things that people don't want to read
vampire romance novels
People do want to read vampire romance novels.
From the constant rumors of nonexistent Pokemon, I learned how to distrust the epistemological practices of my peers.
Every time you go the doctor, you put yourself at risk of iatrogenic complications. Following the rule:
Every time you have a medical problem (this is a vague term), see a medical professional.
Is not very pragmatic.
If you do not mind, could you tell us what your initial symptoms were and what condition was causing them?
There's a strong case for not doing that. The lesson to be learned here is very general; but it's very tempting to learn only a very specific lesson instead.
I sometimes have feelings of separation from my fellow man. Philanthropic activity tends to alleviate this. Likewise, it tends to buffer my emotions from feelings of personal inadequacy. Of course, these correlations are not sufficient to establish causation.
Also, I do get warm, fuzzy feelings. However, I do not hold these positive feelings to be as important as the suppression of negative feelings.
"Remind me to buy you a copy of the Muggle novel Atlas Shrugged," the sourceless voice said. "I'm starting to understand what sort of person can benefit from reading it."
Although the Weasley twins are extremely willing to repay perceived debts, it would seem to me that this inclination is more likely, given their usual inclination towards public action, to be of positive utility in the long-run.
It seems pretty clear from chapter 61 that MOR!ArthurWeasley knows precious little about the muggle world.
When it comes to wizards who lack recent Muggle ancestry, Arthur may well be the most knowledgeable expert regarding these matters. Considering the racism of even well-meaning wizards, this likely gives Arthur a certain degree of clout in certain circles.
I donated to the Against Malaria Foundation, which is GiveWell's top charity.
Here is a link for those who wish to do likewise:
After more work than I would honestly prefer to put into such an effort, I eventually found this post:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/goe/open_thread_february_1528_2013/8iuo
As a curiosity, this post cannot be found from my user-page, nor can it be found via Wei Dai's app. Fascinating.
This was a delightful chapter. I very much look forward to the next one.
Idle curiosity / possibility of post being deleted:
At one point in LessWrong's past (some time in the last year, I think), I seem to recall replying to a post regarding matters of a basilisk nature. I believe that the post I replied to was along these lines:
Given that the information has been leaked, what is the point of continuing to post discussions of this matter?
I believe my response was long the lines of:
...I hate to use silly reflective humor, but given that the information has been leaked, what is the point of censoring discussions of this matter
If this evidence is of interest to you, I still have not bought any more packs since converting to electronic cigarettes. If you have not yet converted, I would highly recommend doing so. If you are interested, I will message you my apparatus and places to purchase it at.
Some fraction of the population is naturally poly, some naturally mono, some can go either way depending on circumstances.
seems to mean something other than
Some fraction of the population is poly, some mono, some can go either way depending on circumstances.
I endorse this as being my original intention.
I apologize if I misinterpreted your statement:
Some fraction of the population is naturally poly, some naturally mono, some can go either way depending on circumstances.
I was curious what was meant by this.
How does one best optimize personal opinions for purposes of status-acquisition?
Presumably, you are asking how to hack the status detectors of other people? If not, then you need to put a lot of work and energy into doing something that other people value, and not be shy about letting the kinds of people who value that thing know what you have done and can do. I think this is usually called "earning it."
But if you are seeking to acquire status as status, essentially, the reputation for something which you are not, then you are asking how to hack people's status detectors. The answer will very much depend on WHO you want...
When you say 'naturally', are you referring to genetics, prenatal environment, or something else?
How should I know?
You could legalize eating tiger.
Tiger parts have a variety of uses in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Making harvesting these parts from farmed tigers would be a somewhat efficacious solution.
I got this right, but ended up having to invent notation to keep track of the indirection in the last segment.
This is also the case for myself. I would be very impressed by anyone who did not have to do this.
The trick is to evaluate right to left.
No, but I am much more comfortable with it than I am with the other words.
In that sentence, I find the words "clone", "really" and "you" to be as problematic as "is".
programming 8+ hours a day
From both my experience and what little research I've done on this topic, programmers do not program 8+ hours per day.
I've heard this book is pretty good, but I've never read it. It's really easy to find copies of it floating around online:
This all assumes you are decent at programming: It may still work even if you aren't, but become good while doing it.
Even though people's intuitions do lead them to believe it is morally necessary for one to save the hypothetical drowning child, in that particular scenario, I wager that there are situations in which people's intuitions would lead to other conclusions. One relevant hypothetical scenario is one in which one is amidst a group of people who also are observing the drowning child, and who are better able to bear the economic hardship of losing a pair of dress shoes (I know that the phrase "economic hardship" sounds rather callous in this scenario, bu...
Writing down only every arithmetic fact you know, assuming you have basic knowledge of math, would, in theory, take an infinite amount of time. In practice, the universe would end first.
Aid in demonstrating things to others, social aesthetic value as a decoration, and personal aesthetic value. Also, erasing is way faster.
Empirical observation.
I would say that the primary factor is a very strong personality: any idea on how to attract those kind of girls?
Please consider what sorts of guys the sorts of girls you are attracted to are attracted to.
Could you please name some that did?
Regarding philosophy:
Do you have any specific research interests?
Generally speaking, the Stanford Encyclopedia is the best online source of information about philosophy. I would recommend reading the following article:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-empiricism/
Here are the titles of what are considered to be the most influential works of the 20th century:
http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Lackey-What-are-the-modern-classics.pdf
I wonder how the Imperius curse resolves loops.
What's next, a Rational (tm) Work Out sequence? A Rational (tm) Build Your Own PC sequence?
Those would both be very useful, especially the former one.
A Rational (tm) Dating sequence?
No. This kills the mind.
Thank you.
Apparently I'm not alone, either; there seems to be some evidence that there's a link between iodine and diabetes more generally.
Could you please post or link to it?
Did you search the site
Yes.
and read previous comments?
Yes. Results were generally negative.
However, I was unable to find any results regarding this new rig.
I don't suppose any users here have experience with trans-cranial direct current stimulation. More specifically, the Focus V1?
After buying an e-cig, I never bought another pack of cigarettes. It has been roughly six weeks, I think. My consumption was slightly higher than yours.
Congratulations, by the way. You have successfully added years to your life, ceased to constantly stink, saved a lot of money, and retained the mental edge and social benefits of smoking nicotine. Instrumental rationality at its finest.
Unfortunately, I cannot look at the actual post and am merely trying to infer its contents based on posts on LessWrong. The only major argument I can make in favor of using the word "tribalism" is that the term has useful negative connotations:
"This is tribalist thinking." == "This is silly, savage thinking which we are trying to overcome as rationalists."
This is incredibly pedantic. (Also rather unjustified, due to my own lack of knowledge regarding occult enthusiasts.) However:
It's interesting that demons in computer science are called that way. They have exactly the same functionality as the demons that occult enthusiasts proclaim to use.
Although daemons in computer science are rather akin to daemons in classical mythology (sort of, kind of, close enough), they really don't particularly resemble our modern conception of demons. I mean, they can totally get a programmer into "Sorcerer's Apprentic...
but I've never heard of a daemon tempting anyone.
RSS reader/other notification of new procrastination available.
But it is easy to find critics if you want to.
I agree with this. However, I wager that actually wanting to find critics is a nigh-impossible task for the average person.
Doing it right, of course, likely requires having good mentors who can guide you away from the path to crankdom. Whether these mentors are best found in academic philosophy programs, I am not certain.
This seems deep, open minded, egalitarian and... blatantly false.
I was honestly going more for silly, cynical, misanthropic and... obviously hyperbole.
If you do not mind me quoting a different part of this thread momentarily:
To the extent that it is a joke it is a bad joke, inappropriate to the context, with an undesirable expected influence, encouraging flawed patterns of thought.
I do not understand what flawed patterns of thought I am encouraging. Could you elaborate a bit?
Most people, regardless of whether they are men or women, want attractive partners, and yet, in my experience, only men are accused of being alienating or superficial or even sexist when they are honest about their desires.
As a general rule, everyone is constantly accusing everyone else of everything.
The reputational damage to Less Wrong has been done. Is there really anything to be gained by flipping moderation policy?
I hate to use silly symmetrical rhetoric, however:
The secret has been leaked and the reputational damage is ongoing. Is there really anything to be gained by continuing the current moderation policy?
Possibly an example. Are you are referring to this:
"Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform," said Hermione, "which gives you a split-second advantage."
"An answer copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six," said Snape dismissively (over in the corner, Malfoy sniggered), "but correct in essentials."
This is basically Snapish for "You got the only correct answer, but I still hate you. Had you given an incorrect answer, I would told you that yo...
What about cases in which group B is a subset of Group A?
She quotes textbooks word for word, all the time.
I am having difficulty finding evidence of this. Could you perhaps give an example? (Ideally, a passage from the book.)
This post is shameless bragging:
I donated two days of pay to the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. As always, this is incredibly easy to do. If you would like to do so, here is a link:
https://givewell.secure.nonprofitsoapbox.com/donate-to-sci