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How to Be Happy

lesswrong.com

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Re: How to Be Happy

#161

Post by twobits »

id wrote: post #52
maaku wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and their annoyance can't be simply added together Why not? EDIT: Serious question. If I save two lives that is twice as good as saving one, right? Why is this situation different?

It's easier for two people to cope with one bad experience each than for one guy to cope with two bad experiences.

I'd say if each of those two people had the "bad experience" of having their only child killed in a car accident, that's worse than someone else having his uncle and grandmother killed in a car accident. "Bad experience" is hugely oversimplified. And just not start about a trillion specs of dust in a trillion people.

Re: How to Be Happy

#162

Post by twobits »

maaku wrote: post #49
id wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So annoying 3^^^3 people "for a fraction of a second, barely enough to make them notice" is worse than horribly torturing a single person for 50 years? Keep in mind that the 3^^^3 dust specks are spread across 3^^^3 people and their annoyance can't be simply added together.

> and their annoyance can't be simply added together Why not? EDIT: Serious question. If I save two lives that is twice as good as saving one, right? Why is this situation different?

To put it differently, since we are rationalists, try the scientific way. Do an experiment.

First day, let a speck of dust enter your eye, at noon. Before sleeping, write down how you feel about that event.

Next day, rip your balls off at noon. Before sleeping, write down how you feel about that.

Re: How to Be Happy

#163

Post by n09n »

woodchuck64 wrote: post #128
n09n wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the same argument that human intelligence that surpasses feline intelligence is not a problem for domestic housecats.

Seriously? Would you want to be neutered without your consent?

If it came to that I doubt I would have a choice. And if I didn't want to, I'd probably be wrong.

Re: How to Be Happy

#164

Post by Double_Cast »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #132

At the time in my life when I stopped reading LessWrong I became remarkably happier within a week. I attribute this to two reasons: 1. LessWrong's focus on optimizing your life is so great that whenever I failed at something or didn't uphold something I said I would do I felt bad about it. 2. One thing that makes me happy (and I think most others would agree they're happiest when this occurs as well) is accomplishmen…

> One thing that makes me happy is accomplishment.

What you describe sounds suspiciously similar to what Muehlhauser calls creating "success spirals" [1], which is coincidentally in the same sequence "The Science of Winning at Life".

> The allure of LW is that we're perfectly rational or that we can at least make ourselves that we through sheer force of will.

And to be fair, LW: does make a distinction between epistemic (ideal) rationality and instrumental (pragmatic) rationality [2]; is aware of its propensity for insight porn [3]; and has made progress towards bringing things in the stratosphere [4] back down to the object level (e.g. [5][6]).

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/

[2] http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Rationality

[3] http://lesswrong.com/lw/9p/extreme_rationality_its_not_that_...

[4] http://lesswrong.com/lw/58g/levels_of_action/

[5] http://lesswrong.com/lw/58m/build_small_skills_in_the_right_...

[6] http://lesswrong.com/lw/k4n/a_brief_summary_of_effective_stu...

Re: How to Be Happy

#165

Post by sliverstorm »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #132

At the time in my life when I stopped reading LessWrong I became remarkably happier within a week. I attribute this to two reasons: 1. LessWrong's focus on optimizing your life is so great that whenever I failed at something or didn't uphold something I said I would do I felt bad about it. 2. One thing that makes me happy (and I think most others would agree they're happiest when this occurs as well) is accomplishmen…

Let's not forget that optimizing only a few variables in a system as complicated as happiness can easily result in a net loss.

If you optimize a race car's engine for power, the engine will explode and you will lose the race. That's because you optimized for only one variable, and did not consider longevity. With complex systems this is an important concept to remember, as you may not even be aware of some of the variables, and inadvertently sacrifice them!

Re: How to Be Happy

#166

Post by namnatulco »

joesmo wrote: post #65
vesche wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." LessWrong is a discussion forum mostly pertaining to psychology, philosophy, cognitive biases, etc,. A frequent topic of discussion is artificial intelligence, but it is hardly centric. Saying that LessWrong is a hangout spot for "singularity cult members" (as you call them) is simply incorrect on multiple levels. Technological singularity is no more than…

> Primarily he focuses not on developing a Strong AI (AGI), but rather focusing on safety issues that such a technology would pose. That's absurd at worst, science fiction at best, akin to worrying about manned flight safety in the 1500's.

Are you really trying to deny that google cars and other automated systems at least partially based on AI have safety issues? Even if we're talking autonomous, "life-like" AI, there is a long list of interesting philosophical and legal questions to be asked. I can't say I find any of the statements here or in the article very appealing, but you shouldn't dismiss real safety/security issues just because you don't like the guy.

Re: How to Be Happy

#167

Post by tabrischen »

shurcooL wrote: post #50

8. Find your purpose and live it. One benefit of religion may be that it gives people a sense of meaning and purpose. Without a magical deity to give you purpose, though, you'll have to find out for yourself what drives you. It may take a while to find it though, and you may have to dip your hands and mind into many fields. But once you find a path that strongly motivates you and fulfills you, take it. (Of course, yo…

That's exciting, very happy for you. Can you share more about this?

Re: How to Be Happy

#168

Post by shurcooL »

tabrischen wrote: post #167
shurcooL wrote: post #50

8. Find your purpose and live it. One benefit of religion may be that it gives people a sense of meaning and purpose. Without a magical deity to give you purpose, though, you'll have to find out for yourself what drives you. It may take a while to find it though, and you may have to dip your hands and mind into many fields. But once you find a path that strongly motivates you and fulfills you, take it. (Of course, yo…

That's exciting, very happy for you. Can you share more about this?

Thanks. :)

It's an experimental software development tool, largely inspired by Bret Victor's talks. It's similar to projects like Light Table, Zed editor, but it's nowhere near as complete and focuses on a single programming language (Go).

I worked on it full time for a year after finishing my master's degree, culminating in a first place winning demo submission to the LIVE 2013 contest [1].

By then, I ran out of money so I got a full time job and continue to work on Conception in my limited free time. By now, I'm working on a pure Go implementation of Conception [2], which is a lot more advanced in some ways, but is still needs a lot more work before it's actually usable and helpful to other people. Someday, when the time is right, I want to get back into it full time, because it really requires a lot of work.

[1] http://liveprogramming.github.io/liveblog/2013/04/live-progr...

[2] https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception-go/commits/master

Re: How to Be Happy

#169

Post by coldtea »

davidrusu wrote: post #109
consz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

null hypothesis.

We all ready have a well defined rigorous AGI[0] that would have god like intelligence. There are some approximations that played pacman [1] without knowing anything specific about pacman itself. i.e. it learned how to play by itself. [0] http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/AIXI [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfsMHtmGDKE

So? You can have a neural network that "learns" tic-tac-toe by itself in 100 lines of code. Does that prove anything?

Re: How to Be Happy

#170

Post by coldtea »

fernly wrote: post #90
pkorzeniewski wrote: post #46

I've read many articles and books on this subject and not a single one of them had any effect on my life. It's usually just a list of things that - according to the author (and every author of course has different opinion) - will make you happy. It's bullshit, there is no "golden solution" for everyone. Reading such articles will make you even more unhappy, because now you've the whole list of things and you feel lik…

The posted article acknowledges that happiness is in large part a genetic trait, and in other large part the result of life history (parenting, health, etc).

>The posted article acknowledges that happiness is in large part a genetic trait

Citation needed. Preferably not a citation that can be countered by another, opposite, citation.

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