Why didn’t this post show up in the RSS feed?
I just happened to see someone comment about it on another post...
In Google Reader I searched the history to make sure I hadn’t missed it, but it appears it never showed up.
Dustin
Karma: 1,717
I wonder about myself.
I see no attraction or have any desire to experience any of the things people describe as enlightenment, religious experience, or spirituality.
Is this because of those things association with religion/new-age crazy people/general scam artists, or is it because I’m just different from those who see some attraction to them?
I can’t seem to figure it out. On the one hand, I find myself agreeing with many of the things Yvian posts. This makes me think maybe I’ve been biased by the religion/new-age crazy people/general scam artists association. On the other hand, I really, really try to correct for such a bias...to little effect.
What is it that the readers of lesswrong are looking for? One claim that’s been repeated frequently is that we’re looking for rationality tricks, shortcuts and clever methods for being rational. Problem is: there aren’t any.
If there aren’t shortcuts, then that means there is only one path on the way to rationality. It means that there’s not a roundabout way one could come in to it. It means that once one has become Mr. Rational, he won’t ever look back and say “I wish I would’ve done this differently.”
Mainly by trying to spend time associating with those who do value such things, and whom I don’t associate with the crazy stuff. My network of friends and family include a good number of such folk, whose opinion I don’t discount.
But first explaining how to catch a ball won’t keep the person from then learning how to catch it.
To be honest, I was already pretty rational! OCB and LW have helped me clarify many of the reasons I behave as I do, and clarified why I don’t understand why others do the things they do (or sometimes why I do things that I don’t understand).
Even if rationalism didn’t bring real-world victories, I don’t agree that there’s no point. There’s any number of scientific endeavors that I understand, or would like to understand, that don’t lead me to anything other than … understanding.
Near St. Louis.
I like this.
It’s a nice high-level overview that I can point friends to.
To further that goal, I published this to Google Docs so you can just view it on the web.
I like this idea. I have a hard time listening to political speakers because of all the obvious (to me...a student of such things) fallacies and methods of the Dark Arts.
A couple of suggestions:
Who are the target of these sorts of videos? If it’s “fallacy noobs”, I suggest shorter videos. You could cut the one up, present the question at hand as text, and then present just enough of the video clip to get the speakers context. Personally, I almost stopped watching before we got to your first noted example nearly 2 minutes in to the video.
If the target is “fallacy noobs”, and you’re going to use political sources, I’d probably mix up examples from different political parties. Too many people will just shut down if they think you’re attacking their political party.
Old post that I only now came across...
No, I don’t mean I understand precisely how they’re being irrational. I can’t see inside their head.
What I do mean is that I now understand more clearly that there is a system of inherent weaknesses in the way that people think.
As far as my self-appraisal goes, if we’re talking about relative to the average human being, I would say my self-appraisal has remain constant or fell slightly.
If you’re still reading these comments, I’m interested in what you think that says about you and I.
For reference, I would find your method to be manipulative. I also don’t think you’re being manipulative on purpose (or at least I don’t have any data to think you are or aren’t).
I don’t think there is a fully general way to request praise without manipulation. It’s going to depend on each person’s life experiences and how they view you.
I enjoyed your article, but after reading this comment I enjoyed it even more. Thanks for the examples.
I’d be interested to know if any of the comments on this post had led to a change in Aurini’s opinions and feelings about the post content.
I’ve thought about this a lot over the past day and I just can’t agree with many of the conclusions reached in this post.
On the point that dying for atheism does more good for the cause than converting....I just can’t agree. If I saw someone refuse to “convert” at gunpoint, I wouldn’t think “Wow, how inspiring.”, I’d think “Wow, what a colossal waste.” You just traded away all of your future and everything you could do.
Agreed. Unfortunately, my time is short and my book list is long.
Being married doesn’t mean you don’t want other people to find you attractive. Fashion plays in to this to some degree.
As a married man, if I have to pick between not worrying about fashion and women other than my wife not noticing me (whether this is imagined or not) or worrying about fashion and women other than my wife noticing me, I’m going to worry about fashion.
I consume 90% of my incoming information via several hundred RSS feeds.
I read these feeds in Google Reader.
I organize these feeds into 3 folders labeled 0, 1, and 2. 0 contains feeds I feel I must read. 1 contains feeds I’d like to read. 2 contains feeds that are less important, but I’ll read if I’m bored or have free time. (Be sure to somewhat frequently reevaluate each feed. Move it to the appropriate folder or unsubscribe.)
When I start reading, I make sure I read everything in folder 0. Time permitting, I cascade through the remaining two folders.
As I go through my feeds, I read ones that are fairly short and star ones that require more time from me (like most LW posts). At a later time, I go through my starred posts and make a quick judgment on each one to decide if I want to invest the time reading it. Unstar and forget about the ones which don’t pass. Read the ones which do.
Familiarize yourself with the keyboard shortcuts for Reader. It makes the experience of using it more enjoyable.
I understand why someone may not think they’re a good idea. However, I like them. I don’t have the time to read all that gets posted on OBLW. I should allot more time. Good quotes motivate me to search out the source and read more.
I think that the intuition at steak here
I would say that the main thing that makes nature special in this sense is that when you are in nature or contemplating nature, you can be confident that the resulting thoughts and feelings are uncontaminated by all of the (visible and invisible) ideas and biases and assumptions that are present in your particular time and place.
Uncontaminated by the wishes of my fellow humans, yes. Uncontaminated by eons of biases built in to my brain, no. I’m not sure why one is preferable to the other.
I’m fluent in Python and wishing I had time to contribute! :(
Maybe later in the year...