All of k_ebel's Comments + Replies

Thanks for your reply and the additional clarification of your original point.

I certainly am not seeking additional identifying information. For one, it would do me no good as I don't have the local context knowledge to map it to anything anyway. Secondly, the gist of my initial comment was really more responding to the sense that taking a few examples and generalizing them to a larger group of people seemed inadvisable to me.

Along those same lines, I'm still really hesitant to get behind a statement that strongly implies that all well-intentioned n... (read more)

"Note, the problem here isn't the ask. We do asks in entrepreneur-topia all the time. The problem is the lack of dealcraft: the asks are asymmetrically favouring the asker, and only offer vague lipservice-waving-towards-nice-things as return."

I want to talk about this just a bit. If I've missed a comment that also addresses the same point, I apologize.

So, yes, asks are super common in the culture you're in. But in other cultures - specifically those that are more guess oriented - it's actually really difficult to grow negotiation skills. I'... (read more)

5sdr
Thank you for posting this. I agree, that growing negotiation skills is hard under best of circumstances; and I agree that certain types of newbies might self-identify with the post above. There is a qualitative difference between people who are negotiating (but lack the proper skill), and the parasites described above: * Beginner negotiators state their request, and ask explicitly (or expect impliedly) for price / counter * More advanced negotiators start with needs/wants discovery, to figure out where a mutually beneficial deal can be made; and they adjust as discussion proceeds * These parasites, in comparison, attempt to raise their request against explicitly stated, nebulous things (or nothing at all): "Would you like to do free translation for me?" - "Cause X is very important, and therefore you, specifically, should do something about it" - "Would you like to build my full website for me in exchange of 1% shares?" For the record: * I have attempted education in some cases (1-on-1, no social standings on the line on either parties, being discreet, etc), to no effect, and only resentment from the other party. * I observe that this parasitic strategy works some of the time, which incentivize existing parasitic behavior to grow until saturation. These are the reasons why I brought this up here in the first place. * Kindly note, that while there were a lot more evidencing going into this than described above, I am hesitant to disclose more specificities about any of these cases, because the Bay is small (-> personal identification), and discussion isn't reflective-complete (parasites read this, too; the more I disclose here, the more they can shift their strategies)

I realize this is super belated and may not actually be seen, but if I get an answer, that'd be cool:

If we see the horns effect in how people talk about Nazis as evidence that our sanity waterline could be raised, wouldn't trying to fight the thing you're calling "bias against the poor Nazis" be like trying to treat symptom of a problem instead of the problem itself?

Examples I can think of that might illustrate what I mean:

Using painkillers instead of (or before?) finding out a bone is broken and setting it.
Trying to teach a martial arts student... (read more)

Hello!

I'm getting into the Bay area this afternoon for the CFAR workshop starting tomorrow. I'm looking for advice on how to spend the time and also where might be a good place to look for affordable lodging for one evening.

I'd initially thought about crashing at the Piedmont house hostel as it's cheap and close enough that I could visit CFAR before heading over tomorrow, but it appears to be sold out. I figured there are probably folks here who know the area or have visited, so I didn't see any harm in asking for info, or checking to see if anyone was getting up to anything.

:) Kim

1Manfred
The Nash hotel is cheap and close, if a bit old. Plus, you know, once you're there you can't find a better hotel.
3Gunnar_Zarncke
Hi k_ebel. I'm not sure whether this is the best place for getting in touch with people on short notice (though I'm open to stand corrected). A more immediate way to get in touch and discuss matters is the LW Slack https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong_Slack or the LW irc.

I've read this book in the past and am looking at "The Willpower Instinct" right now. Since you seem to have read both, I'd love to hear any other thoughts you might have on the comparative pros/cons of each of them.

1shanen
Not even sure this comment is directed at me, but quite sure my reply is quite late. (In terms of deciding to reply, it would be helpful if LW revealed something about your recent activity in the flyover.) At this point I don't recall the books in sufficient detail to address your question properly. I do fit them into the general scheme of compulsive behavior. My general take on habitual behaviors (including compulsions) is that certain parts of the lower brain are the mechanical keys to the compulsions, but there's a scale before things get into extremes like OCD. The complicated part is that there are many paths into the lower brain. On that foundation, my basic theory is that some people are more subject to compulsive behaviors (which can be roughly mapped to having less willpower), but the trigger for a compulsive behavior is a point of attack to change that behavior. Some triggers are definitely worse than others, so switching to a less troublesome trigger is an improvement. Supplemental reading? I am a Strange Loop by Hofstadter is relevant, though my interpretation is different from his. I think all of us run various mental programs, and his recursive loops are only a relatively minor subset. (But I think his Godel, Escher, Bach is still a must read, especially the chapter on translation.) Quite recently I read Descartes' Error by Damasio, which is relevant. He's approaching these problems from a more mechanical level, but with heavy consideration of how emotions are involved in decision making. Also the books from Malcolm Gladwell and Dan Ariely are excellent.

As a possible point of clarification:

The underwear itself really just happened to be the first time I recognized an example of aspects of my thinking that I'd been having trouble with. Specifically, that I tend to go about tackling problems in an exceedingly round-about way.

I posted it to this group because I found myself able to express the actual orientations and order of operations that my thoughts went through. It was a relatively isolated example, in that it didn't reference interactions with other people or processes. As such, it seemed ideal for ... (read more)

I run into some of the same problems you listed above in my own use of productivity apps. I look forward to hearing more about your project! If you have a blog or some place you post progress, I'd be interested in following you there as well.

0Vladimir_Golovin
I don't have a blog or even Twitter for it yet, and I guess I need to set these up, but I still haven't came up with the final product name. (Am I yak-shaving? Maybe it would be better to just start blogging and worry about the name later?)

Do you know if the project intends to address that lack of definition in what attributes we see as being similar (in groups and individuals)? I could see how even just having a list of characteristics for a person/group might be an excellent place to start in evaluating choices for where to spend social/networking capital.

Do you still need volunteers to help with the SF event?

0VAuroch
Most likely cannot onboard volunteers quickly enough to be useful at this point; Thursday was the last day for volunteer signups, I believe.

I joined a while ago but don't think I ever posted here. I'd lurked for quite some time here and at various blogs a degree or so separation away since before that. I've mostly link-hopped my way around the sequences and various pieces of fiction and followed folks on facebook and recently realized we had a local LW meetup. I'm happy to answer any questions about me, but never really know what kind of information would be relevant to put in an introductory post, so instead I thought I'd make a proposal instead:

I've seen (for a while) a lot of activity... (read more)

I would have to add another point on the anecdotal side for this. I made it through Real Analysis (barely!) when I was a math major - and it made a significant difference on the thought process I go through when I consider things. If nothing else, it was very instrumental in breaking the "good rhetoric = good argument" connection I'd been operating under up until that point. And this was long before I'd any notion that places like CFAR or LW even existed.

(I will disclaimer that it also made certain kinds of communication more difficult - beca... (read more)

Ahhh, thanks.

That... may make for some interesting reading.

If you are still looking for collaborators of any nature to work on this project, please send me a message. I'd be interested in talking with you to see if there is any way I could contribute.

0Elo
PM. Also public update: Nothing has happened for a while. probably not going to happen.

What comic book are you referring to? curious

0beoShaffer
Rot13 Jngpuzra. The main villain is trying to force the world powers to unite to fight his fake alien invasion, and you aren't supposed to find this out until the end.

I totally agree that speaking is harder than writing, because it has to happen quicker, and also because there is body and face moving that can change what words mean each time they are said, as well as group position that can change how those words are heard. To me, even using words that come from this place in ways that make me easy to understand is very hard. So I like to see good times when it is done well, in hopes that I can learn from them.

One modified form of CBT that I have personally found very helpful (and - frankly - served as something of a primer for skills I have been learning through this website) is DBT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy).

Honestly, a lot of the skils are things I think any person could really use. (For me, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness were incredibly helpful and not something that had ever been spelled out to me prior to encountering this).

As a disclaimer: I do think that my experiences may have been very influ... (read more)

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just describe the difference between Serif (letters with more lines than they need to have) and Sans Serif (letters with only as many lines as they need) fonts?

If so, that was well done - both of you! It is no easy task to effectively communicate something you don't have the words for. Nor is it easy to understand that communication! That's a pretty big win-win, in my experience. :)

1Elo
I had no idea what was going on till you explained it.
1ilzolende
I think that I explained the about-letter-looks-words without using them, and the other person seemed to understand me, and then he changed the thing that I tried to explain, so I think I was able to explain it. I am happy that you think this was not easy, but actually it was easier than a class where I use words that are not from this place but from across the big body of water. I could take longer to write things and I have to talk sort of quickly in that class. Also, I know these words better.

I can't see why this kind of behavior would be adaptive, and experiments don't seem to bear this hypothesis out.

Perhaps I am missing something, but I didn't see how the study or the wiki article you linked to addressed specifically how men value "their feelings/utilons as compared to women's feelings/utilons" ? Both the experiment and the article mention prefering mothers over fathers and attributing a higher level of violence to men, neither of which I see as intrinsically linked to what I understood the previous poster to be saying. (I co... (read more)