Not claiming it's his own idea, just that it showed up in the book, I assume it's standard.

Showed up in Penrose's "The Fabric of Reality." Curvature of spacetime is determined by infinitesimal light cones at each point. You can get a uniquely determined surface from a connection as well as a connection from a surface.

true dat.

Doesn't even need to go as far as ugh fields and akrasia -- it's an explicit choice.

I only have two kinds of political discussions now:

1. Pure trolling for emotional catharsis
2. Finding a way to evade the political part of the issue (in other words, if you're concerned about making medical care cheaper, can I think of a way to help you achieve your goal that doesn't require anyone to vote a particular way?)

The second is, I sincerely believe, the best way for us non-politicians to solve problems. The first is something I just kind of like doing. It's pure hate and I don't pretend it's anything else.

Yeah. I feel this way about attractive and popular people. I hate them too much to ever consider imitating them. (not sure why I have to give up the hatred though.)

Are there disadvantages to Oxfam? They looked pretty legitimate -- food, medicine, disaster relief, no history of fraud that I know of. Sort of the index fund of charities.

$500 to Oxfam.

$50 to Ron Paul. (Libertarianism is not important to me, but it is important to the quality of life of someone I care about.)

$50 to Planned Parenthood.

It's posts like these that make me wish I had a group of powerful allies. I really have no tribe. It's rather demoralizing.

I'm quite ambitious in the status/career sense. Rather averse to unnecessary effort (necessary effort I can handle, but I won't work for the sake of working) and extremely averse to having goals that aren't mine thrust upon me. I'm protective of my mental state and I don't do things that cause me undue stress. That kind of goes against the rationalist ethic of "always push yourself, psychological pain is unimportant, tsuyoku naritai." But meh. It's what I want to do. So far, it seems that I can have fun in a way that advances my professional goals, and so I don't have to be a martyr. Desperate efforts are for later, if ever.

I think I might be living by urges alone. Whenever I see something about "goals" or "self-discipline" or "self-improvement" I immediately shut down and get miserable. My brain says "I don't want to, dammit!" Of course, people tell me I am self-disciplined, but I see that as merely being practical; if it makes any sense, I'm willing to be practical but severely freaked out by aspirational or normative thinking.