So, I'm looking for some advice.

I seem to have finally reached at that stage in my life where I find myself in need of an income. I'm not interested in a particularly large income; at the moment, I only want just enough to feed a Magic: the Gathering and video game habit, and maybe pay for medical insurance. Something like $8,000 a year, after taxes, would be more than enough, as long as I can continue to live in my parents' house rent-free.

The usual method of getting an income is to get a full-time job. However, I don't find that appealing, not one bit. I want to have lots of free time in which to use the things I buy with the money I would earn. I'd much rather just continue to spend down my savings than work more than two days a week at a normal job.

This suggests that instead, I should try to get a part-time job. Chances are, that would mean working in a local restaurant or store of some kind. Unfortunately, I tried one of these once before, and it didn't work out very well. I was hired to be a cashier at a local supermarket. To my great surprise, I didn't particularly mind the work, but on my third day after being hired, I was fired for insubordination. (I had a paperback novel with me, and I wouldn't stop reading it during periods when there were no customers.) I've also tried working for a temp agency. That didn't work out too well either. After completing my first assignment, I was told that the company I was contracted out to complained about my behavior (it's a long story), and so I would not be considered for any other assignments. In effect, I was fired from there, too.

As far as I'm concerned, the ideal source of income would be something with no set hours, that I could leave and come back to as I please. In other words, if I decide that I'd rather play video games for a month instead of earning money, it won't prevent me from earning money the month after that. Unfortunately, the only things I know of offhand that work like that are writing (which is extremely hard to make a living at, and requires a lot of time and effort anyway) and online poker (which I suck at). I'm lazy and undisciplined, and I'm not particularly interested in changing that, so I'm hoping to find a way to make money that works even if I don't try very hard at it.

In terms of skills and education, I have a B.S. from Rutgers University in computer engineering. I can program, but when I've tried programming as a job (as a summer intern), it turned into a Dilbert cartoon very, very quickly. Basically, I was given vague instructions, left on my own to do whatever, and instead of working, I mostly sat and surfed the Web while feeling guilty about not working. I don't think I want to do programming professionally. I ever have to sit in another cubicle again, there's a good chance I'm quitting on the spot.

So, um... I need some suggestions on what to do. Bring on the other-optimizing?

But things that are correct are usually rather useful, and things that are not correct are less so.

Really? With what probability?

Or to put it another way: how were people were to start and put out fires for millennia before they had a correct theory of fire? Work metals without a correct atomic or molecular theory? Build catapults without a correct theory of gravity? Breed plants and animals without a correct theory of genetics?

In the entire history of humanity, "Useful" is negatively correlated with "Correct theory"... on a grand scale.

Sure, having a correct theory has some positive correlation with "useful", but there's usually a ton more information you need besides the correct theory to get to "useful", and more often, the theory ends up being derived from something that's already "useful" anyway.

I am wondering about the proposed ease with which we can purposefully rewire control circuits. It is counterintuitive to me, given that "bad" ones (in me at least) do not appear to have popped up one afternoon but rather have been reinforced slowly over time.

This is one place where PCT is not as enlightening without adding a smidge of HTM, or more precisely, the memory-prediction framework.

The MPF says that we match patterns as sequences of subpattern: if one subpattern "A" is often followed by "B"", our brain compresses this by creating (at a higher layer) a symbol that means "AB". However, in order for this to happen, the A->B correlation has to happen at a timescale where we can "notice" it. If "A" happens today, and "B" tomorrow (for example), we are much less likely to notice!

Coming back to your question: most of our problematic controller structures are problematic at too long of a timescale for it to be easily detected (and extinguished). So PCT-based approaches to problem solving work by forcing the pieces together in short-term memory so that an A->B sequence fires off ... at which point you then experience an "aha", and change the intercontroller connections or reference levels. (Part of PCT theory is that the function of conscious awareness may well be to provide this sort of "debugging support" function, that would otherwise not exist.)

PCT also has some interesting things to say about reinforcement, by the way, that completely turn the standard ideas upside down, and I would really love to see some experiments done to confirm or deny. In particular, it has a novel and compact explanation of why variable-schedule reinforcement works better for certain things, and why certain schedules produce variable or "superstitious" action patterns.

I found the article painful reading. Things like the section entitled "Desire minus Perception equals Energy" very rapidly make me switch off.

Not to be discouraging, but is that really the "logical" reasoning used at the time? They use the word "rationalization" for a reason. "I can always work toward my goals tomorrow instead" will always be true.

Hopefully you had fun dancing, nothing wrong with it at all, but it does seem odd to be so self-congratulatory about deciding to go out and party.

Please, summarize what you are talking about. Not everyone is following all the threads, or intuits the same framing of the problem as you do.

I don't know wheter to applaud your ethical restraint, or pity your ignorance. I'll go with the first ;-)

Software programs for individuals. Oh, maybe when you come across something you think is important while browsing the web you could highlight it and these things would be presented to you occasionally sort of like a "drill" to make sure you don't forget it, or prime association formation at a later time.

Congratulations, you've nearly reinvented spaced repetition! There is a great deal of writing on spaced repetition flashcard systems, so I won't inflict upon you my own writings; but the Wikipedia article will link you to the main programs (Anki, Mnemosyne, and SuperMemo) and some writeups of the topic. SR is a great technique; I love it dearly.

Or some short-term memory aid that works better than scratch paper.

Well, you could just improve your working memory. Unusually, working memory is plastic enough to be trainable by WM tasks. The WM exercise I'm most familiar with is Dual n-back. I practice it, but while I have noticed improvements, I'm unsure whether they repay the time I've put into it; SR systems have proven themselves as far as I'm concerned, but the jury is still out on dual n-back.

Or taking a cutting-edge knowledge representation framework like Novamente's PLN and trying to enter stuff into it as an "active" note-taking system.

Now that sounds interesting. But looking at this OpenCog link doesn't give me a good idea as to what PLN might do for note-taking (or really, in general); did you have any use-cases or examples?

Software programs for individuals.... prime association formation at a later time.... some short-term memory aid that works better than scratch paper

I have been obsessively researching this idea for several years. One of my conclusions is that an intelligence-amplification tool must be "incestuously" user-modifiable ("turtles all the way down", possessing what programming language designers call reflectivity) in order to be of any profound use, at least to me personally.

Or just biting the bullet and learning Mathematica to an expert level instead of complaining about its UI

About six months ago, I resolved to do exactly that. While I would not yet claim "black belt" competence in it, Mathematica has already enabled me to perform feats which I would not have previously dared to contemplate, despite having worked in Common Lisp. Mathematica is famously proprietary and the runtime is bog-slow, but the language and development environment are currently are in a class of their own (at least from the standpoint of exploratory programming in search of solutions to ultra-hard problems.)

But there is no evidence that any pill can raise the average person's IQ by 10 points . Are you researching a sci fi novel or something? What good does wishing for magical pills do?

Well we haven't looked very hard, and I am trying to advocate that more research is urgently needed in this area, along with people like Nick Bostrom.

(which kind of makes sense, if some simple chemical balance adjustment could have such a dramatic effect on fitness it would be quite surprising)

See The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement

"a greater level of mental activity might also enable us to apply our brains more effectively to process information and solve problems. The brain, however, requires extra energy when we exert mental effort, reducing the normally tightly regulated blood glucose level by about 5 per cent (0.2 mmol/l) for short (<15 min) efforts and more for longer exertions.¹⁵ Conversely, increasing blood glucose levels has been shown to improve cognitive performance in demanding tasks."