Former tech entrepreneur (co-creator of the music software Sibelius). Among other things I now play the stock market, write software to predict it, and occasionally advise tech startups. I have degrees in philosophy.
bfinn
Karma: 961
a process imposed upon you from above often incentivizes blind adherence, even when it’s hurting the stated goals
Something something Goodhart’s Law—or rather, hurting the unstated real goalsSomething something AGI
Though non-fiction, I noted some years ago that parts of Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom would make great material for a feature film, that would bring the risks of AI to wide attention. Eg the stuff about ingenious ways a superintelligent AI might break out of an oracle situation, or persuade someone to help it manufacture a deadly virus.
Animals and even insects could be prosecuted in Europe up to the 18th century, presumably counting as persons. Their crimes might include killing someone or damaging property.
One notable 16th century lawyer, Barthélemy de Chasseneuz, made his name by his eloquent defence of rats that had eaten the local crop of barley. He also successfully defended some woodworm that had disobeyed a summons to court.
There is an interesting but uncommon adjective ‘bluff’ (crucially different in meaning from the noun & verb) which describes someone who is honest and lacking in grace, but in a pleasant way. Which highlights the small distinction between being graceless and unpleasant. You can imagine some children or uneducated adults being bluff—plain-speaking, but clearly not trying to be, nor particularly seeming, rude. It would need more thought to figure out just how this works.
I’m not saying I advocate being bluff, but I can see some things in its favour. Being honest and clearly understood while also being graceful is indeed a difficult skill, often involving culture-specific subtleties that don’t always work.
Graceful yet honest communication between Britons (such as me) often involves a level of subtlety and indirectness, such as understatement, that is lost on foreigners. Eg ‘It’s not ideal’ can be used to describe anything from a lukewarm cup of tea to the outbreak of World War 3.
Bluffness is more direct than this, and so more likely to be understood.
Grokipedia (and URL), not Grokopedia
But note these drawbacks with Pomodoro (and my alternative solution):
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FDCJ2BfAT9qJGrpFa/what-s-wrong-with-pomodoro
Somewhat related to 5 is the real but much underused word ‘velleity’ (which I use a lot), meaning an extremely slight preference or desire, so slight that you can’t be bothered to do anything to fulfill it.
(Eg watching rubbishy TV late at night, very slightly inclined to change channel but not enough to press the button on the remote.)
Somewhat related to 1 is a word for being stuck thinking how to express a complicated thought (rather than choosing between thoughts). Not quite the same as tongue-tied as this involves intense thinking (rather than eg being nervous).
(Example: some trains from Cambridge, UK to London are fast, some are slow (stopping at many stations). Sometimes there are two trains on adjacent platforms, a slow train leaving first, then a fast train leaving second (but often arriving first). Many a time I have observed passengers (and myself experienced) going up to a staff member and then freezing while trying to form the relevant question, viz: I’m going to London, so in order to arrive sooner, should I get on this slow train that’s about to leave or the fast train leaving later?)
Indeed, I had similar thoughts but didn’t type them up.
In any case I suspect it was a situation in which the cost-benefit analysis would show high risk-aversion (hence probable over-reaction to avoid under-reaction) was justified.
IIRC however I heard it said that the Y2K bug didn’t cause serious problems even in countries where there wasn’t much effort to deal with it, and hence the doomsayers’ predictions were exaggerated (in that much lesser mitigation efforts would have served almost as well). I don’t know if this is true though
Great post. I know lots of classical musicians but never heard of this dynamic before.
I suspect there may be something similar with opera singers (of whom I know hardly any), because unlike other classical musicians (and other singers), who are generally nice friendly low-ego people, opera singers reportedly really are vain prima donnas obsessed with their image and beating everyone else, hence likely to be major sufferers of this syndrome.
Sure. I found one for my parents, who seems honest and gave no more advice than necessary. I suspect honest financial advisers are often individuals or small practices rather than larger firms.
(In the UK, financial advisers are (now) heavily regulated—you can’t just call yourself one.)
Re doctors, in the UK I suspect a key distinction is between NHS (state-funded) vs private patients. The NHS pays them reasonable salaries, but consultants (senior doctors) can earn far more from private patients and tend to have a mixture of both. I suspect they treat NHS patients as fulfilling their moral duty, and private patients as a cash cow (especially as their fees are usually paid by insurance companies) - giving unnecessary treatment to rich people. In my limited experience of private doctors they barely tried to disguise this attitude towards me.
I think honest financial advisors earn a decent living in the UK. The situation changed radically after the 2009 financial crash as high commissions on investments rightly became illegal, removing the main corrupt incentive. Before this happened and when I was less savvy, I certainly got ripped off this way.
I suspect the generational difference may be age as much as generation. Older tradespeople may have accumulated savings, so less need to earn lots, and have matured in their attitudes towards customers as people.
Slightly relatedly, a couple of times in my life I’ve had a dream in which I’m involved in a very witty conversation, including clever setups and so-on that could only have been pre-scripted (as in a sitcom), not thought up on the spot. (And I am not a witty conversationalist, so would not be able to do this myself.)
I’ve never recalled the details, so it could well be that these conversations were lame and just seemed witty and ingeniously scripted at the time.
However I did once dream a joke, which on awakening I realised was original and quite clever, albeit dry and unfunny. Suggesting that spontaneously witty dreams might be more possible, even from me.
(FWIW the dream joke was this: “Why did Boris Johnson stand for mayor? Because he wanted greater London authority.” (Boris Johnson was mayor of London before becoming prime minister, and Greater London Authority was the name of the council.))
Indeed, and sometimes two moves will have the same expected value (of material etc) but different standard deviations. If you’re losing, you should go for the more chaotic one, which gives you more chance of a surprise recovery. Similarly ‘desperado’ behaviour in other contexts.
Some languages allow or even require suffixes on verbs indicating how you know what you’re stating (a grammatical feature called ‘evidentiality’) - eg ‘I heard that X’, ‘I suppose that X’.
I suspect this is epistemically good for speakers of such languages, forcing them to consider the reasons behind every statement they make. Hence I find myself adding careful qualifications myself, e.g. ‘I suspect’ (as above), ‘I read that’, etc.
I’ve belatedly realised that a lot of professionals—maybe even the majority—are somewhat corrupt. Doctors, financial advisers, lawyers, architects, etc. will give incorrect advice, treatment and so on purely in order to extract more money from you. For example, by giving unnecessary blood tests, recommending a high-commission investment, stringing out a legal case instead of trying to settle it, using an expensive builder with whom they have a cosy relationship.
Indeed it’s unusual to find a professional acting for you in a way that is clearly against their own financial interests, eg by trying to save you money. Fortunately I reckon customers notice when this happens, so these unusually honest professionals acquire a good reputation (if they are also competent). Which serves them quite well, as people want to keep giving them work—if their rates are reasonable—and recommend them to others.
In my 20s I was happy to pay a lot to get advice from an expert, reckoning that you get what you pay for, so paying more gets you better advice. But that’s only partly true. With a dishonest expert, you’ll probably end up with a good result, but via a circuitous route you will overpay for—extra for their expertise, plus extra for their particular way of ripping you off.
That said, I suspect this corruption is more common in mediocre professionals, who unlike experts find it harder to earn a lot by honest work. But I have encountered dishonest experts too.The only way of avoiding all this is for the professional’s incentives to be aligned with yours, which is often impossible, particularly due to the standard charging structures of many professions (eg per hour, or % of your spend, rather than on results), which create perverse incentives that they have no interest in changing. (Not long ago I abandoned an architect who refused to charge for his input other than as a % of building cost, while trying to interest me in absurdly expensive stairs, getting his carpenter friend to quote double normal price for windows, meanwhile assuring me he was from a humble, honest family etc.)
Until I realised all the above recently (in my 50s!) I had assumed, as many do, that dodgy behaviour was unusual in middle class professions, and was instead associated with plumbers, builders, car mechanics and (in the UK anyway) real estate agents. But now I am suspicious of anyone who charges money for services.
It’s a shame.
I for one would find it helpful if you’d explain the meaning of the term ‘high-actuation’, not just give examples. ‘Actuation’ being an unfamiliar/unclear term to me.
Two further things I’ve been told by civil servants about how to talk to politicians (in my very limited experience of dealing with them):
Explain things as if to a 12-year-old, assuming no more sophisticated understanding than that (even to a junior government minister responsible for the field in question!)
Make 1 or at most 2 key points you want them to remember
Cf almost-obvious business advice I’ve given people: get rid of bad employees ASAP. Don’t wait around to see if they might improve—they won’t, and will only get entrenched (especially if they have psychopathic traits and are in a senior position), making it more disruptive to get rid of them later.
BUT the same applies, less obviously, to merely mediocre employees. Because they can hang around for years, half-assing it and dragging those around them down, occupying a position that could be filled by someone far better, but not quite bad enough to require dismissal.
(This may be less of a problem in the US, where ‘fire at will’ is standard and maybe rapidly acted on, than say the UK where I am.)
(This advice incidentally highlights an apparent difference between the private and public sectors, the latter (in the UK at least, by all accounts) having too many mediocre people who are never fired, due to union pressure, the work culture, etc.)