I overlooked a “no hug” sign myself, even though I’m an organiser and had a part in choosing them. I agree that they need to be more visually distinct and we will improve that next time.
WingedViper
Karma: 159
As spaced repetition and flashcards are a technique and tool respectively it is (to me) obvious that they are useful for certain kinds of circumstances. Flashcards really are useful only when you want to associate 2 things to each other (for example a word and its translation) and might not be the best way to build an organized knowledge of a subject. Because of that I wouldn’t use them for that purpose in any case.
Thank you for pointing out an area where they fail, that was useful information.
A question to the community: Do you really believe as much in spaced repetition/Anki as the post suggests?
There are a lot of good suggestions in the comments already. I’d like to emphasize immersion (films, audio books etc.) and especially lots of practice talking (!). Try to find as many possible ways to increase your talking time in the target language. E.g. by talking over skype, seeking out a local Hebrew club or whatever.
Also I’d like to point to http://www.fluentin3months.com/ because Benny (the blogger) has a lot of good tips for language learning.
Thanks for clearing that up. That was my guess, I was just confused that it suddenly popped up without me ever having heard about it. Is it popular/well-known? When I googled it, there were no hits for an explanation.
I have a (kind of) meta question: What’s up with the “zir” and “zirself” in the text? I’ve never heard/read that word before and from context I’d infer that it should be “their” and “themselves”. Would you clear that up?
I don’t think it was meant as a distinction but as a description of a mental process that might not be exactly the same for everyone. So the dichotomy is between say/hear on the one side and not say/hear on the other.
For posts I use the vote as an indication of what the LW-consensus of this post is. So if the title is not that promising and the score is low I often don’t read it. If I do read it though, I try to account for the “bias” of the up-/ downvote and make an effort to find an independent evaluation. So I don’t really think it’s an issue.
The more stories I hear of other LessWrongers’ life stories (and taking my own into consideration) the more I realise how one of our defining traits is our inability and/or unwillingness to compartmentalize on important ideas.
I have to disagree a bit on the communism part. One of the ways that it went wrong, that it ended in Totalitarianism, was due to how it was implemented and foreseeable to a certain extent. All it really tells us is that we have to take human nature into account when designing a society for humans, not that we shouldn’t try out powerful ideas.
I have to agree with Kawoomba. It would be totally awesome to try and puzzle out the reasons that you have for your ideas with just the ideas given. An hour of your time (to write a post) could prompt people to change their minds on how society should be optimized and that is an opportunity that you shouldn’t miss. Also, changing the way society works is one of my pet peeves.
Fair point. It is not (yet) a big convention though, so I think the timescale is ok. It’s more about trying to gather the people that are most interested in starting a European community and getting something going that we can build upon.
Wait, what? It’s happening on the 11th of April, that’s another 2.5 months?!
I guess we could just add most of the “Prince of Nothing” and the “The Aspect-Emperor” Series by Scott R. Bakker to the LessWrong quotes ;-) By the way, is there a reading list that we can add them to?
Ok, had a go on it as well. And what format do you want?
What do you disagree strongly with? My speculation that you would need fewer people to control them? I’m not sure about that so if you can bring in a good argument you can change my view on that.
Terrorists are not our problem (in general and in this specific state). Terrorists with nukes cannot feasably control a country with them.
I am talking about people that have easy access to drones and want to control a country with them. Traditional totalitarian techniques plus drones is what I am really worried about, not terrorists.
So I admit that with “a few people with drones vs. nukes” I thought about a (close to) worst case. Obviously some low tech terrorists in Afghanistan are not a real substantial problem when they control drones, but high military officials with power fantasies are. Of course rouge states with drones are even more dangerous...
That is indeed a fair point, but I think it is not so important when talking about a tyrant gaining control of his own country. Because the soldiers in Iraq, Bosnia etc. saw the people they tortured (or similar) not as people, but as “the Enemy”. That kind of thing is much harder to achieve when they are supposed to be fighting their own countrymen.
Yes they are, because nukes can only be aimed once and then destroy the targets (so they are just a direct threat) while autonomous robots can be used to control all kinds of stuff (checkpoints, roads, certain people). Also they allow much more accurate killing while nukes have a huge area of effect. Also I think (that is speculation, admittedly) that you would need fewer people to control a drone army than nukes of comparable destructive power.
Acting “weird” (well or just weird, depends) is something I have contemplated, too. For now I have to confess that I mostly try to stick to the norms (especially in public) except if I have a good reason to do otherwise. I think I might make this one of my tasks to just do some random “weird” acts of kindness.
About the alienation: I don’t think that we should do a lot about that. I think enforcing certain rules and having our own memes and terms for stuff already has some strong effects on that. I certainly felt a bit weird when I first came here. And I already was having thoughts like “don’t judge something by it’s cover” etc. in my mind (avoiding certain biases).
I would say that it is better to try and fail to become “the best possible you” than to live life in mediocrity. I would definitely not choose the safest option instead of the best while still in university. (In fact I was so fortunate as to have a compromise available.) The time to work for your dreams is now. You (hopefully) don’t have burdens like kids, debt, huge possessions (house, car) etc. to care for so make mistakes and learn from them. Me stealing/paraphrasing: “Try and you can fail, try not and you have already failed!” Of course I might just be someone giving bad advice, but I think not. (obviously) You won’t waste your time if you fail becoming a researcher, so definitely try it.
Done. Though I feel guilty about skipping a few of the more involved questions.