Comment author: RobbBB 07 January 2015 04:05:19AM 0 points [-]

One uses a typewriter apostrophe ('), the other doesn't (`).

In response to comment by RobbBB on 2014 Survey Results
Comment author: arundelo 07 January 2015 04:49:04AM 1 point [-]

No, bbleeker is saying that "Hawaii" (no apostrophe) is in both lists.

Comment author: alwhite 06 January 2015 10:26:44PM 2 points [-]

It seems like most of the big ideas have been covered, so here's a small one.

Rock climbing equipment (shoes and harness) and membership to a climbing gym. It's different, fun, gets you exercise and exposure to more/different people.

Comment author: arundelo 07 January 2015 12:48:22AM 1 point [-]

Do most climbing gyms have walls (or whatever) that can be climbed without a belaying partner? Or is it usually pretty easy to find a just-for-that-day partner among whoever happens to be at the gym when you are?

Comment author: pianoforte611 02 January 2015 04:24:48AM *  1 point [-]

Scott Alexander and Scott Aaronson have described their experiences as shy nerdy heterosexual guys growing up. Both of them felt a crippling paralysis and fear at the thought of asking a girl out.

Since LessWrong fits this demographic pretty well, I'd like to know: how well do their experiences match yours? Only answer if you are a nerdy heterosexual male*.

Feel free to elaborate.

*For this purpose I would roughly define nerdy as having two of the following characteristics: poor social skills ; a high IQ or ; intense non-mainstream interests (eg. e-sports, comic books, rock collecting). Regarding that last criteria, basically anything you would feel weird talking to your barber about.

Submitting...

Comment author: arundelo 05 January 2015 12:43:44PM 0 points [-]

I answered "sort of", but I've thought about it more and now think "not at all" may have been a better answer. I think the two Scotts are talking about a real problem but the main commonalities between my experience and theirs are:

  1. not particularly successful with women (I was single for most of high school and have been single for long stretches of my adult life)
  2. afraid to let people know I was interested in them
  3. depressed about lack of romantic success

and I don't think it's particularly controversial that those are common straight male nerd experiences (or common experiences for other demographics, especially the second and third things on the list). The controversial thing is whether these problems were caused or worsened by feminist ideas, which in my case was not true at all.

Possibly relevant:

  • I am about ten years older than both Scotts.
  • I did not "go to college" in the sense of earning a degree. (I took a bunch of music classes at a community college -- i.e., a college without dorms. I never attended anything like the sexual-assault prevention workshops Scott Aaronson mentions.)
In response to comment by lirene on 2014 Survey Results
Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 04 January 2015 07:40:32PM 5 points [-]

It's not an established term in the sense that people would have conducted research on it, as far as I know: unless I'm mistaken, it comes from here.

Comment author: arundelo 04 January 2015 08:06:11PM *  6 points [-]
Comment author: alexdewey 01 January 2015 08:53:41PM 5 points [-]

I've been learning to solve a standard 3x3 rubik's cube, which isn't a very useful skill but it is something I have a hard time with, both in terms of having very little skill with spatial reasoning and having a general mental block that makes me very adverse to this kind of thing. I think it's been good to push myself out of my comfort zone and grapple with something I've labeled as too hard for me to do with a good bit of success.

I've also being trying to reduce my sugar intake which is pretty hard for me especially around holidays and when I feel generally crappy. I've always had a very hard time regulating how much sugar I eat in a healthy way. Since I've been realizing what a problem it is, I've been trying harder to permanently kick my addiction and improve my health. I've found that vanilla scented candles helps reduce my desire to snack on sugar and that it's also much easier to resist buying sugary food than resist it once it's in my house so I've been trying to be better about that.

Comment author: arundelo 01 January 2015 09:35:13PM 4 points [-]

I learned to cube with the Rubiety Society method (developed by Alice Yu and friends), which makes the necessary algorithms easier to remember by turning them into stories (along the lines of "family drops kids off at summer camp", where each step in the story corresponds to a cube move).

Comment author: ciphergoth 01 January 2015 06:10:31PM 1 point [-]

In which direction? :) and do you think you can say anything about what was said in a way that would help close the gap? Thanks!

Comment author: arundelo 01 January 2015 08:38:06PM 2 points [-]

I was pretty frustrated by the neuroscience prof's reluctance to speak in terms of predictions -- of what he'd expect to see as the result of some particular experiment -- but you did great at politely pushing him in that direction, and I can't think how you could have done better.

Comment author: thomblake 01 September 2009 07:55:37PM 13 points [-]

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

-Bertrand Russell

Comment author: arundelo 24 December 2014 04:08:42PM 1 point [-]

According to Wikiquote, the original (from the essay collection Mortals and Others) is:

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Comment author: alanwil2 24 December 2014 01:52:55AM -2 points [-]

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

-- Bertrand Russell

Comment author: arundelo 24 December 2014 04:06:53PM *  1 point [-]
Comment author: arundelo 23 December 2014 11:45:08AM 6 points [-]

"Hah! Please. Find me a more universally rewarded quality than hubris. Go on, I'll wait. The word is just ancient Greek for 'uppity,' as far as I'm concerned. Hubris isn't something that destroys you, it's something you are punished for. By the gods! Well, I've never met a god, just powerful human beings with a lot to gain by keeping people scared."

-- Lisa Bradley, a character in Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag's Strong Female Protagonist

Comment author: MartinB 22 December 2014 11:25:14PM 0 points [-]

I don't get this one.

Comment author: arundelo 22 December 2014 11:37:22PM 2 points [-]

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