As a trial run at atheism, I would have been the Dinesh D’Souza of Santa-ism. I recall that at age 12, I proudly defended Santa-ism from my peers because of a personal experience that I thought gave strong evidence of his existence. Because, of COURSE, no human could sneak presents outside under the tree while a kid wasn’t paying attention, and OBVIOUSLY the door was closed the whole time, and no human could have placed them all there within just a few minutes. I should ask my parents how they managed that trick.
beriukay
Karma: 1,029
Oh, I’ve been aching to announce to people who wouldn’t find it absolutely insane or unthinkable!
After being convinced that it isn’t just something insane rich people do out of hubris, debating a bunch of my friends, reading all the documentation I could, listening to the horror stories from This American Life, and doing oodles of paperwork, I am now officially one of the potentially immortal. I am a pre-cryonaut.
I’m thinking about stopping eating food, like this guy.
The Youtube link to “Yes!” is unfortunately broken.
This isn’t exactly related, but I find that every link to other Less Wrong posts is like a little game. I try to guess which article the words are referencing. Like with “not so easy” I successfully predicted that it would be to the short inferential distances. I failed with the “stupid design”, expecting it to be the blind alien god. That means I need to reread stupid design, and perhaps the alien god. The second part to the game is that I try to remember the main points, and all the thoughts I had when reading the cited post.
That may be true, but the unbiased would still be voting for, to borrow from South Park, either a giant douche, or a turd sandwich. When given that kind of choice, I wouldn’t really claim I did anything useful, even if I did manage to block that horrible Republican, or that wretched Democrat.
I think xkcd is appropriate here.
I can attest to the main point of the article: the irrational ire that this issue invokes in people. This letter to the editor is in no way unique in my neck of the woods. Though that can also come from it being a highly religious, republican/libertarian sort of place. Amongst my friends, there is much less of this rage Harris speaks of. We readily admit the down sides, but up here, a blackout of sufficient duration (a couple hours, maybe?) could be lethal, and would certainly cost thousands of dollars in damage if water pipes freeze up.
Harris did seem to commit one of the gravest wikipedian sins: citation needed. Here’s a little more info, for your edification.
A copy of Harris’ cited source that isn’t paywalled.
The EPA talks about health effects stemming from Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Dioxide, structural damage resulting from particles abrading soft tissues, and cancer from deposited carcinogens that hitchhike on the small particles. One of the sources cited in that list is Zelikoff’s The Toxicology Of Inhaled Woodsmoke in the Journal of Toxicology, which I think is a good place to start. There’s also some downloadable articles on this site which might be of use as gateways to more info.
Edit: It occurs to me that since I’m enjoying reading the Zelikoff article that I should summarize some interesting points. -The WHO estimates that indoor air pollution (no clue if there were other major sources beyond wood and dung burning) accounts for 2.2 to 2.5 million annual deaths around the world. -Biomass fuel is not terribly good in terms of combustion efficiency, which is why they produce so much crap. -Emissions include -aldehydes, hydrocarbons, CO, NO_x and SO_x, volatile organics, chlorinated dioxins, and free radicals. -Cooking smoke increases risk of chronic obstructive lung disease, respiratory infections, and in children pulmonary tuberculosis. -Most woodburning in the United States is done by middle to upper-middle income, and use has risen dramatically since the 1980s. -Temperature inversions trap these particles, which is bad for places like British Columbia (and incidentally my town) -Upwards of 70% of outdoor woodsmoke reenters the house and neighboring houses (that is sourced to Pierson et al. 1989). -Fireplaces are about as bad as non-airtight stoves, but worse than airtight ones. Except that airtight ones have less oxygen, which apparently facilitates making more exotic organic chemicals.
-Now it starts talking specifics. CO levels in woodstove homes have been shown to make carboxyhemoglobin and increases angina in people with cardiac disease. Nitrogen oxides bind to hemoglobin to produce methemoglobin and hematologic aberrations, which messes up enzyme systems, injure vascular membranes, which leads to edema and bronchoconstriction in asthmatics. The hydrocarbons are immunosuppresants and obviously carcinogenic (both are known in animals and suspected in humans). Formaldehyde and acrolein are the primary aldehydes, and they are associated with upper airway irritation, headaches, exacerbating bronchial asthma, and cancer. -One of the most interesting thing about scientists is they can talk about horrible things like this, and start a paragraph with “One of the most interesting components of woodsmoke pollution is PM” (Particulate matter). -Short-term exposure to particles is linked with a lot of bad shit. Including death and reduced recovery rates from infectious diseases. -They’ve done animal studies and found direct links between woodsmoke and scary sounding names like necrotizing tracheobronchial epithelial cell injury, lung cancer, decreased ventilatory frequency and response to CO2. -Adults with prolonged exposure get: chronic bronchitis, chronic interstitial pneumonitis and fibrosis, cor pulmodale, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and altered pulmonary immune defense mechanisms. -Children have it worse: decreased pulmonary lung function in asthmatics, increased rates of acute bronchitis (increased severity and frequency of wheezing and coughing), increased incidence, duration and severity of acute respiratory infections.
Then there’s immune system issues, which are of a persistent and progressive nature. They talk about some rat studies and how particles <2.5 microns made pneumonia worse. Most of this section went right over my head. -”While the mechanisms by which woodsmoke may have acted to persistently suppress bacterial clearance are not yet clear, results from this part of the study demonstrated that short-term repeated inhalation of woodsmoke [...] compromised pulmonary host resistance against an infection, pneumonia-producing lung pathogen well after exposure ceased.” -This study displayed that recovery rates were lessened in woodsmoke-exposed rodents in a time-dependent manner. A different study showed that decreased immune system starts about 4 days from exposure (not sure the exposure regimen) and lasted up to 25 days with repeated exposure. That study also showed that it was because particles release formaldehyde slowly over the course of being in the body, which is how it is a continuous progressive effect.
I always hate reading abstracts before reading an interesting paper. It should say Spoiler Alert, not Abstract… Also, I really like how a paper with good citations is several pages shorter than the size of the document. Hitting Summary before expected always gives me a slight endorphin rush.
And so, it came as a surprise to me to learn recently that such an alternative has been available to us since World War II, but not pursued because it lacked weapons applications.
It feels perverse, to me, that thorium has been an available option since WW2, and was ignored because it was NOT good for making weapons; and now it is cited that embracing thorium increases the risk of nuclear proliferation.
Fact check: it appears it was Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, who gambled $5000, won $27,000, and paid the fuel bill. Wiki pointed to this Huffpo article: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/fred-smith-blackjack-fedex_n_1966837.html
Needing Better PR
I do think that Bayesian has a better ring to it than, say, Bayesiologist, or Bayesonomer. It is probably healthy to have a strong gut reaction against -isms, but it seems like a good idea to have a shorthand word that basically tells the people of LW that you are aware of priors odds and how they interplay with posteriors (that can actually be taken as rather raunchy… I think I’ll keep it there), see probabilities as statements of subjective belief, and are trying to find ways to bring that simple mathematical statement, and all of its consequences, into your being.
It might not be the best short-hand way of telling someone what stage of the journey you are on, but at least they know that you’ve left the gate. I kind of see it like how I saw myself as an undergraduate: I wasn’t a mathematician, I was an aspiring mathematician. Now that I’ve graduated, and haven’t done much heavy math lifting, I might call myself a lapsed mathematician. These terms may sound icky and religious in some anti-rational circles, but in a rationalist sphere, it is more of a useful way to tell people what you’re thinking right now, and what you’ve been thinking recently.
Although, to think about it… it might be awesome if we took to titles like old school royalty, where every topic (instead of nation) you master gets added to your name. I am Beriukay, Lord Of The Realm Of Dark Sun, Ravager Of Creationism, Wielder Of The Twin Blades Of QWERTY And Dvorak, Bringer Of De Morgan’s Holy Flame… . That wouldn’t look bad in any of the Bayesian Conspiracy fictions, and while verbose, would be a lot more accurate and fun than just calling ourselves Bayesians or whatever.
But apparently we can hack it by expressing dissent of dissent.
I do like the idea of splitting up the disparate topics. Personally, living nowhere near any meetup locations, I find those announcements to be a bit spammy.
There’s the whole stranger danger myth, and how most sexual abusers are people you know… there’s no razor blade Halloween candy....
One of the stupidest ones I saw, from personal experience, was when the superintendent of my Middle School took over a history class one day to inform us that if a school bully attacks you, and you fight back, you will be suspended/expelled, and the only way to protect yourself from this fate is to passively accept whatever beating the bully offers you by curling into a ball and exposing your back to them.
By the way, kudos for taking an interesting lesson from the biggest moron in all of Portal 2. You have truly displayed that the wise can learn (at least one, but possibly many) thing(s) from a fool.
May you have 10^63 happy birthdays.
This post reminds me of this old song:
Any bored nutritionists out there? I’ve put together a list of nutrients, with their USDA recommended quantities/amounts, and scoured amazon for the best deals, in trying to create my own version of Soylent. My search was complicated by the following goals:
I want my Soylent to have all USDA recommendations for a person of my age/sex/mass.
I want my Soylent to be easy to make (which means a preference for liquid and powder versions of nutrients).
My Soylent should be as cheap, per day, as possible (I’d rather have 10 lbs of Vitamin C at $0.00/day than 1lb at $0.01/day).
Because I’d like it to be trivially easy to possess a year’s supply of Soylent, should I find this to be a good experiment.
I want to make it easy for other people to follow my steps, and criticize my mistakes, because I’m totally NOT a nutritionist, but I’m awfully tired of being told that I need X amount of Y in my diet, without citations or actionable suggestions (and it is way easier to count calories with whey protein than at a restaurant).
I want the items to be available to anybody in the USA, because I live at the end of a pretty long supply chain, and can’t find all this stuff locally.
I’m trying not to order things from merchants who practice woo-woo, but if they have the best version of what I need, I won’t be too picky.
There’s probably other things, but I can’t think of them at the moment.
The spreadsheet isn’t done yet. I hope to make it possible to try dynamic combinations of multiple nutrients, since most merchants seem to prefer the multivitamin approach. Plus, I’d like for there to be more options for liquid and powder substances, because they are easier to combine. Right now, I’m just an explorer, but eventually I’d like to just have a recipe.
If this all sounds too risky, I’ve also made contact with Rob, and he says that he’s planning on releasing his data in a few weeks, once he’s comfortable with his results (I think he’s waiting on friends to confirm his findings). I’m planning on showing him my list, so we can compare notes. It has already been noted that his current Soylent formula is a bit lacking in fiber. My Soylent is currently slated to use psyllium husks to make up the difference, but I’m looking into other options.
A brief overview of the options indicates that this isn’t much cheaper than other food choices (~$7.20 / day), but it meets all of your needs, and once the routine is down, would be fast and easy to make, and could be stored for a long time. So I’m optimistic.
Upvoted for sounding a lot like the kinds of complaints I’ve heard people say about LW and SIAI.
There is a large barrier to entry here, and if we want to win more, we can’t just blame people for not understanding the message. I’ve been discussing with a friend what is wrong with LW pedagogy (though he admits that it is certainly getting better). To paraphrase his three main arguments:
We often use nomenclature without necessary explanation for a general audience. Sure, we make generous use of hyperlinks, but without some effort to bridge the gap in the body of our text, we aren’t exactly signalling openness or friendliness.
We have a tendency to preach to the converted. Or as the friend said:
It’s that classic mistake of talking in a way where you’re convincing or explaining something to yourself or the well-initiated instead of laying out the roadwork for foreigners.
He brought up an example for how material might be introduced to newly exposed folk.
If This American Life explained the financial crisis in an hour so that four million people improved on a written test on the subject, it’s clear you can explain complicated material from near-scratch.
The curse of knowledge can be overcome, but it takes desire and some finesse.
If we intend to win the hearts and minds of the people (or at least make a mark in the greater world), we might want to work on evocative imagery that isn’t immediately cool to futurists and technophiles and sci-fi geeks. Sure, keep the awesome stuff we have, but maybe look for metaphors that work in other domains. In my mind, ideally, we should build a database of ideas and their parallels in other fields (using some degree of field work to actually find the words that work). Eliezer has done some great work this way, like with HP:MoR, and some of his short stories. Maybe the SIAI could shell out money to fund focus groups and interviews a la Luntz, who in my mind is a great Dark Side example of winning.
Edit for formatting and to mention that outreach and not seeming culty seem to be intertwined in a weird way. It is obvious to me that being The Esoteric Order Of LessWrong doesn’t do the world any favors (or us, for that matter), but that by working on outreach, we can be accused of proselytizing. I think it comes down to doing what works without doing the death spiral stuff. And it seems to me that no matter what is done, detractors are going to detract.
Or if you want to appropriate a different popular phrase, “Never tell me the odds ratio!”
Just a few possibilities (These are U.S. examples, because that’s what I know):
Throwing away mail from a previous tenant—Fines up to $250,000 and 5 years in prison. (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702)
Jaywalking—Municipal rules vary, but not hard to enforce if a cop sees you doing it.
Did you ever possess a marker while under the age of 18? Hopefully you were not in Oklahoma (https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-using-permanent-marker-under-18-years-is-illegal-in-the-USA)
Driving too fast or slow—Rules seem to vary, as does enforcement, but both of these can get you pulled over.
Illegal sex practices—Unless you are married and doing it missionary-style with intent to make babies, it is possible you are violating a sodomy law, or perhaps an obscenity statute. These are obviously difficult to enforce if you care about privacy.
Until fairly recently, all public performances of the Happy Birthday song violated copyright.
File sharing has gotten many people in trouble, over the years.
Taking a Rx medication that was not specifically provided for you.
Gambling of any kind has been banned, though there have been exceptions over the years.
Public urination.
Logging into a wifi network without explicit permission—Federal (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030) and State laws (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/05/michigan-man-arrested-for-using-cafes-free-wifi-from-his-car/) apply to this one.
That Federal law, by the way, is vague enough to get you in trouble for making a facebook page placeholder for you boss (though there’s more to it than just that, this is the law he ended up pleading guilty for violating. https://newsone.com/926425/prison-guard-charged-with-pretending-to-be-his-own-boss-on-facebook/)
Even if you have never personally violated any of those, “not doing anything wrong” is no defense against a motivated law enforcement official. The sheer volume of statutes, laws, and precedents basically puts all citizens in the position that they are probably violating SOME law all the time. There’s a not-very-good book with the title Three Felonies A Day that tried to argue the title as the thesis, but really ended up as a case study for examples like that Shkreli guy. The only real defense seems to be don’t stick out.