One problem with this equation is that it dooms us to use hyperbolic discounting (which is dynamically inconsistent), not exponential discounting, which would be rational (given rationally calibrated coefficients).
Wrongnesslessness
The powers of instrumental rationality in the context of rapid technological progress and the inability/unwillingness of irrational people to listen to rational arguments strongly suggest the following scenario:
After realizing that turning a significant portion of the general population into rationalists would take much more time and resources than simply taking over the world, rationalists will create a global corporation with the goal of saving the humankind from the clutches of zero- and negative-sum status games.
Shortly afterwards, the Rational Megacorp will indeed take over the world and the people will get good government for the first time in the history of the human race (and will live happily ever after).
Foundation for Human Sapience (or Foundation for Advanced Sapience)
Reality Transplantation Center
Thoughtful Organization
CORTEX—Center for Organized Rational Thinking and EXperimentation
OOPS—Organization for Optimal Perception Seekers
BAYES—Bureau for Advancing Yudkowsky’s Experiments in Sanity
I agree. The waterline metaphor is not so commonly known outside LW that it would evoke anything except some watery connotations.
So, what about a nice-looking acronym like “Truth, Rationality, Universe, Eliezer”? :)
Wikipedia is accessible if you disable JavaScript (or use a mobile app, or just Google cache).
I would prefer this comment to be more like 0
Does your preference mean that you honestly think the intrinsic value of the comment does not justify its vote count, or that you just generally prefer moderation and extremes irritate you?
In the former case, I would definitely vote toward what I thought would be a more justified vote count. Though in the latter case, I would probably be completely blind to my bias.
If ambiguity aversion is a paradox and not just a cognitive bias, does this mean that all irrational things people systematically do are also paradoxes?
What particular definition of “paradox” are you using? E.g, which one of the definitions in the Paradox wikipedia article?
Sod off! Overt aggression is a pleasant relief compared to the subtle, catty ‘niceness’ that the most competitive humans excel at.
Hmm… Doesn’t this look like something an aggressive alpha male would say?..
Uh-oh!
So the true lesson of this post is that we should get rid of all the aggressive alpha males in our society. I guess I always found the idea obvious, but now that it has been validated, can we please start devising some plan for implementing it?
Are there any general-purpose anti-akrasia gamification social sites? I recently found Pomodorium but it is regrettably single-player.
Of course, another problem (and that’s a huge one) is that our head does not really care much about our goals. The wicked organ will happily do anything that benefits our genes, even if it leaves us completely miserable.