All of nbouscal's Comments + Replies

This is a different but related project by someone loosely affiliated with the Bay Area community, definitely worth talking to if you want to go further with this.

For those interested, Coursera currently has a course running on this topic, which goes into a lot of detail about sleep from both neurobiological and clinical perspectives. They also recommend the textbook 'Brain Control of Wakefulness and Sleep' by Steriade and McCarley.

It doesn't, because the reals are infinite in two ways: any given interval is infinite, but the number of intervals is also infinite.

Also this only applies to changing the constants but keeping the general structure the same; you can also create further laws by changing the structure of the laws itself. There are a lot of degrees of freedom.

This full set [of all possible laws of physics under which sentient life can exist] is infinite,

How can you be so sure of this?

Presumably there is some level of resolution at which changes to the fundamental constants no longer have appreciable effects. Maybe it's the thousandth decimal place; maybe it's the googolth decimal place; but it seems extremely unlikely to me that there isn't such a level. Given this assumption, the set of possible laws is clearly infinite.

Is there, or will there be, an RSS feed for this? I didn't see one anywhere.

Minor nit, but I don't think anyone has ever died from being struck by thunder.

Within 3 months of attending a CFAR workshop I had left my job for one that I preferred and that paid 15% more. Within 6 months I had started exercising daily (previously once every few weeks), waking up consistently at 6am (previously varied anywhere from 8-10am), and eating significantly healthier (I also started eating vegetarian meals 2-3 times a week, previously 0). Independent of any of these concrete behaviors, I now have a very strong belief that I can intentionally construct/change my life and behavior in ways that will actually work.

Post hoc ergo... (read more)

There have been numerous critiques of Connection Theory already, and I encounter people disavowing it with much more frequency than people endorsing it, in both the rationalist and EA communities. So, I don't think we have anything to worry about in that direction. I'm more worried by the zeal with which people criticize it, given that Leverage rarely seems to mention it, all of the online material about it is quite dated, and many of the people whose criticism of it I question don't seem to actually know hardly anything about it.

To be extra clear: I'm not a proponent of CT; I'm very skeptical of it. It's just distressing to me how quick the LW community is to politicize the issue.

I would. I would think that such a post was quite silly, in the context of being posted to LessWrong. I would hope that, if there were any question about the subject, someone would simply post a list of evidence or neutral well-reasoned arguments. Homeopathy is easily enough dispatched with "there is no explanation for this that conforms to our understanding of physical laws, and there is no evidence for it, therefore it is very unlikely to be true." Bringing political speech and in-group/out-group dynamics into it is detrimental to the conversat... (read more)

This post is a political attack that doesn't add anything new or substantive to a discussion of Leverage or of Connection Theory. Much of the language used in the post is used primarily for negative connotational value, which is characteristic of political speech. Politics is hard mode. A discussion about Leverage or Connection Theory may be valuable, but this post is not a good way to start one.

Startups try to hire software engineers disproportionately from top schools. Starting engineering salaries at startups tend to be in the 80-100k range (sometimes higher). This is the case in SV, but also in NYC and many other markets.

The trend likely doesn't hold generally because it's a very local distortion. Startups like to hire young people and almost never hire engineers over 35 [1]. Essentially they're driving up demand for a small subset of the work-force, and the price for that subset has changed accordingly.

[1]: This is a blatant overgeneralization and is definitely not true for all startups, but does appear to hold for the vast majority.

It seems to be commonly thought that there is a notion of "well-roundedness" which is important in itself. This seems to be a very common reason for learning musical instruments, languages, etc. The person may not find the particular skill or subject to be important, but will do so anyway in pursuit of the well-roundedness that they do consider important.

Can we please taboo "memorize" here? It seems to me the problem is conflating two different mental activities: 1) developing the ability to recall specific discrete responses to stimuli, and 2) gaining cohesive understanding of the component pieces of a "big picture", and the connections between them. It seems not at all surprising that the best approach for each would differ, with spaced repetition being good for the former and things like venn diagrams, mnemonic pictures, and memory palaces being good for the latter.

Concrete examples ... (read more)

I've found identity to be a very useful tool for habit forming. For example, when I wanted to start running regularly, I decided to adopt "runner" as part of my identity. This made it much easier for me to actually get up and run every morning. Similarly, when I quit drinking, I decided that "I'm not the kind of person who drinks." I've done the same thing with waking up early, and a few other habits. This does result in adding a lot of things to my identity, but I don't expect them to be any harder to remove than they were to adopt, if that becomes necessary.

How about simple enjoyment? I don't know what kind of exercise you're doing, but e.g. for running most people who get through the initial pain end up really enjoying it. I'm sure there are parallels for other forms of exercise.