bgaesop

Karma: 259

bgaesop 22 Nov 2013 9:31 UTC
27 points
on: 2013 Less Wrong Census/Survey
Several of these questions are poorly phrased. For instance, the supernatural and god questions, as phrased, imply that the god chance should be less than the chance of supernatural anything existing. However, I think (and would like to be able to express) that there is a very small (0), chance of ghosts or wizards, but only a small (1) chance of there being some sort of intelligent being which created the universe-for instance, the simulation hypothesis, which I would consider a subset of the god hypothesis.

bgaesop 3 Jan 2020 1:02 UTC
20 points
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Free Speech and Triskaidekaphobic Calculators: A Reply to Hubinger on the Relevance of Public Online Discussion to Existential Risk

real life, I’d say: “Ok guys, let’s sit in this room, everyone turn off their recording devices, and let’s talk, with the agreement that what happens in this room stays in this room.”

The one time I did this with rationalists, the person (Adam Widmer) who organized the event and explicitly set forth the rule you just described, then went on to remember what people had said and bring it up publicly later in order to shake them into changing their behavior to fit his (if you’ll excuse me speaking ill of the dead) spoiled little rich boy desires.

So my advice, based on my experience, and which my life would have been noticably better had someone told me before, is: DON’T do this, and if anyone suggests doing this, stop trusting them and run away

Which is not to say that you are untrustworthy and trying to manipulate people into revealing sensitive information so you can use it to manipulate them; in order for me to confidently reach that conclusion, you’d have to actually attempt to organize such an event, not just casually suggest one on the internet
What links here?
- Czynski's comment on Circling by Unreal (5 Aug 2020 2:51 UTC; 1 point)

bgaesop 25 Oct 2019 21:36 UTC
14 points
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: bgaesop’s Shortform
The in-person community seems much less skeptical of these things than the online community. Which isn’t to say there are no skeptics, but (especially among the higher status members) it’s kind of distressing to see how little skepticism there is about outright silly claims and models. At last year’s CFAR reunion, for instance, there was a talk uncritically presenting chakras as a real thing, and when someone in the audience proposed doing an experiment to verify if they are real or it’s a placebo effect, the presenter said (paraphrasing) “Hmm, no, let’s not do that. It makes me uncomfortable. I can’t tell why, but I don’t want to do it, so let’s not” and then they didn’t.

This is extremely concerning to me, and I think it should be to everyone else who cares about the epistemological standards of this community

bgaesop 23 Apr 2011 6:56 UTC
13 points
on: Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians
I’ve been having some sort of half-formed thoughts recently that this has brought back into my foreground that I’m curious to see other people’s thoughts on.

It seems to me that the likelihood is quite high that there are people on here who have inherently competing utility functions (these examples were chosen merely because they are fairly common, directly competing, not obviously insane sets of motivations. I intend no value judgment on either of them). Thus, making one of the people whose utility function is dramatically different from yours more rational could be an extremely counterproductive move for you to make in terms of satisfying your own utility function. Imagine a libertarian rationalist accidentally training a socialist guerilla, who goes on to be very successful at fulfilling his own utility function, and thus dramatically harmful to his teacher’s. Or perhaps more realistically, a socialist teacher trains a libertarian who goes on to found a company that does business in the Third World in a way that the teacher disapproves of.

How would we avoid this? Should we avoid this?

A few months I ago I was roundly, and rightly, rebuked for suggesting that rationality will lead you to certain political positions. On the other hand, people have also presented the idea that being rational will lead you to value various “instrumental ethics” I believe was the term? I can’t find the article right now, unfortunately. Do you (this is directed at everyone) believe that simply by making people more rational, we’ll make them more likely to do things we approve of, in the sense that they further our utility functions?

bgaesop 18 Apr 2011 0:12 UTC
13 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?
Sorry for responding so late, but do you really think that this thought:

“My people are being oppressed, primarily economically. I can see that it is mostly Americans doing this. Peaceful protest tends to get me shot at. Clearly these Americans consider their profits more important than my and my people’s lives; their actions are causing our suffering and deaths, they are aware of this, yet they continue to do so. Therefore, they are deliberately killing and ravaging my people, and so it is justified for me to kill them. Also, doing so may cause them to strike out in more obvious, militaristic ways, which will weaken their economy (punishing them) and make it more obvious to my fellows that, indeed, America is an extremely evil nation that must be opposed. Better to force them out in the open than let them continue oppressing us by subterfuge. Doing this will be very difficult, and will likely cost me my life, but the organization I just joined has offered to pay a good deal of money to my surviving family when/if I do die, and given that right now they’re struggling to buy food because of those fucking Americans and their economic jackassery. Therefore, it is justified and indeed Justice for me to blow up their center of commerce, even at great personal sacrifice.”

Is of equivalent sanity to this thought:

“I’m the reincarnation of Napoleon! Hibberty flibberty jibbit!”

bgaesop 4 Jan 2011 1:19 UTC
13 points
in reply to: ata’s comment on: Circular Altruism
Perhaps this is just my misunderstanding of utility, but I think his point was this: I don’t understand how adding up utility is obviously a legitimate thing to do, just like how you claim that adding up water denial is obviously not a legitimate thing to do. In fact, it seems to me as though the negative utility of getting a dust speck in the eye is comparable to the negative utility of being denied a milliliter of water, while the negative utility of being tortured for a lifetime is more or less equivalent to the negative utility of dying of thirst. I don’t see why it is that the one addition is valid while the other isn’t.

If this is just me misunderstanding utility, could you please point me to some readings so that I can better understand it?

Moral Weight Doesn’t Accrue Linearly

bgaesop23 Apr 2019 22:14 UTC

12 points

42 comments1 min readLW link

bgaesop 18 Apr 2011 1:15 UTC
11 points
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?

I’d think the hijackers would refer to them as infidels.

Do you really, truly think that the only motivations in choosing to do an attack against America (heck, picking America as the target in the first place) and picking the WTC and Pentagon as the targets of that attack, was because the attackers were Muslim while the ones being attacked were not? If so, why have they not done similarly to all non-Muslim nations? Why not attack symbols or places of power of religion, rather than economics and the military?

Certainly religion is used as a framing device and recruitment tool; it’s a powerful ingroup identifier. Especially when you have people doing the same on the opposite side of your fight.

Piece of advice: just because you see the world in purely Marxist terms, doesn’t mean everyone else does.

That’s not so much a piece of advice as a snipe at what you perceive to be the dialectic I’m using to interpret this. It seems to me that you didn’t say that to enlighten me, but to reduce my status in the eyes of what you (and I) assume is a mostly capitalist readership.

bgaesop 4 Jan 2011 0:16 UTC
11 points
in reply to: billswift’s comment on: Rationality Quotes: January 2011

That same transformational amount of learning can take place in any similar period of time. In fact, as an adult, we can learn even faster. All it takes is commitment and willingness.

All the empirical evidence I’ve ever seen on the subject indicates that this is the precise opposite of the truth. Could you provide evidence to support this, please?

bgaesop 23 Apr 2011 2:45 UTC
10 points
on: Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians

I will parenthetically emphasize that every single useful mental technique I have ever developed over the course of my entire life has been developed in the course of trying to accomplish some particular real task and none of it is the result of me sitting around and thinking, “Hm, however shall I Improve Myself today?” I should advise a mindset in which making tremendous progress on fixing yourself doesn’t merit much congratulation and only particular deeds actually accomplished are praised; and also that you always have some thing you’re trying to do in the course of any particular project of self-improvement—a target real-world accomplishment to which your self-improvements are a means, not definable in terms of any personality quality unless it is weight loss or words output on a writing project or something else visible and measurable.

This section is a little confusing to me, so I’m going to lay out my thoughts on the subject in order to help myself organise them and to see what other people think.

I do attempt to improve myself by thinking “what shall I do to Improve Myself today?” Or rather, I spent several days coming up with plans as to how to improve myself, and now every day I ask myself “what’s on the plan for how to Improve Myself today?” I’m also constantly revising the plan as I gain new information or think of new things. I’ll give two examples. I’m revising the plan right now so that the next time I have a full day of free time, I shall spend it learning to solve a Rubik’s Cube, because my brain considers “able-to-solve-Rubik’s-Cubes” as high-status, and so I suspect that doing so shall be helpful in building my own success spiral. I thought this because I noticed that I was beginning a depressive death spiral. Due to my failure to get into graduate schools with funding, if you’re curious (another part of the plan: admit embarrassing facts like that in order to eat away at the shame, so that my anger about them becomes cold, not hot, so that I can use it. [a third part of the plan: read Ender’s Game. I have started, and 10 year old me is screaming across the decades “HOW DID WE NOT READ THIS WHEN WE WERE ME”]). Heh, got kind of sidetracked there, let me get back on topic.

I have done at least one thing that I can think of that I actually did do by, on the day I did it, thinking “how shall I improve myself today?” It was to start exercising. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share the specific bits of rational thinking I did. “Hey bgaesop, what we did the last time we wanted to exercise, and therefore the first thing you thought of when you thought ‘how should I work out?’ didn’t seem to work so well. Furthermore, we’ve encountered credible evidence since then that that is a dumb way to work out. You have access to people who know how to exercise better than you do, through your fraternity. You should go ask them how to do so. We also know that we have a tendency to procrastinate and never start things that we can start at any time. Therefore, you should go ask your friends right now.” As a result, I am now on a regular exercise schedule, doing free weights when I have access to a spotter, machines when I don’t. I think that the key aspect of getting this to work was twofold: admitting that someone else knows more than me on the subject and I should ask them for help, which is an ability that does not come naturally to me and that I have been working on for quite a while, and second, going out and Getting Crap Done the moment I thought of it.

I think that, for me at least, putting a plan into motion as soon as you think of it, instead of procrastinating, is extremely helpful in terms of actually Getting Crap Done. Especially plans that have high initial willpower and shame etc costs compared to the costs of maintaining them. For example, it was much more embarrassing to go to the gym the first time, when I considered myself a scrawny nerd weakling walking into the jock’s den, not having any idea what to do. After the first time going with my friends I was unafraid to go alone. Now that I’ve gone enough that I can actually see results on my body (which took astoundingly little time, seriously, like two weeks) I look forward to going. In fact, I’m going to go as soon as I post this comment. I’ve been putting it off all day, so this is an effective way of forcing myself to do that. You’ll know I was lying if I comment on anything in the next 45 minutes or so :)

This combines well with the whole idea of having rationality be demonstrably awesome, because my body now looks better than it ever has in the past, including when I was expending more effort and time on a less intelligently put together workout program. By taking the extremely simple steps of “look at what people who know about this subject have to say, okay now find one of them to help you, okay now actually do what they said” worked wonders over my old method of “google until you find something fun and easy sounding that promises to work well.” Upon writing this out, however, I am noticing how much what I did resembles simply appealing to authority instead of trying to figure out the answer myself. I could have sworn there was a specific post about learning from other people as opposed to discovering things yourself, but I can’t find it at the moment—does anyone know what I’m thinking of? Regardless, since I certainly don’t know and can’t do everything, and I know that my inability to admit that (mainly to myself) has been one of my biggest impediments in life, I hope that everyone would agree that there’s no harm in trying to learn from others.

bgaesop 24 Oct 2019 3:46 UTC
9 points
on: bgaesop’s Shortform
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/21/the-pnse-paper/
So, shouldn’t all the rats who’ve been so into meditation etc for the past decade or so be kinda panicking at the apparent fact that enlightenment is just dunning-krugering yourself into not being able to notice your own incompetence?

bgaesop 24 Apr 2019 22:00 UTC
9 points
on: Moral Weight Doesn’t Accrue Linearly
For anyone who does think that both 1) chickens have non-zero moral value, and 2) moral value is linearly additive, are you willing to bite the bullet that there exist a number of chickens such that it would be better to cause that many chickens to continue to exist at the expense of wiping out all other sentient life forever? This seems so obviously false and also so obviously the first thing to think of when considering 1 and 2 that I am confused there exist folks who accept 1 and 2

bgaesop 5 Apr 2011 21:59 UTC
9 points
0
in reply to: TGGP3’s comment on: Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?

Some Dude, since when is war profitable?

Since there existed private military contractors, or before that, since there existed spoils of war?

bgaesop 23 Apr 2011 5:55 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Torben’s comment on: Offense versus harm minimization

“Our word” is the map, not the territory.

In the realm of social interaction, the territory you’re navigating is made up of other people’s maps.

However, that also includes members of said minorities who belive that from their merely being members of such groups they have rights or sensibilities others don’t. They don’t.

I’m not sure what you mean here. They do have extra sensibilities, in the sense that they’re sensitive to things others aren’t: you aren’t hurt (or at least, not in the same way) by the words “nigger” or “queer”, whereas they are. They do have extra rights, in the sense that, if they clearly present as queer, they can be more confident about being transparent in their motivations and intentions for using the word, and so can expect to be able to use it in more social situations without repercussions.

So to me the issue is transparency. If I as a straight white male somehow could achieve the same level of transparency regarding my goals and intentions, I should be able to use such words just like black gays. My scheme allows for that; yours doesn’t.

I mostly agree with this. I see two problems with it. The first is that there are people who have had extremely negative experiences with the word in the past and thus hearing it from anyone, regardless of the intentions of the person saying it, would hurt them. But that’s mostly been addressed by your point about transparency, and the rest is addressed by:

ETA: would you yourself “use [“queer”] with carte blanche in all social situations”?

No, I would not, excellent point. My second issue is, if you don’t have any sort of nefarious intentions, what is motivating you to use the word, instead of another one? Are you in a rap battle for the fate of the universe and you absolutely must complete the rhyme “drank a beer, jigger of rum//man that queer nigger was dumb”?

*: At least in the way of the original haters

Keen observation.

Upon reading all of this conversation and thinking about this for several days, I have amended my policy to be more or less the same as yours. I now do not have a problem with people using those words if I, and everyone else present, has a very clear idea of what the person’s intentions are. Upon reflection I believe that this is the policy I was actually basing my reactions on, yet it was not the one I was vocalizing. I am now curious as to why I was vocalizing the policy I was. Perhaps to increase my status among the minority I’m a part of? Hmm. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.

....aaaand someone just walked by my room yelling “you’re a nigger! A double nigger!”

bgaesop 2 Jan 2011 1:27 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Kingreaper’s comment on: Circular Altruism
I really don’t see how his comparison is wrong. Could you explain in more depth, please

bgaesop 26 Jul 2011 8:00 UTC
7 points
in reply to: taw’s comment on: Optimal Philanthropy for Human Beings

I didn’t downvote you,

Thanks! I upvoted you.

but what you’re saying is essentially “if you accept our tribe is the most awesome and smartest, then it makes sense to donate to our tribal charity”. Which is something every single group would say, in slight variation.

Well yeah; that’s why you should examine the evidence and not just do what everyone else does. So let’s look at the beliefs of all the Singularitarians on LW as evidence. What would we expect to see if LW is just an arbitrary tribe that picked a random cause to glom around? I suspect we would see that not many people in the world, and particularly not high-status people and organizations, would pay attention to the Singularity. I predict that everyone on LW would donate money to SIAI and shun people who don’t donate or belittle SIAI.

Now what would we see if LW is in fact a group of high-quality rationalists and the world, in general, is too blinded by various biases to think rationally about low-probability, high-impact events? Well, most people, including high-status people (but perhaps not some academics) wouldn’t talk about it. People on LW would donate money to SIAI because they did the calculation and decided it was the highest expected value. And they would probably shun the people who disagree, because they’re still humans.

Those two situations look awfully similar to me. My point is, I certainly don’t think that you can use LW’s enthusiasm about SIAI compared to the general public as a strike against LW or SIAI.

Here’s results chart for various asteroid tracking efforts. Catalina Sky Survey seems to be doing most of the work these days, and you can probably donate to University of Arizona and have that money go to CSS somehow. I’m not really following this too closely, I’m mostly glad that some people are doing something here.

I’m not finding anything there indicating that they’re hurting for funding, but perhaps I’m missing it.

bgaesop 23 Apr 2011 6:25 UTC
7 points
0
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?

No, not the only one, but if one were to ask them why they picked the targets they did, they’d describe it religious terms (talking about infidels, jihad and the great Satan) not in Marxist terms (i.e., economic oppression).

Just as an aside, “economic oppression” isn’t a uniquely Marxist term, nor am I even aware of a specific Marxist definition of it. Are you thinking of “economic exploitation”, perhaps? The latter means the difference between the amount of wealth generated by labour and the amount that labourer is paid.

I am pretty darn thoroughly convinced (though of course I am open to changing my mind) that the idea “religion made them do it!” is overly simplistic. I used to hold the position you do, but over the course of several years of examining the issue, I have come to the conclusion that the use of religious terminology and phrasing and all the general trappings of Islam are, while perhaps truly believed, are for the most part merely a rhetorical device constructed to take maximum advantage of the society they are recruiting, living, and (typically) acting in. I’m hesitant to say this next sentence, politics being the mind killer and all that, but I shall anyways (I have noticed I am in a hole. Hypothesis: if I dig long enough I’ll get to China!). Osama bin Laden talks about “defeating the Great Satan for the glory of Allah and Mohammed (pbuh)” for the same reason George Walker Bush talked about “spreading Freedom and Democracy”: because it resonates with his intended audience, convinces them that he has similar thought-processes to them and is representative of their interests, or at the very least their team, not because he (edit: necessarily) believed that that was what he was doing.

In fact judging by the fact that most of the hijackers were from wealthy families, I’d guess they didn’t really care about the economic dimension except as part of a general attitude that our decadence is sinful and is spreading to the middle east.

Most people who have had impact in the world have come from wealthy (or at least not working-class-poor) families, including probably every Socialist Revolutionary you’ve heard of (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Che, et cetera), not to mention almost every politico in general. If anything, being middle class (inasmuch as that term makes sense) makes you more likely to simultaneously see the degradation of the poor and have the education to see what (at least seem to you) like plausible explanations for it. And then if you’re an engineer or what have you, you have access to abilities that can actually do something about this (build bombs, fly planes, whatever), or the funds to support yourself while you learn them, or whatever. The point is, being middle class is not likely to make you less politically aware and active than being poor, and it is likely to increase your free time and ability to do things politically, including but not limited to committing acts of terrorism.

I stand by my advice as good advice. If you want to successfully model others’ behavior, you shouldn’t assume they see the world the same way you do.

When phrased this way it seems much more like actual advice and much less like an insult. I’m not sure how much of this is my inference and how much is your implications, but it’s kind of moot. No hard feelings are taken, hopefully none were intended. Friends? I certainly agree that I should not model their minds as being identical to mine, but given that I don’t want to kill people, I’m already doing that at least to some degree.

That said, I think that you are being overly simplistic in your model of these people. Again I link to this page. Could you please explain, or link me to someone else who has, what makes you think that your model of their minds and motivations is more accurate than mine?

bgaesop 5 Apr 2011 21:53 UTC
7 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?

One difference stands out: the 9/11 attacks included attacks on two large buildings packed with thousands of innocent civilians, with no obvious connection to any military installation

The 9/11 hijackers would no doubt not refer to the inhabitants of the World Trade Center as innocent civilians, but as economic oppressors. There is a reason they targeted both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, after all.

bgaesop 14 Dec 2022 15:51 UTC
5 points
2
in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: The True Spirit of Solstice?
As someone who has very meager singing ability, I stumble over the transition from “today” to “although”

bgaesop 30 May 2011 5:44 UTC
5 points
in reply to: aausch’s comment on: Teachable Rationality Skills
Exercise: Improvisatory dance. In my opinion, improvising is more useful than specific styles of dance (salsa, swing, waltz). Most people do not dance specific dances in common social interactions unless the social event is based around that dance. If you are at a club, you can pop and lock, b-boy, robot, liquid&digits, krump, while everyone around you does something else. Also, it’s easier and more obvious to be better at improvisatory dance than the people around you.

I have found that attempting to teach others to dance in literal language doesn’t work as well as using metaphorical, poetic, woo-filled language. That said, as a specific exercise: feel the energy in your torso and each of your limbs. Feel your connection to the earth beneath you-actually feel the sensation of your feet touching the ground-what parts are touching? The heel, balls, toes, pay attention to it specifically. Direct your focus and weight either towards or away from the parts of your body you find yourself noticing. Feel the energy in your limbs again, and let some of it out, to float in front of you: snap it out, or gently wave it, or pull or push or whatever your body intuits. Then move the now-floating ball of energy around, and let it move you around.

This is much easier to explain in person when you can see me doing it. I was originally inspired to dance by this TED talk by the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, which is also where I got some of what I wrote above (the rest I got from my own experience and from the improvisation and choreography class I just took). If you enjoy this kind of dance, you will love the LXD web show

bgaesop

Mo­ral Weight Doesn’t Ac­crue Linearly

Moral Weight Doesn’t Accrue Linearly