See https://joshuafox.com for more info.
JoshuaFox(Joshua Fox)
Karma: 3,245
Of course, the validity of the point about “Haman” is not relevant to your core argument.
When I said “good discussion” in my comment, I was trying to say that using my best judgment, honed in a PhD in a closely related field, and examining the argument and the affiliations of the authors, it seems like an unbiased discussion. Good scholarship is of course neither “pro” nor “anti” Bible.
The apparent phonetic resemblances between Haman and an Elamite god are linguistically far-fetched. There is absolutely no connection between a h and a kh (written also h-with-hook-underneath). It is always easy to find coincidences if you are willing to stretch resemblances far enough. Even Jensen admits that Vashti (perhaps pronounced Washti) is unattested and that he is is emending from Mashti.
Also, note that Haman and Vashti are in no way paired in the Biblical story, and Marduk and Ishtar were not a divine couple.
After the first modern Bible scholars tried (with religious motives) to understand the Bible in its historical context, and found that much of it was non-historical and that there were connections to other Near Eastern cultures, some went overboard in their enthusiasm to “debunk” the Bible. I suspect that Jensen in 1892 was motivated by this rather than atheism.
Velikovsky is a more familiar example of this phenomenon. He was motivated by a desire to scientifically describe incidents in the Bible, but went overboard into pseudo-science.
Mordecai and Esther are simply common names coming from Marduk and Ishtar (like Maria and Jesus today).
By the way, this book about Esther has a chapter on its historicity, bringing arguments for and against, and definitely concludes against.
In writing this, I feel like I am acting out this webcomic, but hey, at least the PhD is good for something.
Then clearly your fund-raising drive would have benefited from a mechanism for publicizing and externalizing support.
Charitable organizations commonly use a variety of such methods. The example you gave is just one. If correctly designed the mechanisms do not cause support to be swamped by criticism, and they can operate without suppressing any free thought or speech.
E.g. publishing (with their agreement) the names of donors, the amounts, and endorsements; using that information to solicit from other donors; getting endorsements from respected people; appointing wealthy donors to use their own donations as an example when leading solicitation drives among other wealthy donors etc.
The situation does not seem as dire as you suggest.
And you’d better bet that synagogue fund-raising drives get all the gripes that you received, and more!
Kaj, great idea
in a standard style and submitted them for publication
This will be one of the greater challenges; we know the argument and how to write well, but each academic discipline has rigid rules for style in publications. This particular journal, with its wide scope, may be a bit more tolerant, but in general learning the style is important if one wants to influence academia.
I imagine that one will have to go beyond the crowdsourcing approach in achieving this.
If you are coordinating, let me know if and how I can help.
It must be possible to engage at least some of these people in some sort of conversation to understand their positions, whether a public dialog as with Scott Aaronson or in private.
If all you have is some generic crime data, then more crime in a region can indicate that the Mafia is strong. On the other hand, Mafias keep their own neighborhoods, and the Mafia sometimes can suppress police activity through corruption, so a very low crime rate can indicate that the Mafia is strong.
Of course, background details would suggest which of these is indicated by the evidence
Looks like the ideal place for you is college. Almost everything in your post points to the lifestyle:
“Flexible hours”: Check; “Studying nootropics”: Check
“Travel”: Check (study-abroad programs); “Not be chained to an iffy job”: Check (Avoiding downtime on your resume can “chain” you to a job, but school is not considered downtime.)
“Spend my spare time on things like self-improvement”: Check (I never did as many side-activities as I did in college; and a liberal arts degree is often understood in terms of “self-improvement”).
“Sleep cycle of the Chaotic Evil variety”: Check; “Work 14 hour days … cool to have that option”: Check (I studied and did other activities non-stop in college; and a degree helps you work long hours for lots of money once you have it).
Whether you want to do college; or have the energy; or the money; or can get into a prestigious enough program, is another question. But you can get into state schools without a strong high-school diploma by getting good community college grades; state schools are pretty cheap; and some of them have some very good honors programs.
Despite the general anti-school tenor on LessWrong, some of us actually learned something in college, and enjoyed it too.
Thank you for organizing the meet-up, Vladimir.
There were eight people there last night, and it was a great opportunity to see people in meatspace, after years online.
If you want to talk about “ancestral environment,” then note that infanticide is quite common in many cultures, as far as I can tell including hunter-gatherers.
Right. You might answer that the dot is not actually reaching the stars, and so is not traveling faster than the speed of light.
A similar problem, though, is a thought-experiment with a rigid rod which is one light-year long. If you rotate it with yourself as the axis, at even a small angular velocity, explain why the tip doesn’t go faster than the speed of light.
Once my workplace had a party/fair allegedly to raise money for some charity.
I was slightly miffed to the low util to fuzzies ratio, and to the company’s taking the credit for the employee’s fundraising, with no corporate matching.
So, when I was asked for money at the event (one-on-one, not in front of everyone), I wrote a check to my favorite charity, for about the same total as the entire fundraiser, right in front of the person asking for the money; I explained myself politely and the requester (I think) took it as an impressive act of charity rather than as asociality. The check was in addition to my usual monthly donation.
The scope of CEV is humanity: Not just the designer’s volition, and not the volition of non-human intelligences. Why?
If you exclude non-humans’ volition (except indirectly if humans care about it), then why not exclude the volition of all humans but the designer (except indirectly if the designer cares about it)?
If all humans’ volitions were identical or very similar, I could see an argument along the lines of Drescher or TDT. But they are not.
So, you could include the volition of all entities, but only the portion which overlaps with that of the designer. This would indeed consider humans much more than non-human intelligences. But that gets into dangerous territory, with educated Western liberals getting a higher weight (assuming that the usual crowd develops the AGI).
This is right on target.
It is not that hard to get published academically. Just read some journals and see the dreck mixed with the jewels: you will gain some self-confidence. And much of that dreck is not because of excess academic jargon; on the contrary, much of the lower-quality stuff suffers precisely from a lack of the specific kind of polish required by academic style.
There is a very specific writing style which one must follow unfailingly. (This does not mean one must be unclear.)
At worst, one can publish in lower-prestige journals, though of course one should shoot for the top to start with, and we wouldn’t want to publish any low-quality articles.
It is also easy to get good ideas. Just borrow existing ideas from the blogosphere (giving citations, of course) and write them up for the academic audience!
Most journals have blind review, so you don’t have to worry about affiliation.
If you are still worried about that, you can partner with academics, which gives the additional advantage of bringing someone into the FAI field. You get the benefit of the partner’s academic skills. (Ideally, you should tilt the style, content, and target journal towards the partner’s field.) The academic also gets a publication for his career, although it can be of lesser value if it is not in his field
I have to disagree with Eliezer. There is value to bringing in some very smart new researchers, but they need this sort of validation. And many excellent academic articles are easy to read; though on the other hand some assume a large and specific body of specialized background knowledge—I only wish the FAI field could get to that point!
As to the journal: There are a number of fields where one could get a foot in the door, such as philosophy, cognitive science, decision theory, machine ethics, AI, etc. You just have to sculpt your proposal carefully to get it accepted.
The formalized academic discourse has its problems, but that’s where a lot of the smart people are, so let’s see if we can get them aboard.
It is very valuable in allowing junior academics who are already interested in these areas, but lack social permission to publish, to come out of the closet.
Of course, it is not enough—similar work is needed to grant such permission in decision theory, cog sci, and many other areas—but it is a valuable start. 2011 is the year that FAI studies start their move into the academic mainstream.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
I do understand the SIAI’s explanations for their rationality work.
It recruits good people.
FAI is a field that does not allow experimentation, and the stakes are high, and so top rationality skills are needed. And maybe:
Understanding correct rationality as well as human biases may cast light on the best architecture for an AGI.
But in the end, I quite agree with Mitchell’s points.
Yet as frequently discussed, the instrumental rationality techniques advocated here have not yet proven that they can generate significantly more successful people, in research or other areas.
I am all in favor of attempting the impossible, but do you want to attempt one impossible task (generating significantly more rational/successful people in a way never before done) as a prerequisite to another impossible task (FAI)?
This paper does a nice job of formalizing some matters relevant to FAI.
In the AIXI interaction model, the reward input is exogenous, and so there was a gap to fill in. In Appendix B, this paper points out the danger with reward functions—that the agent will hijack the rewarder.
Yet with an internally calculated utility function of input (observations), the danger is that the agent will hijack the input channel, as it were placing a video screen in front of its cameras to show itself whatever maximizes the function. (This is not wireheading, because this is not the direct tweaking of a utility register.)
How can we address this problem?
Looking at a few car websites (in particular carsales.com.au) it appears I can buy a fairly good second hand car for around $15,000, or a brand new car that seems quite good for around $24,000.
The first thing to know is: Buy a used car, not new. A new car becomes instantly “used,” and loses a third of its value, the minute you drive it off the lot.
Or perhaps these unwanted counselors are suggesting to the non-conformist that he can learn something from the people who did go through the decision process and made a decision. If someone is pursuing their first exploratory steps on a life of heroin addiction, abusive relationships, and petty crime (which in my social sphere, at least, is non-conformist), and I tell them why, in my humble opinion, they might want to reconsider, is that really “stupidity” and “malice” on my part?
OMG!
I feel really good about myself and my wife, now.
Fifteen years ago, we bought a house with a yard in which we planted lots of greenery (check); not stretching our budget (check); no pool or other frippery (check); we left the construction to the oversight of others rather than obsessing over every fireplace and window (check); and it is in a middle-class neighborhood in an otherwise working-class village (check). The commute is not short, however (fail).
My life should be bliss!
Seriously, does rationality training include congratulating yourself for lack of certain biases? Thanks for the post!
Although this does not speak directly to the heart of your argument, the Elamite etymologies you provide are almost certainly incorrect, and seems that the reference to the legend is even weaker.
Here is a good discussion of the point, with references.
Mordechai and Esther are of course theophoric, but theophoric names, including those named after the gods of the dominant culture but given by non-believers in the respective gods, are common in many cultures, ours included.