All of Brigid's Comments + Replies

Removing the less competent officers is obviously a good call, but how does that call get made? How is it different than what is currently being done?

I disagree with the logic that being given stronger incentives will help senior officers win wars. What kind of incentives/disincentives could be offered? Increasing monetary rewards or job promotions could lead to ethical violations, while at the same time not necessarily helping our performance.

Fear of losing their job? I would guess that the most common reason for a senior officer gets kicked out is... (read more)

"A 70 percent solution now is better than a 100 percent solution later" ~USMC

(You may disagree, depending on your field).

Generally, activities that are prohibitively difficult, functionally pointless, demonstrate an excess of leisure time, and confer in-group social status for those who are especially competent. Concretely, dancing, circus skills and rock climbing seem to draw a suspiciously nerdy and educated crowd.

As a former Marine, in addition to the difference pointed out by jsteinhardt, the flexed arm hang works your arms only, not your back. Pullups require an overhand grip, whereas the flexed arm hang (and chinup) focus on your biceps.

I also advise that between jumping pullups, you return to a faux-deadhang position (even if this requires you to bend your knees to fit under the bar). Again, you will get tired of jumping pretty quickly and then will start to rely on your arms and back.

There are numerous serious lifting forums on the web that will critique your beginner cleans (for free) out of the goodness their hearts. You just need to film it and upload the video. So do this with lighter weights and see what people say., make the adjustments and ask again. Also, definitely start with cleans--they are a lot safer than snatches and much easier to master.

As someone who has been in this situation, pullup negatives have worked for me. I would also add regular jumping pullups, without the negatives. As you do more, your jumping abilities will decrease and youll start to rely more on your arms/back, thus building those muscles. Most gyms also have an assisted pullup machine.

If you don't care about walking on ice, get a nice pair of some lined duck boots (Sorbel, LL Bean). Expensive but totally worth it I think.

I recently found out about the disposable hand and foot warmers. Not perfect but they do a decent job for being so inexpensive (around $1-2).

1khafra
There are also reusable hand warmers, you boil them to recharge. In my experience, their performance degrades to 80% output and duration after a dozen uses. edited to remove the link to an actual re-usable hand warmer, since the only reason I can think of for a downvote is that someone thought I was shilling for some specific product or site.
0palladias
Or do it Little Women style and put fresh baked apple turnovers in your pocket.

On a related note, am I the only person who struggles with the search system on Less Wrong? There have been a few times where it takes me unusually long to find the article I am looking for, even if I remember a direct quote or concept from that article and use that in my search.

Is there a way to only search for articles, or only search for comments, or only search for articles written by a specific person? This might help solve my problem.

Is it possible that she could suggest to the Cryonics Institute that they could set up an account in her name and we could donate directly to that account, cutting out the middleman but still directly contributing to this girl?

Also, I think that if it was a scam choosing cryonics is probably a bad choice since plenty of people even in an atheist forum seem to be against it, and thus its not as likely to generate as much sympathy. I think she could have said "I want to go on a safari in Africa" or some sort of trip that is moderately expensive (just like the skydiving comments claim) and received more funding.

Is it possible that she could suggest to the Cryonics Institute that they could set up an account in her name and we could donate directly to that account, cutting out the middleman but still directly contributing to this girl?

This comment on CI's Facebook page indicates that she and CI are in the process of setting that up.

When that is established, I plan to donate $500. (If anyone sees that it is set up, and I haven't followed up yet, respond to this comment.)

(ETA: There is now a fund set up by the Society for Venturism, and I have made my donation th... (read more)

That's a great point that I didn't consider.

While Planned Parenthood clearly could be biased, they state (noteably without a reference) that " Women typically pay between $15 and $50 a month in co-pays for birth control pills — $180 to $600 a year." Even $180 is pretty expensive.

They also claim that " More than one-third of all women voters have struggled to pay for prescription birth control at some point in their lives, and have as a result used birth control inconsistently."

Finally, "On average, a woman spends 30 years of her life trying to avoid pregnancy. That means 30 years of paying for birth control."

People who are pro-life in the abortion debate should also be pro- free birth control pills (those not requiring a co-pay).

If pro-lifers were more pragmatic, they would rank the issues that they care about from least-bad to worst. Most would agree that abortion is worse than pre-marital sex. Therefore, they should support efforts to eliminate the need for abortions (not just seek to eliminate the ability to have an abortion). As access to birth control reduces the likelihood of the need to have an abortion, free birth control pills would reduce the over... (read more)

-2gokhalea
I think nearly all the responses to this question miss the point. your points (both the original comment and the responses) use a "less wrong" type definition of rationality/pragmatism/reasonableness, none of which apply to the many religious pro-lifers. When looking at abortion from a religious perspective, and not a legal or "less wrong" rationality perspective, being pro-life is absolutely consistent with not wanting people to use birth control. procreation, all relevant acts and the results relating thereto, are sacred and should not be messed with. Simple - that's all there is to it. Though i personally do not believe in these, it strikes me as a reasonable and principled way of looking at the issue (e.g., most believe life is sacred, most pro-choicers dont like abortion, etc.). The idea of "cutting your losses" and being pragmatic, from a religious viewpoint, is actually quite ridiculous. Losing the issue is 100% better than being pragmatic precisely because it allows the pro-lifer to live their life in a manner that is consistent with their guidepost -- religion. Religion serves as their moral compass. In many ways, these religious morals are consistent with the legal and pragmatic perspectives the less wrong community generally supports. When they diverge, the less wrong community looks to "rationality," the religious look to their religion. I believe a vast majority of religious folks are "subjectively rational." Objective rationality is rationality that can be proven correct. Subjective rationality is rationality that cannot be proven wrong. So long as you cannot prove there is no god (which you can't, sorry!), religious arguments, particularly ones that at its core are trying to preserve life (and embryos that result in life) will have my vote as subjectively rational. I note that most countries, paricularly the united states, were formed and flourished with religious laws carrying the day, at least from moral and personal perspective. This is not to sa
0drethelin
If they were pragmatic they would not be pro-life, the entire argument boils down to pragmatism versus deontological rules.
8Viliam_Bur
When discussing our opponents, it is easy to suggest that they should maximize their immediate utility. When discussing ourselves, it is easier to notice that maximizing immediate utility could have various negative long-term consequences. Maybe there are good game-theoretic reasons why pro-lifers should oppose what you suggest. For example, ranking one's values from least-bad to worst (and making the ranking generally known) could be a bad signalling move, if you really want to achieve them all in long run.
-4mwengler
Or the pro-lifers could go the other way, and require everybody between the ages of 14 and 41 who is sexually active to be assigned a new baby to take care of every two years. Or at least entered in to a lottery to be assigned a baby in case we run out of unwanted children after this policy is implemented. On its face pro-life seems to be anti-killing-fetus's. But I think the underlying morality is a belief that children ought to come from sex. As political statements go, I'm voting yours up because it chips away at anti-birth control sentiment. I don't like telling other people (pro-lifers in this case) how they "should" think, but I suspect that telling other people how they think IS the essence of a political statement! So given the constraints of political statements, I like yours!
7wedrifid
That doesn't follow. Do I need to sing the song?
2Petra
I'm with you on this one, and it ties in with a point that I have used several times in discussions about abortion, regarding why pro-lifers have done such a poor job thus far of accomplishing their goals. If a person truly believes that "life starts at conception" and that abortion is taking the life of a human being, a rational actor who values human life would take action to minimize the loss of life, correct? If the pro-life movement was doing this, they would be proposing options that would be palatable to a much greater portion of society than their current hard-line ideas, though it might still not be enough to get laws passed. They should be not just willing, but eager, to make concessions for rape and incest victims, and for cases in which the life of the mother is in danger. You can argue the slippery slope all you want, but the fact is, human beings are being killed (as they believe) while they stick to their guns.
2J_Taylor
Birth control pills are only as reliable as the people who take them. This intervention could very well cause an increase in abortion.
3Manfred
This seems reasonable. But it's based on the assumption that abortion-outlawing groups are acting in a particular goal-based way. And most of them are not. Instead, the laws reflecting their values have become goals in and of themselves - it's what the organizations exist for. This definitely leads to missed opportunities.
-1phonypapercut
Many forms of contraceptives are already free from non-profits. And they're pretty cheap otherwise. I don't think mandating that insurance cover contraceptives would affect their use very much.

I would make a list of specific fears; even though you said your fears were general, I'd bet that you probably have some fears that pop into your head. For example, list of all the fears you have about applying for a job. Then, if you have a close friend or family member, show them the list and ask them to evaluate the fears for you. That might help you to identify the unlikelyhood of something terrible happening; their advice might help you realize that a lot of your fears are unfounded or highly unlikely. And it might help you to figure out which fear... (read more)

This reminds me of an episode of The West Wing, where President Bartlett is inspired by Kennedy’s To the Moon speech, and decides that he wants to make a similar dramatic statement. In his case, it was to have a cure cancer in ten years. In my mind, curing cancer is similar, in intent at least, to universal healthcare—essentially, using medicine to help more people live longer, healthier lives. However, I think that curing a disease a disease or providing everyone with basic healthcare, while extremely beneficial to society, is not quite as inspirationa... (read more)

1kilobug
Interesting that you point to that, because in my own mind, when I want to think about the most spectacular achievements of humanity, my two first candidates are : "we walked on the moon" and "we eradicated smallpox". They are on pair to me, the glorious achievements of human minds overpowering Azathoth (gladly, Azathoth isn't fighting back). And a cure for cancer, along side with going to Mars or doing a permanent base on the Moon, would be the next step of those two achievements.

As much as you don't think school size matters, from personal experience, it can matter a lot. As you are interested in the sciences, I would recommend not attending one of the smaller colleges, even if they are top ranked (Haverford, Swarthmore, Amherst etc). If you look at their course curriculum, they don't have the number of students or resources to have a wide variety of upper level courses.

A larger research university, while it might have lower admissions standards, would have a much more diverse set of classes to choose from and more research op... (read more)

1Luke_A_Somers
Funny you mentioned Haverford and Swarthmore. If you go to either of those (or, for women, Bryn Mawr), you can take classes at either of the other two OR at the University of Pennsylvania - though this last option will cost a little extra in money and time, I knew more than a few people who went to UPenn to take courses on esoteric subjects. My first class at Haverford was at Bryn Mawr. Several Bryn Mawr students came to Haverford for the astronomy and particle physics courses, or music. Others went the other way, to take graduate math courses, or geology... So, if you would prefer somewhere small but want some not-exactly-standard option, check out whether a small college enables outside courses. That will expand their menu significantly.

It is encouraging avoidant behavior, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Given a job you don't want to do at work? See if someone will trade with you; they might not mind it so much. Assigned a task for what you consider a bad reason, like covering someone's a**? Come up with a more productive solution and try to convince your boss. Trying to "get out of something" isn't negative; sometimes it just means convinving others to use common sense or pooling your resources (time, effort) with someone else.

0aelephant
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking the time to re-frame it that way.

The Marine Corps has two maxims that I find useful in beating akrasia:

-If you can’t get out of it, get into it.

-False motivation is still motivation.

If you have to do something, you might as well find a way to make it fun (even if its a stupid way). Being ridiculously overenthusiastic about whatever it is you don't want to do is often enough to make the activity enjoyable. In the Marine Corps, this usually amounts to Marines yelling silly sounds at the top of their lungs or doing things as fast as they can or in a overly exaggerated manner, but I can attest to the fact that the maxims work well in the my rest of life too.

0aelephant
At 1st read the 1st maxim struck a cord in me. On 2nd thought, the 1st part, "if you can't get out of it", seems to be encouraging avoidant behavior. If I rephrased it to be more in line with my goals, it would be something like, "if you're doing it, get into it" but it doesn't sound as clever that way.

You are correct in that my number was wrong . I think the percentage of males increased (or females decreased) because 52% was the number that was always thrown around when I was in college (I went to a women's college so yes, it was thrown around quite a lot).

My number was about females in the US, not worldwide.

Maybe you could claim that men don't look down on men who date bimbos...But then again as Laurie6 pointed out, theres that pesky other 50.6% of the population that you are in fact including when you say we.

And based on personal experience, many women look down on men who date bimbos just as much they look down on men who date teenagers.

2TraderJoe
[comment deleted]
3wedrifid
In my observation both men and women are more likely to make some disapproving noises while for most practical purposes looking up to them.
0Desrtopa
Where does this 52% figure come from? I'm always hearing people attribute numerical majority status to women, but as far as I can find, it's the other way around.

Isn't it also not "hot and sunny" in the evening? Couldn't you run right before sundown, or in the dark with reflectors on streets with lights?

I am just asking because I had the same problem, until I realized that I just liked the idea of working out in the morning, not actually working out in the morning. I wanted to be one of those people who works out at the crack of dawn. By accepting that I am just not one of those people, and working out at lunch and in the evening, I am working out a lot more than when I kept telling myself that "t... (read more)

0Risto_Saarelma
I live up north, so when it's hot, the sun also stays up until 10 pm or so.

The study you quoted only seems to address if signing helped the child learn spoken word labels about certain toys.

The (possible) benefit of signing is that the child can communicate with you about whether they are hungry, thirsty, cold, hot, have a wet diaper, etc.--not about whether the child can name different toys. The study doesn't address whether or not sign language reduces frusteration in children or whether children can learn signs for how they feel faster or slower than they can learn the same spoken words.

2MartinB
== removing some frustration from the early childhood experience

I think that is a great setup for a home gym.

If you can afford it, I would also throw a kettlebell or some "under the door" pullup bars in there.

Or, on a separate note, a foam roller to help with muscle tightness and flexibility. I think its the best piece of athletic equipment I have ever bought. These are amazing and well worth it.

There is a reason boxers jump rope.

If you can, I would learn to do double unders...and then do a tabata of double unders. That should be a good workout.

I would consider regular jumping rope it in the same category doing intervals in running/swimming/biking, so that is how I would treat the workouts (at least, until you can do 5 mins without stopping). So while you are learning to do double unders, I would maybe just do 5-6 sets of regular jumping to a certain number so that the last 3 sets are very challenging. One or two sets won't cut it.

From my experience as a female lifter who trains with other females, females do not need to progress more slowly to get long term gains. 5 lb increases per week on a deadlift and every other week on the other exercises is very, very reasonable (possibly too reasonable) in non-skill based moves like these. Even females should be able to experience a few months of lifting heavier each time if they follow the weight increase guidelines here.

However, smaller females (less than 110lbs) or those who have never really worked out might need to start with a lig... (read more)

Long post--my apologies.

Background:

I have been trying for a while now to follow the paleo (or caveman) diet. I think the argument for the diet seems legitimate enough (or, I should say, I am not smart enough in those areas to disprove their argument). Additionally, there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence in favor of the diet, especially from people with auto-immune diseases, which I have. So for those two reasons, I have been trying to make it a permanent lifestyle change; what ends up happening is that I struggle through one week and rebound into... (read more)

0falenas108
I would recommend against eating the same foods for all 3 meals. Different foods have different nutrients, and you need them in different amounts. I would suggest having a set of meals that you cycle between instead.
0Richard_Kennaway
I'll be interested to see the eventual result. BTW, why yams and not potatoes? As far as I can see from Wikipedia, potatoes and yams (and sweet potatoes and oxalis tuberosa, also called yams) are pretty much interchangeable from the point of view of preparation and nutrition.

I have noticed the same thing about television, in particular with certain programs motivating me to go exercise.

I also noticed, however, that I had to be careful about when I watched TV, because the effect was so strong. Watching The Biggest Loser or youtube Crossfit videos (highly recommended) would get me so excited to workout that it started affecting my bedtime--namely that I wouldn't be able to go to sleep because I was so excited.

I found that I need to watch those programs at least three hours prior to my bedtime in order to be able to fall asleep. The end result is that I now only watch them on weekends or my lunch break.

0sixes_and_sevens
As luck would have it, I've also drastically cut down my caffeine intake recently, with the curious side-effect of giving me insomnia. I'm planning on taking up after-midnight jogging.

The Giver trilogy is age appropriate and well-written dystopian children's novel. I remember very distinctly that this was my first exposure to what seemed like a plausible future world. (I read this in 4th grade so it might be too easy. )

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would also be good; I read this in 6th grade and it was book that sparked my interest in sci-fi.

3Alicorn
The Giver is enjoyable, but it has this problem. The sequels are just bad. HHGTTG is good.
0Viliam_Bur
Finding a truth and selling the truth are two different processes, with different rules. So are you suggesting that in order to sell the truth we should remove ourselves from the suspicion that we are able to find it? If yes, then you are probably right. I suppose that when Eliezer writes his Sequence-book, he would sell thousand times more copies if he would put there an introduction stating something like: "These are the eternal truths which have been communicated to me in my dreams by an omniscient being from the seventh dimension. If you read this book and believe it, your soul will be blessed forever." And the rest of LessWrongians could put on some robes, go singing on streets, give people flowers and sell them the book. In this case, what exactly should a rationalist do?

How do you click more than one sequence, if you have read more than one of them? Shift and alt don't seem to be making a difference.

1iDante
They're radio buttons so you can't.

If you are concerned about time investment, let me state that most people can finish the book (and, in fact, do seem to finish the book) in 1-2 days.

Hi, I’m Brigid. I’ve been reading through the Sequences for a few weeks now, and am just about to start the Quantum Section (about which I am very excited). I found out about this site from an email the SIAI sent out. I’m an Signals Intelligence officer in the Marine Corps and am slated to get out of the military in a few months. I’m not too sure what I am going to do yet though; as gung-ho as I originally was about intel, I’m not sure I want to stay in that specific field. I was a physics and political science major in college, with a minor in women’... (read more)

7Eliezer Yudkowsky
Hi, Brigid! Pleased to have you here! Experience has shown that by far the best way to find out if anyone's interested in starting an LW group is to pick a meeting place, announce a meetup time, and see if anyone shows up - worst-case scenario, you're reading by yourself in a coffeeshop for an hour, and this is not actually all that bad.
5Shmi
Welcome! A warning: while the QM sequence in general is very readable and quite useful for the uninitiated, the many-worlds advocacy is best taken with a mountain of salt. Consider skipping the sequence on the first pass, and returning to it later, after you've covered everything else. It is fairly stand-alone and is not relevant to rationality in general.

1) Being compared to a poet in a forum that emphasizes logic is not a compliment; rather, it seems to be polite critique that implies that you present your ideas in a purposefully (and needlessly) confusing manner. 2) Your actual argument appears to be “actually doing something is better than just wishing you did something.” If you have somewhere interesting to go with this, very well, I’d be interested to hear it. But so far, it’s appears to be a cliché thought hidden in superfluous verbiage. 3) I am also new here, and I can readily identify that your initial post was nowhere near the standards of the articles under the Discussion tab, let alone the standards of the Main tab.

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply
7JGWeissman
Brigid, I think your heart is in the right place here, but at this point attempting to argue with the obvious troll is counterproductive. Shadowzerg's posts are being consistantly voted down enough to be hidden under default settings. That is what we should be doing. Responding to trolls just encourages to stick around. Ignore them and they will get bored and go away.

I grew up a practicing Quaker. While some Friends "pray" during Meeting (what we call church), others practice mindful meditation. So while I regularly practice what I believe qualifies as mindful meditation, I haven't been formerly trained. And also, what has worked for me in helping me learn how to focus, might not work for you; it has, however, worked for some of my friends, so it could at least help someone who reads this. In addition to daily meditation attempts, which are important even they are only for 5 minutes, it might be easier i... (read more)

0JulianMorrison
I have a strong suspicion that is not so - that the brain just chatters to itself, it's pareidolia operating on static hiss on the neurons.

While having a B.S. in physics will likely be sufficient to enter all those graduate fields, it doesn't (as was stated above somewhere) qualify you for a whole lot outside of applying to graduate programs--or impressing people in fields of mostly liberal arts majors. So be absolutely sure you are comfortable with going directly into a gradate program after college. There are very few "cool" jobs you can get with just the bachelors. Out of my graduating physics class, all but one went on to graduate programs. That one individual took a job doing something for a patent office.