undermind

Karma: 605

undermind Nov 26, 2012, 8:47 PM
5 points
in reply to: JulianMorrison’s comment on: LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance
That’s too simplistic IMO… I think it’s more a desire to avoid “politicizing education”, and people not making sufficiently convincing arguments in favour of its inclusion, rather than just terrible people having power.

undermind Nov 26, 2012, 8:35 PM
6 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance
Agreed.

To clarify: in my experience (and supported by other anecdotes on this thread), Women’s Studies is, unfortunately, often very badly done. There are big problems around being less concerned with contrary evidence than is appropriate, its often very un-rigorous, and though they are undoubdetdly a small minority, women who unconditionally hate men are drawn to it. It is legitimate to criticize Women’s Studies on these grounds.

However, I originally meant people who seem to think it should not exist. It should, and this post illustrates why.

undermind Nov 24, 2012, 10:45 PM
5 points
on: Playing the student: attitudes to learning as social roles
Upvoted for early parts of the post, especially ” it felt like I needed a persona, so that I could just act ‘in character’ instead of having to think of things to say from scratch.”

undermind Nov 24, 2012, 10:23 PM
15 points
in reply to: Nisan’s comment on: LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance
It is—obscurely, and too late, and to those who already know.
It’s called Women’s Studies (though it’s about more that women’s experiences).

And people (for whom the inferential distance is too great) love to hate on it.

undermind Sep 30, 2012, 10:40 PM
4 points
on: New study on choice blindness in moral positions
Gaslighting.
Seriously, there’s already a well-established form of psychological abuse founded on this principle. It works, and it’s hard to see how to take it much further into the Dark Arts.

undermind Apr 17, 2012, 9:30 PM
3 points
in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: Be Happier
I found some of the content in the summary sufficiently noteworthy that I will remember it, regardless of the supporting evidence, and for the rest, the supporting evidence doesn’t help. In particular, asking people for favours to give them the opportunity to be kind is a cool idea that is new to me, which I intend to start doing.

undermind Apr 3, 2012, 2:32 PM
7 points
in reply to: JoeW’s comment on: SotW: Be Specific
I was interpreting this not as “do this because we will pay you”, but rather as a way of signalling how much CMR cares about this being done well and quickly.

undermind Apr 3, 2012, 1:50 PM
7 points
in reply to: Spurlock’s comment on: Rationality Quotes April 2012
I’ve seen this study cited a lot; it’s extremely relevant to smart self- and other-improvement. But there are various possible interpretations of the results, besides what the authors came up with… Also, how much has this study been replicated?

I’d like to see a top-level post about it.

undermind Mar 20, 2012, 2:50 PM
1 point
on: Correspondence Bias
To me, this is one of the most fundamental posts on LessWrong that has provided the greatest change to my thought processes. The vending-machine example is clear and comes to mind often.

undermind Dec 31, 2011, 9:22 PM
1 point
in reply to: falenas108’s comment on: The Value (and Danger) of Ritual
I think that worrying about being a cult (as distinct from worrying about being seen as a cult) is a pretty good indication that thus far, LessWrong is not a cult. Yes, Raemon’s uze of ritual does push us slightly closer to cult territory, but not enough that I see any reasonable grounds for concern, given the benefits. Actual cults (more accurately, groups with a very high number of cult-indicators doing things that are demonstrably harmful) may worry about being seen as cults, but are probably protected by a bias shield or similar effect from seeing any problems with their own cultishness, and are certainly not likely to start an open discussion about it. This is very strong evidence that LessWrong is not a dangerous group of people propagating one ideology above all others and suppressing dissent.

In summary, I think this whole “cult/not cult” business is silly, and a disguised query for nothing. Yes, by developing rituals, LessWrong now has one more cult indicator, but does not have any particularly bad such indicators and as such is pretty okay.

undermind Sep 19, 2011, 8:57 PM
0 points
on: Religion’s Claim to be Non-Disprovable
Maintenance: The link in the opening sentence no longer exists.

undermind 14 Apr 2011 23:20 UTC
1 point
in reply to: fhe’s comment on: Humans are not automatically strategic

The image is using sex to encourage people to learn and act rationally (I have no idea how that might work).

There’s a grand tradition of women withholding sex for political reasons (usually to end a war), starting with Lysistrata. People resurrect this idea from time to time, and often achieve quite remarkable results.

undermind 13 Apr 2011 23:40 UTC
1 point
on: Making Beliefs Pay Rent (in Anticipated Experiences)
Based on this, I would very much like to make a variant of Monopoly, with beliefs/theories in place of properties, and evidence for money. Invest a large chunk to establish a belief, with its rent determined by sophistication and usefulness of prediction, ranging from Aristotelian physics to relativity, spermatists & ovists to Darwinian evolution, and so on. Other players would have to give you some credit when they land on your theories, and admit that they give results.
This would also be a great way to teach some history of science, if well designed.
Of course, the analogy becomes interesting when you consider what corresponds to the cutthroat capitalism...

undermind 12 Apr 2011 0:55 UTC
9 points
on: One Argument Against An Army
While this is certainly a nasty pitfall of rationalization, it is necessary to rehearse the evidence from time to time, for those of us without perfect memories. Otherwise, we end up in the situation “I know there was a good reason I believed this but I don’t remember what it was”; this occurs to me far too often. Retracing all of the evidence that led to a particular belief is terribly time-consuming and impractical (“I know this was in a neuroscience book I read three years ago...”). Forgetting why you hold a particular belief is almost as bad as having no reason at all, and every rationalist should naturally strive to avoid this.
Of course, the time to rehearse why you hold a particular belief is not when being confronted with opposing arguments.

undermind 12 Apr 2011 0:38 UTC
2 points
on: What Evidence Filtered Evidence?

In a way, no one can really trust the theory of natural selection until after they have listened to creationists for five minutes; and then they know it’s solid.

You tread on dangerous ground here. Shouldn’t the detail & scope of its predictions (the rent) be the criterion by which we evaluate any theory? Though creationists’ poor arguments may be suggestive of the indefensibility of their position, this alone does not prove them wrong, and certainly does not confirm evolution.