Calvin

Karma: 79

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 4:25 PM
2 points
in reply to: Chrysophylax’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
I am assuming that all the old sad hermits are of this world are being systematically chopped for spare parts granted to deserving and happy young people, while good meaning utilitarians hide this sad truth from us, so that I don’t become upset about those atrocities that are currently being committed in my name?

We are not even close to utility monster, and personally I know very few people who I would consider actual utilitarians.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 3:59 PM
0 points
in reply to: DaFranker’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
Am I going to have a chance to actually interact with them, see them grow, etc?

I mean, assuming hypothetical case where as soon as a child is born, nefarious agents of Population Police snatch him never to be seen or heard from again, then I don’t really see the point of having children.

If on the other hand, I have a chance to actually act as a parent to him, then I guess it is worth it, after all, even if the child disappears as soon as it reaches adulthood and joins Secret Society of Ineffective Altruism never to be heard from again. I get no benefit of care, but I am happy that I introduced new human into the world (uh… I mean, I actually helped to do so, as it is a two-person exercise so to speak). It is not ideal case but I am still consider the effort well spent.

In ideal world, I still have a relation with my child, even as he/her reaches adulthood so that I can feel safer knowing that there is someone who (hopefully) considers all the generosity I have granted to him and holds me dear.

P.S. Why programing of Azathoth? In my mind it makes it sound as if desire to have children was something intristically bad.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 1:05 PM
0 points
in reply to: lmm’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
Speaking broadly, the desire to lead happy / successful / interesting life (however winning is defined) it is a laudable goal shared by wast majority of humans. The problem was that some people took the idea further and decided that winning is a good qualification measure as to weather someone is a good rationalist or not, as debunked by Luke here. There are better examples, but I can’t find them now.

Also, my two cents are that while rational agent may have some advantage over irrational one in a perfect universe, real world is so fuzzy and full of noisy information that if superior reasoning decision making skill really improves your life, improvements are likely to be not as impressive as advertised by hopeful proponents of systematized winning theory.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 12:53 PM
1 point
in reply to: Apprentice’s comment on: Dangers of steelmanning / principle of charity
Well, this is something certainly I agree with, and after looking for the context of the quote I see that it can be interpreted that way.

I agree, that my interpretation wasn’t very, well… charitable, but without context it really reads like yet another chronicle of superior debater celebrating victory over someone, who dared to be wrong on the Internet.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 12:34 PM
−5 points
in reply to: Apprentice’s comment on: Dangers of steelmanning / principle of charity
He is such obviously superior to his opponents, isn’t he? I am not fan of such one sided accounts, as other side could as easily write:

I no longer try to steelman BETA-MEALR [Ban Everything That Anyone Might Experience And Later Regret] arguments as utilitarian. When I do, I just end up yelling at my interlocutor, asking how she could possibly get her arguments so wrong, only for her to reasonably protest that she wasn’t making any arguments, but instead juggled numbers pulled directly from her ass, what am I even talking about?

Is it really a proof of superior debating skills, or piece of evidence against steelmaning?

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 12:07 PM
1 point
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Looking for opinions of people like Nick Bostrom or Anders Sandberg on current cryo techniques
I mean, it is either his authoritative summary or yours, and with all due honesty that guy actually takes care to construct an actual argument instead of resorting to appeals to authority and ridicule.

Personally I would be more interested in someone explaining exactly how cues of a piece of info are going to be reassembled and whole brain is going to be reconstructed from a partial data.

Proving that cryo-preservation + restoration does indeed work, and also showing the exact method as to how, seems like a more persuasive way to construct an argument rather that proving that your opponents failed to show that what you are claiming is currently impossible.

If cryonics providers don’t have a proper way of preserving your brain state (even if they can repair partial damage by guessing), than I am sorry to say, but you are indeed dead.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 11:24 AM
0 points
in reply to: RowanE’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
It is true, I wasn’t specific enough, but I wanted to emphasize the opinion part, and the suffering part was meant to emphasize his life condition.

He was, presumably—killed without his consent, and therefore the whole affair seems so morally icky from a non-utilitarian perspective.

If your utility function does not penalize for making bad things as long as net result is correct, you are likely to end up in a world full of utility monsters.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 11:08 AM
1 point
in reply to: Tenoke’s comment on: AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything
I know it is a local trope that death and destruction is apparent and necessary logical conclusion of creating an intelligent machine capable of self improvement and goal modification, but I certainly don’t share those sentiments.

How do you estimate the probability that AGI’s won’t take over the world (people who constructed them may use them for that purpose, but it is a different story), and would be used as simple tools and advisors in the same way boring, old fashioned and safe way 100% of our current technology is used?

I am explicitly saying that MRI or FAI are pointless, or anything like that. I just want to point out that they posture as if they were saving the world from imminent destruction, while it is no where certain weather said danger is really the case.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 9:20 AM
−2 points
in reply to: Tenoke’s comment on: AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything
Seeing as we are talking about speculative dangers coming from a speculative technology that has yet to be developed, it seems pretty understandable.

I am pretty sure, that as soon as first AGI’s arrive on the market, people would start to take possible dangers more seriously.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 8:45 AM
3 points
in reply to: JoshuaFox’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
We might find out by trying to apply them to the real world and seeing that they don’t work.

Well, it is less common now, but I think a slow retreat of the community from the position that instrumental rationality is applied science of winning at life is one of the cases when the beliefs had to be corrected to better match evidence.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 7:46 AM
0 points
in reply to: CharlieSheen’s comment on: [LINK] Why I’m not on the Rationalist Masterlist
Hopefully if their use of the world differs from expectations casual observers won’t catch up, I mean...

We want to increase average human cognitive abilities by granting all the children with access to better education.

Wouldn’t raise many eyebrows, but if you heard...

We want to increase average human cognitive abilities by discouraging lower IQ people from having children.

...then I can’t help the feeling that e-word may crop up a lot. I would probably be inclined to use it myself, for all honesty.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 7:25 AM
5 points
in reply to: asr’s comment on: Dangers of steelmanning / principle of charity
It is also likely not written in the way they understand the world. I mean If charity is assuming that the other person is saying something interesting and worth consideration, such approach strikes me as an exact opposite:

Here, this is your bad, unoriginal argument, but I changed it into something better.

I mean, if you are better at arguing for the other side than your opposition, why do you even speak with them?

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 7:12 AM
0 points
in reply to: hyporational’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
Still, if it is possible to have a happy children (and I assume happy humans are good stuff), where does the heap of dis-utility come into play?

EDIT: It is hard to form a meaningful relationship with money, and I would reckon that teaching it to uphold values similar to yours isn’t an easy task either. As for taking care I don’t mean palliative care as much as simply the relationship you have with your child.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 6:55 AM
1 point
in reply to: hyporational’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
I don’t consider myself an explicit rationalist, but the desire to have children stems from the desire to have someone to take care of me when I am older.

Do you see your own conception and further life as a cause for “huge heap of disutility” that can’t be surpassed by the good stuff?

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 5:44 AM
5 points
in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: Dangers of steelmanning / principle of charity
Personally, I think principle of charity has more to do with having respect for ideas and arguments of the other person. I mean, let’s say that someone says that he doesn’t eat shrimps, because God forbids him from eating shrimps. If I am being charitable I am going to slightly alter his argument by saying that bible explicitly forbids shrimps. That way we don’t have to get sidetracked discussing other topics.

You said that shrimps are wretched in the eyes of lord, and while I agree that old testament explicitly forbids eating them… blah blah....

That way, we can actually have a meaningful and polite conversation. To illustrate negative example, let’s assume that he is going to counter by saying that God explicitly told him not to eat shrimps today. There is a certain temptation to rationalize his position to fit my worldview, say:

You say that your moral intuition forbids you from eating shrimps...

The problem is, that second use is opposite of charity or steel-manning. It is basically internalized version of saying “this guy is far too stupid to make a good argument, so I am going to help him by bringing him up to speed”. Principle of Charity turns into Principle of Hubris and conversation turns into one-man-show of intellectual masturbation from my side. I mean, look at me I can argue straw-fundamentalist Christian position using better than he himself can!

To summarize, assuming that your interlocutor is a smart person capable of making good arguments without your help is a good principle to follow, especially as it is often true.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 5:01 AM
0 points
in reply to: cata’s comment on: Stupid Questions Thread—January 2014
I am going to assume that opinion of the suffering hermit is irrelevant to this utility calculation.

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 3:59 AM
7 points
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: Why I haven’t signed up for cryonics
Would you like to live forever?

For just 50$ monthly fee, agents of Time Patrol Institute promise to travel back in time extract your body a few miliseconds before death. In order to avoid causing temporal “parodxes”, we pledge to replace your body with (almost) identical artificially constructed clone. After your body is extracted and moved to closest non-paradoxical future date we will reverse damage caused by aging, increase your lifespan to infinity and treat you with a cup of coffee.

While we are fully aware that time travel is not yet possible, we believe that recent advances in nanotechnology and quantum physics, matched by your generous donations would hopefully allow us to construct a working time machine at any point in the future.

Why not Cryonics?

For all effective altruists in the audience, please consider that utility of immortalizing entire humankind is preferable to saving only those few of us who underwent cryonic procedures. If you don’t sign your parents for temporal rescue, you are a lousy son. People who tell you otherwise are simply voicing their internalized deathist-presentists prejudices.

For selfish practically minded agents living in the 2014, please consider that while in order for you to benefit from cryonics it is mandatory that correct brain preservation techniques are developed and popularized during your lifespan, time travel can be developed at any point in the future, there is no need for hurry.

Regards, Blaise Pascal, CEO of TPI

Calvin Jan 13, 2014, 2:22 AM
1 point
on: Open Thread for January 8 − 16 2014
Anyone else sees has a problem with this particular statement taken from Cryonics institute FAQ?

One thing we can guarantee is that if you don’t sign up for cryonics is that you will have no chance at all of coming back.

I mean, marketing something as one shot that might hopefully delay (or prevent) death, is hard to swallow, but I can cope with that, but this statement reads like cryonics is the one and only possible way to do that.

Calvin Jan 12, 2014, 4:02 AM
0 points
in reply to: Alsadius’s comment on: Open Thread for January 8 − 16 2014
I was using Leech Block for old fashioned reddit-block for some time, but then I switched to Rescue Time (free version) which tracks time you spend on certain internet sites, and found it much more user friendly. It does not block the sites, but it shows you a percentage estimate of how productive you are today (e.g. Today, 1 hour on internet out of which 30min on Less Wrong—so 50% productive).

Calvin Jan 12, 2014, 2:50 AM
6 points
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Looking for opinions of people like Nick Bostrom or Anders Sandberg on current cryo techniques
Can you please elaborate on how and why sufficient understanding of the concept of information-theoretic death as mapping many cognitive-identity-distinct initial physical states to the same atomic-level physical end state helps to alleviate concerns raised by the author?