“I drive an Infiniti. That’s really evil. There are people who just starve to death – that’s all they ever did. There’s people who are like, born and they go ‘Uh, I’m hungry’ then they just die, and that’s all they ever got to do. Meanwhile I’m driving in my car having a great time, and I sleep like a baby.

It’s totally my fault, ’cause I could trade my Infiniti for a [less luxurious] car… and I’d get back like $20,000. And I could save hundreds of people from dying of starvation with that money. And everyday I don’t do it. Everyday I make them die with my car.”

Louis C.K.

Why do I fantasize about being angry?

I'm breaking the rule a bit by asking about myself here.

Sometimes when I have down time and am daydreaming, especially if I'm walking somewhere or going for a run, I fantasize about someone wronging me (say with a traffic violation), then imagine myself getting angry, yelling at them, and physically beating them up. I think about knocking them down, screaming at them, challenging them to get up, and knocking them down again.

I've never acted on such a fantasy. I have no idea how to actually fight someone if I wanted to. It's very rare that I show anger, and I don't think I've ever punched someone as an adult. But I think about it pretty regularly, and the thoughts disturb me. I have no idea where they come from or why I take pleasure in these sorts of fantasies.

Is this a common thought pattern? Why do people have it?

A great example of practical advice backed by deep theories, and something that I can apply immediately to my daily life. Great job!

I agree with Manfred, this should be on the main page.

It's the Face of Boe. I'm absolutely certain about this, absolutely positive. Of course I'll probably turn out to be incorrect

Sam Hughes, talking about the first season finale of Doctor Who, differentiating between the subjective feeling of certainty and the actual probability estimate.

I have to agree on terribleness of wikipedia. The approach in Wikipedia is as such: if you can cite that 2 * 2 = 5 , then you can write about it, but it is a mortal sin against the wikipedia to derive the 2 * 2 = 4 from first principles . That's because wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and the wikipedia's process only rearranges knowledge while introducing biases and errors; that's by design. The most common bias is to represent both sides equally when they shouldn't be, the second most common bias is the side with the most people editing wikipedia winning while screaming lalala original research can not hear you, when it comes to basic reasoning.

For 2 * 2 , it does generally work and the rules would be glossed over, for anything more complicated, well the wikipedia equates any logic with any nonsense.

Then, a great deal of websites regurgitate stuff from wikipedia, often making it very difficult or impossible to find any actual information.

That being said, the wikipedia is a pretty good online link directory. Just don't rely on the stuff written on the wikipedia, and don't rely on articles that were repeating the 'citation needed' section, and then were added as the needed citation. And be aware that the selection of links can be very biased.

Less Wrong

The Modern Rationality Institute.

The institute for Bayesian Reasoning

Center for applied rationality.

The Applied Rationality Institute

I love the quote. The Doctor is badass. But ultimately this seems to be a quote about misusing the word 'impossible' - totally out of place in this thread!

The Doctor: The security protocols are still online and there's no way to override them. It's impossible.

River: How impossible?

The Doctor: A few minutes.

-Doctor Who, Season 5, Episode 5

"I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to ... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author."

-Randall Munroe, xkcd

Upvoted for making a testable hypotheses, and proposing to test it.