Thank you
Valdes
Karma: 130
As I understand it, that point feels wrong to me. There are many things that I would be sad not to have in my life but only on the vaguely long term and that are easy to replace quickly. I have only one fridge and I would probably be somewhat miserable without one (or maybe I could adapt), but it would be absurd for me to buy a second one.
I would say most of the things that I would be sad to miss and that are easy to duplicate are also easy to replace quickly. The main exception is probably data, which should indeed be backed up regularly and safely.
Could you link a source for the once a week coffee? I am intrigued.
I did not yet read your recommendations so I don’t know if the answer is there.
I read the rewrites before I read the corresponding section of the post and, without knowing the context, I find Richard’s first rewrite to be the most intuitive permutation of the three. I fully expect that this will stop once I read the post, but I thought that my particular perspective of having read the rewrites first might be relevant.
Adapted from the french “j’envisage que X” I propose “I am considering the possibility that X” or in some contexts “I am considering X”. “The plumber says it’s fixed, but I am considering he might be wrong”.
I just want to point out that the sentence you replied to starts with an “if”. “If those genes’ role is to alter the way synapses develop in the fastest growth phase, changing them when you’re 30 won’t do anything” (emphasis mine). You described this as “At first you confidently assert that changing genes in the brain won’t do anything to an adult”. The difference is important. This is in no way a comment on the object level debate. I simply think Lesswrong is a place where hypotheticals are useful and that debates will be poorer if people cannot rely on the safety that saying “if A then B” will not be interpreted as just saying “B”.
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Makes sense and I think that’s wise (you could also think about it with other people during that time). Do you want to expand on the game-theoretic reasons?
You did, indeed, fuck up so hard that you don’t get to hang out with the other ancestor simulations, and even though I have infinite energy I’m not giving you a personal high resolution paradise simulation. I’m gonna give you a chill, mediocre but serviceable sim-world that is good enough to give you space to think and reflect and decide what you want.
And you don’t get to have all the things you want until you’ve somehow processed why that isn’t okay, and actually learned to be better.
I was with you until this part. Why would you coerce Hitler into thinking like you do about morality? Why be cruel to him by forcing him into a mediocre environment? I suppose there might be game-theoristic reasons for this. But if that’s not where you’re coming from then I would say you’re still letting the fact that you dislike a human being make you degrade his living conditions in a way that benefits no one.
I think this shows your “universal love” extends to “don’t seek the suffering of others” but not to “the only reason to hurt* someone is if it benefits someone else”.
* : In the sense of “doing something that goes against their interests”.
When I downvote a comment it is basically never because I want the author to delete that comment. I rarely downvote comments already bellow 0, but even when I do it is not because I wish the comment was deleted. Instead, it mostly means that I dislike the way in which that comment was written and thought out; that I don’t want people to have that style / approach when commenting. This correlates with me disagreeing with the position, but not strongly so; and I try to keep my opinions about the object topic to the agree/disagree voting.
I don’t know how representative I am of the Lesswrong population in that regard, but I at least think most people who downvote a comment would prefer for it to stay undeleted; if only to make past discussions legilible.
I took the survey and mostly enjoyed it. There are some questions that I skipped because my answer would be too specific and I wanted to keep the ability to speak about them without breaking anonymity.
I also skipped some questions because I wasn’t sure how to interpret certain words.
I don’t have much to add. But I think this is a very well done post, that it has a nice size in scope, and that it is about a good and useful concept.
Why not make it so there is a box “ask me before allowing other participants to publish” that is unchecked by default?
Thank you for your work. I am often amazed by the effort you pour in your regular posting, and I see you as among the highest value contributors to LW.
Two minor nitpicks:
As opposed to, as Solana states here, saying ‘e/acc is not a cult [....] technologically progressive meme.’
Maybe format this part like other quotations? I was confused for a second there.
Memes do not declare anyone who disagrees with them on anything as enemies, who they continuously attack ad hominem, describe as being in cults and demand everyone treat as criminals. Memes do not demand people declare which side people are on. Memes do not put badges of loyalty into their bios. Memes do not write multiple manifestos. Memes do not have, as Roon observes, persecution complexes.
Meh. Groups of people sharing a common meme certainly do all these things. I see little point in arguing the precise semantics of “movement” and I do not particularly think Solana’s message is honest. But I would like to register that I don’t see any intrisic contradiction in “X is a rare meme that turns those who integrate it to their thinking into rude unthinking fanatics, but it did not create a movement yet”.
I think this somehow misses the crux for the problem of induction. By redefining “justification” (and your definition is reasonnable), you get to speak of partially justifying a general statement that has not yet been fully observed. Sure.
But this doesn’t solve the question. The question, in your example, would be closer to “On what basis can I, having seen a large number of swans being white, consider it now more likely that the next swan I see will be white”?
I think it already exists to some extent, at least in France. We have “leboncoin” which I think is similar to Craigslist. Many offers are very cheap and the software is decent, though not great. The giver has to deal with the hassle of taking pictures, making a public offer, and then coordinating with the taker; so in exchange the taker gives them a token amount of money. Seems fair. I truly think that many offers on leboncoin are put there because people want others to benefit from what they no longer need. I also think I saw some offers in the past that were fully free (listed for 1 euro, with a comment saying they are free).
You say
Did craigslist pave the way despite becoming a cesspool of overly expensive crap and deceptively listed ‘$1’ ads for businesses, that require you to drive 8 miles to pick it up while someone side-eyes you suspiciously from their driveway and waits for the venmo to go through?
But my experience with leboncoin in France has always been about nice people and polite conversations. Maybe there is a cultural difference?
I sometimes think that it would be great to have a more comprehensive system to facilitate giving and reusing all kinds of things across society. It would notably be great to have a system that handles storage until a taker is found, pickup/delivery, quality check, and cleaning in exchange for a small fee. We also have that in France for furniture, it is called Emaus. You give your couch to the charity, they clean it and ensure it is in decent shape (I think they do bedbug screening) then they put it up for sale and deliver it, all for a very reasonable price. In addition it even provides jobs for people in need who might often be “noncompetitive” and unlikely to find jobs otherwise. Emaus is a charity, so they don’t care: the jobs are part of the goal. Their website is quite bad, there is no accessible database of items on offer and they don’t even do a good job at clarifying their services and policies. So you need to go there and see for yourself. Why don’t they have a good website/app? I don’t know but I can guess. Not a priority, their volunteers are often old and don’t know how to code, it would take more work for each donation if they had to populate a database, everything gets sold eventually so they think better software would change nothing.
In short: Craigslist/leboncoin is already decent software for donations where you pay the donor a few bucks for taking the time to organize the donation, and people use that software to that end. Maybe there would be benefits to an app that only organizes donations and nothing else, but the gain seems minimal. It would make sense to have a third party simplify the logistic for a fee, and that has been done for expensive items (couchs). For it to work with smaller stuff you would probably need some economy of scale, so it might be harder to make it work. Maybe there is an opportunity there. You certainly would need good software: I might go to Emaus to see if they have a nice couch, but I won’t go for a blanket if I cannot check in advance that they have a nice one.
This looks interesting. I will come back to this post later and read it if the math displays properly.
I have become less sceptic about the ability of western government to act and solve issues in a reasonable timeframe. In general, I tend to think political actions are doomed and are mostly only able to let the statu quo evolve by itself. But recent relatively fast reactions to the evolution of mainstream AI tools have led me to think that I am too cynical on this. I do not know what to think instead, but I am now less confident in my old opinion.
Here is a description of that metaphor, for those who don’t know.
For anyone wondering TMI almost certainly stands for “The Mind Illuminated”; a book by John Yates, Matthew Immergut, and Jeremy Graves . Full title: The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness