - this sort of intuition drives the affection many people have for universal health care, for instance. Meanwhile, what adults have that children don't are opportunities to pursue things that they specifically find good and desirable. A child gets an education, but can't choose its content except in fairly trivial ways - apart from picking a foreign language and a music class, and testing into certain higher-level academic courses, I didn't get real course selection until college, where I was treated as an adult and had much more loose requirements to fill. As adults, we might or might not have access to education, but if we do, we can pick what kind.

So basically, the protections children get are nice and well-motivated, but they're one-size-fits-all and poorly suited as a substitute for adult freedom to children with personalities.

Every time my willpower to do something is over, I stretch myself to do that activity a little longer.

So... when your willpower is all gone, you continue doing the activity with... what?

In my experience, children are cruel, immoral, egotistical, and utterly selfish. The last thing they need is to have their inflated sense of self worth and entitlement stroked by the sort of parenting you seem to be advocating. Children ought to have fundamentally lower status, not just because they're children per se, but because they're stupid and useless. They should indeed be grateful that anyone would take the trouble to feed and care for someone as stupid and useless as they, and repay the favor by becoming stronger.

I'm going to be talking about more mundane situations, and the point I want to make is that beliefs are very different objects from the act of communicating those beliefs.

Isn't this what happens in a courtroom drama? The lawyers bend facts by the way they communicate it to maximize the utility of their argument. I haven't observed a real court case but can come up with scores of examples from bollywood movies!

Excellent idea! I've tried various anti-procrastination schemes but not this.

On another note, one thing I've noticed of myself is that at the moment that I have an important insight or get something really working I'm inclined to get up from my desk and grab a drink or go talk to a friend or something similar. It always involves getting up and walking away from my desk, and I never actually need the drink or have a good reason to chat. I often don't realise that I'm going it until I'm a couple of paces away. Anybody else experienced this?