(nods) So, would you rather know what it is now, so you can either be content at having achieved your goal or know how much you have to increase it by to achieve your goal? Or would you rather remain ignorant?
I don't know if this helps, but I felt the same way, and took the Mensa entrance test to find out my IQ. Turns out that they don't actually give you the results, just tell you if you've entered ... and at the moment, that's satisfied my desire to know without feeling unhappy it's not high enough.
5A1987dM
What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.
One of the main criticisms of MBTI is actually its lack of reliability - that is, its lack of consistency from test to test. MBTI in general is rubbish and when I talk about personality tests or correlations, it's always Big Five or some other decent test.
I don't think LWers collaborate to write the survey (correct me if I'm wrong, though)...please don't generalize the decisions of a small group to the entire community.
Edit: Oh, sorry, didn't realize you were the OP. lol. So you wouldn't know...and I'm not sure either.
Well, given that LW is/was* predominantly appealing to STEM-types, with a focus on computer science-y topics (artificial intelligence), decision theory etc., it's no wonder that the gender gap here reflects the gender gap in e.g. computer science colleges:
Edit: * "was" because Harry Potter!
Sort of. The main thing is identifying a situation that will trigger a behavior. For example, whenever I notice I'm the least bit confused, I say out loud "I notice I am confused." This is an atomic action that I can do out of habit, and which will make me much more likely to follow up on the confusion. Oftentimes, this will be something like saying "event is on Saturday the 25th," and then noticing that Saturday isn't the 25th. This is something I really ought to get to the bottom of, because thinking the event is on the wrong day will lead to missing the event, which is totally preventable at this point if I notice my confusion.
Most people have defaults against noticing this sort of thing, though (I know I definitely did, even knowing a lot of decision science and about baises). Having a specific plan of action makes it way easier to react the right way in the moment, and having a workaround for one bias is better than knowing about twenty biases.
This is a better approach, I think, but I'm leery of recommending it because enough people have trouble reading through the sequences one time that suggesting it two times seems like asking too much.
Aha — it seems the extension you suggested is Adblock Plus (lowercase b), whereas I had been using an unrelated one called AdBlock (capital B, no "Plus"). I've now switched and the YouTube ads seem to be gone!
Note: the post talks about priming research. I made the following comment there:
In general, a lot of research on priming is statistically dubious. There are a few robust findings, but there's also a lot of stuff that doesn't hold up under closer examination.
I applaud your pragmatic response to ridiculous social pressure.
1noahpocalypse
I also prefer bare feet, though to a lesser extent. I hate wearing just socks, but I don't mind wearing worn tennishoes that bend easily.
5A1987dM
It's not like your username sounds obviously feminine either, so how confident you are about whether a given user (except the obvious ones, say lukeprog or NancyLebovitz) is male or female?
But yes, according to the last survey, only around 10% of the people here are women, and even fewer among the most prolific contributors.
3Vaniver
Welcome!
Have you tried out Vibrams? I have found them to be a delightful shoe replacement.
That feeling will fade as you read and do more. I do want to call back to something you said earlier, though:
This is where you want to end up; it's one thing to talk a good game about biases, and another to understand them on the five second level. While reading through the sequences, it's helpful to try to turn the epiphanies into actions or reactions, rather than just abstract knowledge.
If you are interested in putting your programming skills to work on rationality education, you might want to get to know some people at CFAR; there are a number of useful things that could exist but don't yet because no one has programmed them. (Here's an example of one of the useful things that does exist.)
1Said Achmiz
Welcome to Less Wrong!
I don't have much else to say, except that several of your "traits that normal people find weird" are ones I share:
I've been approaching that view myself, more and more, but I don't think I've seen this talked about much here (not directly, anyway; a lot of the "Dark Arts" / manipulation discussions are applicable, though). I think it would be cool if you wrote a post or two about your thoughts on this issue. (And/or linked to any related blog posts you might have, if you're willing.)
Agreed.
Also agreed. This view, I think many people here share.
Yes, my family has a similar reaction to the idea of not voting.