jwhendy

[LINK] System 2 thinking decreases religious belief

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Replying toMeetup : Twin Cities, MN (for real this time)

Meetup : Twin Cities, MN (for real this time)

Darnit. I blew it and fell behind in blog following; didn't even see this get announced. I'd really like to attend one of these! I'll keep my eyes open for the next one.

Replying toSuggestions on tech device/gear purchasing?

Agreed with respect to the substitution. That describes what I'm getting at. In using "rational," I simply meant, "What's the best way to go about deciding on a purchase of this class of thing?"

Replying toSuggestions on tech device/gear purchasing?

I wondered about this. So does my wife. I get lost on my computer enough already. Now we reduce capability to browsing and games, and how might that play out? Thanks for sharing this. I'm not sure how it would work in my case...

Replying toSuggestions on tech device/gear purchasing?

An ebook reader (+ some other prize combination) has occurred to me. I almost bought an ebook reader when they were on sale around Christmas, but couldn't decide between the Nook and Kindle platforms. One thing that worries me is that I have such a hard time reading paper books at the moment; I wonder if an ebook reader only seems like it would improve productivity when in reality it would shortly due to novelty, but then it would wear off.

Some questions:

How long have you had it?
Did you notice any drop in reading time from initial ownership to present?
How many anki decks is realistic (I'm aware of anki and how it works but haven't used it regularly)?

ETA: Thought of another question -- can you put your finger on what, exactly, allowed you to accomplish your goal vs. when you were reading paper?

Request for input: draft of my "coming out" statement on religious deconversion

14y

I found out I won second place in an idea contest at work and am being granted ~$400 to spend at Best Buy (the web site for any unfamiliar). Originally, I believe the second place prize was going to be an iPad, but it looks like they've decided to just allow me to pick something in that ballpark price range.

I suspect there are a fair amount of tech saavy folks on LW and thought I'd inquire as to whether you've purchased a device or accessory (or anything from Best Buy-ish stores) that has brought you an increase in efficiency, usefulness, pleasure, etc. The idea of a tablet appeals to me, but I'm not entirely sure what I'd do with it. Also, a data plan is not in my budget, so many typical uses are not applicable in my case.

Anyway, just hoping to probe some collective knowledge about this decision. I'm not very knowledgeable on devices and/or how longer term usage/satisfaction matches expectations or even money spent.

Thanks for any assistance!

-10

Behavioral psychology and buying a warranty at Menards

14y

Edited 3/4/2012: I shortened up the summary a bit and add the following update:

Thanks for the lively comments. As a preliminary summary of things I've found quite useful/helpful:

Shorten/transform the document (David_Gerard)
Remove/postpone any reasons (TimS)
Don't be so prosy/fake sounding (orthonormal)
Show to religious people, not just LW (AlexMennen) -- doing that, btw
Give reasons (Will_Newsome)

Overall, I was initially a bit discouraged. This took a lot of effort and so it's frustrating to contemplate changing directions. Due to reading a very generously shared similar PDF document (from someone I'll leave anonymous unless they'd like to be named), I'm much more upbeat about doing so. I plan to:

Create two documents. One very simple, plain-language, frank relating of the

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Rationality Boot [Mini]Camp... night class style?

14y

I just returned from buying a multimeter at Menards and wanted to post my thoughts while they were still fresh. I hardly ever have the need to use a multimeter. In diagnosing my non-heating microwave, I fried my 2-3 year old meter (don't ask) and went out for another to finish the job. I had many choices. I essentially went with the best of the lowest tier: $14. The next options were $35 and then $55.

I got to the checkout register and was waiting at the end of the conveyor belt ready to swipe my card when the cashier came over to me, stood very close, and in an almost confiding sort... (read 538 more words →)

Philosophical apologetics book suggests replacing Bayes theorem with "Inference to the Best Explanation" (IBE)

14y

I was very interested in the Rationality Boot Camp, when it was announced, but the practical limitations for someone with kids, financial commitments dependent on a full time job, etc. made it completely unfeasible. I'm still very interested in something like this and wondered if there would be any interest in a "night class" version. Perhaps webcast or broadcast live via something like skype or similar? (I guess I'm not sure if it ever happened, was cancelled, or whether it morphed or inspired the Rationality Minicamp which I know did happen.)

I see benefit in pre-committing to something organized, as my own desires to read everything LW has to offer have been only partially successful... (read 173 more words →)

Meetup meta: please think carefully when posting -- add desired time/title the first time

14y

I'm about 2/3 through an apologetics book that was recommended to me, Menssen and Sullivan's, The Agnostic Inquirer, and was quite surprised to run into a discussion of Bayes theorem and wanted some input from the LW community. The book is quite philosophical and I admit that I am probably not following all of it. I find heady philosophy to be one of these areas where something doesn't seem quite right (as in the conclusion that someone pushes), but I can't always identify what.

In any case, the primary point of the book is to attempt to replace the traditional apologetics method with a new one. The status quo has been to appeal... (read 883 more words →)

Mammography problem from 'Intro to Bayes' in my own words/picture

15y

There seem to here have been a fair amount of meetups posted with no times, and then re-posted with added times or slightly adjusted wording. Perhaps Google Reader is the problem (how I follow the top-level), but not only are there a lot of meetups (which has been talked about quite a bit lately), but these changed post titles show up as two separate entities. (Example)

For planners, please think carefully when announcing your meetup and post the time and the title you want on the first try, if possible. Thanks.

Perhaps a standard title format could be proposed that handled such things?

Meetup: [City/State/Country] [Time] [AM/PM] @ [Venue]

Or something like that? This would have the benefit of helping planners not forget anything important, but might have the added benefit that if a future implementation of some sort makes a meetup page or auto-scraped list of happenings, a standard format will make this easier.

Interest in video-conference discussion about sequences and/or virtual meetups?

15y

I've been reading through the sequences, and am currently working through the Intro to Bayes' Theorem (by the fact that I'm reading the Intro to Bayes (finally), you can tell that I'm pretty early in the process). It's been quite thought provoking. I'm finally getting questions right more reliably, and wanted to share one of the visualization tools that helped me, at least. There are many "applets" strewn about, written in Java, that help one to visualize what the various probability components are doing. In the mammography example, at least, an the idea of a sieve popped into my head as a neat way to think about what the test is doing.

I'm planning... (read 152 more words →)

Recent de-convert saturated by religious community; advice?

15y

Update: We're up to 9 participants. Per jsalvatier's suggestion, I have created a Google Group for this. It looks like we have 8-9 total, and the move toward finalizing groups and dates/times is now at the Google Group thread HERE.

I plan to ask if I may take meeting minutes for whatever group I end up in and report back on how it goes. If we have multiple groups, we could all combine notes afterward and give a summary. Perhaps interest will grow in this type of activity.

---

There's been a decent amount of talk lately about whether or not people have read the sequences, the costs and benefits of reading the sequences before posting, bringing back... (read 313 more words →)

Spreadsheet-based tool for tracking time

15y

Edit/Update: Wow, not even a day later this has had quite the number of comments. Hopefully more will come in, but I'd like to thank those who have contributed so far. The suggestions that I think I'm really going to run with are:

Finishing my "statement" (in progress already) and deferring to that when specifics are requested (Yvain)
Have a suggestion of a convincing book or online article to which I can refer challengers (David Gerard)
Reminding myself that I haven't eaten any babies, to date, and that questioning is/was okay (jsalvatier, RobinZ)
Just try to avoid the topic (pretty much what I already do) (Risto Saarelma, thakil, MinibearRex)
Focus on the point of a "quest" -- enough

... (read 2023 more words →)

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