Strong upvoted, due to sheer-quality-of-discussion reasons, not agreement.
I disagree that galaxy-brained legal writing and cultural strength is sufficient to survive changing technological eras, even for such schelling points as constitutions; the 4th amendment (“right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”) is effectively not enforced on massive non-consensual human manipulation research not because the law applied to legal searches over military searches, but because technological and political changes effectively made it unenforceable, pulling the rug out from underneath the constitution. The people won’t rally against the NSA because the NSA is overwhelmingly well-positioned to persuade them all that such thinking is something that only low-status people do. Culture is also no longer sufficient because, like legal documents, humans gained more than enough understanding and capabilities to subvert it.
These exact same capabilities will inescapably bury the cultural sovereignty/consistency all of Islam, unless countries start banning computers North Korea-style, due to the de-facto power wielded by hackers and the data scientists who make up the mass surveillance apparatus. And I’m not sure that even that is possible, since the US and China are competing to arm middle eastern regimes with these sorts of capabilities. We need something else entirely, like augmented humans, that changes too quickly for the researchers and subverters to tighten the noose around. Hence why I keep insisting on people like Valentine being the ones to try, as the AI policy community in DC is too slow (possibly even in deadlock) and need assistance from the massive reserves of optimization power currently living in the Bay Area.
I can see this kind of funky-angle finding mental processes yielding valuable insights and results for AI policy. It should probably take multiple attempts; your work inspired me to buy Downing’s Calculus The Easy Way so I can learn real calculus instead of the standard shorthand, and I cracked it open this morning, hoping it would go differently from high school, and it sorta didn’t, which was pretty discouraging IMO, but I’m still going to try again on a different day when I’m in a different state of mind.
You might want to check your local community college. They likely offer calculus, at least up to calculus 2. Maybe differential equations. Not only is the class with an instructor that you can interact with useful, but they might have some sort of math lab. I worked for 3-4 years as a math lab tutor while in college. I was basically one of several tutors whose whole job was to provide supplementary instruction. They may even allow non-students.
A good teacher/tutor will be able to try multiple ways of explaining a concept, tailored to your questions. It is also quite valuable connecting with peers that are at your level who are trying to make sense of the same new concept as you.
I’m sure that there are online communities too. Anyways, if that book isn’t working for you, others or other forms of learning might work better.
Oops, I forgot about base rates and the psychological effect of repeat exposure to base rate people on LW users.
It wasn’t that I was having a hard time learning, it was that I wasn’t having fun because it felt too much like my experience being force-fed math in the K-12 education system. I’m bad at mental calculations but good at learning and applying and the textbooks were always adequate but never fun.
Strong upvoted, due to sheer-quality-of-discussion reasons, not agreement.
I disagree that galaxy-brained legal writing and cultural strength is sufficient to survive changing technological eras, even for such schelling points as constitutions; the 4th amendment (“right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”) is effectively not enforced on massive non-consensual human manipulation research not because the law applied to legal searches over military searches, but because technological and political changes effectively made it unenforceable, pulling the rug out from underneath the constitution. The people won’t rally against the NSA because the NSA is overwhelmingly well-positioned to persuade them all that such thinking is something that only low-status people do. Culture is also no longer sufficient because, like legal documents, humans gained more than enough understanding and capabilities to subvert it.
These exact same capabilities will inescapably bury the cultural sovereignty/consistency all of Islam, unless countries start banning computers North Korea-style, due to the de-facto power wielded by hackers and the data scientists who make up the mass surveillance apparatus. And I’m not sure that even that is possible, since the US and China are competing to arm middle eastern regimes with these sorts of capabilities. We need something else entirely, like augmented humans, that changes too quickly for the researchers and subverters to tighten the noose around. Hence why I keep insisting on people like Valentine being the ones to try, as the AI policy community in DC is too slow (possibly even in deadlock) and need assistance from the massive reserves of optimization power currently living in the Bay Area.
I can see this kind of funky-angle finding mental processes yielding valuable insights and results for AI policy. It should probably take multiple attempts; your work inspired me to buy Downing’s Calculus The Easy Way so I can learn real calculus instead of the standard shorthand, and I cracked it open this morning, hoping it would go differently from high school, and it sorta didn’t, which was pretty discouraging IMO, but I’m still going to try again on a different day when I’m in a different state of mind.
You might want to check your local community college. They likely offer calculus, at least up to calculus 2. Maybe differential equations. Not only is the class with an instructor that you can interact with useful, but they might have some sort of math lab. I worked for 3-4 years as a math lab tutor while in college. I was basically one of several tutors whose whole job was to provide supplementary instruction. They may even allow non-students.
A good teacher/tutor will be able to try multiple ways of explaining a concept, tailored to your questions. It is also quite valuable connecting with peers that are at your level who are trying to make sense of the same new concept as you.
I’m sure that there are online communities too. Anyways, if that book isn’t working for you, others or other forms of learning might work better.
Oops, I forgot about base rates and the psychological effect of repeat exposure to base rate people on LW users.
It wasn’t that I was having a hard time learning, it was that I wasn’t having fun because it felt too much like my experience being force-fed math in the K-12 education system. I’m bad at mental calculations but good at learning and applying and the textbooks were always adequate but never fun.