LESSWRONG
LW

All of mosasaur's Comments + Replies

Paul Crowley12y14

Wow, I didn't know that glasses denialism existed! That's weirdly wonderful. Do you have any links for other people who share these, er, ideas?

Edit: found this one.

2John_Maxwell12y
The doctor didn't recommend glasses to me.
4prase12y
There is a social pressure to wear glasses?
6Will_Sawin12y
By my understanding glasses are the most scientifically well-founded of any medical science, and appear to improve vision (see: Rand study.) Can you provide contrary evidence? And there really aren't other options.
Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others...
mosasaur12y-4

"What does you gut instinct say about a lawyer who is paid an average of a quarter of a million dollars for a year's work in which e puts an average of 2 innocent people in jail for six years each and donates on average 2% of er income (5000 dollars) to buying mosquito nets for third world children, saving on average 10 lives?"

You are forgetting the lawyer works to uphold the status quo. If that status quo ("the system") also makes arms dealers reach and invades third world countries or does other despicable things, the net effect of th... (read more)

3shokwave12y
The amount that a criminal trial lawyer contributes to the status quo as it relates to the suffering of third world countries is negligible; it is fair to ignore such small constants. Incidentally, I downvoted bentarm's comment about Marxism and upvoted your reply ("Thank you. Marx was a very intelligent person") because comparing anything to Marxism doesn't strike me as engaging with the idea (rather, matching to an already-rejected idea so they can reject this new idea easily), and your response indicated your concern was separate to Marx's.
0wedrifid12y
A curious note: If 'The System' or anyone with power within it actually took you seriously they would necessarily imprison or otherwise cripple your ability to take action. You have essentially declared an intent to fight against everything the system does. That is, if you had any significance you would be a clear and present threat to national (and even international) security.
Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others...
mosasaur12y-1

"I might be missing something, but this (and the rest of your post) reads basically like Marxist propaganda."

Thank you. Marx was a very intelligent person who unraveled much of the inner workings of capitalism. His error was -- I think -- that there is something like a collective will of the people (a CEV, maybe) and that there is an effective way of measuring and implementing it. We all know how badly it turned out. But maybe the idea of harnessing collective greed is even worse because it seems flawed already from the beginning.

"Just about... (read more)

7wedrifid12y
Your gut instinct needs to learn more economics. ;) Also note: This board uses markdown syntax. Details are in the 'help' link just below the comment box. To quote a paragraph begin the line with an >.
shokwave12y10

My gut instinct tells me a lawyer who in his day job secures a quarter of a billion dollar settlement with an evil regime to prevent legal persecution of an evil politician involved with a major weapons manufacturer, cannot offset this with buying a few mosquito nets for children in that same third world country.

What does you gut instinct say about a lawyer who is paid an average of a quarter of a million dollars for a year's work in which e puts an average of 2 innocent people in jail for six years each and donates on average 2% of er income (5000 doll... (read more)

bentarm12y13

Yes. This logical error is present in all the charity related articles. By the time you own the money it is too late. You have helped a corrupt system to become even more corrupt

I might be missing something, but this (and the rest of your post) reads basically like Marxist propaganda. Are you seriously suggesting that anyone who makes a lot of money has done so through "corruption"? I would hope LW was one of the places on the internet that this sort of "truism" could be avoided. Just about the only way to make a lot of money is to d... (read more)

3Alexei12y
Neither my comment nor Emile's is below the threshold. Check your settings. If you want to see bad/"controversial" comments (I put those in quotes because I believe LW is actually pretty good an not down-voting controversial statements. I myself have been down-voted many times (given my # of comments) and each time it has been for a good reason) you can adjust your threshold or just not hide those comments altogether. I think you are being down-voted because you throw out broad statements without any support. I've heard that it actually helps people to track exactly how much they eat and that fact alone usually causes them to eat less. Who is right? Neither of us until we show some concrete evidence. I am citing this interview [http://mixergy.com/timothy-ferriss-four-hour-body-interview/]. What are your sources? Though to be honest, LifeTracking app is a lot more than just a weight tracker and I would hate for people to think about it only in those terms. You can track anything with it. "Academia is the source of corruption"? "Any one succeeding in such an environment is at most an idiot savant"? "The money flow and supply is almost totally controlled by evil banks and corporations"? Those are all very very heavy statements and, as far as I can tell, not at all obvious. Would do you have to support them? I understand your want to be self-contained, self-sustaining, and independent, but you will spend most of your life trying to achieve that without accomplishing much else. It's ok to rely on other people, on tools, even on corporations, you just have to understand and accept the costs. And many times those costs are very reasonable for what you are getting out of it. Starting from scratch is nice to imagine, but if you've done programming, you'll understand that in the end you almost always end up in the same sort of mess you tried leaving. To sustain any kind of technology you need to rely on entities outside yourself and they will always have an option of cheat
3Emile12y
Why self-damaging? Your brain may be enclined to tell you that losing karma on a website is "bad for you", but don't believe it. Also, your comments are a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy - complaints about how "my comment will be downvoted for failing to comform to groupthink!" are annoying. (and geez, "testosteron driven fools"? We're a bunch of nerds! Reading Harry Potter fanfiction! And using gender-neutral pronouns!)
2Alexei12y
I would really like to hear more about this topic. I am actually trying something entrepreneur-ish right now (see my post on LifeTracking [http://lesswrong.com/lw/39t/lifetracking_application_for_android/]). I want to help people, but I also want to make money, but not in a way that also damages/hurts people. I was going to put ads in my program, but then I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I personally hate ads and I wouldn't want to push them onto anyone.
5AdeleneDawner13y
I don't see why you think Alicorn is 'flaunting proteans [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteans_%28body_language%29]' here, or why you think gender or proteans or flaunting have anything to do with the post at all.