Comment author: drethelin 16 January 2016 07:27:31AM 1 point [-]

This article only makes sense if there's no confusion about whether a building is your hotel or not. Half-speed makes a lot of sense if you're interested in paying close attention to what is going on around you. It's also very useful to slow down if you become drastically uncertain, because if you don't know where you're going it's better not to be going in random direction at full speed while you're thinking about it.

Comment author: Gavin 30 November 2015 05:55:24PM *  2 points [-]

I don't have the knowledge to give a full post, but I absolutely hate car repair. And if you buy a used car, there's a good chance that someone is selling it because it has maintenance issues. This happened to me, and no matter how many times I took the car to the mechanic it just kept having problems.

On the other hand, new cars have a huge extra price tag just because they're new. So the classic advice is to never buy a new car, because the moment you drive it off the lot it loses a ton of value instantly.

Here are a couple ideas for how to handle this:

  1. Buy a car that's just off a 2 or 3 year lease. It's probably in great shape and is less likely to be a lemon.There are companies that only sell off-lease cars.

  2. Assume a lease that's in its final year. (at http://www.swapalease.com/lease/search.aspx?maxmo=12 for example) Then you get a trial period of 4-12 months, and will have the option to buy the car. This way you'll know if you like the car or not and if it has any issues. The important thing to check is that the "residual price" that they charge for buying the car is reasonable. See this article for more info on that: http://www.edmunds.com/car-leasing/buying-your-leased-car.html

There are a ton of articles out there on how to negotiate a car deal, but one suggestion that might be worth trying is to negotiate and then leave and come back the next day to make the purchase. In the process of walking out you'll probably get the best deal they're going to offer. You can always just come back ten minutes later and make the purchase--they're not going to mind and the deal isn't going to expire (even if they say it is).

Comment author: drethelin 30 November 2015 09:51:48PM 0 points [-]

If you really hate repairs, doesn't it make much more sense just to lease yourself?

Comment author: CronoDAS 16 November 2015 08:25:48PM *  1 point [-]

My girlfriend's cat poops on the carpet. The cat does poop in the litter boxes some of the time, and always urinates in them, but she also poops on the carpet several times a day in different places. (She also never buries her poop when she does use the boxes.) Any advice?

Comment author: drethelin 17 November 2015 01:26:27AM 5 points [-]

The cat is probably unhealthy, they don't normally poop several times a day

Comment author: MarsColony_in10years 16 October 2015 02:47:25AM 1 point [-]

After the first three words, I assumed you were going to point out that the entire planet gets much hotter and colder as the zodiac shifts each year. The rising and setting of the sun has a similarly large effect, and the moon is also connected with tides.

Historical astrology was the precursor to modern astronomy, and was highly complex. There was likely a relatively strong tie to the course of history. If an astrological event associated with regime changes occurs, people are much more likely to revolt, because they are much less worried about being punished for a failed revolt.

Comment author: drethelin 16 October 2015 08:17:51AM 0 points [-]

I was mostly thinking about modern astrology, since I don't really think of ancient things as "common superstitions".

Comment author: passive_fist 15 October 2015 08:39:59PM 1 point [-]

The quantity of extra computation isn't comparable. Half-life 2 may simulate a few objects falling, but it doesn't simulate e.g. the Sun. Which, in our universe, is a computation trillions of times more complex than everything that's 'interesting', at least from the point of view of simulating intelligent beings.

Comment author: drethelin 16 October 2015 01:49:48AM 1 point [-]

You're ignoring the possibility for shortcuts. Half-life 2 ALSO simulates the sun! It simulates it as a spot of light in the distance in the game. Similarly, the gravity and friction and motion simulation is hugely simplified compared to reality. If the sun works the way it would work in what we understand of physics, it would be extremely complex. But the same doesn't hold if it's a simulation.

Comment author: username2 14 October 2015 04:32:29AM 6 points [-]

Are there any common superstitions that are scientifically plausible?

Comment author: drethelin 15 October 2015 09:16:55AM 4 points [-]

Astrology is close: time of year you are born in has big effects on your life, although this may be an artifact of the modern school-year. For example, being older than kids in your same "year" of school helps you get onto sports teams.

Comment author: RaelwayScot 11 October 2015 09:50:48AM *  5 points [-]

If we are in a simulation, why isn’t the simulation more streamlined? I have a couple of examples for that:

  • Classical physics and basic chemistry would likely be sufficient for life to exist.
  • There are seven uninhabitable planets in our solar system.
  • 99.9…% of everything performs extremely boring computations (dirt, large bodies of fluids and gas etc.).
  • The universe is extremely hostile towards intelligent life (GRBs, supernovae, scarcity of resources, large distances between celestial body).

It seems that our simulation hosts would need to have access to vast or unlimited resources. (In that case it would be interesting to consider whether life is sustainable in a world with unlimited resources at all. Perhaps scarcity is somehow required for ethical behavior to develop; malice would perhaps spread too easily.)

I’m a big fan of these infographics by the way.

Comment author: drethelin 12 October 2015 12:34:56AM 3 points [-]

Video games are one kind of simulation we generally engage in, and the answers to these kind of questions are because they're enjoyable background or optimized for gameplay rather than something else. Games like half-life 2 spend a lot of time simulating really boring physics so that they can exist for the few situations they're actually kind of interesting. Lots of games have worlds where every single entity is hostile to the main player or damages them in some way.

If we're in a simulation, we can't discount that we're being simulated in a specific way for non-obvious motivations.

Comment author: LessWrong 09 October 2015 05:57:36PM -1 points [-]

Or you can think about it as image management. Reputations are delicate things and are more than just your karma score.

Once again, a point I want to emphasize: I thought that at LessWrong people would be able to overcome things such as "image management" and "reputation". In my view those things are just a few steps away from not asking a question or not presenting an opinion. Being scared of being wrong won't make your situation any better.

Do tell me if this isn't the case, or this isn't supposed to be the case.

Comment author: drethelin 10 October 2015 02:30:27AM 2 points [-]

Unless Lesswrong exists in a vacuum, it has no or almost no power to overcome those things. Even if you didn't worry about being judged by people on lesswrong, the risk of being judged by someone elsewhere online still exists.

Comment author: username2 21 September 2015 07:23:08PM *  3 points [-]

A lot of attempts to avert existential risks will require a lot of resources and no company or charity have as much resources as US government and US military (or governments of other large countries).

Comment author: drethelin 21 September 2015 11:39:01PM 4 points [-]

Yes, but political campaigning is not how the government pays attention to existential risks. Whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the oval office has little bearing on whether NORAD is getting re-purposed to track asteroids.

Comment author: casebash 08 September 2015 01:27:40PM 0 points [-]

Yes, but please mention your intent first so they we can tell you if there's already an existing channel that meets that need

Comment author: drethelin 21 September 2015 07:20:49PM 0 points [-]

Is that really necessary? Slack displays all the non-private channels in the sidebar

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