Clarica

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 7:32 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: eugman’s comment on: [Er­ror com­mu­ni­cat­ing with LW2 server]

  I really sympathize. I use reality checking constantly to keep my strong tendency to believe in mystic resonance stuff to an absolute minimum.

  This line I found especially poignant:

  If nothing else, I’m more afraid of the dark or being alone than I used to be.

  because while I don’t usually have those fears, I think they are a natural response. You are more alone than you used to be, if you have one person who moved from a great propinquity of relations, to hardly any contact. And in the dark you can not see what’s coming for you. knowing that the likelyhood of anything coming for you is extremely remote is no comfort.

  The presence of another person usually is a comfort.

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 7:13 PM

  −2 points

  in reply to: dlthomas’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  I think that calling the choice to spend more or less time doing financially unrecompensed work in the home an innocuous gender difference, is careless. The harms of the various choices have not been evaluated that well. And it may be impossible to evaluate that harm without bias.

  The actual choices people make are often very carefully calculated with regard to benefits. And this includes both the choice to leave ‘home’ work to paid professionals, or unpaid amateurs. And the choice to become a well-paid professional (or self-employed professional).

  I totally agree with this point:

  (One specific example: women have ovaries, men have testes. Both organs release mind-affecting hormones, in different distributions.)

  But rationally understanding the gender bias inherent in different choices does not make cleaning up after any other person, unpaid, a wholly joyous choice.

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 6:59 PM

  −2 points

  in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  I do not really understand your questions. Can you define ‘who’ ‘them’ ‘whose’ and ‘it’? Would, compensate, benefit, is, and for I get.

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 6:51 PM

  −8 points

  in reply to: dlthomas’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  Have I demonstrated that calling such a choice ‘innocuous’ is a careless word choice yet?

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 6:34 PM

  −6 points

  in reply to: dlthomas’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  Yay! Do you think your evaluation is bias-free? How much should normally financially-uncompensated work in the home be worth, market prices? Which is worth more, an investment of time or money?

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 6:29 PM

  −2 points

  in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  I do not have any objection to your use of the word innocuous, here.

  I think that calling the choice to spend more or less time doing financially unrecompensed work in the home an innocuous gender difference, is careless. The harms of the various choices have not been evaluated that well. And it may be impossible to evaluate that harm without bias.

  What links here?

  • dlthomas's comment on Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance by lukeprog (Oct 12, 2011, 4:42 PM; 1 point)

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 6:12 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  you do not address my point of the word choice ‘innocuous’.

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 6:05 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  I don’t think I’d use the word innocuous with the example of this reason for this gender difference. If it is a rational choice, why don’t both genders make similar choices?

• ClaricaOct 11, 2011, 4:50 PM

  10 points

  in reply to: cousin_it’s comment on: How to un­der­stand peo­ple bet­ter

  I like to watch movies and decide who is the smartest person, who is the most compassionate person, and who is the meanest person. And then ask myself: Why? Some mean behavior is actually an irrational self-protective response, for example.

• ClaricaOct 10, 2011, 11:54 PM

  9 points

  on: A Ra­tional Ap­proach to Fashion

  While most rationalists would happily and quickly plan [...], anecdotally many seem hesitant or even hostile to the idea of using fashion as a tool to achieve their objectives.

  This point is essentially the point of having your article here on LW, but it is not emphasized strongly enough, in my opinion.

  Additionally, I think the point that “the tool of fashion is one you are using to convey some information, whether you intend a message or not” is an essential point that I did not see in your text.

• ClaricaOct 10, 2011, 10:46 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: DSimon’s comment on: Not By Em­pa­thy Alone

  Ah. I see consciousness as the ability to interrupt ‘instinctive’ response with a measured or planned response. And feelings as the middle stage between action and reaction, conscious or no.

  I do not privilege conscious experience, just because I absolutely enjoy it. It sounds like you do.

• ClaricaOct 10, 2011, 4:22 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: DSimon’s comment on: Not By Em­pa­thy Alone

  I think it is an important point to distinguish between feelings (aka response) and consciousness. I am not sure how to distinguish these two things. And elevation of ‘consciousness’ does not dismiss ‘feelings’.

• ClaricaOct 8, 2011, 4:49 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: DSimon’s comment on: Not By Em­pa­thy Alone

  Since when have neurologists studied rocks? The whimsical suggestion that rocks might have feelings is somewhat akin to the less whimsical suggestion that there are lots of things that may have ‘feelings’ that we do not easily or usually detect, or can not detect without special equipment.

  And some of these feelings (like bio-communication in plants), while measurable, we usually don’t care that much about, and empathy for the pain of plants (and animals) may interfere with empathy for the pain of people, if you take compassion fatigue into consideration.

• ClaricaOct 4, 2011, 5:30 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: EphemeralNight’s comment on: Open thread, Oc­to­ber 2011

  If the flaw lies in your choices, choose differently. If the flaw lies in your habits, practice better habits. If the flaw lies in your cognitive habits, you must do something higher up on this list in order to be able to develop different cognitive habits.

  Your existing habits and choices (and arguably genetics and environment) may not be what created the situation which is becoming intolerable, but they are the easiest thing to work on.

  You do not have to worry about making the right change or practices—start with whatever seems easiest. And try not to go against your ‘better’ judgement.

• ClaricaOct 4, 2011, 12:32 AM

  4 points

  in reply to: dlthomas’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  You make a good point, but I doubt she believed his assertion for long, if at all. Though it probably offended her.

  I am trying to suggest that lukeprog’s assertions about why he didn’t feel like he liked her the right amount any more are totally irrelevant to her reaction. Their accuracy is, in fact, arguable.

  Evolution, as it applies to men, suggests that just often enough, some of them will try to impregnate someone. Cross-cultural standards of physical beauty in women suggest who most men are most likely to try to approach. This is statistical. “Who wants to date ME” is personal, and there is no proof other than experience.

  The fact that he didn’t feel like he liked her the right amount to date her anymore is the unarguable point, and there is no way of getting around that.

  She sounds like a normal girl and probably had a normal amount of disappointment over the breakup, and maybe an above-average amount of resentment at the suggestion that she might not be as evolutionarily attractive as the next girl.

• ClaricaOct 3, 2011, 11:30 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: RobertLumley’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  Well, I’m no expert on how women think, but there is no thought control.

  This breakup story is so unusual in the amount of rational preparation for it, I’m sure that I would be able to see that most other men are not much like lukeprog, on that point if no other.

  I am not sure there is any way to convince someone you do not want to date (at all /​ any longer) that they are likeable, except by proving it over time.

• ClaricaOct 3, 2011, 8:39 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: lukeprog’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  I like the photo, but the deviation point is a good one, which you did not address. Was that purposeful?

• ClaricaOct 3, 2011, 8:32 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: RobertLumley’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  Can you clarify what the harm is, in her thinking ‘just like a man’

  Or what her thinking would actually be, if that is not what you’re suggesting?

  And for the record, I killed that first relationship by telling my BF that I wasn’t sure I loved him anymore, but that I didn’t actually want to break up. Which was totally true, and had predictable results. I turned a normal healthy and cute math-classics major/​computer science nerd into a clingy and demanding person, because I didn’t understand why I wasn’t happier with myself. He had no recourse to any pat generalizations, like ‘just like a woman’.

• Clarica 3 Oct 2011 15:27 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: RobertLumley’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Les­sons Learned from Ir­ra­tional Ad­ven­tures in Romance

  I don’t see any evidence that suggests that she would draw any conclusion about evolution from a breakup like that. Is that in the text or your own conclusion?

  (and I must add that though I didn’t write a 20 page document for my first breakup, I arguably did no better.)

• Clarica 29 Sep 2011 4:24 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: Constant2’s comment on: Belief as Attire

  I agree with your point about “difficulty of engaging the enemy’s armed forces”. But I still understand the frustrations of suicide bombers, because of the difficulty of significantly or meaningfully engaging some enemy’s armed forces. Especially if you respect warriors, but not their guidance.

  What is the brave action to take in that case? Simply suicide, and not suicide-attacks? Or better-targeted suicide-attacks? I am befuddled.

  I am far more comfortable condemning suicide-attacks as irrational than cowardly.