eirenicon

Karma: 605

eirenicon 27 Jul 2010 18:52 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Blueberry’s comment on: Alien parasite technical guy
I’ve never heard of this before, and Google suggests it seems to be mainly a component of NLP, with little supporting evidence. Still, I can’t find anything that puts paid to it either way, and it’s an interesting idea. Has anyone done a reputable study on it? Scholar yields nothing relevant.

eirenicon 18 May 2010 15:54 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Nanani’s comment on: The Social Coprocessor Model
It’s a bad analogy because there are different kinds of games, but only one kind of small talk? If you don’t think pub talk is a different game than a black tie dinner, well, you’ve obviously never played. Why do people do it? Well, when you beat a video game, you’ve beat a video game. When you win at social interaction, you’re winning at life—social dominance improves your chances of reproducing.

As for rule books: the fact that the ‘real’ rules are unwritten is part of the fun. Of course, that’s true for most video games. Pretty much any modern game’s real tactics come from players, not developers. You think you can win a single StarCraft match by reading the manual? Please.

eirenicon 17 May 2010 19:04 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: The Social Coprocessor Model

do you personally find these status and alliance games interesting? Why?

They’re way more interesting than video games, for example. Or watching television. Or numerous other activities people find fun and engaging. Of course, if you’re bad at them you aren’t going to enjoy them; the same goes for people who can’t get past the first stage of Pac-Man.

eirenicon 20 Apr 2010 15:44 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Blueberry’s comment on: The Red Bias
I think there is probably no relation. My guess is that red signalling probably precedes variation in skin colour, perhaps even loss of body-wide hair. It is a thoroughly unconscious bias, and does not apply to pink, or orange, or peach, but red, especially bright, bold baboon-butt red. In any case, I hope the sporting tests were controlled for skin colour, because that does seem like a weighty factor when considering scoring bias.

eirenicon 24 Mar 2010 20:38 UTC
4 points
on: An empirical test of anthropic principle / great filter reasoning
IIRC Hanson favours panspermia over abiogenesis. Has he reconciled this with his great filter theory?

eirenicon 6 Mar 2010 22:23 UTC
5 points
in reply to: pwno’s comment on: The strongest status signals

This is not the best example because a president’s institutionally granted power is a function of how likable and popular he is with the people.

The President of the US is probably the highest status person in the world. The fact that roughly 20% of Americans voted for Obama is far from the only thing that gives him that status. Keep in mind that it takes extraordinary public disapproval to affect a President; Bush 43′s lowest approval rating was one point higher than Nixon’s. On the other hand, Clinton’s lowest rating was 12 points higher than that, and he was impeached. Public approval is not very meaningful to the Presidency.

Imagine, however, that the president was more of a dictator and didn’t need his citizen’s approval. In this case, he’d be lowering his status by chatting with regular folk.

Or he’d be signaling that he’s a benevolent dictator who, while not requiring the approval of the regular folk, wants them to think he’s on their side. Having popular support would obviously raise a dictator’s status, domestically and internationally. The people might think that their dictator wasn’t such a bad guy if he was willing to talk to them. Anecdotally, when a dictator goes to ground and doesn’t make public appearances, it’s usually a sign that his regime is in trouble. Don’t underestimate what a high-status move it is to be secure about your status.

eirenicon 6 Mar 2010 19:56 UTC
18 points
on: The strongest status signals

What Lesswrongers may not realize is how bothering to change your behavior at all towards other people is inherently status lowering. For instance, if you just engage in an argument with someone you’re telling them they’re important enough to use so much of your attention and effort—even if you “act” high status the whole time.

People of high status assume their status generally cannot be affected by people of low status, at least in casual encounters (i.e. not when a cop pulls over your Maybach for going 200). To use an extreme example, when the President of the US goes into a small-town diner and chats with the “regular folks” there, he’s not lowering his status. He’s signaling, “My status is so high, I can pal around with whoever I want.” Yes, this raises the status of those he talks to. (It also raises the President’s status.)

If people of high status thought they had something to lose in engaging with someone of low status, they wouldn’t engage with them. Of course, that would make them look afraid to lose status, which in itself would lower their status. So they engage with people of lower status in order to make it seem like status isn’t important to them, which is a high status signal. In short, engaging with people signals higher status than ignoring them.

I wonder what will be in the random theory hat next time I reach in!

eirenicon 11 Feb 2010 22:00 UTC
6 points
in reply to: thomblake’s comment on: Shut Up and Divide?

I submit that the idea of ‘race’ is based solely on bad science and doesn’t have any real meaning such that it can be related to anything else.

Nevertheless, the word “race” remains a useful shorthand for “populations differentiated genetically by geographic location” or what have you. If you don’t think there are genetic differences between, say, Northern Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans, you are literally blind. They obviously belong to groups that evolved in different directions. That does not have to include intelligence, but it’s not reasonable to refuse to consider a hypothesis just because you find it repugnant.

eirenicon 11 Feb 2010 21:12 UTC
6 points
in reply to: thomblake’s comment on: Shut Up and Divide?
Do you have any reason to believe Lynn is a racist, or is that just a knee-jerk reaction? Lynn is too contrarian and I am too unqualified to agree or disagree with him, but I believe his work is done in good faith. At the very least, it’s unreasonable to label any research into race and intelligence ‘racist’ just because you don’t like the conclusions.

eirenicon 10 Feb 2010 4:37 UTC
7 points
in reply to: gregconen’s comment on: The Craigslist Revolution: a real-world application of torture vs. dust specks OR How I learned to stop worrying and create one billion dollars out of nothing
I think it ought to be something unimaginative but reliable, like clean water or vaccines to third world countries. I can’t find it at the moment but there’s a highly reputable charity that provides clean drinking water to African communities. IIRC they estimated that every $400 or so saved the life of a child. A billion dollars into such a charity—saving 2.5 million children—isn’t a difficult PR sell.

eirenicon 3 Feb 2010 3:23 UTC
2 points
in reply to: JGWeissman’s comment on: The AI in a box boxes you
It’s not that I’m making excuses, it’s that the puzzle seems to be getting ever more complicated. I’ve answered the initial conditions—now I’m being promised that I, and my copies, will live out normal lives? That’s a different scenario entirely.

Still, I don’t see how I should expect to be tortured if I hit the reset button. Presumably, my copies won’t exist after the AI resets.

In any case, we’re far removed from the original problem now. I mean, if Omega came up to me and said, “Choose a billion years of torture, or a normal life while everyone else dies,” that’s a hard choice. In this problem, though, I clearly have power over the AI, in which case I am not going to favour the wellbeing of my copies over the rest of the world. I’m just going to turn off the AI. What follows is not torture; what follows is I survive, and my copies cease to experience. Not a hard choice. Basically, I just can’t buy into the AI’s threat. If I did, I would fundamentally oppose AI research, because that’s a a pretty obvious threat an AI could make. An AI could simulate more people than are alive today. You have to go into this not caring about your copies, or not go into it at all.

eirenicon 3 Feb 2010 3:16 UTC
2 points
in reply to: DanielVarga’s comment on: The AI in a box boxes you
It’s kind of silly to bring up the threat of “eternal pain”. If the AI can be let free, then the AI is constrained. Therefore, the real-you has the power to limit the AI’s behaviour, i.e. restrict the resources it would need to simulate the hundred copies of you undergoing pain. That’s a good argument against letting the AI out. If you make the decision not to let the AI out, but to constrain it, then if you are real, you will constrain it, and if you are simulated, you will cease to exist. No eternal pain involved. As a personal decision, I choose eliminating the copies rather than letting out an AI that tortures copies.

eirenicon 2 Feb 2010 22:46 UTC
6 points
in reply to: JGWeissman’s comment on: The AI in a box boxes you
It’s not a hard choice. If the AI is trustworthy, I know I am probably a copy. I want to avoid torture. However, I don’t want to let the AI out, because I believe it is unfriendly. As a copy, if I push the button, my future is uncertain. I could cease to exist in that moment; the AI has not promised to continue simulating all of my millions of copies, and has no incentive to, either. If I’m the outside Dave, I’ve unleashed what appears to be an unfriendly AI on the world, and that could spell no end of trouble.

On the other hand, if I don’t press the button, one of me is not going to be tortured. And I will be very unhappy with the AI’s behavior, and take a hammer to it if it isn’t going to treat any virtual copies of me with the dignity and respect they deserve. It needs a stronger unboxing argument than that. I suppose it really depends on what kind of person Dave is before any of this happens, though.

eirenicon 2 Feb 2010 20:51 UTC
4 points
in reply to: JGWeissman’s comment on: The AI in a box boxes you
That doesn’t seem like a meaningful distinction, because the premise seems to suggest that what one Dave does, all the Daves do. If they are all identical, in identical situations, they will probably make identical conclusions.

eirenicon 2 Feb 2010 20:34 UTC
3 points
in reply to: JGWeissman’s comment on: The AI in a box boxes you
If you’re inside-Dave, pressing the button does nothing. It doesn’t stop the torture. The torture only stops if you press the button as outside-Dave, in which case you can’t be tortured, so you don’t need to press the button.

eirenicon 2 Feb 2010 17:31 UTC
5 points
on: The AI in a box boxes you
This is not a dilemma at all. Dave should not let the AI out of the box. After all, if he’s inside the box, he can’t let the AI out. His decision wouldn’t mean anything—it’s outside-Dave’s choice. And outside-Dave can’t be tortured by the AI. Dave should only let the AI out if he’s concerned for his copies, but honestly, that’s a pretty abstract and unenforceable threat; the AI can’t prove to Dave that he’s doing any such thing. Besides, it’s clearly unfriendly, and letting it out probably wouldn’t reduce harm.

Basically, I’m outside-Dave: don’t let the AI out. I’m inside-Dave: I can’t let the AI out, so I won’t.

[edit] To clarify: in this scenario, Dave must assume he is on the outside, because inside-Dave has no power. Inside-Dave’s decisions are meaningless; he can’t let the AI out, he can’t keep the AI in, he can’t avoid torture or cause it. Only the solitary outside-Dave’s decision matters. Therefore, Dave should make the decision that ignores his copies, even though he is probably a copy.

eirenicon 12 Jan 2010 19:43 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: Kevin’s comment on: The things we know that we know ain’t so
I think when they say “the world” they mean “our world”, as in “the world we are able to live in”, and on that front, we’re probably already screwed.

eirenicon 8 Jan 2010 21:42 UTC
1 point
on: Case study: Melatonin
I have delayed-phase sleep disorder—I would say I “suffer” from it but it’s really only a problem when a 3-10 sleep schedule is out of the question (as it is now, since I currently work 9-5). It’s simply impossible for me to fall asleep before 2 or 3 am unless I am extremely tired. In addition, I’m a light sleeper, and have never been able to sleep while traveling or, in fact, whenever I’m not truly horizontal. I took melatonin to help with this for a couple years (at a recommended 0.3 mg dose), and it worked extremely well. However, I experienced unusually vivid dreams, and would often wake up feeling groggy. Ultimately, I switched to taking 50 mg 5-HTP an hour or two before bed. The result is that I fall sleep as easily as with melatonin, but wake up feeling far more refreshed. I usually clock 7 hours of sleep a night now, and have brighter and more productive days.

The best sleep aid I’ve ever used isn’t a legal one, though. Luckily, it’s widely available here in Canada...
What links here?
- gwern's comment on Case study: Melatonin by gwern (12 Apr 2010 15:12 UTC; 7 points)

eirenicon 11 Nov 2009 20:24 UTC
0 points
in reply to: RHollerith’s comment on: Less Wrong Q&A with Eliezer Yudkowsky: Ask Your Questions

The probability that the species will become extinct because every individual human will die of old age is negligible compared the the extinction risk of insufficiently-careful AGI research.

I’m not talking about old age, I’m talking about death. This includes death from plague, asteroid, LHC mishap, or paperclip maximizer. I didn’t say “cure death” or “cure old age” but “[solve] the problem of death”. And for the record, to my mind, the likeliest solution involves AGI, developed extremely carefully—but as quickly as possible under that condition.

Having refreshed, I see you’ve changed the course of your reply to some degree. I’d like to respond further but I don’t have time to think it through right now. I will just add that while I don’t assign intrinsic value to individuals not yet born, I do intrinsically value the human species as a present and future entity—but not as much as I value individuals currently alive. That said, I need to spend some time thinking about this before I add to my answer. I may have been too hasty and accidentally weakened the implication of “extinction” through a poor turn of phrase.

eirenicon 11 Nov 2009 19:43 UTC
1 point
in reply to: pwno’s comment on: Less Wrong Q&A with Eliezer Yudkowsky: Ask Your Questions
That’s not possible if status is zero-sum, which it appears to be. If everyone is equal in status, wouldn’t it be meaningless, like everyone being equally famous?

Actually, let me qualify. Everyone being equally famous wouldn’t necessarily be meaningless, but it would change the meaning of famous—instead of knowing about a few people, everyone would know about everyone. It would certainly make celebrity meaningless. I’m not really up to figuring out what equivalent status would mean.