Comment author: Lumifer 05 March 2014 04:49:51PM 1 point [-]

I also discovered that my comments are down voted into oblivion. ... I have to assume that my contributions to this forum are not yet of high enough quality.

This forum is better than most but has not achieved enlightenment (yet :-D). Some up- or down-voting happens on the basis of the quality of comments, but a lot just signals the agreement or disagreement with the views of the poster.

You basically proposed communism which magically lacked all the icky bits. That will get you a bunch of downvotes :-)

Comment author: terasinube 05 March 2014 05:51:43PM -1 points [-]

Some up- or down-voting happens on the basis of the quality of comments, but a lot just signals the agreement or disagreement with the views of the poster.

Oh well... I'm totally ok on being downvoted on accounts of low quality of my comments however, I wasn't really expecting people here to downvote comments just because they don't agree with them. I have adjusted that belief now and will act with a little bit more caution.

You basically proposed communism which magically lacked all the icky bits. That will get you a bunch of downvotes :-)

I guess I did that :) but it was a good lesson. It pointed to the fact that I should refrain from speaking without having at least a reasonable model about what I am speaking about. :)

Comment author: Coscott 04 March 2014 04:11:00AM *  7 points [-]

I am getting married in less than a month, and I just realized that the wedding is probably the Schelling point event of my life. Therefore, if I were to make a commitment to change something about myself, now is probably the time to do it. It seems to me that If I want to make a short term resolution to change something about myself, I should start on New Years Day, so that I can have that extra push of being able to say "I have not done X this year." However, If I want to make a long term change, the best time to do it is probably the wedding, since it is probably the Schelling point of events in my life.

So what are some useful commitments I can make in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

One idea is to get a "Precommitment Journal", and commit to follow anything that I write down in there, but in that case, I have technically followed everything I have written in that non-existent journal, so that commitment does not really need a Schelling point start date.

Comment author: terasinube 05 March 2014 09:20:14AM 0 points [-]

A commitment to being healthy and happy could be a good idea. The information from the Blue Zones could provide lots of useful ideas.

A commitment to love could also be a good idea. Love 2.0 book has scientific research in this field.

On a simpler note, you could commit to a long walk in nature with your wife every month or every fortnight. Find a nice trail and keep returning there for a nice slow walk. You could use this time to unwind or to calmly discuss what you could do about things.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 04 March 2014 05:40:37PM *  2 points [-]

I don't think land should be owned by people.

By whom should it be owned, then? Or to unpack the concept of ownership, who gets to farm, or mine, or build on a given piece of land, and how will it be decided? Is the answer going to again be "somehow"? You say I'm reading my vision into your words, but that's because I'm not seeing any vision in them.

We were talking about a new society, one that runs on rationality.

I am not seeing the rationality content here.

I'm leaving the rest unresponded to, because we're both of us well into politics-as-mindkiller territory here, and I don't think prolonging the discussion is going to be useful in this venue.

ETA: But it would be polite for me to respond to your direct question, why I don't agree with caps on individual wealth. Because every honestly earned dollar in someone's hands means that they created more than a dollar's worth of value in someone else's. That is what it is, to earn money. When people pay you for what you do, your financial worth is a measure of the value you have created for them. Why cap that?

Of course, there are dishonest people, but to take away everyone's supposed excess money as a remedy is to fine everyone for the deeds of a few. And there are the practical issues of people evading such regulations by emigrating or restructuring their affairs so as not to legally "own" the wealth that they actually have control over. The dishonest are at an advantage here.

I have heard (unsourced anecdote) that when you ask people what is the largest income anyone really needs, they generally name a figure about 10 times their own. Whatever their own income is.

Comment author: terasinube 05 March 2014 07:07:14AM 0 points [-]

we're both of us well into politics-as-mindkiller territory here, and I don't think prolonging the discussion is going to be useful in this venue.

I agree. I also discovered that my comments are down voted into oblivion.

I have to assume that my contributions to this forum are not yet of high enough quality.

Anyways... I'm grateful for your comments. They have been uncomfortable and made me think.

Comment author: ChristianKl 04 March 2014 12:59:23PM 1 point [-]

There were times when I was meditating 4 hours per day. I think about the human body very differently than the average academic. That doesn't mean that academics don't do anything useful but they won't spend money on certain projects because they lack certain experiences. Teaching new phonological primitives takes years.

I'm wise enough to know that giving people like myself the power to allocate all money isn't the solution either. There are many things I don't understand.

I believe that monocultures are generally bad. It's important to have various institutions with different philosophies, world views and interests.

Just having more rational discourse about how to allocate NIH money is not enough. Centralized power is bad in principle.

Comment author: terasinube 04 March 2014 04:06:10PM -1 points [-]

I'm wise enough to know that giving people like myself the power to allocate all money isn't the solution either. There are many things I don't understand.

It doesn't have to be black and white.... all to NIH OR all to projects like yours.

To me... investing money in exploration, in research is a defensible position and research... by its very nature is unknown territory. As long as you can make a rational argument for why you think the allocation of resources is warranted, you should have a chance of getting some. ;)

Comment author: ChristianKl 04 March 2014 01:02:20PM 0 points [-]

Responsibility lies with the ones who act in a destructive way or the ones who coerce others to act destructively.

If that's the reigning philosophy I don't think humanity survives the next 200 years.

Comment author: terasinube 04 March 2014 03:58:15PM -1 points [-]

If that's the reigning philosophy I don't think humanity survives the next 200 years.

What do you think would happen?

Comment author: ChristianKl 04 March 2014 01:24:09PM 0 points [-]

There are models of education where you become a partner once you understand the concepts.

So? You want to reduce the diversity of model of learning. I think diversity is good.

Last week I attended the Berlin Bachata Congress. Bachata is a dance. Organizing such a context means flying world class teachers from all over the world to Berlin and paying for a location in which to held the event. That costs money.

You just wouldn't get a comparable event by getting a bunch of people from Berlin who dance Bachata together and try to let them teach each other.

The event exist because on of the Bachata dancers in Berlin wanted to raise the level of Bachata in Berlin and organized it. He saw a need in the local community and filled it. Total budget of the event is probably something like 50000€. In total he made a profit but that's not why he organized the event.

It would be a lot more complicated if you would have to convince some centralized authority via a rational discourse that we should have a Berlin Bachata Congress.

Comment author: terasinube 04 March 2014 03:55:48PM -2 points [-]

So? You want to reduce the diversity of model of learning.

I have no idea how you derived this conclusion from what I've said.

Last week I attended the Berlin Bachata Congress. Bachata is a dance. Organizing such a context means flying world class teachers from all over the world to Berlin and paying for a location in which to held the event.

I can resonate with an example like this because I learn tango right now and yes... there are masters that could help one improve the technique BUT... I don't see how this constitutes a valid example since is mixing current model with what I was exploring. If plane tickets cost thousand of euros, if space renting is highly expensive... and if everyone involved has a high enough imperative to get a lot of money... you will get something like this expensive bachata festival. If transportation, food and lodging would be free.... masters could come only to build status. An you will not need any permission from a centralized authority. Local events authority involved might be involved for scheduling some event locations...

Comment author: ChristianKl 04 March 2014 09:47:18AM 2 points [-]

We are, however, exploring here.

As far as exploring goes, good exploring is about describing how alternatives could work.

I agree with you. [...] What would be the point of an exploration if we remain stuck in the old paradigms.

No, I don't think you understand me. I'm not the person to advocate staying in old paradigms. It's just that being a heretic is hard work.

The argument that you are making isn't a new paradigm it's not much different from what Marx said 150 years ago. It's old. A new argument about that we have measurement about rich people having less empathy but otherwise it's all old and boring.

As far as what I wrote lately about my political philosophy the posts I wrote in http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/jmt/some_tools_for_optimizing_our_media_use/ might be interesting for you.

Comment author: terasinube 04 March 2014 10:17:48AM -1 points [-]

It's just that being a heretic is hard work.

I agree. I'm only at the beginning. One of the reasons I started to lurk around here is a need for clarity in my own thinking. I often am vague and expose half baked ideas. I hope that this will change in time.

Comment author: ChristianKl 04 March 2014 09:38:06AM 1 point [-]

Marx's ideas were perverted by Lenin and the totalitarian mess we saw last century derived from that.

That doesn't change that Marx carries some responsibility for what happened.

Terry Pratchett wrote somewhere that one person writes an innocent book about political philosophy and then the people who read the book don't get the jokes and other people have to pay for it in blood.

People payed in blood for the revolution in Egypt and now the freedom of speech in Egypt is less than it was before the revolution.

Comment author: terasinube 04 March 2014 10:12:43AM -1 points [-]

That doesn't change that Marx carries some responsibility for what happened.

This is like accusing a blacksmith for a murder someone did with a knife he created.

Responsibility lies with the ones who act in a destructive way or the ones who coerce others to act destructively.

Comment author: ChristianKl 03 March 2014 11:40:11PM 0 points [-]

Oh... I meant what would a single individual spend the money on, what would be the incentive to get more money for oneself.

If you would give me a million I would spend a significant part of that money on the project of defeating death. I would however spend that money in a very different way than the NIH.

Comment author: terasinube 04 March 2014 10:05:06AM -1 points [-]

Maybe NIH is not spending the money effectively. Maybe a rational discourse could make your way one of the official ways.

Comment author: ChristianKl 03 March 2014 11:38:40PM 1 point [-]

A society that addresses both types of parasitism through some kind of mechanism is a society in which money can quickly become meaningless. If you have adequate shelter, food, clothing and free access to education, entertainment and transportation what would you use the money for?

What does free access to education mean? Having a personal tutor is often a very effective way of learning. On the other hand it requires another person to invest time and that person frequently wants to be payed.

Comment author: terasinube 04 March 2014 10:03:33AM -1 points [-]

There are models of education where you become a partner once you understand the concepts. Something like Peer Instruction. You could have as a tutor a person from the same generation, a person who just happens to understand the concepts that you are trying to learn better. I did this for my friends with programming back in college.

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