No, no, no. Do not do this. It is bad advice!
First, asking for ANY precommitment not to break up over X is going to be a "major relationship step" and unless you are very experienced with relationships it is not something you ask for during the first two weeks, because there's a decent chance it'll harm or end the relationship.
Second, it's a stupid precommitment to agree to! There's all SORTS of good reasons to break up with someone who texts you, since the content can be basically anything.
Third, any breakup can be blamed on texts / emails, so i...
I think it'd be helpful to have a small textbox to add a short comment to a poster where I can put "I agree!" or "Fallacious reasoning" or "inappropriate discussion" that only shows up in the poster's view so there is some feedback besides Up/Down, yet doesn't clog up the thread.
I've never seen that function in a forum though, so perhaps the programming is simple.
I just don't understand the downvote/upvote thing, especially if the norm is/should be for broken thoughts.
When I get downvoted (or upvoted), I often don't get a comment explaining why. So it's unclear where I'm broken (or what I'm doing right). That's frustrating and doesn't help me increase my value to the community.
It'd be nice to have downvoters supply a reason why, in order to improve the original.
I believe the real issue that B. raised of LW being cold won't be effectively improved by posting "I agree!" replies, but requires some emotional involvement. A response that offers something to the OP, that gives something back.
Like, why do you agree? What are the implications of you agreeing? Or, what thoughts or emotions does the content of the post bring up for you? The response doesn't have to be long, but it should be personal and thoughtful.
A little bit more of that may go a long way towards developing community.
It feels like people are ten thousand times more likely to point out my flaws than to appreciate something I said. Also, there's >next to no emotional relating to one another.
I'm sorry, that sucks. I think you're right and hope this changes. I don't post very often, but when I do in the future, I'll be more aware of this.
You could start off by overtly letting the kids know that "guessing the password" is how their success in school is measured and you're not going to be able to change that reality, but you could introduce "alternative" ways of thinking.
How about a game where each student writes down their answer to a passwordy type question and scores a point for every other student with the same answer. Lowest score wins. But they have to justify their answer.
If a teacher asks the question: "Who discovered America?" The password is: "Chr...
That's one element in what started my line of thought..I was imagining situations where I would consider the exchange of human lives for non-human objects. How many people's lives would be a fair exchange for a pod of bottlenose dolphins? A West Virginia mountaintop? An entire species of snail?
I think what I'm getting towards is there's a difference between human preferences and human preference for other humans. And by human preferences, I mean my own.
I've been trying to work through Torture versus Dustspecks and The Intuitions Behind Utilitarianism and getting stuck...
It seems Values are arational, but there can be an irrational difference between what we believe our values are and what they really are.
If your goal in pursuing writing advice is to increase your audience then my advice: View yourself as an editor not a writer. Your weakness as a writer (IMHO) is verbosity and generality (the two are often related).
Write your next post and when you feel it's ready, then run a word count on it. Rewrite the post to reduce the count by 50%. Post both versions and see what happens.
I think a fair question to ask is, "If you don't use a car, how will you get to places safely?"
There seems to be an unsupported assumption that the alternatives to driving (cycling, walking, public transportation) are SAFER than driving.
On a per-mile travelled basis, what are the risks associated with various forms of transportation (driving, walking, cycling, public bus, public train, etc)? My suspicion is that the danger is (in descending order): cycling, walking, driving, public bus, public train, but I don't know where to go to find evidence.
"The rule that says that the egg won't spontaneously reform and leap back into your hand is merely probabilistic."
This example requires a level of education that doesn't match my belief of the expected audience of this post.
The low importance in the distinction between mathematical certainty and realistic likelihood is valid, but involving quantum probability kills the post for me.
Sorry, I should have been clearer.
I do mean automated trucking. I think that development is less than 30 years away. Self-driving cars are a functioning technology now, the main hurdles (not insignificant ones) being social and legal.
Like most human-replacing technology, where the industry still exists, but is now automated ( modern car factories compared to buggy whip manufacturers), I don't expect trucking to be 100% automated, but the human factor will be reduced significantly the next 30 years.
Vehicles will still need humans to gas, service, deal with ...
The US government has listed some trends here: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_203.htm
Manufacturing is clearly out. Services that involve interacting with other humans (health care, teaching) are in.
Personally, I think we've plucked a lot of low hanging fruit. I predict the maturation of some technologies that will make a few fields move towards obsolescence. I expect at major ( >%50) decline in employment for long haul truckers and tax preparers under that maturation. Retail sales will decline in favor of ship-to-home, and obviously some jobs are clear...
Thanks all for the comments. I didn't actually mean to post this yet (my first original post). I thought I had saved it as a draft and was coming back to flesh it out...and there it was with comments and all.
Despite (or because of??) the terseness of my original post, I received many excellent upvotable replies.
I was going to expound a little more on the two points.
How do I go about defining and achieving realistic goals of parenting? This is the bigger question of the two since I feel more at sea with my 5 year old (also have a 2 year old, who's much &quo...
And extremely common one in my cultural (USA) context is that "being cold" can give you a "cold". According to common wisdom, being out in cold weather with wet hair and no hat will cause you to be infected with a rhinovirus.
The expression encapsulating this is "You'll catch your death!"
When travelling in Eastern Europe, I found a similar attitude towards drafts from a couple locals. The safest was to keep all windows and doors to the outside closed (in a room or car). Opening one portal was frowned on. Two or more (creating airflow) was taboo and would cause sickness.
Prolonged exposure to cold temperatures can weaken the immune system, so the advice is at least helpful, though false.
Really? One of three murders in the U.S. go unsolved.
You could look at the cost of alcohol as the price you pay to enter a social setting. If you were expected to consume some beverage, and they were all priced the same but exorbitantly, what would you do?
It has not been my experience that someone who doesn't drink stands out in any social setting that I would consider important. If you're getting blank or worse stares, it may be your delivery or it may be you need new social settings.
My recommendation would be to use the question as a platform to engage the questioner and others around. Tell a funny anecdot...
I wasn't saying to commit to not breaking over the content of a text message, but to commit to not breaking up over the medium of texting.
Even in a two week old relationship, I think it's reasonable to say something like, "Hey, I enjoy hanging out with you, and it seems you feel the same. If you change your mind though, please don't tell me over text or e-mail, just give me a call."