Aurini

Karma: 141

The Dark Arts—Preamble

Aurini11 Oct 2010 14:01 UTC

60 points

140 comments6 min readLW link

Aurini 11 May 2012 16:20 UTC
50 points
on: [Error communicating with LW2 server]
I was too much of an asshole; here it is in comment form.

I’m taking a 24 hour break, thom. I was over worked up, and I let it spill into this comment thread, overreacting to what people said.

I’ve probably acted like a jerk. not completely devoid of purpose, but a jerk nonetheless. I’d like to apologize for all of that. I had no call to be so rude to all of you.

Gah. I suppose I should repost this to the top.

Aurini 21 Jan 2010 3:57 UTC
44 points
in reply to: arundelo’s comment on: That Magical Click
During my military radio ops course, I realized that the woman teaching us about different frequencies literally thought that ‘higher’ frequencies were higher off the ground. Like you, I found her explanations deeply confusing, though I suspect most of the other candidates would have said it made sense. (Despite being false, this theory was good enough to enable radio operations—though presumably not engineering).

Thankfully I already had a decent founding in EM, otherwise I would have yet more cached garbage to clear—sometimes it’s worse than finding the duplicate mp3s in my music library.

Aurini 5 Sep 2009 9:17 UTC
26 points
in reply to: swestrup’s comment on: The Sword of Good
Huh; I thought my browser had failed, and this post hadn’t appeared. Anyway...

There’s an old army saying: “Being in the army ruins action movies for you.” I feel the same way about ‘scifi’ - Aside from season 3, every episode of Torchwood (that I’ve recently started watching, now that I finished Sopranos) is driving me up the wall. I propose a corollary saying:

“Understanding philosophical materialism and the implications thereof ruins 99% of Science Fiction… and don’t get me started on Fantasy!”

In my opinion, there are three essential rules to Fantasy:
1. The protagonist is a priori important; by their very nature they have metaphysical relevance (even though they don’t know it yet!). All other characters are living their rightful and deserved life, unless they are below their means with a Heart of Gold.
2. The scientific method (hypothesis, experiment, conclusion, theory) only works in the immediate sense, not the broad sense; your immediate world will be logical, but the world as a whole is incomprehensible. You can only build machines if a) they already exist; or b) they serve no practical purpose. Magic, on the other hand, generally works as intended; the human will guides it, and can only be countervened by another magical authority (a navigation spell will not require knowledge of the local plant life, nor will it require accurate grid coordinates given a non-simultaneous Relativistic geometry).::If magic doesn’t work as the protagonists intend, it will be working under a higher moral power.
3. There is an abstract and absolute division between Right and Wrong; somebody is keeping score, and no actions are hidden. Your evil acts might escape the notice of the local authorities, but they will show through by your bearing, your beauty, or your image.
Heh, this might be worth a top level post except tvtropes has covered it all already.

Aurini 13 Aug 2009 21:10 UTC
22 points
0
in reply to: SilasBarta’s comment on: Would Your Real Preferences Please Stand Up?
I used to have a mild case of OCD.

Let’s say I cracked my first knuckle. Well, of course I’m going to crack the other three to balance things out. But then I mess up—my ring finger is only 70% cracked. I can feel it in the joint, a sort of localized anxiety (sort of like an itch, or a joint that needs stretching, but it’s a purely psychological irritation). Obviously I can’t 30% crack my knuckle—that’s no different than moving the finger. So I have to over crack it, up to 130%, and then follow up with the other three fingers.

But now I”ve hit a problem—I’ve cracked each finger twice, that’s not a good number. Things feel worse than they did before the crack. I’d better square things out, so that each finger has been cracked four times—that’s a good number. But now my right hand is bothering me, so to even it out I crack each finger there four times. And… oh, what the hell. We’ll crack each finger sixteen times. That’s 2^8 * 2^4 - gorgeous. I mean, just look at that notation! How much prettier could you want it to be?

Everything’s fine until next time I need to crack something… shudder

I eventually forced myself to stop doing this during my last years of High School. It was ridiculous, and I knew it, but each time I encountered it I’d have that itch. But I forced myself to ignore it, the same way you can’t scratch your nose while you’re on stage, and eventually I broke the habit. But even thinking about it now makes me want to do something that’s exponentially symmetrical...

NO! NO, I WON’T GIVE INTO YOU OCD!

;)

Aurini 23 Nov 2010 23:04 UTC
20 points
in reply to: JGWeissman’s comment on: Yes, a blog.
The anti-wikipedia bias has shifted from being a pretentious hold-over from the “I spent 8 years learning the names of the relevant sources in my field” to an outright cognitive bias held by the uneducated “Where’d you get that fact—wikipedia? - in that case, I’m allowed to ignore your argument. I get my facts from talk radio.”

Aurini 15 Mar 2012 6:01 UTC
17 points
in reply to: pedanterrific’s comment on: I’ve had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions
I know way too much about this stuff.

Bestiality is simply having sex with animals. Zoophilia is having romantic, sexual relationships with animals.

I fail to see a problem with either.

Aurini 11 May 2012 16:11 UTC
16 points
in reply to: thomblake’s comment on: [Error communicating with LW2 server]
Delete: hopefully nobody saw that.

I’m taking a 24 hour break, thom. I was over worked up, and I let it spill into this comment thread, overreacting to what people said.

I’ve probably acted like a jerk. not completely devoid of purpose, but a jerk nonetheless. I’d like to apologize for all of that. I had no call to be so rude to all of youl

Gah. I suppose I should repost this to the top.

Aurini 30 Mar 2009 0:11 UTC
15 points
on: Akrasia, hyperbolic discounting, and picoeconomics
This reminds me of a webcomic, where the author justifies his lack of self improvement, and his continual sucking at life:

“Pfft. I’ll let Future Scott deal with it. That guy’s a dick!”

http://kol.coldfront.net/comic/ (No perma-link; it’s comic 192, if new one’s been posted since I wrote this.)

When dealing with your future self there’s an economic balancing act at play, because Future Self’s values will inevitable shift. On the extreme side, if Omega had told Aurini′1989 that if he saves his $10 for ten years, it will grow to the point where he can buy every Ninja Turtle action figure out there, Aurini′1989 would have said, “Yes, but Aurini′1999 won’t want Ninja Turtles anymore—however, he will likely value the memory of having played with Ninja Turtles.” To hold the Future Self completely hostage to the desires of the present makes as little sense as holding the Present Self hostage to the desires of the future.

It breaks down to a tactical problem (which units do you build first in Civ 4?); I’m glad I spent money on that beer five years ago, because I still find value in the memory. What makes the problem difficult to solve is our fuzzy perceptions. First there’s the issue of scope intensity; none of our senses are calibrated, including our sense of time. But there’s also the issue of inconsistency of self. The 8 AM self which desires to be left alone to drink his coffee and read a book is a wildly different person than the 10 PM self hopped up on whiskey and telling the bartender how it really is.

The first problem is easy enough to correct for, you don’t even need to be trained in rationality to accomplish this. Most people, if given the offer X period of suffering for Y period of benefit, will be able to make a cost/benefit analysis as to whether it is a good deal or not.* Aurini′2001 made this calculation when he joined the army. The numbers are fuzzy, but they’re not inestimable. Furthermore, statistical studies (such as education level vs long-term earnings) can be used to bolster these calculations.

The real nut of the problem is the inconsistentcy of the self. We are wildly different people from moment to moment, regardless of a relatively consistent average over time. We are our values (apologies—I can’t find who wrote the original post on this topic). We all have a number of ad hoc techniques we use to stay true to our primary goals, but I’m not sure what the broader solution would be.

I guess what I’m saying is that it isn’t so much irrationality that causes you to stay up all night reading, instead of getting a good night’s sleep. When we consider choices that aren’t immediate, most people can make accurate judgements based upon the information they have. The bigger problem is how rapidly our values shift on minutiae. It’s not just that the morning is relatively further away from now, than one month vs a month and a day—the bigger problem is that there’s more personal variance between those times.

*Regarding the googleplex of dust motes vs a lifetime of torture dilemma: I think the scope intensity fail which occurred there is because a lifetime of torture could reasonably be expected to destroy the self; if it had been a week of torture, most people would volunteer, I think. It was an inability to empathize with a googleplex as opposed to an individual.
What links here?
- Vaniver's comment on Rationalists don’t care about the future by PhilGoetz (17 May 2011 12:34 UTC; 1 point)

Aurini 12 Aug 2010 6:57 UTC
14 points
on: Welcome to Less Wrong! (2010-2011)
Well, I never did get around to introducing myself in the original thread, so I might as well post something here.

I spent six years as an infantry soldier, did most of a History degree before dropping out in disgust, have a Post Apocalyptic scifi novel currently in negotiations with a publisher, I used to be a math prodigy but now I can barely remember Calculus, taught myself auto mechanics over the period of one month after buying a car for a pack of cigarettes, I ride a motorcycle, I have some sort of mutant ability to talk cops down when they start feeling violent, and am drastically over skilled and under employed.

I’m hoping to contribute to the community more substantially than just leaving comments; I have a couple of posts I’m working out in my head. The first is a summary of TVTropes—what it is and why it’s important—the other being a guide to using the Dark Arts.

I really regret my math not being up to par for this community; I tend to understand things on a gut/instinctual level (ie: I can catch a ball, but have trouble calculating the trajectory) but my math’s too rusty to ‘prove’ most of my ideas.

Despite a deep-seated desire for it to be otherwise, I dwell in the banker-run metropolis of Calgary, Alberta.

Also, I have a blog where I write about how Vile and Unconscionable it is, living in this dystopia: www.staresattheworld.com

Aurini 11 May 2012 13:41 UTC
13 points
in reply to: Emile’s comment on: [Error communicating with LW2 server]
Is there an upvote for “written and video forms are different”?

I do both, you know; but with something as ballsy as admitting race realism, I wanted to do it face first and in speech. Technichally I broke the law in Canada by posting this video; I at least want my face showing while I do it.

Aurini 3 Oct 2009 22:42 UTC
13 points
in reply to: DanArmak’s comment on: When Willpower Attacks
If they actually developed a will-power drug, can you imagine how fast the legislatures would move to ban it? Within the first months you’d have dieters and athletes dying, college kids cramming for eighteen hours, and working class ‘victims’ who chose to slave away at their crummy jobs (which they’re already doing with meth amphetamine addiction).

Still, it might wake people up to realize what a brain is exactly.

Aurini 21 Jul 2009 4:44 UTC
13 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Are You Anosognosic?
You just gave me the idea for a brilliant prank...

Aurini 22 Feb 2011 20:27 UTC
12 points
on: Research methods
“It doesn’t feel planned.”

This made me think of a noteworthy corollary: airport control towers.

In the United States air traffic control is heavily regulated, and as a consequence the technology used is straight out of the 1970s—moving about little scraps of paper. In Canada, on the other hand (apparently we’re more economically free than the US? http://www.heritage.org/index/ ) there is less regulation, and the entire process is computerized.

For those of you who watch Breaking Bad, the disaster at the end of Season 3 probably wouldn’t have happened if the US adopted a similar system.

I think that ‘planned’ is a fallacy; systems as complex as Hospitals and Airports resist central planning, allowing the troops with their feet on the ground to design their own solutions often leads to a better result. I’m reminded of the time I worked at Bell Mobility’s Engineering dept—the only rule I had to follow, expenses wise, was “You cost the company twice what you’re paid per hour—if hiring outside is more efficient, go ahead and do it.” The entire office was loose and deregulated, and gosh darn, did we ever get things done!

Distributed decision making will occasionally result in 100 different researchers using $12.50/hour temps when pooling their resources would give them a computer programmer for less, but the hours spent in coordination would be expensive. On the other hand, the inefficient paper/electronic organization you bring up feels like the hallmark of over-regulation.

To quote Robbie Hanson, “Coordination is hard!”

Aurini 27 Nov 2010 22:39 UTC
12 points
in reply to: Carinthium’s comment on: Traditional Capitalist Values
Not capitalism—neo-colonialims, or American imperialism, or Corporate Welfare & the Military Industrial complex or whatever you want to call it. During the Cold War, part of the CIA’s containment strategy invovled the Americans toppling any government which didn’t do what they said—democractically elected or otherwise—and replacing them with leaders of convenience.

This is what put Iraq into Saddam’s hands; this is how Iran got turned into a Theocracy.

They’re angry at the US for subversively undermining their governments, for their own political ends, or to provide contracts to Haliburton—you notice that right now it’s mainly Western Companies profitting off of the Iraq oil? Usually the same companies that are profitting off of the war itself. However, these legitimate grievances against the US are hard to explain to somebody without an understanding of history. There’s a general sense that the US is to blame—and though their actions might have been justified by the Soviet Threat, it doesn’t change the fact that they were the agents—but most of them are too damned stupid to understand what this means.

So they settle for “The US is powerful, and non-muslim—ALLAH ACKBAR, DERP DERP!”

Aurini 19 Mar 2009 14:29 UTC
12 points
on: Closet survey #1
I’ve had a bone to pick with Yudkowski* ever since reading Three Worlds Collide. I haven’t gathered all of my thoughts yet, or put them in a proper essay, but since you asked, here’s a quick synopsis (paraphrasing Clausewitz).

I think people nowadays overestimate the value of human life. Generally speaking, we ain’t worth that much—and up until about four-hundred years ago, killing each other was our primary source of entertainment.

As long as we have individuals, conflict is inevitable; and a society where the conflict’s extremes have been narrowed down to nothing but sassy comments and politicking, well… that seems like a pretty boring place to live.

Speaking from experience, yelling at people solves a lot of problems. And I know a few individuals whom would be much less of a trainwreck if they’d been given the punch in the face they deserved. I think we’ve got no call to be judging the Baby Eaters for their biology—anymore than the Orgasmiums have for judging us. Misery can be just as much fun, if you approach it with the proper mindset, and I think HBO Rome does a brilliant job of describing a society with more reasonable standards. At the end of the day, it beats playing checkers, doesn’t it?

:-) Just look at our entertainment—we love a protagonist who suffers.

*It’s a very small bone. A chicken bone, really.

Aurini 12 Oct 2010 1:51 UTC
11 points
in reply to: Relsqui’s comment on: The Dark Arts—Preamble
Clarification: if you walk into the leather shop, with $300 burning a hole in your pocket, and see a nice jacket—and the guy behind the counter knows what he’s doing (and gives enough of a shit) you will walk out of their, happy with your new jacket.

Saying there’s no defense whatsoever was a bit of an exagerration; it’s true that some people are more resistant than others (though not infinitely resistant), but even if you’re weak you can always avoid the situations in the first place.

Having a blanket policy of “I don’t do anything at the door” is highly effective.

It’s sort of like a bullet; you can’t resist it, but you can avoid it [assuming for the sake of analogy you ignore kevlar].

You know what? I will write a piece on defence, once I’m done with the other pieces in the series. Hopefully what I was trying to convey will be clearer at that point.

As for my purpose − 1) it’s fun; this is stuff I’ve thought a lot about, and the community here is smart enough to understand it, 2) I get LW points and ego validation for writing it, and 3) the information’s already out there, I figure it might as well be in the hands of the Good Guys.

Aurini 19 Jun 2010 17:11 UTC
11 points
on: Surface syllogisms and the sin-based model of causation
I think the difference here is negligence—BP was (allegedly—p>0.7) negligent in its maintenance, which caused this oil spill. Anybody suffering because of this negligence—such as the fishers you mention—are entitled to compensation if the negligence can be proved.

Other oil workers are a different boat however, and I think the breakdown in logic is this:

“The oil spill caused a ban on drilling.”

No—the government caused a ban on drilling. Maybe the disaster served as a wake-up call that the old regulatory regime was inadequate, though it’s more likely that the government is simply knee-jerking to look useful. But whichever is true, this doesn’t fall back on BP.

For example: if a highway gets shut down after a bad accident, it doesn’t matter if A)the road was unsafe and needs a redesign anyway, or B)the driver who caused the accident was unsafe and the government is overreacting—either way nobody in the trucking industry gets compensation. And nobody would expect them to.

The difference here is that “The oil spill caused a ban on drilling” is a seductive concept for three main reasons: most people trust government (they don’t view it as the mindless amoral bureaucracy it actually is), most people are feeling financially desperate right now (doesn’t matter whether they get the payola or not, as long as somebody does it’s comforting), and thirdly there’s the whole ‘oil companies are evil, ummmkay?’ bias colouring their perceptions.

Basically it boils down to plain old tribalism—the oil drillers are good ole’ working boys, while the oil company is a bunch of evil outsider despots.

~sigh~ How’s that fertility-eugenics tech coming along?

Aurini 2 Jun 2010 4:43 UTC
10 points
on: Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease
“But the most convincing explanation I have read for why so many people are opposed to medical solutions for social conditions is a signaling explanation by Robin Hans...wait! no!...by Katja Grace.”

Yeah! The hell with that Robin Hanson guy! He’s nothing but a signaller trying to signal that he’s better than signalling by talking about signals!

I am so TOTALLY not like that.

;)

Great article, by the way; I just can’t resist metahumour though.

I recently wrote a blog article arguing that 95% of psychology and psychiatry is snake-oil and pseudoscience; primarily I was directing my ire at the incoherency of much of it, but I had the implicit premise of dismissing the types of ‘conditions’ you wrote about as pathologizing the mundane.

While on the one hand, I object to much of classifying these conditions as such—if the government ever manages to mindprobe me I know they’ll classify me as an alcoholic paranoid with schizoid tendencies (something that I see nothing wrong with), you present a powerful argument of “Hey, if it works, what’s wrong with that?” (The day they invent a workout pill, is the day I stop going for bloody stupid jogs.)

I’d wager that most people here are contrarian thinkers to some degree—that they’re distrustful of over-diagnosis, over-medication, etc—but I’d also guess that your stance is something most of us do agree with, and it’s important to segregate the “Psychology isn’t founded upon empirical data” argument from the “Brain Pills violate the nobility of the human condition” argument.

I plan to amend my blog post with your excellent distillation.

Aurini 21 Jul 2009 5:26 UTC
10 points
on: Shut Up And Guess
This… absolutely sickens me. It’s bad enough when I hear my family members argue morals/politics/economics that they subscribe to for proximate lifestyle purposes—but when University students pull this, and then ignore the eminent Yvain when he councils them otherwise?

My only comforts are the harsh cold truth of schadenfreude, that such beings don’t deserve an extra 5%, and that at least I only wasted three years and $20 000 at post-secondary.*

*(My degree was non-technical; Humanities students who don’t want a PhD should drop out in second year, spend a year reading, and then lie on their resume.)

P.S. Excellent break down of the reasoning process, Yvain. I think you hit the nail on the head.