Don’t watch television.
CharlesR
Karma: 511
It is often said that one of our core values is being able to change your mind and admit when you are wrong. That process involves questioning. Am I wrong about X? As a community, we should not punish questioning, and yet my own experience suggests we do.
Here is the talk he gave at TED.
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons.
-- Michael Shermer
People actually do this?
“What Shock Level are you?”
I once read a book on characterization. I forget the exact quote, but it went something like, “If you want to make your villian more believable, make him more intelligent.”
I thought my brain had misfired. But apparently, for the average reader it works.
Since the site redesign, Less Wrong’s ranking for rationality has gotten worse. The day it went live, the main page was showing as the first result on Page 2.
Back links haven’t changed. If I had to guess its because the main page now has largely static content.
We have had to borrow heavily from family for our son’s therapies. If it got out we were signed up for cryonics, we would almost certainly be cut off. I can’t think of any way around this.
We just told him we were insulted he wanted us to sign a piece of paper and if he wanted to work with us, he was just going to have to trust us. It worked in our case.
I’m okay with being wrong. It’s why I ask the question.
Filled out.
I have been thinking about this a lot. I know what I care about. I just don’t know how to do it and support a family at the same time. Perhaps you have ideas. Let’s start with what I want.
I want to write.
I was doing my thesis when I got sucked into a game called Neverwinter Nights. I played a character in a persistent world for over a year. The bio was ten pages long. When I turned it in, the DM said,
“You could write a book.”
And yeah, I know. Perhaps it was his way of saying the bio was too long, but perhaps he was being sincere. Maybe I could write a book. Maybe . . .
Later I found myself in a bad spot while writing the dissertation. There was a chapter I didn’t know how to do. So I stuck the whole thing in a drawer and began to write The Novel.
I bought a copy of No Plot, No Problem and held my own private NaNoWriMo.
50,000 words. 30 days. 1666 words per day.
Sounds easy. It isn’t. Getting that many damn words on the page day after day after day—words you actually like—words you wouldn’t mind other people reading—it’s hard.
When you’re trying to write a novel, the Internet is Death. I camped out at Barnes & Noble. On those rare days where I made my word count (or the many other times when I didn’t), I would go down to the writing section and find something to read. I found Writing Down the Bones this way. On the Amazon scale, I give it 10 stars.
At the end of the month, I wanted to keep going so I added two more weeks. When I was done, I didn’t have a novel. I didn’t even have 50,000 words. I had 22,000. Part of a novel. But I also came away with something else. I knew this was something that I could do, and I loved every minute of it.
Fast forward to now. I’ve got log lines for three novels. The first is a stand-alone (sci-fi). The others could work either as stand-alones or parts of a series (one fantasy, one sci-fi). The main reason I hang around here is research. (If a little rationality rubs off, so be it.)
From what I’ve read, it takes about 10 years (or 5 books) before you are self-sufficient as a writer, and that’s if everything goes well. I would like to know how to support a family doing something that doesn’t sap my creative energies that leaves at least four hours a day to write. (Preferably the first four because I have found these to be the most productive.)
Ideas?
Because family members have been known to interfere. Your odds are better if these people are on-board.
What does moral language mean?
What do words like good, bad, right, wrong, and should mean?
Do moral facts exist?
Are statements like, Murder is wrong, propositions that can be true or false?
If so, what are they like, and are they reducible to natural facts?
If yes, can we explain this within the framework of naturalism?
Is there a connection between making a moral judgment and being motivated to abide by it?
This has to do with the feeling we get when we know the Good but don’t do it.
Are moral judgments objective or subjective, relative or absolute?
The sun revolves around the earth. Humans thought this was true for thousands of years. But humans were wrong. Are statements like, Murder is wrong, the sort of thing we can be wrong about?
maxmore, since you’re here, I have a question:
How much life insurance do I need?
The cost for whole body is $200,000. So do I need $200,000 or do I need what it costs at time of death? Historical data says the cost doubles every 20 years.
For writing, Dvorak is great. But it doesn’t play nice with unix shell commands. Try typing ls -l in Dvorak and you’ll see what I mean.
If you’re a coder, try a modern layout like Colmak.
(1) The subject “a program written in 1956” is vague. What program? Does it have a name? Who wrote it? Later you write “one of them” when referring to the proof. Which one?
(2) The next three sentences start the same way. Try to avoid that.
(3) Omit needless words.
(4) Avoid the passive voice.
(5) This section needs a rewrite.
(6) The adverb is not your friend.
(7) What is a “technological singularity”? You haven’t defined this term.
Great start. I look forward to more.
The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.
-Paul Graham, Keep Your Identity Small