I’m efficient, you have a least effort bias, he’s just lazy.
Bayeslisk
I was slightly late, unfortunately, but filled out the whole thing anyway.
I hadn’t been aware that those five things were so badly tangled up for me. This and another comment here are making me reevaluate my categories for why something should be weighted negatively for me. Let me get back to you when I’ve had a chance to think a little.
Something’s brewing in my brain lately, and I don’t know what. I know that it centers around:
-People were probably born during the Crimean War/US Civil War/The Boxer Rebellion who then died of a heart attack in a skyscraper/passenger plane crash/being caught up in, say WWII.
-Accurate descriptions of people from a decade or two ago tend to seem tasteless. (Casual homophobia) Accurate descriptions of people several decades ago seem awful and bizarre. (Hitting your wife, blatant racism) Accurate descriptions of people from centuries ago seem alien in their flat-out implausible awfulness. (Royalty shitting on the floor at Versailles, the Albigensian Crusade, etc...)
-We seem no less shocked now by social changes and technological developments and no less convinced that everything major under the sun has been done and only tweaks and refinements remain than people of past eras did.
I guess what I’m saying is that the Singularity seems a lot more factually supported-ly likely than it otherwise might have been, but we won’t realize we’re going through it until it’s well underway because our perception of such things will also wind up going faster for most of it.
I filled in the form some time ago.
Can someone explain to me why this exists, and is on the wiki? Not only is it massively dehumanizing, it’s incomplete, and it isn’t even wrong.
I don’t know if this is the LW hug or something but I’m having trouble downloading the xls. Also, will update with what the crap my passphrase actually means, because it’s in Lojban and mildly entertaining IIRC.
EDIT: Felt like looking at some other entertaining passphrases. Included with comment.
sruta’ulor maftitnab {mine! scarf-fox magic-cakes!(probably that kind)}
Afgani-san Azerbai-chan {there… are no words}
do mlatu {a fellow lojbanist!}
lalxu daplu {and another?}
telephone fonxa {and another! please get in contact with me. please.}
xagfu’a rodo {indeed! but where are all you people coming from, and why don’t I know you?}
zifre dunda {OH COME ON WHERE ARE YOU PEOPLE]
eponymous haha_nice_try_CHEATER {clever.}
fart butt {I am twelve...}
FROGPENIS SPOOBOMB {… and so is a lot of LW.}
goat felching {good heavens}
I don’t want the prize! Pick someone else please!
I dont care about the MONETARY REWARD but you shoudl know that
Irefuse myprize
No thanks
not interested
{a lot of refusers!}
I’m gay
john lampkin (note: this is not my name)
lookatme iwonmoney {nice try guy}
mencius suckedmoziwasbetter
mimsy borogoves {repeated!}
TWO WORD {repeated, and try harder next time}
octothorpe interrobang
SOYUZ NERUSHIMIY {ONWARD, COMRADE(note: person is apparently a social democrat.)}
TERRORISTS WIN
thisissuspiciouslylike askingforourpasswordmethodologies {I should think not.}
zoodlybop zimzamzoom {OH MY GODS BILL COSBY IS A LESSWRONGER.}
AND THAT’S ALL, FOLKS.
For my part, I’d translate it as:
.u’oga’ibu’o ko bevri lo so’i ciblu la ciblu cevni .i ko bevri lo so’i sedbo’u la sedbo’u nolstizu
Which glosses in English to:
[With a sense of superiority and courage:] Bring lots of blood to the Blood God! Bring lots of skulls to the Skull Throne!
EDIT: More accurate translation and back-translation, changed gadri, added so’i to English back-translation.
Basically—whoever tried to translate for you was really bad at generating English glosses.
I quite like Chiang myself. There is a quality to a few authors like him, Mieville, and Egan that I can’t figure out what it is but really like. Possibly linguistics, good worldbuilding, and rarely having their characters be inexplicable idiots.
It’s good as an exhortation to build a Schelling fence, but without that sentiment, it’s pretty hollow. Reading the context, though, I agree with you: it’s a reminder that feeling really sure about something and being willing to sacrifice a lot of you and other (possibly unwilling) people to create a putative utopia probably means you’re wrong.
“Sorrow be damned, and all your plans. Fuck the faithful, fuck the committed, the dedicated, the true believers; fuck all the sure and certain people prepared to maim and kill whoever got in their way; fuck every cause that ended in murder and a child screaming. She turned and ran...”
(As an aside, I now have the perfect line for if I ever become an evil mastermind and someone quotes that at me: “But you see, murder and children screaming is only the beginning!”)
As much as I love Banks, this sounds like a massive set of applause lights, complete with sparkling Catherine wheels. Sometimes, you have to do shitty things to improve the world, and sometimes the shitty things are really shitty, because we’re not smart enough to find a better option fast enough to avoid the awful things resulting from not improving at all. “The perfect must not be the enemy of the good” and so on.
This seems like a really good idea, except that defecting is easy and appealing, Guess people will (as you pointed out) lose their shit, and worst of all, people just seem to get weirded out by the making explicit of things like actually understanding other people, or honestly talking about the full set of preferences—especially socially awkward ones. That said, I’d like to be able to do this with people.
That is actually not true at all. I was actually planning on abandoning this trainwreck of an attempt at dissent. But since you’re so nice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#The_Strategy_of_Conflict_.281960.29
I have a strong desire to practice speaking in Lojban, and I imagine that this is the second-best place to ask. Any takers?
A certain possible cognitive hazard, this webcomic strip, and the fact that someone has apparently made it privately known to someone else that it is desired by at least one person that I change my username due to apparent mental connections with that same cognitive hazard, all inspired me to think of the following scenario:
rot13′d for the protection of those who would prefer not to see it: Pbafvqre: vs ng nal cbvag lbh unir yrnearq bs gur angher bs gur onfvyvfx, gurer vf cebonoyl ab jnl sbe lbh gb gehyl naq pbzcyrgryl sbetrg vg jvgubhg enqvpny zvaq fhetrel juvpu rira n SNV juvpu rasbeprq gur onfvyvfx jbhyq crezvg, naq gur SNV jbhyq abg pner gung lbhe pbafpvbhf zvaq unq sbetbggra vg, cbffvoyl chavfuvat lbh rira unefure sbe lbhe nggrzcg gb qrsl vg. Pbafvqre: jr ner, nf orfg jr xabj, nybar va gur havirefr, naq guvf vf hahfhny. Pbafvqre: grpuabybtvrf juvpu jbhyq crezvg n cbfg-fpnepvgl cnenqvfr ner snvyvat va hahfhny jnlf, naq gur jbeyq vf nyfb xvaqn pencfnpx. Pbafvqre: gur fvzhyngvba nethzrag. Pbafvqre: gur vqrn gung lbh fubhyq jrvtug zvaq-cebonovyvgvrf onfrq ba gur ahzore bs pbcvrf bs lbh gung abgvpr fbzrguvat. Guhf: vg vf cbffvoyr gung jr ner nyernql va onfvyvfx-uryy.
OK. Having had a chance to think about it, I think I have a reasonable idea of why it is I desire any of those things in some situations. I thought it over with three examples: first, the person I linked to. Second, an ex of mine, with whom I parted on really bad terms. Third, a hypothetical sociopath who would like nothing more than for me to suffer infinitely, as a unique terminal value.
*Wishing that person X would behave otherwise My desire for this seems self-evident. When people do things I disapprove of, I desire that they stop. The odd thing is that in all of the three cases, I would award them points just for stopping:the stopping just removes disutility already there, and can’t go above 0.
*Being glad if person X suffers I definitely wouldn’t be happy if they just suffered for no reason. I would still feel a little bad for them if someone ran over their cat. That said, types of suffering you could classify as “poetic” in some sense appeal to me very much: said “banker bro” getting swindled and catching Space AIDS (or even being forcibly transitioned into a woman!), or, as is seeming increasingly likely, said ex’s current relationship ending as badly as it seems to be. My brain locks up and crashes when presented with the third case, though. I think I’d just be happy for them to suffer regardless.
*Believing that making person X suffer will cause them to behave otherwise. On balance, I’m not sure that it would make a difference in any of the three cases. Case 1 is too self assured, and the other two just don’t care about me.
*The world will be a better place is person X would behave otherwise. Case 1 could actually be this. He might actually achieve success, and then screw up, at best, several peoples’ lives. Case 2 is too small-scale. Case 3, I actually can’t justify this at all: the only people who will care are people who want to see me happy.
*The world will be a better place if person X suffers. I don’t delude myself that this is pretty much ever true, except very indirectly.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m half-Korean, and for reasons of familial history, feel rather strongly about the whole Japan thing. That doesn’t stop me from enjoying tasty age tofu or losing my shit laughing whenever I watch Gaki no Tsukai, and indeed seeking out both. But I do have somewhat of a stake of pride in seeing people who deny war crimes, particularly these, suffering similarly to above. Political opponents are similar: I wouldn’t derive satisfaction from Rick Santorum breaking his leg. I’d be very happy to learn that he’s a closeted gay man whose wife will have to have an abortion.
You and another comment here are making me reevaluate my categories for why I weight something negatively. Let me get back to you after I’ve had a chance to think about it more.
EDIT: For purposes of clarity, I’m going to respond to your post as well as this one there.
An interesting idea I had: epistemology sparring. Figure out a way to make model battlefield rationality work, say in some kind of combat-like game—think boffer LARP, paintball, or even lacrosse or dodgeball—just make it immediate and physical. Make success in the game tied directly to the ability to determine the probability of truth of some statement quickly, and more quickly and accurately than your opponents, and make the games short—no more than half an hour each. Do these frequently to allow for averaging out the failures that will definitely result during play, both at the beginning, due to inexperience, and due to bad luck or inconsistent performance. Any suggestions?
Something occurred to me while I was in the shower. Suppose for a moment I really was incompetent, and not just because I had little lab experience—I was just plain incompetent at labwork, I really was a fraud/failure/what have you, and to ignore those feelings would be critically bad. What would I expect to see in the world, that would distinguish that from “no, you’ll be fine, this is what everyone goes through”, and what would I expect to see differently from “no, you’ll be fine, you’ll actually be really good at this, good enough to make significant, even undergrad textbook contributions in 10 years’ time”? Because there should definitely be something I should be able to observe that would be different, and if there isn’t, then it seems safest to proceed with maximal caution and minimal self-estimation.
Surveyed. Put a humorous pair of Lojban lujvo as a passphrase. I cooperated, knowing that regardless, I was unlikely to win no matter what strategy I pursued, and that priming myself by forcing myself to cooperate now would possibly make me unknowingly want to cooperate in the future to my benefit.