http://www.google.com/profiles/simfish lists them all
http://simfishthoughts.wordpress.com is my main. I also have a personal but I try to avoid posting its link in public.
http://www.google.com/profiles/simfish lists them all
http://simfishthoughts.wordpress.com is my main. I also have a personal but I try to avoid posting its link in public.
Hello, thanks very much for your post! I really appreciate it.
“my first comment on this site was the opinion that the avenues of participation in LW don’t seem to fit how I like to express myself, and that probably other potential users were in the same situation. I think LW doesn’t lend itself to conversation or stepwise refinement of ideas by a group, which is my best guess for how I would like to really engage with the ideas discussed here”
Ah yes, I definitely agree about that. Hence why I (and many others) am hesitant to post (the other thing is that no one seems to post in threads more than a month old, so there isn’t much I can post on). I know someone suggested the idea of subreddits some time ago, but we instead went with tags. But that just means that all the threads will go on a particular front page.
“My only concern is that while your goal is good, the methods perhaps leave something to be desired. It may well be the fastest way for you to learn, but putting the burden of critique of a large flow of ideas onto others can be something of an imposition. Time certainly is a valuable resource, as you state, and remember that other people value their time too. What I hope LW can do for you is read and critique just as you wish, but that also you learn here some habits and skills of thinking that allow you to do more and more of this sort of critique of your own ideas as you have them. My time at LW (and OB, and many other places on the net) has been spent largely lurking, in a project of refining my own ability to reason and critique effectively and correctly, and I hope that it works out for you that way too.”
Okay, very good points there. Yeah, I generally self-critique my own ideas (and frequently edit them without input). My main idea in putting everything online, in any case, was that someone (with time) could probably find me and email me (I’ve emailed other people who ended up not replying to my emails, so I ended up making everything public).
Hey, I appreciate your post a lot. Yes, true, I agree on the additional motivation.
On exercise, it is true that exercising consistently might make me better at exercising consistently. But unfortunately (from all my other non-exercise habits), I know that I’m bad at maintaining a routine every day (especially in the light of lots of schoolwork) so I’ve figured out that I’m better off not trying for now (actually it seems that mid-life exercise is more important than early-life exercise for preventing sarcopenia/muscle wasting).
Hey, thanks for the welcome! I like your suggestion about the blog idea. Yeah, I generally don’t write this long—I just felt like I had to write this long for my intro post.
“Also, your description of the kind of people you like to chat with sounds a bit like me. I’m fairly easily findable by this handle on several major IM systems, though my plate’s a bit full these days and I might not have much time or energy to share.”
Ah nice. I’ll look you up (although the same is true for me, at least while I’m still in undergrad).
Maybe risk aversion. Maybe it’s that parents want to minimize risk. That way, they can get closure. I often feel that I would have done a lot more if I homeschooled myself instead of going to school, but my mom said that if I homeschooled myself and my social skills (as she perceives them anyways) ended up the way they are now, then she would feel A LOT of regret. But since she did all she could (by sending me to school) to get me to socialize, she can get this closure (and not feel regret).
There’s a huge amount of value placed on a child’s formative years, and parents have shown many other signs of trying to minimize every possible risk/gap they can find. If they paid for a “lower quality” tutor, they run the risk of permanently regretting the decision.
Personally, I think that a lot of kids would learn best if they simply learned the material themselves (using material like Sparknotes or Princeton Review). Sure, those materials are simplifications, but tutoring is also a simplification. If parents are concerned that their kids will play computer games instead, they could simply hire a baby-sitter to watch their kids.
My hypothesis (I e-mailed Simon Baron-Cohen and he agreed) is that autistic people don’t subconsciously “synchronize” with people in the same way that neurotypicals synchronize with each other. “Synchronization” seems common in the animal kingdom—this is why spinner dolphins can be extremely good at coordinating their movements together without even having to communicate at all.
So autistic people have to learn these signals very consciously, as explained in all these other posts. And conscious learning is often clumsy (which often means oscillatory convergence around a fixed point)
That would be useful—although it’s hard to use for thoughtful posts. Maybe we could just create an informal forum within the site? (one that doesn’t require or expect posts to fit an implicit standard).
As for blogs, check the blogroll at the right of http://inquilinekea.blogspot.com/.
As for books, I’ve made a huge list at http://simfishthoughts.wordpress.com/books-i-read/ (although it’s very unorganized ATM).
I think one thing is this: minimum wage jobs might discourage people from hiring people to do jobs that are potentially high risk and have a chance of producing no positive results (but these same jobs might be funner since they’re more creative—or they might use untested labor).
Lots of people are now willing to work for “free”—it’s called crowdsourcing (as documented in many books). It might be an extra incentive for them if they have a limited monthly income less than the minimum wage.
Oh nice, I’m happy to know that someone else here went to UW!
Yeah, I just have a lot of ideas so I’m afraid to flood the discussion forum (even one idea per day might do it). I do have a blog though (as mentioned above).
Wow, amazing post! I actually thought of the EXACT same idea too—I’m surprised that someone came up with it independently of me
Anyways, my idea is listed here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-confidential-cafe/391872-model-activation-energy-applied-motivation-theory.html (not intended to compete, but some may find it interesting). It might have some more analogies that might be interesting. (e.g., as a person with ADD, I’m especially constrained by activation energy, so I frequently try to find ways to lower it). Automating one’s behavior is a way to lower it.
In short, anxiety, fatigue, and ADD can easily increase activation energy. Stimulants (like ADD drugs), automation, and stress-reducing tactics decrease activation energy.
Or in Robin Hanson’s terms, “near” and “far”. Things that are “near” require less activation energy than things that are “far”.
Very interesting points. I’m still trying to learn the math behind categorization myself.
Regarding the autism categorizations—good points. It’s also quite possible that autistics might score lower on the systematizing quotient than non-autistics in a different country/world. How could that happen? The questions on that systematizing quotient test were highly subject specific—some of the questions had to do with furniture, others had to do with time tables, others had to do with statistics. The type of person who scores high on systematizing would have to have broad interests. An autistic with exceptionally narrow interests would score very low on this (even though his interests could still have especially high intensity—the intensity and the narrowness both owing themselves to autism).
But it’s quite possible that an autistic person could have obsessions with entirely different domains that don’t appear on the systematizing quotient test—domains that were more salient in a different culture/world.
In another example, I’ll bring up this hypothesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_susceptibility_hypothesis http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-success/7761/
So it’s entirely possible that someone with a particular genotype could exhibit one phenotype in one environment, and the exact opposite phenotype in the second environment. How would they then be classified? As according to their genotype? Well, maybe. But in America, the total scope of environmental variation is highly restricted (almost no one suffers from extreme starvation). Environmental variation could be significantly increased through extreme environmental circumstances, or even by cyborg technology. After we use this—how can we then classify people?
Here’s a post I once wrote on classification: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/classification-theory-29482.html
One of my major points: Even the “Tree of Life” isn’t strictly a “tree of life”. Humans owe 8% of their DNA to some rhinovirus (IIRC). It’s entirely possible that in a world of increased viral activity, that the “tree” would totally break down (in fact, there probably is no “tree” in the bacterial kingdoms).
And of course, then if we implement cyborg technology (or artificial DNA) into the bacteria—it makes classification even more complicated. We could compare differences in letter groups in DNA. But what if the artificial genome had different molecules that made up a helix?
Ah yes, haha, I used to have the same hypothesis with the Dawkins vs Gould camp, but I shattered it some time ago.
Incidentally, does anyone else here feel the same narrative with respect to the Democrats vs Republicans? I frequently have to refrain from thinking of the Republicans as “bad guys”, even though they sometimes do have legitimate economic policies.
Ah yes, good points there. Yeah, it really depends on the ratio of newcomers to oldcomers. Oldcomers get annoyed when they have to answer the same questions over and over again. Of course, they could just downvote and move along (in fact, it usually doesn’t cost much effort to do that). But for some reason, they get annoyed (it might even be irrational to get annoyed so easily, but lots of people believe that it’s hard not to get annoyed—and they often justify their annoyance).
Okay good points there. Maybe we could make a feature for personal blogs on this site? (I know some forums let users have their own blogs on the forum). I know people can see each other’s blogs through blog URLs, but not a lot of people use those features.
Good point there (I think it’s sort of a travesty that people can be hostile to newcomers—it seems to happen on every forum). How to find on a compromise—I don’t know, although I did make a few suggestions.
Oh okay, good ideas (and nice references). Yeah, I should try that sometime.
Still though, what if I wanted to, say, ask a short question to the community? (or what if I wanted to ask multiple short questions?)
One question I’m especially dying to ask: How do people respond when they learn that you’re interested in being very rational? This question is especially important since many people think they’re more rational than they really are. And also since they might accuse self-labeled rationals as “arrogant”.
Another thing: I wish there was a way for lesswrong people to post links and discuss them (but aren’t prominent enough to be in the discussion session). We might be able to post links to several news articles a day (it’s a way to learn from each other, since we could get each other’s perspective on a particular link).
I really appreciated those URLs. I liked it how the camera is now just available for several hundred dollars (although the storage space would be a bigger pain).
On the topic of lifelogging, what strategies do you currently use to lifelog?
I don’t really have an income yet, so I can’t buy much storage for these cameras (the real constraining factor is the sheer number of TBs that lifelogging for any more than a few days would cost).
What I do right now: I try to talk to people over e-mail/IM whenever possible (so that I can search archives). I also save every notable webpage I come across (since people often take down webpages). Sometimes I even use Httrack/Downthemall to download all my old posts from various forums. I also use a tape recorder, although I don’t use it very much right now.
Might I add Dunbar’s number to this? Large powerful groups have a tendency to split (especially hunter-gatherer ones). And once they split, they often become each other’s enemies. Oftentimes, it’s better for the individual to be the underdog when the underdog is a group that is less likely to split.
Alternatively, let’s ponder this situation: you’re part of a group, a single one of many possible groups. Your group has interests in supporting the weaker groups if your group wishes to survive (of course you may be okay with having your group absorbed into another group—but remember—in hunter gatherer days, it was often difficult to be absorbed in another group with an entirely different culture from yours).
This, incidentally, reminds me a lot of the scene in Romance of Three Kingdoms where the minor warlord Zhang Xiu was wondering whether to join Cao Cao (the underdog) or Yuan Shao. His brilliant adviser told him to join Cao Cao, who ultimately toppled Yuan Shao.