Write-in: I believed it was among the more reliable forms of forensic evidence, but didn’t believe the bombastic claims of absolute certainty.
saturn
Karma: 1,692
In this case, it’s easy to predict how LessWrong is going to react. Your initial posts were well-received because you pointed out a potential problem, LW’s high bounce rate, and even created some nice graphs. But when a consensus started to emerge that reducing the bounce rate would actually be a net negative, instead of accepting this or refuting it, you made a long series of posts mostly reiterating the same unconvincing points. Doing that will result in a poor reception.
Around June-July 2011.
Maybe you could adapt this implicit memory-based authentication scheme into a board game format similar to Mastermind.
In my experience, being obnoxious doesn’t deter others from being obnoxious. Quite the opposite, in fact.
LW could be considered a select group by discussion board standards. For example, posters who haven’t studied the rather large amount of presumed background knowledge are, to a decreasing but still significant extent, only reluctantly tolerated. Some people accustomed to more typical discussion boards do seem somewhat miffed about the idea that LW has such prerequisites at all, and I assume this is because they perceive it as elitist.
Bringing this back to the main point, LW already does a reasonably good job at covering what you call the ‘hard’ material. It’s hard to overstate how fickle and delicate online communities can be. I’m wary of attempting to change the norms of the existing community in order to produce more ‘easy’ material. (This is what you are effectively proposing, since newbies can’t produce their own ‘easy’ material, it would be the blind leading the blind.) Therefore I think that job should be delegated to another website (maybe appliedrationality.org) rather than shoehorned into LW.
Regarding elitism: LW is elitist, and would not be what it is without its elitism. What else differentiates LW from /r/skeptic or agi-list? The LW community recognizes that some writings are high quality and deserve to be promoted, and others are not. If anything, I wish LW would become more elitist.
- 's comment on Call for Anonymous Narratives by LW Women and Question Proposals (AMA) by (Sep 14, 2012, 1:01 PM; 10 points)
- 's comment on Elitism isn’t necessary for refining rationality. by (Sep 10, 2012, 7:21 AM; 7 points)
- 's comment on Elitism isn’t necessary for refining rationality. by (Sep 20, 2012, 8:38 AM; 1 point)
- 's comment on Call for Anonymous Narratives by LW Women and Question Proposals (AMA) by (Sep 14, 2012, 6:02 PM; -7 points)
- 's comment on Call for Anonymous Narratives by LW Women and Question Proposals (AMA) by (Sep 15, 2012, 1:09 AM; -9 points)
- Elitism isn’t necessary for refining rationality. by (Sep 10, 2012, 5:41 AM; -32 points)
That’s the Kelly criterion, equivalent to having logarithmic utility for money.
Christians generally respect people who are genuinely seeking truth, in part because the Bible promises that “those who seek will find”. The good news is that you ARE legitimately seeking truth, so you should be able to convince him of this.
On the other hand, I’ve seen Christians conclude that the fact that you haven’t found Christianity is knock-down evidence that you’re not legitimately seeking truth. One man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.
I’ve noticed that the “Best” sorting sometimes puts strongly downvoted comments (score −5 or less) above comments with scores closer to zero. Is this intentional or a bug?
For one thing, stealing bitcoins is far safer and easier than most other types of theft.
Alcor recommends a hospice that has a track record of cooperating with cryonics arrangements. Otherwise, generally anywhere that you can be monitored by a standby team and taken directly to the cryonics facility without delay.
With the combination of bureaucratic inertia and the medical establishment’s prejudice against cryonics, I’d expect a hospital is actually one of the worst places for a prompt suspension. This is without looking at any data, though.
It doesn’t sound like you were very successful at rewriting this belief, because you admit in the very same paragraph that your supposedly rewritten belief is false. What I think you probably did instead is train yourself to change the subject of your thoughts in that situation from “what will I do if they don’t like me” to “what will I do if they like me”, and maybe also rewrite your values so that you see being rebuffed as inconsequential and not worth thinking about. Changing the subject of your thoughts doesn’t imply a change in belief unless you believe that things vanish when you stop thinking about them.
Is there a sort of person with whom you would give an explanation? Someone you knew would be much happier with even a short explanation and not bother you about it?
Hypothetically, sure. But I don’t know why I’d want to completely cut off contact with someone I found so trustworthy.
What sort of evidence would it take for someone to convince you they were that kind of person?
Consistent signs of low neuroticism and a realistic, constructive attitude toward interpersonal conflicts.
I have honestly never even once in my life been even the tiniest bit concerned about someone trying to discredit me behind my back
Really? Have you ever felt pressured to “choose sides” in a conflict that you weren’t a party to?
Few people respond positively to being told something like that. At best, maybe you’d get a crestfallen “oh… okay.” Otherwise, they might try to talk you into changing your mind, or get angry, or act out to try to get your attention, or try to save face by discrediting you behind your back. Given those possibilities, why would you give an explanation?
Have you decided how your actions will depend on the uncertain facts, so that once you learn what they are you will simply carry out your already determined plan for that case?
Are you such a Platonically ideal female that we can generalize from you to other females, who may have expressed no interest in cryonics?
If you see it that way, it sounds like you’re already very nearly convinced.