Comment author: johlstei 29 September 2013 04:26:51PM -1 points [-]

Regarding preference utilitarianism, why can't the negative utility of not having a preference fulfilled be modelled with average or total utilitarianism? That is, aren't there some actions that create so much utility that they could overcome the negative utility of one's preference not being honored? I don't see why preference fulfillment should be first class next to pleasure and pain.

Sorry if this is off-topic, that was just my first reaction to reading this.

Comment author: johlstei 13 September 2013 08:32:52PM 2 points [-]

I have a very different model of financial planning than you do. I view spending money in exchange for time now as equivalent to spending future free time in exchange for present free time, as it increases the amount of time I will need to work until I can retire passively off of investment income. For me, retirement isn't some far out, dubious prospect, it's a very real thing that I have created a specific budgetary goal/timeline for. I can't generally trade free time for money in arbitrary quantities. I'm okay with trading time now for time later, because I don't think all free time should be valued equally. Free hours are worth more if I have more of them consecutively, don't have to go to work the next day, and when friends are available.

I think the value of free hours in general is much greater when I can elect to have a whole week of free hours, even if I don't truly stop working. Once one has retirement saved for, they truly can set their own hours, and if someone asks them to do otherwise, they retain the option to tell them to screw off. Not having a Sword of Damocles hanging over me is something I value highly.

Comment author: johlstei 16 September 2013 04:10:29PM *  0 points [-]

I'm going to reply to my own post and expand on a couple more things. Let me know if it is considered better etiquette to edit even if it has been around for a few days.

The article just seems so...short sighted. Like, no doubt is trading money for time something we all do, but I don't think of it as virtuous or something to be sought out. I have a feeling most people err on the side of doing it too often, not too little.

One thing I think this article discounts is the idea that doing things instead paying to have them done often confers knowledge onto you that you wouldn't have otherwise. Sure, learning to change your own oil or fix up a porch seems boring and time consuming at first, and maybe it is worth paying if you'll only do it once, but then again, some of those things are things you could do over and over. The fifth oil change is pretty fast and you save all that time of bringing the car somewhere, being without it for awhile, and picking it up later. One can even use these skills in the future to trade time for money, if you are good enough at doing it. Your friend needs small-scale construction work and is willing to pay some amount? Cool, I can make some money doing something I already know how to do, hang out with my friend for the day, and get some practice in. (After all, you've retired on savings and have few commitments on any given day.) My friend also gets to hang out, will learn some things themselves, and won't overpay a contractor taking advantage of his ignorance. Cultivating such independence seems worthwhile in and of itself.

Given this, I think the tasks most worth trading money for time over are the ones that don't teach anything valuable, and tasks that take up a large amount of time and are easily parallelized. I hired people to move my furniture because I don't think I have much to learn about carrying heavy things, and they have lifting tools and a crew that I don't. Before I sold my car, I learned to change my own oil because I was tired of paying that tax every few thousand miles, figured I'd continue using it in the future, and didn't want to continue deflecting upsell attempts by the guys at the garage. I think it was worthwhile and even though I'd rather not own a car, if I do buy one I would continue learning small facets of maintenance that reduce my total lifetime hours thinking about my car, even at the expense of present free time.

For what it's worth I'd probably take the higher paying job and move closer to it. I realize I'm ignoring the purpose of the example there but I just thought I'd mention it.

Comment author: johlstei 13 September 2013 08:32:52PM 2 points [-]

I have a very different model of financial planning than you do. I view spending money in exchange for time now as equivalent to spending future free time in exchange for present free time, as it increases the amount of time I will need to work until I can retire passively off of investment income. For me, retirement isn't some far out, dubious prospect, it's a very real thing that I have created a specific budgetary goal/timeline for. I can't generally trade free time for money in arbitrary quantities. I'm okay with trading time now for time later, because I don't think all free time should be valued equally. Free hours are worth more if I have more of them consecutively, don't have to go to work the next day, and when friends are available.

I think the value of free hours in general is much greater when I can elect to have a whole week of free hours, even if I don't truly stop working. Once one has retirement saved for, they truly can set their own hours, and if someone asks them to do otherwise, they retain the option to tell them to screw off. Not having a Sword of Damocles hanging over me is something I value highly.

Comment author: Coscott 30 August 2013 05:57:47PM 5 points [-]

What fiction should I read first?

I have read pretty much nothing but MoR and books I didn't like for school, so I don't really know what my preferences are. I am a mathematician and a Bayesianist with an emphasis on the more theoretical side of rationality. I like smart characters that win. I looked at some recommendations on other topics, but there are too many options. If you suggest more than one, please describe a decision procedure that uses information that I have and you don't to narrow it down.

Comment author: johlstei 30 August 2013 07:46:31PM 0 points [-]

The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. No promises on the characters, most of them are not so rational, but you'll see why I said it by the end. There are more books in the same setting with some of the same characters if you like them. The first book is mostly setup but it is great after that.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 28 August 2013 04:41:34PM 5 points [-]

I'd think carefully about law school. Also, does it have any automation risk?

Why double major instead of doing a bachelor's and then a master's in a different subject? How feasible would it be to get a bachelor's degree in 3 years and a master's degree in 1 year instead of double majoring in 4 years?

Comment author: johlstei 30 August 2013 06:32:07PM -1 points [-]

Search engines have eliminated a huge class of work that lawyers did at one point when finding case law. I don't know how much further things can be automated, but that combined with the number of people who see dollar signs when they think about law school makes it a bad choice these days.

Comment author: johlstei 04 August 2013 04:10:04PM 0 points [-]

There's another abstract on this topic here: http://acl2013.org/site/short/2316.html

I'm not sure how to find the actual paper link, though someone posted this one below.

Comment author: Randaly 31 July 2013 01:36:26AM 2 points [-]

At least in American politics, this seems to me to be cyclical: conservatives were very tightly united during the 80's and 90's, and are presently fairly divided. (Their present divisions are partially papered over by the two other factors that lead to increased party-bloc voting- the end of racism as an effective issue that ran across party lines, and a general increase in party-line/ideological voting that also shows up among Democrats. Non-substantive votes like the historic near-failure of Boehner's run for House Majority Leader, and the Party's internal discussions, show divisions better.)

Comment author: johlstei 31 July 2013 04:24:54PM *  0 points [-]

I don't think the racism as an effective issue is over. Atwater's southern strategy seems alive and well to me. This was first executed (successfully?) by Reagan and the pattern seems to hold. Here's Atwater's quote on the matter:

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger.

Comment author: Fadeway 12 July 2013 03:51:56AM 1 point [-]

I've failed Uberman twice myself. You have pretty much an optimal plan, except for the naptation.

"Cut your naps down to 6 as quickly as you can without it hurting too much".

From my own knowledge, which may or may not be trustworthy, naptation doesn't need to be ended prematurely - the whole point is to get a huge number of naps in a short timeframe in order to learn to get REM in a 24-minute interval (which dreaming is a sign of). Getting a few more will just decrease your REM dep. The way I would do it is, get 12 naps a day until you find yourself unable to fall asleep for a nap at all - the critical thing is, you stay in bed until the alarm; you don't just get up after ten minutes - and also take care that some people may have trouble falling asleep for naps at all, which is a separate issue. When you fail to fall asleep for a nap, that's a sign that you've had enough and can't sustain 12 a day any longer; either cut two naps or go straight down to 6 a day. I'd choose the latter.

Also, um, give beds a wide berth outside naptime. And get more than two alarms, preferably with one placed more than 10 meters away from the bed - the long walk to it and back will ensure you actually wake up in the process of turning it off.

Comment author: johlstei 12 July 2013 01:45:34PM *  6 points [-]

Another thing that happened when I tried this was that no alarm could phase me. Every alarm I tried, including one that required typing my computer password, I would figure out how to turn it off in my sleep. I'm sure I could have continued escalating into solving np complete problems before it stopped, but I gave up soon afterward. I pretty much woke up exclusively from other being physically waking me. I even answered the phone while asleep once, no idea what I said.

Comment author: Frood 11 July 2013 09:26:15PM 1 point [-]

I agree that there's a problem.

If we did open threads more often (once a week, say), I think it would fix the issue. Looking at the current page 1 of the Discussion section, posts from July 4 are still visible.

I agree that the Reddit format would probably work, but it seems inefficient to use another site to be able to operate this one.

Comment author: johlstei 11 July 2013 10:33:46PM 2 points [-]

I think people are talking about creating another "subreddit" on this site, not an actual subreddit on reddit. I would certainly be opposed to the latter. Forgive me if I've misinterpreted you.

Comment author: johlstei 11 July 2013 06:41:32PM 2 points [-]

Why not just have a "light"(lite?) subreddit, and put anything that would be a top-level open thread post in there? If we are going to make a new subreddit just for that, wouldn't it make sense to start titling them by topic rather than by date range? (Perhaps a links topic would still be useful.)

If we don't go that route, I think stickying is lightweight and would be effective.

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