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Feelings – should we have them? The Conspiracy decides!
This American Life episode about Testosterone
Julia Galef’s presentation on The Straw Vulcan. Also – a text summary of same
Less Wrong article: “Feeling Rational”
Steven Universe is The Best!
Sam Harris speaks with Paul Bloom against empathy
Less Wrong article: “Scope Insensitivity”
“One death is a Tragedy, a million deaths is a Statistic” – Eneasz attributed this to Joseph Stalin, but modern research casts this into doubt. It was first attributed to him by a third-party in 1947, but it’s possible/probable he never actually said those words.
Kaj Sotala on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Less Wrong article by FiddleMath: “Handling Emotional Appeals“, wherein they ask (among other things) – Can you postpone being moved by an emotional appeal until after making a calm decision about it? Can you somehow otherwise filter for emotional appeals that are highly likely to have positive effects?
The Christian orphanage that wouldn’t accept money from atheists.
Don’t take money from The Templeton Foundation
Eneasz’s brief recap of The Sad/Rabid Puppies vs Worldcon. Also – Salaris’s briefer recap of the same issue received twice as many upvotes, so maybe their’s is better.
Eliezer Yudkowsky’s novella “Three Worlds Collide” (also available in audio form)
Small Pox: 500 Million, But Not a Single One More
It was Andrew Jackson who reportedly said “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” Here’s a fascinating More Perfect podcast episode about the story behind that quote (as well as the US Supreme Court’s ascent to power)
Andrew Jackson beat up his would-be assassin with a cane at 67 years old.
Thanks to Eneasz for HPMOR podcast which was a hoot. I’ve listened to every episode at least twice.
Katrina mentioned that she thinks “Rights are not a thing.” I’ve read two interesting books taking more or less this stance (Robert Anton Wilson, Natural Law and L.A. Rollins, The Myth of Natural Law). Like many other political and ethical concepts, the idea of rights gets abused by sloppy thinkers, making it easy to argue against a weak version. But many philosophers consider rights to be obligations viewed from a different perspective (my right is your obligation, my obligation is your right). Does Katrina also think that obligations are “not a thing?” I would sort of agree that ethics and political philosophy witness people declaring all sorts of rights and obligations rather arbitrarily, and I remain skeptical of many, but I can’t quite toss out both concepts. That seems too much like throwing out ethics and politics. Can we throw out one and keep the other?
Do the three of you have any ideas about why activity on lesswrong has been so low lately?
Gonna address the thornier issues separately (maybe in a podcast?), but to
“Do the three of you have any ideas about why activity on lesswrong has been so low lately?”
It’s been low for a few years actually. When Eliezer finished his Sequences and stopped blogging to focus on research, the LW users slowly stopped congregating there specifically, and instead began posting at various blogs and tumblrs of their own. Often called the Rationalist Diaspora, or the Less Wrong Diaspora. The single biggest site nowadays is SlateStarCodex.com, but there are dozens of offshoots. Heck, our podcast probably counts as one of them.
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Another emotion to delete: panic. There is little room for it, if any, in an environment where we drive cars, board planes, work stressful jobs, fight wars with guns, and maintain nuclear weapons.
Of course, if panic is just the response to fear rather than the fear itself, then I admit to a faulty implicit premise. But I believe the term describes both the feeling and the flailing.
Bonus points if we fix the fainting goats.
Just now, I meant *a* response to fear.
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