I don't think "Politics is hard mode" conveys the point.

Any mention of politics is a minefield of unintended triggers. In the "politics is the mind-killer" post Eliezer refers to the mind-killing properties politically charged examples have on any discussion, precisely because of these triggers. That's the reason that

political examples should not be used in a non-political discussion.

Just like any trigger-heavy example should not be used unless explicitly intended to trigger people. (I used it in one my posts for that purpose.)

TL;DR: the original meaning of "politics is the mind killer" is "avoid unintended triggers in your arguments".

Unfortunately, this slogan became a catch-all "boo! politics" attitude. Maybe what is needed is a post "How to discuss politics (race/gender/...) rationally". Unless one has been written already, though I came up empty after a cursory look.

Ironically, I suspect the "cultlike" problem is that LessWrong/SI's key claims lack falsifiability.

Friendly AI? In the far future.

Self-improvement? All mental self-improvement is suspected of being a cult, unless it trains a skill outsiders are confident they can measure.

If I have a program for teaching people math, outsiders feel they know how they can check my claims - either my graduates are good at math or not.

But if I have a program for "putting you in touch with your inner goddess", how are people going to check my claims? For all outsiders know I'm making people feel good, or feel good about me, without actually making them meaningfully better.

Unfortunately, the external falsifiability of LW/SI's merits is more like the second case than the first. Especially, I suspect, for people who aren't already big fans of mathematics, information theory, probability, and potential AI.

Organization claims to improve a skill anyone can easily check = school. Organization claims to improve a quality that outsiders don't even know how to measure = cult.

If and when LW/SI can headline more easily falsifiable claims, it will be less cultlike.

I don't know if this is an immediately solvable problem, outside of developing other aspects of LW/SI that are more obviously useful/impressive to outsiders, and/or developing a generation of LW/SI fans who are indeed "winners" as rationalists ideally would be.

“If only there were irrational people somewhere, insidiously believing stupid things, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and mock them. But the line dividing rationality and irrationality cuts through the mind of every human being. And who is willing to mock a piece of his own mind?”

(With apologies to Solzhenitsyn).

– Said Achmiz, in a comment on Slate Star Codex’s post “The Cowpox of Doubt”

In non-Toastmasters settings, these skills have been useful when I’m trying to talk to people who have different interests, or when I’m put on the spot to talk about something I feel like I don’t know a lot about.

This sounds like you became more sociable. Now I'm curious how would a sociable person be like to you? I mean... what is the line that separates the sociable from not sociable in your perspective?

I took the survey.

I chose to Defect on the monetary reward prize question. Why?

• I realized that the prize money is probably contributed by Yvain. And if $60-or-less were to be distributed between a random Less Wrong member and Yvain, I would rather as much of it as possible go to Yvain. This is because I know Yvain is smart and writes interesting posts, so the money could help him to contribute something to the world that another could not. Answering Defect lowers the amount of prize money, making Yvain keep more of it.
• Also, I would rather I have the $60-or-less than anyone other Less Wrong member, and answering Defect gets me a bigger chance of that happening.

Edit: pgbh had the same reasoning.

At first I thought this would be suggesting horror stories that are particularly horrifying to rationalists, such as the one Eliezer mentioned on the HP:MoR author's notes about the Friendship is Optimal fanfiction.

Same experience here. I eventually switched to EmotionSense because TagTime felt like too much bookkeeping. (basically, I have long stretches during the day when I don't want to be distracted by my phone, which led to me having a bunch of tags to fill in at any given time since it was sampling every 45 minutes on average, and I'm really obsessive about not wanting to leave tags un-filled). EmotionSense bugs me a maximum of 5 times a day and IMO has a more intuitive interface for mood sampling.

7. … I think of several things related to work that I really want to remember … as I'm trying to fall asleep …

I use my smartphone (Android) in cases similar to this, though it’s not usually work-related stuff that I think of. I have the sound recording app WAVE Recorder in my dock / quick launch area. If I want to note something for later with the minimum of fuss, it’s easy to unlock my phone, open the app, hit record, and briefly describe whatever it is that I thought of (or hum it, if it’s a piece of music). Then I just hit stop and lock the phone again.

However, the downside of recording audio is that it’s harder to read later. You can’t just skim what you wrote later to remind yourself what you said; you have to wait through the whole recording. This can be mitigated somewhat by giving the recorded audio file a relevant name. But sometimes I value reading the whole thing easily later more than noting the idea as quickly as possible right now.

In those cases, I write the idea down in a new Evernote note. Evernote is also in my phone’s dock. I use the SwiftKey Keyboard to write the idea quickly, and Lux to turn the screen’s brightness below the built-in minimum so that the screen doesn’t hurt my eyes or wake me up too much in the dark room.

The flaw in the argument is simply that it assumes E(X/Y) > 1 implies that E(X) > E(Y).

I didn’t understand this sentence very well at first, because the inequality on the right is two steps removed from the one on the left. I find this version clearer:

The flaw in the argument is simply that it assumes E(X/Y) > 1 implies that E(X) / E(Y) > 1. (If E(X) / E(Y) > 1, that would imply that E(X) > E(Y).)

"And simply being able to notice your emotional state is rarer and more valuable than most people realize. For example, if you're in fight-or-flight mode, you're going to feel more compelled to reject arguments that feel like a challenge to your identity."

Can I have some specific examples that might help illustrate this point?