I operate by Crocker’s rules. All LLM output is explicitely designated as such. I have made no self-hiding agreements. I add LLMs who gave feedback to/were involved in the creation of projects/the writing of blogposts in the same way I’d add humans as co-authors.
niplav
Karma: 6,145
There are the accounts Claude+ and chatgptopenai, which one could make co-authors on posts to indicate idea/feedback/whatever-involvement. In general, I’m happy to support developing norms about AI involvement, as to give people an out if they’re worried about memetic plagues.
I like to make the distinction of altruism-as-social-rewards-hooking-into percepts and altruism-as-social-rewards-hooking-into-worldmodel. One can get warm fuzzies in either, would be my guess?
Like, I’m EA, and I’ve also taken some unusually selfish actions over the years.
I wasn’t around for the first LW PUA wars, though I “experienced” them in reading the threads in retrospect.
What’s your sense of why one side won, and the other didn’t, back then? I’m curious how the consensus was reached.
Examples of written infields here, here/here, here, here and here. Generally these match my experiences and I’d softly vouch for them in terms of realism, if not accuracy, though some are by guys who are much more skilled than I am/was. (Selection bias of course applies here, a ton)
In general the infields I’ve seen on e.g. YouTube match my experience of ~1k approaches, though I haven’t done any nightgame.
I expect that when we look back in a few years, there will be a pretty strong feeling that this was the wrong call & that this should’ve been more apparent even without the benefit of hindsight.
Prescient.
generated a Youtube promotional video (consider watching this with sound, it’s hilarious)
The link says “video unavailable” for me.
Induction doesn’t apply perfectly here, instead we’d like to know how well/badly conditioned our methods are. This is probably over and above the conditioning of the training process per se.
I looked into transfer learning a while ago, resulting in this post, it contains some pointers to further literature. I was not particularly impressed by the literature, but it’s a thing that’s hard to study. Open loops were investigating error-based learning, video/audio self modeling, self-explanation (talking to oneself (an LLM?) and explaining something while learning/thinking). Some thoughts about feedback loops here.
It’s worth flagging that 1899 is extremely old and I wouldn’t expect European authors to do a good job providing an unbiased description of First Nations culture.
I explicitly read the book trying to be skeptical of the authors’ perspective, but was all-in-all positively surprised by their empiricism. As far as I can tell, they weren’t sensationalizing or exaggerating, and plainly describing what they were able to observe. (One would have to read the book on one’s own to form a proper opinion here). My general impression is that they were describing the Aboriginals like they would describe a group of sophisticated animals.
And the date cuts the other way too: Even during Spencers and Gillens time iron tools had already spread far & wide, so any later reports are afflicted by strong Western influence (of which Spencer wasn’t innocent, he advocated for a precursor policy that (afaiu) resulted in the Stolen Generations. I might also try to read (parts of) the Florentine Codex, not because of its scientific neutrality, but because of the closeness it had to the lived reality of the Aztecs.
Indigenous Australians only received equal voting rights at all levels of government across the country in 1966.
I don’t see how this is related to being able to faithfully observing and reporting on Aboriginal customs and behavior.
Yes, self-starvation in is in the causal pathway. I still found this astonishing.
I’ve been reading an anthropology about the Australian aboriginals, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (Baldwin Spencer/Francis James Gillen, 1899), and found some parts interesting enough to share them.
Content warning: description of gruesome (though consensual) mutilation.
Things that stood out about the aboriginals (highlighting not in the original text):
Aboriginals experienced nocebo effects strong enough to result in death, even from mild injuries, if the weapon causing the injury was believed to be enchanted [1]
Each aboriginal man had the right to at least one wife [2]
Aboriginals were very good at tracking, for example easily able to distinguish individuals from their tracks [3]
The central Australian aboriginals plausibly had a form of specialization/division of labour independent of differences in supply of resources [4]
Aboriginals had a lot of rituals resulting in injuries, sometimes gruesome ones, the cost of not engaging in these rituals in ridicule, which is highly aversive [5]
The most shocking one was penile subincision (extra content warning, very unpleasant images of mutilated penises)
In order to become capable of magic, aboriginals would make a hole in their tongue [8] (without, apparently, any guidance on how to do that) and push small stones far under their fingernails [9]
One minor ceremony involved the knocking out of one or more teeth, both in men [10] and women [11]
Commentary: I find it interesting in how gruesome and costly social signals can become, penile subincision is quite fitness-reducing (ejaculate flows out along the subincision), but there are so many things Australian aboriginals do that reduce fitness by a large amount such as bloodletting, knocking out of teeth &c.
Aboriginals didn’t experience much sexual jealousy [12] , but had strong norms on who was allowed to marry whom (noncompliance with which was severely punished, often by death), they also don’t connect sex to conception [13] , which is instead explained by spirits entering women in totem localities [14]
A person was mostly not allowed to eat from their totem animal [15]
Commentary: This makes me wonder if food taboos are a way of implementing Ostromian common-pool resources, though it doesn’t quite fit this case.
Things that stood out about the authors:
The authors are slightly racist, but they are far more sexist than racist in tone (e.g. describing [16] old aboriginal women in derogatory terms [17] )
They do not thank any aboriginals in the acknowledgements section despite having lived among aboriginals and having been introduced into the tribe
And yes, the book contains an appendix with a table of measurements of heads and faces (the authors inform that they couldn’t desecrate graves to find skulls to measure [18] without having soured relations to the aboriginals)
The authors frequently make passing æsthetic judgements on aboriginal tribal objects and the skills of aboriginals, my vague recollection is that positive judgments are slightly more common than negative judgments
Commentary: Overall I find the authors to be fairly scientific my my modern WEIRD standards, but slightly disrespectful at times and rarely highly disrespectful. I enjoy that they attempt to directly report observations, and usually don’t mix observations with inferences.
The racism of the authors is often marked by the absence rather than the presence of certain actions/statements (taking photos of churinga (sacred objects) which should never seen by unintiated outsiders without even commenting on it, not acknowledging any individual aboriginals for their help), which I found curious; I believe this is because they didn’t have the type of anti-racism to contrast themselves against, as many people explicitly racist today would have to; today you have to wear your racism on your sleeve to counter-signal.
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p. 537/538: “In addition to procuring death by giving an enemy a bone or stick it is a very common thing to charm a spear by singing over it. Any bone, stick, spear &c, which has thus been “sung” is supposed to be endowed with what the natives call Arungquiltha, that is magical poisonous properties, and any native who believes that he has been struck by, say, a charmed spear is almost sure to die whether the would be slight or severe unless he be saved by the counter magic of a medicine man. There is no doubt whatever that a native will die after the infliction of even a most superficial wound if only he believes that the weapon which inflicted the woulnd had been sung over and thus endowed with Arungquiltha. He simply lies down, refuses food and pines away. Not long ago a man from Barrow Creek received a slight wound in the groin. Though there was apparently nothing serious the matter with him, still he persisted in saying that the spear had been charmed and that he must die, which accordingly he did in the course of a few days. Another man coming down to the Alice Springs from the Tennant Creek contracted a slight cold, but the local men told him that the members of a group about twelve miles away to the east had taken his heart out, and believeing this to be so he simply laid himself down and wasted away. In a similar way a man at Charlotte Waters came to one of the authors with a slight spear woulnd in his back. He was assured that the wound was not serious, and it was dressed in the usual way, but he persisted in saying that the spear had been sung, and that though it could not be seen yet in reality it had broken his back and he was going to die, which accordingly he did. As a result of this a party was organized among the members of his group to avenge his death, and the man who had wounded him with the charmed weapon was killed. Instances of occurrences such as these could be multiplied, and though of course it is impossible to prove that death would not have followed under any circumstances, that is whether the native had or had not imagined the weapon to have been “sung,” yet with a knowledge of what wounds and what injuries he will survive if he does not suspect the intervention of magic, it is not possible to explain death under such circumstances except as associated directly with the firm belief of the injured man that Arungquiltha has entered his body, and that therefore he must die.”
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p. 554: “The use of these objects is a well recognised method of obtaining wives, as is shown by the fact that a man’s right to a woman, secured by means of one or other of them, is supported by the men of his local group, provided always that the woman stands to the man in the relationship of Unawa or lawful wife.”
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p. 483: “As to the question of tracking, the idea which has been generally held, that the shoes are used to prevent the tracks being seen will not be regarded as at all satisfactory by those who are acquainted with the remarkable power of the Australian native in this respect. They will neither hide the track nor, though they are shaped alike at each end, will they even suffice to prevent any native who cares to look from seeing at a glance which direction the wearer has come from, or gone towards. Any even moderately experienced native will, without the slighest difficulty, tell from the faintest track—from an upturned stone, a down-bent piece of grass or a twig of shrub—not only that some one has passed by but also the direction in which he has travelled. The only way in which they can be of use in hiding tracks is by preventing it from being recognised who was the particular individual, and in this way they might be of service, for when once an experienced native—almost incredible though it may sound to those who have not had the opportunity of watching them —has seen the track of a man or woman he will distinguish it afterwards from that of any other individual of his acquaintance.”
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p. 586/587: “Together with the pitchis made out of the same wood, the shields afford evidence of very considerable manipulative skill, and no small appreciation of beauty of form and symmetry of line on the part of their makers. It may be mentioned here that these shields, or rather the best ones, are the work of men of the Warramunga tribe which inhabits the district in thei neighbourhood of Tennant Creek. They are also made by the northern Arunta, the Ilpirra and Kaitish people. In regard to these Central natives it is a striking feature that men who live in particular districts are famous for making particular forms of implements and weapons, and that this is by no means wholly dependent upon the fact that suitable material for their construction is only to be found in the districts occupied by them. Thus the best pitchis, made of the bean tree, are the work of groups of natives who live out to the west of Alice Springs; the best shields, as we have just said, are those made away to the north, the best spear-throwers are made in the south-west, the best boomerangs away to the east and north-east, and the best spears in the north part of the Arunta tribe, in the Alice Springs district. The western men, for example, though they have the bean tree and make pitchis out of it, get their shields by exchange from the north; the Alice Springs blacks in like manner exchange their spears for the boomerangs of the eastern natives, and so on. Even in the old traditions we find reference to the excellence of the pitchis made by the western natives; in fact, according to tradition, one of the wandering ancestral groups named what is now called Mount Sonder, Urachipma, or the place of pitchis, because here they found an old bandicoot man engaged in making them. The tradition may at any rate be regarded as indicative that this distribution of work is of very old standing. It seems, generally speaking, to be independent of the existence in any particular locality of the material necessary for the manufacture of any particular article. It also shows that great care must be taken in dealing with the various implements which are commonly found amongst any particular tribe. Every Arunta man is sure to have one of these shields, and yet the majority of them have not been made in the tribe, nor, indeed, within a hundred miles of the district occupied by it, but by a tribe speaking a quite qifferent languages. Why certain things, such as shields and boomerangs, should be traded over wide areas and be common to a number of tribes, and why certain other things, such as the spear-throwers, for example, should be local in distribution, it is difficult to understand.”
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p. 451: “in fact any one, whatever his or her totem me, may undergo the rite at pleasure, but in the case of just the one totem it is obligatory, or practically so, though at the same time the non-observance of the custom would not prevent any man from being admitted to the secrets of the tribe, but it would subject him to what is most dreaded by the native, and that is the constant ridicule of the other men and women, with whom he is in daily contact.”
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p. 285: “The oldest Okilia man now said “Who will be Tapunga?” Two men volunteered, one man a Panunga and the other a Purula. The former at once lay on his stomach on the ground and the latter on the top of him, and when this kind of living table was ready the Kumara Arakurta was led from the Nurtunja, close to which the men had laid down, and then placed lying at full length on his back on top of the Tapunga. As soon as ever he was in position another man sat astride of his body, grasped the penis and put the urethra on the stretch. The operator who is called Pininga and is chosen by the Oknia and Okilia, then approached and quickly, with a stone knife, laid open the urethra from below.”
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p. 287: “It very often happens that, as soon as the operation has been performed on an Arakurta, one or more of the younger men present, who have been operated on before, stand up and voluntarily undergo a second operation. In such cases the men do not consider that the incision has been carried far enough. Standing out on the clear space close by the Nurtunja, with legs wide a part and hands behind his back, the man shouts out “*Mura Ariltha atnartinja yinga aritchika pitchi”;—“Mura mine come and cut my Ariltha down to the root.” Then one Mura man comes and pinions him from behind, while another comes up in front and seizing the penis first of all cuts out an oval shaped piece of skin which he throws away and then extends the slit to the root. Most men at some time or other undergo the second operation and some come forward a third time, though a man is often as old as thirty or thirty-five before he submits to his second operation which is called ariltha erlitha atnartinja.”
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p. 523: “When any man feels that he is capable of becoming one [medicine man], he ventures away from the camp quite alone until he comes to the mouth of the cave. Here, with considerable trepidation, he lies down to sleep, not venturing to go inside, or else he would, instead of becoming endowed with magic power, be spirited away for ever. At break of day, one of the Iruntarinia comes to the mouth of the cave, and, finding the man asleep, throws at him an invisible lance which pierces the neck from behind, passes through the tongue, making therein a large hole, and then comes out through the mouth. The tongue remains throughout life perforated in the centre with a hole large enough to admit the little finger; and when all is over, the hole is the only visible and outward sign of the treatment of the Iruntarinia. How the hole is really made it is impossible to say, but as shown in the illustration it is always present in the genuine medicine man. In some way of course the novice must make it himself; but naturally no one will ever admit the fact”
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p. 528: “The next operation consisted in one of the Nung-gara taking a ‘pointing stick,’ and after having tied some hair string round the middle joint of the first finger of the man’s right hand he forced the pointed end of the stick under the nail and for a considerable distance into the flesh, making thus a hole into which he pretended to press a crystal. The man was then told to keep a finger pressed up against the hole so as to prevent the stone from coming out, after which he was told to remain perfectly quiet and go to sleep.”
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p. 485: “If the operation [of knocking out of teeth] be performed on a man he lies down on his back, resting his head on the lap of a sitting man who is his tribal Oknia (elder brother), or else a man who is Unkulla to him (mother’s brother’s son). The latter pinions his arms and then another Okilia or Unkulla fills his mouth with fur-string for the purpose, partly, they say, of absorbing the blood and party of deadening the pain,and partly also to prevent the tooth from being swallowed. The same man then takes a piece of wood, usually the sharp end of a spear, in which there is a hole made, and, pressing it firmly against the tooth, strikes it sharply with a stone. When the tooth is out, he holds it up for an instant so that it can be seen by all, and while uttering a peculiar, rolling, guttural sound throws it away as far as possible in the direction of the Mira Mia Alcherringa, which means the camp of the man’s mother in the Alcheringa.”
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p. 486: “When a woman or girl is to be operated on, a little space is cleared near to the main camp where men and women all assemble, except only those who are Mura to the girl. A tribal Okilia sits down and the girl lies with her head in his lap, and the operation is conducted as in the case of the men and boys, being almost always performed by a tribal Okilia. The tooth when taken out is lifted up with the same guttural sound and thrown in the direction of the mother’s Alcheringa camp. The girl now springs to her feet, and seizing a small pitchi which has been placed close at hand for the purpose, fills it with sand, and dancing over the cleared space agitates the pitchi as if she were winnowing seed. When it is emptied she resumes her seat amongst the women.”
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p. 129: “In connection with this, it may be worth while noting that amongst the Australian natives with whom we have come in contact, the feeling of sexual jealousy is not developed to anything like the extent to which it would appear to be in many other savage tribes. For a man to have unlawful intercourse with any woman arouses a feeling which is due not so much to jealousy as to the fact that the delinquent has infringed a tribal custom.”
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p. 265: “We have amongst the Arunta, Luritcha, and Ilpirra tribes, and probably also amongst others such as the Warramunga, the idea firmly held that the child is not the direct result of intercourse, as it may come without this, which merely, as it were, prepares the mother for the reception and birth also of an already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the totem centres. Time after time we have questioned them on this point, and always received the reply that the child was not the direct result of intercourse.”
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p. 133: “The tradition of the natives is that when the spirit child goes inside a woman the Churinga is dropped. When the child is born the mother tells the father the position of the tree or rock near to which she supposes the child to have entered her, and he, together with one or two of the older men, […] goes to the locality […] and searches for the dropped Churinga. The latter is usually, but not always, supposed to be a stone one marked with a device peculiar to the totem of the spirit child and therefore of the newly-born one.”
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p. 202: “A man will only eat very sparingly of his totem, and even if he does eat a little of it, which is allowable to him, he is careful, in the case, for example, of an emu man, not to eat the best part, such as the fat. The totem of any man is regarded, just as it is elsewhere, as the same thing as himself: as a native once said to us when we were discussing the matter with him, ‘that one,’ pointing to his photograph which we had taken, ‘is just the same as me; so is a kangaroo’ (his totem).”
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p. 66: “The body is usually smooth with, at most, a development of very fine short hairs only perceptible on close examination, and there may be occasionally a well-marked development of hair on the lip or chin, which is especially noticeable in the old women, some of whom are probably fifty years of age and have reached a stage of ugliness which baffles description.”
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p. 72: “As is usual, however, in the case of savage tribes the drudgery of food-collecting and child-bearing tells upon them at an early age, and between twenty and twenty-five they begin to lose their graceful carriage; the face wrinkles, the breasts hang pendulous, and, as a general rule, the whole body begins to shrivel up, until, at about the age of thirty, all traces of an earlier well-formed figure and graceful carriage are lost, and the woman develops into what can only be called an old and wrinkled hag.”
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p. 643: “We did not attempt to obtain any skulls, for the simple reason that while the desecration of native graves might have enabled us to secure a few, it would at once have put a stop to work in other branches which we have been as yet more anxious to study than to obtain anthropometric data. To have opened native graves would have meant the closing of sources of information with regard to habits and customs.”
Good collection by Gustaf here.
This comment is also a great example.
I do this
Link is broken.
My guess is simply that almost nothing works, and to the degree that it works it only works a little, and insofar as it works a little it is really time-consuming, and probably reverts to the mean if not actively maintained.
“Adjust your effect size estimates downwards.”
Also, almost nobody is quantitatively tracking what they try, the degree to which they try, wouldn’t know when they’re wrong or are simply performing great contortions in selection bias. So even people who claim they have huge effects can’t actually distinguish the effects from random positive noise. (This also applies to the person mentioned at the end of the post.)
CFAR tried, but it was really expensive, and the results were middling. (They’re best in class for this, still.) From everyone else I demand at least track records.
So: What are you doing differently? I reckon you’re going to publish the follow-up data from your clients from two years ago, soon?
See Buckner in “The Human Penis Is Remarkably Boring” on an informed counter-perspective.
This makes me wish people would more often publish hashes of their beliefs they can’t publish.
I enjoyed 5.5′s vignette to an unreasonable degree. Thank you for posting this, makes me wonder if I should post learnings from LLM conversations more often.
My guess would’ve been that you’d name Puyi.