G Wood

Pos­i­tive Directions

• G WoodFeb 6, 2025, 8:28 PM

  4 points

  2

  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Wild An­i­mal Suffer­ing Is The Worst Thing In The World

  Agree with Dagon here, when omnizoid say’s “Its obvious that you should” they are calling on the rules of their own morality. Its similar with “Her suffering is bad”, that’s a direct moral judgment. Both statements fall apart when you consider that someone may have different moral rules than you.
  
  For example, in NZ we have an issue with deer destroying our native bush which in turn hurts our native birds. Deer are considered an invasive species and are actively eradicated. In the case when you are actively in the presence of a hurting deer empathy drives you to help, suffering is not pleasant to witness. However I suspect that many NZ’s would condemn every deer in NZ to a painful death, as long as they didn’t have to witness it, in order to save our trees and birdlife.

• G WoodJan 13, 2025, 10:34 PM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Alle­vi­at­ing shrimp pain is im­moral.

  Yes, quite right (first paragraph). Am I wrong to be confident in my own beliefs? Happy to change my beliefs if your argument is convincing enough.

  I think that platonic morality is a social technology with both mechanism and purpose. My definition of platonic morality is “a socially enforced set of informal rules that solve coordination problems for the benefit of the group”. I would judge any particular moral rule set by how well it benefits the group. Slaves benefit their society less than doctors, even if only because resources must be spent to control them, and so they would have a lower moral weight.

  Other interesting social technologies include:

  Money: Coordinates exchange and stores value through shared belief

  Laws: Structure behaviour through formalized rules and consequences

  Limited liability companies: Enables pooling capital while limiting risk

  Voting: Aggregates preferences into collective decisions

  Google says that morality is “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.” I think that’s consistent with my definition. I suppose i have added a utilitarian aspect by giving morality a purpose. I do find that things have purposes generally, am I wrong in that or in the specific purpose I have given it?

• G WoodJan 13, 2025, 7:48 PM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Alle­vi­at­ing shrimp pain is im­moral.

  I want to be a little careful here, i’m not saying that this or that thing is “Right” or “Wrong” that’s what morality does, I’m trying to describe what “Morality” is. So yes, I suppose a slave would get a lower moral weight than a doctor, shall we say 0.8 of your average society member for the slave and 1.2 for the doctor? This is certainly what we observe in history, where skilled helpful professionals are more valued than the less skilled and not very willing.

  A slave’s willingness is a lot more important a factor in their utility than that of a shrimp. I would give a shrimp a moral weight of 0.0.

  In the American context slavery is also wrapped up with racism, which I think is wrong from both my personal morality and also from my half-baked “recognition of usefulness helps everyone get along and makes for greater prosperity” standard.

  I think that modern wage /​ economic slavery (doing a job) is much more efficient /​ effective, in part because the human is recognised and applauded for their usefulness and works much harder because of it.

• G WoodJan 12, 2025, 7:58 PM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Alle­vi­at­ing shrimp pain is im­moral.

  You know you are quite right; I hadn’t properly considered willingness. Would this work as an addendum?
  
  ”While shrimp provide value as food, this doesn’t grant them moral weight in the same way voluntary cooperation does. Moral consideration stems from needing others to willingly participate in society—we care about their wellbeing because their willing cooperation matters. A shrimp’s utility is independent of its willingness, making it more like a resource than a social participant.”

  I will grant this is not a very nice thing for the shrimp...

Alle­vi­at­ing shrimp pain is im­moral.

• G WoodDec 24, 2024, 5:56 PM

  9 points

  3

  in reply to: SilverFlame’s comment on: Ve­gans need to eat just enough Meat—em­per­i­cally eval­u­ate the min­i­mum am­mount of meat that max­i­mizes utility

  It seems quite plausible for someone to falsely belive they were asexual in this situation.

  I understand that if you are starving or nutrient deficient (zinc, vitamin D, vitamin B12, and iron) your sex drive can be at zero. If it’s like that for long enough you may think that it is because it’s inherent to who you are. You are wrong, but have no way of knowing that.

• G WoodDec 23, 2024, 11:11 PM

  1 point

  −14

  in reply to: quila’s comment on: What Goes Without Saying

  So it’s good persuasive writing? I mean the point of this article seems to be both an attempt to persuade the reader of a certain point of view combined with an exploration of the realisation that not everyone thinks the same way?

  Looking at the points of view espoused, they seem to be quite positive for their adherents.

  I don’t understand your objection.

• G WoodDec 5, 2024, 12:57 AM

  6 points

  2

  on: Ac­ci­den­tally Load Bearing

  I think this adds depth to the Chesterton’s Fence concept.

• G WoodOct 21, 2024, 6:16 PM

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: G Wood’s comment on: Cipolla’s Shortform

  Oh and do at least three past exams for each class. Best to practice in the conditions you will be performing in.

• G WoodOct 21, 2024, 5:47 PM

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: Cipolla’s comment on: Cipolla’s Shortform

  Long term performance is a result of many skills /​ memes working together. I suspect you may have noticed that the children of white collar workers are more prepared for white collar work. It would make sense that they have inherited a set of memes that help with white collar work.

  Academic performance isn’t the only thing, consider your fail conditions. There’s lots of things out there to be good at.

  If you’d still like to keep going, I would say just keep practicing, I reckon it’s taken me about four years to get good at my job. Look at what works and what doesn’t for you.

  I found that tracking my time helped with focusing on one thing at a time, having a prioritized to do list helped me focus on the right thing, having a study group helped make learning fun, easy and consistent. Trying to fit all the knowledge I needed for a class on a single a4 sheet helped me memorize what I needed (something about the refining process).

  Otherwise get good sleep, lay off the substances, get some exercise in the sun and time with friends and family and you will be right as rain.

• G WoodSep 15, 2024, 10:45 PM

  1 point

  0

  on: I’m con­sis­tently over­whelmed by ba­sic obli­ga­tions. Are there any paradigm shifts or other ra­tio­nal­ity-based tips that would be helpful?

  Maintenance—the process of preserving a condition or situation or the state of being preserved.

  I call these things you refer to “Maintenance jobs”

  I think that the answer you are looking for is in the definition of maintenance

  • They are a trade-off for the things you enjoy

  ∴ you must do them to enjoy the things they generate

  OR

  ∴ you don’t have to accept the trade-off if you don’t enjoy the result as much as you hate the maintenance.

  In other words:

  Life has a cost, and you must pay it.

  Nobody said you had to enjoy paying it.

  There’s joy to be had in projects to reduce maintenance jobs

  I quite love finding ways to reduce my maintenance burden, for example:

  • Washing machine (look up the unholy task on manually washing your clothing, then worship your washing machine)

  • Dishwashers (I calculated a ~4000% ROI per year)

  • Clothes Dryers (much lower ROI, still positive depends on your time value)

  • Robot vacuum cleaner plus no carpet (very little time spent vacuuming)

  • Learning to cook efficiently (Could write a book, but consider time spent vs happiness vs $ cost)

    • Egg, spinach and cheese pie (bought pastry sheets) (10 − 15 minutes prep = lunch for four days)

    • Rice cooker rice plus chicken tenders plus frozen veggies plus sauce (10 minute dinner)

    • Rice medley − 1 cup brown rice + 0.5 cups lentils simmer for 40 minutes add a can of beans, mix, portion, add grated cheese, sriracha and soy sauce. Heat in the microwave—yum snack.

    • Honestly baking cakes and cookies is easy as

  • Replace your lawn with whatever you can get away with (I’m re-wilding honest)

  • Design your garden for low maintenance wherever you can

  • Live closer to work

  • Biking is the most cost-efficient transport method (I hear cars may be needed in America)

  • Replace hard to maintain things with easy to maintain things

    • I will not buy a shirt i have to iron

    • I will not buy kitchen things I cannot dishwash (except cast iron pans, worth in that case)

  • I believe the FIRE movement had a bunch to say on jobs, minimalism has some good points, permaculture has some great ideas (kinda process optimisation for non-engineers)

  Have fun finding better ways to beat back the menace of entropy!

• G WoodSep 24, 2023, 8:53 PM

  1 point

  1

  on: Would You Work Harder In The Least Con­ve­nient Pos­si­ble World?

  I couldn’t read this straight. Alice is being an absolute asshole to Bob. This is incredibly off-putting.

  I think you could have communicated better if you had tried to make Alice remotely human.

  I think I get what you are trying to do with this, but I only got it after reading comments.

• G WoodJun 23, 2023, 4:22 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Neil ’s comment on: “Nat­u­ral is bet­ter” is a valuable heuristic

  Okay, I think I see your point. Could I summarise your heuristic as “Don’t tear down Chesterton’s fence until you are absolutely sure you know why it was there”?

  A defence of “tradition” rather than of “nature”?

• G WoodJun 23, 2023, 4:15 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: “Nat­u­ral is bet­ter” is a valuable heuristic

  You are quite right. I was thinking of the behaviour of humans while food is scarce and the human permanently hungry, not in the modern context.

• G WoodJun 21, 2023, 11:58 PM

  2 points

  5

  on: “Nat­u­ral is bet­ter” is a valuable heuristic

  “natural is better”

  I disagree with your proposed heuristic for two reasons,

  1. I think it is to poorly defined to be a good decision-making guide (Heuristic)

  2. By my definition I think it would guide you to worse decisions not better

  To poorly defined:

  Natural—existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind

  Better—more desirable, satisfactory, or effective

  There are two issues in definition, the first, more minor, issue is in “Natural”.

  It’s far too broad, for example where does the line stop for an herbal remedy? At the wild herb, the cultivated variety, a dried leaf, an extract or tea from the leaves or a pill manufactured from the identified active ingredient?

  The second more serious issue is in “Better”. Better requires a direction, the question must be asked better for who or what? In your wooden stick verses plastic object example, its true a wooden stick is better at decomposing in a woodland. However, if we didn’t want it to decompose, for example if it were a fencepost we were talking about a plastic version would be preferable (all other factors being equal).

  Actually, a bad heuristic:

  My understanding of what you meant by your heuristic would be

  “The closer your choice matches what would be found or happen with the minimum of human intervention the better for your health /​ wealth”.

  There are no criteria given for when to apply this heuristic, making it a poor heuristic, however using your own examples and applying the above heuristic to all of them:

  Media consumption – avoid anything not mouth to mouth – Result: Happy and ignorant 😊

  Fuel choice – Use wood or animal power not nuclear – Result: significantly more poverty, health issues and animal cruelty

  No GMOs – Only eat the non-bred ancestral variety of plants /​ animals (Aegilops tauschii, Bos primigenius) – Result: Very very expensive food.

  No pesticides – Result: Very expensive food

  No artificial fertilizers – Result: Very expensive food

  Weapon choice – Clubs and slings only – Result: killed immediately by non-complying competitors, great tv.

  Technology use – No computers /​ cars /​ internet or anything dependant on that etc – Result: Ostracism and eventual starvation.

  Food consumption – eat as much as you can as often as you can – Result: Obesity

  Type of foods to eat – Pottage only (ideally with self-caught wild game, many wild herbs gathered and grain you grew organically) – Boredom, Poverty, good health 😊

• G WoodJan 12, 2023, 10:12 PM

  0 points

  1

  in reply to: M. Y. Zuo’s comment on: In­fo­haz­ards vs Fork Hazards

  Thinking about it more, I suppose I don’t know, perhaps they were perfectly happy.

  However, in my experience, when you set out to find a thing and fail to find it that often leads to dissatisfaction. My expectation /​ rule of thumb for this is “People don’t often hunt for things they don’t want for some reason”.

• G WoodJan 11, 2023, 2:35 AM

  0 points

  −1

  in reply to: M. Y. Zuo’s comment on: In­fo­haz­ards vs Fork Hazards

  It certainly was infohazardous to the people who funded the expeditions and got poor return for their investment.

  I would consider the hazard to be to the agent not to society, though I can certainly imagine information that hurts an individual, but benefits somebody else.

• G WoodJun 6, 2022, 10:19 PM

  2 points

  on: Mak­ing sta­ble, free na­tions as a hobby

  Fellow Rimworld enjoyer here, thoroughly enjoyed your well thought out idea :)

• G WoodJul 26, 2021, 8:49 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: Vanessa Kosoy’s comment on: My Mar­riage Vows

  I agree that marriage is an unwritten contract, I mean you literally sign something as part of the ceremony that legally binds you in the eyes of the government after making serious promises in front of everyone you care about. In some ways this contract is already agreed to well before the wedding, during the period you are dating, living together and sorting out what each other thinks about things.

  Nevertheless due to my more pessimistic view of human agency, I wouldn’t write it up, instead relying on constant good communication about each others feelings on things. (Not implying that this is a perfect recipe or that people should be blamed for being bad communicators if a relationship fails, sometimes there truly are irreconcilable differences).

  I’ve been thinking about this over the last few days and I feel that the need to get it all nailed down in this manner could perhaps be coming from a place of insecurity? It might be an idea to address this separately? Id like to say that anyone who could write vows like the ones above with their partner is probably in an excellent place in their relationship.

  In your other responses i saw that you are the primary breadwinner and that your beloved is at least partially dependent on you. This situation is similar to one of my friends and i don’t think they have been handling it well, I think he doesn’t realise the extent of the power imbalance this causes. His weakly held opinions have more impact on his wife than he realises and I think that her relative lack of ability to argue with him has caused them to make some poor decisions in the past. I know this is slightly off topic un-solicited advice, but It might be helpful to you to realise (on the off chance that you hadn’t already thought about it in this way).

  I wish you and your fiancé the best in your life together :)