Kill the greys!
atorm
took the survey, enjoyed the PD
Who cares if people here on LessWrong are mistaken about your gender?
its pretty hard to deny that genetically engineering babies is the scariest kind of eugenics.
Pretty sure negative eugenics with concentration camps is a scarier kind of eugenics.
This might be the most blatant misuse of “rational” in a post title I’ve ever seen.
If you wanted to ask about devices to enhance instrumental rationality in your life, a better title would have been “Tech gear to improve rationality?” As it is, it looks like you want to discuss general strategies for purchasing tech gear.
A lot of the status-lowering behaviors are, if not low-status, at least associated with obnoxious personalities. This is a great piece, but I wouldn’t mind seeing even more codification of the behaviors, especially separation of “high-status status-lowering behavior” (e.g. “Nice work on the Mulligan account”) versus “low-status status-lowering behavior” (shouting), “Low-status status-raising behavior” (lose at something competitive), and “high-status status-raising behavior” (express gratitude).
I LIKE subtlety. It flatters my ego if I see it, and if I don’t, I don’t know that I’m missing it. I hate how modern cop dramas feel the need to explain the significance of every clue to the viewer as soon as a character understands it. If you miss it, you’ll eventually figure it out when the plot comes around to it.
I want this list posted in response to every “is there anything we should do” ever. Just all over the internet. I would give you more than one upvote just for that list if I could.
I’m currently rereading and annotating and will provide such a list when I am finished.
What probability are you assigning to cryonics working that makes you think it’s a good idea? I was under the impression that the standard LW argument for signing up was (tiny probability of success)*(monumental heap of utility if it works)=(a good investment). If that’s not your argument, what is?
I miss when he cared. People give Yudkowsky a lot of flak these days, which may or may not be warranted, but when he was on form, he really produced a lot of engagingly written material. I worry that there is a feedback loop between people giving him a hard time because he hasn’t produced anything to excite us recently and him not wanting to write because he only ever gets a hard time.
Traveler from the past: “What?! You let filthy lesser races marry your children? Gays aren’t stoned in the streets? Why is that woman in a position of authority over men? Why is THAT woman not ashamed to be a single mother? Society has collapsed into a disgusting moral cesspool!”
If you want to see how people from the past might look at our “moral progress”, ask your racist grandma.
In at least one sense, hearing people ARE better than deaf people. I’m not saying they have more moral worth, I’m saying that, all other things being equal, the hearing person can do things that the deaf person can’t. The latest iPhone (to pick a piece of technology with a recognizable progression in quality) is better than the iPhone 3G. It has a faster processor and various other doohickies that improve its function. It’s not morally superior, but it IS objectively better, as, as far as I can tell, the ability to hear is objectively better to deafness.
I cried for real for the first time in years, and it made me very confused/uncomfortable with my feelings.
You think that those of us who disagree with EY on QM look ridiculous to most members of LW? I think gwern was saying that criticism of EY’s stance is the majority opinion on this website
I suspect he’s getting downvoted because he didn’t answer the question, not even with “I don’t think it has a low probability of success” or some other simple response.
Take a month of martial arts training (aikido, jujitsu, and judo are popular soft styles, Tae Kwon Do and Krav Maga are two very different hard styles (TKD is fun and mostly useless for defense, Krav is super effective for dangerous situations but pretty grueling)).
Join the local swing dancing scene. If you don’t have one, try salsa or Argentine Tango.
Take an art course. Start with a beginner class that does a little with lots of different of media types, then take a class focusing on the medium you prefer. Do this even if you feel you are bad at art. I am terrible but I still enjoy working with clay.
Buy an Audible subscription and fill useless hours with audiobooks. This can improve commutes and other boring tasks.
Buy either a stereo Bluetooth headset with playback controls on it, or a small mp3 player such as the Sansa Clip Zip that has easily accessible controls outside your pocket. This advice is mostly relevant if you listen to media a lot. Having playback controls very accessible lowers the activation energy of starting your music/podcast/audiobook.
I’m afraid that during this comment you are being hilarious, but during that part of your post you were being unintentionally misleading.
A friend of mine claims Fahrenheit is more convenient because of “-ties”. “Today it will be in the fifties/sixties/thirties/high seventies.” Celsius doesn’t have conveniently-spoken ranges that give users a general idea of the weather. I countered with high and low teens, low twenties, but I don’t think his point is completely invalid.
You say centimeters are better for small things and meters better for large things, but neither are very useful for things that might constitute an arm-load. I’m not sure that sentence is very clear, so I’ll try examples. My laptop is 36 centimeters wide, which is an inconveniently large number of units for it to be, but it’s only a little more than a foot. This textbook: about a foot square. That hard-drive is half a foot (I’ll admit that “six inches” was easier to the tongue, but in reality it’s closer to seven, which I wouldn’t say). What I’m trying to say is that the unit “foot” is very convenient for things that we might be handling in everyday situations, unless those things are hand-sized.
I did everything but finger length. I am shame.