Status quo bias is a tendency to be skeptical of change, not an outright rejection. I don’t see any reason to assume that this tendency is badly calibrated. I don’t think the internet had to overcome that much resistance. At least in the US, early legislation like Section 230 was supportive. There are also technologies where more skepticism would have been appropriate, like leaded gasoline, and arguably even cars.
Amadeus Pagel
Karma: 19
Amadeus Pagel’s Shortform
Status quo bias is usually justified
You’ve already mentioned cooking as an example and this is definitely something I’d like to imiprove in. I looked up how to crack eggs:
How to clip nails: https://www.tiktok.com/@jonijawne/video/7212337177772952838?q=cut%20nails&t=1713988543560
How to improve posture:
I was enthusiastic about the title of this post, hoping for something different from the usual lesswrong content, but disappointed by most of the examples. In my view if you take this idea of learning tacit knowledge with video seriously, it shouldn’t affect just how you learn, but what you learn, rather then trying to learn book subjects by watching videos.
See also Rational Polarization.
I think charter cities are a questionable idea, even though I’m pro free markets. It seems that the sort of constitional change and stability required for a charter city is no easier to achieve then the kind of constitutional change and stability required for a free market in the entire country. I don’t think trying either in developing countries as an outsider is a good use of anyone’s resources.
I think the 1st argument proves too much—I don’t think we usually expect simulations to never work unless otherwise proven? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point?
We usually use the term simulation to refer to models that are meant to help us understand something, maybe even to make predictions, but not to replace what is supposed to be simulated.
To keep things brief, the human intelligence explosion seems to require open brain surgery to re-arrange neurons, which seems a lot more complicated than flipping bits in RAM.
Yes, this is one of the many differences between the brain and the computer, and given so many differences we simply can’t conclude from any attribute of a brain that a computer with the same attribute is possible.
The Limits of the Existence Proof Argument for General Intelligence
Then why not choose the 5 year window?
You’ve selected the YTD (year to date) tab here. If you look at the 1D (today) tab, you see that the S&P indeed went up today.
Meta: Anonymity would make it easier to ask dumb questions.
Agreed. Humans are constantly optimizing a reward function, but it sort of ‘changes’ from moment to moment in a near-focal way, so it often looks irrational or self-defeating, but once you know what the reward function is, the goal-directedness is easy to see too.
Doesn’t this become tautological? If the reward function changes from moment to moment, then the reward function can just be whatever explains the behaviour.
Would humans, or organizations of humans, make more progress towards whatever goals they have, if they modified themselves to become a utility maximizer? If so, why don’t they? If not, why would an AGI?
What would it mean to modify oneself to become a utility maximizer? What would it mean for the US, for example? The only meaning I can imagine is that one individual—for the sake of argument we assume that this individual is already an utility maximizer—enforces his will on everyone else. Would that help the US make more progress towards its goals? Do countries that are closer to utility maximizers, like North Korea, make more progress towards their goals?
If I wanted to see a “quick take” I’d check twitter. I’d rather see more articles without having to click “load more”.