All of kdorian's Comments + Replies

kdorian00

And that doesn't even bring up the fact that if the farmers have no way to plow the field once they are no longer being harassed, they're going to starve regardless of what the adventurers do to the elves.

kdorian30

I can't see how but that both the victims, and everyone else they affect, deciding. That doesn't mean they'll all come to the same conclusion, of course.

I'm pretty sure that's where politics comes from, personally...

Edited to add: I do not mean to imply that if one group decides X, another Y, and a third Z, that it necessarily means that any of them are wrong.

kdorian10

It isn't a rationalist quote. It doesn't belong here.

I am forced to disagree; a quote about conquering the (colloquially) impossible with sufficient thought and planning is very appropriate for this site.

kdorian60

No, but your "hodge-podge of inaccurate 2D maps", while still imperfect, is more accurate than relying on a single 2-D map - which is the point I took from the original quote.

kdorian80

I suspect, with no data to back me up, that is those who were ambivalent when they stepped into the polling booth that genuinely misremember. Others know they voted for the other guy, but want to be seen as one of the 'winners'.

3alex_zag_al
Or the survey he's referring to is biased. Seems hard for it not to be... did they knock on doors all across the country? If it's based on mail or telephone responses, are people who voted for Obama more likely to respond to those? Or, he's misquoting the survey. If you were testing the hypothesis that people misremember voting for the winner, wouldn't you sample a smaller area than the whole country, and then compare your results with the vote count from that area? Why would an experiment like that ever get a number meant to be compared with the whole country's votes?
2A1987dM
I suspect, with no data to back me up, that the latter class contains many more people than the former. (If I were that ambivalent, I wouldn't vote for either major candidate at random; I would either vote for a minor candidate, or not vote at all. But I guess not everybody is like me.)
7TheOtherDave
There are many U.S. elections I have voted in where there were two candidates for an office and I couldn't tell you which one I voted for. Admittedly, no cases involving Presidential candidates; I'm usually pretty sure who I'm voting for in those cases.
kdorian50

There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is seeing something that isn't there.

Thomas Hardy

6MixedNuts
Pretty sure most people would pick hallucinations over blindness. Easier to correct for.
kdorian-30

Very few people see their own actions as truly evil.... It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not.

Laurell K. Hamilton

A quote I find useful when considering both rationalizing, and the differences of relative perspective.

2TheOtherDave
Huh. Their victims decide, rather than everyone they affect deciding? I don't think I agree.
kdorian-40

Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.

William S. Burroughs

4shokwave
My immediate reaction was "No, my knowledge of what is going on starts out superficial and relative, but it sure doesn't stay that way". (I object to the "only").
kdorian00

Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

kdorian50

We will find the key to our liberation only when we accept that what we once did to survive is now destroying us.

- Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

kdorian70

You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame. Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking.

- David Mamet

4NancyLebovitz
ETA: Gwern checked the book and posted the relevant section below. I got it backwards-- seven to twelve are the ages most likely to die. Six and under are more likely to survive. Actually, there's something rather like that in Deep Survival, a book that's mostly about wilderness survival. IIRC, six to twelve year olds are more likely to survive than adults, and it's because of less fear of embarrassment. However, the author didn't go into a lot of details about which mistakes the adults make-- I think it was that the kids seek cover, but the adults make bad plans and insist on following through with them.
0RobinZ
I think I read that book, but I can't put my hands on it just this second.
kdorian00

Excellent article, thank you for the link!

kdorian00

I have always read it as intentionally ironic commentary on the 'slippery slope' more than anything else.

1NancyLebovitz
I read it more specifically as a parody of moral slipperyslopism, in which slight moral infractions lead to the worst sort of behavior. Arguably, we live in an era strongly shaped by revulsion at moral slipperyslopism.
kdorian10

Are there any guidelines, or does anyone have any significant thoughts, about mentioning Less Wrong in text in fanfiction (or any other type of fiction)? I know a lot of people came here by way of HP:MoR, myself included, but I'm interested if anyone has reasons that they believe it would be a bad idea, or an especially good one.

kdorian00

Absolutely true. I test as I can, as difficult as that can be with a sample size of 1. But the magnesium/calcium supplement combo reliably stopped and restarted my nail-biting through three rounds of taking/not taking the supplements, which is as good a track record as I require. When I started testing my supplements I was not surprised to learn that several that had initially seemed beneficial didn't provide any sustained benefit.

kdorian70

A half truth is more frightening than a lie.

-Bengali proverb

2NancyLebovitz
I've heard a theory that half truths told with intent to deceive are more damaging than outright lies because if someone is deceived, they're more likely to blame themselves.
kdorian50

Magnesium & Calcium supplements are cheaper still - nail biting can be a symptom of a deficency in one or both. And one advantage of suppliments is that you should know pretty quickly if that's the cause or not; in the admittedly few people I know who tried suppliments it either significantly reduced nail biting within a week or it never helped at all.

0NancyLebovitz
It can be really hard to tell whether a problem is more mind-like or more body-like.