Thank you for providing positive reinforcement for writing articles!
Tripitaka
Karma: 441
I have overcome my crippling social fear/anxiety enough for having precommitted to an intense social experience: a 5-day tree-climbing-camp. I want to use the time to experiment with me feeling comfortable being around strangers, making friends and generally earning lots of positive social reinforcements and as less as possible negative reinforcements.
It is ok and not at all inappropriate to seek help here. I myself suffer from depression, so I do know the kind of pain you`re in- right now, as I write this post, I nearly weep tears of sorrow for the fact that you hurt so much right now, and my heart flies out to you.
Please do not kill yourself!
Although it may seem very far away right now, the pain can go away, and you can be happy again. As for an immediate plan of action I would recommend the following things:
first, numb the pain so you do not get worse. Thats not a longterm-solution, its just until this cry of help does help you. What worked for me was watching old TV-Series and Starcraft-2 casts.
second: I certainly do not know your reasons why you do not wish to seek seek professional assistance, but I do understand this reluctance of yours. I myself needed over a year to make the call; a time which I now wish to be much shorter. So i ask you to reconsider: professional help is the fastest form of sustainable relief you can get and is probably the best method to minimize the total amount of suffering. For this, I would find it fantastical if you would not only talk about the reasons why you hurt, but also about the reasons why you do not wish to seek this form of help.
third: Should these feelings suddenly intensify and you really really need someone to talk to at, say, 02 00 am, it is helpful to have saved the number of a suicide hotline into your phone (or some other immediate form of communication, where you do not have to wait for long, thoughtful answers. Set up a IRC-chat.)
I had never heard of the Pomodoro-technique under that name, so I had to klick the link, where there was a 2:20-minute-video instead of one single sentence. Since nobody likes to watch videos when unneccesary, maybe just link the Wikipedia?
Well, whats the point in super-secret self-recognition codes (Recognition code 927, I am a potato) when you then do not listen to your time-traveling self? Especially a rationalist of Harrys Level would have to be holding an entire idiot globe to ignore such advice.
Within four years, Google hopes to have the autonomous vehicles commercially available and citizens throughout the U.S. regularly riding in them, Urmson said.
Google Inc. threw the auto industry another curve ball Wednesday, saying its autonomous cars should be on public roads within five years without having to drive through a thicket of regulatory red tape.
Both sources are from 2015, the first one from january, second from last week. I think it unlikely (<10%) that they are going to overperfom by more than a single year, and very likely (70%) to take at least a year longer.
Remember, its not only a technological problem, but the inertia in a vast system. Insurance+lawmakers etc need to finish their side as well.
Elon Musk, someone who can reasonably called domain expert on innovative car systems, gives the same range:
The three-year estimate, Musk says, is when he thinks the technology will be ready. It could take longer for government regulations around the issue to go into effect. He acknowledged that it will take time for regulators to say “it’s okay to go to sleep in the car”—maybe another one to three years.
Note that I only looked up Musks opinion after I wrote the first part.
According to Wikipedia, the 2005 elections in germany did cost 63 million euros, with a population of 81 million people. 0,78 eurocent per person or the 0,00000281st part of the GDP. Does not seem much, in the grander scheme of things. And since the german constitutional court prohibited the use of most types of voting machines, that figure does include the cost to the helpers; 13 million, again, not a prohibitive expenditure.
Seems to be mostly Asia getting richer. Hans Rosling gives a very impressive talk with amazing visuals about that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w You can also play with the data for yourself http://www.gapminder.org/world
May I suggest that with regard to Eliezers HP/MOR-Challenge the page gets updated at least once every 24 hours, possible even more often?
Open Thread: December 2011
Keep in mind that Amelia herself is a powerful witch, and thus “you are not meant to know” is kinda-sorta expected in those circles, and a most valid excuse for basically anything weird or unexplainable.
Their actions are based on no obvious evidence, on nothing they are consciously aware of
Actually casters with a lot of game experience on the profi-level (Day9, iNcontrol) are able to explain to the layperson the chain of evidence that led to A knowing preemptively what B would do, so I disagree with that sentence. I agree with the rest of your post.
Thinking back to the Remembrall incident, it’s likely Harry has memories of Voldemort that are slowly coming out...
The far easier explanation for this, which does not have all the problems of being an ridiculousness easy and yet unknown method for detecting of Obliviation having occured is that Harry forgot that he is strictly forbidden to use a Time-Turner in view of the public!
Maybe Lucius is not so much physiological unable, but psychological unwilling to sire another heir after his Narcissa died a horrendous death?
Meetup : First meetup in Frankfurt (Main)
Due to comparative advantage not changing much is actually a relativly good, straightforward strategy: just farm and redirect money.
As an example of these Altruistic Ones user Rain been mentioned, so they are out there. They all be praised!
Factor in time and demographics. A lot of LWlers are young people, looking for ways to make money; they are not able to spend much yet, and haven’t had much impact yet. Time will have to show whether these stay true to their goals, or wether they are tempted to go the vicious path of always-growing investments into status.
In addition to “Learn to touch-type. Learn to type with ten fingers.”:
I am often amazed and astonished that people do not know how to operate the search engine of their choice properly and thus fail to find their desired information. It is your main internet-information retrival-tool, make yourself familiar with its advanced possibilitys, also know as operators. e.g. for google, see this chart: http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
I found most useful (for google) the following ones:
Quotationmarks around a phrase, e.g. “less wrong” searches for the exact phrase.
the “site:address phrase” command searches for your phrase only on the specified site, e.g. site:lesswrong.com “nuclear plant”
the exclude-command “-” (minus) excludes one word from your results: rationality -rand
In canon this ritual is used to give the Horcrux-preserved shadow of Voldemort a new body. His body has the shape of a human baby and is able to talk coherently; he reemerges after the ritual with a fullformed body. Hermione has got no Horcrux of her own, and is thus beyond the means of this resurrection ritual.
My association of a strong female lead smoking was not negative. I immediately thought of Adora Belle Dearheart, some pictures, nicknamed “Spike” and “Killer”. She fits the sexy and incredible Badass TV-Trope and is from the extremly well known Discworld-universe. Hannah falls under the “enormous amounts of stress”-clause.
Does anyone else feel like this sort of threads/comments should be somehow better archived/presented/integrated? Threads like this are vanishing far to fast into oblivion. Low-hanging fruits of lesswrong: better “advertising” the possibilities/chances of the LW-network.
Examples include:
The thread where people offered listening-time to depressed people.
The thread with the ongoing survey for zip-codes of LWlers.
This mentoring-thread.