I participated in politics at one point, getting 198 votes at the Finnish Parliamentary elections and being a board member of the Finnish Pirate Party for a while. I suspect that I would've stood a reasonable chance of eventually getting elected into some office if I'd kept up at it - the Pirates don't look like they'll be elected, but there exists a not-too-horrible more-mainstream party whose members have led me to understand that they'd be glad to have me if I was up for it. But there are a number of reasons for why I chose not to pursue that career option further, including:

• My basic nature is that of a scientist - if there's a problem in society, figure out what needs to be done to solve it, implement that change, and move on to the next problem. In politics, you figure out what needs to be done to solve a problem, and then spend the next several years talking to people and trying to convince them that this is the right answer, having to start the explanation basically from scratch each time you talk with a new person. I found this tedious.
• A preference for at least some level of free speech - it's not particularly uncommon for a politician to make the headlines because they made an ill-considered joke in a Facebook conversation. I don't want to end up in a position where I need to run an extra check on everything that I write in public, to make sure that there's nothing about it that could be used to attack me or my party.
• I dislike talking to strangers on the phone, and journalists asking for interviews tend to rather frequently call you on the phone. I'm also not good at thinking up quick coherent answers to unanticipated questions when under pressure, such as when doing a live debate or interview.

How do you know your new belief is more accurate than your old belief?

Probably not too interesting, but after studying physics at university I was pretty sure that the Many-Worlds interpretation of QM was crazy-talk (nobody even really mentioned it at uni). Of course I didn't read Eliezer's sequence on QM (although I read the others). I mean I had a degree in physics and Eliezer didn't.

Then after seeing it over and over again on LW, I actually read this paper to see what it was all about. And I was enlightened. Well, I had a short crisis of faith first, then I was enlightened.

This all could have been avoided if I had read that paper earlier. The lesson is that I can't even trust my fellow physicists :(

I'm also in the process of signing up. I already submitted the application for life insurance and filled out the membership application form by Alcor. The next step then is to meet up with a notary and transfer ownership of the insurance policy to Alcor. After that, Alcor has to check the documents and then I will hopefully be a full member.

I've also heard rumors that Alcor is considering opening a new facility in Switzerland. But even if that's true it will take years and will probably not be cheaper than storage in the US. Though maybe easier to sign up for.

Concerning your second question, from my understanding adequate cooling is really easy, keeping the body in ice water should be enough. That's also how they preserve donated organs, I think.

Define "miracle". It's not well-understood what causes the leaders in lightning. Could this be considered a miracle in support of the existence of Thor?

There is no logical argument against miracles. They could exist.

But there really is no reliable evidence for them. If there was, I would also think this is a supernatural universe. But as it stands I'm pretty sure this is a natural universe, without souls and without praying superpowers.

I mean have you heard about the beatification of Pope John Paul II? A nun with symptoms similar to Parkinson's was healed after she prayed to John Paul. She even had a relapse but they went with it anyway.

Germany’s plans in the event of a two front war [WW I] were the results of years of study on the part of great soldiers, the German General Staff. That those plans failed was not due to any unsoundness on the part of the plans, but rather due to the fact that the plans could not be carried out by the field armies.

An official Army War College publication, 1923

While reverse stupidity isn't intelligence, learning how others rationalize failure can help us recognize our own mistakes.

Edited to reflect hydkyll's comment.

The label bio is always a quite interesting one. On the one hand the label supports bigger cages for animals and thus serves utilitarian purposes. On the other hand it leads to some farming choices for which there no real reason.

The EU commission just discovered that chicken eggs by nature are neither red nor blue and therefore painting them red or blue might violate the bio idea. Therefore the Eu commission is planning to rule that there no such thing as a red bio-egg.

http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2014/07/20/eu-kommission-will-faerben-von-ostereiern-verbieten/ (German source)

This is the outline of a conversation that took part no fewer than 14 times on Friday just past, between me and a number of close friends.

"Life is like an RPG. Often, a wise, kind, and and deeply important character (hand gesture to myself) gives a quest item to a lowly, unsuspecting, otherwise plain character (hand gesture to friend). As a result of this, this young character goes on to be a great hero in an important quest.

Now, here with me today, I have a quest item.

For you.

But I can only give it to you if you shake on the following oath; that, once you have finished with this item, when you have taken what you require from it, that then, you too shall find someone for whom this will be of great utility, and pass it along. They must also shake on this oath."

"I will."

Handshake occurs.

"Here is your physical copy of the first 16 and a half chapters of 'Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality'."