drift is harmful from the perspective of my current values
True. And that drift would be beneficial from the perspective of your new, drifted-to values.
But neither of those statements have any bearing on whether value drift (in general or any specific instance thereof) is good or bad.
Offer extended; I can be there about 6:40.
Sure. Google says it's not particularly out of the way. (I got a day job, around Brier Creek; coming from there puts me halfway to the meetup compared to coming from home).
Committed.
I know this sounds snarky, but it's serious: Are you married?
Ideally a life partner will share many of your values, but no two people share all values, and you'll need to respect the ones that differ. (Even if you're both Bayesian, in area where you have different values/axioms you will not necessarily agree).
Assuming one already had an AI that is capable of understanding human psychology
From what I understand, that's actually the hard part of the Friendliness problem.
a significant proportion of the LW posters are contrarians
I'm not!
Me too!
Depends on the position. Remember Poe's Law - there are some positions where it's impossible to distinguish a parody from the real thing.
Attempt to make beliefs pay rent, and beliefs in the supernatural will likely melt away as they fail to constrain your anticipated experiences.
And don't worry too much about supernatural beliefs. Just keep trying to make your beliefs correspond to reality, and see where that goes.
By attempting genocide.
sandals are supposed to show your feet
I read once that men should generally avoid showing their feet, because said feet are likely to be uglier than socks or shoes. (Or even Vibram Fivefingers).
The implied context of all this is: what if Bitcoin (or something similar) became a/the dominant currency, that paychecks, debts, etc. are denominated in?
If it doesn't then it doesn't really matter, societally, if it inflates, deflates, mutates, or defenestrates (other than to the people who invest in it...) It'd just be another good, as you say.
It's deserved - I wasn't being productive, or constructive, or even particularly coherent. It surprised me too. I think various Issues of mine that nobody cares about all came together yesterday, and so I'd be better off to just avoid discussing economics altogether. At least until I can be unemotional about it (if ever). Sorry for polluting the thread, back to public-key encryption...
My understanding is that one good wouldn't do it, but persistent, overall deflation would in fact devastate the economy.
Sure, right now you can stick money under a mattress for 6 months and buy more Core 2 laptops than you could today. But that doesn't seem the same as "getting richer".
Where's the line? Good question. Obviously if you could buy more of anything that would be getting richer without investing the money. Or if you could buy more (houses or food or cars or Internet access or electricity or sex or drugs or rock n' roll).
I've not been very coherent, and I think my once-debilitating fear of the Invisible Hand has not gone away enough. So I'm not making a lot of sense, even to myself.
So, umm, never mind. Sorry for polluting the thread.
Can you expand? Here's the difference as I see it:
Which is more or less useful, and why?
Sure, just discuss the particular problems with the (best versions of) propositions put forth by such people [goldbugs and libertarians], and how their conclusions don't follow, and what specific pieces of evidence weight heavily against them. (Note the lack of smearing them as racists in this method.)
OK. Libertarianism I can leave to others (I don't think I have anything new to say about it). As for hard-money advocacy, usually one sees the following errors:
Now to get to the actual economics:
Investing in the productive economy hasn't yielded a positive return for the last ten years
Given stock price trends I can't see how this is true. Can you elaborate? Even Treasuries are yielding 3-odd percent in the face of 2-odd percent inflation.
unless you want all behavior to shift toward consuming all real resources immediately, including "seed corn", you have just as much an interest in seeing an economy strike a balance between present an future consumption
The wealth of a nation is not some fixed qu...
you hate rich people
I do, and this probably clouds my judgement.
To expand, whenever you think of "dollar debasement", ask yourself "relative to what?"
Let's hear your economic system design where anyone can gain real wealth by simply putting their cash under mattresses (as would be true if deflation were the norm). Who needs to invest in the actual productive economy?
Good point. I have a bad habit of spending time in corners of the Internet where libertarians, gold-bugs and various mutations thereof like to come and argue (i.e. any economics-related blog); so anything that looks like hard-money or libertarian advocacy provokes an instant "aw geez, not this shit again!" reaction.
It does occur to me that any system of money with de-centralized production probably does have to have an upper quantity limit, to keep random assholes from manipulating its value.
As popular as libertarianism and goldbuggism seem to be...
I do not understand why people are especially excited about bitcoin.
My understanding:
Or in two words: techno-libertarian porn.
EDIT: It occurs to me the fixed upper quantity is necessary given de-centralized production.
It also occurs to me to wonder if there are any reasons to advocate Bitcoin other than those two - anyone want to help me update?
I share with your general impression, but I think your phrasing casts bitcoin advocates as idiots which is a poor discussion tactic.
I'd think if you value / reward honesty and being reality-based, everything else should fall out of that. But mine are still too young to tell.
The unemployment office recommended My Next Move for scouting out occupations. (I'm already established in something that can loosely be called a career so it wasn't of use to me).
I would presumably be able to stop eating things after noting that I am neither hungry nor enjoying them.
This is actually theorized to be a major contributor to obesity. It definitely is for me; I generally desire to continue eating until mechanically full, or the food is gone.
Forcibly eating slowly (using chopsticks can help that) can help that.
My ability to do things very fast is currently hampered by my psychological need to multitask, take frequent and extended breaks, etc. With infinite willpower I would just do things very fast. I would take on more paid work.
Before I got ADD treatment I coped by working in a job where it's an asset rather than a liability: tech support. One cannot keep the same activity going very long in that environment because one is certain to be interrupted with something of higher priority, in short order.
Lose 120-150 pounds. Then put some energy into figuring out what to do next. Then do that.
What upsides are left to being vegetarian once you leave out economics and ecology? I have trouble thinking of any. It's a bit easier for a vegetarian to eat "light" but one has to keep an eye on one's protein intake. As far as I can tell the moral dimension (is it "wrong" to eat animals?) reduces to personal preference.
Is there an upside I'm missing?
When applying, model the probability of getting any specific job as zero. If you get through an in-person interview and it goes well, you can update that probability upwards a bit.
That is, don't serialize your applications (you won't hear back anything at all from most of them, anyway). Expect near-universal rejection, even for jobs for which you're the world's most ideal candidate.
Compensate by applying for hundreds of jobs.
Just finished a new, improved sandbox. The prior one was irregularly shaped, hard to cover, and lined with a tarp so when it got wet it would stay wet. The new one:
Motivation source: Starting a new (temporary) day job soon, so I could afford the materials, and would have little time to work on it.
With similar keys: If they're the same brand of lock, and you control both, you can get one re-keyed to be the same as the other.
Locksmiths will do this, or if you buy a new lock of that brand at Lowe's and bring that existing key (and the person who knows how to do this is afoot), they will re-key the lock to match your existing key, at no extra charge.
I read (in What To Expect, maybe) that until the 50s or so, doctors generally would not give pain relief during childbirth. Not so much because of concern over side effects, etc. but for reasons as above.
Painful childbirth was seen as a divine curse upon womankind - a punishment for Eve's role in the Original Sin. Therefore ameliorating said pain would be immoral.
Ugh.
I was without plumbing for several years as a teenager (1980s). Occasionally I marvel that I can use an automatic dishwasher instead of dipping up a pot from the rain barrel and heating it on the stove. It got mundane for me mighty quick though.
Lately I fantasize about telling my wife I have to work late, sneaking off to a motel, and sleeping.
I've found consumerreports.org to be well worth the $26/year, especially in the automotive reviews.
From the Car Talk guys: The cheapest car to own, in the long run, is a junk heap. But expenses with such cars are "bursty" and unpredictable; you never know when you night have to drop a grand on a head gasket or something. They're also less safe than newer cars of similar mass, and more likely to break down at inconvenient times.
I would suggest edmunds.com; they will tell you an average of what other people are paying for a car of your choice (a good guide to knowing if prices are in line with reality). I don't know if they cover Australia, but even if they don't, some good information is likely there for the taking.
It also makes a difference if you're unusually tall and/or fat (or as I prefer to be called, a "person of size".)
It's a mind hack to help one consider fellow LWers as part of one's "tribe".
It seems to me to be a rationality skill, in the sense of consciously exploiting human cognitive biases in the service of one's own goals.
Or it's a very mild form of cult "love bombing".
Good point. I hadn't considered that that whole mess hasn't shaken out yet.
I actually think it is rare for houses to lose value, especially over a few years. But I might well be missing something.
Yes, there was recently a housing "bubble" where many did lose value. My understanding is that the typical case there was a house that went up 40% in value from 2000 to 2007, then plummeted to its 2000 value. Sucks if you buy in 2007 I suppose.
And there are instances where an individual house can lose significant amounts of value. It could become unintentionally mobile, for example.
Other advice:
Good question :-)
We could measure them against some non-relativist ethical standard, like "US Dollars lost", "lives lost", "person-weeks stuck in traffic" or somesuch.