zntneo

Karma: 88

zntneo Jun 11, 2011, 5:42 PM
2 points
on: Outreach to probably compatible groups?
I am pretty into the skeptic community and i do wish more people had heard of less wrong. I think it would be a great idea to try to make an outreach effort to those groups. For instance the skeptics usually want to improve their rationality (the other groups you list might). I know the biggest skeptic podcast talks about things related to rationality quite often. Although I am pretty disappointed at the lack of knowledge of bias, heuristics and things like bayes theorem amongst the people who i have talked to in the skeptics community

zntneo Jun 6, 2011, 5:51 AM
5 points
on: What are you working on? June 2011
*working on getting a better job I am currently a cashier at a gas station and is driving me nuts

*working on becoming more assertive using the book asserting yourself I have a really hard time asking anyone for anything which is probably related to point four below

*trying to make doing spaced-repetition flashcards a daily habit I want to learn some Arabic( so that I can understand some of what my wife is learning at DLI). I also want to learn less wrong deck and as many psychological biases as I can

*been trying to increase my self-esteem( it’s not just low I would say it’s a negative self-esteem)

zntneo Jun 6, 2011, 4:23 AM
0 points
in reply to: j_andrew_rogers’s comment on: Job Search Advice
Yea seaside is where i am looking mostly because my wife is at DLI right now.

zntneo Jun 6, 2011, 3:56 AM
0 points
in reply to: Desrtopa’s comment on: Are the Sciences Better Than the Social Sciences For Training Rationalists?
I could not remember the original book i read it in but i did a little research and here ,here agree with me, here seems to agree with the previous ones though mentions a theory that says that it is distance from the study of religion that predicts religiosity (that this study doesn’t support), and this article seems to support the idea.

Reminds me i should write up a post about the supposed mental health benefit of religiosity.

zntneo Jun 6, 2011, 3:30 AM
0 points
in reply to: Dr_Manhattan’s comment on: Job Search Advice
I have no one in the industry who is a friend.

zntneo Jun 4, 2011, 9:21 AM
1 point
on: Proposal: Systematic Search for Useful Ideas
would there be any interest in things like alt med stuff or generally skeptical type topics?

Job Search Advice

zntneoJun 4, 2011, 6:37 AM

5 points

18 comments1 min readLW link

zntneo Jun 1, 2011, 12:45 AM
0 points
on: Rationality case study: How to evaluate untested medical procedures?
I would say generally that for any treatment that hasn’t been tested the probability that it doesn’t work is quite low because of the wide number of ways to be wrong vs ways to be right. Your probability estimate will probably rise (though how much i’m not sure) if it accords with basic science knowledge.

zntneo Jun 1, 2011, 12:18 AM
1 point
on: Are the Sciences Better Than the Social Sciences For Training Rationalists?
Well i know for instance that you get no statistics as an undergrad in the harder sciences (at least its not required), typically no research methodology classes , you also get help recognizing how your brain goes wrong (at least in psychology).

If you want to use the beliefs of the different degrees then the closer you get to the social sciences the higher the atheism. Psychology being the major with the highest amount of atheism. Another thing is that going through basically any undergrad school increases belief in paranormal things but grad school decreases beliefs. (if you want the studies i read i will have to try to remember what book i read that cited the studies and explained the results)

Skepticalcon

zntneoMay 28, 2011, 7:22 AM

1 point

0 comments1 min readLW link

zntneo May 24, 2011, 3:00 AM
0 points
in reply to: Desrtopa’s comment on: Rationalist Horoscopes: Low-hanging utility generator?
Well given the low reliability and low validity (see here for a bit of an overview) i’m not sure that would work to well

zntneo May 22, 2011, 4:34 AM
2 points
on: The elephant in the room, AMA
how do you deal with the book of Abraham not being the actual translation of Egyptian that the original should be (we have the originals). Also how do you deal with Adam god, the belief that adam was a god who came down as a man to create humanity?

zntneo May 22, 2011, 3:14 AM
−2 points
on: ANKI flashcard deck: Cognitive Biases and Related Terms
awesome i have the deck it sounds like its based on

zntneo May 19, 2011, 11:30 PM
0 points
in reply to: khafra’s comment on: Should I be afraid of GMOs?
Why is this?

zntneo May 19, 2011, 11:27 PM
3 points
in reply to: Zvi’s comment on: Designing Rationalist Projects
I wonder if we had someone who always disagreed with us if it would help prevent he cultishness. I know there is evidence that doing so increases decisions and i think i remember there being evidence that it helps stop groupthink. So maybe if we implemented what CalcSam said but add that someone be designated as the person who must disagree with us (this person could be different people or the same person)

zntneo May 19, 2011, 6:28 AM
5 points
on: Should I be afraid of GMOs?
A website that discuses this is BioFortified It is written by i think multiple graduate students in genetic engineering (full disclosure i am friends with one of the writers).

zntneo May 19, 2011, 6:23 AM
0 points
on: Personals, anyone?
I have close to the same problem. There is a skeptics group in the area but many times i feel like i have to explain to much. Like all the different biases and basic logic (recently had to explain bayes theorem to them. I used a technique i learned in college that has been experimentally proven to increase peoples understanding of bayes theorem at least when applied to diagnostic tests.) I would love to be able to talk about things with people who i can assume understand what the status quo bias is or what the availability heuristic is.

zntneo 19 May 2011 6:15 UTC
0 points
on: Popperian Decision making
It seems you have completely talked about interalist versions of epistemology. What about Relaiblism? It does not fall into either of your categories (its one i’m pretty sympathetic towards).

Aso to make sure i understand you correctly this is arguing about getting rid of jusitifed in the standard true justified belief (also including getier part to) am i right? or are you saying something is “justified” when it can no longer be criticized (due to not being about to come up with a criticism)? I also agree with Yvain that it seems this “criticize the idea” needs to be taken apart more.

I might have more comments but need to think about it more

zntneo 19 May 2011 2:52 UTC
0 points
on: How did you actually become more effective?
What variety of psychotherapy did you use?

Psychotherapy has helped me with tremendous self esteem issues (though i still have them but it used to be WAY worse). I did have to go through multiple therapists to find a good one (many add a ton of crap into their practice ).

zntneo 16 May 2011 21:20 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Armok_GoB’s comment on: Motivation quotes
What i’m looking for is kind of a response to people who use motivational quotes with a more rational quote. I tire of hearing some stupid motivational quote that if one thought about it is utterly stupid. I guess a really good example is “you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it” no. no you can’t