Comments for Shugyosha Year

Comment on Quests, GP, and XP by suntzuanime

suntzuanime — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 04:06:25 +0000

Earlier versions of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup allowed you to choose certain skills to “focus” that would grow faster with practice at the expense of other skills. (Recent versions have moved away from a get-better-by-practice model.)

Comment on Being a Good Person vs. Doing Good Things by Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:27:26 +0000

I like the distinction. I think removing the element of attribution to people from ethics actually makes it a lot easier to think clearly about ethical problems. I think our need to attribute stuff to people is a psychological need, but doesn’t help to enlighten our thinking about ethics — it only becomes relevant in a second (juristic) step.

Comment on Being a Good Person vs. Doing Good Things by Jay Bobzin

Jay Bobzin — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:51:06 +0000

Huge issues arises when these two drives come in conflict.

I’m reminded of the famous 60s protest picture that appeared on reddit today:
http://i.imgur.com/p3sTf.jpg

Morality is doing what’s right regardless of what you’re told.
Obedience is doing what you’re told regardless of what is right.

…where trying to appear virtuous is simply doing what society tells you you should do.

Comment on Being a Good Person vs. Doing Good Things by grognor

grognor — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:56:23 +0000

This is a simple, elegant essay on an important distinction that many people simply cannot think about without instantly failing on some dimension or other.

Here is a much older post about the same topic: http://drchip.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/kind-vs-kindly/

I take the conclusions as quite obvious as in general there is a world of difference between seeming X and being X and “good” is one of the most common examples when people fill in for X. “Good” and “smart” are probably the two most common Xs.

Comment on How to Start Paleo and not Miss Junk Food by Jay Bobzin

Jay Bobzin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 14:05:31 +0000

Although it’s not very healthy, I keep beef jerky around as a nice treat as well. I treat them like most people try to treat cookies.

Comment on Two Highly Abstract Thoughts by aarondtucker

aarondtucker — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:52:11 +0000

Heh, makes sense.

Comment on Two Highly Abstract Thoughts by Brendon

Brendon — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:39:54 +0000

I’m reminded of one of my first and favorite Go proverbs:

“Lose your first fifty games as fast as possible.”

Comment on Chop Wood, Carry Water by Shanna Mann

Shanna Mann — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:41:05 +0000

I’ve always found that the most crucial thing to do is to orient your knowledge; cross-link it with other information, topics, concepts.

Love that cross-application, taking advice from piano technique and applying it to learning Japanese.

Comment on On the Deficit of Meaning by Ian K

Ian K — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:09:27 +0000

Yeah, that’s a real lack of depth that I have observed as well. Yet it is enough for most people to live happily. I am envious of most people for that, but reflecting on the fact that most people are not that happy makes me ambivalent. They want more when they know there is more, but as long as they’re clueless in their group all is good.

Comment on On the Deficit of Meaning by Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:33:26 +0000

What indicators do you have that make you feel you know whether others know or reflect on the meanings of the words they use? Especially to the point of deciding “most things that people do and say”?

Do you mean what you’re saying about most of the people you know, or about most of the people in the world, or both?

If you mean most of the people in the world, then I take back my original question, because I agree that most of the people in the world are morons who do not reflect sufficiently on their actions (if that’s close enough to what you’re saying).