= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
You have a point! Updated for correctness and humor.
LWers are primates, too, so some of us need this pack bonding thing in a form of a ritual. I'm not one of those, but I can see how others can feel differently. And given that rituals, whether religious or civic, are pretty much standard and often spontaneous in most communities, I don't see how having a ritual for some subgroup would harm the High Ideals of Rationality. It even might make the participants appear more human, by counteracting the perception of "straw Volcan"ness.
And given that rituals, whether religious or civic, are pretty much standard and often spontaneous in most communities, I don't see how having a ritual for some subgroup would harm the High Ideals of Rationality.
Rationality Itself remains unphased by a backyard party blog meetup, that's for sure.
I think Academian's post on the role of narrative in self-image touches on the seemingly disjointed purpose of a Rationalist Ritual. We all have our unique approaches to rational thought - my own experience consists largely of the dissolving of narratives in search of actual cause & effect. Not all narratives are destructive (or even wrong), but my employment of rational thought has never included them. Constructing and reinforcing narratives is what ritual is all about. Subjectively, the two just don't click for me.
Using Less Wrong as a maypole to dance around seems.. goofy, at best. Lesser things have been rot13'd around here.
It even might make the participants appear more human, by counteracting the perception of "straw Volcan"ness.
If this is what it takes to signal that we have emotional lives, then fuck me running.
I have never received evidence that I am less likely to be overconfident about things than people in general or that any other particular person on this site is.
You've never caught yourself in the act of falling for a cognitive bias detailed on this site?
My judgment of this site as of now is that way too much time is spent discussing subjects of such low expected value (usually because of absurdly low expected probability of occurring) for using this site to be worthwhile. In fact I hypothesize that this discussion actually causes overconfidence related to such things happening, and at a minimum I have seen insufficient evidence for the value of using this site to continue doing so.
I'm curious about what other web sites satisfy similarly high expectations. No snark intended.
RE: Cryonics - that particular *reverse Kool-Aid doesn't come in my flavor yet, but I enjoy that a notable minority are willing to put their money where their mouth is. It gives discussions of futuristic edge-cases a novel weight.
Claim to not be a cult
Scumbag Lesswrong
start stealing ideas from cults.
I've lurked on LW for a long time and can shrug off the second-hand embarrassment without fail, but I'll be damned if I ever link anyone I know to this web site. This undercurrent of LW does more damage than anything Roko ever posted.
I'm no stranger to ritual/awe/group bonding (Merzbow & MDMA: the reason for the season), but there is some hazy aesthetic line past which I cannot follow. Nor will I risk being associated with. Sorry.
If you enjoy this stuff, than more power to ya. Have a blast. Just keep in mind how many people are seriously turned off from LW because of it.
[in agreement with, rather than directed at, drethelin]
That's a good point - I've noticed a similar effect. I just need to work on making the idea of going outside as attractive as actually doing it. Sounds like it's time for some positive reinforcement!
I'm on a computer all day at work and the bulk of my activities at home are computer-based as well. I've been able to get into a nice habit of taking daily walks, usually right when I get home from work (before even going in the door). It's quite enjoyable and sometimes I end up wandering around for miles/hours before some other motivation urges me home. Just being in a place where things can be >100 feet away feels novel most of the time. Computer usage is bizarrely user-centric, compared with the outside world; a contrast that shouldn't feel as profound as it does.
I started off just thinking of walking as a simple cure for fogginess/tunnel vision/vague anxiety, but it's grown into a subconscious urge. Also, I recommend avoiding music or other audio media.
Would your post on eating babies count, or is it too nonspecific?
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ww/undiscriminating_skepticism/1scb?context=1
(I completely agree with the policy, I'm just curious)
We should exempt any imagery fitting of a Slayer album cover, lest we upset the gods of metal with our weakness.
I don't necessarily object to this policy but find it troubling that you can't give a better reason for not discussing violence being a good idea than PR.
Frankly, I find it even more troubling that your standard reasons for why violence is not in fact a good idea seem to be "it's bad PR" and "even if it is we shouldn't say so in public".
As I quote here:
if your main goal is to show that your heart is in the right place, then your heart is not in the right place.
Edit: added link to an example of SIAI people unable to give a better reason against doing violence than PR.
I appreciate the honesty of it. No one here is going to enact any of these thought experiments in real life. The likely worst outcome is to off-put potential SI donors. It must be hard enough to secure funding for a fanfic-writing apocalypse cult; prepending violent onto that description isn't going to loosen up many wallets.
I once got a friend to read HP:MoR after a year of mentioning it. After the first few pages, he googled Eliezer Yudkowsky and within a few minutes was on the Less Wrong discussion section, where he immediately found "Nazis vs Jews" (posing the question "what if Jew-killing is a terminal value for Nazis, and what if there are orders of magnitude more Nazis than Jews, what do you do, from a utilitarian perspective?"), as well as "how to stop people from being creepy at your Less Wrong meetup."
Also, not one, but two My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Rationalist Fanfics.
That was pretty much the end of that.
Not all fanfics are created equally, eh?
Meditation: And this creates another kind of problem. Did the person come into existence:
Nobody knows. That is the real problem of qualia: on the one hand, we have subjective experience; on the other, everything else we know leaves no room for any such thing to exist. "But it exists! But it can't! But it exists! But it can't!" All proposed solutions amount to chopping off one hand or the other, and all refutations to those solutions consist of pointing out that the hand is still there.
Curiously, none of this prevents people from seriously talking about interactive animatronic puppets as if they had emotions.
Curiously, none of this prevents people from seriously talking about interactive animatronic puppets as if they had emotions.
For now!
It will be interesting to see the cultural confusion when 'simulations' are as complex and deep as the real deal. I wonder if robots will look at me with (simulated?) disgust when I joke about circuit bending my friend's little sister's furby? Will I simulate shame?
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
I agree with your analysis. However, the fact that some people are expressing concern that their comments might violate the new censorship policy suggests that others might abstain, or have already abstained, from posting valuable material to this forum, which in turn increases my credence that the censorship policy does more harm than good.
When in doubt, frame all drug talk as harm reduction.