All of Basiles's Comments + Replies

But most people are not going to be 'very successful', and I am going to automatically assume that this is not included, since it's often statistically exclusionary (only a few people in the entire world can be olympic level sprinters).

It is most certainly not required to be 'great' to be socially successful, or, for that matter, interesting. As for my opinion of the whole 'greatness' chase, see here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mmu/how_to_learn_a_new_area_x_that_you_have_no_idea/cu3o

I think our definitions of "interesting" may differ. If we take the angle of hobbies, for instance...

I would say that picking up running as a hobby can provide many social benefits. It's relatively popular, it's virtually omnipresent, it's considered by many to be a 'morally superior' activity, it's likely to make you more attractive in the dating department.

But I wouldn't really call a person interesting only due to having running as a hobby, nor do I consider running an interesting hobby.

Most people, on average, haven't had too many experiences... (read more)

I think a lot could be gained from asking the question of whether being an interesting person or having an interesting life is in and of itself a valuable thing. How much of it is a proxy for something else, and perhaps we could extract the "something else" and it'd be much easier to figure out how to get there? Or, what does one intend to gain by becoming more interesting? And is that thing valuable?

I think your discussion post is better aligned than this article. I tried reading it...

I think I'm going to have to reject the article since it puts too much pressure on the talent and love aspects. I have never really loved anything that much, and if I was too worried about that, I'd end up in the "finding your passion" rut. Judging by some articles I've seen spring up recently, I don't think I'm alone. I appear to have talent in some areas, but I can't tell if I have talent in any areas that I do not already know I have talent in, nor can I mea... (read more)

I always wanted to see discussed the general opportunity cost of time lost due to extra/superior sleep, especially if given already small amounts of time left and the fact that your ineffective hours (assuming one's a night owl) may as well be spent on work while the more effective ones are the ones during which you 'should' sleep. I currently average <8 hours, meaning that I generally physically go to bed at midnight and wake up at 8, and I don't fall asleep easily so it's probably a lot less than 8 hours. If you have about 4-5 hours of free time left ... (read more)

Sexual activity at night often makes it considerably harder for me to fall asleep. I don't really see how doing any other physical activity before going to sleep is different. I find its casual and automatic inclusion along with 'sleep' as something you can do in bed quite a significant oversight.