All of ITakeBets's Comments + Replies

Ok, look, I get that you are trying hard to be a good person, and that's great, but you're not doing such a great job of it right now. And I think that's kind of the crux here: You've somehow gotten the idea that being a Good Person automatically makes you good at it, or should, whatever that means.

You say that you like helping people. I identify with that. I like helping people too. But all that really tells you is how I get my jollies, you know? Other people are not obliged to give me said jollies by being helped, and they may have good reasons not to. ... (read more)

Any model makes some inaccurate predictions but models can retain utility despite significant propensities for inaccuracy. Inaccurate predictions aid the choice of models for future predictions. Because of this, the central scientific problem in the computational study of the MBH mechanism is not the inaccuracy of the predictions. Rather, it is the absence of any particular prediction at all.

--R. Erik Plata and Daniel A. Singleton, A Case Study of the Mechanism of Alcohol-Mediated Morita Baylis-Hillman Reactions. The Importance of Experimental Observations.

Data: pretty much all male Hollywood stars wear (natural-looking) makeup whenever they appear on camera.

Ask your female hetero friends if Tim Curry was hot in Rocky Horror.

I wear makeup regularly (I am a lady). "Light" makeup usually means natural-looking and easy to apply. The highest-yield stuff would be something to make your skin look smooth and even (foundation, tinted moisturizer or BB creme), something to make your lips pretty (gloss looks natural and is easy to apply although lipstick is longer-lasting and less sticky), and maybe a little eye makeup (this is easier to screw up but not really that hard; start with drugstore mascara and eyeliner pencil and consult Youtube if you want to take it any further). ... (read more)

How does it look like with American eyes - completely fake? Or normal?

It looks like a very exaggerated version of one particular America. There are shops that sell this kind of merchandise in the Western US, but they sell as much to tourists as to folks who actually dress like this.

What you need to understand is that there is more than one distinctively American subculture in the US. In particular, there are at least two major poor, rural, white American cultures: the high-religiosity country music culture, and the low-religiosity rock/metal culture. Th... (read more)

I think the only thing that would satisfy me is a legitimate excuse for Voldemort to leave Harry armed. Anything short of that, you may as well leave it as-is for historical reasons.

Yes, thanks, this has been discussed elsewhere. (That said I'll repeat the request to avoid disrespect or patronizingly phrased advice.)

I'm posting here on behalf of Brent Dill, known here and elsewhere as ialdabaoth-- you may have enjoyed some of his posts. If you read the comments at SSC, you'll recognize him as a contributor of rare honesty and insight. If you'd had the chance to talk with him as much as I have, you'd know he's an awesome guy: clever, resourceful, incisive and deeply moral. Many of you see him as admirable, most as relatable, some as a friend, and more, I hope, as a member of our community.

He could use some help.

Until last Thursday he was gainfully employed as a web dev... (read more)

Above observe downvotes making things worse

I'd agree that it's a two-edged sword, but 1) Keeping standards high is not our only goal, and being welcoming is good for other purposes, and 2) I think there are better ways to be unwelcoming to low-quality people that cause less collateral unwelcomingness to good people.

Downvotes are bad. They decrease trust and cause defection spirals. I am confident that the existence of downvotes makes the community less enjoyable, less welcoming and less productive on net.

That said, I'm not sure we should do anything to punish people using them in an extra-bad way.

Actually, regardless of the reason, they just say that "no suitable donor is available." If pressed, they say they never release potential donors' medical information to recipients, for confidentiality and to protect donors from coercion.

there doesn't have to be any connection with us

Comments mention HPMoR, and letter writer says he read it aloud to her. The Modafinil use is also circumstantial evidence.

It appears the letter writer is in or from Sydney, Australia. Does this ring a bell to any Sydney LWers?

So... What do we make of this?

Excerpt:

He is a rationalist who is deeply against living by social norms and just sees them as defaults, and is “non-default” about pretty much everything including work path, values etc., as well as lifestyle including cooking (lives off takeaway so as not to spend time grocery shopping and cooking), cleaning (does not have much of a regular cleaning habit – I broke glass in his kitchen a month ago and he said I shouldn’t have to clean it up and it’s still there), sleeping (he has no regular sleep schedule and sleeps when h

I'm a 30-year-old first-year medical student on a full tuition scholarship. I was a super-forecaster in the Good Judgment Project. I plan to donate a kidney in June. I'm a married polyamorous woman.

These schools tend not to do as well in placements for residencies.

This is a significant understatement-- ~95% of US MD students match into residencies; for foreign grads it's around 50% and likely to fall further. Don't go to med school abroad if you want to practice in the US.

Incidentally, I've just started med school in the US on a full tuition scholarship and am willing to answer questions related to admissions.

I would suggest forums.studentdoctor.net but honestly anyone who has found SDN is probably in pretty good shape as far as medical school admissions advice goes.

Q: Why are Unitarians lousy singers? A: They keep reading ahead in the hymnal to see if they agree with it.

I am breaking my "only comment on LW if you expect some benefit" rule because I am in a somewhat unique position to comment on this, and I agree with Eliezer that "penalizing people for sounding certain or uppity or above-the-status-you-assign-them can potentially lead you to ignore people who are actually competent". See, I made this update at an earlier time under not-dissimilar circumstances. (In short, I thought ArisKatsaris was making an overconfident prediction about HPMoR, bet against him, and lost.)

An excerpt from my journal, 3/... (read more)

I see someone here has downvoted Thomas. I sincerely hope it was because that person knew penicillin is not effective against M. tb. If so, high five, downvoter! (Thomas: streptomycin.)

I'm teaching some classes for a test prep company in a town 2 hours away. They're paying me fairly for my expenses and travel time, but it still feels like kind of a waste-- it's like 20 hours a week! Of course most productive things cannot safely be done while driving, but listening is a notable exception.

Can anyone recommend some good educational podcasts, or other free downloadable audio that will make me better in some way? I'm working on learning Spanish, so that seems like a good place to start.

On Wednesday they awarded me a scholarship covering full in-state tuition, making them probably my least expensive option (since it's easy to establish residency for tuition purposes in Ohio after a year or two). It's an excellent program, but moving would be hard and Columbus is cold and far from both our families.

I participate and was invited the first season to be a super-forecaster in the second. It is kind of a lot of work and I have been very busy, so I really quit doing anything about it at all pretty early on, but mysteriously have been invited to participate again in the third season.

Thanks, your advice more or less coincides with what I was planning up until Ohio State confused me again. I certainly have not ruled out international medicine and nonprofit work as some part of my career, but I don't see that any of the schools that has accepted me has a clear advantage on that front.

I plan on a career in patient care. I will almost certainly do research in medical school, but based on past experience I don't expect to find it extremely compelling or to be extraordinarily good at it. Money concerns me if only for philanthropic purposes. The field that interests me most now (infectious disease) does not pay especially well, but I have decided that I really should seriously consider more lucrative paths that might let me donate enough to save twice as many lives in the developing world.

Both schools seem to have pretty solid clinical trai... (read more)

Thank you!

I had just about settled on UF when I was suddenly struck with SERIOUS FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS as Ohio State, the highest-ranked school that accepted me, offered me a scholarship covering full in-state tuition. Ohio is quite easy to establish residency in, so I'd probably only be out of pocket the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for the first year, but of course I'd have to move, and we'd be far from both our families.

I put together a spreadsheet taking into account the cost of moving, transportation costs, estimated change in r... (read more)

Fair question. It seems that compensation is determined largely by what Medicare/insurance companies are willing to pay for procedures etc. I believe unfilled fellowship spots aren't really a problem in any field, but the highest-paying subspecialties attract the most applicants. For example, cardiologists are very well-compensated, and cardiology fellowships are among the most competitive.

Ok, I agree that's probably good advice in general. I've tried to avoid premature closure throughout the process of making this career change, but I'll explicitly list some third options when I journal tonight. The bulk of my probability mass is in these two schools, though, so I am especially interested in advice that would help me choose between them.

Do you have one in mind? Or are you just advising against medical school, and if so, why?

Request for advice:

I need to decide in the next two weeks which medical school to attend. My two top candidates are both state universities. The relevant factors to consider are cost (medical school is appallingly expensive), program quality (reputation and resources), and location/convenience.

Florida International University Cost: I have been offered a full tuition scholarship (worth about $125,000 over four years), but this does not cover $8,500/yr in "fees" and the cost of living in Miami is high. The FIU College of Medicine's estimated yearly... (read more)

Anybody on here ever sold eggs (female human gametes)? Experiences? Advice on how best to do it?

If anyone else wants me to I'll probably have time to put something together next month (I'd need to reread the books). I'm not sure there's enough material for a whole sequence though. I don't remember Mansfield Park as very promising, and once you've said "generalizing from fictional evidence" you're probably pretty much done with Northanger Abbey.

Well, for starters, Austen was mainly concerned with making good decisions about whom to marry, which for women of her time, place and class was by far the most important thing to worry about ever-- their husbands all but owned them, and divorce was punishable by shunning. If there was an 80,000 Hours for young ladies in Regency England, it would have been called "400,000 hours" or maybe "Literally the Rest of your Life or Until the Bastard Dies," and Jane Austen would have been its founder. People who think Austen wrote romance novels ... (read more)

fighting pride and prejudice

Jane Austen is kind of already "rationalist fiction".

I agree, but it may be that the best way to accomplish that end, or at least the route Chekhov has taken, is actually to make wise observations. If we are capable, as a culture, of sometimes recognizing writers whose observations are indeed wise, who help us to simulate the experiences of other people, or better possible selves, with high fidelity, then good literature is probably worth a look. That has been my experience, at least. (Another reason to enjoy reading bleak stories might be an aesthetic appreciation for the beauty of the language, for example.)

A corrective has historically been the concept of good literature. See for example George Eliot, Anton Chekhov, etc.

Reading Anton Chekhov's stories, one feels oneself in a melancholy day of late autumn, when the air is transparent and the outline of naked trees, narrow houses, greyish people, is sharp. Everything is strange, lonely, motionless, helpless. The horizon, blue and empty, melts into the pale sky, and its breath is terribly cold upon the earth, which is covered with frozen mud. The author's mind, like autumn sun, shows up in hard outline the mo

Thanks! That's the one.

I'm trying to find a short story about a guy who has a brain tumor as a kid, receives a high-tech immunological treatment which cures his cancer but turns out to destroy his ability to experience pleasure, and ends up being able to configure his own preferences. Written by a dude, no idea who, probably pretty recently. Help?

At the risk of escalating the Meta War, I think "be specific" and "be concrete" are themselves too general and abstract to engender good exercises. They look more like "do algebra" than "factor a polynomial". Not that you wouldn't get some interesting responses if you said, "We need ideas for teaching how to do algebra," but most of them probably wouldn't make students better at factoring a polynomial-- analogously, I like the "teach me to sharpen a pencil" game, and it would make a fun and striki... (read more)

Please PM paypal info.

I will take this bet, with the following stipulations:

• I'm putting up $30 against your $70.
• If Harry merely mentions the debt, you don't win-- it must be a significant part of the solution. (If necessary, "significant" can be decided by a mutually agreed-upon third party.)
• If Eliezer congratulates you for thinking of a better solution than Harry's, you don't win.
• If for some reason Mitchell doesn't vouch for me, no one owes anyone anything.

Your concern is reasonable. The only person on these forums who has any reason to trust me with money is Mitchell_Porter. Would his word be sufficient?

Bet?

How sure are you?

Thank you.

I am interested.

Edit: Putting up $100, regardless of anyone else's participation, and I'm prepared to demonstrate that I'm not Will_Newsome if that is somehow necessary.