Costanza

Karma: 2,024

Costanza Jun 6, 2012, 12:18 AM
1 point
on: Meetup : Garden Grove CA: Less wrong and more tasty.
I would love to attend this, and, for once, I actually can (I think). Enormous gratitude to the organizer, whom I presume is cloudlicker. It’s always the people who take the trouble to make good things happen who make good things happen.

Costanza Apr 20, 2012, 4:26 PM
8 points
on: Logical fallacy poster
I like it. Are their definitions all perfect and complete? Certainly not. But, at least in my own experience, the sanity waterline of (say) an undergraduate dorm is typically so low that hanging something like this on the wall for communal reference might tend to improve the level of conversation. Anyway, it looks like it’s under a creative commons license which allows remixing.

Come to think of it, it could be reformatted to make a series of cards to play Newspaper Editorial Page Logical Fallacy Bingo.

Costanza Mar 24, 2012, 4:08 AM
21 points
on: Nonmindkilling open questions
I tentatively suggest there’s a pattern here.

By default, and in practice for the great majority, no factual question can be regarded as popular or important unless it provides an opportunity for status signaling or mind killing.

However, if there is something like a prediction market, a tiny minority will adapt to become specialists in making accurate and profitable predictions.

This applies to sports and stock trades. Most people will be happy to be a [LOCAL SPORTS TEAM] fan, and will happily remained biased for signaling purposes, maybe making penny-ante bets to show loyalty. Professional bookmakers in Vegas and professional coaches of sports teams have to look at reality, or else find another job. Similarly, people in finance may have strong political opinions on their own time, but if they don’t make money, they’ll be out of a job.

This doesn’t necessarily help if you’re trying to “explain to people how beliefs should be expressed in probabilities” to the vast majority of people who don’t have skin in the game. But you could appeal to their imagination.

Costanza Mar 23, 2012, 7:13 PM
7 points
in reply to: Morendil’s comment on: Nonmindkilling open questions
Greenpeace and the Heritage Foundation both have strong (and opposed) opinions on the matter.

Costanza Mar 23, 2012, 7:04 PM
4 points
in reply to: RolfAndreassen’s comment on: Nonmindkilling open questions
I’d think that, especially (but not only) in a presidential election year, this question would be corrupted by politics. If the current administration represents My Team, then it is certainly handling the economy well, and therefore, the stock market will rise and unemployment will fall.

Costanza Mar 23, 2012, 6:59 PM
6 points
in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: Nonmindkilling open questions
I was thinking along the same lines, then saw your comment. I suspect an issue can’t really become “popular” without some some signaling or wishful thinking involved.

Probability of a major earthquake in California this year? High, if you hope those damnfool leftcoasters are finally going to get what’s coming to them. Low, if you have a lot of money tied up in property in California.

Costanza Mar 21, 2012, 6:53 PM
10 points
on: Simple but important ideas
Somewhat related:

The Center for Communicating Science, together with Alan Alda, is sponsoring what they call the Flame Challenge: Answer the question – “What is a flame?” – in a way that an 11-year-old would find intelligible “and maybe even fun.”

As a curious 11-year-old, Alan Alda asked his teacher, “What is a flame?” She replied: “It’s oxidation.” Alda went on to win fame as an actor and writer, became an advocate for clear communication of science, and helped found the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. He never stopped being curious, and he never forgot how disappointing that non-answer answer was.

The answer “oxidation” has the virtues of being both short and strictly correct, but, given the audience, missed the point entirely. I assume the answer that the sponsors of this contest are looking for will also be rather short and strictly correct as well, although longer than a one-word label.
What links here?
- Alejandro1's comment on Rationality Quotes June 2012 by OpenThreadGuy (Jun 5, 2012, 3:26 PM; 33 points)

Costanza Mar 21, 2012, 3:34 PM
4 points
on: Simple but important ideas
I’m reminded of the story of the gentile asking the rabbi Hillel that the whole Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. Hillel replied “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn.”

An article in the Jewish Daily Forward observes that it is a mistake to equate “the rest is commentary” with “the rest is unimportant.”

It is interesting to see how “the rest is commentary” has taken on an English meaning of its own that is subtly different from Hillel’s and sometimes even opposed to it. In the Aramaic of the Talmud, “The rest is commentary – go study” (ve’idakh perusha hu, zil g’mor) is a single statement whose first half cannot be separated from its second half. Calling the rest of the Torah “commentary” has nothing dismissive about it. On the contrary, Hillel is clearly saying that commentary is crucial and that ultimate wisdom lies in it.

Costanza Mar 21, 2012, 9:31 AM
0 points
in reply to: Louie’s comment on: Send me your photos of LessWrongers having fun!
It was the Herbert Kornfeld trash talk that had me literally laughing out loud. Keep it real, L-Dog.

Costanza Mar 18, 2012, 2:44 PM
8 points
on: A singularity scenario
So the scenario would be, not that the elders of the LDS church are secretly running the American intelligence community...

In fact, there are a lot of Mormons in the U.S. intelligence services. This isn’t because of any sinister conspiracy,* but simply because of their institution of going off as missionaries to foreign countries. Most Americans, if raised speaking English in the home, have little motivation to properly learn another language, and don’t. Mormons do—they learn most of the languages of the globe and practice them under very trying conditions. Better yet, from the point of view of a government official concerned about security clearances, they do this without any family connections to the nations in question. BYU knows this.
- Of course, in your novel, you could say this is totally the result of a sinister conspiracy going back to Bringham Young. Dan Brown would approve.

Costanza Mar 15, 2012, 11:58 PM
17 points
in reply to: Bugmaster’s comment on: Please advise the Singularity Institute with your domain-specific expertise!
In all seriousness, I once took it for granted that, assuming perfect good faith and honesty on the part of the filer, and assuming perfectly complete and accurate records, there would automatically be one precise and correct figure for the amount of (say) income tax to be filed, at least in theory. Since that time, I have learned that, while arithmetic may be straightforward, within the tax code and even within generally accepted accounting principles, there are always huge areas of ambiguity, even for the average person filing a 1040EZ.

Costanza Mar 15, 2012, 9:34 PM
38 points
on: Please advise the Singularity Institute with your domain-specific expertise!
Given that there’s always more to learn about pretty much everything, this list didn’t bother me at all. I would have been much more alarmed if they asked for expert advice on:
- Money laundering
- Disposing of corpses in ways undetectable by law enforcement
- Justin Bieber trivia
- Obtaining visas or (better) passports to nations with no U.S. extradition treaty

Costanza Mar 13, 2012, 3:24 AM
−3 points
on: The Stable State is Broken
You describe a very general principle, which might be described as survival of the fittest. Darwin has explained how it applies in the context of biology. “Survival of the fittest” does not always mean survival of the biggest or strongest or fastest. Tigers may be endangered, but rats and cockroaches are not. You extend the principle from genes to what Dawkins has named as memes. Also, you describe how similar principles apply in an economic free market. This is not an entirely original observation, but reminding people of these principles is good.

Having described what, by your account, is a fundamental and universal principle, you ask, what can we do about it? If it is as fundamental as you say, we acknowledge it, and understand it, and adjust ourselves to it. What do we do about the second law of thermodynamics?

You know what has been done in the past context of economics. The Soviet Union attempted to control the entire economy from the top down. Even so, the Soviet Union could not escape competition from the outside world. Right now, North Korea is trying very hard to control the economy from the top down and shelter itself from competition from the outside world.

What do we do about disease? Lots of things, of course, including nutrition and hygiene. Also, antibiotics. But we find that some bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.

Progress is slower than we would hope. The fundamental laws of nature have not yet been repealed. Right now, that includes human nature. With that said, it would be easier for neurobiologists to change human nature than for physicists to change the second law of thermodynamics.

Costanza Mar 4, 2012, 12:17 AM
2 points
on: Request for input: draft of my “coming out” statement on religious deconversion
Upvoted for honesty, and for conscientiously documenting it in a very readable format, and for courage. Of course, we who already choose to read LessWrong are not the intended recipients of this message—we’re the choir, and don’t need to be preached to. We’ve arrived at this forum from many different backgrounds, along many different paths. You came from Roman Catholicism. Eliezer came from Judaism. Some LessWrongers were never religious at all.

Your message is not to us, but to your own friends and family, who remain active believing Catholics. By coming out of the closet as an atheist, you are evangelizing the truth and making the world a slightly better place. You know this, of course. At the same time, it can feel like (I don’t say it is like) betraying or at least hurting people who have nothing but love for you. With that said, you’re showing far more respect to your religious friends and family by honestly dissenting than you would if you simply went through the motions without faith.

As an aside, have you looked at Julia Sweeney’s videos or books? She talks about leaving the Catholic church as an adult, and the times in her life when faith would have been very comforting. Nothing you don’t know already, but sometimes it’s good to hear people who have gone on the same path as you.

Costanza Feb 10, 2012, 11:42 PM
−5 points
in reply to: Apprentice’s comment on: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? - Richard Dawkins [link]
He mentioned that in the linked article as well. Good for him for performing his civic duty.

I hate to brag but, in high school I not only took chemistry, but biology as well. With my own hands, I dissected not only a worm, and a frog, but even a fetal pig. If memory serves, my final grade was no less than an A- in either semester of a full year course.

With that in mind, I am happy to praise my colleague Richard Dawkins as an accomplished biologist. And yet, I’m afraid this article is not his best work.

Costanza Feb 10, 2012, 7:56 PM
12 points
on: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? - Richard Dawkins [link]
I love Dawkins’ pop-sci works on biology and evolution, but like a lot of very smart and articulate people, he can be lazy when he goes outside the realm of his expertise. He uses “courtroom dramas” as evidence of what happens in real-life courtrooms. I wonder if he thinks Hollywood’s portrayal of what scientists do is similarly accurate? Later, he relies on the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, which is famous partly because it was so incredibly weird and wildly outside the mainstream. He says the professionals in the courtroom are “on tenterhooks and hold their breath” when it’s time for the verdict. Are they? My impression is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, experienced trial lawyers are not surprised by juries very often.

In any case, judges and juries see a trial from very, very different perspectives. Judges see defendants in chains and jail uniforms, juries see the defendant in a borrowed business suit. Judges know the when a defendant has tentatively agreed to a plea and then pulled out at the last minute. Moreover, it is the job of a trial judge to make sure that juries do not always see all the evidence. A defendant may have made a full confession and led the cops to the secret spot where the body was hidden, but if the police induced this confession by unconstitutional means, it can’t go before the jury. The list of legal reasons to exclude evidence from a jury is very long. Many, many times, judges preside over criminal trials with the full knowledge that the defendant did in fact do what he (or she) was accused of. However, the trial goes forward, because one major purpose of the trial and the jury system is not just to determine the facts accurately, but to restrain the police and the government from becoming dangerous.

After each side in a criminal case rests, a judge will instruct a jury of laypeople (mostly not mathematicians and philosophers) that the defendant must be found not guilty unless the prosecution has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Dawkins picks on the phrase “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I would agree with him that this is a very vague and un-mathematical phrase. But he misses the point that the really important words are “unless the prosecution has proved its case.”

Costanza Feb 10, 2012, 7:07 PM
3 points
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Curious authors and ’zines?
I agree. For instance, I see now he was indirectly responsible for the Q&A with Harpending and Cochran on LessWrong a while back.

Costanza Feb 6, 2012, 10:42 PM
4 points
on: Curious authors and ’zines?
If you like Glenn Greenwald, Seymour Hersh, Greg Palast, TruthOut and FAIR, you’ll probably hate Steve Sailer. FAIR has called him “a well-known promoter of racist and anti-immigrant theories. ”

Costanza Feb 6, 2012, 6:19 PM
1 point
in reply to: Armok_GoB’s comment on: Could Democritus have predicted intelligence explosion?
I would have thought so too, and maybe he had a deeper meaning lost in translation, but for a brilliant thinker, Aristotle could occasionally espouse some ideas that seem just plain stupid, at least to an ordinary modern person. I’m an ordinary modern person myself, so I’m not going to claim Aristotle was correct about this or that. I only meant to say, I don’t think we can assume that even the most sophisticated* Greeks were “materialists” at all in the modern sense. With regard to intelligence in particular, I don’t see that they “had to believe that human intelligence resulted from the operation of mechanical systems located in the human body.”

*using that term loosely, not to imply the formal school of Sophists.

Costanza Feb 6, 2012, 2:33 PM
3 points
on: [LINK] Autistic woman banned from having sex in latest Court of Protection case
I gather the main intention of this order was, as the article says, that “anyone who tried to have intercourse with her could be charged with sexual assault or rape.”

It’s obviously an enormous restriction on her freedom. But, by analogy, mental incompetents may own a lot of money, but are not permitted to spend it independently. In common law systems, a guardian is appointed to make financial decisions. The article here doesn’t say, but perhaps under the relevant law a guardian could consent on her behalf to her having sex, after making appropriate inquiries.

animals can’t understand the risks and we happily let them continue having sex.

True, but unlike children and incompetents, animals are not people under the law. Owners of racing horses and purebred dogs restrict their sexual choices severely. Given the chance, most people would forbid mosquitoes and rats from reproducing at all, and not for their benefit.