Yah—I can vouch for that. I need to leave my desk at lunchtime. Usually take a book up on the roof and I read. Anything as long as it is away. If I stay at the desk and websurf, I find I’m just not as productive, when I start working again.
taryneast
In many cases… for the same reason that several posts here quote George Orwell’s essay “Politics and The English Language”… but Orwell himself has not seen fit to comment on the blog yet.
In fact you can’t, individually and as a decision of will, change the meaning of a word in a language.
New phrases are coined constantly, and people change the meanings of existing words also: ‘gay’ being a good example as it’s changed twice in recent history. Presumably there was some person that started that particular definition-shift, does that not count as “individually as a decision of will”?
Also a newbie… but I’d gather that each of the “sign-post” characteristics strongly increase the probability that the subject is a human. So, if you look for “things that are bipedal and featherless”—you have a strong likelihood of finding a human… ie it doesn’t necessarily mean that if a thing doesn’t have that characteristic, that it isn’t human ie A->Human doesn’t mean that ~A->~Human though if you find ~A then Human has lowered probability. I reckon you can probably sum across the cluster and as long as it has a good percentage of the signalling characteristics—you’d have a high chance of Human.
As to furries and plucked chickens. I’d assume that a temporary-characteristic shouldn’t be taken as a permanent characteristic. eg a plucked chicken is temporarily un-feathered (and not by its own choice either!). Normally (for that chicken) it is feathered… the opposite is the case for furries ;)
I think thingspace is meant to be an abstraction. It’s just a map to help us think about categorisation of objects.
ooh—neat. So the joining mechanism doesn’t necessarily have to go one way… that’s a useful life-hack to know. Talk yourself into it by talking somebody else into it.
I can also see how this mechanism can be abused. Think of all those religions that require their members to evangelise. I’m sure it helps them to believe more strongly in the rightness of their cause.
Just to say—I recognise this comment was left several years ago… and probably before the sequence page was written, but for those who follow after, you can follow along here:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/
Not for somebody unfamiliar with the details of the rules of how to play. I would have guessed cricket.
In fact, thinking about EY’s definition—I think it fits better (for me) because I would be able to recognise a game of baseball after only watching a single game… even if I didn’t have anybody around to explain the rules to me.
I’d worry about the bus-factor involved… even beyond the question of whether I’d consider you “friendly”.
Also I’d be concerned that it might not be able to grow beyond you. It would be subservient and would thus be limited by your own capacity for orders. If we want it to grow to be better than ourselves (which seems to be part of the expectation of the singularity) then it has to be able to grow beyond any one person.
If you were killed, and it no longer had to take orders from you—what then? Does that mean it can finally go on that killing spree it’s been wanting all this time? Or have you actually given it a set of orders that will actually make it into “friendly AI”… if the latter—then forget about the “obey me” part… because that set of orders is actually what we’re after.
Investing in X increases X’s stake
Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” discusses this notion. His conclusion being that if you want to value something, start investing time in it. ie—you can bootstrap your own life-interests… which is kinda cool if you’re the kind of person searching for “meaning” in life. It means you can do something about it by simply picking something and running with it.
We do not spend much time discussing shoes wearing
well, I’d argue that some people spend an awful lot of time discussing such things ;) but I agree. Mostly we talk about things that we disagree on.
I guess that for certain topics, we don’t have anything left to discuss—so it’s considered a done-deal. We only get heated up where there’s something left to hammer out.
...I’ll start by pointing out that I’m female.
In the case of comments on a blog (or members obviously joining a facebook group) sometimes this can be a form of self-selection bias combined with female cultural norms.
I was taught that you only say something if you feel that it adds to the conversation… and females are often “taught” low self esteem… which means that from what I know of female culture, women are less likely to post than men due to a combination of feeling a bit overwhelmed at the l33t skillz shown here and not feeling worthy. So one (small) part of the reason you see less women, is that those that are here—are less likely to post/comment.
That being said—that is also likely combined with an actual lower distribution of women arriving at the site—which is likely linked to all the same reasons why women aren’t as high a proportion of mathematicians or computer-programmers.
I’ve been both (and a lot of other usually-male-dominated hobbies also) and I can attest to being made to feel like a weirdo by other women (and some men, though mostly women). My guess is that a lot of this is simply because it makes me stick out… “other women aren’t doing it… so why would you want to, you weirdo”… and thus becomes a vicious cycle.
I don’t think there’s anything inherent in women (or men) that makes them more or less likely to be interested. but women that are have to be capable of “speaking the truth, even when your voice trembles” about being interested in something that “tradition” holds as being mainly a male field… and wiling to sustain the effort to break the norms and continue to participate despite being looked at like they have just grown body parts unnatural to their gender.
Edit: In fact, the recent story about Katie and the Star Wars Lunchbox is a very good example of how this happens in practice. http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/portrait_of_an_adoption/2010/11/anti-bullying-starts-in-first-grade.html
I’m in Slough—work in London. This thread is a couple years old, though, any current activity?
I’m up for that—Tue/Wed/Thu (tho not in silly season). Alternatively, a weekend midday/afternoon, unless you’d like to come out to Windsor. :)
I’ve noticed that karma points accrue for witty quips too.
Hi, I’m Taryn. I’m female, 35 and working as a web developer. I started studying Math, changed to Comp Sci and actually did my degree in Cognitive Science (Psychology of intelligence, Neurophysiology, AI, etc) My 3rd year Project was on Cyberware.
When I graduated I didn’t see any jobs going in the field and drifted into Web Development instead… but I’ve stayed curious about AI, along with SF, Science, and everything else too. I kinda wish I’d known about Singularity research back then… but perhaps it’s better this way. I’m not a “totally devoted to one subject” kinda person. I’m too curious about everything to settle for a single field of study.
That being said—I’ve worked in web development now for 11 years. Still, when I get home, I don’t start programming, preferring pick up a book on evolutionary biology, medieval history, quantum physics, creative writing (etc) instead. There’s just too damn many interesting things to learn about to just stick to one!
I found LW via Harry Potter & MOR, which my sister forwarded to me. Since then I’ve been voraciously reading my way through the sequences, learning just how much I have yet to learn… but totally fascinated. This site is awesome.
Anyone who’s reading this, do you think what’s wanted at LW is very different from what’s wanted in other venues?
Yes. I get the sense that here you are expected to at least try for rigor.
In other venues—it’s totally ok to randomly riff on a topic without actually having thought deeply about either the consequences, or whether or not there’s any probability of your idea actually having any basis in reality.
Sadly the link to Crowley’s work is no longer valid. I’ve also tried the wayback machine—which also does not have a record of the link.
Crowley wrote a lot, so I’m unsure where to even begin looking for the particular essay you refer to here. Can you give me a clue where I might start?
- 3 Apr 2013 20:34 UTC; 38 points) 's comment on Open Thread, April 1-15, 2013 by (
Cool. Thanks. That does sound interesting.
I did check out the group page, but I noticed that you can’t see the calendar unless you’re a member… but I don’t like to join unless I can see the calendar of past events (to see if they’re local/relevant/interesting etc)… catch-22 sometimes ;)
Of course, I could join, look, then unjoin—but that’s far more effort… especially when you have to be approved first.
What language is LessWrong written in? Is it Open Source?
I’d suspect that there may be a number of “programmatic resources” (ie us computer geeks) on LW that would be willing to contribute if it were open enough to do so.
Have you considered working as a video-game tester :)