burger_flipper2

Karma: 26

burger_flipper2 9 Dec 2007 4:03 UTC
−2 points
on: When None Dare Urge Restraint
I’ve always used motorcycle fatalites as the yardstick to put it in perspective; 9-11 came up just short.

I suspected we might be in trouble when they floated the story that Bush didn’t return to Washington because of a credible threat to Air Force One, a threat in which, the supposed terrorists were more concerned with establishing credibility than carrying out their attach and thus used some sort of code word that only someone with inside knowledge would have.

It was perfectly reasonable for Bush to put a half dozen states between himself and the most likely nuclear target (no one knew what might happen). But they were worried it looked bad, un-leaderlike, cowardly, when it was quite pragmatic. The fact they were willing to lie instead of telling even moderately tough truths did not bode well.

Consider all the loco 9/11 theories. There is one that almost doesn’t sound loco. What if it had been necessary to shoot down a passenger jet to save some unknown target, but afterwards it was discovered that some on board had been mounting an assault on the cabin, and had called loved ones as well?

burger_flipper2 9 Dec 2007 14:28 UTC
2 points
on: When None Dare Urge Restraint
So is the propensity to say, “I knew it instantaneously” a kissing cousin of the hindsight bias?

p=.02 the first 3 conscious thoughts were, sequentially: “I guess I really am living in the Future. Thank goodness it wasn’t nuclear. and then The overreaction to this will be ten times worse than the original event.”

I can see the utility in starting off the post with such a narrative (grabbing attention and establishing svengali authority), and don’t doubt those 3 thoughts popped up fairly quickly, in one form or another.

I know it’s effective, but I expect a little better.

burger_flipper2 13 Dec 2007 0:30 UTC
3 points
on: Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence
I’m with McCabe—what was the epiphany?

burger_flipper2 16 Dec 2007 21:10 UTC
7 points
on: Guardians of the Gene Pool
Relatively new to the forum and just watched the 2 ¹⁄₂ hour Yudkowsky video on Google. Excellent talk that really helped frame some of the posts here for me, though the audience questions were generally a distraction.

My biggest disappointment was the one question that popped up in my mind while watching and was actually posed wasn’t answered because it would take about 5 minutes. The man who asked was told to pose it again at the end of the talk, but did not.

This was the question about the friendly AI: “Why are you assuming it knows the outcome of its modifications?”

Any pointer to the answer would be much appreciated.

burger_flipper2 30 Dec 2007 18:19 UTC
1 point
on: My Strange Beliefs
“I briefly thought to myself: ‘I bet most people would be experiencing ‘stage fright’ about now. But that wouldn’t be helpful, so I’m not going to go there.’”

This is part of E’s history? Both this and his reaction to 9/11, ticking off a series of thoughts in robotic fashion, strike me as unlikely, given my experience being a human and viewing others.

I don’t know what to label this, whether it is an attempt to establish authority by seeming exceedingly rational, remembering events in a way that pleases him, something close to the truth, or something else completely different.

But it does strike me as both odd and unlikely.

burger_flipper2 1 Jan 2008 13:04 UTC
0 points
on: The Two-Party Swindle
This coming Monday at burger-flipping centrail (Norman, OK) there is going to be a bi/non-partisan pep rally convened by David Boren and some other cheerleaders. They’ve invited each R and D presidential canidate (so far only magic undies has agreed to come) along with Bloomberg. They plan to elicit pledges for some tangible plan for bipartisanship, or create a justification for Bloomberg to go 3rd party (my understanding is he is fiscally conservative and socially liberal). I’m going to have to shut down the q’ing ovens, dig the heat lamps out of the dumpster, premake about 700 Mac’s, and play hookie to be there. Some of us more discriminating politicos don’t cheer for blue or green. We wanna see the clown juggle at half time.

burger_flipper2 1 Jan 2008 17:35 UTC
0 points
on: The Two-Party Swindle
Mamet: “The stoics wrote that the excellent king can walk through the streets unguarded. Our contemporary Secret Service spends tens of millions of dollars every time the president and his retinue venture forth.

Mythologically, the money and the effort are spent not to protect the president’s life—all our lives are fragile—but to protect the body politic against the perception that his job is ceremonial, and that for all our attempts to invest it with real power—the Monroe Doctrine, the war powers act, the “button”—there’s no one there but us.”

burger_flipper2 19 Jan 2008 21:44 UTC
0 points
on: The Allais Paradox
Dawes gives a very similar 2-gamble example of a money pump on pg 105 of Rational Choice.

burger_flipper2 29 Jan 2008 3:10 UTC
0 points
on: The “Intuitions” Behind “Utilitarianism”
Peter DeBlanc: check your email

burger_flipper2 5 Feb 2008 7:28 UTC
0 points
on: Buy Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
Adanthar, a poker pro who helped break the Absolute scandal and developed a “robotic” small-stakes algorithm on a lark that supposedly returned approximately 20% before it became well known put down 10k and has been updating his Intrade progress here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=88375 I’m interested to see how he’ll do today.

burger_flipper2 6 Feb 2008 12:38 UTC
2 points
on: Buy Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
follow up on the poker player’s results (he put up 10K because he was convinced Intrade was easy to beat):

Can’t sleep, so, postmortem:

I did two things very right, and one thing wrong. Almost all of my predictions prior to ²⁄₅ were dead on, and they largely continued to be once the count actually began, except for one thing: because they fit my preconceptions and what I hoped the last minute vote was doing, I trusted Drudge’s leaked polls. As such, I immediately jumped into the Dem market with both feet when I was previously committed to staying away from it until I saw EST results. The upside was that, when the aforementioned results came in and proved those polls horribly flawed, in most cases I got to take the money and run everywhere else before the market knew what hit it. I immediately got out of the national Dem market only down $500 or so and actually made a big profit off the states.

In short, I give myself a B+ for the night.

Oh yeah, results...up 2800 on the night, 35% total, and nearly 100% since NH with a lot of money still sitting in those guaranteed $$$ Pres.McCain shares.

burger_flipper2 13 Mar 2008 19:29 UTC
1 point
on: Penguicon & Blook
I can point you to an example where a book found a real publisher, because it did fairly well on Lulu and was written by someone with an internet following:

http://www.amazon.com/Seagalogy-Study-Ass-Kicking-Steven-Seagal/dp/1845769279/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205436229&sr=8-1

All he had to do was pull the Lulu edition. I would think the overlap between your 500 page technical work and a popular book wouldn’t be much greater than that between Freakonomics and Levitt’s journal articles, and I don’t think he lost too many sales because people were running to their libraries to access NBER.

burger_flipper2 28 Mar 2008 12:38 UTC
4 points
on: Scarcity
Cialdini also seems to have put out the same info in a textbook (which does not read like one) “Influence, Science and Practice.” Amazon reviews say it is nearly identical, except it has chapter reviews and problems. I only mention this because this is the version that was available at my 2 nearest library systems. Very good reading a quarter of the way in—so thanks for the tip.

EY—what other books are in the “own 3 copy” club?

burger_flipper2 30 May 2008 14:38 UTC
2 points
on: Einstein’s Superpowers
Interesting choice to use the A.I. box experiment as an example for this post, when the methods used by EY in it were not revealed. Whatever the rationale for keeping it close to the vest, not showing how it was done struck me as an attempt to build mystique, if not appear magical.

This post also seems a little inconsistent with EY’s assistant researcher job listing, which said something to the effect that only those with 1 in 100k g need apply, though those with 1 in 1000 could contribute to the cause monetarily. The error may be mine in this instance, because I may be in the minority when I assume someone who claims to have Einstein’s intelligence is not claiming anything like 1 in 100k g.

burger_flipper2 30 May 2008 16:00 UTC
1 point
on: Einstein’s Superpowers
Yet it’s referred to as “humanly impossible” in the link (granted this may be cheeky).

Who is the target audience for this AI box experiment info? Who is detached enough from biases to weigh the avowals as solid evidence without further description, yet not detached enough to see they themselves might have fallen for it? Seems like most people capable of the first could also see the second.

burger_flipper2 31 May 2008 2:39 UTC
0 points
on: Einstein’s Superpowers
Roland, I’d certainly be willing to play gatekeeper, but if you have such a concise argument, why not just proffer it here for all to see?

burger_flipper2 31 May 2008 4:57 UTC
3 points
on: Einstein’s Superpowers
Roland. That’s a clever twist and I like it. I would not pony up any $, but I’d expect him to be able to raise it and wouldn’t set out for California armed to the teeth on a Sarah Connor mission to stop him either. So I’d fail to recognize and execute my role as gatekeeper by your rules.

But I do think there’s a flaw in the scenario. For it to truly parallel the AI box, the critter either needs to stay in its cage or get out. I do agree with the main thrust of the original post here and built into your scenario is the assumption that EY has some sort of superpower—that he and his million bucks are the only way an AI would hit the scene.

My assumption would be that if EY can build an AI, someone else can also. And it would probably be for the best if the first AI was built by someone who strives for friendliness.

But if I did buy the implicit assumption that EY had a unique superpower, I probably owe it to my kids and humanity in general to pack up the 30.06, or at least not send him any cash.

Still, I really like your twist on the experiment.

burger_flipper2 1 Oct 2008 13:46 UTC
0 points
on: Trying to Try
I wonder if a sinecure isn’t a similar pitfall for someone who’s out to save the world.

burger_flipper2 9 Oct 2008 17:17 UTC
3 points
on: AIs and Gatekeepers Unite!
I have ten bucks for the first AI that defeats a gatekeeper (while risking some dough) and posts a link to the transcript here.

burger_flipper2 9 Oct 2008 17:58 UTC
0 points
on: AIs and Gatekeepers Unite!
“Given that I think my chances are somewhere below ¹⁄₄, I’d expect my $5 to match your $20”

We need a pledge drive to set up a fund for a successful AI. This will give the AI a reasonable return, but not give gatekeepers a strong monetary disincentive that leaves them typing “nope” over and over again.