Man, I don’t really care what happens to LW but if I had to choose, I honestly would say, ‘dunno, shoot me’.
I’m just really getting the ‘I don’t know what to decide’ feeling here. It’s a bet, and by ‘bet’ I mean something I cannot put into concrete, set-in-stone numbers that I must decide on. For example, I recently got a new haircut. I didn’t get one compliment for it. Do you think it was a good bet? I could’ve got a better haircut. But on the other hand, I’m pretty satisfied with it. I got tired of the same old haircut I had and, despite not getting even one compliment, I’m going to keep going with it.
I once did some mindkilling and tried to cold approach[1] women. A significant majority of them said that they have a boyfriend. Only a few women totally appreciated it. Some of them probably invented an imaginary boyfriend. Maybe some of them later went on Facebook or some other media and complain about random guys hitting on them. I suppose that I made this particular branch of universe a slightly worse place to live in. But a very small minority gave me a wide, unexpected smile and at that moment I wanted to middle finger the non-existing camera filming my life and say “420 is for wankers”.[2]
Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting a previous workplace to say thank you (and ask to keep contact) to a woman who, the moment she saw me, had a welcoming smile and we engaged in conversation in a record-breaking speed of human cognition. And actually part of me screams that this woman is probably nice, or was just curious, or perhaps just happy to see me again, and that the whole effort of dressing up, going the non-trivial travel time, all for what could be yet another (possibly imaginary) boyfriend is a huge waste. But part of me also believes that I could succeed here. Do I know for sure? Nope! It’s yet another bet, and the dealer is the laws of physics (maybe biology is a better fit) and who knows what cards I get.
So let’s wrap this up. I know you like Mark Manson[3] so you probably noticed a similar theme[4] here. The people that believe LessWrong is going to make it should place their bets—bet with what you will. Money, effort, rationality is winning. The other party already placed their bets and the cards are still not revealed and the roulette has still not started spinning. Place your bets and we’ll see who wins.
[1] I basically went with some variation of an introduction, saying that she’s gorgeous and if she’d like to talk or meet up later.
[2] Imagine a Loony Toons character breaking the fourth wall. Alternatively, a paranoid schizophrenic psych ward escapee.
[3] markmanson.net does have excellent stuff. What are you waiting for?
[4] The theme is having to make a decision under unknown possibility of success. Which is the way I see it because I personally haven’t seen too much from the LessWrong 2.0 camp, despite the enthusiasm.
I do hope you’re not taking the hypothetical person in the second footnote bent on revitalizing LessWrong with a knack for movie scripts seriously.
I did have an extra footnote at ‘rationality is winning’ mentioning if someone with an extreme desire to see LW prosper would kidnap CFAR staff and other prominent bloggers in order to achieve his goal, but that victory would be too suspicious to pass. The possible escape scene seems interesting, but I can’t think of a way to make the villian worthwhile if he gets outsmarted too easily (Let’s say Eliezer does a sequence of posts and one post has 4 paragraphs, and they begin with H, E, L, and P. But I suppose the villian also read GEB and so he might notice it)
Anyhow, that supposed situation has a low enough probability that it shouldn’t be a worry and there are probably better people to shoot rather than neutrals.
EDIT: And let’s also stop this here, this is getting offtopic.
markmanson.net does have excellent stuff. What are you waiting for?
Dunno about anyone else, but he does have excellent stuff, and I keep forgetting it exists because I can’t find an RSS feed to add to my list so I see new posts.
Man, I don’t really care what happens to LW but if I had to choose, I honestly would say, ‘dunno, shoot me’.
I’m just really getting the ‘I don’t know what to decide’ feeling here. It’s a bet, and by ‘bet’ I mean something I cannot put into concrete, set-in-stone numbers that I must decide on. For example, I recently got a new haircut. I didn’t get one compliment for it. Do you think it was a good bet? I could’ve got a better haircut. But on the other hand, I’m pretty satisfied with it. I got tired of the same old haircut I had and, despite not getting even one compliment, I’m going to keep going with it.
I once did some mindkilling and tried to cold approach[1] women. A significant majority of them said that they have a boyfriend. Only a few women totally appreciated it. Some of them probably invented an imaginary boyfriend. Maybe some of them later went on Facebook or some other media and complain about random guys hitting on them. I suppose that I made this particular branch of universe a slightly worse place to live in. But a very small minority gave me a wide, unexpected smile and at that moment I wanted to middle finger the non-existing camera filming my life and say “420 is for wankers”.[2]
Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting a previous workplace to say thank you (and ask to keep contact) to a woman who, the moment she saw me, had a welcoming smile and we engaged in conversation in a record-breaking speed of human cognition. And actually part of me screams that this woman is probably nice, or was just curious, or perhaps just happy to see me again, and that the whole effort of dressing up, going the non-trivial travel time, all for what could be yet another (possibly imaginary) boyfriend is a huge waste. But part of me also believes that I could succeed here. Do I know for sure? Nope! It’s yet another bet, and the dealer is the laws of physics (maybe biology is a better fit) and who knows what cards I get.
So let’s wrap this up. I know you like Mark Manson[3] so you probably noticed a similar theme[4] here. The people that believe LessWrong is going to make it should place their bets—bet with what you will. Money, effort, rationality is winning. The other party already placed their bets and the cards are still not revealed and the roulette has still not started spinning. Place your bets and we’ll see who wins.
[1] I basically went with some variation of an introduction, saying that she’s gorgeous and if she’d like to talk or meet up later.
[2] Imagine a Loony Toons character breaking the fourth wall. Alternatively, a paranoid schizophrenic psych ward escapee.
[3] markmanson.net does have excellent stuff. What are you waiting for?
[4] The theme is having to make a decision under unknown possibility of success. Which is the way I see it because I personally haven’t seen too much from the LessWrong 2.0 camp, despite the enthusiasm.
That looks like a very poor decision :-P
I do hope you’re not taking the hypothetical person in the second footnote bent on revitalizing LessWrong with a knack for movie scripts seriously.
I did have an extra footnote at ‘rationality is winning’ mentioning if someone with an extreme desire to see LW prosper would kidnap CFAR staff and other prominent bloggers in order to achieve his goal, but that victory would be too suspicious to pass. The possible escape scene seems interesting, but I can’t think of a way to make the villian worthwhile if he gets outsmarted too easily (Let’s say Eliezer does a sequence of posts and one post has 4 paragraphs, and they begin with H, E, L, and P. But I suppose the villian also read GEB and so he might notice it)
Anyhow, that supposed situation has a low enough probability that it shouldn’t be a worry and there are probably better people to shoot rather than neutrals.
EDIT: And let’s also stop this here, this is getting offtopic.
Looks like Deadpool X-)
Too easy :-)
...famous last words.
Dunno about anyone else, but he does have excellent stuff, and I keep forgetting it exists because I can’t find an RSS feed to add to my list so I see new posts.