My father, who is quite successful and I at the higher end of the rationality scale, was at one point very heavily involved with Landmark (he may still be, I've never brought it up). During the time I lived with him as a teenager, I often wouldn't see him most weeknights until 10 or 11 PM, because he was off doing some Landmark related activity or another.
I still don't know exactly what he got out of Landmark, aside from having met his wife there (which is certainly a big gain). After much pressure from him, I eventually went to a version of the Forum desi...
Oh, hey there! Nice to know I'm not completely alone here.
Are you sure Diaspora should be marked Easy?
I tried to get a fairly intelligent, friend who's interested in science (generally, not necessarily any specific domains covered in the book) to read it and she gave up within about half an hour.
I (a layman, but well-acquainted with the set of singularitarian memes that the book draws from) found that trying to visualize the physics made my head hurt, even with the accompanying illustrative java applets at the author's website.
It also might be valuable to link to those (there are probably some for Permutation Cit...
I know this is quite late to the party, but you really ought to. Add a dose of cynicism that would make Robin Hanson blush to your post and you'd have a good plot summary of it.
My girlfriend dislikes Twilight as much as I do, but I have some other friends that might be interested in that.
Well, she has had depression issues and was going through a pretty rough period -- our relationship was stressed (largely on account of it being long-distance at the time, with her in Colorado and me in Utah); she was under a lot of stress (finals in the senior year of her bachelor's degree, which is the reason for the previous long-distance); medical problems that, being an uninsured student, she really had no way to pay for; and we were scrambling to find an apartment and get everything ready for her imminent move to live with me. I had just recently rea...
While I don't think these are entirely serious (but if they are, that's pretty awesome too!), I'd definitely love to see some posts on interpersonal relationships from a rationalist perspective. My own attempts at easing my girlfriend gently in (with Alicorn's Luminosity sequence, which I think is about as gentle an introduction to some LW principles as you can get) was an unambiguous disaster; and this is with someone who expressed interest in increasing her rationality when we met.
Even if your story is not directly relevant, I'm sure there's useful information in there for anyone who would like to be able to have a happy relationship and think clearly at the same time.
(edited for formatting)
I've never interested a girlfriend in the art of rationality per se, but I've persuaded several to think more rationally about some of their current problems by (1) demonstrating unconditional affection, and (2) taking baby steps.
By unconditional affection, I mean that nothing was riding on their attempt to think rationally in terms of my approval or feelings toward them -- they knew that I would still really like them even if they totally failed to think rationally or solve the problem du jour. This lowers stress to the point where learning new behaviors...
My own attempts at easing my girlfriend gently in (with Alicorn's Luminosity sequence, which I think is about as gentle an introduction to some LW principles as you can get) was an unambiguous disaster;
I would be interested in hearing more details about your experience. I'll bet that a lot of people here are wondering how to go about doing the same thing with their significant others. Hearing about attempts that didn't work could help others find more success.
Hello! I am 27, live in Salt Lake City (I suspect it's unnecessary here of all places, but I will reflexively add the caveat that I am not Mormon), and work in software QA. Came here from Overcoming Bias, which I've been reading since it's early days. At this point a lot of the higher level stuff is quite a bit over my head, but things like Alicorn's luminosity sequence and various anti-akrasia topics are pretty interesting to me.
Haruhi fanfiction by Eliezer? You, sir, just delivered Christmas a few days early.
Agreed, definitely. While I've found that Eliezer's posts, in general, have given me a general sense of thinking more clearly, but beyond enjoying that I haven't been able to make much use. I'm reminded of Robin's posts on marginal medical spending, which leave me thinking "OK, I'm convinced... what am I actually supposed to do about this?"
I started playing very early (around Legends) and quit around Ice Age; this was the standard belief at that time too. Of course, we didn't really have the internet anyway. Winning decks occasionally got published in magazines, but the resources simply weren't there for netdecking to be an issue. I suspect as it became easier and easier it moved from taboo to the norm. When I initially played, I never would have thought of buying a premade deck; now I can pick up any of the ones that are sold and have a fun game with them, without any of the commitment that caused me to quit, and the deck will be better than one I could make myself.
Salt Lake City. Seems we're the entire mountain time delegation.
I find the right-alignment of the "continue reading>" link makes it extremely easy to miss. My eye is scanning left to right, so once I don't see something below the last line on the left I typically go to the next post. (Once I happened to notice it, I was able to keep a lookout for it, but if it was left aligned and maybe down a line, I suspect it would be a lot easier to see.)
I'd be surprised if you didn't.
I had Thanksgiving dinner with friends, rather than family, as I like to do that every few years. Hours after we'd eaten, and had decided it was time to start toasting, one of our hosts offered up a retroactive prayer: "Dear God, we made this food ourselves, with no help from you. Go to hell and die."
The temptation to create a Wikipedia article for "Sentences Eliezer Yudkowsky has published containing the term 'huragaloni' as of Feb 4, 2008" is very strong, but I will resist.
Google found the actual meanings of "the goose hangs high" (the future looks good), and the reason it means that (there is a goose in the larder, therefor you will not starve), and "to go by the board" (to be completely destroyed or overthrown), but not the reason behind it. What do "to come an uncle over someone" and "to lay out in lavender" mean?
The news of these posts being raw material for a book brightens my day. For some weeks, I've been contemplating making a simple page to show all of the posts Eliezer has made here, and the relationships between them. I may still do that, pending the publication of the blook, as my thinking processes have been changed for the better and I'd like to share that with others.
Would there be any interest in holding these further south? I'm in downtown SLC, without a car, but am otherwise interested.