All of Liriodendron's Comments + Replies

Congrats, we've just solved alignment! The AI now wants to know whether we want our utopia optimized in a way that accounts for dragons or not.

4mako yass
It's a lot easier to work through that after you have superintelligent AI. (Everything is.)

Hopefully you're joking. Given the common (average?) reaction of two days of feeling flu-like and feverish after Covid vaccination, not to mention people who predictably react worse than average, I can think of a lot of times I'd rather schedule that sadly worthwhile experience than the first two days of an international trip.

2Nathan Helm-Burger
Yes, the ideal tech would be configured to not have a noticeable effect on those already current on all recommended vaccines. So it would only be noticable at all if your neglected your vaccinations.

I am a fan of combined bus + bike + right turn lanes. But I say this as a bicyclist and motorist, not a bus user.

The benefit to bicyclists is that we get a real full-width lane to bike in the center of, without much traffic. This provides generous distance from debris on the right, and from traffic in the lane to the left, as well as optimal sight lines to and from traffic at intersections. And bus drivers are more courteous, attentive, and law-abiding than the average motorist. I have never had a problem using the full lane ahead of a bus.

However, after r... (read more)

Answer by Liriodendron10

My understanding is that rapid antigen test positives indicate high viral load, especially if the line is darker rather than lighter. So I would expect her to still be significantly contagious.

Being symptomless does help prevent transmission some, since she won't be coughing or blowing her nose. But regular talking, and to a lesser extent breathing, are often enough to transmit it.

You didn't ask this, but if I were you and I wanted her to be able to still visit while minimizing risks, I would consider some or all of the following:

  • Having her sleep alone

... (read more)

As a gardener, a simple rain meter like this one has been a useful tool I found in recent years. AcuRite 5" Capacity Easy-to-Read Magnifying Acrylic, Blue (00850A2) Rain Gauge https://a.co/d/iRd0phK

Weather forecasts will often predict how many inches of rain are probably coming, but it's surprisingly hard to find records after the fact of how much rain actually fell. So you might not know, especially if the rain falls at night or when you're out of the house.

Knowing whether we got 0.1 inches or 1 inch of rain can make a difference in my watering plans.

A so... (read more)

Most fads, including moral ones, readily admit that previous versions were suboptimal. If anything, the more rapidly changing the style, the more virtuous the ones who can keep up look.

(FWIW, I do think better masks would have provided more protection for less suffering than other preventative measures. In the absence of state-mandated good masks, I wish the social pressure had been there to make good masks trendy.)

3ChristianKl
The lack of social pressure for better masks and the lack of government mandates for stronger makes are two different topics. Most moral fads work in a decentral way where an individual who has an idea of how to signal a value in a stronger way can start the trend. A moral trend about the virtues of following government edicts is more centralized which less room to grow organically. 

FWIW, I've never heard anyone use the term spoons to refer to their degree of willpower. Rather, I've always heard people use the term spoons to refer to their level of physical energy/stamina.

For example, someone might say that having to stand (rather than sit) on public transit wiped out their spoons for the day.

If I heard someone say that clearing out their email inbox wiped out their spoons for the day, I would be surprised. I would assume they were using the term at an additional level of remove from the original metaphor. That's fine, but nonstandard... (read more)

I think we're much closer to AGI than we are to being able to upload human minds.

So, although an aligned AGI would probably accelerate research for uploading, I don't think it's guaranteed it would succeed in short order or even ever.

Answer by Liriodendron280

My husband and I have been married for 8 years and have known each other for 18.

We share a sense of humor (very important for my everyday life) and some tastes in fiction, but have divergent hobbies and intellectual pursuits. He is not interested in rationality.

Although I sometimes wish we had more interests in common, it's relaxing to not have him be competition in those areas. With regard to rationality, he rarely calls me out on biases or tries to get me to explain a problem more precisely than I already have. I have other friends who do that, and altho... (read more)

This isn't a criticism that would be easy to improve your calculator based on. Still, I will report that the main impediment to its practicality for me is that I usually try to stay in the shade. I don't have a good way of adjusting the weather report's UV index to account for being in the shade. For example, today I spent 2.5 hours in the shade at midday without sunscreen and got a slight burn on my chest.

1Josh Jacobson
Yeah that may be an interesting extension of it for version 2. Not sure how straightforward it would be to implement; haven’t looked into that yet.
Answer by Liriodendron150

You can say:

"My body's telling me I'm stressed."

"My body's telling me this isn't sustainable."

"My body's telling me no."

Internal experience is very important for things like this. Citing it is a valid response, and your friends ought to respect that, even in an "ask culture" where they are welcome to push you and ask hard questions.

Personal effort does generate stress (sometimes distress, sometimes eustress). Although a doctor can use crude tools like e.g. checking your blood pressure, you have a much more sensitive ability to understand your body and stre... (read more)

5df fd
this makes sense, but I am also in the reverse position where I saw a friend heading down a destructive path where he is constantly complaining about his current situation and also claim that he is at the limit of will power to change [even before the covid thing].  I am at a loss as to how I should evaluate his statement to determine my action. i.e. should I take his statement at face value and let him arrange his own life to suit his limited capacity or should I push him to change despite his statement otherwise? in short, I found it hard to determine if other people actually hit their limit or not.