buybuydandavis

Karma: 8,843

buybuydandavis 4 Jan 2025 22:09 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Jayson_Virissimo’s comment on: Be comfortable with hypocrisy
Haha! It’s a small world after all.
I highly recommend the article “On Bullshit” linked above. My own thoughts on “correspondence to reality is simply irrelevant” for some probably largely came from reading that article.

buybuydandavis 4 Jan 2025 22:02 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: What are your contrarian views?
I wonder exactly what I thought at the time.
Being someone who accepts Stirner’s arguments, I reject the Wheel in the Head that I was born with the status of a slave to the interests of all people everywhere for all time.
But moreover, even within the context of the usual moral sentiments, I reject the fetishization of universalism uber alles that leads to the repugnant conclusions versus the rest of our moral sentiments. I don’t have an infinite amount of give a shit to spread around, and neither do you, and the thinner we spread it, the more we’re using it on speculation on events further from us and our knowledge and power and the less effectively we’re using it.

buybuydandavis 3 Feb 2024 18:05 UTC
0 points
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on: Most experts believe COVID-19 was probably not a lab leak
“more likely caused by a lab accident (aka lab leak) or zoonotic spillover”
False dichotomy.
One thing you can be sure of in Establishment “debate”: the truth is not among the proffered options.

buybuydandavis 15 Oct 2022 19:25 UTC
2 points
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on: Trust in Bayes
Suhhhhhweet! I am so taking that.
I was just looking for the money shot from the Jaynes paper EY refers to, and one of the links brought me here. Long time no see.
Since I’m here, here’s the money shot:
ET Jaynes—CHAPTER 15 PARADOXES OF PROBABILITY THEORY
How to Mass Produce Paradoxes
Having examined a few paradoxes, we can recognize their common feature. Fundamentally, the procedural error was always failure to obey the product and sum rules of probability theory. Usually, the mechanism of this was careless handling of infinite sets and limits, sometimes accompanied also by attempts to replace the rules of probability theory by intuitive ad hoc devices like B2′s ‘reduction principle’.
Indeed, paradoxes caused by careless dealing with infinite sets or limits can be mass produced by the following simple procedure:
(1) Start from a mathematically well-defined situation, such as a infinite set or a normalized probability distribution or a convergent integral, where everything is well behaved and there is no question about what is the correct solution.
(2) Pass to a limit—infinite magnitude, infinite set, zero measure, improper pdf , or some other kind without specifying how the limit is approached.
(3) Ask a question whose answer depends on how the limit was approached.
...
Our conclusion based on some forty years of mathematical efforts and experience with real problems is that, at least in probability theory, an infinite set should be thought of only as the limit of a specific (i.e. unambiguously specifed) sequence of finite sets. Likewise, an improper pdf has meaning only as the limit of a well defined sequence proper pdfs. The mathematically generated paradoxes have been found only when we tried to depart from this policy by treating an infinite limit as something already accomplished, without regard to any limiting operation. Indeed, experience to date shows that almost any attempt to depart from our recommended infinite sets’ policy has the potentiality for generating a paradox, in which two equally valid methods of reasoning lead us to contradictory results.
*****
David Wolpert of “No Free Lunch” Theorems and Stacked Generalization had something similar, a Declaration of Independence from Infinite Sets, roughly “This works for finite sets. The extension to infinite sets is left as an exercise to the interested reader.”
------
I protest against the use of infinite magnitude as something accomplished, which is never permissible in mathematics. Infinity is merely a figure of speech, the true meaning being a limit.
-- C. F. Gauss

buybuydandavis 11 Aug 2021 5:28 UTC
−1 points
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in reply to: buybuydandavis’s comment on: [moderator action] Eugine_Nier is now banned for mass downvote harassment
Just ran into Eugine on Gab. The name looked familiar, so I did a quick search, came onto this thread, and saw that my comment giving the quote requested to back up my point had been downvoted into being hidden.
It’s interesting. I’d be embarrassed to downvote to oblivion someone delivering evidence requested to back up their claim, especially on LW.
The banning of Eugine was just part of the trend that today has me banned from Twitter and reading Eugine’s posts on Gab. Such is the asymmetry of the social war. I keep wondering if the Right will ever fight back.

buybuydandavis 25 Jul 2021 0:54 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: hg00’s comment on: Article on IQ: The Inappropriately Excluded
AFAIK, the Triple Nine Society mainly just puts out a bimonthly magazine as pdfs. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find an archive of those. They have a few at their site. It was only $10 to join for a year. I joined and let it lapse. I don’t have anything bad to say about it, but it obviously did not interest me enough to return, and I had forgotten about it for years since.
http://www.triplenine.org/Vidya
Wikipedia says they have a facebook group and a linked in group, but they also say two yahoo groups, and and I know yahoo canceled yahoo groups, so that page isn’t up to date.

buybuydandavis 13 Mar 2021 10:54 UTC
6 points
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on: Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality
Someone else had pointed out in your previously linked comment “Confirmation Bias As Misfire Of Normal Bayesian Reasoning” that Jaynes had analyzed how we don’t necessarily converge even in the long run to the same conclusions based on data if we start with different priors. We can diverge instead of converge.
Jaynes hits on a particular problem for truth convergence in politics—trust. We don’t experience and witness events themselves, but only receive reports of them from others. Reports that contradict our priors on the facts can be explained by increasing our priors on the reported facts or downgrading our priors on the honesty of the reporter.
I’m not religious, but I’ve come to appreciate how Christianity got one thing very right—false witness is a sin. It’s a malignant societal cancer. Condemnation of false witness is not a universal value.
ajbFebruary 13, 2020 at 2:05 pm
I think Jaynes argues exactly this in his textbook on the Bayesian approach to probability “Probability Theory:The Logic of Science”,
in a section called “Converging and Diverging views”, which can be found in this copy of Chapter 5
http://www2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~mdisney/teaching/GEOGG121/bayes/jaynes/cc5d.pdf

buybuydandavis 20 Dec 2020 4:30 UTC
2 points
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on: HPMOR: What could’ve been done better?
I had great hopes. GREAT hopes.
A book of Narrative that exemplifies values makes for a religion. What I’ve come to realize/believe, is that you don’t have to believe The Narrative is literally true for The Narrative to serve the positive purposes of a religion.
While all the rationality homilies are fine and dandy, I thought HPMOR could have been more. HPMOR was so close to a transvaluation of values.
- Mum and Dad, Hermione’s friendship and Draco’s journey, Neville and Seamus and Lavender and Dean, the blue sky and brilliant Sun and all bright things, the Earth, the stars, the promise, everything humanity was and everything it would become...
- And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star, they won’t tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they’re old enough to bear it; and when they learn they’ll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed!
- You are not invincible, and someday the human species will end you. I will end you if I can, by the power of mind and magic and science. I won’t cower in fear of Death, not while I have a chance of winning. I won’t let Death touch me, I won’t let Death touch the ones I love. And even if you do end me before I end you, Another will take my place, and another, Until the wound in the world is healed at last…
A Rejection of Death as part of the Natural Order. Time Binding. Humanity as the Glass Half Full. Now that’s a transvaluation of values.
That’s what I wish the Narrative had turned on. The moral issue. Values. Transvaluation of values in Voldemort. Isn’t that Harry’s dream? That we can all be saved? That we are all worth saving? And that people can come to understand that?
If Harry could understand that, why not Voldemort, the guy with the same brain?
That’s the argument to win. That’s the case to be made. That’s the story to be told.
Instead, the climax was an Encyclopedia Brown Beats the Bad Guy by solving a cognitive puzzle. Harry won because Voldemort didn’t know all that Harry was capable of. Sure. You get a win that way. But what was learned? That it’s good to have powers the enemy doesn’t know about? Well, yeah, but that’s neither news nor uplifting.
And “having people to save gives you cognitive superpowers” just isn’t true. Maybe it motivates you to work diligently. But it doesn’t turn your brain up to 11 when faced with dozens of enemies about to kill you.

buybuydandavis 20 Dec 2020 4:23 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: TuviaDulin’s comment on: No, Really, I’ve Deceived Myself
Sounds like you are blessed and cursed with a mind that values epistemic rationality over instrumental rationality. That’s how your neural net is wired.
It’s one thing to see the argument. It’s another to feel it in your values.
We’re probably just a mutation that helps group survival at our own expense.

buybuydandavis 30 Aug 2017 13:43 UTC
1 point
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on: Ten small life improvements

Video Speed Controller

That sounds nice!

Hope it works in mobile chrome. I prefer all talking videos at 2x, and have to go back to youtube desktop to get it. It will help me get off Youtube, and move to alternate video sites now that Google’s has changed it’s motto to Do Evil.

EDIT: yay! Works at Bitchute

buybuydandavis 12 Aug 2017 8:52 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Prediction should be a sport

I don’t know many tankies.

My favorite word of the day!

buybuydandavis 26 Jul 2017 21:56 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: The dark arts: Examples from the Harris-Adams conversation
Adams has stated why he doesn’t make claims about Trump’s character. Recent podcast.

He says his own moral views are such that if he went around shunning people for immorality, he’d be shunning everyone.

buybuydandavis 26 Jul 2017 21:53 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: IlyaShpitser’s comment on: The dark arts: Examples from the Harris-Adams conversation
The claim that Trump is a Master Persuader is falsifiable.

buybuydandavis 26 Jul 2017 21:51 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: The dark arts: Examples from the Harris-Adams conversation
The prediction of the win shows he has insights into Trump’s capabilities, but not necessarily his intentions.

buybuydandavis 26 Jul 2017 21:36 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: Stabilizer’s comment on: The dark arts: Examples from the Harris-Adams conversation

Adams uses several techniques (listed in the post) that could be used to argue for any position—even one that I wholeheartedly agree with. I suspect that in such a case I might not be quite so enthusiastic to point out the flaws in the reasoning.

So that perhaps the following is not quite what you really did:

Where I disagree with you is the claim that attacking someone’s epistemological method is necessarily the same as attacking the positions they hold.

Maybe some of that extra enthusiasm leaks over into actual opposition to the person, like:

and he is the kind of figure we rationalists should know how to fight against.

Was Adams v. Harris a convenient vehicle to discuss the dangers of Dark Arts to epistemic rationality, or was a Dark Arts analysis a convenient vehicle for you to advocate opposition to Trump and Adams?

So please, contribute in the comments with your own observations about the Dark Arts involved here.

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

I note this as one of the prime methods of the Dark Arts that one sees in the media all the time—the presupposition. I think it’s actually amazing effective. I simply can’t stand watching most talking head news media because the discussions presuppose some propagandistic talking point.

But to be even handed about this, I’ll give you an example of presupposition from Trump. It’s genius Dark Arts.

We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to win anymore. It’s too much. It’s not fair to everybody else.’”

From a dialectical standpoint, this is just absolute balderdash, silly and absurd. It’s just goofy.

But from a Dark Arts perspective, it’s amazing. The silliness disarms. Not only does he presuppose “winning”, he has exactly the same silliness going on within the presuppositions themselves, that we’ll all be begging to stop the winning, which again is rejected by the mind—“no, we won’t get tired of winning!”.

The dialectical mind thinks it is completely rejecting everything said, while underneath all that’s left is the feeling of winning, winning, and more winning.

And this is not just analysis. This is empirical observation. It worked. It is yuge. Go search twitter for “not tired of winning yet” and #somuchwinning. They’re basically “Hallelujah” for Trump supporters.

As a final note, I suggest that if you want to discuss the Dark Arts, find it in your side in politics. That way you can be sure you’re not just using it as an avenue to attack an enemy, and will give them every benefit of the doubt before casting the accusing finger and proclaiming “I spy Dark Arts!” And you may learn some weaknesses in your side’s arguments too.

buybuydandavis 25 Jul 2017 21:42 UTC
0 points
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on: The dark arts: Examples from the Harris-Adams conversation
For my part, I found the interview itself as an exercise in Dark Arts by Sam. He wants to pretend that he has given Trump politics a fair hearing. But he doesn’t have on someone who actually supports the politics in any conventional sense.

He has on a persuasion analyst who doesn’t believe in that there is much utility in us having political opinions because of our lack of knowledge and ability to be objective, and will say that his political opinions are so outside the mainstream that there is no point in discussing them. Similarly, he doesn’t argue morality because his he says that his own moral values are so outside the mainstream that he finds everyone immoral.

Not a guy who is going to defend Trump on policy or morality. He finds him an effective persuader, and thinks that an effective persuader will make a good president, and sees a number benefits accrued already.

Sam has him on, and then doesn’t even talk policy, but spends the hour attacking Trump personally.

Now watch to see how many times Sam uses this interview as evidence of engaging with the ideas behind Trump’s politics and finding them unconvincing.

buybuydandavis 25 Jul 2017 21:22 UTC
1 point
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on: The dark arts: Examples from the Harris-Adams conversation
The OP is an interesting twist on the usual “Dark Arts” political argument.

It is commonplace as an extended exercise in confirmation bias to poison the well.

I wanted to work on this essay more carefully, and find out all the different ways in which Adams subverts the truth and sound reasoning.

Seek, and ye shall find, o’ confirmation bias.

But “the well” is not just Scott himself, but his epistemological method. This is much more powerful than just attacking the person, as it provides a fully general counterargument to dismiss anything Scott Adams has to say as “Dark Arts”.

He is a bad person, for engaging in the Dark Arts, and all his arguments are bad, because they are Dark Arts.

buybuydandavis 23 May 2017 1:41 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: WMDs in Iraq and Syria
Did they even have “Saddam is faking it” as a possibility?

buybuydandavis 11 May 2017 9:43 UTC
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on: WMDs in Iraq and Syria

The US intercepted communications where Saddam told his units to ensure that they had no chemical weapons that inspectors could find. Of course, that communication didn’t happen in English. That communication seems to have been misinterpreted by the US intelligence community as evidence that Saddam is hiding WMDs.

Even in the English given, I can see alternate interpretations. Make sure you destroy any you have. Make sure they can’t find any you have.

Anyone knows how intelligence works? Given those two interpretations, do they get assigned priors that trickle up?

My impression from the Saddam days is that the scenario that Saddam destroyed his weapons the best he could, while trying to maintain the appearance that he had them, really hadn’t trickled up to general consciousness, if anyone had considered it at all.

People are overly confident in thinking they’ve covered the possible motivations a person might have had. “He wouldn’t have done this unless.”

Any actual science out there on this particular effect?

buybuydandavis 26 Feb 2017 13:17 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Stupidity as a mental illness
So how many 150+ IQ samples did the latest studies have access to?

More generally, what’s the equivalent general population sample size for the tail sampled high IQ populations?

Article about the Chinese Study and it’s linking up with the SMPY study
http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-project-probes-the-genetics-of-genius-1.12985