1986ED52

Karma: 33

1986ED52 19 Nov 2013 7:44 UTC
11 points
on: Happiness and Productivity. Living Alone. Living with Friends. Living with Family.
Overall I have a preference for being alone. Having other people around often bothers me, in particular if I have to share my time between paying attention to them and pursuing other (lonely) activities which I’d rather do instead.

However, I also can’t feel happy without at least some human presence/interaction. I know if I stay alone with no contact at all for more than a few days, I’ll feel lonely and start craving some human company. The way I balance these two impulses in practice, is to live with the same person who I get along with well, almost 24 hours a day, day after day, and have otherwise very few other contacts with other people. This is in no way perfect, but it’s better than any alternative I can think of.

Overall, I tend to dislike interacting with/within groups of people more than with individuals. I particularly enjoy discussing interesting topics, so long as it’s just with one person. I’m often disappointed in people, have fairly high standards, and only a few topics of interest which I like to share. This severely limits the amount of people, and circumstances in which I can pleasantly interact with them. I can still interact with just about anybody, I just don’t enjoy the perpetual strain I experience when doing so.

1986ED52 30 Dec 2012 22:19 UTC
10 points
on: Stop Using LessWrong: A Practical Interpretation of the 2012 Survey Results

why do those here with privileged information not invest heavily in the formation of new for-profit cryonics organizations, or start them alone, or invest in technology which will soon develop to make the revival of cryonics patients possible?

“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” (John Maynard Keynes)

Also, at which amount of money would you be indifferent between either being put to death and receiving that much (to do as you please with, as set in your last will if you wish), or staying alive and not receiving that amount of money?

1986ED52 19 Mar 2014 6:48 UTC
5 points
on: Discovering Your Secretly Secret Sensory Experiences
Both my eyes may from time to time perceive colors in a different way. When they do, one would see everything in more greenish-blue hues, the other in more red-yellowish hues. It’s often the case when I closed one eye for a moment, or when that eye was on the pillow side after resting. So I assume it’s either temperature-related, or simply that one of my eyes’ cone cells were too exposed to, say, red, because of red light filtering through my closed eyelid, and therefore were less sensitive to it afterwards.

(I scored 3 on http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-well-do-you-see-color-173018)

1986ED52 24 Dec 2012 13:46 UTC
3 points
in reply to: moridinamael’s comment on: Thoughts on the Drake Equation and the Great Filter
Is there something special enough about coal, oil and gas kickstarting an industrial revolution that can’t be replicated using (larger amounts of) wood as a combustible?

The worst things I could think of being that burning wood can produce toxic carbon monoxide more than coal, produces ash, and may not pack as much energy per volume/weight. Still this doesn’t sound like it would have been enough to prevent its use.

1986ED52 21 Oct 2012 13:41 UTC
3 points
in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: [LINK] blog on cryonics by someone who freezes things in a cell bio lab
Odd.

Human embryos are routinely cryogenically preserved, can be thawed and reimplanted to birth healthy human beings. Yet a blastocyst is roughly spherical, not homogenous, about 150-200 micrometers large, totals about 60 cells.

Also, even rabbit kidneys, which are a few centimeters large, can be preserved. Not very often, not very reliably so, but some could still function and sustain life for days after being thawed.

1986ED52 19 Mar 2014 6:40 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Metus’s comment on: Discovering Your Secretly Secret Sensory Experiences
Jasmine, especially the bulbs have a strange, sickly unpleasant smell for me (similar to some of the smells in old toilet rooms, maybe—not the urine part, more like a mushy, fungus smell). I could never find any mention of other people having the same perception.

1986ED52 19 Mar 2014 6:30 UTC
0 points
in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Discovering Your Secretly Secret Sensory Experiences
Same, well, in my case, right above the nose, between the eyes would be the epicenter (so around the parietal eye?). I have no good explanation for it either. When I was a child I assumed it might be a magnetic sense, though that wouldn’t fit well with any random (non magnetic) material triggering it.

I observed too that it tends to get stronger and the zone where it triggers gets larger over time if I keep the stimulus going, to eventually plateau after maybe around 10s. It especially gets stronger if I concentrate on it, and if I gently move the object around, and may not trigger sometimes, if I am not paying attention to it.

Another hypothesis was that it’s muscles tensing (like a frown) because you’re bringing something in range of a dangerous zone (between the eyes. For some reason it often made me think about how you kill octopi, with a stab between the eyes). But this doesn’t appear to be triggered in other similarly dangerous zones.