Gunslinger

Karma: 57

Gunslinger Feb 17, 2016, 6:42 AM
1 point
on: Open Thread Feb 16 - Feb 23, 2016
Marriage: Civilization’s BIggest Mistake

Something that bothers me about this is the all-too-common idea that kids are unruly and will cause endless destruction. I remember my parents being anxious to leave me alone at home and me thinking “Umm what? What could I do?” and being proud the house didn’t look like whatever’s left after a direct hit from a nuke.

Why’s that?

Gunslinger Feb 14, 2016, 3:57 PM
3 points
on: Group Rationality Diary, February 2016

Established a useful new habit

I wrote a small shell script that takes input and appends it to a text file that logs stuff I did.

I’m writing quite a bit of them lately. None of them are particularly interesting or unique although they do illustrate how great GNU/Linux is. It makes me regret my Windows days. (Anyone interested can read The Linux Command Line.)

I’m also becoming a fan of dwm although I might switch to 2wm soon.

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

I’ve started to try some pareto optimisation in my life.

Gunslinger Feb 13, 2016, 5:22 PM
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016
It’s a peppermint plant, they’re more like a line drawn on paper rather than a tree’s branches.

Think of it like ---- and ====.

They’re mainly what used to be the plant when I got it, although there’s a few stems here and there, the center of the pot is a bunch of dead ‘branches’. Most of the new growth occurs at the side, and I want to know that if I take the dead ‘branches’ out, they’ll be new growth in their place.

Gunslinger Feb 13, 2016, 5:34 AM
0 points
in reply to: Manfred’s comment on: Where does our community disagree about meaningful issues?
Those dialogues are usually about M/F relationships, with demographics taken into account.

Gunslinger Feb 12, 2016, 6:15 PM
8 points
on: Where does our community disagree about meaningful issues?
I’ve deleted my previous post here but I’d like to point out the relationship elephant in the room.

It’s seemingly a never-ending topic and looking at it from aside, it reminds me of an Escher painting—some sort of strange loop where people continuously argue about what’s effective in a relationship with only one gender involved.

Gunslinger Feb 12, 2016, 1:04 PM
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016

It could be that seeds are left in the ground. They can just child there for years! Farmers hate that cause it’s a weedy phenomenon.

Any reason why it can’t be some deep roots? I have a crazy/stupid idea of using that garden to grow something, and roots would be rather troublesome with digging and stuff.

Excellent! Hope it grows well!

It grows EXTREMELY well—absurdly fast, to honest. I’m surprised there’s still room for more growth after a year in the same pot.

By the way, what should I do about dead branches? There’s a lot of dead branches and I’m not sure what to do with them.

Gunslinger Feb 11, 2016, 5:21 PM
−1 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 01 - Feb. 07, 2016
I’ll be straight to the point—dating advice considered harmful.

A lot of dating advice is seemingly more on why “X is better” rather than what you should be actually doing. The well is poisoned and nobody is stopping to think why people die a short amount of time after they drink from it.

No belief pays rent in those cultures, and nobody gets evicted for unpaid debt either.

They’re often anti-epistemology and their epistemology covers as much as the emperor’s clothes, and any instrumental advice they may have is like a smith handing out unsharpened swords to soldiers.
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
- Ken Thompson
Let’s throw away 1000 words of advice and see what we can get.

Gunslinger Feb 11, 2016, 3:21 PM
3 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016
I live in a city, so the growing region is by proxy the closest supermarket. My apartment does have an unattended garden but I’m not quite sure what I could do with it. Every spring there’s plenty of growth but some dickhead always mows everything down if summer doesn’t make everything dry and uhm.. groundy?

I’m assuming they keep coming back because (A) They hate that mowing dickhead (B) They have some pretty darn long roots there. Seeing as plants don’t have emotions B is the right option while A is more wishful thinking.

I have a nice pot of peppermint which the ground looks dense like a bus full of people and it still managed to grow some despite how dense the ground looks and summer fighting it with a water drinking competition.

TLDR: What options do you think a city guy has?

Gunslinger Feb 11, 2016, 2:25 PM
1 point
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016

so much regional variation that books don’t tend to be so useful unless you already have your foot in the game and can interpret them for your regional context.

I’m curios how true this is. As an aspiring min-maxer (I can’t tell if this sounds better than aspiring rationalist) one of my main areas of curiousity are how much the supposedly non-determinal aspects of stuff affect a system as a whole.

Assuming a large and very severe difference then I should first get a book that will help me determine how much my climate will affect my plants. Obviously a plant not tolerant of cold or heat will have trouble growing well so knowing the ins and outs can give me a good comparative advantage.

Do you think I’m just thinking too much and I should just RTFM or do you think my cautiousness is justified?

Gunslinger Feb 11, 2016, 2:01 PM
4 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016
Can you vouch for the book? I’ve always wanted to try gardening but had no idea where to start.

Gunslinger Feb 9, 2016, 5:42 PM
2 points
in reply to: Nate646’s comment on: The Fable of the Burning Branch
I can’t find it—where IS the rape part?

Gunslinger Feb 9, 2016, 2:16 PM
0 points
in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 01 - Feb. 07, 2016
Thanks! (I wanted to upvote but I’m missing exactly 1 karma so mind giving some extra help?)

Gunslinger Feb 9, 2016, 11:52 AM
8 points
on: The Fable of the Burning Branch
This post just doesn’t really reflect real life. Well, not for all sides involved.

If anyone got to the pq-system part of GEB, can we get some various interpretations here? Because what I think the burning branches are, apart from crude violations of the laws of physics, are basically defeatism on the boy’s part.

You might not like reading it but I ran a search and it seems like to only have been posted here and despite being a badly written story that doesn’t really reflect reality I think that you have one thing going and that is story-writing and you should work on that and not dump it. Now for the part you won’t like: I think you should start taking responsibility for yourself and your actions. I don’t mean it in those stupid “you said bad things about women, go stand in the corner and think about elementary school” unhelpful rhetorical you’re probably used to hear but because you’re old enough to be able to do it. So let’s try something better than putting you in a corner:

Can you think of an instance where you might be wrong? Can you think of something that, if it were to change a little, would affect your views drastically? Is there anything you think your view is missing?

Gunslinger Feb 8, 2016, 12:07 PM
2 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: A Rationalist Guide to OkCupid
Alright. I give up. I’m now convinced my methodology was bad. I should read a book.

Upvoted for updating my beliefs.

Gunslinger Feb 8, 2016, 7:21 AM
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: A Rationalist Guide to OkCupid
(1) Opening a conversation that way signals a focus on physicality instead of getting to know them as a person. It signals only wanting sex.

I’m using Mark Manson’s methodology* and I’ll just be lazy and quote him

At MarkManson.net, I encourage men to pursue women with honesty and authenticity because this screens for women who are honest, authentic and conscientious themselves, making for far better relationships.

In other words, telling a woman that she’s pretty and I’d like to get to know her is both about honesty and self-expression AND the woman herself.

Something feels quite wrong about the second statement though. It’s common knowledge that men want sex. Is there any harm in expressing yourself about it?

(2) If you wouldn’t find a girl “kinda cute” you wouldn’t ask her out. There no additional information communicated.

That’s quite general (if girl X didn’t Y then nothing) but I’ll break it down as I see it.

First of all, it implies at least one side believes there might be compatibility (far fetched, because there’s plenty of pretty women or I just have low standards) which is the first step toward anything. Surely nobody would do something they wouldn’t like, so we now have a minimal start. And compatibility aside it also satisfies the man = assertive thing that seems to be recommended by seemingly all dating advice (for men).

Second of all is to filter (perhaps harshly) women who aren’t comfortable with themselves. Now I think this will make people feel somewhat bad and disincluded but at some point in life you just have to take responsibility. This means putting some effort into yourself (and others in extent) and unless she’s really pretty it’s going to be difficult and annoying being reminded of how much of a pervert you or the book says you shouldn’t or (INF x possibilities). It’s understandable that not everyone will be comfortable with everything but it’s a change for the better in yourself. (So there’s no reason not to)

And third (coming from the second) is that it raises the question of WHEN should you express yourself? It gives the woman a (possibly unjust) ultimatum to decide about you. I personally don’t like this but the alternative—the wait-then doesn’t seem like a better idea.
- http://markmanson.net/content/PDFs/Guide%20to%20Attract%20Women.pdf (There’s also his Models book if you’re looking for a more thorough read)
(also upvoted, can’t see why that’s at −1)

Gunslinger Feb 7, 2016, 12:58 PM
2 points
on: Open thread, Feb. 01 - Feb. 07, 2016
How can you do your own research on a given subject? I’m not a scientist, just your average guy sitting in front of a screen, and lukeprog’s posts makes me envy not having at least sixty points of reference I can base any opinion on.

Maybe “research” isn’t the right word, but I don’t know a word that fits better. What should I do and where should I look?

Gunslinger Feb 6, 2016, 7:42 PM
1 point
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Gamify your goals: How turning your life into a game can help help you make better decisions and be more productive
I think a better term to use is to “prioritize” rather than gamify.

I also think there are better ways to do tasks when taking into account different situations. Making a more simple meal might mean less effort and less time washing your dishes. Using disposable ones is also possible if you value your time more than the ever increasing total money spent on it. I’d argue that daily tasks are the most easiest to optimize as you will inevitably get more practice and you’ll see how can stuff be done better.

Gunslinger 5 Feb 2016 7:44 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Jacob Falkovich’s comment on: A Rationalist Guide to OkCupid
There’s a difference: on OKC you can filter people based on whatever, in non-OKC situations you don’t have that information available to you. I only have the woman’s looks (and the women have a perv-o-meter) to notice.

Re-reading your article I think a better way to describe this is “approaches with comparative advantages” and “approaches without comparative advantages”.

Gunslinger 4 Feb 2016 18:17 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Jacob Falkovich’s comment on: A Rationalist Guide to OkCupid
I might be overextending here but what would you say if I think OKC stuff is specific to OKC (and online dating sites specifically) and could not apply to other places?

Also, does OKC define “physical compliments” more precisely? My real life experience says otherwise, and there’s also the question of why women wouldn’t like their appearance to be appreciated despite spending a non-minor amount of their time on it.

Gunslinger 4 Feb 2016 17:06 UTC
−3 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 01 - Feb. 07, 2016
My thoughts are as always: internet drama, ABSOLUTELY NO (not mis-)communication between anyone, and slippery slopes. I’d add confirmation bias in and put it in the oven although the cake won’t taste good.