See also the visual novel Eliza, which explores a similar idea: https://www.zachtronics.com/eliza/
Big fan of this idea, but I need to be careful where/how I apply it. Otherwise:
"Why did you break up with your significant other?"
"Well, you see, their snoring bothered me but I didn't want to use a deterministic strategy that destroys all the expected value, so I decided to roll a d20, and I got a 2."
The "step-by-step what I did before each physics exam" sounds interesting and useful, would you be open to sharing it here?
Alas, people often don’t let you use them, such as this account where someone who was immunocompromised wasn’t allowed to use one on a flight, and thinks that’s how they got Covid-19.
Nit: Does the linked tweet say the person was in contact with an immunocompromised person, rather than immunocompromised himself?
I agree that 4 is a concern.
I disagree about 2. After having (a) participated in the weekend experiment and (b) done some "back-channel" references on Duncan, my impression is that he hates the fact that leadership will isolate him from the group he really wants to be a part of. I expect that if the experiment is successful, Duncan will eagerly set aside leadership and integrate himself with the group.
Going to class was not voluntary for me either. The consequences of not going to class included: parents screaming at me, parents kicking my ass (tiger parent style; we didn't do "grounding" in my household), truancies going onto my "permanent record", a full day of detention on a Saturday, etc. Things that people call "voluntary" don't usually result in physical and emotional damage if you don't do them.
Nonetheless, I skipped class a few times in middle school, and I suffered the consequences as a result. Were the conseque...
What do you all think of "General Semantics"? Is it worth e.g. trying to read "Science and Sanity"? Are there insights / benefits there that can't be found in "Rationality: AI to Zombies"?
For Linux users (or Mac OS X users that use the Terminal) who want to pick up a journaling habit:
I set up the following aliases to DRAMATICALLY reduce the "activation energy" for writing a journal entry:
alias jcd='cd <journal directory>'
alias today='jcd; vi `date +%Y-%m-%d`; cd -'
alias yesterday='jcd; vi `date -r \`expr \\\`date +%s\\\` - 86400\` +%Y-%m-%d`; cd -'
So if I want to write a journal entry, I just type 'today' and get started. Note that this also has the secondary benefit of keeping journal entries nicely organized by date.
B...
Here's how I calculate 15% tips in my head. After getting used to this approach, I could consistently beat friends who were fumbling with their smartphones.
BTW, math majors have a reputation for NOT being able to do mental arithmetic, so being a math major who could do this was a fun and ironic way to defy stereotypes.
Preparation. Memorize the product of each digit with 1.5
Step 1. Round your bill to two significant digits (35...
I wanted to stop using Facebook, so I deleted my account and then blocked the domain.
Now I don't have any friends anymore, and I have a lot of free time.
I wanted to invest my money, but I didn't want to waste any effort thinking or worrying about it, so I made an account on Wealthfront, set up a monthly recurring transfer, and then put it out of my mind.
I hope the quote didn't come across as "travel sucks, period". Admittedly, with the opening "Travelling is a fool's paradise", it's hard for the quote to come across any other way. But my interpretation is not so much that Emerson is against travel; it's that Emerson is against yearning for travel as the magic solution to all of your problems. No matter where you go, you bring yourself--so if the problems lie within yourself, no amount of travelling will let you escape them.
You sound like an awesome person who would love life even if...
I sometimes wish I could drag various rationalists to my job at the ICU for a while, make them see the kind of teamwork and cooperation that happens in a place where cooperation is a default and a necessity.
Sci-fi plot brewing.
I'd be very interested in a story that goes into detail about the Cyprus experiment (fill an island with all "alphas", instead of the usual "alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon" distribution, and see what happens) from Brave New World.
Better yet, fill an island with all "rationalists" and see what happens.
+1 for probably missing more criteria than any other suggestion given here.
Admittedly, I think I'll have to grudgingly give you "unforgiving" and "badass".
Upvoted. This is the 3rd time in the last week that I've heard someone mention sales as a useful skill, but how do you train it short of actually getting a job in sales?
This is a fascinating perspective.
For me, optimizing code (both style and performance) can, at times, almost feel like gardening (aka relaxing and theraputic). On the other hand, I really like math, yet I've generally found that it requires WAY more effort than programming.
Perhaps this is why you have a math PhD and I don't ;-)
That... definitely explains my failure at "dating a single person for a long time" and my (relative) success at "chatting to someone you don't know".
What you say is absolutely true on a large scale.
When I say that programming is a very "independent" activity, what I'm trying to describe is the fact that at any time, I can think to myself, "I want do some programming", and within 30 seconds, be doing some programming. In particular, I don't have to call someone, convince them that "no, this will be fun", fail, try convincing someone else, succeed, wait for them to head over, etc. etc., by which point my impulse to do some programming has completely disappeared.
You might be surprised how much of a difference this makes, especially for an INTJ like me ;-)
Why do you think something ought to be done about it?
Perhaps to remove "social pressure relating to gender roles" as a confounding factor, so that people can do a better job of finding roles that are good fits for their own individual characteristics?
What do you think that we ought to do about it?
Perhaps we can start by encouraging "sidekick-identified" males to speak up?
Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
Ralph Waldo Emerson on If You D...
And yet, I also have packed my backpack, embarked in the air, and woken up in Rome, and unlike Emerson have indeed been intoxicated in contemplation of the things that were. And as in Rome, so also in Florence, and Prague, and London, and the cave monasteries of Turkey, and the Alhambra, and the temples of Japan, and other places also.
In other words, YMMV.
I learned a few interesting memory tricks from the movie Memento. One thing you can try is to tattoo important information on yourself, so that you don't forget it.
I can think of a few security caveats for sensitive information though:
A while back, I tried reading Jaynes carefully (i.e. working lots of derivations while reading). I'll share my thoughts, but since I stopped after two and a half chapters, YMMV if you read further.
(1) I felt like I was reading a physics textbook. I'm a recovering physics major, and the experience gave me a serious case of Griffiths deja vu. For example, Jaynes does things like:
I am definitely interested in getting better at both "talking with other people" and "observing"; how would you measure your progress in these two cases?
Nice recommendations, thanks.
Going from dual 2-back to dual 3-back was pretty hard! I had to (1) completely ignore audio, master 3-back with visuals only, (2) completely ignore visuals, master 3-back with audio only, then (3) try to combine them.
Great article! Thanks for sharing.
A lot of this article feels like "Everyone can be a winner! Everyone can get a trophy for participation! Yay!" As a result, I'm having a hard time restraining my cynicism. For example:
Plenty of “cool careers” sound better than they turn out to be.
How convenient; now you have a great excuse for why you don't have a "cool career".
Status is often the enemy of success.
How convenient; now you have a great excuse for why you're not high status.
...Just remember is this one rule: Don't innovate. Rep
Great advice! I noticed something like this happening last time I tried to binge-read a webcomic. Initially I'm really engaged and frequently laughing, but a few hours later I end up clicking through strips in zombie mode.
I'm currently taking time off from school to focus on my eduction.
Upvoted just for this. I'm very interested in learning more--what are you reading, what skills are you learning, what projects are you finishing?
As for part-time jobs, if I were in your position I might look into freelancing (e.g. web design) or working in a library (one of my former classmates had a great experience with this, and was able to get a lot of work done on the job).
In all likelihood, you will not make the next billion-dollar nonprofit. You will not make the next billion-dollar business. You will not become the next congressperson in your district. This does not mean that you have not done a good job. It should not demoralize you in any way once you fail hardly to do these things.
At what point have you done a good job? On the other hand, at what point should you be demoralized? Yes, the answer depends on your personal philosophy, but how should someone who doesn't have a solid understanding of their personal philosophy think about such questions?
Thanks for the great review! Your tip to swap 24 and 25 was helpful, as was your warning about inconsistent notation. However, one benefit of "inconsistent notation" is that it really forces you to develop a clear understanding.
Anyway, I'll add some additional thoughts.
Overall, I got a lot out of this. Naive Set Theory clarified a lot of foundational concepts I had previously taken for granted. It also made me crack up at times; for example:
I hope so too! Also, I donated an additional $500 of actual USD which should hopefully be more stable.
It's cool that you guys accept XRP! I sent you all of my XRP (worth about $500).
I like this model.
I'm not a researcher, but I would guess the generating process is quite iterative. Someone writes down the first crappy definition that comes to mind, they slog through some attempts to formulate theorems and prove them, gain some insights that help them refine the definition a bit, then repeat the process. I would also guess this kind of iteration makes the process more tractable than coming up with the "right" definition on the first try.