weft

Karma: 943

weft 24 Apr 2026 5:58 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Duncan Sabien (Inactive)’s comment on: Why don’t Rationalists use bidets?
I’d like to note that that particular problem is that your housemate got a bidet that didn’t fit the toilet. This is a somewhat common problem since the top tier bidet (which certain types tend to want) doesn’t come in the most standard toilet size.

My boyfriend has done the same thing and I find it low grade bothersome. At some point in time, I’ll make him upgrade the toilet to match the bidet. (Because God forbid we downgrade the ultra fancy bidet)

weft 20 Apr 2026 21:38 UTC
3 points
0
on: There are only four skills: design, technical, management and physical
I do think there is skill at being good at caring for children. Under your taxonomy it would fit best under “management skills”. However I generally expect management types are worse than average at caring for children.

The cliche is of the high-powered executive being an absentee parent. They tend to lack the patience, warmth, emotional skills, etc. to even connect with their own children.

I think you’re definitely missing some kind of relational /emotional skillset here. Nannies, therapists, priests, elementary teachers, hospice care providers, etc.

weft 15 Dec 2025 7:37 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Follow-through on Bay Solstice
Agree that the afterparty was Too Many Humans. If it was limited only to solstice-goers it might be a more reasonable amount of humans.

I wanted to get pizza but the food area was so crowded that I gave up. Maybe some kind of signage about not loitering in the food line area?

I am a fairly extroverted /social person but it was so loud and crowded that if I hadn’t had the option of running away to the choir room I probably would have left within about 10 minutes of arriving. It was way too much.

I looked for the decompression firepit because a chill mediated conversation seemed lovely, but that did not seem to be happening. Maybe have decompression ROOMS that can be closed off / quieter? Possibly multiples because I bet there was lots of interest.

(Solstice itself was lovely.)

weft 15 Dec 2023 2:43 UTC
26 points
1
on: Is being sexy for your homies?
It seems like you are assuming historic gender segregation, eg men go out and go hunting together, women stay nearby gathering, etc.

There has been a lot of recent evidence that this isn’t so cut and dry, but rather that we were applying our own modern lens while interpreting the past.

Specifically, newer evidence is showing gender parity or near-parity in participation in large game hunting. For example I recall that there were many graves that were assumed male because they were warrior or hunter graves, containing weapons and the like. But when they went back and tested them, something like 30% of them were female.

A handful of sources:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd0310

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/07/01/1184749528/men-are-hunters-women-are-gatherers-that-was-the-assumption-a-new-study-upends-i

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/science/anthropology-women-hunting.html#:~:text=In cultures where hunting was,to hunting as they aged.

weft 21 Nov 2023 6:05 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: LoganStrohl’s comment on: Spaciousness In Partner Dance: A Naturalism Demo
I made it up! It’s to fix some common beginner follower connection problems in lateral, which by now you probably don’t have anyways.

weft 21 Nov 2023 3:44 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: Ben Livengood’s comment on: Spaciousness In Partner Dance: A Naturalism Demo
Disagree that the mechanistic understanding in unhelpful.

As a person who was starting to give privates in zouk, a thing my students really appreciated was the ability to explain things more mechanistically.

Someone who already UNDERSTANDS what you mean by “grounding” or “leading with your projection” or whatnot only needs to be told those things as a reminder.

Someone who is learning how to do those things will just get confused and frustrated if you keep telling them words that just don’t make sense to them yet.

But if you say “Shift your weight slightly forward onto the balls of your feet by leaning forward. Maintain your frame thus pushing slightly towards your follow. Your follow will match this creating a compression. Really think about sending your weight down , driving the ball of your foot into the ground.....” Etc.

There are many things that can be learned just by going and doing. But you’ll quickly hit a wall.

The kinds of things people go to instructors for are the things that they AREN’T just picking up experientially or through expressive language, and any instructor worth anything will be able to:
1. figure out the mechanics of what needs fixed
2. Find a way to explain it that will fix the issue. This could be explaining the mechanics, but it might also be creating a visualization that fixes it. Or even overcorrecting them.
I was having difficulty getting followers to do the right kind of downward relaxation of their hands (The main zouk hand connection is neither expansion nor contraction, but a downward relaxation of the follower’s arm). It’s really hard to explain exactly what muscles are doing what, etc especially because it’s dynamic.

A visualization where a hose of heavy running water enters at the top of your head and pours out through the pads of your hands results in a pretty solid frame for lateral. (Picture the water exiting your elbows instead and you’ll notice your shoulder blades will move closer together, which we don’t want).

weft 1 Aug 2023 7:49 UTC
3 points
0
on: Babble challenge: 50 ways of sending something to the moon
- Rocket
- Space elevator
- Rename your group house “The Moon”
- Recognize that distance is an illusion.
- Create a trust that sends your item to the moon in what future time that such a service is easily accessible.
- Bribe an astronaut + relevant govt officials
- Befriend Elon
- Hire a Russian space tourism company
- Steal a moon rock. The part contains the whole.
- Prove the moon landing was hoax, thus restarting the space race. (Plus bribe astronaut)
- That company that sends your DNA to the moon … Talk to them.
- Toss it really hard.
- Bring the moon to the earth. (Step 1: invent how to move moons)
- Teleportation
- Join the Air Force. Get on UFO team. Get aliens to take my item in exchange for their freedom.
- Massive human pyramid.
- Pony Express
- Send a package via USPS addressed to the moon
- Already be on the moon
- Genetically engineered jumping spiders. .
- Become president of USA
- Create a moon time capsule program “for the children”.
- Bequeath item to my great great grandkids, and make moon transportation THEIR problem. They do not get rest of their inheritance until item is on moon.
- Produce a Big budget film, shot “on location” on the moon
- Create viral meme about sending this item to the moon.
- Create actual parasitic virus that makes people really want to get this item to the moon.
- Crowdfunding
- Transhumanism → Super stretchy arms
- Transhumanism → Rocket man
- Look through other people’s answers to this question and do whichever makes the most sense.
- “Get my item to the moon” auction
- UFAI whose only purpose is to put item on moon.
- Blow up the moon, thus nullifying ask.
- Let go of all desires, including the desire for item to be on moon
- Lasso the moon
- Create a lucid dream world in which you can fly through space.
- Big slingshot.
- Ask really nicely
- Helium balloon
- Red Bull commercial .
- Something something quantum
- Wormhole
- Convince everyone they are already on the moon
- Fairies
- Really big baseball bat
- Really tall ladder
- pneumatic tube
- Read a lot of sci Fi books and do whatever seems coolest
- Ability to manipulate gravity
- Forced perspective.

weft 3 Mar 2023 23:54 UTC
10 points
6
on: Enemies vs Malefactors
Interpersonal abuse (eg parental, partner, etc) has a similar issue. People like to talk as if the abuser is twirling their mustache in their abuse-scheme. And while this is occasionally the case, I claim that MOST abuse is perpetrated by people with a certain level of good intent. They may truly love their partner and be the only one who is there for them when they need it, BUT they lack the requisite skills to be in a healthy relationship.

Sadly this is often due to a mental illness, or a history of trauma, or not getting to practice these skills growing up until there was a huge gulf between where they are and where they need to be.

This makes it extra difficult for the victim, because the abuser is sympathetic and seemingly ACTUALLY TRYING. Trying to get advice from the internet may not help when everyone paints your abuser as a scheming villain and you can tell they’re not. They’re just broken.

I’ve really appreciated the media that shows a more realistic picture of abusers as people who love you, but are too fucked up to not hurt you. I think more useful advice would acknowledge this harsh reality

weft 4 Sep 2022 19:05 UTC
3 points
−1
in reply to: Shmi’s comment on: Russian Food for Petrov Day
Agreed! Everything that I shared is actually from my Soviet Ukrainian family, who used to just call themselves “Russian” as an easily-understood shorthand for Americans who wouldn’t have known where “Ukraine” was back then.

I actually think just about anything Eastern European is good for this.

weft 4 Sep 2022 17:59 UTC
4 points
0
on: Russian Food for Petrov Day
My Ukrainian dad’s easy borscht recipe:

Vegetarian Borscht:

You need:
small cabbage (or half large one), I prefer red cabbage, but green is fine also.
1 can of sliced beets, onion, few garlic cloves, one potato, 2 bay leaves, salt/paper.

Pour 6-8 cups of water in a pot ( or fill pot up to half) and turn your stove on..

Once water is getting hot- slice onion on small pieces and add to the water, then start slicing cabbage on small pieces (editor’s note- You can also use pre-sliced cabbage from a bag) then add to the water, bring it to the boil, reduce heat so it barely boils, add sliced garlic and two or three bay leaves. Check your time- once cabbage is in and water is boiling it will take approx. 40 min to make it done. In a beginning it looks like you have a lot of cabbage but don’t worry – it will cooks down and make more liquids. Now you can work on potato: slice and add, slice and add one carrot. Cover and let it cook. During the last ten minutes open can of beets and add all content including a juce. Bring to the boil again, taste it…add one or two tablespoon of vinegar ( I preferred Apple cider vinegar, but..) if you don’t have vinegar substitute with lemon juce. You are DONE. Takes 40 min from boiling… Serve as is or you can add small spoon of sour cream on a top of the bowl, sprinkle with a dill if you wish

weft 31 May 2022 3:23 UTC
13 points
0
on: Sharing Is Caring?
fyi, I am a girl and I also find the “Hot girls excite me!” line to be off-putting and it makes me go ugh. For me it isn’t that it makes me think ogling women is a big hobby of yours, but rather that you mostly value women for their “hotness”. And the term “hot” means a specific kind of attractiveness that is very expensive and high effort (as opposed to “cute”, “pretty”, “attractive”, etc). So it means you prefer women who spend a lot of time and effort on their appearances rather than liking women as people.

There is more reasons it’s uncomfortable, but that’s my initial 10 cents.

weft 18 Feb 2022 16:02 UTC
33 points
1
on: Monks of Magnitude
I felt a lot of internal resistance and push back when reading this. I agree that this is NOT WHAT YOU SAID, but I feel like there is already a lot of memery and pressure to let the long term / Mission folks be social free riders and leeches in every other part of their lives and I don’t like it. My brain pattern matched this post into that meme space.

weft 26 Jan 2022 7:21 UTC
16 points
0
on: Vavilov Day Starts Tomorrow
Cross-posted from FB:

During the 872 day long Siege of Leningrad, almost a million people died, mostly of starvation. Twelve of those people died while surrounded by food they refused to eat. They were the scientists and staff at the Institute of Plant Study, a seed bank containing the life’s work of Nikolai Vavilov.

Vavilov had already starved to death in a Soviet gulag, for holding to Mendelian genetic theory, as opposed to the false-but-government-endorsed Lysenkoism. It wasn’t just a principled stand either. Vavilov knew that the truth of genetics could help them feed the country with better crops, while the false theories would fail.

Vavilov’s absence left just his workers to guard the seed banks from destruction. They did their best, knowing that the seeds would be instrumental in rebuilding after the war. But the majority of the seeds still rotted, even as they were protected from the starving masses outside their door.

The workers starved rather than eat the seeds, but still most the seeds were lost.

That may make it seem like all a waste, but what did survive proved to be invaluable. Today 80% of Russia’s cropland is growing the descendants of the seeds from the Institute. Many millions, maybe even a billion people are alive because of the sacrifices of Vavilov and his workers.

Like many others, I’m currently fasting in honor of Vavilov Day. While it’s officially a one day fast, I’m vaguely aiming to make it to Saturday, which would make it my longest fast yet.

weft 30 Nov 2021 15:44 UTC
16 points
0
on: Visible Thoughts Project and Bounty Announcement
IDEAS THREAD:
- Team up with friends who already play DnD or write glowfic. Less scalable but can grab the $20k.
- Similarly, if you’re unemployed/ have lots of free time just sit down and write it yourself.
- Recruit from a local University. This can be very scalable if you e.g. know the creative writing professor.
- Recruit from roleplaying groups or online roleplaying forums. Requires a bit more filtering than the above.
- Recruit from fiverr or similar. Requires lots of initial filtering but can end up with low price. Create a series of increasingly less automated tasks as a filter (eg start with a multiple choice quiz that’s automatically graded)
- Ask a person who already does this kind of thing how they would go about it.
- I don’t want to name names publicly here, but post on BR, or talk to MR to use his team.
- Use the volunteers who are posting here.
- Show this post to a whole bunch of people who you think might want to grab the $20k as individuals. Let them know that if enough of them make the $20k thing that you will all team up to churn out the $1m thing, split proportionally.

weft 30 Nov 2021 8:58 UTC
18 points
0
on: Visible Thoughts Project and Bounty Announcement
I can’t tell if it is purposeful that this is set up in an adversarial/ winner-take-all kind of way. It’s really off-putting to me, and seems to encourage everyone being out for themselves, rather than collaboration. Particularly for such an inherently collaborative product. Maybe Nate and Eliezer just expect cooperation to fail?

Anyways, if people DO want to attempt some kind of collaboration… EDIT- Don’t join my Facebook group, join plex’s Discord linked in the comment below instead

weft 18 Oct 2021 17:17 UTC
19 points
0
in reply to: Unreal’s comment on: Zoe Curzi’s Experience with Leverage Research
Multiple times on this thread I’ve seen you make the point about figuring out what responsibility should fall on Geoff, and what should be attributed to his underlings.

I just want to point out that it is a pattern for powerful bad actors to be VERY GOOD at never explicitly giving a command for a bad thing to happen, while still managing to get all their followers on board and doing the bad thing that they only hinted at/ set up incentive structures for, etc.

weft 16 Oct 2021 23:28 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: weft’s comment on: Book Review: How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen
(“So Kids Will Learn” is old enough that I expect lots of it too be mostly debunked growth mindset and the like, but I expect will still hold valuable bits)

weft 16 Oct 2021 23:25 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: romeostevensit’s comment on: Book Review: How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen
Thank you! There is actually a whole bunch of similar books by the Fabers such as “How to Talk So Kids Will Learn” and “How To Talk When Kids Won’t Listen.”

I plan on listening to a few more in the next year or so.

weft 15 Oct 2021 18:55 UTC
7 points
0
on: Book Review: Churchill and Orwell
I really enjoyed this book review and appreciated how well-written it was. It captured my attention and didn’t feel like a slog to get through at all.
If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to think of some question you can ask that can spark discussion. After reading this review I feel like I gained knowledge, but don’t feel like I have any good handles to comment about it. (to be fair, I tried to add some comment-affordances to my book review and also didn’t get any responses, so maybe this advice is not actually great)

weft 8 Oct 2021 21:29 UTC
5 points
0
in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: Perceptual dexterity: a case study
This feels like opinion stated as fact.

I have some strong disagreements with what you say, but I recognize that it may be true for some people. It feels like you’re trying to universalize your own opinion / experiences.