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All of Deremensis's Comments + Replies

Happiness Logging: One Year In
Deremensis00

I think part of the problem here, and why writing a qualitative description is a good idea, is that forcing yourself to "quantify" your happiness (an incredibly difficult thing to do even in the best of circumstances) is going to inherently lead to inaccuracies. I'd even consider making the argument that having to quantify your happiness could inadvertently lead to you actually being -less- happy. Imagine it - you feel fine one moment, then, as a result of a ping, you now have to evaluate exactly how you're feeling and your day so far and turn it... (read more)

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Open thread, 18-24 August 2014
Deremensis20

Hah. Makes sense, if a bit of a heavy endeavor to try to define on your own.

Mind elaborating on your reasoning for not eating meat? I'm not critical of the choice - yet :P - but I am curious!

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3dthunt
Well, not defining on my own. I'm deliberately asking a community of people who try to think about these sorts of things in clearer terms than normal about what sorts of considerations might be worth examining. Making a perfect objective suffering function doesn't seem hugely worthwhile for me; I just want to be able to make orders of magnitude comparisons because that's likely enough. [ed: on my necessarily messed up strange subjective human scale] My core assumption is basically that some animals with brains have some degree of conscious experience, and can experience pain, discomfort, etc. I don't think these things necessarily are perfect 1:1 matches with what the human experience analogues look like (both in how they are experienced and how relatively important they are to me or to the animal) - but visual evidence looks compelling enough to me that this claim looks likely true. I would need to dig into the mechanics of pain or something to get a clearer picture around that assumption, which may be a useful thing to do. I'm sure the conversation where two people argue about this already exists on LW, just have faith that I will in fact look for it and read it, I am not particularly interested in engaging on a discussion about qualia at the moment. I think there are probably better versions of farming that could exist, that would both sit better with me on the silly levels that do not get a vote and on other levels that matter more (e.g. optimizing slaughtering to reduce pain or something). Inflicted pain is an example of a cost that is being applied to animals that can be improved upon. There are other things like that that make farming meat objectionable to me. On some gut level this actually matters to me. I have some amount of empathy for at least a lot of non-human animals, and whether a human has been involved in some transaction seems to make it matter more to me. It might be possible that there's a version of meat farming that doesn't suck from my p
Open thread, 18-24 August 2014
Deremensis10

Your latter reasons about the author and organization hiding information are great. I'm not trying to imply you don't have any basis upon which to be cautious. I was trying to say, though, that who funded a study or an organization does not make that organization's or study's findings wrong: often times, organizations like IFIC are not in a good position to turn any money down, as long as the money doesn't dictate their message. If you have good reason to think that the money is indeed dictating the message, then by all means, be skeptical.

I would note th... (read more)

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6ChristianKl
It doesn't make them wrong but it makes them more likely to be wrong. The effect is well established by scientific papers. There are many ways to bias a study that you can't trace by reading a paper. It doesn't make sense to say look at the science, and ignore the science that clearly establishes that funding sources bias scientific papers. You don't need to dictate a message to encourage an organisation to argue position that are in line with your interests if you are clear about your interest and give them money. Corruption works quite well without direct dictates. If you look at the website it's interesting to see the hoops they put up to get people to see the funding sources. The first step is to find an click the about button. There you get the paragraph: It misleading. It speaks about relationship with professional, when in fact the organisation has relationships with companies that pay the majority of it's budget. If you want to know more, you can click "Partner and sponsors". That brings you to a black and white PDF page. There no reason avoid having normal html page that list the "Partner and sponsors" and uses the logos unless you want to design the website in a way that makes it harder for the user to find out the funding sources. Another interesting part of the website is an article about beef. It reads like a beef commercial: Of course McDonalds wants people to eat beef. In the mainstream nutrition community there a general belief that the average American eats too much red meat. Given that background saying "don't stress about the choices you make about beef consumption" is problematic. Of course there are paleo people who think that eating red meat is quite alright, but it's still highly suspicious for the authors of the website manage to argue the position that it's funders would want it to argue. The paleo people wouldn't advocate milk as a good choice.
Open thread, 18-24 August 2014
Deremensis20

I don't think dismissing something based solely on who funds it is a good choice. Look at the science and the facts. The fact that someone you don't like funds an organization doesn't mean that that organization is spouting lies, and it doesn't mean the science behind the health advice is wrong. There's a pretty simple reasons for why all of those companies would fund a health organization: it's good PR.

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4ChristianKl
It's quite easy in nutrition to argue for a lot of different positions by cherry picking studies. It also easy to find them lying in favor of the commercial interest of mosanto: Studies don't determine what's safe but test for evidence of specific kind of harms. It's takes clear reading to spot the lie but it's still a lie. You could argue that the author simply missed epistemology 101 but that's still a problem. The website is deliberately constructed in a way that makes it hard to see who funds the organisation. If a company does something for PR they usually want their logo displayed. Also as far as science goes, the effect of funding on scientific studies is well established. It creates a bias in the results.
Open thread, 18-24 August 2014
Deremensis30

Mind elaborating a bit for the curious? What is a "sin-on"? What led to your conclusions with regards to the ethics of eating meat? Seeing as I'm new here, I imagine it likely that there's been a discussion I've missed out on at some point.

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8Adele_L
I think it's supposed to be a unit of sin.
Welcome to Less Wrong! (6th thread, July 2013)
Deremensis160

Hi LW!

I've read LW on and off for quite some time, mostly just whenever I've gotten linked to it and found myself idly browsing. I used to not post very much on forums, just read around, but I decided to sign up for a few and give posting a try. So here I am!

My name is Sean, I'm 20 and I live in Florida. I'm an undergraduate student studying Cell and Molecular Biology with a minor in Mathematics. I enjoy a lot of things - reading, learning, hiking, discussing, exploring. My interests are pretty wide - I've done a lot of computer programming, but mostly hob... (read more)

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2[anonymous]
Hello and welcome to LessWrong! Sounds like you're quite exposed to a variety of fields. Very admirable! It never hurts to have a wide background, and that exposure to all those different hobbies and areas can improve your work in your central field of interest. No need for some great story to join. Having an interest in learning is good enough! If you want to read some LW material to give you an idea of the type of writings you'll see and the type of topics we discuss, feel free to read the Sequences, which collect a large number of LW posts from over the years. It's something of a crash course on a variety of topics and issues. Quite heavy reading, but very useful. If you want to join the conversation, check out the Discussion board. This is where the day-to-day conversations on LW take place. It's a good place to get a feel for the conversation standards of the community before you start contributing your own ideas. Also, definitely check out the latest Open Thread. It's a bit more laid back than the Discussion board as a whole, but still a good place to talk, ask questions, and engage fellow LWers. Also, I don't know where you live in Florida, but if meeting up and chatting with fellow LWers in physical space interests you, Florida has two LW meetups: one in Fort Lauderdale, one in Coral Gables. LW meetups are great places to get acquainted with your fellow rationalists, discuss different topics, and just to have fun. Glad to have you with us! Look forward to seeing you around the forums soon.