All of wizard's Comments + Replies

I'm talking about classes where teachers cover the topics and occasionally there are movies. Even in a class like this, the success rate of it is low, unless one has real experience on their own (self-learning by books, traveling abroad to where they speak that language). Reading a book in class and outside cannot be compared. The teacher has to specifically assign a "book-reading" class then read out loud for a class (that will cover... a single chapter per lecture?) and the material they choose is usually something artificial they made for the course... it's not comparable. You say these classes are effective. I don't believe you.

That was an example but it could be woo.

Go down a level and find a class or collaboration group on the object level thing you want to do.

That's not realistic advice. You can't simply take a single class because you're interested in it, if you do so you have to take the whole time-consuming package of other classes that you may or may not be interested in, the class could be another year. Usually you do it because of pressure or you have to take the chance that the credentials are useful for something.

There are specific exceptions, one that I know is f... (read more)

SolveIt: In the very thread there is someone who confuses this and you say, "My post was about classes, not "self-improvement communities". I'm very skeptical about the latter."

I'm not contesting that learning is improving but there is a class of things that people call self-improvement like "how do I not procrastinate". There is a common term for lone-wolf learning which is "self-learning". Not every improvement is learning either, what if you do a workout? If there are already two common terms why switch them? But ... (read more)

Title is misleading, I thought you were going to talk about self-improvement in general for which this was an interesting statement but it's about academic learning so why not "against lone-wolf learning"? What you said is both, (1) already consensus pretty much everywhere, everyone thinks taking classes is best, it's improbable that even someone from LW isn't aware of this viewpoint (2) clearly wrong, but not something I feel discussing and I'm only replying to complain that I was click-baited into reading this.

Has anyone considered that life may not be that great? Considering that:

• Death is by default neutral as you get none of the downsides of life.
• One has to cope every day with the fact of being alive (what they call existential problems). Unless you (1) find distractions, (2) find a compelling project to work on, -- and these are temporary solutions subject to Diminishing Returns --, you'll experience sheer boredom, ennui, anxiety, self-doubt, etc. I suspect this point applies to everyone, even someone otherwise really fortunate in a best-case scenario who

I don't get the problem here.

A murderer is bad. A non-murderer is neutral. Some guy is good. A martyr is gooder.

Somehow he takes this and utilitarianism to mean that everyone is evil, a non-sequitur. Then he blames the bystander for deaths that don't even have a cause-effect connection to him.

Edit: the ultimate truth is too much for mortals to behold.

That's the reason Batman doesn't use guns.

It seems a stretch to put Buddhism in the category of don't-really-care-about-Being. Rather, it's an important point that there is no being and realizing so brings countless bliss and enlightenment.

ISIS is led by a cabal of wizards. The destruction they caused feeds into a spell designed by smart, rational magicians to create the Philosopher's Stone.

Fair enough, the idea already exists although in the edgier guise of satan.

Have you actually tried using any of them?

I did most and added some for completion. I already had some contact with spirits and mystical visions.

Yes, everyone has permission to gather followers and begin cults for Rationatron.

My understanding is that LWers do not believe in a permanent consciousness.

• A teleporter makes a clone of you with identical brain patterns: did it get a new consciousness, how do you tell your consciousness didn't go to the clone, where does the consciousness lies, is it real, etc.
• It's not real, therefore the clone is literally you.

Either that or we're dying every second.

The world is all that is the case.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein

Maybe I couldn't resist posting this suggestion (sorry) because "having something to protect" is such a staple of anime. But - there's also a good case to be made here.

An analogy is motivational posters. Animes are essentially motivational posters for "having something to protect", since after all this is often the moral of them. Nonetheless, they have advantages over motivational posters:

• Higher budget. They can last hours, have animation instead of a single phrase, etc.
• They follow narratives (Hero's Journey, etc)

Watching the animes. Witnessing the struggles and bravery of Goku, Seiya, Naruto, Ichigo and Harry Potter will motivate you to follow in their heroic footsteps.

This line of inquiry is very weird. To address this you'd have to define what you mean by "magic". I believe in this community they call this the "TabbooGame". It's a game where you tabboo the word "magic".

After you tabboo the word magic, then you're just asking if it's possible for laws of physics to exist where you dress as a wizard and wave sticks. It's definitely not possible in our world because I tried and never got any superpowers (damn!!). It's "possible" but it's very lazy for a law of physics for something so complex as dressing as a wizard and waving sticks to exist. [slander against anime and Harry Potter].