I really enjoyed taking the survey. Akrasia! Hope we weren’t testing the RNG site. Since it was down I used a more local randomizer.
KrisC
I used this quote to help convince a friend to vaccinate her child this past year. It worked.
There are gullible people. Here is a list of the powers I have had attributed to me by more than single individual or group and their mundane causes:
Flight. On occasion, I have arrived at destinations faster on foot faster than people in cars trying to arrive before me. This is simply a function of knowing my route and making accurate time estimates.
Raffle fixing. Several times I have manipulated raffles by waiting until the final opportunity and bidding on the under-valued prizes, or by calculating the value of the prizes and the number of tickets I would need to have a good chance at making a profit.
Jellybean counts. (as in original post)
Baby telepathy. Treat a baby like an adult or a friendly alien explorer who has yet to learn our language. Do not treat babies like dolls or inanimate objects. Babies have relatively few wants and needs and are easy to satisfy and teach.
Telepathy. Observation.
Fortune-telling. Accurate predictions.
Photographic memory. Not even close to true. Order your world according to relevant attributes and memories will be more easily accessed.
Speed reading. Nope. Practice and concentration.
Sadly, many observers would rather accept supernatural explanations.
Hello all. I’ve been meaning to introduce myself in the old welcome thread for a while now.
I found this site shortly after Overcoming Bias while doing research for an open source project I’m planning to make public within the next few months. The project is peer-based and derived from what I learned about decision making in anthropology classes. (Don’t worry, the methods have been Bayesian since before I knew the term.)
In addition to teaching myself Java and a variety of other languages to put that project together, I also do some 3D design and printing. Trying to build a strong skillset for a post scarcity world brought about by personalized manufacturing. Any time now....
I had a lot of early childhood exposure to both the occult and organized religion. I feel that by early 20s I pretty well exhausted everything mysticism and esoteric knowledge has to offer. I have a tendency to get defensive when entire traditions are dismissed by those who have only cursory familiarity. When a group of people pursue a discipline they believe to be useful for centuries, some of their methods and conclusions may be useful.
Studied Materials Engineering and Anthropology (no degree—long story). Volunteered for many years at an industrial history museum (Master Weaver, Journeyman Potter, Tanner, and Millwright). Have found work drawing maps, cooking food, and running games (RPGs). I picked my current job in a highly rational manner, and it is so boring and methodical that I yearn to program robots to do it. I try not to deceive, always try new things, and try to live longer. Plus, I love and tend to abuse parentheses().
Great site, btw.
Build a sufficiently advanced computer able to simulate all the Pre-Singularity human lives and render those lives as transforms applicable to a model of a human consciousness. Apply the transforms sequentially to a single consciousness, allowing only brief lucid moments between applications. Voila, the sum of all human suffering.
Then allow the resulting individual to lecture to all the Post-Singularity minds on how bad things used to be back in the day.
Would destruction of tobacco crops or processing facilities be more effective? Eliminating a few executives won’t slow distribution significantly, unless their positions are already held by the ablest people and their replacements would be less able to distribute the product.
Targeting executives may win them sympathy. I think sales would go up, as the news reports would serve much the same role as advertising.
I am curious as well as envious.
To what degree and in what manner do you expect participants to be affected?
What will be the criteria of evaluation?
Memories are more easily accessed, in humans, when contextual information is brought to mind. When making observations that lead to memories, if the context is relevant to the questions that you will attempt to answer in the future, you will not have to artificially call forth the contextual info. The solution is to approach new situations critically.
So, if you explore a neighborhood, before you set out determine what you will look for. For instance, ask yourself: Are architectural features related to the relative affluence of the area at the time of each building’s construction.
Or, in math classes, consider what the lessons build upon and where they may lead.
Consider new situations with conscious consideration of previous knowledge. “Blankness” is not appropriate when approaching an experience in which you have previous expertise. Calling to mind relevant experiences helps to ensure that memories attain relevant associations.
Why is biodiversity important?
Protection from disease When there are a variety of species, a single pathogen is less likely able to ravage an ecosystem.
Protecting minority humans A species of negligible value to a dominant society may be of critical value to a marginal society.
Protection of sentient species Some endangered species are capable of learning language. Some humans are not. I typically value worth on a combination of mental traits. Some animals are capable of holding jobs. Some humans are not. Many people often value worth by productivity. Some animals are more valuable than some humans.
Natural history DNA is subject to statistical analysis. This analysis can provide insight into previous environments and the adaptations needed to survive them. Humans may have a future use for a solution already encoded by another species.
Undiscovered potential Most models would place a non-negligible value upon an unknown self-replicating organism that has been adapted to the modelers environment after several million generations. At the very least, identification, classification, and understanding would be attempted before placing a value.
Value from scarcity Economics. As supply decreases, cost increases.
Ethics Treat others as you would have yourself be treated. Don’t afflict others with the negative consequences of your actions. Protect the oppressed. Be a good neighbor. Share. Improve your environment for the next visitor. Because you may be judged by the rules you apply to others.
It is good to reconsider our memes, but for me biodiversity passes. I’ve tried to keep this brief in order to maintain clarity.
- 4 Jun 2011 0:08 UTC; 1 point) 's comment on Should a rationalist be concerned about habitat loss/biodiversity loss? by (
Yeah, I walked into that question. Inducing laughter in general is too big a question to answer, but I will explain the technique.
As background reading, I would recommend Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Mostly because it validates my belief that humor is often cruel. Really it is great reading for any alienated smart person.
I tried to observed my actions today as I used humor to escape conversation, and I was conscious of using the technique five times. I have concluded that actual clever wordplay or other comedic art is not necessary. While I have gotten in trouble for not “speaking like a human” before, this conversational strategy seems surprisingly effective at work or office situations (US, east coast).
Do not attempt this technique in situations when you can not guess at the social hierarchy or on solemn occasions.
Be adequately certain that the dominant member of the group you are trying to escape from is not disagreeing with you.
Demonstrate through tracking eye movement, reactive micro-expression, and body stance that you are engaged in the conversation. Failing that, watch the mouth of the person speaking focusing on the formation of words and sounds.
Wait for a pause in speaking, lean forward and start to smile with the edge of your mouth and eyes.
Magic part: Any inane thing you say will be taken as a joke. It’s the setup that triggers the response allowing the escape. If you don’t want your listeners to think you a moron, say something sarcastic or hyperbolic about yourself, about the topic being discussed if it is innocuous, or about the task you are going to perform. Remember not to step on their memes and to respect their status hierarchies.
Walk away at a leisurely pace if you want. If they are laughing with you, you may want to stay.
Well, at least I tried to answer the question.
Make them laugh and walk away. The laughter distracts them long enough for you to get far enough away that you are not in conversational proximity. Even a chuckle is sufficient.
As an added bonus, people who are not introspective will often hold opinions based around the last emotion they experienced in your presence.
I don’t think this method is polite, but it seems to work pretty well.
Thanks for the reply.
Biologists have DNA samples of every known species.
I do not believe that be true. Even if it is, a single sample is insufficient for a meaningful statistical analysis.
Ok, but how much value would it place on an organism which wasn’t adapted to the modelers environment, as demonstrated by the fact that it was selected against and went extinct?
Non-negligible, depending on the criteria. It was my belief that human caused environmental destruction was the issue at hand. The organism was adapted for human’s natural environment (most of Earth), the environment changed.
OK, but what reason, other than status quo bias, is there to prefer one result over the other?
The current environment supports human life. The recent bee scare was a multi-continent threat to a species very important to our way of life.
You probably mean price, not cost...
Pardon me, I thought I had changed that.
If something is useless, who cares how much supply of it there is, or how it’s priced?
People who value money. Valdimir_M wrote: “If a particular species is useful for some concrete purpose, then someone with deep enough pockets can easily be found who will invest into breeding it for profit. If not, who cares?”
[Ethical arguments are] just begging the question.
I took the creation of Friendly AI to be an ethical consideration which was accepted by all commenters. I think the relationships are parallel.
I agree that non human sentient species deserve protection.… But what does that have to do with “biodiversity”?
I had in mind elephants, primates, and cetaceans. Each of these groups faces existential risks. Maintaining biodiversity is protecting species from extinction. Sentient species are a specific subset.
I was trying to argue for the propagation of the biodiversity meme. I felt that Vladimir_M was contradicting that meme. I thought I was being clear that my argument was not meant to be purely utilitarian (in which case I would have used values, or at least comparisons), but instead to argue that biodiversity has value within a variety of systems.
Maps.
Locations of pre-disaster settlements to be used as supply caches. Locations of structures to be used for defense. Locations of physical resources for ongoing exploitation: water, fisheries, quarries. Locations of no travel zones to avoid pathogens.
Rather than too much jargon, it seemed there were too many vague names given to existing concepts. These seem to be shortcomings of the text’s author
I would have more confidence in the author’s model if there was a failure mode given for each element of the cognitive model. Unfortunately the chart I created to display the lack of correspondence keeps collapsing when I post it...
The coupling of type 1 and 2 override failures seems weak; a logical failure is not the same as an ethical dispute except in the minds of pure utilitarians.
“Serial Associative Cognition with a Focal Bias, ” which I might have referred to as mere “focal bias,” might make use of this fun psych experiment {rot13 -spoiler}tbevyyn movie.
Once the next segment of the review comes along, it may be worthwhile to compare wikipedia’s list of fallacies and cognitive distortions to do an initial check for completeness.
IQ does normalize with increasing age.
I am developing a decision making app.
The user is prompted with the phrase “I want.”
The user’s request is matched against a database of peer-generated responses. But the search does not end there. The search results are a front end to the content which is also peer-generated. The content payload could potentially be any function of the smartphone, though it is usually screen output such a set of instructions or a link to a website. Request parsing and wild-carding is integral to reduce the number of database entries.
Should the user not be satisfied with the results presented, then the request will be broadcast through the network to peers with a favorable history. In the first pass, peer’s database will be searched. If this is not sufficient the request will appear as an unanswered question to be answered by other users if they choose to respond. I shouldn’t need to tell the LW audience that Bayes’ Rule is used to evaluate the responses by peer. An optional milieu field helps to narrow down areas of expertise for individual contributors.
The program is integrated with phone’s calendar function, allowing delayed and repeating execution of requests.
The application incorporates a screensaver which builds upon the individualized database arrangement to deliver peer-created scenes to a fixed storyline, which showcases emerging technologies. These stories display links for users to access speculative technologies, then the users are directed to open source projects (if they follow my links).
On top of all this, add the usual slew of social media options: upvoting, banning, groups, multiple user profiles, anonymous searches, recruiting incentives, et cetera.
My intention is to leave the code open source and offer free and paid versions of the app. The consumer version I am calling ‘Hope’ and the developer’s edition I am calling ‘Plan A.’ Working on my own I hope to get this project to a working demo in December of this year. Currently the code is hosted at BitBucket. I plan on moving over to GoogleCode when I iron out some connectivity issues.
As a closing note, let me mention that this project was originally inspired by the question: “Why aren’t more people putting 3D printers to practical use?”
But in some limited areas explanation is completely adequate.
I taught co-worker how to do sudoku puzzles. After teaching him the human-accessible algorithms and allowing time for practice, I was still consistently beating his time. I knew why, and he didn’t. After I explained the difference in mental state I was using, he began beating my time on regular basis. {Instead of checking the list of 1-9 for each box or line, allow your brain to subconsciously spot the missing number and then verify its absence.} He is more motivated and has more focus, while I do puzzles to kill time when waiting.
In another job where I believe I had a thorough understanding of the subject, I was never able to teach any of my (~20) trainees to produce vector graphic maps with the speed and accuracy I obtained because I was unable to impart a mathematical intuition for the approximation of curves. I let them go home with full pay when they completed their work, so they definitely had motivation. But they also had editors who were highly detail oriented.
I mean to suggest that there is a continuum of subjective ability comparing different skills. Sudoku is highly procedural, once familiar all that is required is concentration. Yoga, in the sense mentioned above, is also procedural, proscriptive; the joints allow a limited number of degrees of freedom. Calligraphy strives for an ideal, but depending on the tradition, there is a degree of interpretation allowed for aesthetic considerations. Mapping, particularly in vector graphics, has many ways to be adequate and no way to be perfect.
The number of acceptable outcomes and the degree of variation in useful paths determines the teach-ability of a skillset. The procedural skills can be taught more easily than the subjective, and practice is useful to accomplish mastery of procedural skills. Deeper understanding of a field allows more of the skill’s domain to be expressed procedurally rather than subjectively.
Every future state of you is a copy.
I believe having a copy of me lying around would keep me from dying.
However, I was referring to processes that might be put into place after a person’s death. To name three, consequences of the simulation hypothesis, personality emulation from recorded sources, or advances in physics allowing observations of past events. Three more: multi world hypothesis, fundamental error in worldview, ongoing extra-terrestral intervention. And the big one, FOOM!
I’m not sure how to cheat death, but I am open to examining options.
It wouldn’t be procrastinating if I didn’t.
Raises the question: try to write a witty response or get back to work?
Survey complete.