In general, any debate about whether something is “good” or “bad” is sketchy, and can be changed to a more useful form by converting the thing to an action and applying utilitarianism
Disease (and by analogy, malware) is dissolved here.
And because cryonicists are the most rabid and intense of the life extensionists, you will also soon learn that they are at the absolute edge of emerging science in this area.
Howconvenient that the way to optimize life extension happens to be the same set of actions that would entail signing up for cryonics.
The odds of the Titanic sinking with the loss of 1517 lives were 100% on 15 April 1912.
I always enjoy reading your comments and from their length and writing I can tell you put a lot into them. Perhaps you’ll also put up shorter posts with single thoughts as they come to you, the way I and some others do, which would be great as well. LW has a high standard it holds ideas, arguments, and most of all attempts to persuade to, which is why I enjoy the site and hope you post more often. I think you would pick up certain valuable ideas quickly, the posts I linked to are related to the parts of your comment I quoted.
1) I respect the desire for precision in the use of words, and I understand that each culture has its own nomenclature and rules.Those here that I have seen so far seem eminently reasonable.
2) I have no interest whatsoever (and haven’t for many years) in persuading anyone to sign up for cryonics—including friends and family. While it is an understandable error, my purpose here is not to convince, proselytize, or recruit, but rather to identify minds that are useful to my current endeavor. They will not need persuasion—they will ‘know the lion by his paw.’
3) Forgive my levity, but in urging mono-topical posts of short duration, you pointed me to three dissertations dealing with a range of subjects within each essay, the shortest of which was ~1,400 words and the longest of which was 2,700 words—not including commentary.
4) For the record, I use the word disease in the context your writer specified: as .something unusual, abnormal, and I would add, deleterious to the normal functioning and survival of the organism. I know little about computing and have even less aptitude to learn. I use the word malware as software that damages or destroys data that the computer’s owner doesn’t want destroyed or degraded. I would add that given my predicament, when that happens it is a complex, difficult and thoroughly unpleasant thing to sort out which generally requires my machine spend time in “stasis” until the appropriate expertise can be brought to bear.
5) My posts here have been mostly confined to the subject of cryonics and were never intended to continue. I’ve really enjoyed the discussion and I’ve found this an interesting and rewarding forum. Many thanks!
3) Forgive my levity, but in urging mono-topical posts of short duration, you pointed me to three dissertations dealing with a range of subjects within each essay, the shortest of which was ~1,400 words and the longest of which was 2,700 words—not including commentary.
I suck at being tactful and polite, particularly in this medium. I was trying to say I like your writing by saying you could add short comments to your repertoire, I hadn’t meant to imply you should decrease your production of long ones. That I genuinely enjoy your comments was not the sole motivation behind my writing what I did, I was trying to soften the criticism, and trying not to be rude.
I was also trying to make convenient for you what I was pointing towards, at the level of depth you would want it in, whatever that might be. That’s what I meant to do by having “How” go to link summarizing the content of the following link “convenient”, to present the same idea to the extent you cared to engage it.
4) For the record, I use the word disease in the context your writer specified
My intent was to show that they are analogous, I wasn’t claiming you didn’t use the word that way. What the article shows is that the question “Is “deprogramming” a treatment, or coercion?” is misguided.
2) While it is an understandable error,
I did not mean to imply that you are here to persuade people to sign up for cryonics, if that is what you thought I meant. Rather, when people make assertions, they often are attempting to persuade the reader of their truth. I just did that in the preceding sentence, there is nothing wrong with persuasion! You are trying to persuade me of at least five things in the parent of this comment, this is not a bad thing.
Rather, advocating for something by asserting that it has no opportunity costs is not just non-persuasive, it’s anti-persuasive because it is either clumsy attempted manipulation or rationalization—artful manipulation I wouldn’t be so inclined to comment on, but I genuinely felt empathically embarrassed to read “And because cryonicists are the most rabid and intense of the life extensionists, you will also soon learn that they are at the absolute edge of emerging science in this area. In other words, you stand to be the first to know about newly developed and developing technology to combat aging.”
Perhaps false modesty, or sloth, led me to provide links to what others have said, rather than try to explain more directly what I thought the issue was and how it applied. Perhaps one consideration that led me to write a sparse comment with links is that I know how easy it is for me to miscommunicate over featureless text comments, and how little I can rely on my intent being understood, such that it is valid for me to enlist others’ words to help me communicate...apparently even that didn’t help me here. Alas, there is no law of the universe that reads: “when people intend to communicate, they are skilled enough in communication such that if only they try hard enough and have good intentions, their meaning will be conveyed”.
I honestly think that you, from what I have read by you, wouldn’t even have to work hard or think hard to avoid making certain mistakes. That isn’t an attempt to be nice, as I think any further effort I spend on that is entirely wasted in at least this thread at this point.
You are smart enough that I was embarrassed for you to see you make certain errors of reasoning, happy that they can easily be fixed for you, and that you have happened upon a place that can easily fix them, and happy that I have found such a useful place, and happy that other people here are good at highlighting parts of my arguments and saying the equivalent of “you are being a dumbass at the following places in your argument, and let me explain how to fix that,” to me without it being awkward or unnatural, and I’m sorry I don’t have that skill.
Sorry, you’ve spent a lot of time trying to address things that really aren’t problems. I was in no way offended, or put off. It’s axiomatic, but worth noting yet again, that correspondence in writing is a dangerous way to communicate, because it lacks the context of intonation, facial expressions, and other non-verbal cues.
The best way to deal with errors in my writing, thinking or actions, real or perceived, is directly, matter of factly, and with only such tact as common courtesy requires. Public statements can be dealt with publicly, privates ones are best dealt with privately...
I think this will also save you time (when you are correct), because a succinct critique of an error is a hell of a lot less draining than spending time and energy crafting a convoluted, or overly polite reply. I do understand that this site is about a rigorous way of way thinking.
Finally, in reading your response, I realize that my comment about why I’ve posted here extensively recently, and am unlikely to continue to do so, may have been misinterpreted. It should be taken at face value as the literal truth. My primary obligations in terms of time, energy and writing must necessarily be elsewhere for the foreseeable future. This is just the way it is and it has nothing to do with LW.
Thanks for your letter—I know it took a fair bit of time to write and I really do appreciate it ;and I appreciate even more the sentiments expressed!
Yvain has said:
Disease (and by analogy, malware) is dissolved here.
How convenient that the way to optimize life extension happens to be the same set of actions that would entail signing up for cryonics.
On odds.
I always enjoy reading your comments and from their length and writing I can tell you put a lot into them. Perhaps you’ll also put up shorter posts with single thoughts as they come to you, the way I and some others do, which would be great as well. LW has a high standard it holds ideas, arguments, and most of all attempts to persuade to, which is why I enjoy the site and hope you post more often. I think you would pick up certain valuable ideas quickly, the posts I linked to are related to the parts of your comment I quoted.
I’ll try to keep my response brief:
1) I respect the desire for precision in the use of words, and I understand that each culture has its own nomenclature and rules.Those here that I have seen so far seem eminently reasonable.
2) I have no interest whatsoever (and haven’t for many years) in persuading anyone to sign up for cryonics—including friends and family. While it is an understandable error, my purpose here is not to convince, proselytize, or recruit, but rather to identify minds that are useful to my current endeavor. They will not need persuasion—they will ‘know the lion by his paw.’
3) Forgive my levity, but in urging mono-topical posts of short duration, you pointed me to three dissertations dealing with a range of subjects within each essay, the shortest of which was ~1,400 words and the longest of which was 2,700 words—not including commentary.
4) For the record, I use the word disease in the context your writer specified: as .something unusual, abnormal, and I would add, deleterious to the normal functioning and survival of the organism. I know little about computing and have even less aptitude to learn. I use the word malware as software that damages or destroys data that the computer’s owner doesn’t want destroyed or degraded. I would add that given my predicament, when that happens it is a complex, difficult and thoroughly unpleasant thing to sort out which generally requires my machine spend time in “stasis” until the appropriate expertise can be brought to bear.
5) My posts here have been mostly confined to the subject of cryonics and were never intended to continue. I’ve really enjoyed the discussion and I’ve found this an interesting and rewarding forum. Many thanks!
I suck at being tactful and polite, particularly in this medium. I was trying to say I like your writing by saying you could add short comments to your repertoire, I hadn’t meant to imply you should decrease your production of long ones. That I genuinely enjoy your comments was not the sole motivation behind my writing what I did, I was trying to soften the criticism, and trying not to be rude.
I was also trying to make convenient for you what I was pointing towards, at the level of depth you would want it in, whatever that might be. That’s what I meant to do by having “How” go to link summarizing the content of the following link “convenient”, to present the same idea to the extent you cared to engage it.
My intent was to show that they are analogous, I wasn’t claiming you didn’t use the word that way. What the article shows is that the question “Is “deprogramming” a treatment, or coercion?” is misguided.
I did not mean to imply that you are here to persuade people to sign up for cryonics, if that is what you thought I meant. Rather, when people make assertions, they often are attempting to persuade the reader of their truth. I just did that in the preceding sentence, there is nothing wrong with persuasion! You are trying to persuade me of at least five things in the parent of this comment, this is not a bad thing.
Rather, advocating for something by asserting that it has no opportunity costs is not just non-persuasive, it’s anti-persuasive because it is either clumsy attempted manipulation or rationalization—artful manipulation I wouldn’t be so inclined to comment on, but I genuinely felt empathically embarrassed to read “And because cryonicists are the most rabid and intense of the life extensionists, you will also soon learn that they are at the absolute edge of emerging science in this area. In other words, you stand to be the first to know about newly developed and developing technology to combat aging.”
Perhaps false modesty, or sloth, led me to provide links to what others have said, rather than try to explain more directly what I thought the issue was and how it applied. Perhaps one consideration that led me to write a sparse comment with links is that I know how easy it is for me to miscommunicate over featureless text comments, and how little I can rely on my intent being understood, such that it is valid for me to enlist others’ words to help me communicate...apparently even that didn’t help me here. Alas, there is no law of the universe that reads: “when people intend to communicate, they are skilled enough in communication such that if only they try hard enough and have good intentions, their meaning will be conveyed”.
I honestly think that you, from what I have read by you, wouldn’t even have to work hard or think hard to avoid making certain mistakes. That isn’t an attempt to be nice, as I think any further effort I spend on that is entirely wasted in at least this thread at this point.
You are smart enough that I was embarrassed for you to see you make certain errors of reasoning, happy that they can easily be fixed for you, and that you have happened upon a place that can easily fix them, and happy that I have found such a useful place, and happy that other people here are good at highlighting parts of my arguments and saying the equivalent of “you are being a dumbass at the following places in your argument, and let me explain how to fix that,” to me without it being awkward or unnatural, and I’m sorry I don’t have that skill.
Sorry, you’ve spent a lot of time trying to address things that really aren’t problems. I was in no way offended, or put off. It’s axiomatic, but worth noting yet again, that correspondence in writing is a dangerous way to communicate, because it lacks the context of intonation, facial expressions, and other non-verbal cues.
The best way to deal with errors in my writing, thinking or actions, real or perceived, is directly, matter of factly, and with only such tact as common courtesy requires. Public statements can be dealt with publicly, privates ones are best dealt with privately...
I think this will also save you time (when you are correct), because a succinct critique of an error is a hell of a lot less draining than spending time and energy crafting a convoluted, or overly polite reply. I do understand that this site is about a rigorous way of way thinking.
Finally, in reading your response, I realize that my comment about why I’ve posted here extensively recently, and am unlikely to continue to do so, may have been misinterpreted. It should be taken at face value as the literal truth. My primary obligations in terms of time, energy and writing must necessarily be elsewhere for the foreseeable future. This is just the way it is and it has nothing to do with LW.
Thanks for your letter—I know it took a fair bit of time to write and I really do appreciate it ;and I appreciate even more the sentiments expressed!