cabalamat

Karma: 173

cabalamat 14 Mar 2009 13:12 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Paul Crowley’s comment on: Closet survey #1

the most important application of improving rationality is … but ordinary politics

True because good policies can have vastly differnet outcomes than bad policies.

there are plenty of things government can do better than the market

And plenty of things the market can do better than the government.

cabalamat 14 Mar 2009 14:58 UTC
4 points
in reply to: MBlume’s comment on: Closet survey #1
I susepct a mild varient of the AAH is probably true. There is a problem that needs solving: why can humans swim (and many do so for fun), while other hominoids avoid water?

I doubt if there was a ever a time in prehistory where the ancestors of humans were all living an aquatic lifestyle, but there must have been many occasions where a band of pre-humans lived on the shores of a lake or ocean. Some of these individuals would have used the water to find food or escape from predators, and I hypothesize that this happened often enough that evolution would have changed our psychology and anatomy accordingly.

cabalamat 14 Mar 2009 15:00 UTC
8 points
in reply to: eujay’s comment on: Closet survey #1
Is this belief falsifiable? If not, is it meaningful?

cabalamat 24 Mar 2009 20:48 UTC
4 points
on: Terrorism is not about Terror
Terrorism is partly about socialising, but I don’t think that can be the whole story, for two reasons:
- If terrorism is just about socialising why don’t they just go down the pub or whatever—it’s far less likely to get you killed or banged up.
- Socialising is a human universal, so what makes different societies have different amounts of terrorism?

cabalamat 28 Mar 2009 14:03 UTC
7 points
in reply to: BradTaylor’s comment on: Church vs. Taskforce
At least for now, most people are not atheists/rationalists. Atheism may seem to be a crazy behaviour to a lot of people! So maybe one can signal commitment by publically associating oneself with an atheist/rationalist organisation.

cabalamat 10 Apr 2009 16:59 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: Paul Crowley’s comment on: The uniquely awful example of theism
You’re right. Religion really is distilled, purified essence of bullshit.

cabalamat 10 Apr 2009 17:06 UTC
12 points
in reply to: mattnewport’s comment on: The uniquely awful example of theism
I suspect that for large numbers of politicians—probably the maqjority—the question of whether a proposition is true doesn’t really interest them all that much. They are more interested in whether a proposition will win or lose them votes. If they think it’ll lose votes, they won’t agree with it, and most lack the intellectual curiousity to care whether it is true.

cabalamat 20 Apr 2009 17:44 UTC
2 points
in reply to: MBlume’s comment on: The ideas you’re not ready to post

Theism is the first, and oldest problem. We have freed ourselves from it, yes, but that does not mean we have solved it. There are still churches.

Indeed. When a community contains more than a critical number of theists, their irrational decision making can harm themselves and the whole community. By deconverting theists, we help them and everyone else.

I’d like to see a discussion on the best ways to deconvert theists.

cabalamat 25 Apr 2009 18:04 UTC
1 point
on: Rational Groups Kick Ass
If groups magnify the effectiveness of rational thinking, what would an entire community or nation of rationalists be like? And how could such an outcome be achieved?

cabalamat 28 Apr 2009 3:08 UTC
2 points
in reply to: SirBacon’s comment on: The Craft and the Community

Why should rationalists necessarily care a lot about other people?

They shouldn’t, particularly. End goals are not a part of rationality, rationality exists to achieve them.

However, many end goals can be more easily achieved by getting help from others. If your end goals are like this, it’s rational for you to solve group coordination problems and care about other people.

cabalamat 4 May 2009 19:30 UTC
1 point
on: Return of the Survey
Yes, I’m a karmawhore too :-)

cabalamat 4 May 2009 19:44 UTC
0 points
in reply to: conchis’s comment on: Return of the Survey
I don’t regard the UK Labour Party as being permissive on social issues—for example they recently criminalised BDSM porn, and plan to introduce ID cards and monitor everyone’s Internet activity.

cabalamat 10 May 2009 15:48 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Z_M_Davis’s comment on: You Are A Brain

The current wording implicitly suggests that the normative human is sexually attracted to women

The wording “you might feel aroused anyway” suggests no such thing. “Might” carries no implication that P>0.5, merely that P>0.

The next sentence “So your feeling of horniness is not connected to what’s in reality”, however does tend to imply the default is sexual attraction to women. It’s also untrue: the pixels on the screen are real, they just happen not to be a different reality (Jessica Alba being in the room).

cabalamat 21 May 2009 2:21 UTC
1 point
in reply to: ChrisHibbert’s comment on: Positive Bias Test (C++ program)

One advantage of the executable is that you don’t lose a record of your previous questions and answers. I think this is crucial, and ought to be included in a webbed version as well.

sorted

cabalamat 25 May 2009 18:11 UTC
4 points
in reply to: MrShaggy’s comment on: This Failing Earth
There are two other reasons why it’s harder to conquer countries now than then.
1. people are more squeamish now; using Nazi levels of brutality in putting down rebellions would attract consideral moral opprobrium
2. wealth now comes from highly skilled information workers, who must be at least partly free if they are to be productive; whereas in the past wealth came from farmland, raw materials, and unskilled labourers. The level of repression necessary to hold a territory (and people) against its will is likely to make the acquired terroritory unproductive.

cabalamat 25 May 2009 18:16 UTC
2 points
in reply to: CarlShulman’s comment on: This Failing Earth
The Flynn effect (higher IQs across time) is entirely compatible with the observation that educational standards are falling, which does appear to be the case, at least in some countries for some subjects. For example http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/do-you-see-with-you-eyes-ears-nose-or-mouth/ or http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/gcses-are-dumbed-down-and-getting-worse/

cabalamat 4 Jun 2009 21:50 UTC
2 points
on: With whom shall I diavlog?
Charles Stross.

(Namedrop) If I see him down the pub tonight, I might mention it to him.

cabalamat 3 Sep 2009 9:44 UTC
3 points
in reply to: roland’s comment on: The Sword of Good
Also, “rainment” should be “raiment”.

cabalamat 3 Sep 2009 9:45 UTC
2 points
in reply to: roland’s comment on: The Sword of Good
Depends whether they want soldiers who think. But yeah, expand the whole thing into a book and it would make a great moral story.

cabalamat 12 Nov 2009 3:46 UTC
5 points
in reply to: FeministX’s comment on: Less Wrong Q&A with Eliezer Yudkowsky: Ask Your Questions

Once almost no one understood the concept of a bell curve or a standard deviation, but now the average person has a basic understanding of how these concepts apply to the real world.

I suspect that, on the contrary, >50% of the population have very little idea what either term means.