Agree 100%. Wait But Why is very accessible. Previous posts have focused on the Fermi Paradox, procrastination, sentience/consciousness, religion, and immortality. It reads like a very friendly, very accessible Less Wrong.
wobster109
Be Nice to Non-Rationalists
I agree with JoshuaZ. I find your solution to be a severe hindrance in real life. I am the SQL expert on my team, and my (male) coworker is the surgeries expert, and my (male) colleague across the hall is the infectious diseases expert. We all work together to make the best product possible. How can we get anything done if we are segregated by gender?
I don’t see why I need “implicit agreement from all men”. My ideas have merit because they reduce medical errors and save lives. Real-life results are the judge of that, not men. I also do not see why I need “agreement from all women”. They are not my coworkers, and they are free to live their lives as they wish. That said, I am a developer in a project meeting at a tech company. Safe to say, I want to be treated as an equal.
Finally, I don’t see what contributing to a great company has to do with “acting like men” or “pretending to be men”. My goal isn’t to “eradicate femininity”; it is to make a great product that will help people. If you think that is inherently masculine, then you’ll have to explain. So why don’t you start by telling me what “masculine” and “feminine” mean to you?
There is something about this that skeeves me out as well, and it’s not simply discomfort at the idea of doing it. It’s the idea of manipulating others for drinks. It reminds me of begging, almost, the whole trying to get free stuff from others. Also, it sounds like leading men on far enough to get them to buy you a drink; it sounds like making them think you’re interested, even if you don’t actually promise anything. I’m not so fond of things that might inconvenience others, nor the idea of getting drinks from others because I’ve led them to believe something false.
I believe the male version is to get a girl’s phone number? What skills does this require? I’d guess confidence, the art of conversation, body language, assertiveness, initiative, etc etc. Everything that’s already been listed. However, what skills does convincing a man to buy a girl a drink require? What would make a man want to buy a girl a drink? I’m getting the impression of a great deal of flirtatiousness.
I feel that a more equivalent challenge would be for a girl to get a man to accompany her to one of her hobbies, like a knitting group or an orchestra concert or a rationalists’ meetup. That way, she has to present her hobby well, get the guy interested, and he has to be interested in something other than sleeping with her. It will require more communication than sexuality, and I feel it will teach the desired social skills better.
Harry, hurry up and read the instructions Voldie left you. You know, find out what dark sacrifice is needed before you make plans to revive Hermione yet again. If it requires a human sacrifice you might consider pacing the dementors out.
Here’s an interview Bill Gates gave on healthcare. It’s not directly rationality related, but it’s very good. I’d recommend reading all the way to the end. It’s especially good at the end.
Dear Eliezer,
For the best experience, if you have not already been following Internet conversations about recent chapters, I suggest not doing so, trying to complete this exam on your own. . . .
Although you’ve requested an individual exam format, two mathematicians aren’t “the same smart” as the smartest of the two of them.
The Polymath Project got off to a slow start. . . Jozsef Solymosi from the University of British Columbia posted a comment. . . over the next 37 days, 27 people wrote 800 mathematical comments. . . Just 37 days after the project began Gowers announced that he was confident the polymaths had solved not just his original problem, but a harder problem that included the original as a special case. Link
You spend many chapters teaching Harry the importance of collaboration.
“Anyhow,” Hermione said. “Captains Goldstein and Weasley, you’re on duty for thinking up strategic ideas for our next battle. Captains Macmillan and Susan—sorry, I mean Macmillan and Bones—try to come up with some tactics we can use, also any training you think we should try. Oh, and congratulations on your marching song, Captain Goldstein, I think it was a big plus for esprit de corps.”
So I’m afraid I urge everyone to do the opposite of what you’ve suggested and collaborate. Sorry.
Discord and I both grew up in a math contest culture, so each month or so we pick something we “should” be doing and turn it into a contest. This month it’s getting half hour of exercise a day. At the end of the month the winner “wins” something from the loser. It’s been surprisingly effective. I go to the gym about 5x as often as before. Works best with a daily cap. If there’s no daily cap then it turns into an arms race (such as 5 hours of exercise in one day). This sort of thing, that we “should” do but like to hand to tomorrow-self, really is a lot easier when you can do it with someone. Someone who will call you and taunt you. :)
I played as AI in AI Box, and it was generally frustrating all around.
On Sunday at 11 AM Eastern and 8 AM Pacific*, I will be playing a round of AI Box with a person who wishes to remain anonymous. I will be playing as AI, and my opponent will be playing as Gatekeeper (GK). The loser will pay the winner $25, and will also donate $25 to the winner’s charity of choice. The outcome will be posted here, and maybe a write-up if the game was interesting. We will be using Tuxedage’s ruleset with two clarifications:
GK must read and make a reasonable effort to understand AI’s text, but does not need to make an extraordinary effort to understand things such as heavily misspelled text or intricate theoretical arguments.
The monetary amount will not be changed after the game is concluded.
The transcript will not be made public, sorry. We are looking for a neutral third party who will agree beforehand to read and verify the transcript. Preferably someone who has already played in many games, who will not have their experience ruined by reading someone else’s transcript.
I habitually give the Eastern and Pacific times. This does not mean GK is in one of those two time zones.
I’m a bit skeptical of using majority survey response to determine “morality.” After all, given a Bayesian probability problem, (the exact problem was patients with cancer tests, with a chance of returning a false positive,) most people will give the wrong answer, but we certainly don’t want our computers to make this kind of error.
As to the torture vs. dust specks, when I thought about it, I decided first that torture was unacceptable, and then tried to modify my utility function to round to zero, etc. I was very appalled with myself to find that I decided the answer in advance, and then tried to make my utility function fit a predetermined answer. It felt an awful lot like rationalizing. I don’t know if everyone else is doing the same thing, but if you are, I urge you to reconsider. If we always go with what feels right, what’s the point of using utility functions at all?
Looking to restart Madison LW meetups, in need of regulars
Can we each propose a non-transfiguration solution? Even if it’s just a rough idea. I feel like we’re getting stuck on transfiguration, and a bunch of those require very precise handling of things 10 feet away (such as death eaters) or significantly big things (Harry’s body parts). Hermione struggled to get the stunning hex right on the first try, and I feel Eliezer will categorize “transfigure this very precise, remote thing” as a “new magical power”.
I don’t think Hermione is actually asleep anymore. I was expecting her to wake up right away when resurrected, and that didn’t happen. Then the death eaters started appearing with loud pops loud enough to count distinctly, and that didn’t seem to wake her. And since she’s fully repaired there’s no need to sleep to recover.
Chapter 73
Hermione felt the jolt of Innervation bringing her awake, and out of some intuitive strategism she didn’t roll to her feet right away; it had been a completely hopeless battle and she didn’t know what she could do but some instinct told her that leaping to her feet wasn’t it.
Chapter 30
“Let me guess,” Harry said, the sickness already churning in his stomach. He really hated losing. “It was a very easy battle, right? They dropped like flies?” “Yes,” Draco said. “We got them all on the first shot—”
Yes, I designed them, and they were verified by GK’s engineers. The individual nanobots are all connected to GPS and get up-to-date information from the CDC. These sort of details are how I lost tons of time. ^^
I know in real life that would be akin to AI out of the box. However Mr. Eliezer’s basic rules say it doesn’t count. ^^
There’s a limit on a person going back, but I don’t know about things. So maybe a bunch of people with time-turners could hand off the stone.
I think this is what Anna was getting at when she encouraged me to be a wealthy donor rather than an AI researcher. It’s hard to give up the idea of being Michelangelo, being remembered for centuries in history books. But he wouldn’t’ve managed without his patrons.
I’ve just a couple days ago returned home from Rationality Camp, and to the best of my estimates, about half the participants prefer this ending, and also, among rationalists that I encounter elsewhere, a non-trivial portion of them prefer this ending as well. What am I saying? Other than the mass suicides, it is not immediately obvious that this original ending is “awful” in any way.
I’ll try hard! ^^
I went to a random forum somewhere and posted for an opponent. GK responded with an email address, and we worked out the details via email. We’ll be holding our round in a secret, invite-only IRC channel.
It looks like if you offer to play as AI, you’ll have no trouble finding an opponent. Tuxedage said in one of his posts that there are 20 gatekeeper players for each AI player.
However. . . since I encountered GK on a different forum, not LW, I insisted on having a third party interview GK. As a safety measure. I have known people who were vengeful or emotionally fragile, and I wanted to take no chances there.
I’m going to give you some advice as a professional woman. I very deeply resent when male colleagues compete with each other to put on a display for women. This goes for social contexts (rationalists’ meetups) in addition to professional contexts (work meetings). Then women are trying to talk about code or rationality or product design. Rather than thinking about her contributions, the men are preoccupied with “projecting male presence and authority”. What does male presence even mean? Why does authority have anything to do with men, instead of, you know, being the most knowledgeable about the topic?
I’ll tell you how it comes across. It comes across as focusing on the other men and ignoring the women’s contributions. Treating the men as rivals and the women as prizes. Sucky for everyone all around. Instead of teaching boys to be “sexually attractive”, why don’t you teach them to include women in discussions and listen to them same as anyone else? Because we’re not evaluating your sons for “sexual attractiveness”. We’re just trying to get our ideas heard.