What are your interests then? Within and without the scope of a relationship? What is your interest in dating? Do you feel compelled to date because it sounds like something everyone should do, and not doing so marks you as abnormal or dysfunctional? If you don't feel particularly compelled to date or enter relationship, then no, it isn't worth it.
Similarly, if you suspect you have interests that would clash with having to seriously date or being in a relationship, then maybe the best compromise is not to get in a relationship. it may also be possible to enter a relationship more suited to your needs, one that can preserve your other... (read more)
That's assuming a leader's vices somehow correlate with enacting positive societal changes (when the contrary would seem more likely). Otherwise choosing instead one of the many, just as competent and not as corrupt potential leaders is still a superior choice.
How difficult would developing such mind-melding technology rate against developing mature anti-aging technology (which it could functionally replace)?
and is not regularly the guiding principle of not hugely successful people?
Why the dichotomy? A principle can be used by different people with different abilities, leading to different levels of success, but still remain fundamentally flawed, leading to suboptimal achievement for both gifted and non-gifted people.
I almost never shave. I hate the feeling, somehow manage to draw blood even with electric razors, and it wastes time I could put into something else. Instead I enhance and channel my natural trichotillomania urges into continuously plucking my facial hair one by one with tweezers. I usually don't even pay attention anymore, so that I can still do something else like reading at the same time, and there's never more than handful of hairs that need removing from day to day unless I stop for a few days. It doesn't really hurt either, not after the first few times anyway. Plucked hairs will not become apparent again for days.
Someday I'll... (read more)
For a long time I preferred using a sleeping bag for just that reason.
Maybe there are tips to be found here : http://lesswrong.com/lw/6tb/developing_empathy/
Self-control is trainable and is applicable to learning and practicing many skills. Small, short and regular training exercises such as writing with your non-dominant hand to write or striving to maintain your posture can be a first step to build it up. (See "Can self-regulatory capacity be increased?" in Heatherton's paper at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~thlab/pubs/11_Heatherton_Wagner_TICS15.pdf.)
Even then there might be other -instrumental- shortcomings to certain instrumental strategies, such as being religious, besides forfeiting truth, and some may be more conspicuous than others. For instance, believing in gods and an afterlife would make it all the more unlikely to develop life-extension techniques. Advocating happiness for its own sake based on a misconception that dulls your grip on reality is somewhere close next to wireheading I think.
The Lesswrong community is often a dependable source of recommendations, network help, and advice. When I'm looking for a book or learning material on a topic I'll often try and search here to see what residents have found useful. Similarly, social advice, anecdotes and explanations as seen from the point of view of the community have regularly been insightful or eye-opening. The prototypical examples of such articles are, on top of my head :
http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/453/procedural_knowledge_gaps/
the topics of which are neatly listed on
http://lesswrong.com/lw/a08/topics_from_procedural_knowledge_gaps/
And lately
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/c6y/why_do_people/
the latter prompted me to write this article. We don't keep track of such resources as far as I know. This probably belongs in the wiki as well.
Other potentially useful... (read more)
But it's still a compromise. Is it part of humanity's utility function to value another species' utility function to such an extent that they would accept the tradeoff of changing humanity's utility function to preserve as much of the other species' utility function?
I don't recall any mention of humanity being total utilitarians in the story. Neither did the compromise made by the superhappies strike me as being better for all parties than their original values were, for each of them.
The only reason the compromise was supposed to be beneficial is because the three species made contact and couldn't easily coexist together from that point on. Also, because the superhappies were the stronger force and could therefore easily enforce their own solution. Cutting off the link removes those assumptions, and allows each species to preserve its utility function, which I assume they have a preference for, at least humans and baby-eaters.