This is intended to eventually be a Main post and part of sequences on free will and religion. It will be part of the Free Will sequence. Please comment if you do or do not think this post is ready for Main. I intend to move it there eventually. As...
A reality of physics, and one that doesn't get much play in science fiction, is that as soon as humanity gains space travel, anyone in the asteroid mining or space travel business will have city-busting capabilities at their fingertips. It's there in classic sci-fi, but not so much recently. This...
NOTE - I mean the 3-body problem in orbital mechanics, not in atomic physics. Hi there, Some recent discussions here on LW have led me to ponder the 3-body problem again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem#General_considerations:_solving_the_n-body_problem I wonder if new and novel methods that exist today might be applied to solving the "unsolvable"...
This is intended to eventually be a Main post and part of sequences on free will and religion. It will be part of the Free Will sequence.
Please comment if you do or do not think this post is ready for Main. I intend to move it there eventually. As with any post at LessWrong, I'm completely open to criticism, but I hope it's directed at improving the quality of the thinking here rather than kneejerk opposition to my ideas.
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The main point of this post is that I intend to convince every rationalist here, and every causal reader, to commit to allowing others to have free will.
First a bit of background. I'm a... (read 1021 more words →)
I would also be interested in hearing more about your take on financial planning.
I'm not sure if it's better, but here's one that works well. Similar to the phrase, "Physician, heal thyself!" another way to say rationalists should win is to say, "Rationalist, improve thyself!"
If you aren't actually improving yourself and the world around you, then you aren't using the tools of rationality correctly. And it follows that to improve the world around you, you first have to be in a position to do so by doing the same to yourself.
If It seemed like I meant he should ditch her and move on, I apologize.
My main point was basically "what would future me say to past me when I felt that way?" And that most definitely is "Don't worry, it'll work out." Because that's the best advice of all.
It'll either work out positively in which case you'll have a good relationship, or it'll work out negatively in which case you'll have some good memories and some hard lessons learned for next time. And if you can think of those let downs as one more layer of thicker skin to help you not worry about them, you'll be better off.
I know it doesn't seem that way now, but there really is nothing to worry about.
From personal experience the best advice is to date a lot and get hurt a lot and build up a thick enough skin to where you don't care anymore about the rejections.
Worrying about the rejection will only make rejection more likely.
Act as if you are a confident person, then other people think you are confident, and you'll become more confident. While of course actually trying to do things to actually become more capable too, since that improves your confidence as well.
The other ideas here also are good techniques too, but what I found is that when I had been burned enough to stop caring about rejection was when I suddenly became successful at dating. The main thing that had changed was not worrying about it.
I think we're heading off-topic with this one, and I'd like to continue the discussion and focus it on space, not just whether to reveal or keep secrets.
So I started this thread: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/gsv/asteroids_and_spaceships_are_kinetic_bombs_and/
A reality of physics, and one that doesn't get much play in science fiction, is that as soon as humanity gains space travel, anyone in the asteroid mining or space travel business will have city-busting capabilities at their fingertips.
It's there in classic sci-fi, but not so much recently.
This discussion was started in the comments to:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gln/a_brief_history_of_ethically_concerned_scientists/
In the "Ethically Concerned Scientists" post, Izeinwinter commented:
... (read 285 more words →), I have given some thought to this specific problem - not just asteroids, but the fact that any spaceship is potentially a weapon, and as working conditions go, extended isolation does not have the best of records on the mental stability front.
Likely solutions: Full automation and one-time-pad locked command and
This is a good discussion of the trade-offs that should be considered when deciding to reveal or keep secret new, dangerous technologies.
"So anyone interested making war less lethal would be well advised to focus on spreading tolerant ideologies rather than worrying about weapon technology."
This is actually one of the major purposes that Christians have had in doing missionary work - to spread tolerance and reduce violence. I assume it's happened in other religions too. For example, the rules of chivalry in the middle ages were an attempt to moderate the violence and abuses of the warriors.
This is an extremely important point. Historically it might take a long time, if ever, for someone else to come to a similar discovery that you just made. For example, Leonardo's submarines. But that was when only a tiny fraction of humanity devoted time to experiments. His decision to hide his invention kicked the can of secret attacks by submarines many years down the road and may have saved many lives. (I'm not so sure - leaders who wanted wars I'm sure found other secret plots and strategems, but at least he exercised his agency to not be the father of them)
But things are different now.... (read 369 more words →)
V_V and Vaniver both make really good points, but the fact is that the U.S was not built to be completely rationalist, and people in general are not rationalists.
It's a communal set of rules for a people and a place that's designed to give the members the most freedom while still ensuring stability and order. And it has a really good track record of success in doing that.
I agree that it's not an optimal solution in a future, ideally rationalist world. But it's not a tool for teaching children to think for themselves. It's a tool to get them to follow the social rules. And I'll tell you,... (read more)
This is actually has been a problem with real-life examples. I've read that the oaths in NAZI Germany were specifically to Hitler himself, and that many members of the military felt bound by their oaths to obey orders, even when it was clear the orders shouldn't be obeyed. I think the critical danger is in giving oaths to an individual (any of which have a very real chance of being corrupted by power, unless they take action to prevent it).
I see the difference that the U.S. pledge of alliegence is to the republic and it's symbol, the flag. The saving factors to prevent abuses of power are:
The... (read more)
NOTE - I mean the 3-body problem in orbital mechanics, not in atomic physics.
Hi there,
Some recent discussions here on LW have led me to ponder the 3-body problem again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem#General_considerations:_solving_the_n-body_problem
I wonder if new and novel methods that exist today might be applied to solving the "unsolvable" 3-body problem.
Specifically I'm wondering "Can I create an evolutionary derived algorithm to solve equations of motion, and then can I continue on with it's evolution to solve the 3-body problem at the level of Sundman's slowly-converging series, and then can I continue on with it's evolution to come up with a closed-form solution to solve for the position of all the bodies in our solar system?
Another question... (read more)