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Comment author: purplerabbits 11 July 2012 09:34:19PM 0 points [-]

Sundays could well be doable. And I agree about a public place at first.

In response to Useful maxims
Comment author: purplerabbits 11 July 2012 09:23:48PM 13 points [-]

When you come to move, and a thing you're planning to move is still in a box since the last move, throw it out.

If you are keeping a thing 'because it might come in handy' and the occasion arises when it WOULD have been handy except you forget you have it, throw it out.

On smaller purchases I note that I have a danger zone of between £3 and £8 where it's easy to just spend money without discernible benefit (it's no coincidence that this equals about a coffee and a bun in Starbucks). So I have a rule that unless it's something I actually need Right Now, I make a maximum of one such purchase per non-working day.

Comment author: purplerabbits 09 July 2012 03:28:10PM 0 points [-]

Sadly I can't make this even though I am extremely keen to attend a regular local meetup. I think it could be worth organising a meeting outside normal working hours and avoiding talking about students in the announcement. What do you think?

I'd also love to meet somewhere quieter that doesn't require expenditure, but that may be asking a bit much to start with...

Comment author: purplerabbits 23 May 2012 05:38:36PM 2 points [-]

Yes. The obvious one to me is that it is totally irrational of me to want to eat pile of sweets that I know from previous experience will make me feel bad about myself ten minutes after eating it and which I rationally don't need nutritionally. I can make myself not do it, but to make myself not want to is like trying to not see an optical illusion...

Comment author: purplerabbits 19 January 2012 06:04:20PM 17 points [-]

Hi, I'm Alison - I used to be a professional tarot reader and astrologer in spite of having a (fairly average) science degree. I recovered from that over 15 years ago and feel it would be valuable for more people to understand how I came to do it and how I changed my mind. I am also a 45 year old woman, which makes me feel in a tiny minority on LW.

I've been reading large chunks of the sequences for the last year, as well as books like Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear and a bunch of rationalist blogs (and been thoroughly sucked into HPMOR).

Topics I'm particularly interested in include day to day rationality, tackling global warming, rationality from the perspective of people with mental health issues and tackling irrationality while maintaining polite and less arrogant discourse.