You lost me at "junk heap." There is no conscious choice available to a layperson ignorant of philosophy and logic, and such ways of life are perfectly copacetic with small-enough communities. If anything, it is the careful thinker who is more shackled by self-doubt, better understood as the Dunning-Kruger effect, but Ayn Rand has made it obvious she never picked up any primary literature on cognitive science so it's not surprising to see her confusion here.
Quote from 1971's The Romantic Manifesto.
Unfortunately this self-debasing style of contradiction has become the norm, and the people I talk to can instantly notice when I am pouring sugar on top of a serving of their own ass. Perhaps they are simply noticing changes in my tone of voice or body language, but in sufficiently intellectual partners I've noticed that abruptly contradicting them startles them into thinking more often, though I avoid this in everyday conversation with non-intellectuals for fear of increasing resentment.
In Bakemonogatari, the main characters often encounter spirits that only interact with specific people under specific conditions, although the effects they have are real (and would manifest to another's eyes as inexplicable paranormal phenomena). As such it's more a request about shoring up inconsistencies in sense perception, than it is about inconsistencies in belief.
I suspect that later, when they have more presence in the public and expert view, they will open up new payment options to increase visibility of their reports, but only after they have employed significantly more researchers and run them through rigorous epistemic ethics training. Otherwise, there's little stopping a Big Pharma company from hiring Metamed for a $3,000 report, and then posting a biased summary of the report on their news page, along with an "APPROVED BY METAMED" sticker. Even worse if Metamed considers the "approval sticker" to be useful to spreading awareness of evidence-based medicine. The potential for corruption is just too high.
There is a hugely successful webcomic called Homestuck (maybe you've heard of it; it raised over $2 million in one month to make a game out of it) and a significant part of the comic's events are reliant on time travel. The comic itself is dense and insanely complex, so I will do my best to spoil as little as possible, because to my knowledge there are no plot holes, and in the end it all makes sense if you keep reading through to Act 5 and beyond.
The basic idea is that the four main characters are playing an immersive video game called Sburb, and the game...
I'm coming. Wouldn't miss it for the world. I'm probably bringing my best friend along, who is a strong christian and consciously engages in self-delusion in order to avoid dark spots and stay productive. He can say some very useful things about personal finance, but mostly I just want to see what kind of effect this has on him.
I have learned today not to fluff my posts with phrases like "a dozen more runners" and "ancient Greece" unless it makes sense to do so. Upon further reflection it's also possible that Zig said "Roger Bannister was a flea trainer" in a metaphorical sense--though he most definitely used that kind of words.
The "impossible 4-minute mile" myth, also upon reflection, seems like a similar myth that I stopped believing in, that some boxers, fighters and martial artists were required by law to register their hands as lethal...
Roger Bannister allegedly broke the four-minute mile by applying a lesson in flea training. You train fleas by putting them in a lidded jar. As they jump and jump and jump, they hit their head on the lid and condition themselves to jump only so high--even after the lid is removed.
Bannister, according to inspirational coach Zig Ziglar, knew that for centuries it was judged "impossible" to break a four-minute mile, and all the negative input from trainers and doctors and coaches was erecting a mental barrier to what was possible. History speaks: wi...
This story is not true. Bannister broke 4:00 in May of 1954. The next person to do it was John Landy 46 days later. Bannister's training partner Chris Chataway did it the next year, as did another British runner. However, I think Bannister and Landy were the only two to do it in 1954. The first American to do it was Don Bowden in 1957.
I found a list for the US here Also a master list of many runners, but difficult to parse.
There were three runners close to the sub-four mile in the early 50's. The other two were Wes Santee and John Landy. They didn't...
I've been pretty excited to meet other LessWrongians for a while. Most "rationalists" in my life are so on a strictly titular level, though many of them are otherwise bright. Since I'm in Camden county I'm more or less restricted to the Philly area and I'm glad meetups are starting again. The biggest problem is that I work out of town every weekend and probably won't be able to attend any of them unless I get enough notice to request time off. I'm serious about this and would gladly eschew work responsibilities for a LW workshop. Otherwise, what is the likelihood of a meetup being planned for a Tuesday or Wednesday?
The comments baffle me. I think it can be taken for granted that people on this site have an elevated sense of skepticism -- perhaps not enough to repel ALL scams, but certainly enough to recognize a scam when your attention is explicitly drawn to it contemporaneously. Why are we now wasting time with in-depth discussion ABOUT scams and methodology, WITH the scammer in the conversation? And if you believe him not to be a scammer, why are you putting a burden of proof onto him to countersignal "fishy behavior" rather than simply lay out behaviors which will not be tolerated, or setting up an escrow Bitcoin wallet?