It’s evidence that God loves complexity even more than He loves beetles.
NancyLebovitz
Karma: 33,059
I dislike raw oysters quite a bit, but they’re okay cooked.
Speaking of logical fallacies, the fact that one person loves a thing means that other people will even tolerate it is not strongly likely. I don’t know that people even have an obligation to try things other people love.
And yet, the temptation to think that other people do or should love what one loves it very strong. “I think this is great!” just doesn’t feel as true as “This is great!”.
I don’t like the way he treated his girlfriend, but that doesn’t address whether his health advice is good. It did make me want independent verification of his claims about what he’s selling.
The olive oil is $35 per 750 ml bottle. It’s a little hard to find the quantity.
An ordinary olive oil might cost $12/litre or about a quarter as much. So, not outrageous, but still expensive.
I’m not sure he thinks his methods will achieve immortality. his overt goals are reversing aging and improving quality of life. If he’s talked about living long enough for drastically better tech, I haven’t heard him say it. I think he does believe it would take too long to get to a general solution for aging for it to do him any good.
The food he sells is fairly expensive.
I’ve added a link to the post.
Unfortunately, “he’s too weird” was most of the response I got at ACX.
I suggest thinking about other possible social dark matter.
I think deliberate weight loss makes a lot of people’s lives worse—that being hungry and distracted (possibly chilled and more frequently sick) isn’t worth greater social acceptance, and that the current insistence on leanness is about looking right rather than health.
Asexuality could have fit in the article.
This might be related to the circular reasoning that gay people shouldn’t be trusted with security clearances because they can be blackmailed.
This reminds me of something odd about Socrates (from memory)-- when he decides to accept execution rather than exile, all of the sudden he’s talking about adherence to values—he owes so much to Athens that he won’t live somewhere else—rather than all that questioning. How does this fit into his story?
I can make some guesses, but they’re no more than that.
1. His health was failing, and he decided to go out with a bang rather than enduring a decline.
2. No place else wanted him, either.
3. He came to realize the damage he was doing, and thought the punishment was appropriate.
See also the economic effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami#Economic_impact
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman.
So far, I’ve only read the introduction. It pulls together things I already believe, so I like it.
First thought is James C. Scott’s work—Two Cheers for Anarchism is a good starting point. He writes about tyranny’s demands for legibility.
Also, a lot of science requires taking a close look at the world.
See also “the map is not the territory”—but it takes time to see the territory.
I’ve been doing qi gong—it’s amazingly easy to think I know what I’m feeling physically, and a lot of work to actually start to notice it.
And I’ve been thinking that a way for rationalism to go wrong is to think that good enough concepts reliably trump observation. Sometimes concepts work—perpetual motion machines really are impossible—but mostly you need to keep looking at the world.
Maybe there’s an organization to contribute to, though I grant that isn’t much of an observance. Other than that, there’s telling the story.
I’ve found that searching on [name of product or company sucks] can turn up interesting results, or a significant lack of results.
Look at customer reviews, especially those with a geeky level of detail.
Thanks. What is your culture?
Any thoughts about supporting biodiversity (perhaps especially for food crops)?
Rats could be a good bit better than average, and still pretty bad.
Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom DeMarco
Another book: Slack (unallocated time) is essential for change, learning, and even doing things well.
I’m pretty sure this is the book with the description of what happens when two companies that don’t do the work to write good contracts attempt to deal with each other.
I think there’s a strong motivation to believe in hell for other people. The wicked flourish like the green bay tree, and where is justice?
Alternatively, belief in hell for other people is mere spitefulness.
Also, I believe inventing the tortures of hell is very like the same drive that causes people to write horror fiction, though I have no idea of why they do it, or why I like horror fiction.