I'm honestly not sure what my political views are. When I vote I am left to far-left by default, but if I can find a candidate that is against corruption I will vote for them regardless of their other political views. However, I harbor substantial sympathy towards anarcho-communism/OWS/etc. even though I know it likely wouldn't work in practice. Keeping in contact with idealists is good for my mental health.

Oromis asked, “Can you tell me, what is the most important mental tool a person can possess?”

[Eragon makes a few wrong guesses, like determination and wisdom.]

“A fair guess, but, again, no. The answer is logic. Or, to put it another way, the ability to reason analytically. Applied properly, it can overcome any lack of wisdom, which one only gains through age and experience.”

Eragon frowned. “Yes, but isn’t having a good heart more important than logic? Pure logic can lead you to conclusions that are ethically wrong, whereas if you are moral and righteous, that will ensure that you don’t act shamefully.”

A razor-thin smile curled Oromis’s lips. “You confuse the issue. All I wanted to know was the most useful tool a person can have, regardless of whether that person is good or evil. I agree that it’s important to be of a virtuous nature, but I would also contend that if you had to choose between giving a man a noble disposition or teaching him to think clearly, you’d do better to teach him to think clearly. Too many problems in this world are caused by men with noble dispositions and clouded minds.”

-- Eldest, by Christopher Paolini

(This is not a recommendation for the book series. The book has Science Elves, but they are not thought of rationally or worldbuilt to any logical conclusion whatsoever. The context of this quote is apparently a "science is good" professing/cheering without any actual understanding of how science or rationality works.)

(I would love a rational version of Eragon by way of steelmanning the Science Elves. But then you'd probably need to explain why they haven't taken over the world.)

Low-hanging fruit: I increased my average intake of vegetables with minimal effort by acquiring microwaveable frozen vegetable bags, which have become my default "I want to eat something but don't want to spend effort preparing it" food. Each bag can be transferred directly from freezer to microwave and takes an average of five minutes therein, and then you cut open the bag and transfer to a serving dish (or, like me, just plop the open bag into a plastic tray and eat directly from it).

It's not perfect (for example, I cannot find green leafy vegetables in this packaging - then again, given the texture of frozen chopped spinach I probably wouldn't want to), but it's an improvement over most other foods that take similar amounts of preparation.

Another method is, however, to create a reliable reputation/review system which, if they became widely sued, would guide students and patients to the best universities and hospitals

That seems like an odd method of drumming up publicity.

I think Worm is better starting at 3.1 and doing 1-2 as flashbacks.

I read the preview for Pact, and felt like it was promising one thing, then switched in the last few paragraphs to something completely different. Similarly, I was skeptical of Worm until the encounter with Lung (I don't know if I would have made it that far without Eliezer's recommendation, but I am very glad I did).

The information in both intros is valuable, and it sets up the theme--bullies suck, "gaaah why wont this family leave me alone?"--but they invest the reader in one storyline, then completely pull the rug out from under them. Howard Taylor would call this 'breaking promises to the reader'.

(Which suggests the question: how should a writer initiate a story without too much in medias rais[sic] such that the reader knows what they're getting into before the protagonist, but we don't lose valuable information/etc?)

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If you disregard the happiness of the women, anyway

No, it suffices if less women's happiness sacrificed are needed than the amount of men whose happiness will be increased (assuming the "amount of happiness" - whatever that is to mean in the first place - is equal per individual). Then you can regard the happiness of women and still score a net increase in happiness. That's the whole point of the argument.

I don't understand what you were saying in the second sentence.

The next step is TR-0 "bullbaiting" where the partner says things to the indoctrinee to get them to react. This is called finding a person's "buttons". When the person does react, he is told "flunk" and what he did to flunk and then the phrase that got him to react is repeated until the person no longer reacts. This is very effective as a behavior control method to get the person to blank out when someone starts saying negative things about Scientology.

Hm, this actually sounds like it could be useful...

I wonder if it would be valuable to get partway in to Scientology, then quit, just to observe the power of peer pressure, groupthink, and whatnot.