Aharon

Karma: 379

Aharon 13 Sep 2017 11:44 UTC
10 points
on: 2017 LessWrong Survey
Thanks for your work in creating the survey, and for LesserWrong. I shared the link to the survey in our meet-up group, and hope many people will contribute.

Aharon 24 Mar 2015 7:17 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Nornagest’s comment on: Twenty basic rules for intelligent money management
I agree, and I think we can already observe the consequences: For example, since exchange traded funds have become more popular, their number increased from 276 to 3.906, and not all of them are passively managed any more. I don’t know about the situation in the US, but in Germany, one of the largest direct banks incentivizes buying ETFs that are indexing risky underlying things (for example, one ETF follows the development of pension-funds in emerging markets). It does so by having lower trading costs for incentivized funds.

I think on a private level, one can still find index funds that are actually useful. On a global level, there are some worries that ETFs might contribute to a potential future crisis.

Aharon 5 Feb 2015 14:15 UTC
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015
Yes, that’s correct. This is why I stated market knowledge is neccessary—if you decide to buy a plan where this kind of energy is supported, you don’t reach your goal of heightening the production of renewable energy. The first paragraph was intended as an intro that shows the pit falls. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear.

Aharon 3 Jan 2015 8:42 UTC
2 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015
You can do so, but it takes market knowledge to find such a plan. There are several plans that offer 100% renewable energy, usually certified in some way (example: http://www.tuev-nord.de/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-7251F8DB-F18E650D/tng_de/kriterienkatalog-oekostrom.pdf). The certified electricity is usually from hydroelectric power plants which are already 100% depreciated and don’t get any surplus from the renewable energy levy.

However, there are some plans (for example http://www.gruenerstromlabel.de/english/) that come at a higher price, but also pay for installing new renewable power.

To answer the OP question: I’m not an EA-specialist, but I think that depends on your goals. If you agree with the version of utilitarianism that most EAs hold, buying the cheapest mix and donating the difference to GiveWell is best. If the goal of promoting renewable energy in your country is of similar importance as improving living conditions in developing countries, you should find out if in your country, solutions which actually cause investment in green energy exist and then buy those (the most effective solution would probably be to buy 100% renewable energy from depreciated hydroelectric plants and directly invest the difference in cost to higher-quality labels in green energy projects, but I assume this option isn’t available to you).

Aharon 26 Oct 2014 8:03 UTC
49 points
on: 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey
Done. Skipped the digit ration questions to not put off answering the rest.

Aharon 7 Jun 2014 18:29 UTC
9 points
in reply to: ThrustVectoring’s comment on: Examples of Rationality Techniques adopted by the Masses
I do not think that this is true for the majority of players.

Aharon 27 May 2014 22:38 UTC
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Will Darkcoin Have Thiel’s Last Mover Advantage
I probably should have emphasized the “partly”. Of course, other factors also played a role in its demise, but they did try to gain footing in other European countries rather late.

Concerning Xing: Yes, you’re right, this went very differently. It would be interesting to compare the LinkedIn/Xing and Facebook/StudiVZ situations to find out the differences and commonalities, but to do so in detail is beyond the scope of a comment, I think.

Aharon 24 May 2014 7:38 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Will Darkcoin Have Thiel’s Last Mover Advantage
Case in point: before Facebook became large in Germany, there was a carbon copy called StudiVZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ). It lost out partly because it came chronologically after Facebook—it wasn’t able to map connections to people outside of Germany well, which Facebook could.

Aharon 13 Jan 2014 21:38 UTC
1 point
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
I first wanted to comment on 5, because I had previously read that having children reduces happiness. Interestingly, when searching a link (because I couldn’t remember where I had read it), I found this source (http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2012-013.pdf) that corrobates your specific expectation: children lead to higher happiness for older, better educated parents.

Aharon 22 Nov 2013 18:56 UTC
30 points
on: 2013 Less Wrong Census/Survey
I’m a European, and the thought that geographical Europe might be meant didn’t even occur to me,since in most of my daily interactions (media consumed, small talk, etc.), “Europe” is used interchangeably with “European Union”. Teaches me to read such survey questions more thoroughly.

I want to congratulate you on how well you integrated the many suggestions you got, I see many improvements compared to the 2012 (for example, the introductory text convinced me to take the survey right away, when I was one of those who put it off last year).

Aharon 3 Oct 2013 15:37 UTC
2 points
on: What are you working on? October 2013
- Restart doing sport regularly. I started going to the gym one year ago, with the goal of 3 times per week. I reached an average of about 1 time per week, but with a very uneven distribution—i.e. 1 week 3 times, then two weeks nothing. Since July, I didn’t have any regular exercise. At the last less wrong meetup, I set the goal to go to the gym 1/week and do the 7 minute workout twice per week. That was on the 22nd. In the first week after setting the goal, I didn’t succeed. This week, I did the 7 minute workout once.
- Till the next meetup (27th October), read chapter one of “Good and Real” by Gary L. Drescher. I haven’t started yet, but am a fast reader and hope to do it this week-end.

Aharon 11 Sep 2013 18:17 UTC
10 points
on: Mistakes repository
I don’t know how to phrase it best so it fits here, but I feel it does, because it complicates my life regularly and therefore is pretty major: Not sticking to very beneficial routines that I know to be highly useful for my overall functionality in the short term and neccessary in the long term.

I know that I am happier and better-functioning when I regularly make journal entries and meditate. I am more productive at work, and I have more energy in my free time for other projects. Yet, I’m in a cycle where, when everything is going very well, I neglect both activities. Everything continues to go well for a while, then I get unbalanced, less energetic and overall less happy and productive, and only then do I remember that I already know what I can do to improve my situation.

For example, I neglected journal-writing and meditation in the past three month, which was a critical time because this left me with little energy to learn for a test (I’m currently doing a second M.Sc. to improve my chances of entering the economic sector I’m especially interested in). It won’t have any unalterable consequences yet—if I fail on Friday, I can repeat the test next year, without having to study longer than intended—but it will make things more difficult and time-intensive next year, because I will have to prepare for the repeat tests as well as the tests scheduled for next semester. And I fear it’s only a matter of time till this leads to bigger consequences (Seriously affecting job performance, for example).

Aharon 3 Aug 2013 8:06 UTC
7 points
in reply to: CronoDAS’s comment on: More “Stupid” Questions
I hope you don’t mind if I don’t answer your actual question, but wouldn’t it be a better option to sleep before taking your mom into bed, so you have sleep from 10 PM to 5 AM? What you’re currently doing seems to equate to night-shifts, which are really bad for health, AFAIK. It would also help solving your problem of finding something social to do, I guess—that should be a lot easier in the evening.

Aharon 8 Jul 2013 10:36 UTC
4 points
in reply to: kilobug’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 22, chapter 93
The points you noticed confused me as well. My (very strong) gut reaction was that obviously Dumbledore is behind it all—he is the one with most control about the wards, and he is the one who gives both the readers and the participants of the meeting the information tha the wards point to the Defense professor as culprit. Also, the line about the heir triggered a mental alarm.

As I said, this was a gut reaction, and it has been quite some time since I read the rest of the story—this is just based on chapters 90 to 94, and the general impression I got from the story so far that this Dumbledore is definitely very different from canon Dumbledore.

Aharon 22 Jun 2013 10:16 UTC
2 points
in reply to: TimS’s comment on: Is our continued existence evidence that Mutually Assured Destruction worked?
I notice that I’m confused.

The example that I would have liked to bring up was Germany’s stance on the Nord Stream project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream), which serves as a direct supply with russian natural gas independent of transit countries. In Germany, the support for this project by Schröder was widely perceived as a result of his relationship to Putin and his plans after leaving politics (he is head of the shareholder’s committee). I assumed this project is clearly against German national interest, since it creates an even stronger dependence on russian natural gas than the dependence already existing right now. I assumed that Merkel’s worse personal relationship with Putin and her not benefitting personally from this project would have lead to a stance that is more in line with Germany’s interest in energy independence. Indeed, she has voiced that opinion—for example, advocating a LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Middle-East/Jan/10/Merkel-says-Germany-should-lessen-dependence-on-Russian-energy.ashx#axzz2Ww9dAIzo). However, when it comes to actions, she consistently supported Nord Stream and sabotaged alternatives.

Aharon 21 Jun 2013 18:34 UTC
5 points
in reply to: moridinamael’s comment on: What makes you different from Tim Ferriss?
I’m a bit sceptical about T4HW, since the numbers in this blog post (http://thehackensack.blogspot.de/2009/10/how-much-was-tim-ferriss-really-making.html) imply he exaggerated very, very much (although 4.000 $/month still alllows a comfortable living).

Aharon 20 Jun 2013 19:30 UTC
0 points
in reply to: TimS’s comment on: Is our continued existence evidence that Mutually Assured Destruction worked?
I think internal dynamics play a greater role than you assume. Personalities do matter in politics. To take a current example, while little has changed about the facts between Russia and Germany of today, the relationship between those two nations has changed a lot after Merkel succeeded Schröder as chancelor, simply because Putin and Merkel don’t work as well together on a personal level as Schröder and Putin did.

Aharon 19 Jun 2013 10:36 UTC
0 points
in reply to: TimS’s comment on: Is our continued existence evidence that Mutually Assured Destruction worked?
Your attempt at an explanation is interesting, but to my knowledge, doesn’t fit the facts. The nations weren’t unwilling to ally with Germany, in contrary, the German Emperor didn’t want to maintain the alliances that had been created by Bismarck. For example, Russia wanted to renew the Reinsurance Treaty in 1890 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinsurance_Treaty), but Germany didn’t.

Aharon 31 May 2013 13:06 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Liron’s comment on: Optimizing for attractiveness
At a $20k income, $700 is a non-trivial expenditure. In Germany, online-services that aid in buying clothes exist (for example, www.outfittery.de). This might be a good compromise between best advice and cost-efficiency.

Aharon 23 May 2013 0:24 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Petruchio’s comment on: Preparing for a Rational Financial Planning Sequence
Thanks—I planned to take a closer look because of the rest of his strategies and lifestyle, but lacked the time. Another reason not to postpone that :-)