I’ve always been half-way interested in LessWrong. SlateStar, Robin Hanson, and Bryan Caplan have been favorite reading for a very long time. But every once in a while I’d have a look at the LessWrong, read something, and forget about it for months at a time.
After the rework I find this place much more appealing. I created a profile and I’m even commenting. I hope one day I can contribute. But honestly, I feel 200% better about just browsing and reading.
Great job.
People say, “no pun intended” because they don’t want to be held responsible for the terrible pain puns cause.
I originally learned about these ideas from Thinking Fast and Slow, but I love hearing them rephrased and repeated again and again. Thinking clearly often means getting in the cognitive habit of questioning every knee-jerk intuition.
On the other hand, coming from a Bryan Caplan / Michael Huemer perspective, aren’t we kind of stuck with some set of base intuitions? Intuitions like; I exist, the universe exists, other people exist, effects have causes, I’m not replaced by a new person with memory implants every time I go to sleep...
You might even call these base intuitions, “magic,” in the sense that you have to have faith in them in order to do anything like rationality.
I always wonder how I should treat my future self if I reject the continuity of self. Should I think of him like a son? A spouse? A stranger? Should I let him get fat? Not get him a degree? Invest in stock for him? Give him another child?