emr

Karma: 531

emr 14 Dec 2014 3:26 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Unnamed’s comment on: Lifehack Ideas December 2014
The question can also be parsed into a cluster of overlapping prompts, some of which transition into general efficiency:
- Learn how to do a single task faster.
Ex: Touch typing. Keyboard shortcuts. Find a shorter path. Automate bills. Use a flashcard program like anki.
- Figure out how to do a task less frequently (minimize “in-between” time, set-up and tear-down time).
Ex: Learn what items you can buy in bulk. Cook in larger quantities. Schedule errands together.
- Identity something you can stop doing, or do significantly less of at modest cost.
Ex: Procrastination? Apply the ⁸⁰⁄₂₀ heuristic? This category is probably quite personal.
- Learn how to better schedule or overlap tasks.
Ex: Learn to cook multiple things at once. Learning to schedule errands at low-traffic time. Listen to an audiobook, or call a friend, or practice singing, etc. while doing mentally undemanding things like chores.

emr 15 Dec 2014 4:25 UTC
5 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014
I recently wrote a small (python, command-line) program for prediction tracking. Above all, I wanted something that allowed very quick entry, that stored everything in a single plain-text human-readable file on my own computer, and that I could easily customize.

As far as features go, I also wanted a tagging system and to be able to do more sophisticated analysis. For example, I wanted to classify predictions as e.g.”work” or “politics” when looking at accuracy, or to see how my calibration changed over different times or with how far in advance I had made a prediction.

Since the predictions that I care most about aren’t very interesting to other people, I don’t miss the social aspect. Nor do I want to obscure a prediction that contains personal details or store it separately.

An example:

If you wanted to predict that it will rain today, with 50% confidence, and tag the prediction with the “weather” and “external” tags, and be reminded to judge the prediction 2 days from now, you’d type this on the command line:

predict ‘rain today’ 50 -t weather external -d 2

The created entry in the log will look something like this:
```
{
    "prediction": "rain today",
    "confidence": 50,
    "notes": null,
    "tags": [
        "weather",
        "external"
    ],
    "date_created": "2014-12-14T20:17:26",
    "date_due": "2014-12-16T20:17:26",
    "state": "open"
}
```
Running “predict—due” will either ask you about any predictions that are ready to be judged and update the corresponding log entry, or just change “state” to “due” so you can ctrl-f and edit the log directly. (Since the log is just text, you can manually edit any entry, like changing a prediction from “open” to “true” or “false”).

Running “predict—stats” will dump statistics.

I’m very happy with this work flow, and I’m hoping to clean up the code and share it when I get a moment. It’s all of ~250 lines, but I couldn’t find what I wanted out there already.

emr 16 Dec 2014 21:28 UTC
0 points
in reply to: DanielLC’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014

You have to simulate a smaller or more coarse-grained universe than the one you’re in.

Possibly a stupid question, but wouldn’t a simulation of N human minds be feasible even if a simulation of a universe with N human minds is not?

emr 16 Dec 2014 21:38 UTC
1 point
in reply to: cursed’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014
Not exactly a match, but Others in Mind: Social Origins of Self-Consciousness makes a variant of this claim, putting an arms race concerning prediction of third-party reactions to hypothetical actions as the driving force of human self-awareness.

emr 16 Dec 2014 23:36 UTC
7 points
in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014
I think the linked article hits a few common themes about why this might happen:
- Sunni Islamist groups manage to convince some Sunni Kurds that the “Sunni” part overrides the “Kurd” part, at least while there’s a good opportunity to gang up on a more-hated outgroup.
- Broadly, an Islamist group will claim that they represent the larger and true community of cooperators, and so defection is presented as the true cooperative move.
- The defining feature of culturally foreign recruits has been low-status, while only a weak Islamic heritage seems to be required. It’s possible that literally no mainstream group wants some of these people, while a terrorist group will promise them status. Radical groups are often unwittingly assisted in this by a foreign media which dramatically exaggerates the seriousness of these groups. (This is connected to the oft-cited effect that media coverage has on encouraging school shootings).
- The community is unable or unwilling to punish defection. Bluntly, most recruits come from communities where they can expect at least ambivalence, if not some support, for actions we would describe as terrorism. Think of Saudi Arabia. Given the official ideologies, one has to resort to game theory (signaling) to explain why there aren’t more recruits, and to things like Reason as a memetic immune disorder to explain who acts and who doesn’t.
- The few recruits who can genuinely be described as defecting from the entire local community are more puzzling. My best guess still involves low status, the law or large numbers, and (at least sometimes) a pathological inability of the host society to respond to defectors who don’t defect in culturally familiar ways, as in the recent Australian terrorist attack.

emr 17 Dec 2014 4:15 UTC
0 points
in reply to: DanielLC’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014
I thought that you meant “more course grained” according to the experience of the conscious entities in the simulation, not “more course grained” in the sense of including less total stuff (conscious and everything else) than an exact copy of the universe.

So a universe with a lone scientist and ample computational resources could afford to simulate the exact experience of the scientist, but couldn’t afford to simulate everything else at the same time. The confusing bit is that the scientist being simulated wouldn’t be able to tell if the simulation they were watching tick away actually corresponds to another conscious entity, or if the experience of observing a simulation tick away is just sensory data being piped in from the parent universe, in which case the scientist is...well, watching what exactly? Themselves?

emr 17 Dec 2014 6:27 UTC
3 points
in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014
Well, to be clear, ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Sryia seems quite different from modern Al-Qaeda and self-declared-ISIS-affliate-abroad.

The Spanish Civil War might be the closest match for the foreign support for ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Syria. In addition to direct foreign involvement as a proxy war, it attracted significant foreign volunteers from foreign countries whose government officially opposed their citizens going to fight (like Ireland), and whose identity partially overlapped with a particular faction, (Catholics, socialists, separatists broadly defined, etc).

Although the bulk of the recruits for ISIS have come from neighboring regions, that so many Europeans have joined ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Syria might just be the result of a larger population of recent immigrants who maintain some shared identity with those involved, combined with easier travel and communication.

Modern Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affliate-abroad franchise schemes do seem more unique. You certainly could not have had comparable groups without modern communication and travel. In general, you have things like authentic branding, access to funding (Gulf States), access to expert advice, possibly better scaling, risk pooling, and a sort of meritocratic weeding-out of worse strategies that incentivize geographically separate groups to affiliate rather than work independently, in fairly direct analogy to commercial franchises, along with more local interests that favor independence. I don’t know why this particular set of terminal values has geographically widespread support in the first place though.

emr 22 Dec 2014 19:21 UTC
15 points
on: How to deal with Santa Claus?
Unless you’re using the myth to manipulate behavior (“better be good or Santa won’t bring you any presents!”), the stakes are very low.

Somewhat seriously: Isn’t the Santa myth a great opportunity for a child to learn that they will be misled by authority figures for ambiguous cultural reasons?

emr 22 Dec 2014 19:31 UTC
0 points
on: How to Read
Can this be ported to online reading?

emr 22 Dec 2014 19:36 UTC
9 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 22 - Dec. 28, 2014
Can you give some more background?

Stuff like: What occupation? Do you have a goal or application already in mind? Are there any programming-related things you can think of right now that seem fun, (writing a video game, a program to play chess, solving math puzzles, doing data analysis, etc)?

emr 25 Dec 2014 18:10 UTC
0 points
in reply to: CBHacking’s comment on: 2015 New Years Resolution Thread
I had trouble going to sleep early because I wasn’t tired. I’ve had more success focusing on (a regular and early) waking time, and putting very little pressure on bedtime. It’s easier and more accurate to log when you wake up (I just do it manually), and you avoid certain counterproductive situations where it’s clear you’re clearly not tired enough to fall asleep but still feel like you “ought to” stay in bed. At least for me, if I can occasionally force myself to wake up early despite having stayed up late, my overall sleep cycle eventually normalizes itself so that I’m tired at an appropriate time.

emr 26 Dec 2014 20:43 UTC
3 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 22 - Dec. 28, 2014
I was never a prominent poster, but I recently switched accounts for idiosyncratic reasons. I noticed only one other recent deletion (the first case that you mention).

emr 31 Dec 2014 17:29 UTC
3 points
in reply to: bogus’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015
The Bay Area is praised for having a large tech sector, and a history of supporting counter-cultural and otherwise non-normative people. So right away you get lots of geek subcultures (broadly defined), some of which overlap with LW-interests. There might be other overlaps too.

Outside of those factors, I’m quite certain that the Bay Area (or California in general) is not being praised as a model of good governance on things like housing, land use, budgeting, or doing anything in less than three decades, four referendums and five judicial opinions! Within the United States, the region has a mixed reputation. Something like: It’s a pretty nice place in spite of itself, (provided you can afford it and don’t do something crazy like try to raise children in the area).

With reference to the article, San Francisco has had a fairly unique problem with homelessness for decades (among US cities). The history of this is complicated, but it doesn’t seem that a lack of skilled workers or available economic power is a dominant factor, so I’m not optimistic that the latest tech boom will do very much to help the problem.

EDIT: I meant to post this as a direct reply to the OP, outlining the view from inside the US a bit more. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said.

emr 31 Dec 2014 19:57 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Sarunas’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015
One root pattern in the set of issues (race, gender, religion) is of between-group variance attracting more attention than within-group variance.

I suspect this pattern has deeper roots than a simple neglect of variance: At least some participants seem to fully accept that a model of suffering based only on group membership may involve too much noise to apply to individuals, but still feel very concerned about the predicted group differences, and don’t feel a pressing need to develop better models of individual suffering.

(BTW, this is the heart of my critique of Jonathon Haidt’s claim that left-leaning people think predominately along the care/harm axis.)

In any case, we probably care more about group differences for political reasons, and because our group definitions may correspond to “levers” that are easier to pull. Another theory is that group inequality really is a leading cause of suffering, because we’ve evolved to feel the stigma of belonging to less well-off group as much more painful than the raw difference in non-group-related suffering would predict. Or perhaps we fear that group differences can diverge much more rapidly, and so must be monitored very closely (there is some historical evidence for this).

Finally, we might feel that group membership (in something like race or gender) is not morally assignable to a single member, while the error terms (what I’d call the contributing factors to within-group variance) are morally assignable to individuals. But this is just a restatement of the idea that “fairness” concerns are involved.

This perspective also frames another perennial puzzle of these debates, which is the appearance of both of a critique of stereotypical thinking (which is typically a neglect of within-group variance), and an approach that focuses so heavily on group differences!

emr 31 Dec 2014 23:39 UTC
1 point
on: Interesting (or semi-interesting) part time jobs?
Borrowing money is worth seriously considering.

This only makes sense under certain conditions, mainly the expectation that you will make enough money later (like after getting a degree), and have access to the required credit (so student loans, a wealthier cosigner, or an informal loan). It might help to imagine that you are paying a fee to a third party (the expected interest payment) to transfer some money from a wealthier future-you to poorer current-you, and accepting a risk of larger costs if future-you makes less money than you expected.

If having free time now increases your earnings later (have better grades, graduate earlier, learn more skills, meet more people) this can be a great bargain even on strictly financial terms. Even if it’s a financial wash, you might accept a heavy fee when making this inter-temporal-wealth-transfer in order to avoid doing the boring jobs and have a more pleasant time.

As an aside, there’s some sort of tragedy where the people for whom this option makes the least sense are the quickest to take it, and those who would actually benefit from it have absorbed the admonitions aimed at the first group, and feel that they’re being financial prudent by avoiding any sort of debt, even when doing so makes them worse off in the long run.

emr 1 Jan 2015 0:55 UTC
0 points
in reply to: chaosmage’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015
I’m not sure that the returns to direct participants in many revolutions have been net-positive (relative to a probability weighted sum of possible non-revolutionary outcomes), even many decades out. Certainly the initial pain that accompanies a revolution will dull, but that’s a quite different. At the very least, the accounting becomes difficult enough that a rational-choice theory of revolutions begins to look implausible, unless we modify the theory to assume that young participants are irrationally overconfident that the revolution is going to go well.

Consider the fairly small long term gains of fighter in the American Revolution, relative to a trend that favored the demands of the colonies anyway. Or the Russian Revolution, where the removal of the Czar was inevitable, but where fighting for the more revolutionary path afterwards was a terrible mistake. And also don’t forget the large number of thwarted revolutions.

emr 1 Jan 2015 1:41 UTC
4 points
on: Identity crafting
You’re being somewhat hard on yourself.

insidious procrastination tactic...daydreaming… self-aggrandizing delusion...obvious waste of time...false sense of accomplishment...a poser with an epically inflated opinion of myself.

Perhaps this is for rhetorical purposes, but if not, consider whether this type of self-evaluation is a problem. The activities that you list seem basically good (deliberately planning and searching for things to do). Getting trapped at some stage between thinking about doing things and actually doing things is extremely common.

A few comments already have given or linked to some good concrete advice, so also remember that we feel pain for a reason, and that to effortlessly do what we feel we “ought to do” would be a mixed blessing: How many people have felt like they “ought to” spend half of their waking hours praying?

emr 1 Jan 2015 4:28 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Open thread, Dec. 22 - Dec. 28, 2014
Hmm. I didn’t think this name was a strong clue. And I wouldn’t want to be wrongly associated with someone else’s old account, so if you care about it, you can PM with the old name I can verify or not (the old account was essentially as anonymous as this name).

emr 1 Jan 2015 5:31 UTC
4 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Rationality Quotes December 2014
Biblical verse on the asymmetry of error: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”

emr 2 Jan 2015 2:41 UTC
8 points
on: Overpaying for happiness?
It seems that some activities are predicated on the belief in a later “payoff”, while others are not.

It’s easy to get confused about payoffs, and to find ourselves trapped (acting as if we are) chasing some payoff, when the supposed payoff can’t plausible exist, or at least not in the size or form that we allow ourselves to believe.

For example, beating a video game doesn’t provide a large pay-off, at least for me. But it’s easy to catch myself acting as though a non-trivial emotional reward is waiting at the end, and to forget that the moment-by-moment experience is the valuable thing.

Bertrand Russell once made a comment about how giving up hope for certain knowledge played a role in overcoming his unhappiness. I wonder how many people here can relate to this. I’ve often felt an essentially unpleasant compulsion to fully refute some skeptical possibility or resolve some intractable philosophic problem. Realizing that the exact emotional feeling of resolution I was seeking was unobtainable was a tremendous relief to me.

Another class of problems involves taking a genuine payoff and exaggerating its size or extending its domain. It’s perfectly reasonable to want to get rich or have success in a competitive career. But it’s just not going to have more than a moderate impact on most areas of your emotional life, (relative to having a typical amount of money or success). A good romantic relationship is hugely rewarding, but you can’t expect it to fix the whole litany of emotional problems you might have.

I’m listening to some recording of Alan Watts. No rationalist he! But he understands certain quirks in the psychology of people who are searching for spiritual insight: He argues that demanding spiritual practices function as reductio ad absurdumm to get people to accept that this whole “climb and mountain and unlock the door” model of enlightenment is wrong. Likewise, there’s a small thread in most moral traditions that says “virtue is actually easier than non-virtue”.