All of Miguelatron's Comments + Replies

Necro - I know. However, I'd be willing to bet that few current readers have seen it and we're kind of hurting for new content, so it's probably fine to mine the archives a bit.

That being said, I really enjoyed this article. It seems to check with my own experiences reasonably well and shed some new light on the subject (for me at least). I hadn't really looked at the rack and stack of power to this level of detail nor considered closely where the power of voters really lies. It's also one of the few places where there's a good rational argument for why &q... (read more)

This threw me for a loop when I created my LW account. It took some searching around before I found this answer in the solved section of the bug reporting page for the site. In hindsight it seems simple enough, but perhaps it should be added to the wiki page on posting that you need to confirm account via email first.

Sounds like it will be a blast. The nerves may just be from going solo then. Sounds like you know what your about though, so I'd just override any trepidation and go for it.

I did something similar a few weeks ago (admittedly with some friends). We were probably 40 miles from anywhere where we could flag down a car, and hiked into the woods several miles along the trail. My backpack broke inside the first mile, one of my friends slipped and fell into a stream, there were coyotes in the camp at night, and of course it rained. We all made it out sleepy sore and soggy the next, day but definitely felt better for having gone. Would do again.

You'll have a good time, no worries.

Have you gone camping like this before? If you have, were you by yourself when you did? I'm just trying to eliminate the source of your unease being something simple like stepping out of your comfort zone.

0DataPacRat
I have, indeed, gone camping like this before, though it's been a few years since I've done anything solo. The last few times I've gone camping has been with a relative to campgrounds with showers and such amenities, as opposed to solo in a conservation area or along a trail, which is/was my goal for my next hike. My original motivation for the overnighter was to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything important about soloing, and that all my gear's ready for longer trips. I'm in the general Niagara area, and the city papers laud the local rescue teams whenever a tourist needs to get pulled out of the Niagara gorge, so as long as I can dial 911, I should be able to get rescued from any situation I get myself in that's actually worth all this worrying about. The particular spot I'm thinking of going to (43.0911426, -79.284342) is roughly an hour's walk from a city bus stop - half an hour's walk from where I could wave to frequently passing cars, if my phone's dead. My plans for this whole trip have been to make it as simple and easy as possible. Amble down some trails for an hour or two, hang my hammock, cook my dinner, read my ebook, and amble on out the next day, enjoying the peace and quiet and so on. It's the smallest step I can think of beyond camping in a backyard - and since I don't have a backyard, it's pretty much as far within my comfort zone as any camping could be. If /that's/ now outside my comfort zone... then I've got a trunk full of camping gear that's suddenly a lot less useful to me.

While the MoR example is a good one, don't bother defending Eliezer's response to the linked post. "Something bad is now arbitrarily good, what do you do?" is a poor strawman to counter "Two good things are opposed to each other in a trade space, how do you optimize?"

Don't get me wrong, I like most of what Eliezer has put out here on this site, but it seems that he gets wound up pretty easily and off the cuff comments from him aren't always as well reasoned as his main posts. To allow someone to slide based on the halo effect on a blog ... (read more)

0Richard_Kennaway
OW's linked post still looks to me more like "Two good things are hypothetically opposed to each other because I arbitrarily say so."

The whole calibration thing definitely fits my experience. I think you just have to build up some comfort with being in a sexual situation.

Regardless of fault, it's not rational to drag your parents or your upbringing into the situation at this point. They may have been the root cause of the problem, but they can do nothing to fix it for you now. However, it IS within your power to do that.

If I can gain some basic level of sexual confidence by having some sexual experiences...

This can help, but I think it's just confidence in general that will help you... (read more)

4advancedatheist
Psychotherapist Albert Ellis writes in one of his autobiographical recollections that he had tremendous anxiety as a young man about talking to women. So, anticipating the kinds of advice given by today's self-styled dating coaches and pickup artists, he forced himself to try to start conversations with 100 consecutive women he didn't know in public places. After this exercise, he writes that he lost all approach anxiety. I think today's pickup instructors call this something like "day game." However, I can see a problem with this in the current culture. PUA's in training have become common enough in some cities to draw attention to the phenomenon, and feminists have started to complain about day game as a form of harassment.
2advancedatheist
Thanks for your support. I've gotten encouragement from others I talked to.

This. I love consistency in the rules as laid out by the author. It's inconstancy that breaks my suspension of disbelief, and that applies to fantasy, scifi, or a story of any genre where the characters suddenly do something out of character (especially if it's obviously for the purpose of driving the plot). Iron Man 3 made my skin crawl as the rules constantly changed throughout the movie for the sole purpose of driving some aspect of each fight sequence. Or the ridiculousness that was Gravity, just so much of that movie... ugh, doesn't help to have a wor... (read more)

I find it curious that this post is being down voted. While the weight issue doesn't address the new age or spiritual stuff, it does impact self esteem (which may or may not be intermingled with some of the more far out things she's confessed to experiencing). Besides, being healthy is just a generally good thing.

I feel that tailoring your approach to be more new age-y as Hollander suggested would be more effective - as in the wraith example above, it's within the rules she seems to operate by. However, I'm not sure how you would broach the subject without causing more problems. You kind of need her to want this for herself before you can do anything.

In any case, good luck Crono.

1ChristianKl
Solving eating issues isn't just about making a person think that eating sugar is bad. The girl likely already considers sugar to be bad. But understanding that sugar is bad for you and having the will power to avoid eating sweets are two different things.
1Lumifer
It gives bad advice. Aikido isn't particularly spiritual, it's a grappling martial art. Even things like internal styles of Chinese martial arts which pay a great deal of attention to the flow of chi are not likely to be considered "spiritual" in the American South. And I doubt that she'll actually like aikido. Advice to go vegan is suspect, too. Vegans actually have to keep track of their nutrition to avoid deficiencies, if you just blindly stop eating anything animal you are likely to have health problems soon enough.

I don't believe that for a second though. Everything we know is likely as wrong a phlogiston, though our predictions are surely getting more accuate. "We cannot know" is just hitting the worship button - which I'm fine with if you are talking about "what's the meaning of life." However, this is the mechanics of the universe, so we should probably stay away from that particular button in this case. Don't forget a singularity is Not an anomaly in reality itself, it is an anomaly in our models' ability to predict was will happen in reality. So time makes no sense in a singularity - that means the model for time will need to be changed. That's not the same as there is no answer.