CrimsonChin

• CrimsonChin 23 Jun 2022 23:41 UTC

  3 points

  on: An­nounc­ing the LessWrong Cu­rated Podcast

  Huge fan of solonoid entity and his work on SSC. I think this is a treat choice, I’m very excited.

• CrimsonChin 7 Nov 2022 16:48 UTC

  2 points

  1

  on: Spec­trum of Independence

  Love this post. I am going to use the comments to air out some thoughts I have. But I am not disagreeing with you on anything to be clear. I am more trying to collaborate by presenting my similar world view.

  I fully agree with you that independence levels seem to be trending towards less independent.

  When deciding for my kid, I try to use the heuristic: ” what choice would I make if I had unlimited time and resources?” That choice is usually the best, but it is always unreasonable. The beauty of this heuristic is it then forces me to admit to myself that I am compromising, or at least weighing my needs against my children’s. Now taking care of yourself is taking care of the family and a net gain for everyone involved. It’s not selfish to say you are making this calculation. But, I think ignoring the calculation is a bit dishonest.

  I remember your sleep training post. I honestly feel like if I had unlimited time and resources, I would hold my baby every day until they are old enough to have a discussion and make sure they understand that I am one room away if they need anything. Spoiler alert, I still ended up sleep training my baby at 1yo because I we could not juggle work/​sleep/​health with a baby that just couldn’t sleep without us. I did my research and I think there are benefits to sleep training, but to me it feels weird to say I am doing it for the kid when I just so happen to also get a huge quality of life improvement. I find it more true to say, in a perfect world I would stay up with my baby as they sleep on me… But I don’t live in a perfect world and I need to sleep/​work/​function to take care of the family soooo, sleep training it is! It sounds cold, but I feel like it’s more honest than “I am doing my child a favor by sleep training them”.

  With the independence levels. I feel like my unlimited time and resources answer would be to allow my children to feel independent while also never letting them leave my sight. Anything less than that does seem like a compromise. The best decision for me and my family may be to let my kids play at the playground by themselves while I do dishes in my house a block away, but that is a compromise from watching them from the car nearby. I think it can be the right decision, but I think it should be framed as me making a compromise/​tradeoff calculation instead of “I am giving my child the gift of independence”.

  I don’t want to belittle the importance of fostering independence, or promoting self soothing (I’m regards to sleep training). But I think they are often used to fully justify a decision when in reality they are a small variable in the balancing act between what is a perfect decision and what is a actually feasible.

  If you accept my premise that “the importance of fostering independence” is something people say when they really mean “we are making a decision based off what is best for our kid and what we can feasibly provide them” then you may accept my next statements. The next portion is also the opinion I most weakly hold, it just ties the thought together …

  A more connected world means a more judgemental world where everyone is comparing themselves to others. Kids and their self image aren’t the only thing effected by the internet, parents are too. Some parents can hire a house cleaner, work only 20 hours a week, hire a nanny during the day, so that if they want to stay up all night with their baby they can. In the same way teenage girls compare them to the Instagram influencers, parents compare themselves to the incredibly fortunate families who never has to worry about sleep training. Everyone is pushed to these unattainable standards where parents are shamed for having their kids walk a half mile to school. This section is starting to sound a bit “kids these days”, so I will end it but you get my point, it’s the internets fault.

  We get so much pressure to do the unlimited time and resources thing even though we do not have unlimited time and resources. We are forced to either say, “welp I don’t have those resources, but I’m doing the best that I can!” OR we say “actually what I’m doing is healthy” (i.e. I’m fostering independence, I’m giving my baby the gift of self-soothing). In my opinion the former is closer to the truth.

  We are all just trying our best to maximize our children’s happiness.

  Jeff, thanks for your post. I want to make it clear that I’m not disagreeing or accusing you of anything here. I am more going off on a tangent. I described “independence” as a variable in everyone’s equation and what you are pointing out here is that everyone weighs that variable differently. Therefore I see your post as a great example that even with the same equation different families arrive at different correct answers based off how they weight their variables. I love all your child-based posts recently and you inspired me to think about this deeply enough to write this really really long comment.

• CrimsonChin 23 Mar 2023 11:00 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: Mak­ing bet­ter es­ti­mates with scarce information

  This post is great.

  I think using a ratio between 5%ci and the 95%ci to determine if something is normal, might be incorrect for any highly variable dataset. What if we used the absolute difference from the ci to the mean.

  log normal distribution should have a longer right tail, so this should work. So if the abs(95ci—mean) is a lot larger than the abs(5%ci—mean) then you could take an initial guess it is lognormal. If the ratio is around 1, you might have normal data.

  Like you said, this is still just a quick and imperfect check.

Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

• CrimsonChin 29 Apr 2023 1:38 UTC

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: Algon’s comment on: Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

  Thanks for the comment! This was my first post on lesswrong so I have been nervous. Thank you so much for the read and feedback!

  1. This is almost entirely theoretical. I can’t pretend these are tried and true. I have been doing something like this for 6 months with awesome success but I don’t have a lot of conflict.

  2. I see your point and agree. Maybe I was being dramatic. Maybe I should change “loss of friendship” to something like, “unresolved relationship tension”?

  3. Is this IFS you are talking about? I just heard it for the first time last week and then a couple more times this week. I really need to learn what it is. Considering I didn’t know about IFS when I wrote this, any parallel or usages would be entirely accidental.

  4. I too am uncomfortable with the power Hurt has. These rules are a bit unfair because I didn’t write these rules to be the “best way to resolve conflict” I wrote them to be the “best way to resolve conflict while not getting taken advantage of”.

  So I think you are right, sometimes a person can have misguided emotional responses and the BEST thing to do would be to try to discuss those emotions and have them see how they could avoid the inappropriate response in the future. The problem with this is that talking someone out of their emotions or trying to change their emotional response is exactly how bad actors manipulate and abuse others. So under the constraints I set up, this can’t be allowed.

  What if I added a part in the conclusion that states this is not the ideal rules for conflict resolution if you are willing to accept the risk of being manipulated. These are only the rules if you want to completely avoid the possibility of being manipulated, and are willing to accept the tradeoffs? Do you think that would square the vibes?

• CrimsonChin 29 Apr 2023 2:11 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Caerulea-Lawrence’s comment on: Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

  Thank you so much for the read, the feedback and sharing your experience!

  I think I see what you are saying here. If I may try to use a fake example: My wife takes out the trash bins every week, and I never thank her or even acknowledge this is something she does. Therefore she feels unrecognized and upset. Through her expressing these feelings to me, me deeply acknowledging her feelings, validating her feelings, and acknowledging all the hard work she does around the house; that might be the action needed to solve the issue.

  So my rule, don’t bring up something that can’t be resolved by action would make the above discussion and healing impossible.

  I agree with you.

  Your comment also made me realize that by making rules I kind of missed the “connection” part that is so important in the book.

  I will think about how to correct this but I am thinking about the following changes:

  1. I will remove the rule you brought up. I was coming at it from a, “it’s unfair to bring up something with the expectation of an apology”, but I think I can deal with that case by also...

  2. Adding a section in “winning the game” that discusses validating feelings and creating a connection.

  3. I might need to rethink my apology section too, I see how an apology WITH an acknowledgement may actually solve a problem.

  Do you think I understood you correctly?

• CrimsonChin 29 Apr 2023 14:42 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Ustice’s comment on: Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

  Thank you for this. I had been defining apology as—expressing remorse for ones actions.

  Your three part apology is different, you don’t have to express remorse for your actions. I like your definition better and I think if I reframe my definition of apology to what you have here, it completely fits within this framework and I can add it as an essential step.

• CrimsonChin 29 Apr 2023 14:45 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Algon’s comment on: Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

  Thank you. I’m going to work on the edits. Also thank you for the link, I am going to read up on IFS before finals edits to see if I can see this with new eyes.

• CrimsonChin 7 Jun 2023 1:33 UTC

  5 points

  4

  on: Why I am not a longter­mist (May 2022)

  Glad you posted this.

  I think everyone agrees we should take into account future people to some degree, we just disagree on how far out and to what degree.

  I choose to believe that the whole ”.0001% chance of saving all future lives is still more valuable than saving current lives” is a starting point to convince people to care, but isn’t intended to be the complete final message. Like telling kids atoms have electrons going in circles, its a lie but a useful start.

  Maybe I’m wrong and people actually believe that though. I believe that argument is usually a starting point that SHOULD get more nuanced such as, but we arent certain about the future and we need to discount for our uncertainty.

  I interpreted this post as anti-longtermism but I think most real longtermists would agree with most of your points here except for one. I think your argument could be pro-longtermism if you accepted the ”.0001% chance of saving all future lives is still more valuable than saving current lives” as a good starting point rather than arguing against it.

  All to say I agree with almost all your points but I still call myself a long termist.

• CrimsonChin 8 Jun 2023 14:38 UTC

  3 points

  1

  in reply to: dr_s’s comment on: Why I am not a longter­mist (May 2022)

  Wow, thank you this is a really well made point. I see now how accounting for future lives seems like double counting their desires with our own desires to have their desires fulfilled.

  You already put a lot of effort into a response so don’t feel obliged to respond but some things in my mind that I need to work out about this:

  Can’t this argument do a bit too much “I’m not factoring in the utility of X (future peoples happiness) but I am instead factoring in my desires to make X a reality” in a way that you could apply it to any utility function parameter. For instance, “my utility calculation doesn’t factor in actually (preventing malaria), but I am instead factoring in my desires to (prevent malaria).” Maybe while the sentiment is true, it seems like it can apply to everything.

  Another unrelated thought I am working with. If the goal is to have grandpa on his deathbed happy thinking that the future will be okay, wouldn’t this goal be satisfied by lying to grandpa? In other words if we have an all powerful aligned AGI and tell it give it the utility function you outlined, where we maximize our desires to have the future happy. Wouldn’t it just find a way to make us think the future would be okay by doing things we think would work? As opposed to actually assigning utility to future people actually being happy, which the AGI would then actually improve the future.

  You helped me see the issues with assigning any utility to future people. You changed my opinion that that isn’t great. I guess I am struggling to accept your alternative as I think it may have a lot of the same issues if not a few more.

The Im­por­tance of Judg­ing: A Reflec­tion on Ra­tional Thought

• CrimsonChin 2 Jul 2023 14:47 UTC

  1 point

  0

  on: Micro Habits that Im­prove One’s Day

  I’ll add three that I like, although I know an extensive list isn’t the purpose of this post.

  1. exercise outside for 20 mins (or inside of raining) is long-term healthy and short -term mood boosting.

  2. 10 minutes of something comedic (YouTube or Netflix) in the morning helps my mood

  3. background music for chores/​work/​productiveness.

  I love the idea of experimenting and for me that’s not the hard part. It is hard to think up new interventions. Maybe I’m just bad at ideas but supplementing creatine for instance is something I would NEVER think up on my own, I kind of rely on others to help with the ideas. I love posts along this vein that give me ideas to test improvements

• CrimsonChin 2 Jul 2023 23:06 UTC

  8 points

  2

  on: On house­hold dust

  Depends on your house, air quality outside, and air quality inside but a cheap air quality monitor has shown my that an open window can clean up the air 5x faster than an air purifier.

  Even during the winter or summer there is usually a small window of time (excuse the pun) that the air temp outside is about the same as your desired temp. Lots of houses have an oversized heater to account for open windows in the cold.

  Window fan can expedite the process, you can get sneaky about which direction you run fans to create circulation throughout the house. Try not to create negative pressure in your house (don’t blow more air out than in) especially in your basement due to radon and other bad things with negative pressure.

  I try to use windows as a plan A and HEPA filters as a plan B. I recognize this is a luxury of having good air quality outside in my area.

• CrimsonChin 4 Jul 2023 23:27 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: romeostevensit’s comment on: Meta-ra­tio­nal­ity and frames

  I don’t think I agree with you but, David Chapman who is cited in this post as coining meta-rationality wrote a mini-e-book about Kegans work so you are right that they are very related. https://​​meaningness.com/​​about-my-sites

Unabridged His­tory of Global Parenting

• CrimsonChin 13 Jul 2023 23:01 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Unabridged His­tory of Global Parenting

  Thanks. I am reading a lot of parenting books and I have found that I was missing the context in which they were written. This was the result of my research. My hope is to bring this background context to future book reviews which will be more substantial and thorough. Appreciate the comment!

Work cul­ture creep

• CrimsonChin 3 Aug 2023 14:51 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Tobias H’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Agree with you that there is some overlapping tasks. If I were more precise I would say,

  “I believe 85% of work behavior is an example of bad home behavior, but depending on your job and other factors this has a wide confidence interval”

  Even if the tasks have the same name, they can look very different. For example: scheduling is something we do at work and at home but at work I use outlook and teams to schedule while at home I use text. Entire etiquette of what to do if someone proposes an alternative time, who is expected to come, what you are expected to say if you can’t come. I would argue that while it’s called “scheduling” in both home and work environments there are more differences than similarities between the two behaviors. This is going to wildly depend on your job, I kind of skipped over the assumption that a lot of less wrong users work in an office-like environment.

  I think we learn how to use tools at work like spreadsheets, to-do lists, etc that grandma would never use but we are using them to accomplish different goals than at work. I am semi-confident in this even though I haven’t thought through all the tasks because I believe that the incentive structure underpinning the whole work environment leads to different behaviors. It would be an odd coincidence if despite different incentives work and home behaviors were exactly the same.

• CrimsonChin 3 Aug 2023 18:24 UTC

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Wow thank you. This is amazing insight that fits perfectly into my model. I will find a way to implement this for a bit and see how it feels.

• CrimsonChin 3 Aug 2023 18:28 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: GuySrinivasan’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Wow the opposite of what I was thinking. You are steps ahead of me if you have actually implemented changes. What is your experience with the change so far? If you don’t mind, has it effected the measurables I wanted to investigate?

  -am I able to move from work to non work tasks easily -do I feel a need to talk about work

  • hopefully I should feel some sense of being more myself although this is vague