All of AndekN's Comments + Replies

AndekN20

This seems to be just another case of journalists exaggerating and misrepresenting a scientists point in order to create attention-grabbing headlines, at least according to Anders Sandbergs blog post about the issue.

AndekN50

if there's a wall in your way, smash it down

BUT keep Chesterton's Fence in mind: if you don't know why there is a wall on your way, don't go blindly smashing it down. It might be there for a reason. First make absolutely sure you know why the wall exists in the first place; only then you may proceed with the smashing.

AndekN110

Exactly. I think almost every "should" statement includes an unspoken "...but I don't want to" in the end.

3buybuydandavis
For some more than others. One obvious avenue of power over others is convincing them that morality is obedience and obligation to some external authority, with either direct or indirect assumption of that authority. For some, this turns morality into a tie and a fetter to be resisted, instead of an avenue for satisfaction of some of their own preferences - their moral preferences. But some others are looking for an external authority, and relieved and grateful when they find one. Amusing scene from The Avengers: Loki: [to crowd] Compare to George Bush, West Point Speech 2002 My money is on Loki. The real funny part is that in searching for this quote, I got it from a Christian blog: Arbeit macht frei! Which apparently ties in quite nicely. La Wik:
3jimmy
Indeed, there is. I don't like this particular way of removing the word "should" since it seems to ignore the unspoken "negative" bit, but I've played around with a similar exercise of removing "should" from my vocabulary so that I would have to speak the unspoken bit. Constantly doing things that you don't want to do isn't a fun way to go through life. It's not effective at making good decisions either. The "I "should"/"have to" do this thing that I don't want to" frame presupposes that the alternative is realistic enough to yearn for but you're not doing anything about it!. If it's realistic, do something about it. If it isn't, shut up and be content. Shit or get off the pot. I can make any choice available to me. My actions have consequences though, and I can't fulfill all of my desires. Of my choices, which do I want? Of course I can eat healthy, but that means I can't eat junk food. If I have to consciously force myself to be excited about eating healthy, maybe it's because I like junk food and I'm not thrilled about giving it up. Once I can verbalize that unspoken wish to eat junk food and eat healthy, then I can make my choice and feel like I'm doing what I want to do (without "will power" or nagging thoughts). So that's why/how I try to minimize my use of "should". Of course, it takes a bit of time and so for trivial matters I just shrug it off and say "opportunity cost"
AndekN20

Did you mean this post about him and his wife pushing each other into doing things they know the other will like, despite the spouse's initial protests: I Love My Wife Because She Disrespects Me?

2NancyLebovitz
Probably at least that one. There may be others. Thanks.
AndekN130

I attended a fire preparedness course, and the instructor told us that actual fire evacuation drills were not necessary. It was enough just to spend a couple of minutes vividly imagining what we would do in case of a fire. Our chances of surviving would greatly increase if we imagined the situation in advance. Unfortunately he gave no references to that claim.

AndekN81

Let’s use flossing as an example. Trying to remember to floss after I brushed didn’t work. At all.

I had the same experience for years. Every six months or so I would read an article like this one reminding how important it is to floss, visit a dentist or something similar. Then I promised to myself that from now on, I'd floss daily. And then I'd forget to actually do it.

After reading The Power of Habit (the book Kaj Sotala summarised in his article linked above) I realised that just trying to remember would never work. Instead, I needed to create a cu... (read more)

AndekN20

I actually agree with you on all points, but I think you are underestimating how overwhelming things can be for a teacher just beginning her career. Without any central curriculum a teacher has to inspect textbooks much more carefully in order to find a book that would suit her needs. It's a lot of extra work.

This is a smaller problem in math and science teaching and a larger one at humanities and social sciences. This problem could be alleviated by having teacher education include classes where you get familiarised with different textbooks and different approaches to teaching your subject.

2ChristianKl
Teaching a teacher about different approaches of teaching his subject seems fairly straightforward for teacher education for myself. I once tried to learn something about reading by looking at what an academic journal has to say. It spoke about fancy terms like Heideggers notion of meaning. I'm well educated despite having spent a lot of time in school and do have an idea of what Heideggers notion of meaning happens to be. On the other hand it's useless for a teacher who wants to teach his students to read. Teachers education could simply switch to teach the actual practice of teaching instead of trying to teach fancy educational theories and the problem would be solved. I think that getting rid of curriculum provides a lot more benefits in the humanities and social sciences than it does in mathematics. To me it would make a lot of sense to teach students during humanities or social science classes nonviolent communication (NVC). It a fairly straightforward framework with decades of history. On the other hand I do know that your average high school teacher doesn't have the skills for teaching it, so it's impossible to just write it into a centralized curriculum. Berlin has 12 districts. Each of those has a democratic representation. While my sister was in school there was a political change that lead to the voting age for that particular democratic representation be lowered from 18 to 16 years. There were a lot of people in her class that could vote because they were 16 but not 18. A good political science teacher would have addressed that opportunity to actually teach how this kind democratic representation works. I use the term democratic representation because it's not a parliament because it can't make laws and I don't know whether there a term in English that directly translates the German word. Her teacher didn't because she was too busy teaching to the curriculum. Most of the stuff she taught the student will probably be forgotten after 5 years. She miss
AndekN00

To use the graph structure fully, you would have to allow each student to progress individually... but then you can't have in the same classroom, listening to the teacher

Well, yes and no. There are methods (usually called within-class groups) that allow students to progress at different paces while being in the same classroom. These methods usually depend a lot on small-group instruction and peer helping. So no, they won't be simply listening to the teacher, at least not all at the same time.

AndekN40

If you get rid of the whole idea of a curriculum teachers are suddenly free to innovate.

They are also free to teach e.g. young-Earth creationism. At least some degree of standardisation is beneficial, since it creates boundaries against worst excesses. Also, curriculum makes it easier for a beginning teacher to organise her classes, although this could also be arranged by having loose guidelines instead of strict curriculum.

0ChristianKl
There are many textbooks out there that are easily available for a teacher who wants to use them. A teacher doesn't need a central authority to tell him what to teach to be able to find resources. Not having the central authority even makes it easier for market participants to create textbooks that teacher want to use.
AndekN10

I had the same problem couple of months ago. It was about confirming an e-mail address: I received an email asking me to confirm the address I was using, with a link. After that, I could comment normally. Unfortunately I can't remember what I did in order to receive that email: something in preferences, probably.

AndekN10

I don't know whether you refer to a business partner, you are male and refer to a girlfriend or you are female and refer to a boyfriend.

You omit at least two possibilities: that he is male and referring to his boyfriend or that she is female and referring to her girlfriend. In these cases, word "boy/girlfriend" would have you interpreting the situation wrongly.

As others have commented, the fact that we do not know these unnecessary details is a feature, not a bug, of ungendered words.

AndekN00

When you go to the Discussion page, there is a permanent disclaimer on top: "This part of the site is for the discussion of topics not yet ready or not suitable for normal top-level posts" (emphasis mine). That would indicate that at least originally Discussion was meant for lower-quality content.

AndekN10

"Hanson/Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate".

AndekN20

I'm interested in what this looks like. Could you elaborate?

My weekly review looks like this:

  • I go through my "Waiting" folder and see if some things should be moved to "Action" desk. I add them to my task list.

  • I look through my to-do list for tasks that have no set date on them. I pick one that I could do during next week and assign a date and time for it.

  • Then there are the bits I took from the daily review in your plan: I take a moment to reflect the successes and mistakes of the past week. Are my habits and tasks working? Is there something I should change, add or remove in the routine?

AndekN30

Sometimes, yes.

Well, if you're still interested: the book is called "Opastin" and here's a link to buy it. I don't believe they ship outside Finland, though.

AndekN20

Unfortunately it's written in Finnish.

7gjm
I understand that even books written in Finnish not infrequently have titles and are available for purchase.
AndekN130

I had my first book published. It's a textbook for upper elementary school, and I'm reasonably confident it is the only such textbook in the world that includes

  • an explanation of the planning fallacy

  • a description of confirmation bias and survivor bias

  • a sub-section titled "What do you think you know and why do you think you know it?".

7daenerys
Title and link to buy?
AndekN130

This article was so good, I wanted to put it to a test. At the start of October I began to try the advice given in the article. Now, after two months of practice, I wanted to give thanks. This practice has increased my productivity substantially; for example I am now almost two months ahead of schedule on a major work project. This is quite unprecedented experience for me.

I didn't follow your every advice and I had to abandon some ideas that obviosly were not working for me. Following are my experiences: I hope that somebody gets some little benefit from ... (read more)

1Peter Wildeford
Thanks so much for letting me know that you liked this and, more importantly, what worked for you and what didn't. Also thanks for the two month waiting period to make sure that it works long-term. ~ I'm interested in what this looks like. Could you elaborate?
AndekN350

I took the survey.

This is, incidentally, my first comment on LessWrong. I've lurked for years, and pretty much thought I'll probably stay as a lurker for good. For some reason taking the survey made me want to break my silence.So that's a bonus, I guess.