Sci fi

Why is it that individuals in sci fi who engineer immortality are bad guys in sci fi, while people who just extend life by saving people from death are heros.

Compared to saving people or medical science, engineering immortality is just a more complete solution to the problem of death.

Unmovable emotional state

Sometimes I get into a completely unmovable rather stoic emotional state. I'm in it right now. I don't feel the emotion that the Alias show is attempting to convey. Even watching porn doesn't do anything. Usually porn will have some sort of an effect. Actually physically interacting with another person naked would probably be enough to take an effect, but it would take at least that much.

Why women demand monogamy

From an evolutionary biology perspective, men demand monogamy because they need to be sure that their mate's children are actually their own. But, why do women also demand monogamy? Women want a full time protector. A man will naturally act as protector to his biological offspring and their caretaker. The woman wants a man who will pay attention to her and her children more than anyone else. If she can ensure that she is the only one baring young to the man, she will get most of the attention. So, she doesn't want him impregnating others.

Why girls naturally want more than sex and what to do about it

A man only needs sex to be happy. In contrast, a woman needs to have some guarantee that the man either has good genes or will take care of her in order to be happy. Nature has evolved our brains to interpret sex as the woman giving access to her reproductive ability. (These days she's not really doing that, but our brains are sill wired to consider it.) So, sex is always a good thing for the guy in his mind, always a chance to reproduce. It's not always good for a girl in her mind, unless it's with a person who either has good genes or is likely to provide. Most women use traits such as body form, body posture, body language, indications of confidence, humor, verbal and physical connections to others, or proficiency with some skill in order to determine if they guy has genetics that she wants. Body posture and indications of confidence, happiness, and connection to others seem to be some of the biggest attractors.

Considering all this, it's a mistake to think that having sex is just an enjoyable thing, equal for the man and the woman. For the man it's simply enjoyable. For the woman, her own mind will try to signal her that she's doing something wrong (or has done something wrong) if the man is either not likely a provider or doesn't have all characteristics that she wants. Considering that women often want an ideal, they probably have to deal with this built self criticism quite a bit. They're always on the search for a man with whom they can have sex and not feel regret. Because in nature, apparently the women who were careful about who they had sex with were more successful.

The practical consequence is that a man should continually convey confidence, happiness, and connection to others in order to continually attract a woman or women. And, he should continue to be a source of fun and a source of emotional support, so that she will continue to enjoy having sex without any doubts afterward. Although the physical pleasure of sex is always present, she doesn't want to deal with regret. And, the way to reduce the regret she predicts she will have is to convey and provide the aforementioned items, confidence, happiness, connection.

How to talk to women

Talking to women is polite interrogation. Not about what you are thinking, but about what she is thinking and what she cares about. Anything she mentions becomes a point that can explored further. The critical action on your part is to ask open ended questions. For example, if she mentions peanuts, you get the story on peanuts. You ask something like "how did you get into peanuts." It's a question that barely makes sense, but it's open to discussion. A question like "do you like roasted nuts" is not open ended and might just end with yes or no.

There are many videos on youtube (such as below) and many webpages that explain this.
Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnFsK_Clfgo

Belief threshold

There's a setting in people's brain, probably hard-wired, that is the amount of evidence a person need classify a concept as "real." People with a low setting tend to believe a lot of stuff that isn't true. People with a high setting are less likely to believe anything. Evolution determined approximately how to set this to maximize survival and reproduction, but there are still various people with various settings. I think my setting is jacked abnormally high, maybe too high, so that even if I desire to to accept something as true, I cannot, unless there's plenty of evidence.

Artificial intelligence applied to real and imaginary

Just keeping track of real vs. imaginary could get pretty complicated. Real things are the ones with sufficient evidence. Imaginary ones don't require evidence. We usually make the distiction very naturally because we already have a brain that does it well, but an artificial system that detects the distinction would need to be pretty complex.

Imaginary

The physical brain with its dynamics is a place where the imaginary is real. Real activity and real physical structure

Real body swap

I just heard a story about a guy becoming an insect. Suppose a soul is an indivisible and indestructable nonphysical item, like a magic atom, that brings life and continuity to human body. If that were true, to make a body swap happen, you just swap souls. But, a soul is only a concept. A good body swap would require a central nervous system swap. There isn't enough room in an insect for the central nervous system of a human, so it wouldn't really work. The idea that life is continuous (as a soul is) even to an individual is a perception maintained by the brain's machinery. We keep track of our selves both in a moment and over time. The one place a soul really does exist is in the logical framework of a mind. (Imaginary.) Even people with no religious beliefs keep track of others and themselves with something like a soul concept.

Advice to spy movie characters

When somebody has you tied to a chair, threatening torture, brandishing needles, pliers, etc., that's not the time to spit in their face, cut down their mother, or bring up that thing they are deeply ashamed of. That's when you should become their friend, banter it up, seriously. People in real life have gotten out of being abducted and such by being friendly. No guarantees, but most humans don't want to see you in pain as much if they are having fun hanging out with you.

Plausible deniability for selecting date ideas that will lead to sex

When young woman are dating, they want to maintain the story that they are not going directly after sex. The story they want to maintain is that they are just in situations, one thing leads to another, and sex ends up happening. A plan to have sex is not romantic and less desirable. The want to consider it a temporary lapse in judgement or an irresistible situation, not a choice or a plan. They will put themselves in situations where sex or meeting people for sex is most likely to happen (parties), but they will not respond well to direct invitations to sex or even accept that they are going after sex. It's a pretty thin illusion and they may carry items to make sex safer or whatever with them, knowing somewhere in the back of their mind what can happen.


This thing illusion is why plausible deniability is important when setting up a date with a woman, especially while dating. There should always be a reason for meeting that is plausible other than sex. It should be something that's pretty interesting, engaging, and makes sense. If it's making dinner, then making dinner should be pretty involved and interesting (not just a simple meal like a guy would normally make for himself). If it's watching a movie, the movie watching experience should be involved. The movie should be good. And some communication should happen during the movie. The non-sex event can then transition into sex.


Even after sex has occurred in the relationship, it helps to keep creating plausibly deniable situations for meeting and then transitioning into sex. Just meeting for sex and leaving isn't ideal for a young woman. They do love sex, but they like it much more when it's romantic. Guy's don't really care if it's romantic or not, so they need to consciously consider this.

This is a direct quote from a woman in her early twenties "that's my problem, I spend time alone with guys and then I do bad things." ("Bad" simply meaning sexual in this context.) Note that the quote was all said with a hint of self-criticism but a smile at the same time. She wants to believe that she plans to just hang out and these things just happen. Of course the guys who have sex with her are likely moving rationally (consciously or unconsciously) to the desired point from the moment they first begin speaking to her to the final moment of intercourse. If they operate correctly, the whole experience should feel natural and accidental.

She also wants to believe that she has a so called "wild side" - a mode where she desires to have sex. It's a temporary "side" because a constant state would imply more of a "slutty" idea which she wants to avoid.

Boob is not a muscle

In movies and TV, guys who are fighters have big muscles, which provide the necessary power output. However, women who are masters of hand to hand combat, swordplay, etc., don't have big muscles, they have big boobs instead. Doesn't make any sense. You can't punch somebody out with the power of a boob, it's 80% fat (or possibly silicone) and glands. And, from what I'm told, big boobs can annoyingly flop around while you're engaged in activity like fighting, so they could be a handicap.

Hugs not drugs

My relative attended a grade school where they don't allow the students to hug each other. It sounds like just a silly rule, but I would say it's a fully retarded and destructive rule. Note that this school is geared toward art students & artists so they need all the psychological support they can get. A hug is a valid treatment for mild psychological illness. It really doesn't take a scientific paper to figure this out, although you can probably find them, basically hugs make people happy and depression is a lack of happy. Prozac will activate some kind of happy circuitry, and so will a hug. However the hugs are illegal in the school and Prozac is more accepted. Prozac has 18 common unwanted side effects and you have to pay for it. Hugs are free, and side effects are arguably minimal. I assume some people can get all the hugs they need at home, but really some people can't. It all depends on the family.

Balance of positive and negative when talking to women

I used to make really negative comments to women that I'm meeting and figure that they would see some sort of humor in the criticism. My friends see the humor, women included. However, new people are still in a phase of forming a connection and negative comments can disconnect you.

For example, a woman mentioned a technique on the internet for "getting things done," and I said I wasn't very familiar but maybe saw some comments from the delusional who actually believe in that stuff. This disconnects in two ways, (1) not familiar and (2) criticizing the people who apparently like what she likes. A much better approach would have been to ask her more details about it. Actually, I probably could have learned some interesting stuff by doing that.

Negative can be interesting, but it's less useful when you first meet. You want to have a lot of commonalities, connections, etc. This means that you are connected enough to be having a conversation. Then you can have opposing opinions and such on specific items, but the connection is still in place.

If you are visibly joking with good body language and presentation, it may be possible to make negative comments and have the come off as just entertaining. I consider that an exception. In most cases agreeing and even finding ways to restate and add to (not subject from) what the woman said is the way to go.

How to have a conversation with a woman, current experience

I'm an introvert by nature, so this the topic of how to effectively converse with women is something I think about and read about. Tonight I had a relatively good experience just talking to women at a Salsa club. This is after more than one year of making an effort to develop these skills. I now tend to look at them and ask myself what the story is behind them. You can't ask that directly, but you can ask a question that's more about the current situation, and then move step by step based on her cues to learning more about her whole story. The more comfortable the woman is, the more information she gives you at each step. And, I always prefer to ask open ended rather than yes or no questions. Each piece of information she mentions is a launch point for a whole new chunk of information. So, there's really a lot of stuff to talk about. I've also learned to talk to some women as friends, whether there's any physical attraction or not, as this establishes me (to everyone in the venue) as a person who interacts. Women characterize your personality not just by how you talk to them, but by how you talk to everybody.

To go to a public gathering, meet new people, and enjoy the conversations without much conscious effort - this is an ideal state. I remember a time when I would say pretty much nothing when put in an environment like this. Now it seems that I can begin to glipse at what it would be to really just have fun with people, however I'm not totally there yet. I like the Salsa venues because they give you something to do other than just talking - dancing, which is a great ice breaker - however ultimately the deep connections come out of the talking.

Bluetooth freedom

Tonight I realized that I can talk to myself while walking in public and people will just think I'm using a bluetooth earpiece... freedom.

Computer Science view of talking to new girls at Salsa event

Computer Science view of talking to new girls at Salsa event: You have a life story and she has a life story - those are graphs of information, with nodes and edges. You ask one open ended question and she'll give you one node's description in the graph. By open ended I mean not yes/no - because yes/no is just binary and you only get one bit of information back. Open ended questions like "how did you get into Salsa" typically give you a lot more than a bit. Once you have one node to start with, you can do a depth first search to a common interest node. That is, you ask a question about the first node, which gives you an adjacent node. Then you can ask about that, etc, etc, moving step by step. Once you hit a common interest node, you make that clear by expressing how you share information or opinion about that node. This creates a little connection between your graph and her graph, a new edge. You continue to move from node to node, connecting, adding edges. If a conversation gets deep enough, you might even start adding new nodes to both of your graphs. And if things go well, your graphs end up fairly entangled, with lots of interesting connections. If they don't, you end up with just one or two ephemeral edges connected to her, and they will probably fade with time. Contrast this to talking to a friend. There's a major difference - you've already got edges connecting your graphs to start with. You also have random access - you can go anywhere pretty quickly - rather than step by step, searching and checking, coherently from one node to the next. That freedom and that experience is part of why friendship is so valuable.

The Force

There is a Force of light and dark, like in Star Wars. However, it's an emergent property of all life (an nonliving things). You can't use it directly like they do in the movie, but it operates according to the actions of all involved. You can allow either the dark or light side to affect your actions.

Alien boobs

Alien women probably would not have boobs. Most animals do not (even ones that give milk).

Beauty

Looking at a flower, I wonder why a flower built for a bee is pretty to me also. Maybe there are principles of beauty that are universal. The most basic assumption some might make it that their own concept of beauty is the universal definition and anybody who disagrees is wrong. Next, there are those who are OK with "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - really meaning it's the the brain of the beholder. How much is our brain like a bee brain. It doesn't have to be very similar. Our common ancestor was a little worm that barely had a nervous system. But still, even computer vision systems are beginning to exibit some aspects similar to natural vision systems. So maybe some things just evolve in vision systems, no matter what the species. (Sort of like how eyes are pretty similar in squid and humans even though they evolved separately.) Or, maybe it's no accedent. Humans used to eat a lot of fruit. Maybe nature made us like flowers because they are good indications of fruit. And by the way, I don't mean flowers that look like human private parts, I know exactly why people think those are beautiful, I just mean normal little flowers.