Hi. Got sucked in to the site via MoR (of course), and have been devouring the sequences and related archive material for about a month or so.
WrongBot
Hi all.
I found this site through Methods of Rationality (as I suspect many have, of late). I’ve been reading through the sequences and archives for a while, and am finally starting to feel up to speed enough to comment here and there.
My name is Sam. I’m a programmer, mostly interested in writing and designing games. Oddly enough, my username derives from my much-neglected blog, which I believe predated this website.
I’ve always relished discovering that I’m wrong; if there’s a better way to consistently improve the accuracy of one’s beliefs, I’m not aware of it. So the LW approach makes an awful lot of sense to me, and I’m really enjoying how much concentrated critical thinking is available in the archives.
I’m also polyamorous, and so I’m considering a post or two on how polyamory (and maybe other kinds of alternative sexualities) relates to the practice of rationality. Would there be any interest in that sort of thing? I don’t want to drag a pet topic into a place it’s unwanted.
Furthermore, I am overfond of parentheses and semicolons. I apologize in advance.
The post I’m envisioning is less an analysis of polyamory as a lifestyle and more about what I’m tentatively calling the monogamy bias. While the science isn’t quite there (I think; I need to do more research on the topic) to argue that a bias towards monogamy is built into human brain chemistry, it’s certainly built into (Western) society. My personal experience has been that overcoming that bias makes life much more fun, so I’d probably end up talking about how to analyze whether monogamy is something a person might actually want.
The other LW topic that comes out of polyamory is the idea of managing romantic jealousy, which ends up being something of a necessity. Depending on how verbose I get, those may or may not get combined into a single post.
In any case, would either of those pass your (or more general) filters?
Ceteris paribus, I would think that the lower gullibility of judges would be entirely overwhelmed by the effects of increased corruption. Take the corrupt judges in Pennsylvania that were all over the news last year, for example. The difference in accuracy between a jury and a judge pales in comparison to this sort of thing; that’s fine if corruption is proportionally more rare than that accuracy gap, which is probably true if most cases of corruption are uncovered.
But if you look at the story of those Pennsylvanian judges, they did a miserably bad job of covering their own tracks, and it still took four years for anyone to notice. If we’re only catching the incompetent corrupt judges, then either only incompetent judges are corrupt, or we don’t have an accurate picture of how much corruption there actually is.
It’s oft-repeated but nevertheless true: power corrupts. Because jurors serve infrequently, for one case at a time, and have little individual power, it’s much, much harder to buy off or otherwise influence a jury. I think that if we want to improve our justice system, we’d be best served by applying closer scrutiny to positions that act as bottlenecks of authority—judges, prosecutors, and anyone involved in jury selection.
Granted, that’s all predicated on maintaining a justice system that looks approximately like our current one.
I think I grouped my ideas poorly; the two kinds of bias you point out would be better descriptions of the two topics I’m thinking of writing about. (And they definitely seem to be separate enough that I shouldn’t be writing about them in the same post.) So, to clarify, then:
Topic 1: Individuals in industrialized cultures (but the U.S. more strongly than most, due to religious influence) very rarely question the default relationship style of monogamy in the absence of awareness of other options, and usually not even then. This is less of a bias and more of a blind spot: there are very few people who are aware that there are alternatives to visible monogamy. Non-consensual non-monogamy (cheating) is, of course, something of a special case. I’m not sure if there’s an explicit “unquestioned assumptions that rule large aspects of your life” category on LW, but that kind of material seems to be well-received. I’d argue that there’s at least as much reason to question the idea that “being monogamous is good” as the idea that “being religious is good.” Of course my conclusions are a little different, in that one’s choice of relationship style is ultimately a utilitarian consideration, whereas religion is nonsense.
Topic 2: Humans have a neurological bias in favor of (certain patterns of behavior associated with) monogamy. This would include romantic jealousy, as mentioned. While the research in humans is not yet definitive, there’s substantial evidence that the hormone vasopressin, which is released into the brain during sexual activity, is associated with pair-bonding and male-male aggression. In prairie voles, vasopressin production seems to be the sole factor in whether or not they mate for life. Romantic/sexual jealousy is a cultural universal in humans, and has no known purpose other than to enforce monogamous behavior. So there are definitely biological factors that affect one’s reasoning about relationship styles; it should be obvious that if some people prefer to ignore those biological factors, they see some benefit in doing so. I can say authoritatively that polyamory makes me happier than monogamy does, and I am not so self-absorbed as to think myself alone in this. Again, this is a case where at least some people can become happier by debiasing.
And that still leaves Topic 3: jealousy management, which I imagine would look something like the sequence on luminosity or posts on akrasia (my personal nemesis).
Thanks for your comment; it’s really helped me clarify my organizational approach.
I think that the most interesting thing about the comments here is that no one actually proposed a predicate that could be used to distinguish between something that might be a person and something that definitely isn’t a person (to rephrase Eliezer’s terms).
It is, to be fair, a viciously hard problem. I’ve thought through 10 or 20 possible predicates or approaches to finding predicates, and exactly one of them is of any value at all; even then it would restrict an AI’s ability to model other intelligences to a degree that is probably unacceptable unless we can find other, complementary predicates. It may be a trivial predicate of the sort that Eliezer has already considered and dismissed. But enough with the attempts to signal my lack of certitude.
The problem as presented in this post is, first of all, a little unclear. We are concerned with the creation of simulations that are people, but to prevent this run-away-screaming tragedy we should probably have some way of distinguishing between a simulation and a code module that is a part of the AI itself; if a sentient AI were to delete some portion of its own code to make way for an improved version, it would not seem to be problematic, and I will assume that this behavior is not what we are screening for here.
To cast as wide a net as possible, I would define a simulation as some piece of an AI that can not access all of the information available to that AI; that is, there are some addresses in memory for which the simulation lacks read permissions or knowledge of their existence. Because data and code are functionally identical, non-simulation modules would then by definition be able to access every function comprising the AI; I don’t think that we could call such a module a separate consciousness. (The precise definition would necessarily depend on the AI’s implementation; a Bayesian AI might be more concerned with statistical evidence than memory pointers, e.g.)
Even relying on this definition, a predicate that entirely rules out the simulation of a person is no picnic. The best I’ve been able to come up with is:
A simulation can be guaranteed to not be a person if it is not Turing complete.
I don’t know enough language theory to say whether linear bounded automata should also be excluded (or to even link somewhere more helpful than Wikipedia). It might be necessary to restrict simulations to push-down automata, which are much less expressive.
ETA: Another possible predicate would be
A simulation can be guaranteed to not be a person if it includes no functions that act as an expected utility function under the definition offered by Cumulative Prospect Theory.
If there’s a theoretical definition of an expected utility function that is superior to CPT’s, then please imagine that I proposed that instead.
How good a record is good enough?
No record in English (and I’m using English as a shorthand for any human language) can ever be good enough. English is not a technology for transmitting information.
English is a compression format, and a very lossy and somewhat inaccurate compression format at that. But it has a stupendously high compression rate and compression algorithms with reasonable running speeds on specially adapted hardware (i.e. brains), so for the particular purposes of human communication English is a pretty decent option.
I own a t-shirt with this graphic printed on it. If you possess a mostly correct compression algorithm (that is, you speak modern English), the ~5kb of data on that shirt contains sufficient information to reproduce ~30 major scientific or technological discoveries. I don’t know exactly how much space you could fit that information into if you encoded it in a way that wasn’t very heavily optimized for very specific types of human brains, but I suspect it’s many orders of magnitude greater than 5kb.
On the surface this seems like it could be an argument for reproducing a specific human from their preserved written material, what with the amazing information density of English. But using a standard English decompression algorithm to analyze what you’ve written is worthless, because we’re not trying to recreate the meaning of what you’ve written. We’re trying to recreate the compression algorithm used to create your writings, which would be approximately isomorphic with your brain. But because the English data format is lossy and imprecise, reconstructing that algorithm from only its output is impossible.
If you could preserve a copy of the decompressed version of what you were trying to write along with your writings, that might be enough to reverse-engineer your brain(’s compression algorithm). But I don’t think that’s possible for any human, much less most of them.
- 2 Jul 2010 19:38 UTC; 0 points) 's comment on Rationality Quotes: July 2010 by (
Unknown knowns: Why did you choose to be monogamous?
I would be astonished if LW’s readership conformed to American norms in any sense. But the fraction of Americans who have seriously considered polyamory, even among those who have heard of it, is tiny enough that it seemed worth tossing out there.
As for the nillamorous (google indicates you have coined the word, which is awesome, by the way): no slight was intended. While nillamory isn’t a part of relationship-style-space in the same way that atheism is not a religion, I tend to treat it as if it were, for the same reason that I write “atheist” on forms that ask for my religion. Regardless, there’s certainly nothing wrong with preferring to stay away from romance.
Edit: The choice of relationship style is definitely relevant for people who are nillamorous due to circumstance. The approach one takes in looking for partners is greatly informed by what you want them to be partners for.
The relationships in that high school are similar but not necessarily analogous to a polyamorous network. Because the relationships that make up that graph don’t overlap temporally at their connecting nodes, an STD that enters the graph can only affect people that form a new connection after its appearance. An STD in a polyamorous network can spread to every member, regardless of when they join the network.
That’s kinda bad. Poly folk tend to be very concerned about STDs; common best-practices are to use barriers with new partners (or all partners), get tested for new infections regularly (usually monthly), and to require one’s partners to do the same.
This lines up pretty closely with Daniel’s recommendation, but even if you take every precaution imaginable, being a part of a large polyamorous network will increase your risk of exposure by at least a little.
Though it may be worth mentioning that that effect may be offset by the generally high level of caution in the poly community and increased certainty about your partner’s partners, what with cheating being (almost entirely) out of the equation.
In my experience, the polyamorous community generally includes more women than men, and the women are frequently higher status. Most books on polyamory have been written by women, and they’re much more involved in high-level activism than women usually are in other communities; this seems to support your hypothesis.
While I’m not terribly familiar with the PUA literature, based on your description I would say that most definitions of polyamory exclude it. There’s a great deal of scorn in the poly community for relationships with a “one-penis policy,” as well as a general emphasis on egalitarianism.
Or possibly just from LessWrong readers having read more science fiction. While reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is not always sufficient to get people to question the monogamy default, it certainly doesn’t hurt.
“Status” as you are using it here is meaningless. There is a polyamorous subculture whose members are largely indifferent to an outsider’s perception of their status; as is generally the case with subcultures, status is only relevant within the subculture.
And in the polyamorous subculture, having multiple stable relationships is high status.
Furthermore, not all people are terribly sensitive to status. I find that trait attractive in potential romantic partners, so I’m quite safe in ignoring considerations of status entirely.
Cached thoughts are default answers to questions. Unquestioned defaults are default answers to questions that you don’t know exist.
there is a lot of evidence that the quality of the relationship depends largely on the degree that the man has higher status
This sets off my alarm bells. While evidence for such an anti-egalitarian position is possible and may even be correct, your assertion is general enough that it requires a great deal of supporting evidence. And such evidence is not generally acknowledged in the academic literature on the topic, so far as I’ve read, so I’m doubly skeptical.
You’re also equating status with physical attractiveness, which is demonstrably not true, especially in men (in modern American society).
I actually haven’t read Friday, I was just picking an example from the sci-fi canon more or less at random. There are plenty of other examples, too; I just meant to point out that sci-fi fans get more exposure to these kinds of ideas than most others.
For the record, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s about a decade back; believe me when I say that I’m one of those people who’s had to “commit significant thinking and effort if they wish to achieve the same results that others get by simply going with the flow.”
If anything, I’d say that having to deal with status in a conscious and deliberate way has caused my status-indifference: I have a very clear picture of how shallow that game is. I only play it when I need to.
I’d agree with Nancy that polyamory isn’t consistent with maximum achievement. Devoting resources to intimate relationships always has that effect, even if you only have one at a time; polyamory necessarily requires more of an investment. It’s a trade-off that I’m more than happy to make, but your priorities may not agree. It’s (potentially) a good reason not to be interested in polyamory.
Polyamory as popularly defined is basically a kick in the teeth to evolution. The reason that I brought it up here in the first place is that it is an attempt to use rationality to overcome perceived deficiencies in how we’ve evolved to form relationships. More than anything else, poly is seeing a love triangle in a movie and demanding to know why “both” isn’t an option.
Polygamy by definition involves relationships in which one man has several wives. Polyamory excludes those relationships as unegalitarian (generally; there are always exceptions). You can continue to argue about evolutionary psychology if you want, but that field can never tell us what we should do, only who we are (and even then it’s very easy to get it wrong).
- 25 Jul 2010 5:03 UTC; 9 points) 's comment on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution by (
- 25 Jul 2010 3:18 UTC; 7 points) 's comment on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution by (
To pop in 3 months after the fact: I’m a man and I was once in an abusive relationship, which I left for reasons unrelated to the abuse.
Nancy hit the nail on the head when she emphasized the effect of emotional abuse; the reason I didn’t “just leave” that abusive relationship was that I had been convinced that it wasn’t in my best interest. (I’m making a conscious effort here to not generalize from my experience, though I suspect that the situation was fairly typical.) The most devastating psychological tactic my abuser used was convincing me that in each conflict that led to physical abuse, I was to blame. If I had only behaved better (by, say, not voicing a disagreement in front of our friends), then the violence wouldn’t have happened; it didn’t matter that I wasn’t the one that escalated things to that level. After all, I started it.
By refusing to let me walk away from an argument without admitting fault (using violence, if necessary), my abuser then ensured that every conflict ended with another grievance that could be used as ammunition in later arguments. If I tried to go back on my previous admittance of fault on the grounds that it had been coerced, then the problem became that I was lying in our arguments because it was convenient.
I think that one of the reasons that it’s so hard to “just leave” an abusive relationship is that abusers taboo criticizing them. And if you have an opinion that you can’t speak aloud to anyone (because abusers often cut off the ability to have private conversations with friends, because if you ever want to do anything without them you’re demonstrating you don’t love them), it becomes very hard to feel confident enough about that opinion to act on it. Abusers can just throw lots of bad arguments at you as to why they’re and you’re wrong, and trying to argue is just further proof of your unworthiness. They win on volume, not by being anything that resembles rational.
In an atmosphere of abuse, it’s very hard to find the will to leave. If I hadn’t had other reasons for leaving that relationship, I’m afraid I’d still be trapped in it today. And it’s worth noting that I’m smarter/more rational than most people. (I really dislike how arrogant that sounds, but I can’t think of a better way of formulating the idea without equivocating.)