df fd

Karma: 210

df fd 7 Nov 2025 13:12 UTC
2 points
1
on: Cancer; A Crime Story (and other tales of optimization gone wrong)
Maybe I have no taste but this does not read like AI slop to me,
would anyone want to help me by pointing out how we can tell it was written by AI?

df fd 8 Aug 2025 3:35 UTC
4 points
2
in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Shortform
In my opinion:

1: “vent or problem solve” is itself an improvement from the standard typical mind falacy of there is exactly one thing people want when they complain, typically male: problem solve, female : vent, and they have trouble imagining other people may want to do things differently. so yeah if you want a 3rd thing or 4th thing, I assume you should specify
2. as you stated below I am under the impression “understanding the problem and myself” is under problem solve, and if people’s “problem solve” did not help you then it’s is a people problem, not a tech problem. I am assuming:
venter base assumption: “problem does not exist or unsolvable”
problem solver base assumption: “problem exist and solvable”
everything else follow from that premise, if I understand you correctly you believe there are incantations that you can make to make people problem solve even harder/better?
3. if the book “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” is to be believed, there are people [implied to be female] who want to be treated as pressure cooker emitting steam. e.g. of good communication from the book:

Female: I am sad about work.
Male: uh huh
Female: I am also upset about my coleagues.
Male: I hear you.
Female: my wage is too low.
Male: yeah it’s tough.
Female: I am so glad that you sat here and listen to me like this.
Yeah, this is appalling to me as well, but apparently some people like it that way. [extremely weak evidence] So I actually went out and did an informal poll of my accquantainces [n<20] and reading between the line [beware subjective interpretation] this seems to be what the majority of my female friends/colleagues want [4:1 ratio], and they have been docking me points for not doing it [I don’t have many female friends, this seems to explain it]. My male friends are overwhelmingly problem solver as expected.
since you are a lesswrong member, I assume you should just flag your self as asking for problem solve at least 80% of the time you complain as prior?
5. Yeah I also want people to just be telepathic and know what I want. But we do not live in utopia so we better accomodate others, I think. Especially people like me who is autistic and have trouble understanding people’s messages/signals. It is just much more kind to people like me to flag what you want. I believe you are implying that the skill to determine what peple want in this case is trivial to accquire? that is to pull a number from thin air: 90% of people can accquire it with less than 10 hours of practice? I found this to be unlikely because you seem unaware that people could like being treated like a pressure cooker letting off steam so you may not be good at judging intention either.
Example from my life:
Recently, I mentioned to a group of friends that I was feeling bad.
- My female friend immediately assumed I wanted reassurance.
- My male friends immediately went into problem-solving mode.
Neither group could imagine that I might have wanted something different in that moment.

df fd 30 Dec 2024 10:26 UTC
5 points
1
on: Some arguments against a land value tax
An LVT would massively disrupt millions of people’s long-term plans
this seem like a fully general argument, any law change is going to disrupt people’s long term plans,
e.g. the abolishment of slavery also disrupt people’s long term plans
I suppose you can argue that the magnitude is too big, put then I would assume that some period of phasing in would help.
you can argue that the short term cost is more than the long term gain but I am not convinced.
The government has incentives to inflate their estimates of the value of unimproved land
by your own logic, the government also has incentive to inflate their estimate value of income or whatever is being taxed right now?
Another major issue is that a full or near-full land value tax would likely establish a troubling precedent by signaling that the government has the appetite to effectively confiscate an additional category of assets that people have already acquired long ago through their labor and purchases.
would you still oppose it if the tax is only add to new purchase?

df fd 26 Dec 2024 6:21 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: peterbarnett’s comment on: Vegans need to eat just enough Meat—emperically evaluate the minimum ammount of meat that maximizes utility
I maybe mistaken as to the availability of the lab grown meat to the general public. apparently they are no longer on sale
https://www.wired.com/story/upside-foods-good-meat-cultivated-lab-grown-sale-stopped-singapore-california-crenn/
seem like my information are out of date

df fd 22 Dec 2024 22:59 UTC
8 points
2
on: Vegans need to eat just enough Meat—emperically evaluate the minimum ammount of meat that maximizes utility
Or try to buy lab grown meat paste? I am given to understand that they are expensive but available

edit: upon further research it seem you can only get them in Singapore and with a very limitted selection [?one]

df fd 14 Dec 2024 1:48 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: Chaos Theory in Ecology
sorry for the late reply, I was travelling
here are my guesses as to why the format made me uncomfortable

- The passage is a transcript from a spoken conversation, with incomplete sentences, colloquial phrasing, and less structured presentation compared to a well-edited article. This format can be harder to process, as spoken language often lacks the clarity and conciseness of written language.
- I am neurodivergent so the text’s lack of structure, lack of context, and overwhelming detail might amplify discomfort or disengagement.
- The passage reiterates concepts in slightly different words which can feel tedious or redundant.

df fd 21 Nov 2024 1:50 UTC
3 points
1
on: Cost, Not Sacrifice
I think another problem with the hypothetical is scope insensitive. I mean I read 10 trillions usd and feel no difference from 10 millions usd or less. And it is unclear whether 10 millions is worth 10 of my fingers, while intellectually I think 10 trillions supposed to be worth it. Hence the discomfort.

df fd 10 Nov 2024 0:03 UTC
2 points
0
on: Chaos Theory in Ecology
just want to express my opinion what I do not like this format, without any other implication.
specifically:
- I found it hard to read [as in painful [physically] to read]
- I found it hard to engage/understand the material [after I’ve read a bit I lose track of what the point/topic]

df fd 26 Oct 2024 13:44 UTC
2 points
0
on: Is the Power Grid Sustainable?
I was under the impression that the biggest cost of grid electricity is stability, that is most of the time the price charged on consumer is much [i.e. about 2x] higher than the average cost on the grid market, but occasionally the grid market price would go up astronomically [ say 1000x] for brief periods of time [say hours], and the household consumer would be insulated from that. I thought that something similar happened in Texas when a cold snap happened?
if you are confident that your battery can hold you over those crunch period I assume you can just import grid energy at grid market price cheaper than the solar can provide [currently you can get paid 0.03/kwh for using electricty at peak solar here is Sydney]. I mean your solar, no matter how cheap, can not beat being given money. or so was the result last I did the math in Australia.
Actually I don’t have the number now but the calculation I did suggested that running solar but using the grid as a battery is more cost effective than running your own battery, but my result may not generalise.
I am suprise you can get gas so cheap where you are, in Sydney the cost of electricity is similar to you 0.33/kwh but gas is 0.17/kwh. Have you check if you are receiving some subsidies for it?

df fd 21 Sep 2024 23:11 UTC
1 point
0
on: How Often Does Taking Away Options Help?
In the context of minimum wage.

I assume Abdullah has many options mean he has many job offers/alternatives to jobs.

What does it mean for Benjamin to have many options?

df fd 29 Aug 2024 3:14 UTC
1 point
0
on: Why do firms choose to be inefficient?
But wasn’t bell lab the most innovative when they had monopoly? I recalled people telling me that monopoly has more money to invest in R&D.

df fd 9 Jul 2024 13:07 UTC
1 point
0
on: What are things you’re allowed to do as a startup?
contra evidence, I ’ve been trying to make a vein finder device and multiple Chinese manufacturer on alibaba have been cold to luke warm to talk to me.
been trying to find out how to export squid from australia and both the fisheries and the trandport companies have been ignoring my emails
granted I probably sound totally unprofessional in some way as I don’t have much idea how the process look like.

df fd 7 Apr 2024 13:47 UTC
7 points
0
on: on the dollar-yen exchange rate
Nikkei 225 and Shanghai Composite Index have been flat for decades
to put concrete number on this, the Nikkei 225 is up 41% in the last year and 78% in the last 5 years denoted in yen [which lost 30% of value to USD in the last 5 years] for better tracking, maybe the iShares MSCI Japan ETF [EWJ] denoted in USD would be a better measuring instrument. EWJ is up 53% in the last 10 years [since 2014]
compare to QQQ tracking NASDAQ up 394% and IYY tracking Dow Jones up 170% in the same time period [since 2014].
Calculation not including dividend

df fd 3 Apr 2024 1:55 UTC
2 points
0
on: The Story of “I Have Been A Good Bing”
Any chance we can have the instrument only version so we can do karaoke or somesuch?

df fd 30 Mar 2024 5:32 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: abstractapplic’s comment on: Back to Basics: Truth is Unitary
I am a bit lost. What is that a reference to?

df fd 4 Feb 2024 8:25 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Roko’s comment on: Most experts believe COVID-19 was probably not a lab leak
But we don’t care about random flu virus. We only track pandemic.

Furthermore random pandemic virus could happen in rural areas but more likely to turn into pandemic when they happen in crowded city. The more crowded the higher the pandemic chances.

How many lab similar to Wuhan in crowded cities vs how many crowded city without lab should be taken into account

df fd 3 Feb 2024 12:39 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Roko’s comment on: Most experts believe COVID-19 was probably not a lab leak
How many virus strains is the lab studying? If the lab is studying 50-90% of flu virus strain it would not be strange for random flu virus that appeared in some area close to it to be studied there.

df fd 19 Jan 2024 23:54 UTC
0 points
−7
on: The impossible problem of due process
I assume no one will read this comment

assuming the problem is really intractable and the current panel process is the best available solution, then the standard solution is to put up a [scapegoat]
i.e. civil servant do not want to/ not able to do something for someone, instead of saying “this is my judgement”, point to an other entity [e.g. code of conduct, boss, etc], and deflect the blame. the point is not to deflect the blame though, but to keep on functioning despite having to make unpopular decisions.
I assume that chatGPT would make an excellent [scapegoat]
feed all the gathered evidences to ChatGPT, ask it for judgement [with the appropriate precondition: ” you are a wise and benevolence judge, etc”], if it agree with the panel decision, then when the inevitable blow back happen you can point to chatGPT and said it agreed with you and it is obviously unbiased
if it disagreed with the panel decision then it would be a sanity check, the panel should find more evidence or double check their reasoning, since ChatGPT can serve as stand in for the average Joe who read all the evidence, if it is not convinced you do not have a convincing case.

df fd 5 Jan 2024 22:59 UTC
8 points
7
on: Technology path dependence and evaluating expertise
I am feeling like the dialogue has diverted from its original question, so if I may as a question.
What I am hearing is bhauth formed his opinion on extrapolating from current project, reading papers and talk to expert in the field. And while I certainly can not demand him to declare his source and present his whole chain of thought from start to finish, it certainly make it hard to verify those claims even if there is a will to verify them.
E.g. bhauth stated heat exchanger is expensive, yet I have no grounding for what that mean, is $1000/unit expensive? is $1 000 000 000/unit expensive? a quick google search find people talking about the cost of heat exchanger but not what it mean.
bhauth stated the cost of lab grown meat is too high as contamination is a huge problem and the required inputs are much too expensive, but I’ve talk to a guys who said he worked for a commercial lab gown meat and he was not particularly concerned about those things compare to others concerns.
I mean the guy could be uninformed or incentivised to misinform me. But again I have no way to verify who is more trust worthy.
Maybe it would be easier for people like me if bhauth put up like a 100 prediction market that would resolve in the next 1-3 years and then when the market resolved we would be able to form our belief regarding his expertise.
[This part is only relevant to me, as I came from a culture with heavy social punishment on people that is arrogance, and bhauth writing sometime comes off as such [e.g. all those start up are chasing dead end path], I may have sub consciously applying negative modifier on his writing.]

df fd 17 Dec 2023 13:36 UTC
3 points
0
on: Linkpost: Francesca v Harvard
I am confused.
I have not read much of this rebuttal and I am not academically inclined but just reading the first part of this
https://www.francesca-v-harvard.org/data-colada-post-1
Correct me if I am wrong but Francesca is complaining that of all the duplicate and out of order ID, Data Colada is not listing all of them?
Francesca is also saying that Data Colada only picking on one variable that is suspicious and not talking about the other [?non suspicious] variable? Correct if I am wrong but isn’t this is just banana? obviously Data Colada would not talk about normal data.
Can someone with more familiarity with these things and have time to spare can read it and tell me if Francesca rebuttal make sense?