CrimsonChin

• CrimsonChinNov 2, 2023, 2:26 PM

  1 point

  0

  on: On Hav­ing No Clue

  Agreed, great post. But I think you are trying to push Bayesian Statistics past what it SHOULD be used for.

  Bayesian Statistics are only useful because we approach the correct answer as we gain all the information possible. Only in this limit (of infinite information) is Bayesian useful. Priors based off no information are, well, useless.

  Scenario 1: You flip a fair coin and have a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ chance of it landing heads

  Scenario 2: (to steal xepo’s example) are bloxors greeblic? You have NO IDEA, so your priors are ⁵⁰⁄₅₀

  Even though in both scenarios the chances are ⁵⁰⁄₅₀, I would feel much more confident betting money on scenario 1 than scenario 2. Therefore my model of choices contains something MORE than probabilities. As far as I know Bayesian statistics just doesn’t convey this NEEDED information. You cant use Bayesian probabilities here in a useful way. It’s the wrong tool for the job.

  Even frequentest statistics is useless here.

  A lot of day-to-day decisions are based off very limited information. I am not able to lay out a TRUE model of how we intuitively make those decisions but “how much information I have to work with” is definitely an aspect in my mental model that is not entirely captured by Bayes Theorem.

• CrimsonChinNov 2, 2023, 2:04 PM

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  in reply to: xepo’s comment on: On Hav­ing No Clue

  One option would be to have another percentage — a meta-percentage. e.g. “What credence do i give to “this is an accurate model of the world””? For coin flips, you’re 99.999% that 50% is a good model. For bloxors, you’re ~0% that 50% is a good model.

  This is a model that I always tend to fall back on but I can never find a name for it so find it hard to look into. I have always figured I am misunderstanding Bayesian statistics and somehow credence is all factored in somehow. That doesn’t really seem like the case though.

  Does the Scott Alexander post lay this out? I am having difficulty finding it.

  The closest term I have been able to find is Kelly constants, which is a measure of how much “wealth” you should rationally put into a probabilistic outcome. Replace “wealth” with credence and maybe it could be useful for decisions but even this misses the point!

• CrimsonChinOct 31, 2023, 7:45 PM

  3 points

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  on: Self-Blinded L-Thea­nine RCT

  This is interesting!

  I would have guessed that the process of making tea is somewhat relaxing and almost all the “Contentment and Relaxing” properties of tea were due to placebo. Especially since culture seems to tell us that teas are a way to relax. This seems like solid evidence that L-Theanine is good for relaxing without the placebo effect. It comes at a productivity cost, but if relaxation is your goal maybe it is good and not too harmless!

• CrimsonChinAug 3, 2023, 6:39 PM

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  in reply to: Samuel Hapák’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Agreed important at times to have closed door meetings but don’t you agree work is maybe 90% closed door meetings and home should be maybe 5% closed door meetings?

  My kiddos are both under 2yo so closing a door on them isn’t really a possibility, I was imagining into the future which is bad. Sounds like you have more experience here so I could be wrong.

• CrimsonChinAug 3, 2023, 6:36 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Samuel Hapák’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Good point! I guess I am biased as I do not have the gift of lots of work mobility right now, I can’t change teams or jobs without lots of effort.

  I guess I was thinking more friends and non-household relatives, but I didn’t say that.

  Even though I butchered the analogy; I think there is still a different dynamic at play, where my kids and wife don’t owe me anything like someone who is being paid to help me.

• CrimsonChinAug 3, 2023, 6:28 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: SarahNibs’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Wow the opposite of what I was thinking. You are steps ahead of me if you have actually implemented changes. What is your experience with the change so far? If you don’t mind, has it effected the measurables I wanted to investigate?

  -am I able to move from work to non work tasks easily -do I feel a need to talk about work

  • hopefully I should feel some sense of being more myself although this is vague

• CrimsonChinAug 3, 2023, 6:24 PM

  4 points

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  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Wow thank you. This is amazing insight that fits perfectly into my model. I will find a way to implement this for a bit and see how it feels.

• CrimsonChinAug 3, 2023, 2:51 PM

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  in reply to: Tobias H’s comment on: Work cul­ture creep

  Agree with you that there is some overlapping tasks. If I were more precise I would say,

  “I believe 85% of work behavior is an example of bad home behavior, but depending on your job and other factors this has a wide confidence interval”

  Even if the tasks have the same name, they can look very different. For example: scheduling is something we do at work and at home but at work I use outlook and teams to schedule while at home I use text. Entire etiquette of what to do if someone proposes an alternative time, who is expected to come, what you are expected to say if you can’t come. I would argue that while it’s called “scheduling” in both home and work environments there are more differences than similarities between the two behaviors. This is going to wildly depend on your job, I kind of skipped over the assumption that a lot of less wrong users work in an office-like environment.

  I think we learn how to use tools at work like spreadsheets, to-do lists, etc that grandma would never use but we are using them to accomplish different goals than at work. I am semi-confident in this even though I haven’t thought through all the tasks because I believe that the incentive structure underpinning the whole work environment leads to different behaviors. It would be an odd coincidence if despite different incentives work and home behaviors were exactly the same.

Work cul­ture creep

• CrimsonChinJul 13, 2023, 11:01 PM

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  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Unabridged His­tory of Global Parenting

  Thanks. I am reading a lot of parenting books and I have found that I was missing the context in which they were written. This was the result of my research. My hope is to bring this background context to future book reviews which will be more substantial and thorough. Appreciate the comment!

Unabridged His­tory of Global Parenting

• CrimsonChinJul 4, 2023, 11:27 PM

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  in reply to: romeostevensit’s comment on: Meta-ra­tio­nal­ity and frames

  I don’t think I agree with you but, David Chapman who is cited in this post as coining meta-rationality wrote a mini-e-book about Kegans work so you are right that they are very related. https://​​meaningness.com/​​about-my-sites

• CrimsonChinJul 2, 2023, 11:06 PM

  8 points

  2

  on: On house­hold dust

  Depends on your house, air quality outside, and air quality inside but a cheap air quality monitor has shown my that an open window can clean up the air 5x faster than an air purifier.

  Even during the winter or summer there is usually a small window of time (excuse the pun) that the air temp outside is about the same as your desired temp. Lots of houses have an oversized heater to account for open windows in the cold.

  Window fan can expedite the process, you can get sneaky about which direction you run fans to create circulation throughout the house. Try not to create negative pressure in your house (don’t blow more air out than in) especially in your basement due to radon and other bad things with negative pressure.

  I try to use windows as a plan A and HEPA filters as a plan B. I recognize this is a luxury of having good air quality outside in my area.

• CrimsonChinJul 2, 2023, 2:47 PM

  1 point

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  on: Micro Habits that Im­prove One’s Day

  I’ll add three that I like, although I know an extensive list isn’t the purpose of this post.

  1. exercise outside for 20 mins (or inside of raining) is long-term healthy and short -term mood boosting.

  2. 10 minutes of something comedic (YouTube or Netflix) in the morning helps my mood

  3. background music for chores/​work/​productiveness.

  I love the idea of experimenting and for me that’s not the hard part. It is hard to think up new interventions. Maybe I’m just bad at ideas but supplementing creatine for instance is something I would NEVER think up on my own, I kind of rely on others to help with the ideas. I love posts along this vein that give me ideas to test improvements

The Im­por­tance of Judg­ing: A Reflec­tion on Ra­tional Thought

• CrimsonChinJun 8, 2023, 2:38 PM

  3 points

  1

  in reply to: dr_s’s comment on: Why I am not a longter­mist (May 2022)

  Wow, thank you this is a really well made point. I see now how accounting for future lives seems like double counting their desires with our own desires to have their desires fulfilled.

  You already put a lot of effort into a response so don’t feel obliged to respond but some things in my mind that I need to work out about this:

  Can’t this argument do a bit too much “I’m not factoring in the utility of X (future peoples happiness) but I am instead factoring in my desires to make X a reality” in a way that you could apply it to any utility function parameter. For instance, “my utility calculation doesn’t factor in actually (preventing malaria), but I am instead factoring in my desires to (prevent malaria).” Maybe while the sentiment is true, it seems like it can apply to everything.

  Another unrelated thought I am working with. If the goal is to have grandpa on his deathbed happy thinking that the future will be okay, wouldn’t this goal be satisfied by lying to grandpa? In other words if we have an all powerful aligned AGI and tell it give it the utility function you outlined, where we maximize our desires to have the future happy. Wouldn’t it just find a way to make us think the future would be okay by doing things we think would work? As opposed to actually assigning utility to future people actually being happy, which the AGI would then actually improve the future.

  You helped me see the issues with assigning any utility to future people. You changed my opinion that that isn’t great. I guess I am struggling to accept your alternative as I think it may have a lot of the same issues if not a few more.

• CrimsonChinJun 7, 2023, 1:33 AM

  5 points

  4

  on: Why I am not a longter­mist (May 2022)

  Glad you posted this.

  I think everyone agrees we should take into account future people to some degree, we just disagree on how far out and to what degree.

  I choose to believe that the whole ”.0001% chance of saving all future lives is still more valuable than saving current lives” is a starting point to convince people to care, but isn’t intended to be the complete final message. Like telling kids atoms have electrons going in circles, its a lie but a useful start.

  Maybe I’m wrong and people actually believe that though. I believe that argument is usually a starting point that SHOULD get more nuanced such as, but we arent certain about the future and we need to discount for our uncertainty.

  I interpreted this post as anti-longtermism but I think most real longtermists would agree with most of your points here except for one. I think your argument could be pro-longtermism if you accepted the ”.0001% chance of saving all future lives is still more valuable than saving current lives” as a good starting point rather than arguing against it.

  All to say I agree with almost all your points but I still call myself a long termist.

• CrimsonChinApr 29, 2023, 2:45 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Algon’s comment on: Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

  Thank you. I’m going to work on the edits. Also thank you for the link, I am going to read up on IFS before finals edits to see if I can see this with new eyes.

• CrimsonChinApr 29, 2023, 2:42 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Ustice’s comment on: Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

  Thank you for this. I had been defining apology as—expressing remorse for ones actions.

  Your three part apology is different, you don’t have to express remorse for your actions. I like your definition better and I think if I reframe my definition of apology to what you have here, it completely fits within this framework and I can add it as an essential step.

• CrimsonChinApr 29, 2023, 2:11 AM

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  in reply to: Caerulea-Lawrence’s comment on: Con­flict Re­s­olu­tion: the Game

  Thank you so much for the read, the feedback and sharing your experience!

  I think I see what you are saying here. If I may try to use a fake example: My wife takes out the trash bins every week, and I never thank her or even acknowledge this is something she does. Therefore she feels unrecognized and upset. Through her expressing these feelings to me, me deeply acknowledging her feelings, validating her feelings, and acknowledging all the hard work she does around the house; that might be the action needed to solve the issue.

  So my rule, don’t bring up something that can’t be resolved by action would make the above discussion and healing impossible.

  I agree with you.

  Your comment also made me realize that by making rules I kind of missed the “connection” part that is so important in the book.

  I will think about how to correct this but I am thinking about the following changes:

  1. I will remove the rule you brought up. I was coming at it from a, “it’s unfair to bring up something with the expectation of an apology”, but I think I can deal with that case by also...

  2. Adding a section in “winning the game” that discusses validating feelings and creating a connection.

  3. I might need to rethink my apology section too, I see how an apology WITH an acknowledgement may actually solve a problem.

  Do you think I understood you correctly?