I usually try to mix it up. A quick count shows 6 male examples and 2 female examples, which was not a deliberate choice, but I guess I can be more intentional about a more even split in future?

I liked (and upvoted) this post and the list is useful.

The use of "male pronoun as default" was a bit jarring :(

Shir L'Or

Nice use of Hebrew.

I just want to say that I find this chain ridiculously funny beyond all expected measure. None of it (past a point) has any reason to exist, but it still went on quite a while. Good job everyone on writing something so amazingly ridiculous :-)

So. I’m Samwise. If you earn my loyalty, by convincing me that what you’re working on is valuable and that you’re the person who should be doing it, I’ll stick by you whatever it takes, and I’ll make sure you succeed. I don’t have a Frodo right now. But I’m looking for one.

...

For me, finding someone who shared my values, who was smart and rational enough for me to trust him, and who was in a much better position to actually accomplish what I most cared about than I imagined myself ever being, was the best thing that could have happened to me.

Just out of curiousity - is Frodo person implicitly intended to be a romantic partner here? Or can Frodo just be anyone you work closely with? The wording certainly makes it seems seem like a romantic partner. And it could be a spurious trend but I also couldn't help but notice the female skew of all the Samwise's you mentioned, which, given the low grade dominance/submission dynamics often at play between the genders, makes me suspect this even more.

I think nursing is a valid life choice, and I think being a Samwise is a valid choice, and I think wanting to find a romantic partner and take care of them and make their ambitious dreams come true is a valid choice, and I think in general just being a person who isn't actively trying to save the world is a valid life choice. (Mostly because I'm not certain that people who have a burning ambition to save the world are actually contributing that much more than the rest of the population.)

I feel like things get kind of... weird... if these perfectly good traits are recombined into "I want to be in a super-intense relationship with someone who is successfully saving the world". I'm not sure how to describe this - I'd like to try and "save the world" myself with my own little contribution, but I don't want that contribution to be the major reason my partner is drawn to and stays by me. I don't want it to be because my work is "valuable".

If Frodo utterly fails in his ambitions, Samwise-who-wants-to-save-the-world-via-auxiliary-roles aught will hop to a new, better Frodo to support. Can a bond which is essentially based off of someone's propensity to succeed at what they are doing in life really grow to be unconditional? What if Frodo suddenly gets a debilitating disease and can't be a Frodo anymore?

I'm well aware that I might be completely misreading/projecting the intended relationship between Frodo/Samwise here, and feel free to put me in my place if that is the case. But If I presumed rightly, I would say: It's okay, you don't need to conceptualize yourself as a sidekick, - by doing so you're still implicitly buying into the whole comic-book heroism meme, in which you must behave dramatically and drastically in order to be relevant.

It's perfectly alright to just say that you would like to live a simple life of devotion to your partner, patients, friends, family, and community, and that abstract ideas of "saving the world" have nothing to do with it. People like that are the fabric of the society the comic-book types want to protect and enrich in the first place!

If you want to design a new credential, how do you make people accept/respect it? One way is "convince the relevant government to make it illegal for people to perform a specific task without your credential", but are there others?

As an employer, why should I hire someone who learned to code at App Academy but never went to college instead of the guy with the Comp. Sci degree from NJIT?

If you (or anyone knows of any) Can you send them in this direction to comment on the way that they see themselves and how outsiders who might occasionally enter their world might perceive them?

-

Interesting question! Since it's an especially interesting question for those not fully in the in-crowd I thought it might be worth rephrasing in less technical language:

Is MetaMed comprised of LessWrong folks or significantly influenced by LessWrong folks, or that style of thinking? If so, this sounds like a great test of the real-world efficacy of LessWrong ideas. In other words, if MetaMed succeeds that's some powerful evidence that this rationality shit works! (And to be intellectually honest we have to also precommit to admitting that -- should MetaMed fail -- it's evidence that it doesn't.)

PS: Since Michael Vassar is involved it's safe to say the answer to the first part is yes!

MileyCyrus appears to know more than me about the legal ins and outs. I have heard the required insurance referred to as bodybag insurance but at the same time I've friends who woke up in a hospital after an epilectic fit who just left. No one chased them for any money. I imagine if you go bankrupt you scrape together the money to go home and do so unless you've pissed off a powerful person enormously. I know of people who are in their third stay in prison for running gambling dens so whatever else they do they don't deport people for comparitively petty shit like going bankrupt. Or they might, if you declare it on the form applying for a new visa.

On a similar note, if the border guard or visa desk guy asks if you are working on a tourist or student visa the answer is no.

As far as violent crime goes I'd be surprised if Shanghai was as violent as New York or London. Gotta watch your wallet/purse/bag though. There are professionals all over.