People sometimes use the term despotism to refer to a system of government where there is no expectation that the ruling group (often of one) will obey a rule of law. I think that's a better way to demarcate the systems.

Related thought: is a conversation bot crudely optimised to game the Turing test smarter than a labrador or a dolphin?

That's not unreasonable, but I think that a lot of the problems people have come from not even really trying to be careful.

I think selection effects explain almost all of this phenomenon. My nerdy friends don't really have trouble holding to their pre-commitments. The reckless 20 year olds I meet in bars don't even really understand the idea of pre-commitments, and the whole thing is just sort of...uncool, to them.

People don't regularly pre-commit to how much TV they'll watch, how much internet they'll surf, or how much chocolate they'll eat --- and when they do, I expect they fail often. When it comes to alcohol, two drinks becoming many is a total cliche.

Objectivism comes with a bunch of baggage about e.g. economics and psychology that's simply untrue, empirically. For instance an objectivist would say that status seeking inhibits self-actualisation. The objectivist plan is to learn to care less about status. As I understand the evidence, this is bad advice for almost all humans, as almost nobody can self-modify to just not care about their place on the totem pole.

In a nutshell, I think objectivists live in the "should universe", and this leads to a bunch of whacky nonsense.

For a first time user, I recommend 60-80mg as a good dose, and I always advise people to pre-commit to not re-dosing, no matter whether the first hit feels weak or strong. I usually take 80-150mg, and I don't always follow my own advice about re-dosing. Sometimes it depends what my friends are doing.

After a camping trip where I over-indulged quite alarmingly, I noticed that I was more "pleasure seeking": I spent more time seeking sex, more time on buzzfeed and YouTube, etc. This faded after a week or two.

I found that regular marijuana use causes worse anhedonia in me. If I smoke two or three times a week for a few weeks in a row, my affect is fairly flat, and I'm quite unmotivated.

Definitely agree that changing your name is a good option to have on the table.

I'd note though that in some industries having a Google-unique name is king. It really depends what your "personal brand strategy" is. I remember reading an interview with a marketer who recommended people consider name changes. Her name was "Faith Popcorn". I read that single interview probably 5-10 years ago. It wasn't even a particularly interesting interview. I still remember her name, though.

(The below is stated with no modulation for my level of confidence, which actually isn't very high.)

MDMA is a useful way to improve social skills permanently, or help make you more emotionally available.

While under the influence of it, you're very empathic, and very socially fearless. The experiences you have talking to people in this state can then transfer to when you're sober. For instance, you might notice that your openness is well-received, which lets you see that you've been under-confident.

Many people do something similar with alcohol: they learn to socialise when drunk, and that makes it easier to socialise when not drunk. I believe MDMA is better for this purpose, because it doesn't inhibit your memory at all, and you're more "yourself" than when drunk.

To get this benefit it's important to take a well-tolerated dose, and not to drink much: you don't want to be a mangled mess, or the next day you'll just be embarrassed, especially because you'll be mildly depressed from the come-down.

I've found MDMA to be quite addictive, and most users have trouble controlling their use once they are on the drug: they'll re-dose, even if they hadn't planned to, once the first dose begins to fade. So this "hack" is far from free of danger. But I believe the cost/benefit is still better than alcohol for many situations.

Ze Frank is amazing. Mostly they're funny and interesting, slightly poetic, takes on life and normality.

"Make Believe" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bta00Hp4gho

"Cholesterol" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBih2DYpno8

"Hack to power, Brian" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnG4dJT3itM

Anyone who has been through high-school knows a lot of unattractive or socially undesirable men get tremendous backlash for behaviors that a desirable men get away with.

I didn't go to a coed highschool, but I imagine a lot of that backlash was status signalling, and the target of the advance wasn't genuinely aggrieved. So, that isn't just.

But factoring that out, I think it's quite right to view a guy making a bunch of unwanted advances as rather a jerk, depending on how much he makes rejecting him suck for the targets. He's generating a bunch of negative utility.

When I see guys with poor social skills complain about this, it basically amounts to saying that it's not fair. Sure --- it's not fair that looks and charm get parcelled out unevenly, but so what? You still don't get to make your problem someone else's.

It's not fair that we become more unattractive as we age, but a 70 year old man who constantly makes unwelcome advances on young women is rightly viewed with contempt.

It's not fair that gay men and women can very seldom hit on strangers with a good expected utility either. It doesn't make it okay for them to just "assume they're gay until stated otherwise", given that most people are straight.