This seems to be a major epidemic nowadays. I suspect that mechanistic, meaningless, purely mimetic pursuit of success has some pretty negative consequences on society. I suspect it might explain why so many people are interested in engaging in politics (or company politics) and zero-sum value extraction schemes instead of just adding value... They're not interested in the process at all, only in the outcome; financi…
Reminds me of that delayed gratification experiment with the kids and chocolates, except instead of eating the 2x reward the kid will then hold off for even more (for their whole life)!
Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
241–250 of 361 posts
Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#242Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#243I made a summary of this article, because I found it a bit hard to read. I used GPT-3! Here's the summary: The author is saying that people who write about productivity are, in a way, the devil, because they convince people to do things they hate. The author is also saying that these people are not literally the devil, but are just as bad. The article argues that humans are not "naturally" lazy, and that the feeling…
Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#244> For legal reasons, I’m not saying the people who write this stuff are literally Lucifer in human skin. It’s just that, if I wanted to maximize human misery, I would 100% try to convince people to spend more time doing things they hate When Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote Good Omens thirty years ago they already hit upon this idea when Crowley, a demon and one of the main characters, tries to explain to his fe…
I also seem to remember that the story went on to say that Crowley at one point had been praised for his work in the Spanish Inquisition. That was the first he'd actually heard of it--humans had come up with it on their own--so he went and had a look, and then went and got blind drunk, because there are some things even demons would rather not think about. That kind of abrupt tonal slam, from comedy to horror, leavin…
...I'll show myself out.
Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#245I made a summary of this article, because I found it a bit hard to read. I used GPT-3! Here's the summary: The author is saying that people who write about productivity are, in a way, the devil, because they convince people to do things they hate. The author is also saying that these people are not literally the devil, but are just as bad. The article argues that humans are not "naturally" lazy, and that the feeling…
If you find the article hard to read, consider listening to it. It will take longer but it will be easier. The author's reading of the article has a little extra humor too.
Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I need to check, are you sarcastic? I have so far avoided Lewis due to an impression (way too old impression to remember where I got it, may be unfounded or not) of the texts being close to christian/religious zealotry?
I'm not trying to guess why you would say that (and by that, I mean the fact that you would avoid writing because it's trying to preach to you), and I do want to say that Lewis is, overall, very close to proselytizing in his writings (generally it's pretty explicitly stated that's what he wants to do). But. Avoiding something because it disagrees with your worldview, or because it is 'too close to [insert literally a…
I think you are overselling. It's worth a read, but the writing is often stilted and repetitive, the central conceit interesting but tired by the end. It's not a long book, but probably would have been better as a shorter form.
Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#247I made a summary of this article, because I found it a bit hard to read. I used GPT-3! Here's the summary: The author is saying that people who write about productivity are, in a way, the devil, because they convince people to do things they hate. The author is also saying that these people are not literally the devil, but are just as bad. The article argues that humans are not "naturally" lazy, and that the feeling…
As someone who has not "used GPT-3" what does it mean to say that you used it to make a summary? Just dump the full text of the article into a tool and request a summary output? I have only seen GPT-3 used when it takes a prompt and then generates more related text, I didn't realize you could run that process in reverse.
This is a fully general technique. Any repeatable problem can be rephrased as a prompt + related technique via the following structure:
Problem:
Solution:
Problem:
Solution: Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#248I made a summary of this article, because I found it a bit hard to read. I used GPT-3! Here's the summary: The author is saying that people who write about productivity are, in a way, the devil, because they convince people to do things they hate. The author is also saying that these people are not literally the devil, but are just as bad. The article argues that humans are not "naturally" lazy, and that the feeling…
Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#249Re: Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
#250This is a great article but the best part is an off hand link to a book review of A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression [1] which includes choice quotes like > The writer George Jean Nathan claimed that before the 1920s, there existed only eight basic sandwich types: Swiss cheese, ham, sardine, liverwurst, egg, corned beef, roast beef, and tongue (yes). But by 1926, he “claimed that he had counted…