Showed up in Penrose’s “The Fabric of Reality.” Curvature of spacetime is determined by infinitesimal light cones at each point. You can get a uniquely determined surface from a connection as well as a connection from a surface.
irrationalist
Karma: 39
true dat.
Doesn’t even need to go as far as ugh fields and akrasia—it’s an explicit choice.
I only have two kinds of political discussions now:
Pure trolling for emotional catharsis
Finding a way to evade the political part of the issue (in other words, if you’re concerned about making medical care cheaper, can I think of a way to help you achieve your goal that doesn’t require anyone to vote a particular way?)
The second is, I sincerely believe, the best way for us non-politicians to solve problems. The first is something I just kind of like doing. It’s pure hate and I don’t pretend it’s anything else.
Yeah. I feel this way about attractive and popular people. I hate them too much to ever consider imitating them. (not sure why I have to give up the hatred though.)
Are there disadvantages to Oxfam? They looked pretty legitimate—food, medicine, disaster relief, no history of fraud that I know of. Sort of the index fund of charities.
$500 to Oxfam.
$50 to Ron Paul. (Libertarianism is not important to me, but it is important to the quality of life of someone I care about.)
$50 to Planned Parenthood.
It’s posts like these that make me wish I had a group of powerful allies. I really have no tribe. It’s rather demoralizing.
I’m quite ambitious in the status/career sense. Rather averse to unnecessary effort (necessary effort I can handle, but I won’t work for the sake of working) and extremely averse to having goals that aren’t mine thrust upon me. I’m protective of my mental state and I don’t do things that cause me undue stress. That kind of goes against the rationalist ethic of “always push yourself, psychological pain is unimportant, tsuyoku naritai.” But meh. It’s what I want to do. So far, it seems that I can have fun in a way that advances my professional goals, and so I don’t have to be a martyr. Desperate efforts are for later, if ever.
I think I might be living by urges alone. Whenever I see something about “goals” or “self-discipline” or “self-improvement” I immediately shut down and get miserable. My brain says “I don’t want to, dammit!” Of course, people tell me I am self-disciplined, but I see that as merely being practical; if it makes any sense, I’m willing to be practical but severely freaked out by aspirational or normative thinking.
Not claiming it’s his own idea, just that it showed up in the book, I assume it’s standard.