Matt’s Comments (group member since Dec 13, 2014)

Matt’s comments from the Effective Altruists group.

Sorry, I don't think I'll be able to make it in the end. It's my father's birthday party. I certainly won't make it on time...

Sorry I can't do tonight. Sundays aren't good for me this month...

I wrote down some of my thoughts to prepare for the meeting if anyone is interested: https://medium.com/@matstc/26d1b083576

Here's a good article on difficult fiction:

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-...

Oh that's right. Actually this Sunday isn't so good for me either. Perhaps we could do Sunday August 9 at 21:00 ?

Hi all. What would be a good time for the Hangout? Is Sunday August 2 at 21:00 BST good?

Thanks Kyle and Martin. I'm just getting started thinking about this topic.

So far I'm wondering:

- Can reading fiction really make you more moral or more empathic?
- What's the comparative advantage of fiction? Is it particularly well suited for conveying certain ideas?
- Does it have to be useful? What about fiction for fiction's sake?

I thought this article was inspired (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...). It's on the lack of evidence about how fiction makes us more moral.

And there's also this VBW podcast episode (http://verybadwizards.com/episodes/34) on the same topic.

Are there any chapters we'd like to discuss more than others?

For myself, I found the first few chapters quite interesting (the search-inference framework and actively open-minded thinking).

Also, the last chapters look very interesting although I still haven't read them. Will try to by tomorrow.

Yes! I should have enough time. No worries.

Thanks Kyle. I just secured my copy of the book and will start reading in a week or two. It is hefty! At about 600 pages.

Good to know! And yes, I feel the same about GGS.

Just finished GGS. Ugh, it's a long book. I guess I now have two days to read Collapse! Chop chop.

How's your reading going?

Thanks a lot! I just read that article and I'm looking forward to dive into more of the criticism. Unfortunately I want to finish Descartes' Error first and I'm not making as much progress as I'd like on that book...

Great! I'll begin the books soon. You say Diamond's theories are controversial, can you point us to some of that criticism on the web?

BTW, here are two online documentaries (not the greatest but free):

- https://vimeo.com/26059223
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36BQW...

Just got started on this book. So far the author is really full of himself! Just the subtitle is preposterous: "The only book you need to lead you to success". At the very least, it's entertaining :)

I wanted to add an essay to the group but because it's just an article in a philosophy journal, perhaps it's best to just add it here:

The Right to Privacy by Judith Jarvis Thompson (1975). (Available online.)

It's about privacy, but it's also from 1975. It would be interesting to see how Thompson discusses privacy... before social media and before state surveillance of the internet.

Let me know if you're interested in discussing this!

This is the general thread for this month's book: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

For those who were as confused as I was: Dale Carnegie is unrelated to Andrew Carnegie, the industrialist. Although the former did change the spelling of his name to match that of the latter. A good marketing move.

Enjoy the reading!

@Kyle: by "changing the path", maybe Haidt means just not putting the elephant in a situation where it can lean. Removing names from resumes before you appraise them could be an example of that.

On an another topic, Haidt promotes group selection for a while in that book. On this, I thought this conversation at edge.org was interesting: http://edge.org/conversation/the-fals.... Pinker takes the opposite view and plays down group selection.

I wrote some notes in my Goodreads review if anyone is interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...