I would make an argument for the importance of space exploration and colonisation, on the assumption that in Archimedes’ time this would be heard as an argument in favour of naval expansion. Since the greeks were seafaring people anyway, Archimedes might be convinced to push for a great greek colonisation program. Who knows? They could reach the far east, or even the americas. The age of global trade might begin two thousand years earlier.
Tom3
How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?
A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question.
Topo, it’s a simple unprobabilistic phase inversion topography manifold calculation, I can hardly see how you could fail to understand it.
“I am 87% confident you will burst into flames”
Ah, at last a practical application of the observation that bayesians cannot agree to disagree.
Jacob Stein:
“Are religious societies better? Cannibals and Satanists, perhaps not, but it’s a tough call. Orthodox Jews, Quakers, Mennonites, probably yes.”
Well Jacob it’s just such a coincidence that you’d say that, because I am a cannibal satanist! Cool, right?
Anyway, the reason I bring it up is you say that Orthodox Jews and the like have better societies, but you are a jew, aren’t you? (There’s probably a bias or something there, I dunno). But since I think (to paraphrase Selfreferencing) that we’re naturally motivated to seek Satan and that those who are not have been corrupted by sin and rebellion, I would much rather live among fine, upstanding flesh-eating devil-fearing folks like myself.
You see, Satan is the source of good as the south pole is the source of southness. Without him, I would just have to copy the morality of the rest of society or use my own faculties of reason and intuition—but then I wouldn’t know that it was good to eat babies and have sex with goats! It hardly bears thinking about. I mean, it’s a matter of faith, isn’t it? Can’t argue with that.
I would say:
“To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.”
Find the meta level in that, Chronophone!
I think Robin has won this argument. Removing rhetorical flourishes makes the post easier to criticise in the comments section. You shouldn’t be deliberately trying to make your statements more or less persuasive, just say what you want to say as clear as you can and let other contributors thrash it out in the comments. That is probably part of Robin’s point about the importance of academic style: it makes peer-review easier.
It’s such a shame about my failure To have been born within Australia; Because then the rhyme for “Overcoming Bias” Could be found among “The Himalayas”.
Eliezer—Bayesian theory is a model. It isn’t the universe.
BURN THE HERETIC!
The tiger, on the other hand, is a committed Platonist.
This thread has more trolls than The Lord Of The Rings.
Greatest OB discussion thread ever.
This is all very zen. Do you have buddhist sympathies, Eliezer?
“EY, in this post you glibly liken belief in God to superstition. Similarly, I liken your belief in cryonics to other superstitions.”
Well, the difference is that cryonics exists even if it doesn’t work (yet?). You can see how this changes the nature of the debate.
“To solve this debate let us have Peter McCluskey set up another long-dated prediction market on InTrade that no one will actually bother to trade.”
Oh SNAP!
You can see the Buzz Aldrin punch on Youtube.
I heard he also roundhouse kicked a holocaust denier through a plate glass window and karate chopped a 9/11 truther in the balls.
anonymous:
“In the future (if we survive the next century) there will be enough technological progression to create essential Communism (no-one needs to work, everyone will have necessary resources to live incredible lives and so forth).”
-10 points for confusing means with ends.
From the article:
“[...]there is never an Idea so true that it’s wrong to criticize any argument that supports it.”
Or make jokes about it? Having a sense of humour ought to be mentioned as a primary piece of equipment in the Bias-Buster’s toolkit. It’s easy and fun! After all, a defining feature of True Believers is that they lack a sense of irony.
Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland is pretty much this blog in book form.
- 2 Jun 2011 1:00 UTC; 2 points) 's comment on Some Morals from the Study of Human Irrationality [Link] by (
Angel, I agree that he comes across as a bit arrogant in that thread, but that’s just his way. I think he was trying to ask for a list of don’t’s and you gave him a list of do’s, and the ensuing communications breakdown led to this thread. But I think we have an opportunity now to correct this. So a question we might ponder is, what mistakes (not omissions) should be avoided in order to (to some extent) overcome gender bias?
In the Timeless Physics section:
“The laws of physics are perfectly local; the configuration space is perfectly local.”
Aren’t the laws global?
At Mt. Obaku temple in the Ko district, Yudkowksy-Sensei was approached by an Individualist during morning meditation.
“All of us are ultimately selfish; we care only about our own states of mind. The mother who claims to care about her son’s welfare, really wants to believe that her son is doing well—this belief is what makes the mother happy. She helps him for the sake of her own happiness, not his.” said the Individualist.
Yudkowsky-Sensei remained sitting on his zafu, and said nothing.
The Individualist continued: “She did it because she valued that choice above others—because of the feeling of importance she attached to that decision.”
Yudkowksy-Sensei stood up and walked out of the temple to his car, where he proceeded to open and close the driver-side door several times before saying:
“There is no chocolate at the supermarket.”