calcsam

De­sign­ing Ra­tion­al­ist Projects

Holy Books (Or Ra­tion­al­ist Se­quences) Don’t Im­ple­ment Themselves

• calcsam 10 May 2011 14:56 UTC

  38 points

  in reply to: prase’s comment on: Holy Books (Or Ra­tion­al­ist Se­quences) Don’t Im­ple­ment Themselves

  Reading this, I wonder why a LDS missionary got interested in a rationalist community which is generally hostile to religion. I would appreciate some explanation about the author’s motivations.

  Because there are things I can learn here. I can handle the hostility to religion. But if you don’t cross-pollinate, you become a hick.

Eva­po­ra­tive cool­ing of group be­liefs: cur­rent example

The elephant in the room, AMA

Post-col­lege: chang­ing na­ture of friend interactions

Build­ing ra­tio­nal­ist com­mu­ni­ties: a se­ries overview

• calcsam 4 Jul 2011 13:19 UTC

  24 points

  on: An Out­side View on Less Wrong’s Advice

  It would be really convenient if rationality, the meme-cluster that we most enjoy and are best-equipped to participate in, also happened to be the best for winning at life.

  I think this is the strongest point in the whole argument.

  Data point: I brought my parents to a Mountain View LW meetup. My parents aren’t religious, and my dad is a biochemist that studies DNA repair mechanisms; they define themselves by their skepticism and emphasis on science. So the perfect target audience. But they seemed unenthusiastic, that it was by and for tech-savvy smart young adults but not really for the population as a whole.

  This is the most coherent argument I\ve seen against memeticizing Less Wrong. Thank you.

Build­ing ra­tio­nal­ist com­mu­ni­ties: les­sons from the Lat­ter-day Saints

• calcsam 7 Sep 2011 5:39 UTC

  20 points

  on: Safety can be dangerous

  Also, this is technically not correct:

  The FDA is supposed to approve new drugs and procedures if the expected benefits outweigh the expected costs. If they actually did this, the number of people saved by new drugs would be roughly equal to the number killed by them

  Actually, if the FDA really did this the marginal—in this case, most-dangerous—drug approved should kill as many people as it save. But since every drug before that would save more people as it killed, on net there should be more people saved than killed.

  What links here?

  • Nick_Tarleton's comment on Safety can be dangerous by PhilGoetz (7 Sep 2011 16:16 UTC; 7 points)

Count­ing up­votes/​downvotes

• calcsam 7 Sep 2011 5:35 UTC

  15 points

  on: Safety can be dangerous

  [libertarian alert]

  I’m not sure the drug example is a safety problems per se, it looks more like an incentive problem to me.

  If an FDA official approves a bad drug that kills 1000 people/​year, he probably gets canned. If he rejects a good drug that would have saved 1000 lives/​year...well, no one including him will actually know how many lives it would have saved, and he will take his paycheck home and sleep soundly at night.

  Can you come up with an example that doesn’t involve government?

• calcsam 16 Aug 2011 0:59 UTC

  13 points

  on: The Goal of the Bayesian Conspiracy

  Not feasible. Let’s aim for a more modest goal, say, better PR and functional communities.

  Moreover, not this community’s comparative advantage. Why do we think we’d be any better than anyone else at running the world? And why wouldn’t we be subject to free-riders, power-seekers, and rationalists-of-fortune if we started winning?

• calcsam 9 May 2011 18:49 UTC

  12 points

  in reply to: calcsam’s comment on: Main site karma re­quire­ment for post­ing bro­ken?

  This all grew out of a couple extended discussions I had with Eliezer, Will and Divia.

  Sam Bhagwat to Eliezer, William, Divia

  Eliezer, Will, Divia,

  I wrote a couple of posts based on our discussions. I tried to post them; however, I lack 20 karma points. Do any of you have the power to just magically give me those points? If not, I quickly posted seven relatively banal comments. If you all upvote all of them, that will give me 21 karma.

  http://​​lesswrong.com/​​user/​​calcsam/​​

  Thanks, Sam

  Eliezer Yudkowsky to William, me, Divia

  Actually, I just upvoted the two posts, since I can see the drafts. 10 points each = problem solved, I hope.

  What links here?

  • Richard_Kennaway's comment on The elephant in the room, AMA by calcsam (12 May 2011 15:56 UTC; 39 points)
  • Main site karma re­quire­ment for post­ing bro­ken? by AdeleneDawner (9 May 2011 16:28 UTC; 11 points)
  • ata's comment on Karma needed to post? by saliency (9 May 2011 20:23 UTC; 2 points)

Want to be on TV?

• calcsam 18 Nov 2011 10:12 UTC

  11 points

  on: Might I ask for some ad­vice?

  I suggest reading this Paul Graham essay:

  Do you think Shakespeare was gritting his teeth and diligently trying to write Great Literature? Of course not. He was having fun. That’s why he’s so good.

  If you want to do good work, what you need is a great curiosity about a promising question. The critical moment for Einstein was when he looked at Maxwell’s equations and said, what the hell is going on here?

  It can take years to zero in on a productive question, because it can take years to figure out what a subject is really about....The way to get a big idea to appear in your head is not to hunt for big ideas, but to put in a lot of time on work that interests you, and in the process keep your mind open enough that a big idea can take roost

• calcsam 9 Sep 2011 23:05 UTC

  11 points

  on: Tool ideology

  [nitpick]

  Exchanges are easier to follow if you bold the person speaking.

• calcsam 16 Jul 2011 23:56 UTC

  11 points

  on: The limits of introspection

  Solution: use large N by watching for recurring patterns in oneself, instead of trying to say too much about any particular data point.

Com­mu­nity roles: com­mit­tees and leadership

Com­mu­nity roles: teach­ers and auxiliaries