I think it’s kinda like inclusive genetic fitness: It’s the reason you do things, but you’re (usually) not conciously striving for an increased amount of it. So I don’t think it could be called a terminal value, as such...
EStokes
Karma: 430
I’m Ellen, age 14, student, planning to major in molecular biology or something like that. I’m not set on it, though.
I think I was browsing wikipedia when I decided to google some related things. I think I found some libertarian or anarchist blog that then had a link to Overcoming Bias or Lesswrong. Or I might’ve seen the word transhumanism on the wiki page for libertarianism and googled it, with it eventually leading here somehow. My memory is fuzzy as it was pretty irrelevant to me.
I’m an atheist, and have been for a while, as is typical for this community. I wasn’t brought up religiously, so it was pretty much untheism that turned into atheism.
My rationalist roots… I’ve always wanted to be right, of course. Partly because I could make mistakes from being wrong, partly because I really, really hated looking stupid. Then I figured that I couldn’t know if I was right unless I listened to the other side, really listened, and was careful. (Not enough people do even this. People are crazy, the world is mad. Angst, angst.) I found lesswrong which has given me tools to much more effectively do this. w00t.
I’m really lazy. Curse you, akrasia!
It should be obvious how I came up with my username. Aren’t I original?
Some other hobbies I have are gaming and anime/manga. Amusingly enough, I barely ever watch any anime. The internet is very distracting.
Edit: Some of this stuff is outdated. I don’t plan to major in molecular biology, for one, and I don’t like how I wrote the rationalist roots part. Meh. I doubt anyone is going to see this, but I’m 16 now and plan to major in Computer Science.
Well, if we modified what we wanted, we wouldn’t get what we originally wanted because we wouldn’t want to...
Can’t think of anything else off the top of my head.
What technology would a RPSOP require, and what exactly would a RPSOP do?
If you knew enough that you predicted your comment would be downvoted as it is, then you could’ve explained your reasons better in the first place.
Downvoted for lack of a clear definition of a RPSOP.
Edit: A definition that I can understand. :P
Love that book. Recommended.
You’d want to make the correct choice in future worlds. What are the chances of you being in that one world where that happens?
As mentioned earlier somewhere in this thread, we could have a bunch of charities, and then explicitely name the ones that generate the most fuzzies. So on the Facebook page it’d read something like, ”...charities including Stop TB, KIPP and Village Reach, which all recieved a top rating for effectiveness.” And all the other money could go to what was less fuzzy and more effective.
What are the benefits of having a sub-reddit?
Hi.
Er, I have posted comments a few times, but I still consider myself a lurker… Bah.
No.40 on Yahoo’s homepage- “Is aging a disease?”
A lot of kids are obnoxious and hyperactive. Shock and outrage are IC too. (Not that I think Harry is obnoxious or hyperactive or too shocked and outraged.)
...Giant SquidxHogwarts?
Wouldn’t he just be amused that Harry’s got it wrong?
IMO he’s not all emo about it. He is also aware of his feeling guilty about it and agrees with Neville when he says he’s silly. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall him feeling proud of it.
I believe that what he’s saying is that with power, people show their true colors. Consciously or not, nice people may have been nice because it benefitted them to. The fact that there were too many penalties for not being nice when they didn’t have as much power was a “corruption” of their behavior, in a sense. With the power they gained, the penalties didn’t matter enough compared to the benefits.
There’s always a way to estimate how likely something is, even if it’s not a very accurate prediction. And mere used like seems kinda like a dark side word, if you’ll excuse me.
Cryonics is theoretically possible, in that it isn’t inconsistant with science/physics as we know it so far. I can’t really delve into this part much, as I don’t know anything about cold fusion and thus can’t understand the comparison properly, but it sounds as if it might be inconsistant with physics?
Possibly relevant: Is Molecular Nanotechnology Scientific?
Also, the benefits of cryonics working if you invested in it would be greater than those of investing in cold fusion.
And this is just the impression I get, but it sounds like you’re being a contrarian contrarian. I think it’s your last sentence: it made me think of Lonely Dissent.
Chapter one, when Petunia is talking about how she wanted Lily to use magic to make her prettier:
“And Lily would tell me no, and make up the most ridiculous excuses, like the world would end if she were nice to her sister, or a centaur told her not to - the most ridiculous things, and I hated her for it. And when I had just graduated, I was going out with this boy, Vernon Dursley, he was also fat and he was the only boy who would talk to me in college. And he said he wanted children, and that his first son would be named Dudley. And I thought to myself, what kind of parent names their child Dudley Dursley? It was like I saw my whole future life stretching out in front of me, and I couldn’t stand it. And I wrote to my sister and told her that if she didn’t help me I’d rather just—”
Just excuses? Or...? Dun dun dun...
“McGonagall?” Harry said, once they were in the courtyard. He had meant to ask what was going on, but oddly found himself asking an entirely different question instead. “Who was the pale man? The man in the bar with the twitching eye?”
“Hm?” McGonagall said, sounding a bit surprised; perhaps she hadn’t expected that question either. “That was Professor Quirrell. He’ll be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year at Hogwarts.”
“I had the strangest feeling that I knew him...” Harry rubbed his forehead. “And that I shouldn’t ought to shake his hand.” Like someone he’d known a long time ago, and then been separated from… an unhappy feeling, a sense of loss.
Maybe I was just really unobservant reading the first time around, but rereading is really fun.
Ch 29
“Did you know there’s a fourth-year girl in Hufflepuff who’s a Metamorphmagus?” said Hermione as they headed toward the Great Hall. “She makes her hair really red, like stopsign red not Weasley red, and when she spilled hot tea on herself she turned into a black-haired boy until she got it under control again.”
Pffhahahaha!
Hahaha.