Illano

Karma: 144

Illano 15 Oct 2015 14:25 UTC
3 points
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Vegetarianism Ideological Turing Test Results
One thing that surprised me when looking at the data, is it appears that omnivores did slightly better at getting the answers ‘right’ (as determined by a simple greater or less than 50% comparison). I would have thought the vegetarians would do better, as they would be more familiar with the in-group terminology. That said, I have no clue if the numbers are even significant given the size of the group, so I wouldn’t read too much into it. (Apologize in advance for awful formatting)
```
Number 'correct' - 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 Grand Total
Omnivore---------- 1  0  1  5  3  8  7  3  0  1      29
Vegetarian-------- 0  0  2  1  5  4  2  0  0  0      14
```

Illano 13 Oct 2015 19:04 UTC
11 points
in reply to: Fluttershy’s comment on: Open thread, Oct. 12 - Oct. 18, 2015
Agreed. I really wish that there was a site like webMD that actually included rates of the diseases and the symptoms. I don’t think it would be a big step to go from there to something that would actually propose cost-effective tests for you based on your symptoms.

e.g. You select sore-throat and fever as symptoms and it says that out of people with those symptoms, 70% have a cold, 25% have a strep infection and 5% have something else (these numbers are completely made up). An even better system would then look at which tests you could do to better nail down the probabilities, which could be as simple as asking some questions like “Do you have any visible rashes?” or asking for test results like a quick strep test.

Illano 2 Oct 2015 17:28 UTC
1 point
on: Probabilities Small Enough To Ignore: An attack on Pascal’s Mugging
I’m probably way late to this thread, but I was thinking about this the other day in the response to a different thread, and considered using the Kelly Criterion to address something like Pascal’s Mugging.

Trying to figure out your current ‘bankroll’ in terms of utility is probably open to intepretation, but for some broad estimates, you could probably use your assets, or your expected free time, or some utility function that included those plus whatever else.

When calculating optimal bet size using the Kelly criterion, you end up with a percentage of your current bankroll you should bet. This percentage will never exceed the probability of the event occurring, regardless of the size of the reward. This basically means that if I’m using my current net worth as an approximation for my ‘bankroll’, I shouldn’t even consider betting a dollar on something I think has a one-in-a-million chance, unless my net worth is at least a million dollars.

I think this could be a bit more formalized, but might help serve as a rule-of-thumb for evaluating Pascal’s Wager type scenarios.

Illano 28 Sep 2015 17:13 UTC
11 points
in reply to: richard_reitz’s comment on: Open thread, Sep. 28 - Oct. 4, 2015
One easy way I can think of gaming such a test is to figure out ahead of time that those questions will be the ones on the test, then look up an answer for just that question, and parrot it on the actual test.

I know at my college, there were databases of just about every professor’s exams for the past several years. Most of them re-used enough questions that you could get a pretty good idea of what was going to be on the exams, just by looking at past exams. A lot of people would spend a lot of time studying old exams to game this process instead of actually learning the material.

Illano 6 Aug 2015 13:01 UTC
3 points
in reply to: DataPacRat’s comment on: Open thread, Aug. 03 - Aug. 09, 2015
Sounds somewhat like the ‘gay uncle’ theory, where having 4 of your siblings kids pass on their genes is equivalent to having 2 of your own pass on their genes, but with future pairings included, which is interesting.

Stephen Baxter wrote a couple of novels that explored the first theory a bit Destiny’s Children series, where gur pbybal riraghnyyl ribyirq vagb n uvir, jvgu rirelbar fhccbegvat n tebhc bs dhrraf gung gurl jrer eryngrq gb.

The addition of future contributors to the bloodline as part of your utility function could make this really interesting if set in a society that has arranged marriages and/or engagement contracts, as one arranged marriage could completely change the outcome of some deal. Though I guess this is how a ton of history played out anyway, just not quite as explicitly.

Illano 4 Aug 2015 18:03 UTC
2 points
in reply to: DataPacRat’s comment on: Open thread, Aug. 03 - Aug. 09, 2015
For story purposes, using a multi-tiered variant of utilitarianism based on social distance could lead to some interesting results. If the character were to calculate his utility function for a given being by something Calculated Utility = Utility / (Degrees of Separation from me)^2, it would be really easy to calculate, yet come close to what people really use. The interesting part from a fictional standpoint could be if your character rigidly adheres to this function, such that you can manipulate your utility in their eyes by becoming friends with their friends. (e.g. The utility for me to give a random stranger $10 is 0 (assuming infinite degrees of separation), but if they told me they were my sister’s friend, it may have a utility of $10/(2)^2, or $2.50) It could be fun to play around with the hero’s mind by manipulating the social web.

Illano 9 Jul 2015 19:38 UTC
7 points
in reply to: MotivationalAppeal’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
I didn’t look for an extension, but there are definitely a few webpages that will do it for you. For example, your post:

ðə ɪntərnæʃənəl fənɛtɪk ælfəbɛt wəz ərɪdʒənəli mɛnt tu bi juzd æz ə nætʃərəl læŋgwədʒ rajtɪŋ sɪstəm ( fɔr ɪgzæmpəl, ðə dʒərnəl əv ðə ɪntərnæʃənəl fənɛtɪk əsosieʃən wəz ərɪdʒənəli rɪtən ɪn ajpie: èʧtitipí:// fənɛtɪk- blɒg. blogspot. kɑm/ 2012/ 06/ 100- jɪrz- əgo. eʧtiɛmɛl). bətwin ipa|s θiərɛtɪkəl ( fɪziəlɑdʒɪkəl) grawndɪŋ, ɪts wajd jus baj lɪŋgwəsts, ænd ɪts nɪr- lɛdʒəbɪləti baj əntrend ɪŋglɪʃ lɪtərɑti, ajpie ɪz ovər- dətərmənd æz ðə ɑbviəs tʃɔjs fɔr ə rəfɔrmd ɒrθɑgrəfi, ɪf ɪŋglɪʃ wər ɛvəri med tu kənfɔrm fənɛtɪkli tu ə stændərd pronənsieʃən. ðæt sɛd, ɪts nɑt goɪŋ tu hæpən, bɪkɒz spɛlɪŋ rəfɔrm ɪz nɑt ərdʒənt tu ɛniwən wɪθ kæpətəl tu traj ɪt. lajk, səmwən kʊd mek ə brawzər ɪkstɛnʃən ðæt wʊd riples wərdz ðɛr ajpie spɛlɪŋz, so ðæt æn ɒnlɑjn kəmjunəti kʊd fəmɪljərɑjz ðɛmsɛlvz wɪθ ðə nu spɛlɪŋ, bət no wən hæz med ðæt, ɔr ped fɔr ɪt tu bi med, ænd ðɪs plesəz ə strɒŋ əpər bawnd ɑn haw mətʃ ɛniwən kɛrz əbawt spɛlɪŋ rəfɔrm.

(Though the url got really garbled.)

Illano 9 Jul 2015 19:19 UTC
17 points
in reply to: Pentashagon’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
Since this is a crazy ideas thread, I’ll tag on the following thought. If you believe that in the future, if we are able to make ems, and we should include them in our moral calculus, should we also be careful not to imagine people in bad situations? Since by doing so, we may be making a very low-level simulation in our own mind of that person, that may or may not have some consciousness. If you don’t believe that is the case now, how does that scale, if we start augmenting our minds with ever-more-powerful computer interfaces. Is there ever a point where it becomes immoral just to think of something?

Illano 9 Jul 2015 18:52 UTC
4 points
in reply to: UtilonMaximizer’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
Depends a ton on where you go and what you major in. PayScale has a ranking of a ton of colleges based on their 20-year average incomes compared to 24 years of average income for people with a high-school degree. There probably are some special cases at the tails that would benefit more from not going to college, but for the average college-goer, it is still probably a halfway decent investment.

Illano 8 Jul 2015 19:38 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
Sure, the first point is why I think it will work. As for the second, sure, it may not be 100% accurate, but it would be better than nothing, and even negative information could be useful. (e.g. Person X did not have their phone on during the robbery, but otherwise normally has it on them 100% of the time.) I agree it’s not an ideal solution, just something that might help a little.

Illano 8 Jul 2015 19:00 UTC
0 points
in reply to: MathiasZaman’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
I’m surprised no one has pushed through a cell-phone tracking app as a replacement for the ankle monitors. Sure, its not as secure, and may be left somewhere/forgotten/etc. but if you included it as a condition for parole/probation, you could probably get pretty high usage rates, with little added cost and annoyance.

Illano 2 Jun 2015 18:59 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: LINK: Competition is toxic
For more clarification, I was thinking this over when considering rental properties in my area. A lot of people have complained that it is near impossible to make a profit on a rental property where I live. I think a lot of that is because there is a huge chunk of people who have bought property as an investment based on potential appreciation instead of based on cash flow. If your model is using only cash flow, but another model has a 5% appreciation of principle built in to it, it is going to be near impossible to be able to compete with them on rates. However, what you also see is a ton of people looking to sell their rental properties after the appreciation they were expecting never occurs (potentially due to the glut of properties on the market from other people doing the same thing). The people exiting the market take a loss, and the people who could have actually made a profit based on a cash-flow model never can get a renter to begin with, due to overly competitive rates. However, since new people are willing to invest under the same assumptions as the old investors (imperfect information), the market keeps going strong, and renters can take advantage of cheap rates, though no one is really profiting from it. That’s the type of scenario you can get with an overly competitive marketplace filled with imperfect actors.

Edit: I’m sure people are making money from rentals in my area, or there wouldn’t be so much of it. I’m just also sure that a lot of people are losing a ton of money from it, and driving down prices for everyone else.

Illano 2 Jun 2015 18:51 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: LINK: Competition is toxic
No, I’m saying that capitalism is never purely implemented (with no barriers to entry/perfect information/etc.), and there are cases where due to these inefficiencies, increased competition can cause a poor business model to outcompete a sound business model, leaving nobody standing at the end. This doesn’t always happen (hence capitalism mostly works).

Illano 2 Jun 2015 18:11 UTC
1 point
on: LINK: Competition is toxic
This ties in with a thought chain I had this morning. While we may have an incredibly competitive environment, it is also populated by imperfect actors. You can’t effectively compete against people who are not accurately evaluating the consequences of their decisions. This can be seen in sports, where illegal performance enhancers are the norm in many sports, and non-dopers can’t really keep up (despite the achievements of the dopers being annulled later). This can be seen in business where someone who is willing to sell at a loss and make up for it in volume, will steal all of the customers from a legitimately profitable operation (though will soon go bankrupt as well). I’m sure there are examples in all sorts of industry where imperfect actors make decisions based on poor analysis that can potentially ruin better plans due to an overly competitive marketplace.

Illano 15 Apr 2015 17:44 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Open Thread, Apr. 13 - Apr. 19, 2015
Exactly. Any observations you make on the AI, essentially give it a communications channel to the outside world. The original AI Box experiment chooses a simple text interface as the lowest bandwidth method of making those observations, as it is the least likely to be exploitable by the AI.

Illano 8 Apr 2015 18:50 UTC
2 points
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Stupid Questions April 2015
I don’t know about varying the amount of water. But if you want to eat fewer calories of rice, there was an article that came out recently saying that the method you use to prepare it could affect the amount of calories your body actually absorbed from it.

Illano 1 Apr 2015 17:49 UTC
3 points
in reply to: sixes_and_sevens’s comment on: Open thread, Apr. 01 - Apr. 05, 2015
I think it is not very hard writing something which will encode a hidden phrase using odd and even counts. (But length is key).

Illano 11 Mar 2015 15:28 UTC
8 points
in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
Using the time it takes Earth to rotate one degree gives you 86400 seconds in a day /360 degrees = 240 seconds. But the length of the day has been getting larger as the Earth slows at a rate of about 1.7 ms/century wiki

To find when one degree was equal to 234 seconds, we can find when a day was approximately 234*360 degrees = 84240 seconds, or approximately 127 million years ago. Putting the creation of the stone right in the middle of the Cretaceous Period.

Coincidentally, this also solves the issue of how the T Rex got away with such tiny arms. They had wands!

Illano 2 Mar 2015 19:38 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Astazha’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 113
Yes, but who called the Dark Mark, and pointed out the transfigured mask. It could all be a ruse by LV. Constant Vigilance!

Illano 2 Mar 2015 16:00 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Velorien’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 113
Of course, that would count as losing as well. I just think he needs to explicitly acknowledge that he is losing, so that Voldemort doesn’t think he is secretly plotting something else.

I’m just worried that this is all a big setup, and the 37 “Death Eaters” are really Harry’s allies in disguise and Imperiused, so any attempt to get out will cause Harry to end up killing all of his friends and put him on the true path towards destroying the stars. There was enough potential foreshadowing for this to be true.

-They aren’t wearing the correct battle armor, only a hastily transfigured replica.

-LV explicitly said he expected Harry’s friends to show up later than they did (which could mean they were supposed to be there for this ritual).

-The two main ones I’ve heard people talk about seem to be Lucius Malfoy and Sirius Black, both of whom are arguably now Harry’s allies.