English is not my first language, German is. I am noticing a phenomenon more and more: Stuff I read does not annoy me as much in English as it does in German, though it is the exact same topic. The other day I read a German article complaining about the idiocy of a particular 'comedian', angering me that I wasted my time on reading about someone complaining about some idiotic person. Though I have no problem reading the standard subreddits on Reddit, which are no less idiotic than the average column in German. What is going on?
I assume that in German I have plenty of preformed conceptions about what is proper and what is not. In English though I am able to keep an open mind about what I experience, as it is a new and foreign culture. This narrative doesn't satisfy me though, as I do not see a proper way to test the hypothesis.
An alternative narrative - one should always have more than one hypothesis on any topic - is that German media is inherently inferior to English products. I refuse to believe this, though I am willing to accept an argument on statistical distributions and number of trials. Or am I just unable to find the niches in German that do satisfy my itches?
Is this a phenomenon anyone else encounters? What is your take on it?
Foreign language use is associated with weaker emotional reactions: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/foreign-language-improve-decisions/
I don't speak English natively, and haven't ever lived somewhere where English is the dominant language, and I've been wondering about the same thing. It seems to be easy to notice and get annoyed if someone's Finnish sounds stilted or off, and I'm pretty sure I have much less of a sense of textual voices in English. I think it comes down to having basically zero exposure to real-life face-to-face socialization and status play using spoken English, so the various subtle cues aren't internalized and need to be inferred.
I also can't tell non-native speakers apart from native ones based on writing style on a message board like LW. Can native English speakers do that?
Is it harder for you to read English than to read German? I've noticed that I don't get irritated as easily by what I read when I'm doing something else at the same time, even when it's something that you wouldn't think would take a lot of brainpower--brushing a cat, for example, or eating. Multitasking, even if it's really trivial multitasking, short-circuits the indignation feedback loop and I just read something else instead of getting pissed off.
Either way, it doesn't sound like a problem so much as a life hack. Be proud: you've discovered yet another benefit to learning a foreign language :)
A question for London LWers:
I have recently created an opportunity for potentially moving from my home in the American South to London, where I would be employed by a fairly prestigious secondary school. Obviously, the prospect of leaving an area of very little opportunity for one of greater opportunity entices me. A lot. However, I have only minimum savings, and my family, reflecting the area, is poor and highly desirous of avoiding change, leaving me to do this alone.
I have not yet had a salary offer. My salary will be determined by my qualifications and I will not be informed of such a decision until some weeks from now. My research has led me to expect a salary between 24,000 and 26,000 pounds annually. As far as I am aware, there is no housing stipend or housing assistance with my employment, though I do not yet know if there is no chance of such assistance being offered or included.
While I do believe this move would be extremely beneficial and an excellent start to my chosen career, my worry is that I could not sustain myself taking on both the move and living in London on such a salary. I only know of two people with experience in London, both of whom have advised me that such a salary is quite low. However, one has little real experience in living in London, and the other has very little to say beyond “You need a housing stipend or some form of housing assistance.”
If you live in London (and especially are familiar with the educational system and the standards of living in the city), I would very much like any information you can give on what I can expect as an American coming out of the US with no experience. I mainly want to determine what the job is worth. Would it only be worth the move if my salary is high and a housing stipend is included? What would my rough estimate of the annal salary cover of my new London expenses? What, exactly, is 26,000 pounds worth to a frugal, informed person in London? What should I expect, not in terms of culture shock, but in terms of financial challenges? Also, if you are an American who moved to London to work, I would very much like to hear how your experience went.
I would appreciate any help.
I live in London. I am not a teacher. Some thoughts:
London is a special case. Teacher salaries in London are higher than outside of London to reflect the higher cost of living. I don't know if your research has factored this in. I am not personally very knowledgeable on the subject of teacher salaries, but know a few. Teachers themselves are, for obvious reasons, highly knowledgeable about teacher salaries.
"London" covers a large area. All of it is relatively expensive compared to the rest of the UK (and the world), but £26,000 would get you a lot further in, say, Croydon than one of the more central boroughs. Also a lot of places get called "London" by faraway folk when they're not. If your job is in Basildon or Reading or some other orbital town, those places aren't London, either culturally or expense-wise, and you'd want to adjust your queries accordingly.
£24,000-£26,000 does seem startlingly low to me (a software developer in his thirties who solves problems by throwing money at them), but by way of comparison, a starting police officer earns ~£22,000, so it's presumably not an utterly ludicrous amount.
We have different rates and brackets of income tax to the US. £26,000 translates to £20,634.72 take-home pay. Your first £10,000 is untaxed, 20% thereafter until you hit the mid-thirties.
The biggest expense of London by at least one order of magnitude is rent. The second is transport. Minimising these expenses is an obvious way of stretching your budget, but there are sharp trade-offs in terms of location and travel costs. Public transport in London is expensive but a lot cheaper than running a car, and actually very good compared to every other town and city I've lived in (sample size 5, all British). We have a lot of cyclists, but it's not really a city optimised for cycling.
If you were to join the Less Wrong London group, we have a pretty good track record of advising people considering moving to the city.
24k to 26k is low for London. If you're poor already then your standard of living might not change much.
Try using various cost of living calculators to figure out where and how far your money will have to go - I don't know where exactly in the South you come from, but I picked the two Southern states tied for median cost of living (the Carolinas) and stuck some random towns and cities into the calculator. Rent in particular is often 250% higher or more, and your local purchasing power will be in the region of 20-40% lower.
Taxes: The USA has generally lower taxes than the UK, but for the most easily comparable tax - income tax - you'll probably pay roughly the same at the 24-26k level. From what I can tell, National Insurance (UK version of Social Security) is higher UK. VAT (sales tax) is 20% on everything except life necessities (food, insurance, healthcare, childcare goods), which is over double the highest total sales tax rate (Tennessee, 9.44%). VAT is calculated into the display price of the product unlike in some US jurisdictions. These are probably all factored into the cost of living calculator above, but it's worth keeping in mind. All in all, you'll be taking home less of your salary whatever your income level. Healthcare costs are included in the above taxes though, and you'll be entitled to the same treatment as a British citizen in almost all cases.
Since you're (presumably) not a citizen of any EEA country nor a refugee, you can't claim housing benefit upon arrival. You can only get it once you have "habitual residence" status, which means you intend to stay here long-term and have been here for a (intentionally vaguely-defined) "appreciable period of time". So, upon arrival you can forget about any housing stipend unless your employer is generous - you'll have to look into shared accommodation or get really lucky. (Did that London LW house ever get started?)
For transport, your first port of call ought to be the bus network. There's a flat fare across the whole city and it's much cheaper than the tube. Annual fare for an adult is about £800. If for whatever reason you can't use the bus, the tube network is more expensive, and it will also depend on where exactly the school is in London, and where exactly you can get cheap rent. The annual fare will be in the range £1000 - £3000 for an adult, depending on the zones you're travelling to and from. Petrol prices are much higher in the UK than in the USA.
I tried doing a Fermi estimate with a bunch of different estimates of your requirements to figure out how much disposable income you'd have, but they ended up all over the map (negative £2000/year to £4000/year). You can survive, but depending on how much luxury you like to live in I can't say if you'll thrive.
What's the job market for teachers like in your home state, or the US as a whole? If prestigious British schools are willing to take you on, why not American ones?
Puzzle:
A countable infinity of prisoners are placed in a room so that they can all see each other, but are not allowed to communicate in any way and cannot see their own heads. The warden places on the head of each prisoner a red hat or a black hat. The prisoners will each guess the color of their own hat. They will all be released if at most finitely many of them guess incorrectly, and they will all be killed otherwise. The prisoners know all of this, and may collude beforehand. The prisoners are all distinguishable - think of them as being numbered 1,2,3,.... Again, once the warden has placed the hats, the prisoners receive no information other than the color of their fellow prisoners' hats. Prove that there is a strategy that guarantees a win for the prisoners.
(On my honor, this is possible.)
Pbafvqre gur sbyybjvat eryngvba orgjrra vasvavgr frdhraprf bs pbybhef: "qvssrerag va bayl svavgryl znal cynprf". Guvf vf na rdhvinyrapr eryngvba, naq jura gur ungf ner cynprq, nyy cevfbaref xabj juvpu rdhvinyrapr pynff gurl ner va. Guvf pynff vf pbhagnoyr, naq gur cevfbaref unir nterrq orsberunaq, gunaxf gb gur nkvbz bs pubvpr, ba n cnegvphyne rahzrengvba sbe rnpu rdhvinyrapr pynff.
Sbe rnpu cevfbare, rknpgyl gjb zrzoref bs gur pynff ner pbafvfgrag jvgu jung ur frrf. Ur thrffrf juvpurire nygreangvir pbzrf svefg va gur rahzrengvba. Bayl svavgryl znal bs gurz pna or jebat, orpnhfr gur pbzcyrgr frdhraprf vzcyvrq ol gurve jebat nafjref ner nyy qvssrerag, naq gur gehr frdhrapr unf bayl svavgryl znal naprfgbef va gur rahzrengvba.
Gur fnzr cebbs nccyvrf gb nal pbhagnoyr ahzore bs pbybhef. Vg'f abg pyrne gb zr lrg ubj zhpu ynetre gur ahzore bs cevfbaref naq gur ahzore bs pbybhef pna or. V fhfcrpg gung Bfpne_Phaavatunz wrfgf nobhg rkgraqvat gb erny-inyhrq pbybhef.
Correct! But it can be simplified (note that this is also a spoiler for the hard version):
Sbe rnpu rdhvinyrapr pynff cvpx n ercerfragngvir zrzore. Gura unir rirelbar thrff nf vs gurl jrer va gung frdhrapr. V guvax guvf jbexf sbe neovgenel pneqvanyvgvrf bs cevfbaref naq pbybhef.
EDIT: I remembered to ROT13 it.
Reposting from last open thread as I didn't get any inquiries:
I've seen a lot of discontent on LW about exercise. I know enough about physical training to provide very basic coaching and instruction to get people started, and I can optimize a plan for a variety of parameters (including effectiveness, duration of workout, frequency of workout, cost of equipment, space of equipment, gym availability, etc.). If anyone is interested in some free one-on-one help, post a request for your situation, budget, and needs and I'll write up some basic recommendations.
I don't have much in the ways of credentials, except that I've coached myself for all of my training and have made decent progress (from sedentary fat weakling to deadlifting 415lbs at 190lb BW and 13%BF). I've helped several friends, all of which have made pretty good progress, and I've been able to tailor workouts to specific situations.
So apparently Ishual, the secluded monastery devoted to science and reasoning, is sort of a real thing.
Well, that isn't exactly right; it's not that the monasteries are devoted to science, it's more like the monks are inviting scientists to come and teach them. Still, I thought it was cool.
I enjoyed reading the Temptation of Christ article. One thing that struck me is that the Jesus character responded far more reasonably than your typical deluded person does when asked questions which challenge their beliefs, at least in my experience.
In my experience, when a person's beliefs are driven by emotion, he tends to have much more of a "concede nothing" mentality -- even if he is sane. Can Jesus in the story use this as evidence that he really is Jesus? Again we run into the problem that irrationality blinds the irrational to their own irrationality. But it's still worth considering I think.
I've spent a cursory couple of minutes hunting for the original, but I can't find it.
Belief one is the President of the United States is a common delusion of grandeur. Anyone waking up in the morning believing they're the President of the United States is probably wrong about this fact, but I still want the President of the United States to do his job.
I like that quote, but it occurs to me that you can subdivide this belief into two categories:
Believing that you are the U.S. President AND believing the people you meet generally recognize this fact about you.
Believing that you are the U.S. President AND believing the people you meet won't accept that you are president.
I'm not an expert on delusions, but I would think that of insane people who are deluded about being President, pretty much all of them fall into the latter category. e.g. if you asked one of them, he would tell you there is an imposter in the White House who has deceived everyone into thinking he (the imposter) is President. Or something along those lines. And he would honestly believe it.
So if you wake up believing you are the President, and the people around you seem to be calling you "Mr. President" and following your orders, and you seem to be living in the White House, then probably you should get out of bed, get dressed, and do your job (as President). On the other hand, if nobody will accept that you are President, and there are no pretty interns trying to flirt with you, then my advice is not to worry about doing your job as President.
Apparently one reason that the famous "419 Scam" spammers write such illiterate and instantly-recognizable spam email is that this serves to filter out all but the most gullible recipients. By writing badly and unconvincingly, they ensure that more of the people who actually respond are gullible enough to be pulled in to the scam. Because it's cheap to send out millions of copies of a spam email, they have a strong incentive to minimize the number of responses that aren't good leads.
Are there other cases where someone might do a deliberately bad job at convincing people of a falsehood, in order to filter for the most gullible or susceptible marks?
Are there other cases where someone might do a deliberately bad job at convincing people of a falsehood, in order to filter for the most gullible or susceptible marks?
Cults!
It is also not unknown for someone with something genuine to teach to actively filter out those not capable of learning it.
There's a rhetorical technique called "dubitatio" - where you deliberately act unsure, less skilled or less intelligent in order to make yourself sound more credible. E.g. "Although I'm just a simple man unused to public speaking I think...." Obviously it depends on the audience you're appealing to, it works best with people who mistrust skilled orators
(George W Bush did this a lot, his famous 'Bushisms' were almost all deliberate, and playe to a base who distrusted 'elites' and made him sound more honest and down to earth.)
Phil Hartman's SNL character Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman ..."
This looks right up LW's alley.
There is a question
I am a 3rd year medical student, and for the purposes of this question, let’s assume I have equal interest and ability in the various medical specialties. In order to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people through my work in medicine (i.e., the highest return to society), what specialty should I pursue? ... I’ve been looking at DALYs and QALYs associated with various medical interventions ...
And some answers, not all of which LW will like :-)
I probably have obstructive sleep apnea. I exhibit a symptoms (ie feeling sleepy despite getting normal or above average amounts of sleep, dry mouth when I wake up) and also I just had a sleep specialist tell me that the geometry of my mouth and sinuses makes puts me at high risk. I got an appointment for a sleep study a month from now. Based on what I've read, this means that it will probably take at least two months or more before I can start using a CPAP machine if I go through the standard procedure. This seems like an insane amount of time to wait for something that probably has a good chance of significantly improving my quality of life immediately. Is there any good reason why I can't just buy a CPAP machine and start using it?
Hidden Order by David Friedman is a popular book, but is semi-technical enough that it could serve as a textbook for an intro microeconomics course.
Is there a consensus on the account of unemployment and inflation F. A. Hayek provides in his Nobel Lecture (1974)? I'm sympathetic to the abstract philosophy-of-science considerations he argues there, but I don't know enough (anything) about economics to say whether he's using that account to substantiate those considerations, or he's using those considerations to obliquely promote a controversial account. Here's an excerpt:
The theory which has been guiding monetary and financial policy during the last thirty years, and which I contend is largely the product of such a mistaken conception of the proper scientific procedure, consists in the assertion that there exists a simple positive correlation between total employment and the size of the aggregate demand for goods and services; it leads to the belief that we can permanently assure full employment by maintaining total money expenditure at an appropriate level. Among the various theories advanced to account for extensive unemployment, this is probably the only one in support of which strong quantitative evidence can be adduced. I nevertheless regard it as fundamentally false, and to act upon it, as we now experience, as very harmful.
[...]
Let me illustrate this by a brief sketch of what I regard as the chief actual cause of extensive unemployment - an account which will also explain why such unemployment cannot be lastingly cured by the inflationary policies recommended by the now fashionable theory. This correct explanation appears to me to be the existence of discrepancies between the distribution of demand among the different goods and services and the allocation of labour and other resources among the production of those outputs...
How do people respond to the repugnant conclusion?
I just finished reading Eliezer's April Fools Day post, where he illustrated how good society could be. A future society filled with rational people, that is structured the way Eliezer describes, and continues with linear progression in technology would be pretty amazing. What is it that the intelligence explosion would provide of value that this society wouldn't?
Put differently, diff(intelligenceExplosion, dath ilan).
Reminder: The first session of the first course in Cousera's data science sequence starts today.
Have there been any studies on how effective things like MOOCS and Khanacademy and so on are at teaching people?