All of Ixiel's Comments + Replies

Not much to add content wise but just to be one data point: I strongly agree and have talked about it with exactly one person. I have no plans to advance the position openly and proactively, largely for reasons stated, but would quietly and strongly support efforts to that end should I become aware of them.

As I've put it to my friend: the worst day for a transcendent AI to emerge is the week after I would die and the best day is the week before. We then argue over where "tomorrow" fits on that spectrum

Absolutely. Most common similar I've seen is buy-a-brick campaigns but I like the idea of doing things a little differently

Thanks, just what I sought and quite timely. I appreciate that.

I'm good for the $1k. I'll put a check in the mail (swipe fees are the devil) and keep an eye out for future opportunities

If I were near a computer any time soon I probably would have mindlessly e-mailed but on reflection posting is probably better in this culture anyway. I have a few questions and notes. For what it's worth, some of these points would have me walk right on from an organization I'm moderately positive toward. LW exceeds that level for me

1. I've been a casual LW fan off and on for a while, probably over a decade (friend introduced me to The Sequences either shortly after or shortly before completion) and this is the first time I've heard of Lightcone. A li

I look forward to hearing them

Are you saying depression is like pessimism, in the above quote? If so, are you saying they are not in fact different, or are you making a claim I'm missing about the difference?

Also sorry for the premature send if that is externally perceptible

How is ""Depression is just contentment with a bad attitude" false exactly?

I'm not trying to claim its true or sport defend flat earth style. I truly believe it's different.

But back in Covid and even early aftermath I remember so often thinking "There's no reason to go out because we're all so happy at home that out likely wont be any better" which I eventually noticed is awfully similar to "There's no reason to go out because I'm so unhappy out that out likely won't be any better." Seemed like a possible window into others' lived experience.

Not really a... (read more)

Heh, we get so caught up in one path we forget others sometimes don't we? That's a great idea. Thanks!

It seems to not be sending me the reset e-mail. I requested twice last night, separated by five minutes. I'll PM Hab, just in case the system forgot my e-mail address, but still a problem if so that there is no message to that effect.

ETA: Multiple messages sent with no reply. Shall I assume this project is no longer going forward?

Metaphor makes sense; I'dn't thought of that. Thanks!

Thanks! That accords with what people have said and with reason better than the former reigning champion.

Sorry for delay; was at a wedding. When I start typing comments on my phone the submit button disappears, so I can only comment from my computer, and I'm trying to avoid thumbs until they fix the asymmetry.

How do folks use the term "bullying" these days? (links to dictionaries will be ignored)

When I was a kid it was simple: child on child violence. Then people started using it for just word stuff without real physical harm, then for adults, then with an implication of warranting the enforcement of authorities to stop...

I get the impression it's currently either used as "being mean in any sense one could perceive" broadly or "being mean in a way we should get people with some form of authority to force people to stop" but I don't know which, or which is closer, and the ambiguity is enough to change real meaning.

It appears so. I sometimes sleep past sunrise since retiring, but I almost never did when I worked at the bank.

All in all, mission success, priors updated :)

To me, yes. I don't personally know many adults who stay up into the double digits more than occasionally, but it was brought to my attention that does not exactly mirror the global situation.

Meant college, if one went to college, and whatever schooling one had if not.

College kids staying up into the double digits every night for parties and/or homework is not really what I was wondering about.

Of people who are more than two years out of school: What was your average bed time last week?

[pollid:1177]

I've heard more grown adults stay up extremely late than I'd assumed. First time trying to do a poll; there may well be errors.

If only we could concurrently disable comments that detract from the reader ;) Any estimate how long until this is fixed?

I was not aware of the pod making process. I thought there was opportunity for something to be lost in the process, like how pepper is stronger freshly ground &c.

I'd still read a study, but that updates my baseline probabilities. Thanks!

I do.

I don't know why there would or wouldn't be; but if there is I'd brew more and pod less.

My intuition, which I do not find reliable for closing issues but sometimes opens good ones, is that brewed might be better. If there's a study I could close the issue one way or the other. Do you have evidence one way or the other?

Has anybody seen a good study on the health benefits of brewed versus pod based coffee?

My GP and I agree intuitively it seems brewed should be better but neither of us knew of an actual study (though to be fair my Google fu is very weak and she hadn't researched and came up wanting, just didn't have one on the top of her head)

Just one point of data: I kept a spreadsheet when I lost 59 pounds in 96 days. I had values for my personal base burn as a function of current weight and per task (usually a rower and hiking), and a daily deficit of 2000 calories correlated fairly well with a daily loss of .55 pounds (in round numbers; I don't want to sound like the proverbial economist with a sense of humor. I also went over some and under some, used nutritional labels and activity estimates that rounded to the nearest 10, &c.)

I was not scientifically rigorous so grain of salt, b... (read more)

Out of baked beans?

Yeah, that's a good tool if you have it. Of course, I would still have to convince the spokesman. Though I'm not trying to sell that the aliens and gods made the moon out of green cheese so it's not too hard there.

That's a good point; sorry for the ambiguity.

I believe my point to be correct and want myself and my interlocutor to agree on the correct answer. Therefore I want both: If we both reach a truth that is not my prior belief, that's a win, and if I get my interlocutor to agree with a true point that's a win. If I'm right and fail to get agreement that is a loss, and if I am wrong and get agreement, that is a greater loss.

So basically: I'm greedy. Answers to both questions please :)

This is exactly the kind of thing I meant. Thank you for the reply!

You're quite right of course. I'll probably do both, point out the invalid argument AND have a rock solid argument of my own. Thank you for your input.

Yeah, for want of a specific book counter that's what I figured. But I figured if there WERE a book method to bypass that this is the community that would know, and it'd be worth knowing. Thanks anyway.

Yeah, we have "Code Blue Saratoga" in the winter (branding, nothing to do with respiration) to provide extra shelter to the homeless when it gets below a certain temperature, so temperature is a factor.

It's actually quite a bit overfunded (charity, not taxes). I really hope it moves into some other ways to serve the people it's there to serve, even if not exactly in the way intended. I don't expect a "Red Cross didn't give my disaster relief check to the right disaster!" outcry here. Food is pretty much at equilibrium, but there might be some comfort items possible.

Overcoming Eager Evidence

Does anyone know any good way to make a point that one believes is true on its own merits but clearly benefits the speaker or is easier for the speaker?

Suppose a poor person is saying we should all give more money to poor people, are there ways to mitigate the effect of “You're only saying that to benefit yourself” beyond either finding someone else without that perceived (and likely actual, but maybe less than perceived) bias or just taking the hit and having a strong enough case to overwhelm that factor?

Hmm, that's interesting data, thanks. None of that is true in my nearest city but that in no way proves it's not the norm. If a person is actually mentally incompetent you're probably quite right, and organized crime could be a wrench in a lot of systems if it's organized enough.

Though maybe economics should - if you'll forgive the allusion - remove the log from its own eye first, and maybe then if it has any spare juice move on to solving health care problems and law enforcement problems. I haven't given this enough thought to be sure about it, but it's a thought.

Oh I'm not worried. I was just saying I had assumed that it was that and missed the signal for the noise and might have picked up that I was making a mistake earlier if I hadn't. Though when "Thanks for your help" gets downvoted... maybe it's not zero effect :)

It's like when I waited tables. I don't think I'm alone here, but when I got a bad tip, as long as I didn't pour coffee on the customer's lap, there was only one reason for a bad tip. The customer was a cheap bastard of course. Might be why I never stopped being a very bad waiter until I stopped being a waiter :)

I hadn't thought of that, good point. It still rings of the best example I have, but maybe not by as much. I have zero experience with actual people dying on actual streets so I use what I've got.

Yeah, I hope if experiments are done they're done well. A half-baked experiment could easily do more harm than good.

Thanks again In; this definitely answers a question about which I was curious.

Why do you think so? What I've seen from GiveDirectly and the conversations I've had with poor people don't bear this out. I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have factual support for this I could see?

Amen, and amen, and amen. I agree with everything you say here and consider none of it refutation.

Fresh eyes: I fell into a trap here. "Because I plan on doing some more serious campaigning for a more aggressive GBI (among other things) " was poorly phrased, and I fell into a pattern of defending it. I focused there because it seemed the nearest point of contact to this community. My intent was largely to dodge answering questions about my actual thesis because I'm not public with it yet.

In doing so, I sound like a bad parrot of all the o... (read more)

Just genetic lottery. My family owns a chain of convenience stores in upstate NY, and after some time in banking I decided I'd prefer not to work any more. I am writing a book, but I don't feel comfortable calling myself an author until I publish it.

I'm comfortable talking about it as long as I don't feel like I'm being perceived as bragging about something over which I have no control (which is stupid, and which I see in other people all the time)

1a. I don't think that follows. I'm not saying people should work according to their ability, but that on the whole, the output humanity will have anyway will run the world. As time goes by, we can and have gotten more inequality, and by some measure I saw once (citation needed, but I'm preparing to host a party soon. Delaying not deferring) the achievements of some group of say 100 people have done more than the rest of the world put together. I do not think most of them were in it to keep body and soul together, but more research is needed.

1b. Mo... (read more)

1. Well I have a much longer argument for this in the book, but I propose that the amount of work people will do because they want to is more than enough to run society. 40h per person per week (ish) is, in my view, largely makework.

2. Of course.
   The markets have a major confound, imo, in the form of pro-job policy. I believe, and I have some support for this but not enough to prove the point yet, that if "jobs creation" did not occur as a political activity, the market would normalize below the level people would produce without, again using the provocative language descriptively not manipulatively, the lingering threat of dying of want.

Right on. Thanks!

Because I plan on doing some more serious campaigning for a more aggressive GBI (among other things) than what a lot of people advocate. I plan on making the case that there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone deciding to just live off the dole and not work, and that people who choose that are often more in the way of people making progress than helping them when they show up to clock hours. I also plan to assert that people who don't have to work, effectively on penalty of death if I want to sound dramatic, will have a better wheat/chaff ratio for ... (read more)

Thanks for that Vil. I accept these benefits, and agree that there might be a better way, but it's always good to know what issues are likely to occur to one.

Thanks for that Walter. I feel like I have a sense of this phenomenon (I retired at 33 and was expecting to be WAY more bored and less satisfied than I am), and am very interested in a full study (I haven't found it; any of y'all run psychological studies for money?), but I hear more stories like yours than the alternative.

Were you looking for employment, or were you on the fence between retirement and a break? Knowing you have to go back eventually might be a factor.

Yeah, even scrolling up to my own comment, referring to NY as a "mostly rural state" only works since in most cases with which I interact, the NYC residents don't count as TRUE Scottsmen... ;)

Edit to comment on link also: Wow, that is definitely NOT the data I remember. Older, but still. Thanks for that. It all started in a stockholders' meeting for my family's business (employing 2500-7500 people largely in what this report calls the capital district depending how you count) so motivation for bad data is not hard to identify. This year's meeting is in a few weeks and I'll definitely be bringing this up. Thanks as usual.

I suppose that makes sense. Still raises my heart rate when I hear it, but that's my problem not the speaker's, and I'll defer to people with more experience on propriety.

Mentally challenged person. I wonder if it's considered less offensive among people who use etymologically similar words, like firemen (flame retardant) or biologists (to retard growth.)

Like for me, "faggot" is not in my calling-people-it vocabulary - AT ALL; I know like five gay people, all of whom cool, one of whom my uncle, and of none of whom am I afraid, so please don't think I'm homophobic - but in hearing others' reactions it seems to be more offensive to people who collect less firewood. If the 'n' word were also a day to day common noun, I wonder if I would be more okay using it demonstratively even with such an evil history.

Update: Gov's office didn't dig up the study. On facts in evidence, including a closer look at whatall is included in Manhattan, my most plausible explanation is that the study results were not what I remember, whether that was misdirection or misremembering. Even though I could see a case for the tax draws being even bigger, it doesn't overcome the prima facie implausibility.

Thanks for the update; "it ain't what you don't know but what you know that ain't so that kills ya," as I've seen attributed to Twain (but every quote has been attributed to Twain so grain of salt)

It's somewhere a little below the 'n' word or the 'r' word, but above "douchebag" or "liberal." As one might imagine, it doesn't come up much. And again, I was commenting on how it feels from the inside, not on how it looks to the audience.

I see similarities, but the differences are useful too. Thanks for the reply.

I've self-identified as three of those things as the same person (retired, housewife, and independently wealthy ("trust fund kid" feels like I'd imagine the 'n' word feels to a black man or "faggot" to a gay one. Pretty unoffendable myself, but just fyi) )as full disclosure.

If I find the study I want, I'll let you know. Thanks for the help!

Oh? I was thinking of a study I saw and lost, but differences in benefits to those groups sound fascinating to me also. I would not have guessed the answer to be all that different, again net of pay. I won't ask you to run me a free study (but if you want to... ;) ) but do you have any basic ideas on the matter philosophically?