All of MartinB's Comments + Replies

Martin here, the main author of the above. Thanks a ton for this!

If I understand your reply correctly, your conclusion is that epidemiologists should:

  1. Discuss the mechanistic reasons re: the direction of IQ <-> Alcohol consumption and
  2. Especially distrust mendelian randomization studies where (1.) isn't strongly argued for, and which get really large estimates. 

I think these are important points! 

But given the very small effects estimated here, you aren't arguing for a change to the interpretation of the studies in the post, right? :-)

2tailcalled
Actually I wanna issue a correction here. They should discuss the mechanistic reasons for the SNP -> alcohol consumption link. The point of MR is to figure out things about the IQ <-> alcohol consumption causal link without necessarily having good mechanistic knowledge of it. But as Pearl says, if you put no causes in, you get no causes out; in exchange for the IQ <-> alcohol consumption causal link, you must know even more details about the effects of the SNP that you use for estimation.
4tailcalled
Yep! In principle, this sort of problem can also lead to smaller effects, but it's probably less likely, so it might be fine? I mean it's possible I've missed something that could make it a problem. Looking closer, the ADH1B that the variant is in is involved in alcohol metabolism, so that probably gives a plausible idea of how the MR mechanism would work.

Hi Lukas!

Just stumbled upon this, sounds awesome! Any tips or pointers on the event radar? Screenshots or similar would be incredible! 

Thanks!

Okay, so I got it to work! Basically you just do what it says on here: https://blog.immersed.team/wi-fi-direct-8ec23c74fdab

And then connect the Quest 2 to the new network your mac is broadcasting :-)

My WiFi is good enough to not need it, but I'm sure I'll need it when I'm out of town.

Thanks! I might give it a go and use Ethernet <-> Mac <-> Quest 2. I think you could do iPhone via bluetooth <-> Mac <-> Quest 2 – I'll have to test that out. If you wanna know how it goes, feel free to reply in a week or so!

2ozziegooen
Good luck! To be clear, my Mac is connected via ethernet (but there's no way to connect the headset with a wire). I'm really not sure how the iPhone would work, or if they support it. I believe things are much nicer for Windows computers. I'm hoping Apple releases their own soon, though rumors have it that the upcoming unit will be very expensive $1k to $3k). 

Ah, so the latency without wifidirect is too bad for regular use? 

I read that if you disable SIP, you can get wifidirect back up and running. That's not good security practice, though.

4ozziegooen
The latency is too bad for my particular setup. It depends on how good the wifi connection is in your room. Yea, I've looked into the SIP workaround, but am reluctant to implement that now. I'm hoping they just making drivers for Big Sur, but it's taking more time than I'd like.

Hi Ozzie! Any news on the adapter, and how you kept using Immersed? :-)

2ozziegooen
Hi! I made this mistake of upgrading my computer to Big Sur, which has problems with wifidirect. I also changed rooms in the house, so now my wifi signal isn't quite as good. This makes a very noticeable difference.  I still use this for writing here and there, but mostly I'm waiting for wifi direct support and/or better setups to come out. I'm keeping a close eye on developments. 

In principle, yes. In practice, many external circumstances modify perceived and factual autonomy :-)

Thank you so much! I'm exploring here, so thank you for your input.

Still, I would not say I have reached some maximum; I still want.

Oh, definitely! I mean "maximum" in the sense of increasing well-being, not in the sense that there is a limit.

Another aspect that I wondered about was that bit about journeys versus end points

This fits incredibly well into SDT, but I agree that I did not specify it in the article. One of the most competence-satisfying things is optimal challenges, challenges where you're stretching your abilities but stil... (read more)

A lot to unpack here! Three statements catch my eye:

Autonomy: making decisions and taking responsibility for these decisions? The most stressful thing in life.
Autonomy: the choice to say 'no' to one's decision? Something that we always have, only the results vary depending on the circumstances and will not always make us happy.
Autonomy: financial and physical ability to own and do what we want? Something that we have little influence on.

Autonomy in the SDT-sense is not defined by whether we're making decisions, nor whether we can own wh... (read more)

2Eadgyth
" As you can see, every item contains "feel". Autonomy is about whether you feel like you can do what you want to do. " So autonomy is not something we need, but something that we always have, we just need to gain the awareness that we have it, and the awareness of what we can, and the awareness of consequences of our choices. “Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. " or "the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."

I think that phenomenologically, you're right. Other-directed goals (need for relatedness, in SDT terminology) feel like they're essentially other-directed.

I think that the evolutionary cause for having other-directed goals is directed at your own genetic proliferation, and I also think that autonomously holding other-directed goals improves your own well-being, even above and beyond the benefits you get because they like you for it. Eg. Gore et al. 2009.

Stated differently, even if you're optimising completely selfishly, you'll have to ... (read more)

Nice post Chris! For an empirical approach to this question I highly recommend Self-Determination Theory.

I wrote a short post on my thoughts here.

3Chris_Leong
What do you think of my argument that we have non-self-interested reasons to pursue other-directed goals, even if those reasons perhaps aren't as strong as we'd like?

Not when it is based on the above preconditions, no.

If happiness was defined as "experience maximum pleasure" then yes, I'd be afraid that I would end up in abject hedonia. But when it is based on things that lead to meaning, as SDT has shown that autonomy + relatedness + competence do, then that is not currently a fear of mine.

Does that make sense? Or did I miss your point? :-)

2Eadgyth
This autonomy looks a bit like utopia to me, or the definition needs to be more precise. Autonomy: making decisions and taking responsibility for these decisions? The most stressful thing in life. Autonomy: the choice to say 'no' to one's decision? Something that we always have, only the results vary depending on the circumstances and will not always make us happy. Autonomy: financial and physical ability to own and do what we want? Something that we have little influence on. Apart of that, aren't autonomy and sensitive relatedness mutually exclusive? To have sensitive relations, " You need to take genuine interest in who they are and what they want, not judge them for it, and help them. " first thing will be limiting our autonomy. If we look back, what are our happiest moments? Early childhood: security, love, attention, adoration, lack of competition and almost total lack of autonomy. Holidays: safety, love or friendship and you don't have to make many decisions. We need a choice to say 'no' to someone's decisions, but the times when we feel safe, to say 'yes' to someone's decisions are the happiest moments in our lives. It's really amazing how happy we are to give up our autonomy when we feel safe to do so. Maybe because making decisions and taking responsibility for these decisions is the most stressful thing in life, same with competences, competition causes constant stress. Is stress what we need to be happy or how much stress do we need to feel happy?

Oh, I completely agree! I simply labeled things "action" when I thought they were sufficiently specific for me to act on.

I hadn't seen how-laddering before, so thanks for that!

Since there's essentially unlimited ways of having things one finds important, I use these more as heuristics to decide between different options – ie. do I currently feel constrained on time, and if so, is option A or B best for me.

I'd say that

doing something due to social norms to improve your life through prestige

is caught by "I have integrated motivations" in the chart – subjectively it feels much different from integrated motivations, at least it must for the SDT questionnaires to have predictive power, which they do 👍

Thanks! Skepticism is exactly what I asked for, so thank you for providing it!

I think I agree with you. If we mean happiness in the "at peace" sense, and not the "feeling joy" sense, then happiness is probably my terminal goal. I don't think maximising for joy is possible without trading off a lot of peace, so joy becomes a sub-goal. But thank you! I'll adjust it in my graph.

As I see it, at the action level it makes little difference. Do you agree? :-)

1Astor
Maybe. But I am not sure. I think defining it like this is more truthful to your reasoning, so that you can better analyze your actions, if something goes wrong. For example, if you are feeling unhappy, but you do not understand why (maybe because you are doing something due to social norms to improve your life through prestige), then references to your feelings can help you to find a better outcome, while "doing the optimal thing" could lead you to believe in self-sacrifice, even if you suffer from it. Maybe it diverges at this point of individualism vs. communitarianism.

Good question! I haven't been very clear on my definition of well-being; to me, it is reacting in the optimal way to life circumstances. That does not mean happiness in all cases – when my family faces hardships, it makes sense for me to worry.

Another example is the manic patient in the psych ward. He may be experiencing maximum happiness/joy, but I don't call what he experiences well-being.

I completely agree that maximum energy and meaning lead to maximum happiness! It looks ugly in the software I use – not adding the arrows was an entirely pragmatic choice.

3Astor
I see. I am skeptical, if you can justify something not refering back to your own happiness or some kind of satisfying feeling. Why do you want to worry, if not for benefiting you in an extended way (worrying helps you to feel something for others, so that they can feel for you, so that you can feel happy)? But these are just some questions to think about. Do not feel obligated to change anything!

I agree, that was counterintuitive to me as well! Empirically, though, at least for most people it seems that being sensitive to the needs of others is even more important than others being sensitive to your needs.

Furthermore, giving autonomy support to a friend predicted the givers' experience of relationship quality over and above the effects of receiving autonomy support from the friend. When both receiving and giving autonomy support competed for variance in predicting well-being, giving, rather than receiving, autonomy support was the stronger predictor.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16455859

I read your comment as "I don't mind that my emotions are sometimes not considered, as long as I can depend on my friends and family". I'd argue that that's sensitivity to your needs as well – they satisfy what matters most to you :-)

Does that make sense?

Hi pjeby, thanks for your comments!

Just to be clear, I have no affiliation with Roam nor am I part of their development. I'm a user just like everyone else.

I use Workflowy for mobile capture and can copy to/from it just fine. I use Chrome on macOS for Roam (through Nativefier), so I don't know why that isn't consistent. I've added it to their bug-report (which currently lives on Slack, very alpha!)

The interface scales really well, so if you want larger text (as I did), I highly recommend simply zooming in the browser.

The reading may be ... (read more)

2pjeby
Depending on the direction of copy/pasting, I either ended up with huge blobs of text in one item, or flat lists without any indentation. i.e., I couldn't manage structure-preserving interchange with any other tool except (ironically enough) my markdown editor, Typora. A bullet-point list or paragraphs from Typora would paste into Roam with structure, and I could also do the reverse. But markdown bullet point lists aren't really interchangeable with any other tools I use, so it's not a viable bridge to my other outlining tools.

Hi Jordan! Sorry about that, you can find it here: http://roamresearch.com

I've added a link to the post as well.

MartinB*50

Thanks a lot for this! I used paper to elaborate on a math proof, and it was tremendously productive.

For more fact-based research, it was too slow for me. Instead, I'm completely enamoured with Roam.

Just added a post on it: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BHp82PvqCDayFpefg/implementing-an-idea-management-system

1. I plan to take a sabattical next year. Wrote an impressive researcher in a field I'm interested about to hear about any research opportunities in the pipeline.

2. Formalised my morning-routine in a document to decrease time spent reading about other's meditation before I start my own. Reviewing notes from last session, finding a relevant passage in my book.

3. Set up a routine to stay in touch with a far-away friend. Asking kindly about thoughts on a subject, and about what I can help him with.

4. I'm often distracted in my long study sessio... (read more)