Your original post said :
If you're a "rationalist", but not rich and not on your way to being rich, you're probably just deluding yourself.
I assumed that with 'rich' you mean world top 100 millionaire levels (Correct me if I'm wrong here). You are right that I don't care enough about $ and status to reach those levels but I wouldn't say I am poor enough to make absolutely no difference at all.
My minimalistic lifestyle coupled with a average income allows me to save a lot of money. Probably more then my older colleagues who probably earn mo...
I'm familiar with some of the obvious arguments at a basic level (entrepreneurship is usually win-win, money can be used to help fund or attract attention for just about any other project or argument you care to have succeed, getting rich should be relatively easy in a world full of both arbitrage opportunities and irrational people), but still don't quite find them convincing
I do find them convincing. Unfortunately, I don't find them motivating. Making a sustained effort to do something usually depends for me on :
This epitomizes the problem with Less Wrongers' instrumental rationality:
I do find them convincing. Unfortunately, I don't find them motivating.
My lifestyle tends to be rather minimalistic so that even an average to low income is more the enough to sustain it. I also find it a lot easier to just forgo some comfort or gadget instead of working more to pay for it
We're a bunch of linux-hacking post-hippies who don't care enough about the socially accepted measures of influence ($ and status) to motivate ourselves to make a difference. Hence, we are sidelined by dumb cave-men who at least have enough fire in their bellies to win.
I donated blood just yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm AB+ which means my blood is only suitable to other AB+ people. About 5% of the population according to Wikipedia. On the plus side, I can receive blood from anyone :). I have to admit that I'm having trouble keeping a regular schedule of blood donation.
On the topic of diet, LessWrong helped me losing about 17 pounds through implementing some short term motivation methods. Counted in the probability of more years at life that's a huge win.
Good points. Just read the whole conversation between you and Vladimir_M and I agree it could go both ways.
You're assuming that because someone has made mistakes themselves they will judge others less harshly. That is not necessarily the case.
Besides, most people make indeed mistakes but not the same mistakes. If you're boss is a teetotaler and you are a careful driver, you are not going to think well of each other if you get drunk and your boss gets into an car accident.
Even I have the same problem. I tend to procrastinate so if a coworker is past his deadline I don't really care. But I dislike sloppy thinking and try to eradicate it in myself so it really ge...
Well, I don't count as a lurker anymore but I only started posting about two weeks ago and lurked about 2 years before that so I think I qualify to comment about it. The only 2 forums where I post(ed) at all are LessWrong and INTPCentral.
INTPCentral was more of an experiment to see if I could sustain posting for an extended period of time. It didn't work and after 2 weeks I lost interest. LessWrong has less chance going the same way because of the high level of most top posts. That's my first barrier to post. The online community has to be interesting eno...
Sorry, I used the wrong terminology. I meant an prenuptial agreement. The bus example was to show that even if you precommit there is always the possibility that you will change your mind (i.e. in this case by losing empathy). I used the extreme method of brain damage because it's completely out of your control. You cannot precommit on not being run over by a bus.
That's the reason why I never get why people are against marriage contracts. Even ignoring the inherent uncertainty of love & marriage, if I walk under a bus tomorrow and lose for example all empathy due to brain damage, my current self would wish you to divorce future psychopath-me as quickly as possible.
As for the OP, good article. If anyone ever asks why I spend my time theorizing away over 'impossible' things like AI or decision theory I can use this as an example.
If understand you correctly, you are saying that most people are not knowledgeable enough about the different domains in question to make any (or judge any) cross-domain connections. This seems plausible.
I can think however of another argument that confirms this but also clarifies why on Less Wrong we think that people actively compartmentalize instead of failing to make the connection and that is selection bias. Most people on this site are scientists, programmers or other technical professions. It seems that most are also consequentialists. Not surprisi...
I have another annoying habit. I tend to get rather ... enthusiastic in discussions thanks to applying The mind projection fallacy to my discussion partner.
Sometimes if find a certain fact X so glaringly obvious that I tend to assume that other people also find it obvious. So, when the discussion starts I think that we are both on the same page when we are not. This leads to me misunderstanding their arguments. From my point of view I seems like they are doing it on purpose which makes me rather flustered. I usually takes me a while in such cases to realize that they not know about X.
That was my main problem with the definition of stage 3 and was why I posted my original comment. It seemed to me that you could apply stage 3 to parts of your knowledge but not for everything.
When I read 'This stage should be the goal of all rationalists.' (in the original post) I was confused because it seemed to me that stage 3 was unreachable. I mean, if I started with only my human psychology, my senses and the world around me (i.e. the level of a caveman) I don't think I would invent math, physics,... Stage 3 seemed reachable if I assumed infinite time & persistence and scientific reasoning.
Good point. That's why I here argued against thinking about things too long. It's even more important the less rational you are. Before you know it, you are past the point that any evidence can convince you that your opinion is wrong.
It seems to me that stage 3 just means that you use correct scientific methods to learn & expand your knowledge (or am I missing something ?). If that is correct, wouldn't that mean you could essentially recreate the entire body of human knowledge given enough time & persistence ?
The only knowledge that seems absolutely essential to me then is the scientific method itself. Given my human psychology I'm reasonable certain that without that knowledge I would dream up an entire pantheon of gods to explain away everything and just stop there.
No, I find it very interesting. It's very enlightening to hear somebody else's view on introspection. I tend to introspect a lot (sometimes maybe too much). I always had a bit of a double relationship with it as you are never sure about your conclusions about yourself and I dislike uncertainty rather strongly.
However, I can't see another way how know to yourself better. You can use evolutionary psychology & psychological studies but they only provide very broad strokes. You could go to a psychiatrist but there are a lot of different schools to chose f...
nitpick:"I still would error on the side of", err not error
Corrected.
but isn't it quite easy to see when thinking has gone on for 'too long' without benefit?
I suspect that in most cases you will be right. However, I know a woman in my street who is convinced that she's empath and can, quite literally, sense people emotions (in the telepathic kind of way, not the body language kind). The first time I met here I tried (naively maybe) to convince her that her ability is impossible. I told her of confirmation bias, unconscious cold reading, t...
Most of the time it's like talking to myself. When I'm actively analyzing something it's like having a discussion with people who all are me but all taking different stances (and one of them is a joker who can't stop looking at it from a comedian viewpoint).
I agree that it would be a good idea to prevent hurting your credibility by signaling that you are either throwing out an idea to be torn apart or that you have thought long and hard about it. However, I still would err on the side of letting an idea out early. There are also downsides with thinking about an idea for too long :
In general, I find heuristics for focusing my attention other than where it falls naturally to be interesting only as novelties - soon I'm back to paying attention to whatever strikes me.
Same here. In daily life I don't find this much of problem but I sometimes regret that when I have to choose between for example TVTropes or something else, TVTropes usually wins.
...I can entertain time-consuming meditative or introspective exercises to the extent I hope that I'll gain some permanent, low-maintenance benefit, like learning new information that will be us
Additionally, take note of any interesting absences. If something generally considered sad has happened to you, and you can detect no sadness in your affect or telltale physical side effects, that's highly relevant data.
This one (and the opposite, i.e. have an emotion where it's considered inappropriate) happens to me a lot.
For example, my room is usually total and utter chaos which doesn't disturb me in the slightest. For some reason anything that isn't moved in the last 3 or 4 days just becomes background, like trees in a forest. On the other hand, ...
link. Last paragraph of section 'Secondary Function: Extraverted Intuition'. Search on the word 'duality' to find the paragraph fast.
I’m of the impression that the MBTI tends to be more useful to more you tend to the extremes of the four scales. When I do the test, I usually use one that gives you percentages for each scale. I remember that for my first time it got INTP with as percentages (roughly) 100% (I), 80% (both N & T) and P (60%). I was 20 when I first tested. 7 years later I still test as INTP.
I remember that when I first tested I was rather skeptical and knew of the Forer/Barnum effect so to be sure I read all the descriptions of the other personality types. The INTP prof...
You are correct off course. I was merely reacting against your statement that I can make no difference at all.