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Are you asking why adversity-to-success stories are so prevalent? in which case it's also partly because we (the ordinary people) want to hear them... because they are stories of hope, especially stories of what we hope for ourselves. Reading about a great success triggers our own feeling of succeeding, in small part.
In response to
Lesswrong 2016 Survey
I'm always confused by the "spiritual atheist" question, that is, the "spiritual" part. Can anyone who selected this option try to explain what they meant when they selected it?
I did not select that option, but I know people that identify this way. The sorts of people that do vary considerably, from an atheist who believes in ghosts or spirits, to people that believe that we can have telepathic and/or empathic connections and can achieve this through eg meditation etc. People that believe in "magic as a form of willpower making things change in the real world" consider themselves spiritual, but atheist. etc etc.
I have taken the survey.
I enjoyed the "yes, I worry about X, but only because I worry about everything" responses.
I really liked things like "option for people who aren't in the US and want an option to choose" plus I think I recall one like "I like clicking on options" :D
((past-tense take) i survey)
In response to
Positivity Thread :)
My garden makes me happy.
Right now the leaves are turning yellow and there's a new, autumnal bite in the air that I find invigorating.
The birds are still visiting, and every now and then I'll feed the king parrots and rosellas seed and watch them twitter at each other, all colourful plumage and huffed-up self-importance. I think they sound like guinea pigs, which always makes me laugh :)
IMHO the 'attempted rape' claim is far more interpretation than substance - an interpretation that is specious at best.
In my experience, people who are not the likely victims of a kind of danger are much less likely to spot the warning signs of that danger than those who are. Women spot potential-rape more frequently, the same way that soldiers that have been stationed in the middle east are more likely to spot potential IEDs - not every discarded thing on the road is an IED, and not every "man roughly handling a women" is a potential rape... but some are... and some women have gotten better at spotting the latter due to either being trained to do so, or having had the experience themselves...
In other words... just because many people didn't see it for a potential-rape... doesn't mean it can't easily be interpreted as pattern-matching on exactly that kind of situation.
To some extent, it doesn't even matter that it was not the original intent of the author to represent rape. It was close enough that it was a plausible interpretation (specious or no) for those who know what to look for. I expect the author has learned something about how people can interpret things even when they are unintended...
Interestingly, and vaguely related, there's an ongoing debate about the Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes series: apparently many women interpret the relationship between Holmes and Watson as containing a lot of sexual tension... and a lot of men (and the writer(s)) think that idea is rubbish.... it all has to do with how close they stand to each other, and the way they are portrayed to gaze at each other.
In response to
Lesswrong 2016 Survey
[Survey Taken Thread]
By ancient tradition, if you take the survey you may comment saying you have done so here, and people will upvote you and you will get karma.
Let's make these comments a reply to this post. That way we continue the tradition, but keep the discussion a bit cleaner.
I completed the survey. I also like the new format - easy to read, good instructions etc.
carse uses words in weird ways. in carse jargon, playing house is a finite game.
As explained it doesn't fit the definition given: playing house does not have "definite rules" and does not have a defined beginning/end.
Given the diction of the post of the scammer I doubt he's capable of averaging 89% positive karma out of 150 the way rosyatrandom did.
I thought it was a deliberate technique on the part of scammers to use bad grammar/spelling in order that their marks self-select for people that are less intelligent/educated etc It is plausible that the scammer actually has excellent diction.
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When I was doing the survey I found the 'Highest Education Credential Earning' question difficult because the credentials listed don't match those in my home country, Australia. For example, we have a system of "technical certificates" that fall in between High School and Bachelor's degrees. (I think I chose '2 year degree' as the closest approximation, even though mine only took 1 year to complete.) And I know that doing a Bachelors in some areas is the functional equivalent of doing a Masters in others.
Would a question asking for how many years of post-schooling study one has completed be more or less useful? The wording could be tricky, since then there is ambiguity about whether to list time spent if one is part way through a qualification. If the majority of respondents are from places that match the listed options then mucking about with the question may not be of much value either.
I have exactly the same problem because I did an honours-year... which is halfway between a Bachelor's and a Masters.