AlexanderD

Karma: 125

AlexanderD Nov 18, 2012, 11:49 AM
0 points
in reply to: lhopegood’s comment on: Less Wrong NYC: Case Study of a Successful Rationalist Chapter
You can find upcoming meetups here.

AlexanderD Nov 17, 2012, 9:01 AM
2 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Rationality Quotes November 2012
What do you mean by “race?” I notice a lot of discussion below on this topic already, but the term is unclear to me, and I don’t see how anyone can usefully disagree or agree without this information. Some people use “race” to indicate loose groupings based around skin color, whereas others mean much more strictly a specific genetic group.

Incidentally, there is no canonical “race,” just generally-agreed upon loose labels that vary from person to person. Because of this, it is generally not useful for predicting anything, and should be avoided, I think. A “white person” from Sicily and a “white person” from Iceland do not have much more in common with each other than they might with a disparate other range of people, so it’s not a meaningful grouping (except perhaps when speaking of historical things). It is wiser to be more exact.

There’s the additional danger that you will be misunderstood, and that someone will (very reasonably) think that you are advocating simple-minded racism of a common sort. Saying “race is a good predictor of things like civilization, intelligence,” etc. is a fairly specific sort of social code, and if you don’t actually mean that “black people are dumb” or “Asians can’t drive,” (and I’m not saying that you necessarily do) then you should find another sort of phrasing.

AlexanderD 14 Nov 2012 7:27 UTC
4 points
in reply to: JaneQ’s comment on: Reply to Holden on The Singularity Institute
It seems to me that the most obvious way to demonstrate the brilliance and excellent outcomes of the applied math of optimization would be to generate large sums of money, rather than seeking endorsements.

The Singularity Institute could begin this at no cost (beyond opportunity cost of staff time) by employing the techniques of rationality in a fake market, for example, if stock opportunities were the chosen venue. After a few months of fake profits, SI could set them up with $1,000. If that kept growing, then a larger investment could be considered.

This has been done, very recently. Someone on Overcoming Bias recently wrote of how they and some friends made about $500 each with a small investment by identifying an opportunity for arbitrage between the markets on InTrade and another prediction market, without any loss.

Money can be made, according to proverb, by being faster, luckier, or smarter. It’s impossible to create luck in the market, and in the era of microsecond purchases by Goldman Sachs it’s very nearly impossible to be faster, but an organization (or perhaps associated organizations?) devoted to defeating internal biases and mathematically assessing the best choices in the world should be striving to be smarter.

While it seems very interesting and worthwhile to work on existential risk from UFAI directly, it seems like the smarter thing to do might be to devote a decade to making an immense pile of money for the institute and developing the associated infrastructure (hiring money managers, socking a bunch away into Berkshire Hathaway for safety, etc.) Then hire a thousand engineers and mathematicians. And what’s more, you’ll raise awareness of UFAI an incredibly greater amount than you would have otherwise, plugging along as another $1-2m charity.

I’m sure this must have been addressed somewhere, of course—there is simply way too much written in too many places by too many smart people. But it is odd to me that SI’s page on Strategic Insight doesn’t have as #1: Become Rich. Maybe if someone notices this comment, they can point me to the argument against it?

AlexanderD 14 Nov 2012 3:28 UTC
5 points
on: Welcome to Less Wrong! (July 2012)
Howdy. My name is Alexander. I’ve read a lot of LW, but only recently finally registered. I learned about LW from RationalWiki, where I am a mod. I have read most of the sequences, and many of them are insightful, although I am skeptical about the utility of such posts as the Twelve Virtues, which seeks to clothe a bit of good advice in the voluminous trappings of myth. HPMOR is also good. I don’t anticipate engaging in much serious criticism of these things, however, because I have little experience in the sciences or mathematics, and often struggle to grasp things that appear easy for those accustomed to equations. The utility of Bayes’ Theorem is one good example. I expect to ask questions, often.

My primary interest in LW are practical ones—discussions about AI and the singularity are interesting, but I am focused on improving my analytic ability and making good decisions.