On fora.tv.

This discussion is about methods to overcome adverse events and challenges so that (1) you don't panic when they hit you, and (2) you're not traumatized afterwards.

There's little explanation about how to do it, but it was enough for me to pattern-match it with "rationality sub-skill". It looks like a training for not losing your rationalist powers when you most need them. Or at least remember to "stick them with the pointy end".

That said, maybe CFAR already teaches some of that?

From Hacker News.

1. We're going to build the next Facebook!
2. We're going to found the next Apple!
3. Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level of change as this.)
4. Our product is the next nuclear weapon. You wouldn't want that in the wrong hands, would you?
5. This is going to be the equivalent of the invention of electricity if it works out.
6. We're going to make an IQ-enhancing drug and produce basic change in the human condition.
7. We're going to build serious Drexler-class molecular nanotechnology.
8. We're going to upload a human brain into a computer.
9. We're going to build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence.
10. We think we've figured out how to hack into the computer our universe is running on.

This made me laugh, but from the look of it, I'd say there is little work to do to make it serious. Personally, I'd try to shorten it so it is punchier and more memorable.

From  Being a Realist (even if you believe in God):

theists and untheists can and should meet half way and at least agree on the logical necessity of being a realist.

My mother, who doesn't call herself a theist (I think she's agnostic), doesn't even accept realism. She doesn't even agree with this:

There is something.  All that there is, we generally call "reality". Note that by this definition, reality is unique.  The corollary is, we all live in the same reality. We do not percieve it in the same way, but our perceptions and reality itself aren't the same thing.

Every description of reality that matches it is true. Every description of reality that doesn't match it is false. In this sense, truth is unique and universal.

(We can nuance the truth/falsehood dichotomy with probability distributions. Some probability distributions are closer to reality than others, and so on.)

That's little more than tautologies here. Yet it elicited an impression of being forced to believe. I know because she told me about the totalitarian dangers from such narrow thinking.

I'm happy to have finally found the root cause of our ongoing disagreement, but now, how can I deal with that? It looks pretty hopeless, but just in case, does someone have a suggestion, or should I just leave it at that? (My ego doesn't like it, but giving up is an option.)

Now I'm relieved to know that in near mode, she's a complete realist. This craziness only shows up in far mode.

(Edit: Thanks for the helpful comments. Also, downvoting this thread to oblivion was probably a good idea —and it'd better stay buried. Sorry for the noise.)

(Sorry for the mind-killing topic, but here is the only place I can hope for something remotely rational.)

Lately, I have noticed the existence of what seems to amount to two meme-clusters.

On the one hand we have the Left-wing Alarmist, which want to have wealth more equitably distributed, warns about our dead soil, our resources consumption run amok, our (West) exploitation of the South, and above all, the unsustainability of our society (collapse often due before 2 or 3 decades). One particular flaw in this vision is the complete disregard for possible technology developments. Typically, this one will call for (classical) anarchy, localization and de-industrialization of (preferably organic) food production, economy of physical resources, reduced work-hours, sometimes even a simplification of every-day technology. The bottom line is, the world is currently worsening.

On the other hand, we have the Right-wing Optimist, which wants free markets, believes in growth (often defined as GDP growth) to solve most of our problems, is confident about the development of new technologies, and above all believes in our ability to adapt. One particular flaw in this vision is the complete disregard for the adaptation by starvation and war that often happen. Typically, this one will call for deregulation of the economy, the reduction (or elimination) of welfare, maximizing economies of scale and the law of comparative advantages through globalization, and the privatization of nearly everything. The bottom line is, the world is currently improving.

Of course, it's not all that clear cut. More likely, there is a spectrum between those two extremes.

Now, I'm especially puzzled by the correlation between political sides what seems to be the Enlightenment/Romanticism divide. Where could it possibly come from?

Also, there's got to be evidence one way or the other. The problem is, it's likely difficult to process. For instance, while Steven Pinker will tell you that violence is steadily decreasing by showing decreasing violent death rates, Noam Chomsky will tell you that violence is _increasing_ for a while, by showing "structural" violence like poverty, starvation, or unwanted pollution. So, does anyone know of a way to process the evidence rationally?

Edit :Excellent suggestions in the comments. Two of them stood out for me:

1. "Untaught" may be better.  It is less connoted (if at all), conveys about the right meaning, and can be understood by about anyone (thanks, shminux).
   
2. Using a word to name a category can raise walls around it. In this case, we must be extra careful not to stigmatize the very people we'd like to join us (thanks, daenerys).

We often use "insane" to describe people whose behaviour or beliefs are below the sanity waterline. But as most must would agree here, you cannot call someone insane with a straight face just because he happens to believe in magic.

I'm currently watching Future by Design, a documentary featuring Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project. Jacque came up with this word, "unsane", to describe people who basically, aren't rational because they haven't been exposed to the right ideas yet.  Which would be different from "insane", which is more about irrevocably irrational people.

I like this word, because there isn't the tone of accusation we find in "insane". This neutrality makes it easier to say that we can do something about it. Insanity should be eradicated like vermin. Unsanty on the other hand can be fixed.

So, do you think this word, "Unsanity" might be worth using?

I am currently translating Eliezer's "The Sword of Good" in French, and hit a rather thorny problem:

How do I translate the words Equilibrium and Balance, given that both words are present in this fiction?

Those two words are rather synonymous, and I can find but one French translation: équilibre. I need a second one, which would convey about the same ideas and sound as solemn as "equilibrium". Or some trick…

For the majority of you who don't speak French, other English words that could have replaced either "equilibrium" and "balance" may also give me valuable cues.

(By the way, translation work is way harder that I anticipated. It strains my mastery of both English and French way beyond what I'm used to.)

Second question, of less importance: which translation do you think suits The Lord of Dark best? "Le Seigneur de la Noirceur" ? Or "Le Seigneur des Ténèbres"? Or even something else?

Fate surely exists.

People cannot choose the place, era and circumstances under which they are born.  As a result the condition under which each person lives is different the moment they're born.

This is fate.

And it's natural…
for the world to be cruel.

The beginning of life is just a scientific reaction.
Soul doesn't exist. Spirit is but a sparkle of nerve cells.
The human existence is just a shadow of memory information.
Even if you have to live alone in a godless and cruel world…

I order you with all my will.
Live!!

Eliez… no, wait: Desty Nova

Edit: Okay, I got it, sorry for the noise. I posted it because it just hit me how frighteningly close the mainstream LW world view is from such an archetypal mad scientist. The first part sounds a bit cynic for my taste, but the second part closely reminded me of this, this, this, and this (last sentence).

Gunnm, readers know that Desty Nova is by himself an existential risk. Despite him loathing the second law of thermodynamics, his potential for entropy maximization is almost limitless. In other words, he is Evil. I realized that the Mad Scientist archetype is partly responsible for popular association of immortality and Evil, science and Evil, possibly even atheism and Evil. (I must say that Gunnm itself is not too guilty of that: the heroin may still have problems with immortality, but she sees uploads as moral beings. Some long lived, non-ageing people like to eat babies (literally), but others are still decent.)

Basically, I cannot stand people who will not bow to the Truth.

I always had this trait, but I noticed lately that it is becoming worse, and has consequences.  Ironically, the main trigger seems to be the sequences. They gave me a confidence that sometimes frightens me. There are multiple manifestations:

• Before, I had no problem whatsoever with believers of various religions (as long as they don't do bad things). I was still acting like an agnostic at that time. Now I tend to think less of them.
• Before, I tolerated disagreement about some subjects, like the supernatural. Now I loath any form of epistemic relativism.
• I now tend regard anyone who isn't Bayesian as either uneducated or moronic. Same thing about materialist reductionism, only with a slightly lower confidence. (And my inability to convince people of the validity of Occam's Razor doesn't help.)
• I sound more and more arrogant, and possibly full of myself.
• My urge to rewire the brain of anyone who won't listen grows stronger.

The closest semi-famous embodiment of this character trait I can think of is Xah Lee. I like much of his writing, but he can be very blunt, sometimes to the point of insult.

Needless to say, I do not endorse all these changes. The problem is, while I know I should calm down, I just can't lose when I'm confident truth is on my side. I'm not even sure I should. (Note however that I'm rather good at losing to evidence.)

So, what do you think? What should I do? Thanks.

Here the canonical url of this post.

Here is the "main" url of this post.

And here is the draft url of this post (which by the way kept the first version).

Main posts don't look affected.

I discovered it by clicking through the link available through the list of my posts and comments. It uses the "main" link even though the post were submitted on the discussion section. The visible consequence is if I use the "main" link, my post looks like it has been submitted to the top level.

I haven't tested whether this can hijack the karma system.

Update: my karma is back to normal, and more. If you feel the need to compensate in my favour, don't.

I noticed that my Karma just jumped from 38 to 20, then 22, in less than an hour, with no apparent reason (votes on my most recent comments stayed rather stable). I didn't wrote any main, toplevel article, so I suppose there's something going on with the site redesign or something that is temporarily messing up Karma?

Edit: Mystery solved. (thanks Normal_Anomaly and nazgulnarsil) My Karma did jump in odd ways, in very little time, through -1 steps only (no toplevel article).  The first jump went from 38 to 20, which is a loss of 18 karma points. Before I wrote this post, I had exactly 18 comments and articles here. That makes me about 99% confident that someone actually walked through my 16 comments and 2 submissions, and downvoted every single one. Weird.

The 2 Karma points I gained shortly after probably were upvotes on my 2 most recent comments (it appears I had more after that).