I like this game, but you’ve got to make it interesting. In that vein, here’s mine:
1) Eliezer once wrote an Overcoming Bias post where he said something like “Make one little mistake in a whole long chain of inferences, and you end up in Outer Mongolia.” The first time I read this post was from a webcafe in Outer Mongolia.
2) I have pet several full-grown tigers, and one of them almost fell asleep on my lap.
3) I once broke up with a girl partly because she was a deontologist.
4) One of my school teachers once accused me, in all seriousness, of being a witch. Not witch as in “Wiccan”, but witch as in “has magic powers and consorts with the devil”.
5) I was given a blessing by a Tibetan lama in the mountains of Nepal.
When you’re reasoning out new knowledge in the absence of crushingly overwhelming guidance, you can miss one point and wake up in Outer Mongolia fifty steps later.
If we’re being strict then #1. Though the name’s still informally used to refer to Mongolia, there’s really been no such place as Outer Mongolia during any period of history in which it’s likely to have contained a webcafe.
If we’re not then I’d guess #2, as your favorite David Berman thought experiment involves clearly and distinctly imagining tigers.
I like this game, but you’ve got to make it interesting. In that vein, here’s mine:
1) Eliezer once wrote an Overcoming Bias post where he said something like “Make one little mistake in a whole long chain of inferences, and you end up in Outer Mongolia.” The first time I read this post was from a webcafe in Outer Mongolia.
2) I have pet several full-grown tigers, and one of them almost fell asleep on my lap.
3) I once broke up with a girl partly because she was a deontologist.
4) One of my school teachers once accused me, in all seriousness, of being a witch. Not witch as in “Wiccan”, but witch as in “has magic powers and consorts with the devil”.
5) I was given a blessing by a Tibetan lama in the mountains of Nepal.
Gur snyfrubbq vf guerr.
Ahzore bar vf gehr; V jnf va Nfvn ng gur gvzr, nyjnlf jnagrq gb frr Zbatbyvn, naq fcrag gur jrrx va Hyna Ongne naq fheebhaqvatf.
Ahzore gjb vf nyfb gehr: frr uggc://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Gvtre_Grzcyr.
Ahzore guerr vf snyfr: V qvq tb ba BXPhcvq, frr fbzrbar jub fnvq va ure cebsvyr gung fur jnf n qrbagbybtvfg, naq guvax “Vg’q arire jbex”, ohg gung’f nf sne nf V’ir tbggra.
Ahzore sbhe vf gehr; vg jnf n penml byq ernyyl eryvtvbhf fhofgvghgr grnpure jub fgnegrq bss trarenyyl pbaqrzavat jvgpupensg, V qrpvqrq gb nethr jvgu uvz orpnhfr V nz trarenyyl nethzragngvir, naq uvf penmvarff qvq gur erfg.
Ahzore svir vf gehr: frr uggc://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Gratobpur
-- Do Scientists Already Know This Stuff?, Eliezer Yudkowsky, May 16, 2008
If we’re being strict then #1. Though the name’s still informally used to refer to Mongolia, there’s really been no such place as Outer Mongolia during any period of history in which it’s likely to have contained a webcafe.
If we’re not then I’d guess #2, as your favorite David Berman thought experiment involves clearly and distinctly imagining tigers.
1.
Well I read 2 at first as “I have several pet tigers” and I definitely would’ve guessed that was the lie! I still guess 2.
del