Slartibartfast: Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d much rather be happy than right any day.
Arthur Dent: And are you?
Slartibartfast: Well… no. That’s where it all falls down, of course.
Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Taken.
This reminds me of something Mark Horstman (I think) said, that people are entitled to honest answers to questions to which they are entitled an answer. He was using it in a workplace context, for example that if one’s boss asks about one’s sex life it’s okay to lie, because she is not entitled to an answer thus she is not entitled to an honest answer. Good post.
Irrationality game—there is a provident, superior entity that is in no way infinite (I wonder if people here would call that God. As a “superman theist” I had to put “odds of God (as defined in question)” at 5% but identify as strongly theist in the last census)
Edit: forgot odds. 80%
Sorry if this is obviously covered somewhere but every time I think I answer it in either direction I immediately have doubts.
Does EA come packaged with “we SHOULD maximize our altruism” or does it just assert that IF we are giving, well, anything worth doing is worth doing right?
For example, I have no interest in giving materially more than I already do, but getting more bang for my buck in my existing donations sounds awesome. Do I count? I currently think not but I’ve changed my mind enough to just ask.
English has a pronoun that can be used for either gender and, as an accident of history not some hidden agenda, said pronoun in English is “he/him/&c.”
Edited: VAuroch is the best kind of correct on “neuter” pronouns. Changed, though that might make a view less controversial than I thought (all but 2 readers agree, really?) even less so :)
I know people here don’t love Rand, but one big miss was my “who is John Galt shirt. Sure, for the people who got it it worked as intended, but it generated so many stupid questions from people who didn’t get it I never wear it anymore. The D’Anconia Copper and Rearden Steel shirts work perfectly.
Long story short, consider the people who don’t get it as well as the people who do.
If the best minds were in charge of designing a bridge, I would expect the bridge to hold up well even in a storm. If the best minds were in charge of designing an airplane, I would expect it to fly reliably. But if the best minds were in charge of something no one really knows how to do, I would be ready for a failure, albeit a failure with superb academic credentials.
Terry Coxon
I grew up Catholic and go to church occasionally, sometimes on vacations(thus not only my church), and I only know about tithing academically. I have never been asked to tithe let alone been “pressured pretty heavily”to do so, in a systematic way.
Now I drop into the collection plate, but nowhere close to ten percent. I have also worked with the total, and less than five percent of checks are over twenty dollars.
Just a data point.
Most of the time he asked questions. His questions were very good, and if you tried to answer them intelligently, you found yourself saying excellent things that you did not know you knew, and that you had not, in fact, known before. He had “educed” them from you by his question. His classes were literally “education”—they brought things out of you, they made your mind produce its own explicit ideas.
Thomas Merton, about professor Mark Van Doren
If I were near a computer any time soon I probably would have mindlessly e-mailed but on reflection posting is probably better in this culture anyway. I have a few questions and notes. For what it’s worth, some of these points would have me walk right on from an organization I’m moderately positive toward. LW exceeds that level for me
I’ve been a casual LW fan off and on for a while, probably over a decade (friend introduced me to The Sequences either shortly after or shortly before completion) and this is the first time I’ve heard of Lightcone. A link to your main page might have been useful in addition to (not instead of; the summary is good) the summary. Yes we all know where Google is, but it’s like not stamping a return envelope
Are you USA deductable?
How much are you asking per individual? I know it’s a broadcast but I still strongly advise organizations on whose boards I sit to include a number anyway. “Whatever you want” is a bad answer. Also if someone asks for $1k “no” sometimes looks like $100, but if I’m willing to give $5k to my local fire department and their top ask is $50 I’m not writing a check for more than $50. (actual situation. After a few years I asked and it turns out they just don’t need more money. Good on them.)
Are there any investor incentives? Naming opportunities are fun, raffles maybe aren’t a fit (though I was just talking with a friend about what an hour of EY answering a stupid question would auction for). MIRI’s leaderboard always struck me as cool.
Up and down. What would you do if your current operating budget doubled? How much of a cut/shortfall is probably game over?
Are your financials public, and if not could you generate some manner of redacted-as-you-like p&l and balance sheet (and a lot of folks care more than me about cash flow statements. I don’t, in most cases, but that’s a whole other conversation)?
Your bullet points are great. Better than half I work with easily
All just my opinion you do what you want. Thanks in advance for your answer and in retrospect for your work
Not sure how helpful my data is, but posted. Do I smell LW Adirondack on the wind? ;)
Excellent, thank you! Any update on when the real book will be available for purchase for those of us who don’t do ebooks?
I’m a bit of a “Superman theist” and I’m always curious about “Why infinity?”
Everything I hear theists say about ways God impacts the world seems more compatible with a finite-but-a-lot-cooler-than-you provident entity. It’s also not a huge surprise that a people who used the word forty to mean “a whole bunch” might not fully grasp the difference between infinity and a really big number when they were writing things down.
I’m kinda jealous. I run into far more “Because it’s in the bible” theologians than thinking theologians.
Does anyone have any good studies on the benefit of jobs, net of pay? I have a vague memory of some, but am not finding them when I look.
Edit: Might help to clarify purpose. I’m inclined to believe the answer is “not much,” and that employment is generally a bad thing, apart from the not dying of want bit. I want to see the strongest arguments that I’m wrong, and y’all steelman better than pretty much anyone I know.
I’ll buy you sequences.
Sorry, I feel like a jerk repeating myself but this is the last time. I bought the three pack of the audio sequences on Kickstarter because there were multiple people who said they wanted it but for whom $50 was too dear. I just got the final “give us the names” email. Any takers?
Haven’t asked in a bit: Is the real book version of AI to Zombies out yet or still just e? I would gladly buy a few copies at textbook-scaled prices, let alone normal book prices, but I want to buy several as gifts for people outside of this community (we’ve already read the sequences), most of whom take being e-exclusive as a sign of not being good enough to print. As I myself do, frankly, but a fallible one that’s wrong here. And besides, you can’t wrap it ;)
Anyway, I’d be curious if it’s happened yet, and if not, if there’s anything I can do to help move it along. Thanks.
All set. Enjoy.
Give me all the bacon and eggs you have.
Wait, wait. I’m worried what you just heard was, “Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.” What I said was, “Give me all the bacon and eggs you have”. Do you understand?
-Ron Swanson
Taken! Thanks as always for running it