rhollerith

Karma: 112

rhollerith 14 Jun 2009 0:40 UTC
5 points
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in reply to: rwallace’s comment on: Let’s reimplement EURISKO!
Let us briefly review the discussion up to now since many readers use the the comments page which does not provide much context. rwallace has been arguing that AI researchers are too concerned (or will become too concerned) about the existential risk from reimplementing EURISKO and things like that.

You have mentioned two or three times, rwallace, that without more advanced technology, humans will eventually go extinct. (I quote one of those 2 or 3 mentions below.) You mention that to create and to manage that future advanced technology, civilization will need better tools to manage complexity. Well, I see one possible objection to your argument right there, in that better science and better technology might well decrease the complexity of the cultural information humans are required to keep on top of. Consider that once Newton gave our civilization a correct theory of dynamics, almost all of the books written before Newton on dynamics could safely be thrown away (the exceptions being books by Descartes and Galileo that help people understand Newton and put Newton in historical context) which of course constitutes a net reduction in the complexity of the cultural information that our civilization has to keep on top of. (If it does not seem like a reduction, that is because the possession of Newtonian dynamical theory made our civilization more ambitious about what goals to try for.)

do you believe humanity can survive permanently as we are now, confined to this planet? If you do, then I will point you to the geological evidence to the contrary. If not, then it follows that without more advanced technology, we are dead.

But please explain to me what your argument has to do with EURISKO and things like that: is it your position that the complexity of future human culture can be managed only with better AGI software?

And do you maintain that that software cannot be developed fast enough by AGI researchers such as Eliezer who are being very careful about existential risks?

In general, the things you argue are dangerous are slow dangers. You yourself refer to “geological evidence” which suggests that they are dangerous on geological timescales.

In contrast, research into certain areas of AI seems to me genuinely fast dangers: things with a high probability of wiping out our civilization in the next 30, 50 or 100 years. It seems unwise to increase fast dangers to decrease slow dangers. But I suppose you disagree that AGI research if not done very carefully is a fast danger. (I’m still studying your arguments on that.)

rhollerith 13 Jun 2009 14:30 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: rwallace’s comment on: Let’s reimplement EURISKO!
rwallace has been arguing the position that AI researchers are too concerned (or will become too concerned) about the existential risk from UFAI. He writes that

we need software tools smart enough to help us deal with complexity.

rwallace: can we deal with complexity sufficiently well without new software that engages in strongly-recursive self-improvement?

Without new AGI software?

One part of the risk that rwallace says outweighs the risk of UFAI is that

we remain confined to one little planet . . . with everyone in weapon range of everyone else

The only response rwallace suggests to that risk is

we need more advanced technology, for which we need software tools smart enough to help us deal with complexity

rwallace: please give your reasoning for how more advanced technology decreases the existential risk posed by weapons more than it increases it.

Another part of the risk that rwallace says outweighs the risk of UFAI is that

we remain confined to one little planet running off a dwindling resource base

Please explain how dwindling resources presents a significant existential risk. I can come up with several argument, but I’d like to see the one or two you consider the strongest arguments.

rhollerith 13 Jun 2009 14:01 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: MichaelVassar’s comment on: Typical Mind and Politics
I agree that introspection certainly can be a valid tool.

rhollerith 13 Jun 2009 12:35 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: michaelkeenan’s comment on: Typical Mind and Politics

I have a strong pain signal from lost money and from lost time. To the extent that I can introspect on the workings of my insula, I think that this is one impulse for me, rather than two as Yvain describes—one for time and one for money.

The most parsimonious explanation of what you observe is that it is human nature to be overconfident of the results of introspection.

rhollerith 5 Jun 2009 22:23 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here
When I wrote that “it is never in the financial self-interest of any [self-help] practitioner to do the hard long work to collect evidence that would sway a non-gullible client,” I referred to long hard work many orders of magnitude longer and harder than posting a link to a web page. Consequently, your pointing out that you post links to web pages even when it is not in your financial self-interest to do so does not refute my point. I do not maintain that you should do the long hard work to collect evidence that would sway a non-guillible client: you probably cannot afford to spend the necessary time, attention and money. But I do wish you would stop submitting to this site weak evidence that would sway only a gullible client or a client very desperate for help.

And with that I have exceeded the time I have budgeted for participation on this site for the day, so my response to your other points will have to wait for another day. If I may make a practical suggestion to those readers wanting to follow this thread: subscribe to the feed for my user page till you see my response to pjeby’s other points, then unsubscribe.

rhollerith 5 Jun 2009 20:01 UTC
7 points
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in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here
Previously in this thread I opined as follows on the state of the art in self help: there are enough gullible prospective clients that it is never in the financial self-interest of any practitioner to do the hard long work to collect evidence that would sway a non-guillible client.

PJ Eby took exception as follows:

you ignored the part where I just gave somebody a pointer to somebody else’s work that they could download for free

Lots of people offer pointers to somebody else’s writings. Most of those people do not know enough about how to produce lasting useful psychological change to know when a document or an author is actually worth the reader’s while. IMHO almost all the writings on the net about producing lasting useful psychological change are not worth the reader’s while.

In the future, I will write “lasting change” when I mean “lasting useful psychological change”.

you indirectly accused me of being more interested in financial incentives than results

The mere fact that you are human makes it much more probable than not that you are more skilled at self-deception and deception than at perceiving correctly the intrapersonal and interpersonal truths necessary to produce lasting change in another human being. Let us call the probability I just referred to “probability D”. (The D stands for deception.)

You have written (in a response to Eliezer) that you usually charge clients a couple of hundred dollars an hour.

The financial success of your self-help practice is not significant evidence that you can produce lasting change in clients because again there is a plentiful supply of gullible self-help clients with money.

The fact that you use hypnotic techniques on clients and write a lot about hypnosis raises probability D significantly because hypnotic techniques rely on the natural human machinery for negotiating who is dominant and who is submissive or the natural human machinery for deciding who will be the leader of the hunting party. Putting the client into a submissive or compliant state of mind probably helps a practitioner quite a bit to persuade the client to believe falsely that lasting change has been produced. You have presented no evidence or argument—nor am I aware of any evidence or argument—that putting the client into a submissive or compliant state helps a practitioner producing lasting change. Consequently, your reliance on and interest in hypnotic techniques significantly raises probability D.

Parenthetically, I do not claim that I know for sure that you are producing false beliefs rather than producing lasting change. It is just that you have not raised the probability I assign to your being able to produce lasting change high enough to justify my choosing to chase a pointer you gave into the literature or high enough for me to stop wishing that you would stop writing about how to produce lasting change in another human being on this site.

Parenthetically, I do not claim that your deception, if indeed that is what it is, is conscious or intentional. Most self-help and mental-health practitioners deceive because they are self-deceived on the same point.

You believe and are fond of repeating that a major reason for the failure of some of the techniques you use is a refusal by the client to believe that the technique can work. Exhorting the client to refrain from scepticism or pessimism is like hypnosis in that it strongly tends to put the client in a submissive or compliant state of mind, which again significantly raises probability D.

To the best of my knowledge (maybe you can correct me here) you have never described on this site an instance where you used a reliable means to verify that you had produced a lasting change. When you believe for example that you have produced a lasting improvement in a male client’s ability to pick up women in bars, have you ever actually accompanied the client to a bar and observed how long it takes the client to achieve some objectively-valid sign of success (such as getting the woman’s phone number or getting the woman to follow the client out to his car)?

In your extensive writings on this site, I can recall no instance where you describe your verifying your impression that you have created a lasting change in a client using reliable means. Rather, you have described only unreliable means, namely, your perceptions of the mental and the social environment and reports from clients about their perceptions of the mental and the social environment. That drastically raises probability D. Of course, you can bring probability D right back down again, and more, by describing instances where you have used reliable means to verify your impression that you have created a lasting change.

For readers who want to read more, here are two of Eliezer’s sceptical responses to PJ Eby: 001, 002

If it makes you feel any better, I am not seeing you any more harshly than I see any other self-help, life-coach or mental-health practitioner, including those with PhDs in psychology and MDs in psychiatry and those with prestigious academic appointments. In my book, until I see very strong evidence to the contrary, every mental-health practitioner and self-help practitioner is with high probability deluded except those that constantly remind themselves of how little they know.

Actually there is one way in which I resent you more than I resent other self-help, life-coach or mental-health practitioners: the other ones do not bring their false beliefs or rather their most-probably-false not-sufficiently-verified beliefs to my favorite place to read about the mental environment and the social environment. I worry that your copious writings on this site will discourage contributions from those who have constructed their causal model of mental and social reality more carefully.

rhollerith 5 Jun 2009 17:55 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: nazgulnarsil’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here
Previously in this thread: PJ Eby asserts that the inability to refrain from conveying contempt is a common and severe interpersonal handicap. Nazgulnarsil replies, “This is my problem. . . . I can’t hide the fact that I feel contempt for the vast majority of the people around me (including desirable partners).”

I probably have the problem too. Although it is rare that I am aware of feeling contempt for my interlocutor, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that messages (mostly nonverbal) conveying contempt are present in my face-to-face communication with non-friends (even if I would like the non-friend to become a friend).

I expect that PJ Eby will assure me that he has seen himself and his clients learn how to transcend this problem. Maybe he can even produce written testimonials from clients assuring me that PJ Eby has cured them of this problem. But I fear that PJ Eby has nothing that a strong Bayesian with long experience with self-help practitioners would consider sufficient evidence that he can help me transcend this problem. Such is the state of the art in self help: there are enough gullible prospective clients that it is never in the financial self-interest of any practitioner to do the hard long work to collect evidence that would sway a non-guillible client.

rhollerith 5 Jun 2009 9:36 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: JanetKw’s comment on: My concerns about the term ‘rationalist’
I changed the title of my post from “Mate selection for the male rationalist” to “Mate selection for the men here”.

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 22:51 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: knb’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here
We differ in that respect, perhaps because I have had more time slowly to shape my emotional responses to women.

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 21:36 UTC
0 points
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on: Probability distributions and writing style
BTW it would be great to have all my writings subjected to examination by the community to determine whether the writings use probability distributions, utility functions and the language of causality correctly and sensibly.

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 20:34 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: HughRistik’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here
HughRistik writes, “I recommend women who are high in Openness to Experience.”

My two most personally-useful long-term relationships have been with women high in Openness to Experience. The Wikipedia article says that this trait is normally distributed, so I will add that both women were definitely in the top quartile in this trait and probably at least a standard deviation above the mean.

HughRistik, since we seem to see things similarly, maybe we should talk.

Contact rhollerith

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 20:11 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here
Yes, but there is a sense of the word “rationalist” that makes HughRistik’s quote (and my post) make sense. Something like “strongly motivated to learn science and the art of rationality” or “the kind of person you become if for the last 20 years you have been strongly motivated to . . .”

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 19:39 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Tom_Talbot’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here

This post assumes that the reader wants a long-term relationship.

Post edited to make the assumption explicit.

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 19:11 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: dclayh’s comment on: Probability distributions and writing style
dclayh, I have replied to you privately.

Specifically, the first likely google hit for “dclayh” is a Livejournal user of that name, so I used Livejournal to send a private message to that user.

Contact rhollerith

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 1:20 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: knb’s comment on: Mate selection for the men here
The following comments are evidence that female rationality is important to at least some male rationalists. Note that the first comment was upvoted by 7 readers.

I know I would love to have my next girlfriend be a rationalist (if only to avoid my most recent failure mode)

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ap/of_gender_and_rationality/7me by MBlume

But she loves magical thinking, she is somewhat averse to expected-utility calculations, my atheism, etc. . . . We love each other but are scared that our differences may be too great.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/zj/open_thread_june_2009/rxy

rhollerith 4 Jun 2009 0:40 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: QuestionTime’s comment on: Open Thread: June 2009
I am pretty sure that most strong male rationalists are better off learning how the typical woman thinks than holding out for a long-term relationship with a strong female rationalist. Since this point is probably of general interest, I put it in a top-level post.

Converting her to your worldview sounds like a bad idea in general. An additional consideration that applies in your particular situation is that converting a helping professional from deontologism to consequentialism will more likely than not make her less effective at work (because helping professionals need all the help they can get to care enough about their patients and clients, and worldview is definitely one source of significant help in that regard).

Nobody has responded to the following:

she is, by her own admission, subject to strong swings of emotion and at greater than average risk of longer-lasting depression

I, too, will refrain from commenting because you probably mean “strong swings of mood” and I do not have romantic experience with a moody woman. I do have romantic experience with a fiery woman, i.e., a woman easily aroused to strong negative emotions, but I doubt that is what you mean: in what I am calling a “fiery” woman, the emotion always dissipates quickly—usually in a few minutes.

You say,

She excels at her job, which is a helping profession, and one which I believe improves social welfare far more than most.

I would consider that a very positive sign in a prospective sexual partner—maybe an extremely positive sign (the reason for my uncertainty being that I have never been with a woman whose expected global utility was as high as you describe) -- a sign that would make me pursue the woman much more keenly. The fact that you use language such as “would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term” (emphasis mine) suggests to me that you are like me in the relevant characteristics and consequently should take it to be a very positive sign, too.

The most I can say about the global expected utility (i.e., expected effect on the world in the long term) of any of my girlfriends up to now is that (1) she has many close friendships of long duration, and she is very caring and helpful to those friends or that (2) she is a resourceful and clearly productive member of the labor force and does not harm anyone unless you consider the occasional cheating of the government a harm. If I were with a woman whose expected global utility was much higher than any of my girlfriends up to now, there is a good chance that I could become much more unconditionally loving to her than I have been to any of my girlfriends up to now. By “unconditionally loving” I mean being helpful and caring to her without any regard for how much she has done for me or is expected to do for me.

So, that is why I would consider what you wrote a very positive sign: lack of expected global utility is my best current guess as to what has been holding me back from being more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend up to now. (Why I even want to become more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend is a long story.)

And yeah, I know that “expected global utility of the girlfriend” is an odd and cold phrasing, but if that oddness or coldness is enough to prevent you from reading this comment, then we are probably too different for the advice in this comment to be of any use to you.

rhollerith 30 May 2009 11:45 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: RobinHanson’s comment on: Image vs. Impact: Can public commitment be counterproductive for achievement?
Status seekers probably greatly outnumber true altruists.

But you should tend to keep the status seekers out of positions of great responsibility IMHO even if doing so greatly reduces the total number of volunteers working on existential risks.

My tentative belief that status seekers will not do as good a job BTW stems from (1) first-hand observation and second-hand observation of long-term personal performance as a function of personal motivation in domains such as science-learning, programming, management and politics and (2) a result from social psychology that intrinsic reinforcers provide more reliable motivation than extrinsic reinforcers (for more about which, google “Punished by Rewards”).

The last thing the future light cone needs is for existential-risk activism to become the next big thing in how to show prospective friends and prospective lovers how cool you are.

rhollerith 29 May 2009 2:16 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: steven0461’s comment on: This Failing Earth
I am in tentative agreement with Moldbug’s main points. But like patrissimo says, some of his claims are overly sweeping. Unlike patrissimo, I have no significant personal stake in Moldbug’s being right aside from the stake we all have in the health of the state and the society in which we live.

rhollerith 29 May 2009 0:54 UTC
2 points
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on: Image vs. Impact: Can public commitment be counterproductive for achievement?
Helping to rescue marine mammals is a more effective way for a straight guy to signal high status to prospective sex partners than addressing existential risks is. I always considered that a feature, not a bug, because I always thought that people doing something to signal status do not do as good a job as people motivated by altruism, a desire to serve something greater than oneself or a sense of duty—or even people motivated by a salary.

rhollerith 13 May 2009 17:16 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: hrishimittal’s comment on: Willpower Hax #487: Execute by Default
“I get up most easily when I’ve slept enough. . . Does anyone else have the same experience?”

I am going to go out on a limb and say that most of us have that experience.

rhollerith

HughRistik, since we seem to see things similarly, maybe we should talk.

Specifically, the first likely google hit for “dclayh” is a Livejournal user of that name, so I used Livejournal to send a private message to that user.