Related: Trust in Math
I was reading John Allen Paulos' A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market, in which Paulos relates a version of the well-known "missing dollar" riddle. I had heard it once before, but only vaguely remembered it. If you don't remember it, here it is:
... (read 556 more words →)Three people stay in a hotel overnight. The innkeeper tells them that the price for three rooms is $30, so each pays $10.
After the guests go to their rooms, the innkeeper realizes that there is a special discount for groups, and that the guests' total should have only been $25.
The innkeeper gives a bellhop $5 with the instructions to return it to the guests.
The bellhop, not wanting
Not to mention that any candidate up to the task likely has more lucrative alternatives...
Others have made these points, but here are my top comments:
I am reluctantly someone who pretty much doesn't care about what happens after I die. This is a position I that I don't necessarily endorse, and if I could easily self-modify into the sort of person who did care I would.
I don't think this makes me a monster. I basically behave the same way as people who claim they do care about what happens after they die. That is, I have plans for what happens to my assets if I die. I have life insurance ("free" through work) that pays to my wife if I die. I wouldn't take a billion dollars on the condition that a third world country would blow... (read more)
Great post!
Others have mentioned the HPMOR-style "take a poll of different aspects of your personality," which I have found to be entertaining and useful.
I'd also like to endorse the method for troubleshooting. I got the idea from Ridiculous Fish's blog post from 3 years ago.
When I have a technical problem I'm stuck on, I try to ask myself "What would someone who's smarter than me do?" This is really just "imagine a parody version of person x and see if that causes you to think about the problem in a different way."
I like to consult Imaginary Dr. House ("The problem is something very rare and obscured because your data is lying to... (read more)
10 people said "Drug C: reduces the number of headaches per year from 100 to 60. It costs $100 per year" over "Drug B: reduces the number of headaches per year from 100 to 50. It costs $100 per year" on CFAR question #4...
I said "Drug A: reduces the number of headaches per year from 100 to 30. It costs $350 per year" personally. I think there's a case for B, maybe, but who picks C?
I'm genuinely curious why hg00's amended comment is now even more downvoted? And why my advice is also? Generally I take downvotes to mean "Would not like to read more of such comments at Less Wrong," but I'm a little puzzled at these.
Reading SSC brings back the feeling I got when I first discovered Less Wrong (right after the split with Overcoming Bias, when there were still sequences being posted). Here's this extremely intelligent and articulate guy, posting very insightful things on topics I didn't even know I was interested in -- and he's doing it pretty regularly!
I like what Less Wrong has evolved into in the post-Sequences era, but reading Less Wrong today produces a very different feeling from when it did early on.
I enjoyed the episode also. The show is consistently solid, which is quite impressive - I don't think there's been an episode that's really low quality. The peaks aren't very high, but there are no valleys to speak of...
There a laughable P vs. NP-themed episode in a previous season in which mathematicians use their proof to hack computers, but other than that the episode was watchable.
It requires some status and a consistent record of not being a jerk to do this (or to convince yourself to do this), but: "[Big Talker] has been talking for 2 hours, and [Small Talker] hasn't really had much opportunity to talk about [thing Small Talker does]. Mind if we hear from [Small Talker] for a bit? "
I didn't think it was quite fair that your comment was downvoted to -2, but then I read the sentence "When women feel desperate, they cry about it."
While I think your comment was overall constructive to the discussion, that kind of thing is a turnoff. I assume you meant it in the best possible way, but I would encourage you to avoid that particular construction in the future.