ThoughtDancer

Finally noticed this conversation. If this meet-up isn't buried on the North side, we (SoulessAutomaton and I) could possibly make it. We'd have to drive in from Grand Rapids.

The wiki is a good starting tool, but it's not yet as fully developed as I would like. I'm still working to develop sufficient background knowledge of the discussions, assumptions, and definitions used in Less Wrong so as to be sufficiently confident in commenting.

So I will forgive the occasions when someone who sincerely wants information and thoughtful reactions stumbles into spaces that have already been well-trodden.

Nevertheless, the wiki itself isn't yet fully developed with interconnections and links to definitions: until such internal tagging is complete, newer people will sometimes fail to find what they are searching for and will instead ask it directly.

I welcome these questions being asked, and if only as a sign that Less Wrong does not encourage self-censorship (which, I gather from conversations elsewhere, may have been a concern on Overcoming Bias).

I am trying to contextualize this discussion, given that my background in rhetoric and ethos is far removed from the background of the author.

So, I'm going to ask this simply (pun intended) to hopefully generate some useful complexity.

Is the goal of this analysis to systematize the implementation of pre-established ethical guidelines, or, as implied by Soulless Automaton's comment, to derive the ethical guidelines themselves?

Also, does this assume that ethics are derived from observing behavior and then selecting the best behavior given observed results? (If so, I would have to suggest most ethical choices are trained into people before they have enough experience to act outside of the ethical systems developed through our history. In effect, is this discussion assuming a tabula rosa that doesn't exist?)

Actually, I'm a bit afraid of the opposite--as an older fart who has a degree through an English Department... I'm often more than a little unsure and I'm concerned I'll be rejected out of hand, or, worse, simply ignored.

I suspect, though, that this crowd is inherently friendly, even when the arguments end up using sarcasm. ;-)

Thanks. Last time I googled it--before there was a Google--I came up with nothing.

The dieting discussion seems to have slipped from the intended purpose into a discussion of, well, dieting. I'm wondering if some of that discussion belongs over here, under "open thread" discussion, instead?

Also, am I the only person who has problems dieting because sometimes, for causes yet to be identified, hunger can trigger a migraine? I'll do anything to avoid migraines, including being fat. (Though today I started experimenting with the Shangri-La diet: if it works and doesn't trigger migraines, I would be delighted.)

Thanks for the confirmation, and yes, I appear to be at 20.

Now to start thinking about how to open up a discussion about rationalist approach to rhetoric.

:-)

Wouldn't it take human readers to separate out the trolls from the new posters, and wouldn't such human readers need to be paid for that work? I'm assuming a lot, granted, but isn't this site volunteer work? Who would want to slough through the new posts to remove the trolls from the new people?

Ok, that could sound sarcastic. It isn't. I really don't think that many people would volunteer for such work for long, and I honestly don't know about any computer programs that could make that sort of judgment about posters.