Many things can be done by the right people. But Idk ‘radical honesty’ adjacent ideas usually go real bad.
sapphire
Karma: 2,328
Im a real fan of insane ideas. I literally do Acid every monday. But I gotta say among crazy ideas ‘be way way more honest’ is well trodden ground and the skulls are numerous. It just really rarely goes well. Im a pretty honest guy and am attracted to the cluster. But if you start doing this you are definitely trying something in a cluster of ideas that usually works terribly.
If anything I have to constantly tell myself to be less explicit and ‘deeply honest’. It just doesnt work well for most people.
Did the students really want to learn?
A few times I de facto taught a course on ‘calculus with proofs’ to a few students who wanted to learn from someone who seemed smart and motivated. I didn’t get any money and they didnt get paid. We met twice a week. I could give some lectures and they discuss problems for a few hours. There was homework. We all took it very seriously. It was clearly not a small amount of work but I frankly found it invigorating. Normal classes were usually not invigorating.
I will say I found tutoring much more invigorating than teaching courses. When a student comes to you for tutoring they tend to REALLY wanna learn the material fast. Often there is a test coming up. They pay attention. If you are good they are grateful for your attention. And you feel grateful to them too! Its wonderful to see someone learn fast. Many students will be genuinely sincerely thankful to their good tutors. It makes sense the tutors were trying to help them learn as efficiently as possible!
I think teaching is soul crushing because neither the student nor the teacher is properly motivated. Teachers are not providing their students with optimal learning environments, they aren’t even trying (where as a good tutor is actually trying. Even at a commercial tutoring center). And the students aren’t trying all that hard to learn.
This is my usual conclusion but the issue is not lack of skill in most cases. Its lack of ‘actually trying’ and lack of ‘minimal attempt at good practices’. Professors/teachers just have to teach whoever shows up and needs the class. This is true in tutoring centers too, to some degree. But in tutoring there is much more expectation students will find a tutor they vibe with.
Education could be fun and invigorating for both sides if both sides came into the experience with a sincere attitude to try. But unless goals are aligned where could such an attitude come from. And goals are often not aligned.
I will say as a professor I also wanted to help my students. But the obvious way to help them was to uhhhhh ‘give them as high a grade as I could possibly get away with’. If I could id have given them all As but the amount of flexibility I had varied. But it was just too soul crushing to not go into teaching with a sincere desire to help my students not judge them.
This thread honestly reminded me I live in a college town. I wonder if anyone needs high quality help with their analysis or algebra classes. I could probably charge some reasonable rate and im a very good tutor if the student has the right vibe. and by right vibe I dont mean exceptional ability I just mean something like ‘gets along with sapph as a person. Sapph is good natured but very high energy and clearly a little insane. Ideally the student finds this charming’
Related question—Can you link me a summary of why aircraft weapons are good. I feel like it should be kinda hard to hit an aicraft with a missle or whatever. Aicraft are moving really fast and are not the biggest target. How much faster are missiles? The jet is already moving at a high speed but the missle has to accelerate from zero. Aircraft seem pretty vulnerable to lasers but are those kind of defenses actually deployed at our current tech level?
Strong upvoted. I learned a lot. Seriously interested in what you think is relatively safe and not extremely expensive or difficult to acquire. Some candidates I thought of but im not exactly well informed:
-- Grass fed beef
—oysters/muscles
—some whole grains? which?
-- fruit
—vegetables you somehow know arent contaminated by anti-pest chemicals?I really need some guidance here.
I prefer to keep plans private but I’m making big progress on meditation and mental re-wiring. Am working on a way to publicly demonstrate. Public plans just stress me out. I recently set two pretty ambitious goals. I figured I could use psychedelics to turbo-charge progress. The meditation one is coming along FAST.
The other goal is honestly blocked a bit on being super out of shape. Multiple rounds of covid really destroyed my cardio and energy levels. Need to rebuild those before a big push on goal 2.
Im with several other commentators. People know what unconditional love is. Many people have it for their family members, most commonly for their children but often for others. They want that. Sadly this sort of love is rare beyond family.
I felt some amount of unconditional towards my dad. He was really not a great parent to me. He hit me for fun, was ashamed of me, etc. But we did have some good times. When he was dying of cancer I was still a good son. Was quite supportive. Not out of duty, I just didnt want him to suffer any more than needed. I felt genuinely love. I would have done a lot of costly things for him if he asked. My mom and uncle were giving him intrusive treatment than he wanted. Though it hadnt gotten too out of hand yet (except for the fact it burned all my moms money). But I very seriously told him during visits if he said the word Id call my lawyers and make sure he didn’t get medically tortured. This would have cost me a lot of money and time but he was my dad! How can a son let his father down like that. He died before legal issues came to a head but I was in his camp. I didnt care how many people got mad at me.
Does anyone have high quality analysis of how effective machines are for strength training and building muscles. Not free weights specifically machines. Im not the pickiest on how one operationalizes ‘work’. More interested in the quality of the analysis. But some questions:
-- Do users get hurt frequently? Are the injuries chronic? (This is the most important question)
-- Do people who use them consistently gain muscle
-- Can you gain a ‘lot’ of muscle and strength liek you can with free weights. Or people cap out quickly if they are fit
-- Does strength from free weight carry over to other things. To barbells? To bodyweight calisthenics? To sports?
As I said im not the pickiest. Id rather have a great analysis of ‘carryover to curling’ than a meh quality analysis that covered all of my questions.
Im not particularly against pivotal acts. It seems plausible to me someone will take one. Would not exactly shock me if Sam Altman himself planned to take one to prevent dangerous AGI. He is intelligent and therefore isnt going to openly talk about considering them. But I dont have any serious objection to them being taken if people are reasonable about it.
A rather large fraction of the total words in this document are dedicated to safety warnings. I do not see how its possible to deny I seem quite focus on some sense of safety. I focused on the safety issues I think are genuinely the most pressing (addiction risks, trauma). I genuinely do not think that drug purity issues are the main risk of taking this advice. Certainly not for ketamine sourced in San Fransisco. Also the service I linked in SF also sends samples to a lab for quite thorough testing and you get results in about four weeks. You should believe I genuinely disagree with you on what the risks are for the substances mentioned.
I think modafinal is great for a lot of people. But I made the choice to only write up the very best (in terms of expected outcomes) stuff. Given that many substances have risks or legal issues it was much simpler for me to just not mention a lot of stuff. I do not intend any implicit claim that other things aren’t useful. But I didn’t make a list of ‘stuff I’ve investigated and found less good on average’ vs ‘stuff I have not investigated’.
Thanks for sharing moda is working that well for you
Best in Class Life Improvement
It feels like bad praxis to punish people for things they got right!
The circle is by far my favorite solstice song. I like to it all the time. It is definitely the most ‘sapph values’ part of the performance. I find it beautiful. A ray of pure divine grace. I will say im not exactly bad at being rational in concrete ways. Im fairly successful economically, socially and romantically despite having an abusive childhood. I attribute my success to being methodical and rational about things, at least some of the time. But there is something about rat values that differs from mine. So its very good for my feeling included that the Circle has survived the culls.
If any of my adoring fans, or anyone else, wants to grab lunch/dinner/a drink let me know. Im in SF for a bit. Lots to talk about. Also I try to do an hour plus of walking per day. So happy to walk. Though im not always up for a big hike. Lots to do.
I didn’t have time or energy! This shit was going parabolic! Whatever happened to Aumann’s agreement theorem!
I will note this is both a cool as fuck project and the token is like 2x+ from when I posted. So idk why im getting downvoted. I guess lesswrong jsut isnt into finance for personal gain or to look at dope stuff.
FUTARCHY NOW BABY
The lesswrong/EA communities ‘inside game’ strategy for AI safety is genuinely embarrassing to me as a longtime community member. Quokkas gonna quokka but this is ridiculous.
Leftwing point of view:
Its a wealth transfer to younger people. Im fully aware that middle aged people have college debt.
Conversely wealth inequality by age is fairly extreme.
So I remain extremely in favor of student debt cancellation. Note I have never taken on any student debt so I obviously dont have any.