Solenoid_Entity

Karma: 431

Solenoid_Entity 21 Jan 2021 6:17 UTC
5 points
on: The LessWrong 2018 Book is Available for Pre-order
I do the SSC Podcast; one of my patreon supporters said he’d be really keen to have this as an audiobook. I’d certainly be keen to get an idea of the demand for that and could potentially make it happen if it seemed like it would be useful. If you wanted to chat about it you can get me on slatestarpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks!

Solenoid_Entity 19 Sep 2021 22:47 UTC
6 points
on: The Best Software For Every Need
Software: Newsfeed Eradicator + Leechblock NG
Need: Resilient self-control/anti-akrasia for web browsing.
Other programs I’ve tried: Stayfocusd, Forest
The problem with Stayfocusd and any website blocker is that, invariably, you have to navigate to a given tweet or youtube video or facebook profile, for legitimate reasons, and it means you have to go and deactivate the plugin. This is bad because 1. it trains you to do this action and 2. It incentivises you to avoid making deactivating the plugin too tricky.
Newsfeed Eradicator kills only the problem parts of social media apps. I can still check individual subreddits. I can still visit a Facebook page. I can still watch a YouTube video. I just don’t get served recommendations, I don’t get exposed to a scrolling feed. This has transformed how I use e.g. YouTube, where I now cultivate my library of channels I subscribe to and get new content via the subscriptions page, rather than passively browsing algorithmic recommendations.
I pair this with Leechblock NG to block websites I don’t want to visit at all. The number of options is STAGGERING compared with Stayfocusd. I can create different categories of blocker, I can program different behaviours, Time-delays instead of blocking if you want. You’re not just stuck with ‘x minutes per day’, you can have ‘x minutes per hour, replenishing every hour.’ if you want. The list goes on.

Too right to write

Solenoid_Entity20 Jan 2022 13:21 UTC

28 points

12 comments3 min readLW link

Solenoid_Entity 26 Jan 2022 9:33 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Samuel Hapák’s comment on: Too right to write
Just pitching in on the last two: there’s an abbreviated register of speech in English called ‘note-taking register’ that has crept its way into a lot of parts of speech and writing, including website navigation. Dropping the definite article (or most articles in general) is a core part of that register.
Note taking = abbreviated English register. Has crept into parts of speech, writing inc. website nav. Dropping definite article core part of register.
I suspect dropping the definite article in ‘refresh page’ is not related to definiteness, it’s a linguistic tendency towards abbreviation. Funnily enough, it’s a trait shared by the stereotypical ‘robot voice’, as well as ‘baby voice’ and some others.

Solenoid_Entity 26 Jan 2022 11:37 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Kenoubi’s comment on: Too right to write
The correlation between “bothers to have an opinion on correctness of others’ writing” and “knows what the correct answer actually is” seems too high.
(Edit: I’m reading between the lines and assuming you’re saying you think the cohort of people who actually care enough about faze/phase to be judgemental about it, but don’t themselves know the correct spelling is ‘faze’, is small.)
This is very interesting. I certainly agree this is our point of difference – I think there’s a big cohort out there with strong, judgey opinions about ‘correctness’ and an active interest in spelling and grammar as a way of displaying status. These people also happen to very frequently be wrong.
But this might well me me typical minding and I’ll try to think about this group more rigorously in my next post about this.

Solenoid_Entity 29 Jun 2022 14:53 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Liron’s comment on: Announcing the LessWrong Curated Podcast
Thanks, glad you’re enjoying :)

Solenoid_Entity 29 Jun 2022 14:53 UTC
1 point
in reply to: willbobaggins’s comment on: Announcing the LessWrong Curated Podcast
Thanks :)

Solenoid_Entity 29 Jun 2022 14:54 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Aaron Bergman’s comment on: Announcing the LessWrong Curated Podcast
Glad to hear it’s useful :)

Solenoid_Entity 29 Jun 2022 14:54 UTC
1 point
in reply to: CrimsonChin’s comment on: Announcing the LessWrong Curated Podcast
Thanks for the endorsement!

Pronunciations

Solenoid_Entity28 Aug 2022 11:43 UTC

15 points

7 comments2 min readLW link

Solenoid_Entity 29 Aug 2022 3:16 UTC
1 point
−1
in reply to: Dana’s comment on: Pronunciations
Some websites are great, but I’ve found they’re wrong often enough I usually want to corroborate them with something else.

Solenoid_Entity 4 Sep 2022 23:04 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Pronunciations
Yeah this is a super useful method and increasingly my go-to for esp. Chinese

Solenoid_Entity 5 Sep 2022 3:24 UTC
LW: 10 AF: 3
9
AF
on: Simulators
One question that occurred to me, reading the extended GPT-generated text. (Probably more a curiosity question than a contribution as such...)
To what extent does text generated by GPT-simulated ‘agents’, then published on the internet (where it may be used in a future dataset to train language models), create a feedback loop?
Two questions that I see as intuition pumps on this point:
1. Would it be a bad idea to recursively ask GPT-n “You’re a misaligned agent simulated by a language model and your name is [unique identifier]. What would you like to say, knowing that the text you generate will be used in training future GPT-n models, to try to influence that process?” then use a dataset including that output in the next training process? What if training got really cheap and this process occurred billions of times?
2. My understanding is that language models are drawing on the fact that the existing language corpus is shaped by the underlying reality—and this is why they seem to describe reality well, capture laws and logic, agentic behaviour etc. This works up until ~2015, when the corpus of internet text begins to include more text generated only by simulated writers. Does this potentially degrade the ability of future language models to model agents, perform logic etc? Since their reference pool of content is increasingly (and often unknowably) filled with text generated without (or with proportionally much less) reference to underlying reality? (Wow, who knew Baudrillard would come in handy one day?)

Using Obsidian if you’re used to using Roam

Solenoid_Entity11 Dec 2022 8:59 UTC

19 points

4 comments2 min readLW link

Solenoid_Entity 13 Dec 2022 3:19 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Trevor Hill-Hand’s comment on: Using Obsidian if you’re used to using Roam
Amazing, thanks!

Solenoid_Entity 7 Feb 2023 1:14 UTC
1 point
0
on: Sapir-Whorf for Rationalists
On the subject of jargon, there’s one piece of jargon that I’ve long found troubling on LW, and that’s the reference to ‘tech’ (for mental techniques/tools/psycho-technologies), which I’ve seen Duncan use a few times IIRC.

A few issues:
1. It’s exactly the same usage as the word ‘tech’ in the fake scifi ‘religion’ that must not be named (lest you summon its demons to the forum through the Google portal). They do exercises to give them new mental tools, based on reading the lengthy writings of their founder on how to think, and those lessons/materials/techniques are always referred to as ‘tech.’ This doesn’t automatically make our usage of it bad, but it’s probably smart to avoid so closely mirroring their usage imo.

2. Using the word ‘tech’ doesn’t shine much light. I’m aware of the concept of ‘exaptation’ and that things external to the mind can be integrated into the mind much the way that a craftsman stops seeing the hammer as separate from his hand. Still, it doesn’t seem very useful to blur the distinction between mental techniques and reasoning strategies we can learn and internalise by reading blog posts, and literal technology we might use to augment or supplement our thinking abilities.