Ustice

Karma: 149

Ustice 25 Nov 2023 14:04 UTC
10 points
3
on: What are the results of more parental supervision and less outdoor play?
After my kid was old enough to watch out for cars, he basically got free rein of our neighborhood. I also got him a cell phone early, so that he wouldn’t get lost, and we can communicate should we need the other. He has friends around the neighborhood, and I know most of their parents.

I really haven’t experienced other parents being overly concerned. Typically they are playing together, and the kids are old enough to manage themselves. My son is 13, so he’s almost past the point where anyone is going to blink at him walking alone, but I was always prepared to challenge anyone who didn’t think that he could manage.

One big change from when I was a kid is that my son can socially play video games way easier/more effectively. As a result, he’s more likely than I was to be playing video games, because they have way better communication tools. He doesn’t ride a bike like I did, and I think that a part of the reason is that he’s able to be social and play with his friends, all without leaving his house. If I didn’t ride my bike, I just wouldn’t see my friends.

I’m skeptical of these trends, or at least in the causal links implied here. The world is a bit more complex, and we have different tools, but I don’t think things are so radically different. My folks didn’t have the option of buying me a cell phone when I was a kid, but I’m sure would have had they been available. If Roblox was a thing when I was a kid, I likely would have played with my friends on there (technically around my folks) rather than biking 1.5 miles to my friend’s house. I didn’t have to worry about a global pandemic, nor did I grow up concerned about a changing climate. The internet wasn’t a thing. Heck, mental healthcare was practically taboo.

I think that the kids are going to be just fine. They have unique challenges, but they also have better tools to meet them. While I also believe in free-range parenting, my son’s friends whose parents prefer a more supervised style are great kids too.

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 15 Apr 2024 13:26 UTC
7 points
4
on: Taking into account preferences of past selves
Unless you are going to one of the big prestige universities, I don’t think it matters which you choose all that much. Save money.

As for working with a startup, why not both? I worked through college. Yeah, you’ll be working part time, but frankly, you’re mostly just being introduced to the environment more than anything. Internships are a great start into many industries. Just make sure that you are doing a paid internship. In my experience the unpaid ones are more focused on how much value they can extract from you.

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 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 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 31 Dec 2023 14:27 UTC
5 points
3
on: The proper response to mistakes that have harmed others?
I think that modeling guilt-as-signaling is reductive and unhelpful. Your brain is going to think about things that you care about. It’s trying to find ways to better navigate the world. You don’t always/often have control over that. The problem is when that becomes unhelpful and disruptive.

Sometimes in my life, when I have experienced excessive guilt, I been able to resolve it by forgiving my past self, with the understanding that he didn’t know what I know now. Especially when the harm that I caused is no longer especially consequential today.

Other times, that hasn’t worked out so well. Sometimes a song will get caught in my head, and run on repeat for months. Sometimes I’ll have little moments of panic, thinking “what am I going to do,” only to think in the next second, “about what?”

Brains are weird. They sometimes do wonderful things, and sometimes are really annoying. You don’t need to punish yourself. You’re already remembering, building your awareness, and trying to do the best that you can. That’s all you can do.

That’s enough.

If these thoughts are intrusive and frequently causing you pain, I would suggest talking with a therapist. They can help you develop mental tools to better manage those feelings when they occur.

Ustice 30 Nov 2023 18:31 UTC
5 points
0
in reply to: jefftk’s comment on: What are the results of more parental supervision and less outdoor play?
Technically it would have been when he was 4-5, but he didn’t do a lot of exploring at that age. It wasn’t until later that he’d go off on his own more confidently. I see those years like him building up his confidence.

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 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 4 May 2024 13:27 UTC
4 points
2
on: If you are assuming Software works well you are dead
I don’t know about making god software, but human software is a lot of trial and error. I have been writing code for close to 40 years. The best I can do is write automated tests to anticipate the kinds of errors I might get. My imagination just isn’t as strong as reality.

There is provably no way to fully predict how a software system of sufficient complexity. With careful organization it becomes easier to reason about and predict, but unless you are writing provable software (it’s a very slow and complex process, I hear), that’s the best you get.

I feel you on being distracted by software bugs. I’m one of those guys that reports them, or even code change suggestions (GitHub Pull Requests).

Ustice 28 Mar 2024 0:56 UTC
3 points
2
on: [SP] The Edge of Morality
Clean bowl? Dry? You’re all good. What’s wrong with changing containers?

Ustice 13 Jan 2024 11:57 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: rotatingpaguro’s comment on: Eliminating Cookie Banners is Hard
They are annoying if you don’t just accept the cookies. I always reject all non-essential. Typically that is a three-click process. It’s annoying when it’s the fifth site in a row.

Ustice 23 Dec 2023 21:06 UTC
3 points
0
on: AI Girlfriends Won’t Matter Much
I wonder whether artificial romantic or sexual partners will be as generally accepted in monogamous relationships as porn is today. That might also be an example of just following existing trends, as the younger generation seems to be trying ethical non-monogamy more than my own has.

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 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 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.

Ustice 2 Mar 2024 13:45 UTC
2 points
0
on: What does your philosophy maximize?
My personal philosophy is a blended approach. In general, I’m a deontologist and Stoic, so not really used to thinking in maximizing much more than kindness. I like the heuristic of “what would Mr. Rogers do?”

The only thing that I have a hope of changing in this world is myself. For all the rest, I can only give my perspective. I’m much more interested in working with people in their current worldview than getting them to change it. I’m sure that whatever arguments I could come up with wouldn’t really be novel nor particularly persuasive.

Life is more peaceful this way.

Ustice 6 Jan 2024 21:20 UTC
2 points
−2
on: Lack of Spider-Man is evidence against the simulation hypothesis
The argument that we live in a simulation doesn’t make any sense. To experiment on sentient beings without their consent is unethical, and I can’t see that changing, even in the far future. I won’t say it won’t happen, but I would be surprised if it is common. If ancestor simulations are rare, then they no longer outnumber the biological people.

Also, why would you want to run such a simulation at such high fidelity as to have intelligent people embedded therein? That sounds like needless complication and expense. Aggregate human behavior can already be modeled fairly well. The Sims with software people seems like way more than you’d need/want.

Also, what are they achieving? Calling them “ancestor simulations” is ridiculous because even if they could simulate the universe with perfect fidelity: you can’t possibly know the exact quantum state of the universe for some time in the past. Human history is a chaotic system built on the interactions of individuals, the environment, and knowledge. Any little perturbation is going to give you different results, especially over the long run. Given that, at best you’re playing out plausible scenarios. That’s interesting, but not so much so as to overcome the problems highlighted in the previous two paragraphs.

It’s just a poorly constructed argument. I don’t know how much the mundanity of this world is an argument against the Simulation Hypothesis in general, but here with the argument so poorly defined, it has to get in line.

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.