All of Crouching_Badger's Comments + Replies

This may be the intuitive line of thinking, but in the course of life, action seems to be incredibly more effective than non-action. There have been many times where I haven't done anything and I've kicked myself in the butt for not at least putting forth some sort of effort vaguely aimed at the goal because even that little bit would have been better than the alternative. It doesn't seem like bad pragmatic advice to suggest people to move to action rather than sit passively, as we all know how one can "Fake it till they make it," and while that does not build the most efficient system, it does give the person a chance to stay afloat where otherwise, if they did nothing, they would sink.

0Viliam_Bur
To stop this generalization from running too far, it depends on situation: what are the probabilities, rewards and risks. But assuming that there is no danger, yes, even doing random things is an opportunity to learn; and we often do better than random. About the teacher vs student situation, this can be solved by proper incentives. What about giving +1 point for a correct answer, -1 point for incorrect answer, and 0 points for blank? Then rational students will stop making up stuff that has less than 50% probability to be right.
0Matt_Simpson
To be clear, the problem isn't that the professors are encouraging action over inaction. It's that they are encouraging students to spend some of their limited amount of action points making things up rather than actually making progress toward solving the problem.

Apart from race, isn't this a problem with English or language in general? We use the same words for varying degrees of a certain notion, and people cherry pick the definitions that they want to cogitate for response. If I call someone a conservative, is it a compliment or an insult? That depends on both of our perceptions of the word conservative as well as our outlook on ourselves as political beings; however, beyond that, I could mean to say that the person is fiscally conservative, but as the current conservative candidates are showing conservatism to ... (read more)

2fubarobfusco
Sure. "Conservative" isn't a fixed political position. Quite often, it's a claim about one's political position: that it stands for some historical good or tradition. A "conservative" in Russia might look back to the good old days of Stalin whereas a "conservative" in the U.S. would not appreciate the comparison. It's also a flag color; your "fiscal conservative" may merely not want to wave a flag of the same color as Rick Santorum's.

I can agree with this. I usually find that unless I've reached a certain threshold of tiredness at night, there is no way for me to will myself to sleep, though at other times, especially for naps during the day, I can easily lay down until I fall asleep, even if I'm not feeling particularly tired.

This is something I have really been wrestling with lately. I know I have many things to be done, but not doing them is not an option. Why is it not an option? Because the task is eminent in my path of action anyway, and if I choose not to do it, there will be a deficit in some form or fashion in my life trajectory because the task all ready had some relationship to me that I cannot break without severing the tie; however, as much as I'd like to believe, it is not a clean break.

I'd also like to discuss injury and chronic pain. I played American Football an... (read more)

2Voltairina
I think you're right - I don't know what the concensus is, but I certainly found studies just googling around and looking at webmd saying that chronic pain can impair focus and even effect memory (I'm guessing it disrupts encoding a little when there are sharp pains?). And I've heard you can use training to overcome focus difficulties that come with ADHD, so I think that in general you should be able to train yourself to think through it. http://www.springerlink.com/content/r436401lvj873203/ "Characteristics of Cognitive Functions in Patients With Chronic Spinal Pain" http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/jcogp/1999/00000013/00000003/art00004 "Cognitive Therapy in the Treatment of Adults With ADHD: A Systematic Chart Review of 26 Cases "

Yes! That is great! Thank you so much.

Thanks for the advice. I've already gotten two volunteers, though, so I don't think that will be necessary. I will definitely make sure to post there to discuss my research, though.

I'm reposting this here because there was a thread swap and I didn't get any takers in the former thread. Please let me interview you! It will be fun and wont take up too much time!

Hello, my name is Brett, and I am an undergraduate student at the University of North Texas, currently studying in the Department of Anthropology. In this semester, my classmates and I have been tasked with conducting an ethnographic study on an online community. After reading a few posts and the subsequent comments, LessWrong seemed like a great community on which to conduct an... (read more)

1Alicorn
This survey may interest you in your pursuits.
4kpreid
I recommend making a post to Discussion instead of a comment for this purpose.

Hello, my name is Brett, and I am an undergraduate student at the University of North Texas, currently studying in the Department of Anthropology. In this semester, my classmates and I have been tasked with conducting an ethnographic study on an online community. After reading a few posts and the subsequent comments, LessWrong seemed like a great community on which to conduct an ethnography. The purpose of this study is to identify the composition of an online community, analyze communication channels and modes of interaction, and to glean any other inform... (read more)