One thing that would help me, not sure if others agree—would be some more concrete predictions. I think the historical examples of autism and being gay make sense, but are quite normalized now, that one can almost say, “That was previous generations. We are open minded and rational now”. What are some new applications of this logic, that would surprise us? Are these omitted due to some info hazard? Surely we can find some that are not. I am honestly having a hard time coming up with them myself, but here goes:
There are more regular people who believe AI is an x-risk than let on—optimistically, for us!
There are more people in households with 7 figure incomes than you would expect. The data I always read in news articles seems to contradict this, but there are just way too many people in 2M+ homes driving Teslas in the bay area. Or maybe they happen to be very frugal in every other aspect of their life… Alternatively, there is more generational wealth than people let on, as there are many people who supposedly make under 6 figures, yet seem to survive in HCOL areas and participate in conspicuous consumption.
I also have a hard time with the “perfect crime” scenario described above. Even after several minutes of thinking, I can’t quite convince myself it’s happening all that much, but maybe I am limiting myself to certain types of crimes. Can someone also spell that one out? I get it at a high level, “we only see the dumb ones that got caught”, but can’t seem to make the leap from that, to “you probably know a burglar, murderer, or embezzler”.
It’s less “you probably know a burglar” and more “successful burglaries are probably 10-100x more common than you would think, if you based your prediction solely on visible evidence.”
The two that seem most obvious to me: well-behaved psychopaths (i.e. people who have little or no empathetic response but who have learned to follow the social rules anyway, for the sake of headache avoidance) and non-practicing pedophiles (i.e. people who are attracted to children but are zero percent interested in raping anyone) probably really actually are quite common.
Does the list starting shortly after “Here are some examples of things” not fit that desire for more examples?
I think the trouble is that this theory predicts everything one can offer as an example of dark matter either 1. Something that used to be very discouraged and now isn’t as discouraged, like being gay or 2. Something that is currently very discouraged and therefore hidden, like being a sex worker. “What am I not seeing evidence for” is a hard thing to notice!
As far as I know, I don’t personally know anyone HIV positive. Maybe that’s because there aren’t many; a quick Google search suggests one in ten thousand Americans are positive, let’s say I know five hundred people, so it’s not weird I don’t happen to know anyone HIV positive.
I know one person who I know declined to get a covid vaccine, zero people who I know have declined all vaccines. I know one person who I know has disassociate identity disorder, zero people who I know have full no-memory-of-the-switch identities. I know one person I know believes the earth is flat, zero people who I know believe the world is run by lizard people. I know one person I know is into wearing animal ears during sex, zero people who I know are into wearing a fursuit during sex. Maybe it’s useful to think of the one-ofs you’ve met, and wonder if they’re way more common?
(In case the grammar got unclear above- I’m not claiming as an absolute fact that nobody I’m an acquaintance with falls into the second half of each of those. I’m saying if they’re there, they have successfully hidden it from me.)
That’s fair, I read the post but did not re-read it, and asking for “more” examples out of such a huge list seems a bit asking too much. Still though, I find the process of finding these examples somewhat fun, and for whatever reason, had not found many of them too shocking, so felt the instinct to keep searching.
Dissociative identity disorder would be an interesting case, I have heard there was much debate on whether it was real. As you know someone, I assume it’s not exactly like you see in movies, and probably falls on a spectrum as discussed in this post?
Crime does not need to be perfect to be undetected. We have a good idea of base rates of murder and burglary, so I would expect that most people not know one of those. Burglary also doesn’t seem to be a one-of-crime but mostly done by organized gangs.
Embezzlement on the other hand happens in different strengths. Plenty of employees embezzle pens and paper from their employers
Theft from supermarkets would be one example. 1⁄4 Britains admit to stealing at self-service checkouts. You likely know more thieves than you think.
Different kinds of fraud also happen more often relative to their visibility. That likely includes subjects like false data in scientific publications.
It’s probably not actually that hard to get away with one burglary, but the more crimes you commit, the more likely you are to get caught for at least one of them: if you roll dice enough times, eventually they come up all 1s.
One thing that would help me, not sure if others agree—would be some more concrete predictions. I think the historical examples of autism and being gay make sense, but are quite normalized now, that one can almost say, “That was previous generations. We are open minded and rational now”. What are some new applications of this logic, that would surprise us? Are these omitted due to some info hazard? Surely we can find some that are not. I am honestly having a hard time coming up with them myself, but here goes:
There are more regular people who believe AI is an x-risk than let on—optimistically, for us!
There are more people in households with 7 figure incomes than you would expect. The data I always read in news articles seems to contradict this, but there are just way too many people in 2M+ homes driving Teslas in the bay area. Or maybe they happen to be very frugal in every other aspect of their life… Alternatively, there is more generational wealth than people let on, as there are many people who supposedly make under 6 figures, yet seem to survive in HCOL areas and participate in conspicuous consumption.
I also have a hard time with the “perfect crime” scenario described above. Even after several minutes of thinking, I can’t quite convince myself it’s happening all that much, but maybe I am limiting myself to certain types of crimes. Can someone also spell that one out? I get it at a high level, “we only see the dumb ones that got caught”, but can’t seem to make the leap from that, to “you probably know a burglar, murderer, or embezzler”.
It’s less “you probably know a burglar” and more “successful burglaries are probably 10-100x more common than you would think, if you based your prediction solely on visible evidence.”
The two that seem most obvious to me: well-behaved psychopaths (i.e. people who have little or no empathetic response but who have learned to follow the social rules anyway, for the sake of headache avoidance) and non-practicing pedophiles (i.e. people who are attracted to children but are zero percent interested in raping anyone) probably really actually are quite common.
Does the list starting shortly after “Here are some examples of things” not fit that desire for more examples?
I think the trouble is that this theory predicts everything one can offer as an example of dark matter either 1. Something that used to be very discouraged and now isn’t as discouraged, like being gay or 2. Something that is currently very discouraged and therefore hidden, like being a sex worker. “What am I not seeing evidence for” is a hard thing to notice!
As far as I know, I don’t personally know anyone HIV positive. Maybe that’s because there aren’t many; a quick Google search suggests one in ten thousand Americans are positive, let’s say I know five hundred people, so it’s not weird I don’t happen to know anyone HIV positive.
I know one person who I know declined to get a covid vaccine, zero people who I know have declined all vaccines. I know one person who I know has disassociate identity disorder, zero people who I know have full no-memory-of-the-switch identities. I know one person I know believes the earth is flat, zero people who I know believe the world is run by lizard people. I know one person I know is into wearing animal ears during sex, zero people who I know are into wearing a fursuit during sex. Maybe it’s useful to think of the one-ofs you’ve met, and wonder if they’re way more common?
(In case the grammar got unclear above- I’m not claiming as an absolute fact that nobody I’m an acquaintance with falls into the second half of each of those. I’m saying if they’re there, they have successfully hidden it from me.)
That’s fair, I read the post but did not re-read it, and asking for “more” examples out of such a huge list seems a bit asking too much. Still though, I find the process of finding these examples somewhat fun, and for whatever reason, had not found many of them too shocking, so felt the instinct to keep searching.
Dissociative identity disorder would be an interesting case, I have heard there was much debate on whether it was real. As you know someone, I assume it’s not exactly like you see in movies, and probably falls on a spectrum as discussed in this post?
Crime does not need to be perfect to be undetected. We have a good idea of base rates of murder and burglary, so I would expect that most people not know one of those. Burglary also doesn’t seem to be a one-of-crime but mostly done by organized gangs.
Embezzlement on the other hand happens in different strengths. Plenty of employees embezzle pens and paper from their employers
Theft from supermarkets would be one example. 1⁄4 Britains admit to stealing at self-service checkouts. You likely know more thieves than you think.
Different kinds of fraud also happen more often relative to their visibility. That likely includes subjects like false data in scientific publications.
It’s probably not actually that hard to get away with one burglary, but the more crimes you commit, the more likely you are to get caught for at least one of them: if you roll dice enough times, eventually they come up all 1s.