All of RobertLumley's Comments + Replies

Long time no see LW. Glad to see this is still going.

Anyway, after finding the first half of the premier season mediocre and giving up on it, I recently tried to get back into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and am happy to say that the second half was some of the best television I've seen since, well, Joss Whedon's last television show.

I am from the US, and work in manufacturing, which is even more culturally conservative. But this isn't out of line with any other experiences I've had.

There will be at least a year per every child

This seems to be wildly off based on my experiences. Women I know (with working husbands) having children are taking 2-3 months off.

This seems like a poor strategy by simply considering temper tantrums, let alone all of the other holes in this. (The first half of the comment though, I can at least appreciate.)

I like to draw a (rather pretentious) delineation between music and songs, the archetypal examples being, say Beethoven's fifth symphony and "Call Me Maybe". (As a side note, I very much consider it possible for something to both be a "song" and "music") I enjoy music because I played a few instruments and sang when I was younger, so I know enough musical theory to appreciate the artistry it took to come up with the structure in the music, and (when appropriate) lyrics.

Contrarily, I enjoy songs (although happen to hate "C... (read more)

I want to answer about $3000, but I am pretty sure that's almost entirely because of priming. I think the honest answer is that I'm not sure I'm capable of eating meat anymore. Emotionally, I find it disgusting and repulsive. I almost certainly don't have the enzymes to digest meat anymore, as I've been a vegetarian for over two years. The resulting combination is... gastrically unpleasant.

I kind of recently came to the realization that I think Eliezer meant Harry and Hermione's relationship to personify what he says often, which is "Utilitarianism is what is correct, virtue ethics is what works for human beings".

Soon, Harrry will do something somewhat clearly allegorical to FOOMed super AI.

Eliezer has stated that nothing in HPMOR is allegory for AI. I don't have a source for the quote, but I remember it very clearly, because it surprised me.

FWIW, one of my takeaways from taking subjective measurements of my happiness, motivation, etc. everyday was that by far the biggest correlation was that I was happiest when I exercised more. But again, that's not really establishing causation.

I initially thought I would really like this article on consiousness after death. I did not. The guy comes off as a complete crackpot, given my understanding of neurobiology. (Although I won't dispute his overall point, nor would many here, I think, that we continue to exist for a bit after we are legally dead.) I would appreciate anyone who is so motivated to look up some things on why a lot of the things he says are completely bogus. I replied to the person who sent me this article with a fairly superficial analysis, but if anyone knows of some solid stu... (read more)

Thank you for doing this. Please continue to do so in the likely event I fail to in the future. As I become busier and busier, I have less time for reading LessWrong, and hadn't even thought about this until I went looking for something recommended in it from several months ago.

This isn't really specific to the special case of having negative money. If you have $10,000 to give and can invest that in the stock market and earn money at a rate higher than your discount rate for lives, then you should invest the money in the stock market and give to charity in a years time. if this continues to be the case, you should continue to compound your money and will it all to charity when you die.

Now if someone can just give me a good way of figuring out what my discount rate for lives is, this would be helpful in answering this question for myself.

Meta Thread

Other Media Thread

Music Thread

Television and Movies Thread

Fiction Books Thread

Nonfiction Books Thread

Fanfiction Thread

Online Videos Thread

Short Online Texts Thread

Why would you downvote a meetup post?

Thank you! Was just looking for #1 and wasn't sure what it was called. Searched LW for "dragon sacrifice". This came up. Wonderful.

“Our vision is inevitably contracted, and the whole horizon may contain much which will compose a very different picture.”

Cheney Bros v. Doris Silk Corporation, New York Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

What kind of difference?

My opposition to meat varies linearly with the intelligence of the animal. I'm much more OK with fish than I am pigs.

Depending on how ostentatiously (Which I know isn't the right word, but I think conveys what I'm trying to evoke?) you were eating the meat, it would bother me. The type of meat would also make a difference to me. I know vegetarians who are bothered if you eat any meat near them. They are obviously polite about it, (I certainly never say anything) but it might bother people more than you realize.

Hey, that's my internet/video game moniker. Funny how that happens. I generally drop the underscore though.

My evaluation is very much the same as yours, in that Hanson is way off on the efficiency of meat vs other foods. My conclusion is just that he is ignorant of the facts though, not trolling.

The name of that alone makes it worth downloading.

I think it is in a similar vein, certainly, but I think it's different in some ways too. For example, I don't think most people would accept cannibalism even if the people (victims? food?) led very happy lives, perhaps like a system where people were pampered in spas all day before being killed for food. But the logical extension of Hanson's argument is that this would be a great system. Assuming that there was a remote economic demand for human meat, which, thankfully, there isn't.

Also, I think cannibalism engages people's sense of moral intuition much moreso than simply having a lot of marginally happy people does.

Please note that per last month's poll (although it was close) three new threads were added this month, the Fanfiction thread, the Online videos thread, and the Short Online Texts thread. In full disclosure, I have a slight preference for not having these be threads, since it means I have to look up three more thread names and make three more comments, so I'll reconsider whether or not to keep making these based on use and feedback.

Short Online Texts Thread

Online Videos Thread

Fanfiction Thread

Nonfiction Books Thread

Fiction Books Thread

Television and Movies Thread

Music Thread

Other Media Thread

Meta Thread

Sorry, I'll make one. I've been busy and haven't been particularly motivated outside of work recently.

I am looking for defenders of Hanson's Meat is Moral. On the surface, this seems like a very compelling argument to me. (I am a vegetarian, primarily for ethical reasons, and have been for two years. At this point the thought of eating meat is quite repulsive to me, and I'm not sure I could be convinced to go back even if I were convinced it were moral.)

It struck me, however, nothing in this argument is specific to animals, and that anyone who truly believes this should also support growing people for cannibalism, as long as those lives are just barely wor... (read more)

It is unclear to me what your purpose in making this a full discussion thread is. A seemingly random comment on an somehwat related blog does not need to be promoted to the level of a full thread without any explanation or comment.

Polls in comments was also a pretty big feature added this year.

Because Eliezer deleting something based on the "Eliezer says so" is at least coherent and unambiguous.

Well his attempt here is to lay out a bit more than "Because Eliezer says so" as a reason.

Is I read it, the policy does not address the basilisk and basilisk type issues, which, while I don't think should be moderated, are. "Information Hazards" specifically says "not mental health reasons."

The borders of gun states vs non gun states would be interesting.

I did too. I think I retweeted that.

These things are huge triggers for me. It drives me mad that society has the reaction it does when this event killed as many people as die every eleven seconds. If we had a proportional societal reaction to all deaths, maybe we'd have solved the problem by now.

Edit: I accidentally the math

This is my favorite Les Miserables song. And incredibly awesome.