RickJS

Karma: 68

RickJS Sep 12, 2009, 2:36 AM
0 points
in reply to: Ron_Hardin’s comment on: Righting a Wrong Question
META: thread parser failed?

It sounds like these posts should have been a sub-thread instead of all being attached to the original article?:

09 March 2008 11:05:11PM
09 March 2008 11:33:14PM
10 March 2008 01:14:45AM

Also, see the mitchell porter2 - Z. M. Davis—Frank Hirsch—James Blair—Unknown discussion below.

RickJS Sep 11, 2009, 7:11 PM
1 point
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate
Vladimir_Nesov wrote on 11 September 2009 08:34:32AM:

This only makes it worse, because you can’t excuse a signal.

This only makes what worse? Does it makes me sound more fanatical?

Please say more abut “you can’t excuse a signal”. Did you mean I can’t reverse the first impression the signal inspired in somebody’s mind? Or something else?

Also: just because you believe you are not fanatical, doesn’t mean you are not. People can be caught in affective death spirals even around correct beliefs.

OK I’ll start with a prior = 10% that I am fanatical and / or caught in an affective death spiral.

What do you recommend I do about my preachy style?

I appreciate your writings on LessWrong. I’m learning a lot.

Thank you for your time and attention.

With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (seizing responsibility, (even if I NEVER get on the field)

RickJS Sep 11, 2009, 6:32 PM
−2 points
in reply to: Jack’s comment on: Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate
Jack wrote on 09 September 2009 05:54:25PM:

Plus wishing for all people to be under the rule of a god-like totalitarian sounds to me like the best way to destroy humanity.

I don’t wish for it. That part was inside parentheses with a question mark. I merely suspect it MAY be needed.

Please explain to me how the destruction follows from the rule of a god-like totalitarian.

Thank you for your time and attention.

With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (seizing responsibility, (even if I NEVER get on the field)

RickJS Sep 11, 2009, 6:06 PM
−3 points
in reply to: Jack’s comment on: Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate
Jack wrote on 09 September 2009 05:54:25PM :

I can’t help but think that those activities aren’t going to do much to save humanity.

I hear that. I wasn’t clear. I apologise.

I DON’T KNOW what I can do to turn humanity’s course. And, I decline to be one more person who uses that as an excuse to go back to the television set. Those activities are part of my search for a place where I can make a difference.

“Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens™” is maybe acceptable for Superman.

… but not acceptable from a mere man who cares, eh?

(Oh, all right, I admit, the ™ was tongue-in-cheek!)

Skip down to END BOILERPLATE if and only if you’ve read version v44m

First, please read this caveat: Please do not accept anything I say as True.

Ever.

I do write a lot of propositions, without saying, “In My Opinion” before each one. It can sound preachy, like I think I’ve got the Absolute Truth, Without Error. I don’t completely trust anything I have to say, and I suggest you don’t, either.

Second, I invite you to listen (read) in an unusual way. “Consider it”: think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, “That’s so wrong!”, I really weaken my ability to “pan for the gold”.

If you have a reaction (e.g. “That’s WRONG!”), please gently save it aside for later. For just a while, please try on the concept, test drive it, use the idea in your life. Perhaps you’ll see something even beyond what I offered.

There will plenty of time to criticize, attack, and destroy it AFTER you’ve “panned for the gold”. You won’t be missing an opportunity.

Third, I want you to “get” what I offered. When you “get it”, you have it. You can pick it up and use it, and you can put it down. You don’t need to believe it or understand it to do that. Anything you BELIEVE is “glued to your hand”; you can’t put it down.

-=-= END BOILERPLATE version 44m

I think we may have different connotations. I’m going to reluctantly use an analogy, but it’s just a temporary crutch. Please drop it as soon as you get how I’m using the word ‘saving’.

If I said, “I’m playing football,” I wouldn’t be implying that I’m a one-man team, or that I’m the star, or that the team always loses when I’m not there. Rigorously, it only means that I’m playing football.

However, it is possible to play football for the camaraderie, or the exercise, or to look good, or to avoid losing. A person can play football to win. Regardless of the position played. It’s about attitude, commitment, and responsibility SEIZED rather than reluctantly accepted.

I DECLARE that I am saving humanity from Homo Sapiens. That’s a declaration, a promise, not a description subject to True / probability / False. I’m playing to win.

Maybe I’ll never be allowed to get on the field. I remember the movie Rudy, about Dan Ruettiger. THAT is what it is to be playing football in the face of being a little guy. That points toward what it is to be Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens in the face of no evidence and no agreement.

You could give me a low probability of ever making a difference . But before you do, ask yourself, “What will this cause?”

It occurs to be that this little sub-thread beginning with “Mostly, I study. ” illustrates what Eliezer was pointing out in “Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate.”.
- “Some things are worth dying for. Yes, really! And if we can’t get comfortable with admitting it and hearing others say it, then we’re going to have trouble caring enough—as well as coordinating enough—to put some effort into group projects. You’ve got to teach both sides of it, “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be,” and “That which the truth nourishes should thrive.” ”
You, too, can be Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens. You start by saying so.

The clock is ticking.

With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (seizing responsibility, even if I NEVER get on the field)
What links here?
- RickJS's comment on Money: The Unit of Caring by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Jul 14, 2010, 5:50 PM; 3 points)

RickJS Sep 11, 2009, 12:01 AM
0 points
in reply to: thomblake’s comment on: Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate
I’ve been told that my writing sounds preachy or even religious-fanatical. I do write a lot of propositions without saying “In my opinion” in front of each one. I do have a standard boilerplate that I am to put at the beginning of each missive:

First, please read this caveat: Please do not accept anything I say as True.

Ever.

I do write a lot of propositions, without saying, “In My Opinion” before each one. It can sound preachy, like I think I’ve got the Absolute Truth, Without Error. I don’t completely trust anything I have to say, and I suggest you don’t, either.

Second, I invite you to listen (read) in an unusual way. “Consider it”: think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, “That’s so wrong!”, I really weaken my ability to “pan for the gold”.

If you have a reaction (e.g. “That’s WRONG!”), please gently save it aside for later. For just a while, please try on the concept, test drive it, use the idea in your life. Perhaps you’ll see something even beyond what I offered.

There will plenty of time to criticize, attack, and destroy it AFTER you’ve “panned for the gold”. You won’t be missing an opportunity.

Third, I want you to “get” what I offered. When you “get it”, you have it. You can pick it up and use it, and you can put it down. You don’t need to believe it or understand it to do that. Anything you BELIEVE is “glued to your hand”; you can’t put it down.

-=-= END Boilerplate

In that post, I got lazy and just threw in the tag line at the end. My mistake. I apologize. I won’t do that again.

With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (playing the game to win, but not claiming I am the star of the team)

RickJS Sep 10, 2009, 11:23 PM
2 points
in reply to: thomblake’s comment on: Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory
Ah. Thanks! I think I get that.

But maybe I just think I do. I thought I understood that narrow part of Wei Dai’s post on a problem that maybe defeats TDT. I had no idea that compassion had already been considered and compensated out of consideration. And that’s such common shared knowledge here in the LessWrong community that it need not be mentioned.

I have a lot to learn. I now see I was very arrogant think I could contribute here. I should read the archives & wiki before I post. I apologize.

<<Begins to compute an estimated time to de-lurk. They collectively write several times faster than I can read, even if I don’t slow down to mull it over. Hmmm… >>

RickJS Sep 10, 2009, 11:08 PM
0 points
in reply to: thomblake’s comment on: Open Thread: May 2009
THanks for the clarification.

I guess I won’t be posting articles to LessWrrong, as I have no clue what I’m doing wrong such that I get more downvotes than upvotes.

RickJS Sep 10, 2009, 3:56 AM
0 points
in reply to: MBlume’s comment on: Open Thread: May 2009
I would like some clarification on “LW doesn’t register negative karma right now.” Does that mean
- my negative points are GONE, or
- they are hiding and still need to be paid off before I can get a positive score?
Thanks

RickJS Sep 10, 2009, 2:05 AM
0 points
in reply to: thomblake’s comment on: Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory
Inorite? What is that?

I suspect I’m not smart enough to play on this site. I’m quite unsure I can even parse your sentence correctly, and I can’t imagine a reason to adjust the external payoff matrices (they were given by Wei Dai, that is the original problem I’m discussing) so the internal payoff mtrices match something. I’m baffled.

RickJS Sep 9, 2009, 5:23 PM
−6 points
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory
Eliezer_Yudkowsky wrote on 19 August 2009 03:24:46PM:

Formal cooperation in the one-shot PD, now that should be interesting.

Tversky demonstrated: One experiment based on the simple dilemma found that approximately 40% of participants played “cooperate” (i.e., stayed silent). Hmmm...

Compassion (in a certain sense) may be part of your answer.

If I (as Prisoner A) have a term in my utility function such that an injury to Prisoner B is an injury to me (discounted), it can make ‘Cooperate’ much more attractive.

I might have enough compassion to be willing to do 6 months in jail if it will spare Prisoner B a 2-year prison term (or more).

For example, given the external payoff matrix given by Wei Dai (http://lesswrong.com/lw/15z/ingredients_of_timeless_decision_theory/11w9) (19 August 2009 07:08:23AM):
```
 * Cooperate    5/5    0/6
 * Defect       6/0    1/1
```
My INTERNAL payoff matrix becomes:
```
 * Cooperate    6.25/5    1.5/6
 * Defect       6/0        1.25/1
```
And ‘Cooperate’ now strictly dominates using elementary game theory.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
RickJS

RickJS Sep 9, 2009, 4:56 PM
2 points
in reply to: Psy-Kosh’s comment on: Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate
Mostly, I study. I also go to a few conferences (I’ll be at the Singularity Summit) and listen. I even occasionally speak on key issues (IMO), such as (please try thinking WITH these before attacking them. Try agreeing for at least a while.):
- “There is no safety in assuring we have a power switch on a super-intelligence. That would be power at a whole new level. That’s pretty much Absolute Power and would bring out the innate corruption / corruptibility / self-interest in just about anybody.”
- “We need Somebody to take the dangerous toys (arsenals) away.”
- “Just what is Humanity up to that requires 6 Billion individuals?”
All of that is IN MY OPINION. <-- OK, the comments to this post showed me the error of my ways. I’m leaving this here because comments refer to it.

Edited 07/14/2010 because I’ve learned since 2009-09 that I said a lot of nonsense.
What links here?
- RickJS's comment on Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Sep 11, 2009, 6:06 PM; -3 points)

RickJS Sep 8, 2009, 6:18 PM
18 points
on: Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate
BRAVO, Eliezer! Huuzah! It’s about time!

I don’t know if you have succeeded in becoming a full rationalist, but I know I haven’t! I keep being surprised / appalled / amused at my own behavior. Intelligence is way overrated! Rationalism is my goal, but I’m built on evolved wet ware that is often in control. Sometimes my conscious, chooses-to-be-rationalist mind is found to be in the kiddy seat with the toy steering wheel.

I haven’t been publicly talking about my contributions to the Singularity Institute and others fighting to save us from ourselves. Part of that originates in my father’s attitude that it is improper to brag.

I now publicly announce that I have donated at least $11,000 to the Singularity Institute and its projects over the last year. I spend ~25 hours per week on saving humanity from Homo Sapiens.

I say that to invite others to JOIN IN. Give humanity a BIG term in your utility function. Extinction is Forever. Extinction is for … us?

Thank you, Eliezer! Once again, you’ve shown me a blind spot, a bias, an area where I can now be less wrong than I was.

With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens™ :-|

RickJS Aug 29, 2009, 3:04 AM
−9 points
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory
First of all, congratulations, Eliezer! That’s great work. When I read your 3-line description, I thought it would never be computable. I’m glad to see you can actually test it.

Eliezer_Yudkowsky wrote on 19 August 2009 03:05:15PM

… Moving second is a disadvantage (at least it seems to always work out that way, counterexamples requested if you can find them)

Rock-paper-scissors ?
Negotiating to buy a car?

I would like to begin by saying that I don’t believe my own statements are True, and I suggest you don’t either. I do request that you try thinking WITH them before attacking them. It’s really hard to think with an idea AFTER you’ve attacked it. I’ve been told my writing sounds preachy or even fanatical. I don’t say “In My Opinion” enough. Please imagine “IMO” in front of every one of my statements. Thanks!

Having more information (not incorrect “information”) on the opponent’s decisions is beneficial.

Let’s distinguish Secret Commit & Simultaneous Effect (SCSE) from Commit First & Simultaneous Effect (CFSE) and from Act & Effect First (AEF). That’s just a few categories from a coarse categorization of board war games.

The classic gunfight at high noon is AEF (to a first approximation, not counting watching his face & guessing when his reaction time will be lengthened). The fighter who draws first has a serious advantage, the fighter who hits first has a tremendous advantage, but not certain victory. (Hollywood not withstanding, people sometimes keep fighting after taking handgun hits, even a dozen of them.) I contend that all AEFs give advantage to the first actor. Chess is AEF.

My understanding of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is that it is SCSE as presented. On this thread, it seems to have mutated into a CFSE (otherwise, there just isn’t any “first”, in the ordinary, inside-the-Box-Universe, timeful sense). If Prisoner A has managed to get information on Prisoner B’s commitment before he commits, this has to be useful. Even if PA is a near-Omega, it can be a reality check on his Visualization of the Cosmic All. In realistic July 2009 circumstances, it identifies PB as one of the 40% of humans who choose ‘cooperate’ in one-shot PD. PA now has a choice whether to be an economist or a friend.

And now we get down to something fundamental. Some humans are better people than the economic definition of rationality, which ” … assume that each player cares only about minimizing his or her own time in jail”. ” … cooperating is strictly dominated) by defecting … ” even with leaked information.

“I don’t care what happens to my partner in crime. I don’t and I won’t. You can’t make me care. On the advice of my economist… ” That gets both prisoners a 5-year sentence when they could have had 6 months.

That is NOT wisdom! That will make us extinct. (In My Opinion)

Now try on “an injury to one is an injury to all”. Or maybe “an injury to one is an (discounted) injury to ME”. We just might be able to see that the big nuclear arsenals are a BAD IDEA!

Taking that on, the payoff matrix offered by Wei Dai’s Omega (19 August 2009 07:08:23AM)
```
* cooperate    5/5    0/6
* defect       6/0    1/1
```
is now transformed into PA’s Internal Payoff Matrix (IPM)
```
* cooperate    5+5κ/5    0+6κ/6
* defect       6+0κ/0    1+1κ/1
```
In other words, his utility function has a term for the freedom of Prisoner B. (Economists be damned! Some of us do, sometimes.)

“I’ll set κ=0.3 ,” Says PA (well, he is a thief). Now PA’s IPM is:
```
* cooperate    6.5/5    1.8/6
* Defect      6/0       1.3/1
```
Lo and behold! ‘cooperate’ now strictly dominates!

When over 6 billion people are affected, it doesn’t take much of a κ to swing my decisions around. If I’m not working to save humanity, I must have a very low κ for each distant person unknown to me.

People say, “Human life is precious!” Show it to me in results. Show it to me in how people budget their time and money. THAT is why Friendly AI is our only hope. We will ‘defect’ our way into thwarting any plan that requires a lot of people to change their beliefs or actions. That sub-microscopic κ for unknown strangers is evolved-in, it’s not going away. We need a program that can be carried out by a tiny number of people.

.

.

.

IMO.

---=

Maybe I missed the point. Maybe the whole point of TDT is to derive some sort of reduced-selfishness decision norm without an ad-hoc utility function adjustment (is that what “rained down from heaven” means?). I can derive the κ needed in order to save humanity, if there were a way to propagate it through the population. I cannot derive The One True κ from absolute principles, nor have I shown a derivation of “we should save humanity”. I certainly fell short of ” … looking at which agents walk away with huge heaps of money and then working out how to do it systematically … ”. I would RATHER look at which agents get their species through their singularity alive. Then, and only then, can we look at something grander than survival. I don’t grok in fullness “reflective consistency”, but from extinction we won’t be doing a lot of reflecting on what went wrong.

IMO.

Now, back to one-shot PD and “going first”. For some values of κ and some external payoff matrices (not this one), the resulting IPM is not strictly dominated, and having knowledge of PB’s commitment actually determines whether ‘cooperate’ or ‘defect’ produces a better world in PA’s internal not-quite-so-selfish world-view. Is that a disadvantage? (That’s a serious, non-rhetorical question. I’m a neophyte and I may not see some things in the depths where Eliezer & Wei think.)

Now let’s look at that game of chicken. Was “throw out the steering wheel” in the definition of the thought experiment? If not, that player just changed the universe-under-consideration, which is a fairly impressive effect in an AEF, not a CFSE.

If re-engineering was included, then Driver A may complete his wheel-throwing (while in motion!) only to look up and see Driver B’s steering gear on a ballistic trajectory. Each will have a few moments to reflect on “always get away with it.”

If Driver A successfully defenestrates first, is Driver B at a disadvantage? Among humans, the game may be determined more by autonomic systems than by conscious computation, and B now knows that A won’t be flinching away. However, B now has information and choices. One that occurs to me is to stop the car and get out. “Your move, A.” A truly intelligent player (in which category I do not, alas, qualify) would think up better, or funnier, choices.

Hmmm… to even play Chicken you have to either be irrational or have a damned strange IPM. We should establish that before proceeding further.

I challenge anyone to show me a CFSE game that gives a disadvantage to the second player.

I’m not too proud to beg: I request your votes. I’ve got an article I’d like to post, and I need the karma.

Thanks for your time and attention.

RickJS
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens

08/28/2009 ~20:10 Edit: formatting … learning formatting … grumble … GDSOB tab-deleter … Fine. I’ll create the HTML for tables, but this is a LOT of work for 3 simple tables … COMMENT TOO LONG!?!? … one last try … now I can’t quit, I’m hooked! … NAILED that sucker! … ~22:40 : added one more example *YAWN*

RickJS Aug 28, 2009, 3:38 AM
−1 points
in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory
Wei_Dai wrote on 19 August 2009 07:08:23AM :

… Omega’s AIs will reason as follows: “I have ¹⁄₂ chance of playing against a TDT, and ¹⁄₂ chance of playing against a CDT. If I play C, then my opponent will play C if it’s a TDT, and D if it’s a CDT …

That seems to violate the secrecy assumptions of the Prisoner’s Dilemma problem! I thought each prisoner has to commit to his action before learning what the other one did. What am I missing?

Thanks!

RickJS Apr 22, 2009, 6:33 PM
0 points
on: Issues, Bugs, and Requested Features
About that report link (http://lesswrong.com/ ???): It doesn’t say what it’s going to do, what it is for (hate speech, strong language, advocating the overthrow, trolling, disagreeing with me...), nor does it give me a chance to explain.

RickJS Apr 22, 2009, 6:11 PM
1 point
on: Issues, Bugs, and Requested Features
I don’t see a way to send my new article to the mods. When I’m done editing in my drafts folder, then what?

RickJS Apr 22, 2009, 5:09 PM
3 points
on: Issues, Bugs, and Requested Features
Terminology. Try to be consistent. “Liked” and “Vote Up”: pick one and stick with it. IMHO

RickJS Apr 22, 2009, 4:49 PM
2 points
on: Issues, Bugs, and Requested Features
How about a basic Users’ Guide, and include a link to it right in the top links bar?

RickJS Apr 22, 2009, 4:30 PM
1 point
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Bayesians vs. Barbarians
Consider (think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, “That’s so wrong!”, I really weaken my ability to “pan for the gold”.)

Consider that you are using “we” and “self” as a pointer that jumps from one set to another moment by moment. Here is a list of some sets that may be confounded together here, see how many others you can think of. These United States (see the Constitution)

the people residing in that set

citizens who vote

citizens with a peculiar attitude

the President

Congress

organizations (corporations, NGOs, political parties, movements, e-communities, etc.)

the wealthy and powerful

the particular wealthy and powerful who see an opportunity to benefit from an invasion

Multiple Edits: trying to get this site to respect line/ paragraph breaks, formatting. Does this thing have any formatting codes?