Ustice

Karma: 147

Ustice 6 Apr 2011 20:30 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Eneasz’s comment on: HP:MoR Audio Book Pilot
Geography isn’t a problem. Skype can be used to get everyone “together.”

Ustice 6 Apr 2011 20:36 UTC
1 point
in reply to: jwhendy’s comment on: HP:MoR Audio Book Pilot
As someone that often listens to audiobooks while driving, I don’t find problems with comprehension, unless there is something that is taking up a large portion of my attention. As long as I can basically drive on instinct and muscle memory, I remember it as well as if reading it. If there is something that I have to listen to, or read, then I generally either stop the book, or go back.

One strange effect for me though is that if within the next week or so, I hear a part of the book, I can tell you exactly where I was at that time, though I can’t generally go the other way, and think of where I was in a book when I was last at a location. The brain is pretty weird/cool.

Ustice 15 Aug 2013 20:04 UTC
0 points
on: Common sense as a prior
How would this apply to social issues do you think? It seems that this is a poor way to be on the front of social change? If this strategy was widely applied, would we ever have seen the 15th and 19th amendments to the Constitution here in the US?

On a more personal basis, I’m polyamorous, but if I followed your framework, I would have to reject polyamory as a viable relationship model. Yes, the elite don’t have a lot of data on polyamory, but although I have researched the good and the bad, and how it can work compared to monogamy, but I don’t think that I would be able to convince the elite of my opinions.

Ustice 17 Oct 2018 17:53 UTC
0 points
on: Do Animals Have Rights?
Slaves? Obligations? Seriously? This is an absolutist argument. It’s the sort of argument that you’d hear for supporting slavery as society was changing away from the vile practice.

My guess is that once our society isn’t dependent on animals for meat—and likely medical experimentation—the idea of animals having rights will be in the majority.

If animals have rights, then our only obligation is to respect those rights.

Ustice 3 Feb 2019 20:58 UTC
6 points
on: How to notice being mind-hacked
I’m willing to accept your meaning when you say “mind hack,” but each of your examples read as personal epiphanies. From the inside I think that it feels like, “Wow! Yeah!” It’s generally preceded by simlier smaller moments.

I have worried about this when I encountered some of the neoreactionary ideas on here and related communities. I could see myself—given that I have seen people who have had such shifts in thought—being swayed by reasonable arguements, and adopting what I currently believe to be repugnant conclusions, and thus spreading darkness in the universe.

Ultimately, I decided that if I change my mind, then it will have been for some very good evidence, and I can only trust that my future-self carefully considered the evidence and was pursuaded. Every idea that can be banished by the truth should be.

I believe it’s the optimal state to be open to ideas, but this leads to the question, “Should we be open to the idea that we shouldn’t be open to ideas?” Are there some ideas that are so repugnant that no matter the evidence indicating that it’s a more optimal state of the universe, it’s better to not know it?

I think that there aren’t, but there are ideas that one should be cautious with. Evidence can be misleading. It’s why I talk to my son about things that I see right and wrong in the world. The Dunning-Kreuger Effect can be nasty. It’s sometimes hard to know that you’re wrong.

So for me, when I have “Wow! Yeah!” moments about something that I don’t like, I have others who can point out flaws that I miss, but I won’t guard further against it.

Ustice 8 Jun 2019 4:13 UTC
7 points
on: Personal musings on Individualism and Empathy
I’ve found I’ve become much happier as I honed my empathy while minimizing the assumptions that I make about others.

I’m pretty convinced that none of us really understand the vast majority of our own motivations. It therefore feels doubly useless to worry about that in others. It’s better to just have a theory of behavior when looking at people most of the time. It allows you to really understand how others feel when they are just as lost and confused as me.

It’s listening and communication over modeling. When someone tells you how they feel, just fullstop take them at their word as any starting point in modeling. It’s a lot easier to like people this way, and it negates most fights.

Most fights come down to, “you’re just not listening to me, damnit!” When you actually do that, and then show caring and compassion, it means most fights last minutes and never get intense.

Listening is caring.

Ustice 12 Nov 2019 5:48 UTC
2 points
on: Operationalizing Newcomb’s Problem
After the experiment has ended, and I’m free to stay in the waiting room, or leave, I’ll stay for 10 minutes, and walk out having given the correct answer, and to hell with your extrinsic motivations! 😉

Seriously though, I think that I would stay the ten minutes regardless of what is in the bag. I’d either expect that they would eventually award the $200, or I would have enjoyed the experience enough that I’d probably just frame the $10 bill.

As to the possibility of that then being the true end of the experiment, I’m just not going to go down that recursive rabbit hole.

Ustice 30 Apr 2022 15:08 UTC
7 points
on: We transhumanists want immortality… But is it really possible?
I think that it will matter person to person. I’m the type of person that loves learning, and develops new interests all the time. I can’t imagine getting bored with life even after a few centuries. I’m forty-three years old. I can easily imagine three times my current lifetime.

I feel like my memory work similarly to how you describe. As time goes on, my memories are more abstract, with the freshest having the most detail. I don’t think that that is strictly necessary, but instead a limitation of our wetware.

This is just under the assumption that our brains will continue to function as they do now, which I don’t think is a great assumption. With augmented memory, we could have a complete personal record to access and augment our memory.

I’m sure that there will be people that choose to die, and others that choose to deadhead, and those that choose to live with only a rolling century of memories. None of those sound appealing to my imagination at this point.

Ustice 5 Jun 2022 5:54 UTC
5 points
on: What do you do to deliberately practice?
I’m active in programming communities. Both on Reddit, where I’m a moderator, where I learn about new things all the time. I read other people’s code, and look for ways to improve my own. I tend to read about 6-10 articles a day, skimming many more.

I practice leaving code better than I found it. Since I work with code that is kept at 100% test coverage, I can make big changes, and be reasonably confident that I’m not affecting known behavior.

Lately, I’ve been exploring category theory, and Tensor Flow, as well as more advanced

I’ve been doing this almost my entire life. I was like six, sitting down with my dad learning the basics, and I was hooked. I read books, documentation, working code, all before the internet, let alone GitHub. Born in ’77, I have seen the personal computing revolution, and have lived it

As long as my brain holds out, I expect to be learning daily, and writing code, whether I am paid for it, or officially retired, but volunteering in open source software, and developing my own tools.

Ustice 1 Jan 2023 18:50 UTC
LW: 5 AF: 2
2
AF
in reply to: Andrew_Critch’s comment on: Löb’s Theorem for implicit reasoning in natural language: Löbian party invitations
I was confused for a while by trying to understand why invitations that are self-referential. It wasn’t until I read the inspirational post that I realized that you are referring to is the word “hereby.”

I guess I could have used that to be explicit, despite it being implicitly stated.

Ustice 7 Jan 2023 18:36 UTC
3 points
2
in reply to: the gears to ascension’s comment on: Can ChatGPT count?
It seems to run code about as well as I do in my head. That’s pretty damned impressive, since it does this in seconds, and has been even able to emulate a shell session.

My guess is that there is a difference in how it was trained with code vs general text. It’s like a different mode of thinking/computing. When you put it in terms of code, you engage that more mathematical mode of thinking. When you are just conversing, it’s pretty happy to give you plausible bullshit.

I’m curious how we can engage these different modes of thinking, assuming that my idea is more that plausible bullshit.

Death and Desperation

Ustice24 Feb 2023 12:43 UTC

1 point

3 comments1 min readLW link

Ustice 16 Mar 2023 14:52 UTC
3 points
0
on: ChatGPT getting out of the box
I tried it out. I was a little surprised that I didn’t need to provide further context. I’m not so concerned about this, as it turns out that a simple Google search returns similar results. That isn’t to say that this couldn’t be a problem, but i don’t think it necessarily indicated that there is one.

Obviously it’s following some complex reasoning though, so that is scary, but now just a part of the environment.

Ustice 20 Mar 2023 23:03 UTC
2 points
0
on: The Psyche of AI: Pattern Recognition
Nita Farahany has some really good ideas around this. I haven’t read her book yet, but she gave a great interview on the Mindscape podcast. She talks about the need to enshrine cognitive rights, before they get set through whatever we happen to land on. Likely the default will be very narrow, if any protections.

I’m not very hopeful.

Ustice 20 Mar 2023 23:16 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: M. Y. Zuo’s comment on: Death and Desperation
Do you have any ideas for how we could direct these folks to productive ends?

Maybe some of that could be community support, whether to give support to members of our community that are psychologically vulnerable directly, or giving them a way that they can help others. I’m not sure what that would look like though.

Ustice 30 Mar 2023 3:40 UTC
1 point
2
in reply to: Noosphere89’s comment on: Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down by Eliezer Yudkowsky
I expect that if you sat down with him and had a one on one conversation, you’d find that he does have nuisances views. I also expect that Eliser realizes that there have been improvements in all of the areas you described. I think that the difference comes mostly down to “Has there been sufficient progress in interpretability to avert disaster?” I’m confident his answer would be “No.”

So, given that belief, and having a chance now and then to communicate with a wide audience, it is better to have a clear message, because you never know what will be a zeitgeist tipping point. It’s the fate of the world, so a little nuisance is just collateral damage.

I don’t know if that matters, because whether he’s pegged to Doom epistemically or strategically the result is the same.

Ustice 29 Apr 2023 13:40 UTC
2 points
0
on: Conflict Resolution: the Game
NVC has changed the way I go about conflict resolution. I liked your presentation of the content, but I disagree with your on-role for apology. The key is that apology shouldn’t focus on right or wrong for the action that caused the hurt feelings, but instead it essentially comes in three parts:
1. An acknowledgment of Hurt’s feelings.
2. An expression of non-intent in causing the hurt.
3. An expression of mitigation, realignment, or restitution
“I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings, when I took the last cookie that you had been excited about. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I didn’t know that it was so important to you. Had I known, I would have left it for you, or at least ask you to split it.”

Note that the apology does not necessitate an expression of regret in the action that triggered the emotion in Hurt. It is totally possible to not regret the action, and even genuinely feel that it was the right decision.

“I’m sorry that I embarrassed you when I was defending that kid being bullied. I was focused on their well-being at the time. I wasn’t trying to embarrass you. Should I need to defend someone again in a social situation like that, how can I minimize how it affects you?”

The key to a good apology is to center on the effects on Hurt, and their emotions. You are friends. You don’t want to hurt each other. Put on your Consequentialist hat, and deal with that effect. Step one is really the key. Often people just want to be heard and their feelings acknowledged.

Note that Hurt is not required to accept the apology, but given that it is centered around their feelings, it my experience that people usually do accept.

Ustice 29 Apr 2023 15:59 UTC
3 points
1
in reply to: CrimsonChin’s comment on: Conflict Resolution: the Game
It’s been a part of my practice for so long, that I don’t remember where exactly. It likely was somewhere in the polyamorous community/media. I find it especially helpful when the problem is miscommunication. It’s helpful even outside of a NVC context.

I wish that more people used this approach when people accidentally hurt others, rather than to non-apologies like “I’m sorry that you got hurt,” which generally translates to the nonsensical “I regret that you had feelings.” I think that key difference is accepting the causal link between their feelings and my actions.

🤔 Maybe I should write up a post.

Ustice 19 Sep 2023 5:21 UTC
1 point
0
on: Some reasons why I frequently prefer communicating via text
You can go deep with voice communication, but I think that in-person communication is best for when you want to survey a topic. The quick feedback, and the necessity to lead with your best points, allows for rapid exploration of an idea space.

Moderators really help keep a group on-topic. I used to run a discussion group, and it wasn’t too hard to steer people back on track. Then again I suppose that’s true for most group discussions, no matter the format.

Ustice 9 Nov 2023 7:41 UTC
8 points
2
in reply to: Brendan Long’s comment on: Can a stupid person become intelligent?
It sounds to me like some sort of… intellectual dysphoia? Not unlike someone in the throes of bulimia; who despite evidence to the contrary, can not see themselves as thin enough.

To the OP, I don’t think that is a hypothesis that you can dismiss. Aliefs are pernicious. All we can really do is work with the brain we have. It took me a bit to accept ADHD as a mental disability. Once I made the flip, I was better able to set realistic expectations, and request accommodations and use my tools as mental prosthesis. A lot less negative self-talk.

It really is okay to be good enough.

Ustice

Death and Des­per­a­tion

Death and Desperation