rlpowell

• rlpowellMar 17, 2017, 3:19 PM

  6 points

  in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: I Want To Live In A Baugruppe

  I’m interested in theory, but in practice I am attached to living in SF proper that may be hard to overcome.

  I’ll mention that in South Bay there are housing complexes that have multiple nearly-adjacent units in shared space, and it might work well to just pick such a complex and progressively have like-minded people take over more and more of it. Noticeably less awesome, but also noticeably easier.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:58 AM

  0 points

  on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  I’m still reeling from http://​​lesswrong.com/​​lw/​​g0y/​​gun_control_how_would_we_know/​​84ky?context=1#comments ; I’m noticing how in other contexts “Why are we still talking about this we have better things to do?” is obvious, but it tends not to be for me in mind-killer contexts. Unfortunately, the impact of that point on my mind is such that I’m maybe not giving this thread the attention that all of your very well-thought out answers deserve, because I’ve suddenly stopped caring very much.

  Regardless, though, y’all certainly have lived up to my expectations as polite, reasonable, rational debaters. Well done.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:53 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: FiftyTwo’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  Answering the question before reading on: I have believe in the past that more guns in the hands of ordinary, well-meaning means less violent crime, and less violent deaths, due to deterrence; “an armed society is a polite society”.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:51 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: Dr_Manhattan’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  Heh. It was shorthand for “this is my pre-cached, non-rational response”. I didn’t really intend, or want, people to respond to that part, although the responses have been interesting.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:38 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: Swimmy’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  Oh, I like this. I like this a lot. The underlying attitude, I mean. I’m going see if I can’t extrapolate a general policy from this, actually. Something like:

  “In a world where there still exist children that live (or, more likely, die) on garbage heaps, the fact that we’re still arguing about [whatever issue] implies to me that it’s not a low hanging fruit, and we should just go work on those instead.”

  What links here?

  • rlpowell's comment on Gun Con­trol: How would we know? by rlpowell (Dec 24, 2012, 8:58 AM; 0 points)

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:35 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: IlyaShpitser’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  You’re absolutely right; this isn’t the low hanging fruit for human deaths.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:32 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  I don’t have clear lines of retreat for the simple reason that to answer what I would do in each of those cases requires also knowing what sorts of actions make things better in each case. I mean, I can say something generic like “increase or decrease the availability of guns in linear proportion to how much they help”, but what actually decreases availability of guns, without having terrible side effects? Like, does gun control as we currently understand it lead to only crazy/​criminal/​insane people owning guns?, because that seems suboptimal.

  Having said that, I feel pretty confident that I’m willing to follow the data here; I think I’ve dismantled my ego need to support my historical position pretty well over the last few days.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:26 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  In my limited-ish experience, some Canadian border towns (Niagra Falls, in particular) get pretty close, but you’ll get lots of people on both sides that concentrate on their national identity.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:22 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: evand’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  Those are both really good points, thanks.

  While a school shooting is what got me thinking about this, I didn’t mean to limit to that specifically; my pre-cached thought on mass murders is “if people in the crowd had been armed, the shooter would have been stopped quickly”. I phrase it that way to emphasize that I have no real evidence there.

  Spending time training people to help those around them, in general, as a possible solution, though … I admit that I’d honestly never thought of that. It doesn’t just apply to teachers, either; one can imagine corporate “sensitivity training” that included basic lessons in how to identify/​help/​console a coworker who seems to be having a rough time lately.

  I’m not sure that we are culturally capable, even in theory, of identifying the actual impact of such a program, but it’s a hell of an idea.

• rlpowellDec 24, 2012, 8:19 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: TimS’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  What I was going for is the difference between wanting a particular person dead (i.e. one’s wife, one’s boss, etc), in which case I’d assume that access to particular weapons is irrelevant because you’ll find a way, vs. wanting to kill lots of people, or to kill lots of people in a particular category (i.e. school shooting mass murders, which as I implied is how I got on this topic). It seems at least possible that weapon limitations could help limit the latter, whereas if person X really wants person Y, specifically, dead, weapon limitations seem unlikely to be relevant.

• rlpowellDec 23, 2012, 5:28 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: prase’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  I don’t know why Konkvistador posted so much of Yvain’s article, or highlighted the particular parts of it that ey did, but the article itself goes into the research on this topic in some detail, which certainly hepls.

  -Robin

• rlpowellDec 23, 2012, 5:27 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  “No one else has tried this.”—I have, actually, which is why this post is here. :D

  Thanks for the great link, that’s the sort of thing I was wanting to see.

  -Robin

• rlpowellDec 23, 2012, 5:21 PM

  0 points

  on: Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

  Good lord. I thought I had set LW to tell me when someone replied; having not received any email I assumed this post had been ignored. 0__o

  -Robin

Gun Con­trol: How would we know?

• rlpowellJun 25, 2012, 5:46 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: shokwave’s comment on: Em­piri­cal Sleep Time

  That’s exactly the sort of thing I had in mind, thank you! I’ll try it.

  -Robin

• rlpowellJun 25, 2012, 5:46 AM

  6 points

  in reply to: Douglas_Knight’s comment on: Em­piri­cal Sleep Time

  If only I had that option. :) If you know how to explain this to my 8 month olds, please do let me know. :)

  I appreciate the info about the ideal there; I’m going to keep it in mind. But it’s simply not reasonable for me right now.

  My focus and attention are much better late at night, so I tend to stay up as late as I can stand, to get more done. Unfortunately, with babies around, both when I wake up in the morning and when in the evening I can start focusing on the things I want to work on are entirely random. Hence wanting to get as much effective time out of the late night as I can, hence the original question.

  Obviously, performance does degrade if one stays up long enough; I simply want to have something better than “I’m passing out in my chair” as a hint that I should give up and go to bed.

  -Robin

• rlpowellJun 25, 2012, 5:40 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: Oscar_Cunningham’s comment on: Em­piri­cal Sleep Time

  If you mean I should have put it in the “main” tab rather than the “discussion” tab: I thought that was, essentially, for coherent essays, rather than Q-and-A. If that’s not what you meant, please explain?

  -Robin

• rlpowellJun 25, 2012, 5:39 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: buybuydandavis’s comment on: Em­piri­cal Sleep Time

  Unless I’m misunderstanding, a lot of what the Zeo does is select a wake time that matches one’s sleep cycle. I have twin infants; the time(s) at which I am awoken are entirely out of my control. :D Also, I don’t use an alarm, and haven’t in many years; as such I awake at what I assume is the right point of my sleep cycle (when allowed to wake naturally, which doesn’t much happen anymore).

  If I’m misunderstanding, feel free to elaborate; the copy on Amazon at least is pretty inspecific.

  Generally speaking, though, I don’t have a serious problem with sleep debt or effective sleep or anything; my main sleep problem is staying up so late that I’m ineffective and hence wasting my time, but I do generally get enough sleep to compensate so that I’m OK in the morning.

  -Robin

• rlpowellJun 25, 2012, 5:34 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: Dorikka’s comment on: Em­piri­cal Sleep Time

  Given external evidence that my performance is reduced, I don’t think getting myself to go to sleep will be a significant problem. My issue is usually the belief that I’m still getting useful stuff done, and actively resisting sleep on that basis; evidence to the contrary is something I think I would treat as real data.

Em­piri­cal Sleep Time