roceasta

Let my online persona take the criticism? Yes. My offline persona too. Alan Watts used to point out that even the 'real' persona is only a mask (the word coming from the ancient greek πρόσωπον which originally referred to a theatrical mask).

>the “online disinhibition effect” is what enables your mild-mannered neighbour to become a hate-spewing bigot on social media

It's complicated. The fear of enemies keeps our 'ego persona' firmly in charge like a wartime leader. Because we identify with this persona we therefore unconsciously seek out people to hate in order to feel safe. Because open hatred isn't socially acceptable we designate the target group a 'hate group'. It's then OK to hate them because they're the real haters! And so these opposing groups create and sustain one another, making the participants feel safe and all the while making the world decidedly less safe.

Great that thorium is progressing. I predict the debate about global warming will disappear once we have new power sources in place. Those who denied global warming will suddenly acknowledge it; those who berated the deniers will move on to other issues.

I heard about Keen's proposal of a debt jubilee (reducing private debt by random payments into bank accounts) and would be interested to hear criticism of it:

http://moneyweek.com/steve-keen-interview-debt-jubilee/

Yes, if you are meditating. However not if you are, say, programming and drinking coffee. The use of the mind while sitting is typically ignored in these studies, I think because it's hard to measure and thus considered subjective and non-scientific (despite being relevant here).

Fusion progress chart:

http://imgur.com/BN0pz

It has been easier. However if present trends continue and new forms of 'badthink' emerge it may be necessary to start looking under stones in dark places. This (a) is hard to do, and (b) presupposes that you know others are out there. Which you may not, especially if you are young.

Yes, labelling a person who disagrees with you Nazi seems like a perverse application of Godwin's Law. It means you are intentionally ending the discussion. Why do it?

I think she's correct to compare our situation now to a primitive band of people. Marshall McLuhan famously called this the global village. Close communication is paradoxically causing the fragmentation and balkanisation of the internet. A process which nations like China (with its own internet) and companies like Google (by getting into politics) are accelerating.

The goal of political correctness, adopting Daniel Dennett's intentional stance, is to control thinking. Individuals who are able to resist are in some ways more isolated now than the old communist dissidents. They at least got moral support from each other in prison.

http://www.beyondeasy.net/2015/09/mcluhan-new-tribalism-equi... https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/intentional-stance

Some people pay to meditate for days on end!

GP about blood clots. Likelihood of clotting also depends on sympathetic arousal:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2629605/

So stimulation arising from eating food, drinking coffee, work stress, etc, whilst being seated would be a double whammy.

If sitting is so bad why is meditation considered to be so good an' healthy?

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-11-19-ChairSittingGood...

My guess is this problem is not to do with sitting per se; it's how your (partly unconscious) attention is distributed. It's not just work/gaming/movie that requires bandwidth, the body needs some too. If you can't walk about then better posture and even little things like wiggling your toes might be helpful.

I think our present space technology research focus should be on these asteroids. Both how to deflect them (peacefully) and how to mine them for rare metals.

If I read this table correctly it seems that only eight days ago a fairly chunky rock passed within 60,000 miles of us:

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

Not sarcastic.

Yes, persuade people they are wrong where they are wrong; learn from them where they are right (we are all fallible). Persuade other people that they are wrong; teach other people where they are right. Plus an unlimited number of other possible responses.

>I can try to persuade them that they're wrong

That assumes you know what their ideas are. If present trends against free speech continue, it's not a luxury you're necessarily going to have.

Thank goodness we are still able to make the case. The only alternative to free speech is violence. I want to be able to hear what the alt-right has to say, what Islamic extremists have to say, what misogynists have to say, etc.

Exactly. Writers must read 1000s of books, singers must listen to 1000s of songs, and so on. Even for those who don't create additional content, it's impossible to 'consume' culture without creative engagement. Nobody can pour content into his head:

http://www.jfallen.org/wordpress/2015/04/12/the-bucket-or-th...

But when it comes to being banned, deplatformed, accused of being in a 'hate group', labelled a Nazi, etc, the problem is the idea that expressing certain opinions indicates that you are a good person.

I'm grateful to share the world with anyone who is trying to think and is brave enough to communicate their ideas in the face of career stagnation.

That said, I expect most geniuses are polymaths by conventional standards, whether we need them to be or not. Their intellectual development is neither a well-rounded curriculum nor a steady progression but marked by series of deep obsessions.

I find this fascinating. It's an important biological phenomenon and we don't know if it's due to culture or to chemistry.

>coercive force that encourages people to marry and stay married

Not necessarily 'stay married' because for many people there's a financial incentive to get divorced. And you can't get divorced if you don't get married in the first place.

Exactly. Whereas cooperation between the trees and the pine beetles won't happen because the beetles migrate.

I've come to realise that if I'm run down or hungover or guilty in some way then my mind automatically starts to relive old resentments. I think it's a form of projection. There's a bad feeling internally and so memories are activated to 'explain' the badness and direct blame elsewhere.

When we hear that we'll know how to program AGI.

Yes. Subjectively speaking it is finding the correct idea, not an unusual one. It's akin to remembering something. You either remember somebody's name or you don't; you don't make up a new one.

No I think that people with extreme egoism genuinely think that loving only themselves is the right thing to do.

Assume positive intent, but set boundaries. The first part sounds like wishful thinking but it merely reflects the fact that there are no bad intentions, only mistaken ideas about what is good. The second part reflects the fact that some people know more than others.

The ToS box is a debasement of standards of public discourse. Not only do most individuals knowingly lie, everybody knows that they lie, and they know that everybody knows that they lie, et cetera. It makes me question the legitimacy of marriage vows and statements like 'How are you?'

Point taken that explanations are more important than descriptions but really there are thousands of places that explain the principles of how the internal combustion engine works.

This is the first time I've seen an engine physically taken apart so I can see roughly what goes where. I'm reminded of 'Danny The Champion of the World' who, at the age of seven, could take a small engine to pieces, and put it back together again. Pistons, crankshaft and all.

Btw to eliminate withdrawal headaches one only needs a small amount of caffeine. I've taken one caffeine pill per day for about a week (~100mg daily depending on brand which is less than one cup of coffee equivalent).

>Plants are able to sense the proximity of neighbors by sensing backscattered far-red (FR)

Plants can see? I had no idea.

If you've solved toxic comments then you've solved AGI.