Lavender

Karma: 89

Lavender Dec 14, 2015, 10:04 PM
1 point
in reply to: Good_Burning_Plastic’s comment on: Interpersonal Entanglement
Well people dislike PUAs because they see them as emotionally manipulative and dishonest, (which is sometimes true) and I don’t think problem would be present here.

Lavender Dec 14, 2015, 2:06 PM
−1 points
on: Interpersonal Entanglement
Thought: Something we could do (eventually) to make the world a better place is to use technology to upgrade every man’s body. Make most men taller, more muscular, leaner, etc. Men who currently have relatively less attractive bodies will get a larger upgrade than men who have relatively more attractive bodies to make it fair. But make sure there is still variety in what men’s bodies look like.

Do this until the average man is as sexually attractive to the average women as the average woman is to the average man. That would solve a lot of problems. And I don’t think either gender would be uncomfortable with that scenario.

Edit: We could also upgrade things like smell and voice timbre.

Edit2: The gym is not nearly as powerful as the technology I’m talking about. I’m talking about some kind of biotechnology or transhuman technology

Lavender Sep 20, 2015, 5:23 PM
6 points
on: Ideas for rationality slogans?
Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence.

Slightly more than 5 words:

The facts don’t know whose side their on.

Every cause wants to be a cult.

Lavender Jun 7, 2015, 3:37 AM
0 points
in reply to: g_pepper’s comment on: No One Knows What Science Doesn’t Know
Yes I get the difference, but the deal with “no one knows what science doesn’t know” is that someone could say there are exceptions we don’t know about or things we overlooked, just like Newton overlooked things that Einstein discovered.

Lavender Jun 7, 2015, 12:12 AM
0 points
on: No One Knows What Science Doesn’t Know
Can this article be used to defend to idea that one day we may do things we currently believe are “physically impossible” such as build perpetual motion machines or alter physical constants?

Lavender Mar 28, 2014, 12:17 AM
1 point
0
on: Using Evolution for Marriage or Sex
I upvoted this post simply because I appreciate the OP having the courage to touch on a taboo topic.

Also I love this paragraph:

When I say “A guy does D when G happens” please read: “There are statistically significant, or theoretically significant reasons from social endocrinology, or social and evolutionary psychology to believe that under circumstances broadly similar to G, human males, on average, will be inclined towards behaving in manners broadly similar to the D way. Also, most tests are made with western human males, tests are less than 40 years old, subject to publication bias, and sometimes done by people who don’t understand math well enough to do their statistics homework, they have not been replicated several times, and they are less homogenous than physics, because psychology is more complex than physics.”

Having said that I will not be incorporating his advice into my life. Why?

Well I learned social skills later in my childhood and adolescence than most other people, I also acquired them more deliberately and consciously than most people. Having said that, I eventually developed a social skills intuition. I’ve learned it’s usually best to trust my intuition. Mating really is a situation where it’s best to become a jedi and use the force rather then whip out the targeting computer.

For me, this post might actually be an epistemic/instrumental tradeoff. It is epistemically rational to believe this information, but it is instrumentally rational to ignore it.

Lavender Mar 26, 2014, 11:27 PM
0 points
on: Conversation Halters
I notice I’m confused.

I literally don’t know what it means to say “The definition of words are not arbitrary.” I suspect either that I lack the background knowledge to understand this sentence, or ironically Eliezer and I may have a different definition of the word arbitrary.

Furthermore, I don’t know what the implications are of what he’s trying to say. Is he saying that language is not a system of symbols? Is he saying that every word has a “correct” definition?

Lavender Mar 23, 2014, 8:18 PM
0 points
in reply to: bungula’s comment on: Why do people ____?
I’ve had intrusive thoughts too and I’ve wondered how common they are. Thank you for letting me know that they are something most people experience. I would share some on here, but they’re pretty embarrassing.

Lavender Feb 2, 2014, 7:26 PM
0 points
on: [Error communicating with LW2 server]
I’m starting a new biotechnology university program in September. In order to prepare myself I want to get better at math. So far I know grade 12 level functions, vectors, calculus and statistics, but I have never taken a university level math course.

Problem is, most traditional math education focuses on increasing your math knowledge. I am more interested in increasing my math talent. Very different things. I want to be better at understanding math concepts quickly and figuring out the answers to questions I haven’t encountered before. I want to increase my mathematical problem solving ability. I currently estimate my natural math talent to be around the 75th percentile. Decent, but still low enough that I should have some trouble. I want to be in the 85th percentile or higher.

Does anybody have any tips, methods, or resources that they can suggest to me for increasing my math talent?

Lavender Feb 2, 2014, 6:59 PM
0 points
in reply to: Qiaochu_Yuan’s comment on: Open thread, January 25- February 1
Well I know I won’t be around a computer ²⁴⁄₇, and I’d like something to explain it if I’m out and about. Although I suppose I could use a couple examples that I can just memorize, like strawman arguments and ad hominum.

Lavender 30 Jan 2014 22:42 UTC
2 points
on: Open thread, January 25- February 1
Does anyone have a simple, easily understood definition of “logical fallacy” that can be used to explain the concept to people who have never heard of it before?

I was trying to explain the idea to a friend a few days ago but since I didn’t have a definition I had to show her www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com. She understood the concept quickly, but it would be much more reliable and eloquent to actually define it.

Lavender 12 May 2013 2:57 UTC
1 point
0
on: Illusion of Transparency: Why No One Understands You
I believe this article illustrates the greatest cause of conflict on the internet.