All of Spencer_Sleep's Comments + Replies

Or it's not Riddle at all. I was writing out a whack of reasons for this, but there is no need: Eliezer has spoken:

I've edited the birthdate of the person Amelia refers to, to be 1927 - too many people were interpreting that as "She thinks he's Tom Riddle" despite the House incongruence, an interpretation I'd honestly never thought of due to Illusion of Transparency.

I can also make the testable prediction "The universe will cease to exist on May 19th, 2034 at 10:03:09PM", but unless I had some truly excellent supporting evidence which I posted along with that prediction, I would not expect people to think well of my statement (particularly if I made it in a rambling, melodramatic way that made it difficult to determine the purpose of the post).

Likewise, when you go from growing plants to feed a cow to feed a human to growing plants to feed a human, you >reduce the amount of plants necessary at least tenfold,* which similarly sounds like a tenfold reduction in the animals >killed by farming processes.

This is the main motivation for many vegetarians, from an energy reduction perspective. Ten times (approximately) more plants means ten times (approximately) the energy taken for the same amount of food/energy for the consumer.

It trends forward every day, eventually wraps around

This sounds a lot like Non-24-hour sleep-wake syndrome. The defining symptom for Non-24 is (from Wikipedia) "a chronic steady pattern comprising one- to two-hour daily delays in sleep onset and wake times in an individual living in society". Your delays seem to be longer than 1-2 hours, but it may be a similar problem. I don't know how much you've looked into this, given the impressive extent of your other searches, but it may be something to look into.

Have you tried light therapy? Wiki... (read more)

Once the group is a little more established, a private venue (someone's house) might work best. Completely dependent on whether or not people have large enough houses in the right neighbourhood (and are willing to put up with us).

What if it just kept the first three (or so) letters of the login name? The chances of two people with the same first three letters discussing the same thing is, while not infinitesimally low, well within acceptable limits. If you knew the person before deletion, it would let your recognize them, but it would keep their name from turning up in searches (the main reason, that I know of, for deleting accounts).

I'll just start off by saying that the latter "problem" will never happen outside of college. People simply do not have the time, effort, or motivation to do other people's work when they have their own job they're supposed to be doing. As rwallace astutely pointed out, college projects are way too small. When you are working, you will find that you (and everyone else) will always have more work to do than time to do it, so you (and everyone else) will not do others's work.

Your problem with the first group seems to boil down to the problem tha... (read more)

I agree with Vaniver about the time commitment issue. Even ignoring being able to find things for people to do for all that time, and accounting for burnout, and similar troubles, there remains the problem that ten weeks is a sizeable portion of someone's life. Most people, especially those who work during the summer, will have a lot of difficulty putting their lives on hold for two and a half months.

At this point in my life, I could not sacrifice a summer of job experience (and the money I would earn from that). I would be happy, ecstatic even, to at... (read more)

Fluid and Crystallized intelligence (admittedly measured on IQ tests, which are not perfect to say the least) were both found to peak at age 26 by this study (for those who don't know the distinction between the two types of intelligence, wikipedia explains it rather well). Fluid intelligence levels off between 16 and 18, increases slightly until the mid-twenties, then starts a slow, steady decline. Crystallized intelligence is similar, except it levels off in the early twenties, and decreases much more slowly, though the decrease still starts in the mid... (read more)

Where did that belief that you would go broke very quickly come from? It seems, if you'll forgive me, a little irrational. If you improve your rationality and knowledge of basic probability to the point where it exceeds that of the average at the table you are playing at, you will (on average) make money.

Unlike sports. where height, reflexes and hand-eye coordination play such a huge factor, there is no intrinsic poker ability. Those who are "naturally" good at poker are simply those who are already more rational, at least in their playing o... (read more)

How are we to recognize one another? My current plan is to proclaim loudly that U.F.Os are real and aliens killed J.F.K., and then go to the table which seems most indignant.

I only just found this site about a week ago, but it's fascinating. I'm slowly working my way through the sequences, and would be happy to meet and discuss with people of a like mind. I can't make it on the 16th or 18th but any other day would work for me.