Vote up for YES.
MichaelHoward
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.
-- Douglas Adams
- 3 May 2010 11:42 UTC; 3 points) 's comment on Rationality quotes: May 2010 by (
That is the second most Ravenclaw thing I have ever heard.
Do you ever have feelings of irrational nostalgia for hopelessly obsolete technology?
Several news sites (including the Daily Mail Online, the Sun, Sky News and the Guardian, and that’s just the UK ones) heard the judge say “guilty” about slander, & posted the wrong verdict about the murder conviction.
It’s not unusual to have more than one story ready to go, but the Daily Mail online was particularly detailed:
As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.
A few feet away Meredith’s mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.
Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that ‘justice has been done’ although they said on a ‘human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail’
Maybe they tapped phones in another Everett branch?
How many rationalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
They don’t screw it up. They keep it steady while the world revolves around their priors.
Two rationalists walk into a bar. …
One to have a drink, the other to be the control.
You might be a rationalist if …
You ask people what they think before showing them evidence so you can tell them what they think afterwards.
The psychologist Eliezer cited, Cialdini, was involved in a car accident. Both he and the other driver were clearly hurt. He watched as other cars passed by without stopping.
“I remember thinking, Oh No, it’s happening just like the research says. They are all passing by! I considered it fortunate as a Social Psychologist I knew exactly what to do. Pulling myself up so I could be seen clearly, I pointed at the driver of one car; Call the Police – to a second driver and third driver pointing directly each time; Pull over we need help – The responses of these people were instantaneous...”
[Edit—readers seem interested so adding more. It’s from Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion]
“Not only was this help rapid and solicitous, it was infectious. After drivers entering the intersection from the other direction saw cars stopping for me, they stopped and began tending to the other victim. The principle of social proof was working for us now. The trick had been to get the ball rolling in the direction of aid. Once that was accomplished, I was able to relax and let the bystanders’ genuine concern and social proof’s natural momentum do the rest.”
People tend to compartmentalize. We need to bear in mind that anything we come up with that involves testing someone when they know they’re being tested can only check how rational they can be if they put their mind to it, not how rational they are when they’re not being tested.
we’ve managed to put together a databases listing all AI predictions that we could find...
Have you looked separately at the predictions made about milestones that have now happened (e.g. beat Grand Master/respectable amateur at Jeopardy!/chess/driving/backgammon/checkers/tic-tac-toe/WWII) for comparison with the future/AGI predictions?
I’m especially curious about the data for people who have made both kinds of prediction, what correlations are there, and how the predictions of things-still-to-come look when weighted by accuracy of predictions of things-that-happened-by-now.
The London LW group uses a recursively spiraling paperclip.
Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.
I just performed this experiment, agreeing with the general point but still moderatly confident I’d be able to tell the difference.
I couldn’t.
The dreams you see most clearly are most likely to come true.
For the sake of humanity, cute kittens, whatever it takes to get past your qualms about this being advertising...
Please promote this immediately to the front page so it can get as much attention as possible.
No sleep, or anything that would interrupt thinking about it, for a year, might lead to an interesting wish.
I find myself moved to break possibly the greatest taboo amongst our kind, but if this act of status suicide moves just one reader to action, the sacrifice is worth it.
OK, here goes...
“Gödel, Escher, Bach” by Douglas R. Hofstadter is the most awesome book that I have ever read.
Me too!
Could I suggest a more descriptive title? “Singularity Summit 2012” sounds like it’s an announcement from the organizers, or for discussion about the summit in general.
I’ve had this page in a tab in my browser for days intending to read it, and still haven’t. Seriously.
It’s nice to know my acrasia has a sense of humour.
If rationalists should “just win”, and we equate winning with happiness,
Many of us don’t, certainly not with happiness alone, but even if we did...
evidence shows that religious people are happier.
I accept a correlation between religious faith and happiness, but it’s a long way from there to concluding that taking up religious faith is the best way to gain this happiness. Many sources of long-term happiness—sense of community, feelings of purpose, close family bonds, etc—are more likely to be seen in a religious person, but you don’t have to turn to religion to experience them.
--Evil Overlord List #230