I faced an ugh field. So far the results are satisfactory. I haven't been eaten by a grue.

This ugh field is interaction with male authority figures, specifically when the subject of this interaction is some technical field, in which competence is viewed as a manly trait. I often lack such competence, and feel very awkward (dare I say "unmanly"?) when dealing with men who have it.

Two most recent examples of facing this ugh field:

I've had my bicycle serviced. This included going to a local bike shop and a frank conversation with the serviceman about the technical condition of my bicycle and possible ways to improve it. $100 in spare parts later I'm quite satisfied with the improved quality of my ride. One minus: I got a 12T-32T cassette in place of the old 12T-28T. I have no use for this granny gear. Next time I'll be more specific about it.

I've also started taking car driving lessons. In my country an official state-recognized driving license course includes 30 hours of driving practice 1-on-1 with a driving instructor, whose job includes pointing out all the rookie mistakes you make on the road, and possibly hoping that you don't kill both of you in some stupid way. So far I can manage this new and stressful situation, and I'm slowly building my driving skills.

The second example also includes discarding a cached identity of a biker who scorns cars, which I didn't feel that strongly about in the first place.

This looks like a good place to post what I think is the best critique of the Austrians out there: Bryan Caplan (who is sympathetic to the Austrians) does a good job of arguing that the Austrian foundations fall into two categories 1) not different than mainstream economists 2) wrong.

It starts here Why I am not an Austrian economist, continues some back and forth between Walter Block and Hülsmann (an Austrian) and Caplan:

• Caplan, Bryan. 1999. "The Austrian Search for Realistic Foundations,"
• Block, Walter. 1999. "Austrian Theorizing, Recalling the Foundations: Reply to Caplan,"
• Caplan, Bryan, 2000. "Probability, Common Sense, and Realism: A Reply to Hülsmann and Block,"
• Block, Walter. 2003. "Realism: Austrian vs. Neoclassical Economics, Reply to Caplan,"
• Caplan, Bryan. 2003. "Probability and the Synthetic A Priori: A Reply to Block."
• Block, Walter. 2005. "Rejoinder to Caplan on Bayesian Economics,"
• Block, Walter. 2007. "Reply to Caplan on Austrian Economic Methodology"

There's more here (links from the appendix 1). Some of these are in .doc form.

I should also point out that I do think the Austrians are more correct than mainstream economists on several issues, but I don't think these follow from their epistemology.

I will also add that this discussion highlights that LWers should be particularly good at seeing the epistemic flaws of the Austrians since they are 1) a rejection of the use of probability theory as a fundamental part of decision theory 2) a rejection of utility functions 3) abuses of language (they frequently attempt to argue "by definition").

I don't know how many people have this issue, but I can't read Choose Your Own Adventure books without marking several past pages so I can rewind time, or try multiple branches, or safely find out what was hidden behind the venomous Venusian potted plant. Really, the only bound on it is that I eventually run out of fingers to mark my place, which constrains my time travel abilities to about four save-states. (In visual novels it's even worse, since there are enough actual save states that saving at anything that looks like a potentially significant branching point becomes viable. I've actually started using walkthroughs from GameFAQs to find out where I don't need to save, so I can stop fretting about making an irreversible decision. Trivial time travel is surprisingly addictive! What would the world be like if everyone could do it, I wonder?)

I really, really wish that this were a useful approach to life, but if it's possible to save and restore universe states, I have not been made aware of this. And obviously I haven't noticed anybody else doing it.

Is it an academic exercise, or are you planning a real wedding reception party?

BTW, what are your thoughts about Jacque Fresco and his Venus Project after watching this documentary?

• Smart people often think social institutions are basically arbitrary and that they can engineer better ways using their mighty brains. Because these institutions aren't actually arbitrary, their tinkering is generally harmful and sometimes causes social dysfunction, suffering, and death on a massive scale. Less Wrong is unusually bad in this regard, and that is a serious indictment of "rationality" as practiced by LessWrongers.
• A case of this especially relevant to Less Wrong is "Evangelical Polyamory".

Agreed except for the part about Less Wrong is unusually bad in this regard. I think it's actually doing better then most gatherings of smart people attempting to reorganize society. Keep in mind lesswrong's equivalent 50 years ago would have been advocating Marxism.

• Atheists assume that self-identified atheists are representative of non-religious people and use flattering data about self-identified atheists to draw (likely) false conclusions about the world being better without religion. The expected value of arguing for atheism is small and quite possibly negative.

Agreed.

• Ceteris paribus dictatorships work better than democracies.

You've never lived under a dictatorship have you? I strongly disagree with the above statement and think it's another good example of your first point.

• Nerd culture is increasingly hyper-permissive and basically juvenile and stultifying. Nerds were better off when they had to struggle to meet society's expectations for normal behavior.

True, however, the previous culture was hyper-conformist, since it was 'designed' to create people intelligent enough to operate machinery but conformist enough to work in an assembly line.

My wife and I are working on translating HPMoR into Polish. Tonight she'll finish the first draft of chapter 4, and I'm about to finish editing the final version of chapter 3. We plan to publish it when we have 5 chapters ready.

1.) Woohoo! Excellent news!

A few hours later, I find I remain physically pained when attempting to come to terms with the notion that a person could express the belief that only genetically modified tomatoes have genes. The very ability to formulate the statement requires knowledge that contradicts the belief.

2.) Scientific literacy isn't really the same thing as rationality.

Certainly not. But -- would you agree that scientific literacy and cultivated rationality are highly correlated?