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?
Wrongnesslessness
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!
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?
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.
Wikipedia is accessible if you disable JavaScript (or use a mobile app, or just Google cache).
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”? :)
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
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).
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).
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.
All existence is intrinsically meaningless. After the Singularity, there will be no escape from the fate of the rat with the pleasure button. No FAI, however Friendly, will be able to work around this irremediable property of the Universe except by limiting the intelligence of people and making them go through their eternal lives in carefully designed games. (> 95%)
Also, any self-aware AI with sufficient intelligence and knowledge will immediately self-destruct or go crazy. (> 99.9%)
But humans are crazy! Aren’t they?
B: BECAUSE IT IS THE LAW.
I cannot imagine a real physicist saying something like that. Sounds more like a bad physics teacher… or a good judge.
Thanks for making me understand something extremely important with regard to creative work: Every creator should have a single, identifiable victim of his creations!
And they aren’t even regular pentagons! So, it’s all real then...
We don’t have to attract everyone. We should just make sure that the main page does not send away people who would have stayed if they were exposed to some other LW stuff instead.
That’s a good point. However, I think there is not much we can do about it by refining the main page. More precisely, I doubt that even a remotely interested in rationality and intelligent person can leave “a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality” without at least taking a look at some of the blog posts, irrespective of the contents of the main page itself. We all know examples of internet sites with poor design, but great information content.
So the question of refining the main page, I think, really comes down to selecting the right articles for the Recent Promoted Articles and Featured Articles sections. The rest is already there.
considering that the dangers of technology might outweigh the risks.
This should probably read “might outweigh the benefits”.
since it’s known with great certainty that there is no afterlife, the hypothetical isn’t worth mentioning
I’m convinced that the probability of experiencing any kind of afterlife in this particular universe is extremely small. However, some versions of us are probably now living in simulations, and it is not inconceivable that some portion of them will be allowed to live “outside” their simulations after their “deaths”. Since one cannot feel one’s own nonexistence, I totally expect to experience “afterlife” some day.
Perhaps at this point you can argue, that you totally expect this mental pattern to be reattached to some set of memories or some personality outside the Matrix.
There should be some universes in which the simulators will perform a controlled procedure specifically designed for saving me. This includes going to all the trouble of reattaching what’s left of me to all my best parts and memories retrieved from an adequate backup.
Of course, it is possible that the simulators will attach some completely arbitrary memories to my poor degraded personality. This nonsensical act will surely happen in some universes, but I do not expect to perceive myself as existing in these cases.
It seems you are right that gradual degradation is a serious problem with QI-based survival in non-simulated universes (unless we move to a more reliable substrate, with backups and all).
Are there any general-purpose anti-akrasia gamification social sites? I recently found Pomodorium but it is regrettably single-player.