cursed

Karma: 154

cursed 6 Mar 2021 0:36 UTC
−11 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: RadVac Commercial Antibody Test Results
It’s clear that you’re arguing in bad faith when you link a comment that was made 5 days after my own as some sort of bizarre justification that people didn’t take my bet. Regardless, my prediction is still true.
“You don’t understand the topic” is the weakest counter argument you could make without any proof.
That’s what I get for trying to engage in debates assuming good-faith, right? Disappointing.

cursed 5 Mar 2021 7:44 UTC
3 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: RadVac Commercial Antibody Test Results
I don’t know if you’re purposely being antagonistic, but I’ll respond because I try to assume that people are arguing in good faith.
You predict nothing of that sort in the linked comment. The antibody test being negative is a distinct event from immunization.
The first linked comment I said that “there’s a 1-2% chance here that you’ve effectively immunized yourself from COVID.”. In the second linked comment, I clarified that an anti-body test would be the the predictor of immunization.
I picked 50% because of the comment:
My rough guess is that there’s a 75% probability of effectively full immunity
Regardless of people accepting or rejecting my bet, my prediction came true. For a community supposedly dedicated to rationalism and prediction markets, a −8 downvote on my comment seems a lot like groupthink, trying to push down dissenters.
Too bad that the LW community falls victim to obvious snake oil and herd mentality. I wish it weren’t so.

cursed 4 Mar 2021 5:12 UTC
−11 points
on: RadVac Commercial Antibody Test Results
My prediction that the anti-body test would come back negative: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine?commentId=hgwzegWcLEYrZMmZj
No one took me up on a bet: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine?commentId=h8mqNdAypszWYQ7dh.

cursed 5 Feb 2021 1:56 UTC
1 point
in reply to: dxu’s comment on: Making Vaccine
I don’t understand the argument about SAD.
Should I conclude from my inability to find any published studies on the Internet testing this question that there is some fatal flaw in my plan that I’m just not seeing?
A simple Google search shows thousands of articles addressing this very solution. The first Google result I found is a paper from 1984 with 2,758 citations: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/493246
We report our preliminary attempts to modify these depressions by manipulating environmental lighting conditions. We have recently reported reversing depression in one patient with SAD by modifying his environmental lighting
...
The following light treatment was administered. … (1) bright, white full-spectrum fluorescent light (approximately 2,500 lux at 90 cm)
But taking a step back, the “Chesterton’s Absence of a Fence” argument doesn’t apply here because the circumstances are very different. The entire world is desperately looking for a way to stop COVID. If SAD suddenly occurred out of nowhere and affected the entire economy, you would be sure that bright lights would be one of the first things to be tested.
Dentin addresses the 1-2% claim pretty well, so I won’t repeat it.

cursed 5 Feb 2021 1:40 UTC
9 points
in reply to: Dentin’s comment on: Making Vaccine
You can buy nasal sprays over-the-counter, while I can’t think of a single injectable medicine that you can buy legally without a prescription. I don’t think the “stab people in the arm” argument is very strong.
Would you like to make a friendly wager? (Either Dentin, or johnswentworth, or anyone else making their own vaccine). We can do ⁵⁰⁄₅₀, since its in between our estimates. If you have two positive back-to-back anti-body tests within 2 months, you win (assuming you don’t actually contract covid, which I trust you’ll be honest here). If not, I win. To start off with, I’m willing to put down $100, but happy to go up or down.
What links here?
- ChristianKl's comment on RadVac Commercial Antibody Test Results by johnswentworth (4 Mar 2021 10:19 UTC; 13 points)
- cursed's comment on RadVac Commercial Antibody Test Results by johnswentworth (4 Mar 2021 5:12 UTC; -11 points)

cursed 4 Feb 2021 7:18 UTC
5 points
in reply to: DirectedEvolution’s comment on: Making Vaccine
Vaccines that are brought to clinical trials have a 33.4% approval rate, which seems like a reasonable estimate of the chances that this vaccine works if executed correctly.
I don’t follow. Don’t vaccines have trials on cells, mice, primates, before clinical? So unless radvac has also done similar testing, this 33.4% isn’t comparable.

cursed 4 Feb 2021 6:39 UTC
9 points
on: Making Vaccine
Props to you for taking action here, this is some impressive stuff.
That being said, I’m extremely skeptical that this will work, my belief is that there’s a 1-2% chance here that you’ve effectively immunized yourself from COVID.
What do you believe is the probability of success?
Why are established pharmaceutical companies spending billions on research and using complex mRNA vaccines when simply creating some peptides and adding it to a solution works just as well?
What links here?
- ChristianKl's comment on RadVac Commercial Antibody Test Results by johnswentworth (4 Mar 2021 10:19 UTC; 13 points)
- cursed's comment on RadVac Commercial Antibody Test Results by johnswentworth (4 Mar 2021 5:12 UTC; -11 points)

cursed 11 Dec 2015 22:37 UTC
11 points
on: [Link] Introducing OpenAI
With Sam Altman (CEO of YCombinator) talking so much about AI safety and risk over the last 2-3 months, I was so sure that he was working out a deal to fund MIRI. I wonder why they decided to create their own non-profit instead.

Although on second thought, they’re aiming for different goals. While MIRI is focused on safety once strong AI occurs, OpenAI is trying to actually speed up the research of strong AI.

cursed 30 Nov 2015 22:04 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Open thread, Nov. 09 - Nov. 15, 2015
Great analysis, thanks!

cursed 20 Nov 2015 8:33 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: Open thread, Nov. 09 - Nov. 15, 2015
This isn’t bad, though I feel like:

This I call “pretending to be Wise”. Of course there are many ways to try and signal wisdom. But trying to signal wisdom by refusing to make guesses—refusing to sum up evidence—refusing to pass judgment—refusing to take sides—staying above the fray and looking down with a lofty and condescending gaze—which is to say, signaling wisdom by saying and doing nothing—well, that I find particularly pretentious.

would apply to the XKCD example, but not to the people claiming that the Lebanon attacks should’ve been publicized more than the Paris attacks. I hope I’m not treading too much into political territory here.

cursed 15 Nov 2015 8:26 UTC
1 point
on: Open thread, Nov. 09 - Nov. 15, 2015
Is there a good word for https://xkcd.com/774/? The closest word I can think of is “countersignaling”, but it doesn’t precisely describe it. I’ve noticed this sort of behavior a lot on Facebook recently, with the Paris terrorist attacks.

cursed 7 Jul 2015 5:31 UTC
2 points
on: Open Thread, Jul. 6 - Jul. 12, 2015
Whenever the conjunction fallacy is brought up, it always irks me, because it doesn’t seem like a real fallacy. In the example given by Rationality A to Z, “[...] found that experimental subjects consdiered it less likely that a strong tennis player would lose the first set than he would lose the first set but win the match.”

There’s two valid interpretations of this statement here:

1) The fallacious interpretation: P(Lose First Set) < P(Lose First Set and Win Match)

2) P(Lose First Set) < P(Win Match | Lose First Set), which is a valid and not necessarily fallacious reasoning, given the context that the tennis player is considered strong. Another possible phrasing of “he would lose the first set but win the match” is “given that he lost his first set, what’s the chance of him winning the match?”

Has this been addressed before?

cursed 12 Apr 2015 21:21 UTC
6 points
on: What are “the really good ideas” that Peter Thiel says are too dangerous to mention?
I haven’t really looked into it, but there was an odd message that he left in his IAMA in regards to Girardian philosophy: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g4g95/peter_thiel_technology_entrepreneur_and_investor/ckfn9rj?context=3 . Would love for anyone who knows more to jump in.

cursed 29 Jan 2015 23:33 UTC
1 point
in reply to: savedpass’s comment on: Open thread, Jan. 26 - Feb. 1, 2015
I like Bill’s EA tendencies.

cursed 28 Jan 2015 3:57 UTC
2 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: CFAR fundraiser far from filled; 4 days remaining
I’m not sure if this response was directed towards me, because I don’t know what their reasonings are.

cursed 28 Jan 2015 2:54 UTC
4 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: CFAR fundraiser far from filled; 4 days remaining
As noted in http://lesswrong.com/lw/lfg/cfar_in_2014_continuing_to_climb_out_of_the/, they haven’t even started yet. Also, just replicating a study they cite in their rationality training would be a good step.

One of the future premises of CFAR is that we can eventually apply the full scientific method to the problem of constructing a rationality curriculum (by measuring variations, counting things, re-testing, etc.) -- we aim to eventually be an evidence-based organization. In our present state this continues to be a lot harder than we would like; and our 2014 workshop, for example, was done via crude “what do you feel you learnt?” surveys and our own gut impressions.

cursed 28 Jan 2015 2:42 UTC
12 points
on: CFAR fundraiser far from filled; 4 days remaining
On CFAR’s front page:

In the process, we’re breaking new ground in studying the long-term effects of rationality training on life outcomes using randomized controlled trials.

Despite CFAR’s 2-3 year existence (probably longer informally, as well) they have yet to publish a single paper on these “randomized controlled trials”. I would advise not donating until they make good on their claims.

edit: I’ve also made some notes on CFAR and their use of science as an applause light in previous comments.

cursed 16 Dec 2014 11:23 UTC
6 points
on: Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014
Thinking about a quote from HPMOR (the podcast is quite good, if anyone was interested):

But human beings had four times the brain size of a chimpanzee. 20% of a human’s metabolic energy went into feeding the brain. Humans were ridiculously smarter than any other species. That sort of thing didn’t happen because the environment stepped up the difficulty of its problems a little. Then the organisms would just get a little smarter to solve them. Ending up with that gigantic outsized brain must have taken some sort of runaway evolutionary process, something that would push and push without limits.

And today’s scientists had a pretty good guess at what that runaway evolutionary process had been.

...

It really made you appreciate what millions of years of hominids trying to outwit each other—an evolutionary arms race without limit—had led to in the way of increased mental capacity.

Besides the quoted “Chimpanzee Politics” are there any other references to this hypothesis? I’ve tried Googling around for 5 minutes and I couldn’t find anything.

Edit: seems like I was looking using the wrong keywords: Wikipedia seems to have a small paragraph on evolution of human brain due to competitive social behavior, but I’d still like to see if anyone else had any articles on the matter.

cursed 16 Dec 2014 11:11 UTC
4 points
on: Podcast: Rationalists in Tech
Personally, I prefer more produced podcasts, in the style of Serial, Freakonomics, etc, because very few people are good interviewees. I would like to hear more if you could improve the microphone quality—I couldn’t distinguish some words, even upon relistening. I’m sure the person behind HPMOR Podcast would offer more tips if you contacted him.

cursed 18 Nov 2014 2:25 UTC
5 points
in reply to: lukeprog’s comment on: Musk on AGI Timeframes
Do you mind revealing what Shane’s timelines are, and the probability that he thinks that he’ll play a role in AGI?