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How to Be Happy

lesswrong.com

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Re: How to Be Happy

#21

Post by Jweb_Guru »

adamzerner wrote: post #17
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

Maybe you disagree with some of the conclusions, but do you disagree with the methods it preaches? Ie. reductionism, awareness of our biases, bayesian inference. There do seem to be a lot of extreme viewpoints on LessWrong, so I think it is justified to take those extreme viewpoints with a grain of salt. But I also think that the core beliefs/approaches are valid, and so that should be factored in to how big a grain…

I think they're probably a little too focused on the Bayesian interpretation, but yes, the site has plenty of good content. In particular, it is a really excellent way of finding effective charities. Where the site goes astray is that it has its own preconceived biases--e.g. its priors for the eventual development of a transhuman AI.

Re: How to Be Happy

#22

Post by skrebbel »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

I agree with the grain of salt, but you're being overly dismissive. Calling them a cult surely is over the top.

It's just a bunch of grumpy nerds with a somewhat hardline "rational" fanaticism, who love to spend late dark nights on the internet reasoning about stuff.

Re: How to Be Happy

#23

Post by Jweb_Guru »

Traubert wrote: post #16
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

> that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of dust from the eye of every other person on Earth Maybe Eliezer has argued that too, but I doubt it. He has said it about a much, much, much larger number of people than everyone on Earth.

Sure, it's probable that I'm misremembering the exact numbers. Though I realize that the numbers are critical to the proposition from his perspective, I think the fact that he would consider it at all probably differentiates his worldview from that of a lot of people.

Re: How to Be Happy

#24

Post by abraxasz »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

I agree with your remarks. One reason, however, why I still enjoy reading articles on the site from time to time is that they almost always make me think. Their perspectives, however flawed, have the merit of being strongly coherent, and trying to find what's wrong with an article turns out to be a very good exercise in judgment.

Re: How to Be Happy

#25

Post by eudox »

jeremyjh wrote: post #13
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

You forgot to take a jab at cryonics. Eliezer sincerely believes that people who do not sign-up their kids with a cryonics package are "lousy parents". http://lesswrong.com/lw/1mc/normal_cryonics/

And there are people who sincerely believe cryonics is some sort of weird pipe dream. Can you believe it?

Re: How to Be Happy

#26

Post by [deleted] »

jeremyjh wrote: post #13
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

You forgot to take a jab at cryonics. Eliezer sincerely believes that people who do not sign-up their kids with a cryonics package are "lousy parents". http://lesswrong.com/lw/1mc/normal_cryonics/

[deleted]

Re: How to Be Happy

#27

Post by npsimons »

Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness,

Well of course it is! No one ever meets the shy happy people because they never go out!

Re: How to Be Happy

#28

Post by kordless »

gnoway wrote: post #11
__Joker wrote: post #6

I hardly agree with "Develop the skills and habits associated with extroversion". Why I need to be comfortable with social company if my predisposed nature and comfortableness is to be alone ?

You don't. This is another example of an extrovert assuming that introversion is just a circumstance that is both undesirable and fixable.

Consider it may be an extrovert making an observation regarding the different states of joy, the emotion. While I certainly bring myself joy at times, I find it more easily found in the company of others, or in the presence of something new to me.

Re: How to Be Happy

#29

Post by kordless »

npsimons wrote: post #27

Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness, Well of course it is! No one ever meets the shy happy people because they never go out!

I think that there could exist an introverted happy person who only seeks out happy things on the Internet. That wasn't possible before now.
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