chesh

Karma: 82

chesh 17 Jul 2011 3:28 UTC
0 points
in reply to: lextori’s comment on: Logan, UT meetup Sat 18 Jun 4pm
Would there be any interest in holding these further south? I’m in downtown SLC, without a car, but am otherwise interested.

chesh 2 Jun 2011 0:57 UTC
10 points
on: The Landmark Forum — a rationalist’s first impression
My father, who is quite successful and I at the higher end of the rationality scale, was at one point very heavily involved with Landmark (he may still be, I’ve never brought it up). During the time I lived with him as a teenager, I often wouldn’t see him most weeknights until 10 or 11 PM, because he was off doing some Landmark related activity or another.

I still don’t know exactly what he got out of Landmark, aside from having met his wife there (which is certainly a big gain). After much pressure from him, I eventually went to a version of the Forum designed for teenagers. I can confirm novalis’ claim about the lengths of the days. Ultimately, spending that weekend was a positive experience for me, though I remember very little detail about it. It did help me bond with my father at a time when our relationship was incredibly strained (as I suspect quite a lot of father and 15-year old son relationships are).

I don’t know what to add beyond my anecdotal experiences; those are more than a decade removed at this point and detailed memory is largely obscured by a number of issues I had at that age. Still, I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can about it.

chesh 6 Feb 2011 20:48 UTC
0 points
in reply to: hamnox’s comment on: Where are we?
Oh, hey there! Nice to know I’m not completely alone here.

chesh 11 Oct 2010 18:58 UTC
2 points
on: References & Resources for LessWrong
Are you sure Diaspora should be marked Easy?

I tried to get a fairly intelligent, friend who’s interested in science (generally, not necessarily any specific domains covered in the book) to read it and she gave up within about half an hour.

I (a layman, but well-acquainted with the set of singularitarian memes that the book draws from) found that trying to visualize the physics made my head hurt, even with the accompanying illustrative java applets at the author’s website.

It also might be valuable to link to those (there are probably some for Permutation City as well, but I haven’t checked since I haven’t been able to track a copy of it down): http://www.gregegan.net/DIASPORA/DIASPORA.html

chesh 25 Aug 2010 1:08 UTC
2 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Alien parasite technical guy
I know this is quite late to the party, but you really ought to. Add a dose of cynicism that would make Robin Hanson blush to your post and you’d have a good plot summary of it.

chesh 14 Jul 2010 17:00 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Room for rent in North Berkeley house
My girlfriend dislikes Twilight as much as I do, but I have some other friends that might be interested in that.

chesh 13 Jul 2010 23:48 UTC
11 points
in reply to: Tyrrell_McAllister’s comment on: Room for rent in North Berkeley house
Well, she has had depression issues and was going through a pretty rough period—our relationship was stressed (largely on account of it being long-distance at the time, with her in Colorado and me in Utah); she was under a lot of stress (finals in the senior year of her bachelor’s degree, which is the reason for the previous long-distance); medical problems that, being an uninsured student, she really had no way to pay for; and we were scrambling to find an apartment and get everything ready for her imminent move to live with me. I had just recently read the Luminosity sequence, and the techniques in it seemed like something that anyone who wanted to be happier could at least give a shot and put to good use.

I linked her to http://lesswrong.com/lw/20l/ureshiku_naritai/, hoping that she could use it, and was told that she felt insulted by it, that it’s against the way she operates, that sometimes she just wants to be miserable and that “fooling yourself into feeling ‘more than a 2’” is just kidding yourself. She said she’d try not to outright ridicule the method but after reading it twice, she felt an intense sense of derision, and noted that she sometimes hates “the analytical approach”.

I’ve also gone through pretty intense depressive episodes, and I know what it’s like to feel helpless. What I don’t understand is accepting that helpless feeling and just trying to deal with it. When I’m feeling that way I can’t always muster the energy and initiative to actually do something about it, but I desperately want to feel different. It’s certainly possible that she was not actually clinically depressed at the time, though she seemed like it to me. But even so, she was not happy, and I was trying to offer her a possible way to become happier.

chesh 13 Jul 2010 22:55 UTC
11 points
in reply to: Airedale’s comment on: Room for rent in North Berkeley house
While I don’t think these are entirely serious (but if they are, that’s pretty awesome too!), I’d definitely love to see some posts on interpersonal relationships from a rationalist perspective. My own attempts at easing my girlfriend gently in (with Alicorn’s Luminosity sequence, which I think is about as gentle an introduction to some LW principles as you can get) was an unambiguous disaster; and this is with someone who expressed interest in increasing her rationality when we met.

Even if your story is not directly relevant, I’m sure there’s useful information in there for anyone who would like to be able to have a happy relationship and think clearly at the same time.

(edited for formatting)

chesh 16 May 2010 5:53 UTC
6 points
on: Attention Lurkers: Please say hi
Hello! I am 27, live in Salt Lake City (I suspect it’s unnecessary here of all places, but I will reflexively add the caveat that I am not Mormon), and work in software QA. Came here from Overcoming Bias, which I’ve been reading since it’s early days. At this point a lot of the higher level stuff is quite a bit over my head, but things like Alicorn’s luminosity sequence and various anti-akrasia topics are pretty interesting to me.

chesh 22 Dec 2009 19:31 UTC
4 points
on: The 9/11 Meta-Truther Conspiracy Theory
Haruhi fanfiction by Eliezer? You, sir, just delivered Christmas a few days early.

chesh 30 Apr 2009 20:27 UTC
3 points
on: Instrumental Rationality is a Chimera
Agreed, definitely. While I’ve found that Eliezer’s posts, in general, have given me a general sense of thinking more clearly, but beyond enjoying that I haven’t been able to make much use. I’m reminded of Robin’s posts on marginal medical spending, which leave me thinking “OK, I’m convinced… what am I actually supposed to do about this?”

chesh 15 Apr 2009 20:41 UTC
2 points
in reply to: CronoDAS’s comment on: “Stuck In The Middle With Bruce”
I started playing very early (around Legends) and quit around Ice Age; this was the standard belief at that time too. Of course, we didn’t really have the internet anyway. Winning decks occasionally got published in magazines, but the resources simply weren’t there for netdecking to be an issue. I suspect as it became easier and easier it moved from taboo to the norm. When I initially played, I never would have thought of buying a premade deck; now I can pick up any of the ones that are sold and have a fun game with them, without any of the commitment that caused me to quit, and the deck will be better than one I could make myself.

chesh 13 Apr 2009 21:03 UTC
0 points
in reply to: evtujo’s comment on: Where are we?
Salt Lake City. Seems we’re the entire mountain time delegation.

chesh 18 Mar 2009 21:50 UTC
4 points
on: Issues, Bugs, and Requested Features
I find the right-alignment of the “continue reading>” link makes it extremely easy to miss. My eye is scanning left to right, so once I don’t see something below the last line on the left I typically go to the next post. (Once I happened to notice it, I was able to keep a lookout for it, but if it was left aligned and maybe down a line, I suspect it would be a lot easier to see.)

chesh 13 Jan 2009 20:54 UTC
1 point
on: She has joined the Conspiracy
I’d be surprised if you didn’t.

chesh 28 Nov 2008 6:42 UTC
11 points
on: Thanksgiving Prayer
I had Thanksgiving dinner with friends, rather than family, as I like to do that every few years. Hours after we’d eaten, and had decided it was time to start toasting, one of our hosts offered up a retroactive prayer: “Dear God, we made this food ourselves, with no help from you. Go to hell and die.”

chesh 5 Feb 2008 16:20 UTC
5 points
0
on: Extensions and Intensions
The temptation to create a Wikipedia article for “Sentences Eliezer Yudkowsky has published containing the term ‘huragaloni’ as of Feb 4, 2008” is very strong, but I will resist.

chesh 21 Oct 2007 0:05 UTC
11 points
on: Illusion of Transparency: Why No One Understands You
Google found the actual meanings of “the goose hangs high” (the future looks good), and the reason it means that (there is a goose in the larder, therefor you will not starve), and “to go by the board” (to be completely destroyed or overthrown), but not the reason behind it. What do “to come an uncle over someone” and “to lay out in lavender” mean?

chesh 20 Sep 2007 17:55 UTC
0 points
on: Why I’m Blooking
The news of these posts being raw material for a book brightens my day. For some weeks, I’ve been contemplating making a simple page to show all of the posts Eliezer has made here, and the relationships between them. I may still do that, pending the publication of the blook, as my thinking processes have been changed for the better and I’d like to share that with others.