Comment author: Clarity 07 February 2016 08:13:23AM *  0 points [-]

Instead, I will elaborate on my interpretation of it and the meaning that I attribute to it:

Seligman briefly mentions that 'PERMA' can be the foundation for a new value-model in politics in a video by the channel: 'happy and well'. This suggests that comparisons of wellbeing above '1', on say a QALY scale are useful. By convention, people are '1' when well, and less than 1 depending on the degree of disease (mental or physical) as it affects their quality of life. The reddit point highlights for me that we may find it effective to improve the happiness of a banker who's stressing himself out making money and blowing it on hookers than someone in ill health in the developing world.

Seligman also describes research that shows people who have experienced all 3 of the 'worst' traumatic experiences tend to experience 'post traumatic growth', more so than those with 2 or one of these experiences: rape, torture and capture. With a bit of Googling I can't find the literature. This makes me less confident in his position but none-the-less hopeful that I've stumbled upon an important line of research for EA's to pursue. Discussing positive things is probably good for the EA diaspora anyway, since doom and gloom talk is rather unpleasant IMO.

Comment author: tut 07 February 2016 08:57:52AM 1 point [-]

If there was anything useful the banker could get for $5 then he would buy it himself. The argument for giving to the poorest people is not that they are the most deserving, or even that they are suffering the most, but rather that they are the cheapest to help.

Comment author: Clarity 06 February 2016 12:46:15AM -1 points [-]

A clever point on the EA reddit. Guessing the Open Philanthropy Project will sniff this out if its the case.

Comment author: tut 06 February 2016 11:52:14AM 0 points [-]

Would you mind summarizing the point. Because I don't get it.

Comment author: Lumifer 27 January 2016 03:48:55PM 1 point [-]

similar to the history of Las Vegas. What parts of it can be replicated?

By traditional mythology, the reason Las Vegas exists is because the mob (mafia) wanted to have a playground far far away from the Feds :-)

Comment author: tut 27 January 2016 05:48:37PM 0 points [-]

Or because it's the place closest to San Francisco where gambling was legal.

Comment author: WhyAsk 24 January 2016 05:36:04PM 0 points [-]

Why does my Karma score keep increasing when I don't do anything? It's a disincentive to post. . .?

Comment author: tut 24 January 2016 07:43:38PM 1 point [-]

Presumably people read your old comments and upvote them.

Comment author: ChristianKl 09 January 2016 11:26:49AM 0 points [-]

Aren't the big banks publically traded and expected to grow by stock market analysts? How does that work when they get negative interest rates?

Comment author: tut 10 January 2016 05:27:57PM 0 points [-]

They get positive expected real interest from loans they give, but pay negative real interest on deposits they receive.

Comment author: Lumifer 08 January 2016 03:59:44PM 1 point [-]

under the Khmer Rouge, you really didn't want to be ethnic Chinese

Did Khmer Rouge really care about ethnicity, or that was just a convenient marker for a particular social class?

Comment author: tut 09 January 2016 06:58:17PM 0 points [-]

Taboo 'care'. They did kill people just for looking Chinese.

Comment author: Viliam 07 January 2016 12:28:42PM *  3 points [-]

I don't know. Seems to me possible that people like Paul Graham (or Eliezer Yudkowsky) may overestimate the impact of technical change on wealth distribution because of the selection bias -- they associate with people who mostly make wealth using the "fair" methods.

If instead they would be spending most of their time among African warlords, or Russian oligarchs, or whatever is their more civilized equivalent in USA, maybe they would have very different models of how wealth works.

The technological progress explains why the pie is growing, not how the larger pie is divided.

There are probably more people who got rich selling homeopathics, than who got rich founding startups. Yet in our social sphere it is a custom to pretend that the former option does not exist, and focus on the latter.

Comment author: tut 08 January 2016 06:00:08PM 1 point [-]

... or whatever is their more civilized equivalent in USA

I think the generalized concept is 'politicians'. And yeah, that sounds likely. But I would say that it is a problem that the ones who make the rules and the ones who explain to everyone else what's what all live in an environment where earning something honestly is weird is a problem. That there are some who are not in such a bubble is not the problem.

Comment author: The_Lion 06 January 2016 02:55:24AM 0 points [-]

If you would ask the same question on http://skeptics.stackexchange.com it would be closed as being too vague

You do realize that's a problem with skeptics.stackexchange not with AmagicalFishy's question.

Comment author: tut 07 January 2016 03:02:36PM 0 points [-]

That's a matter of perspective/values. I agree with Christian on this one.

Comment author: Vaniver 05 January 2016 03:01:58PM 8 points [-]

I think the point is that when googling his name, the post does not show up, but if LWers know it's the same person, there's no harm.

Comment author: tut 05 January 2016 07:29:38PM 2 points [-]

What is your credence that the google of five years in the future won't find things written under pseudonyms when you search for the author's real name? 10 years?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 05 January 2016 01:26:11PM 4 points [-]

"More specifically, after reading the essay Economic Inequality by Paul Graham, I would say that the really simplified version is that there are essentially two different ways how people get rich. (1) By creating value; and today individuals are able to create incredible amounts of value thanks to technology. (2) By taking value from other people, using force or fraud in a wider meaning of the word; sometimes perfectly legally; often using the wealth they already have as a weapon."

Which one is inheritance?

Comment author: tut 05 January 2016 03:00:58PM 3 points [-]

I think it would be counted as whichever way was used by whoever you got the inheritance from.

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