February 2013 Media Thread

2 points

Feb 2, 2013

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. I find that exposure to LW ideas makes me less likely to enjoy some entertainment media that is otherwise quite popular, and finding media recommended by LWers is a good way to mitigate this. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres. There is a meta thread for comments about future threads.
If you think there should be a thread for a particular genre of media, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.

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RobertLumley

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RobertLumley

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5 years ago

Online Videos Thread

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NancyLebovitz

3 points

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5 years ago

The Mystery of the Black Death-- evidence that the Black Death wasn't spread by rats (which weren't common in northern Europe at that time) and wasn't bubonic plague. It may have been some sort of hemorraghic fever.

This is of interest to ratioinalists because it's about taking a second look at whether what everyone believes is actually plausible.

Is there a closure bias which favors just choosing a theory so as not to leave open questions?

3 points

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syllogism

3 points

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5 years ago

A one hour informal lecture by Alexander Shulgin, the chemist who invented most of the modern "psychedelic" and "entheogen" drugs

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z14oZqon5NM (others linked from youtube)

He talks about how remarkable it is that a fairly simple molecule such as mescaline can be so transformative to our subjective experience. So what happens when you tweak the molecule in various ways? What do the variations do, in turn? Can we find any rules that govern this relationship?

More generally, his idea is that if we want to study this thing we call "consciousness" --- our subjective experience --- then it's useful to be able to twiddle the knobs a little, and these drugs potentially give us a way to do that. He sees himself as a tool-maker, developing experimental apparatus that other researchers ought to be able to use productively.

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Daniel_Cosgrove

1 points

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5 years ago

A previous post on LessWrong mentioned an online course on Google power searching. There is a recent Advanced course on offer as well.

1 points

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