I’m guessing they mean a university affiliated person doing a formal philosophy degree of some kind.
Gedusa
FHI Essay Competition
I didn’t think of that—given that a huge chuck here have probably taken such tests, if Yvain allowed such an estimation, it would be very helpful.
excluded-middle bias
Yes! That’s what I was thinking of :)
This is great! I hope there’s a big response.
It seems likely you’re going to get skewed answers for the IQ question. Mostly it’s the really intelligent and the below average who get (professional) IQ tests—average people seem less likely to get them.
I predict high average IQ, but low response rate on the IQ question, which will give bad results. Can you tell us how many people respond to that question this time? (no. of responses isn’t registered on the previous survey)
The obvious solution is to stop eating all those kinds of animal/animal products. That would satisfy CO2 concerns and killing concerns.
Of course, it might not satisfy things like fun of eating meat, ease of eating meat, health etc.
Here maybe?
I take it that you partially changed “my mistakes” to include nicotine. I enjoyed your article on it—but how are you using it?
Are you rotating with other stimulants on a regular basis, using when you like, using to promote habit formation etc.
Would anyone care to comment on the recent Mt Gox hack n’ crash?
Personally, I’m thinking that this very bad. The currency won’t look as good the mainstream, and I’m anticipating panic sells as soon as the exchanges get up and running again. I’m agnostic as to whether Bitcoin will die or not though...
The obvious extra question is:
“If you think it’s so great, how come you’re not using it?” Unless the sales girl’s enjoyable life includes selling the machine she’s in to disinterested customers.
And if you do assume “fiat money is doomed, doomed!” then why wouldn’t something like bitcoin become the world’s reserve currency?
Okay, I’m willing to grant that if the dollar/fiat money in general is doomed then something along the lines of bitcoin would probably take over. But I don’t assume this. I guess it is rational to put lots of money into bitcoin if you do take this premise though.
I agree that the dollar becoming effectively worthless would be pretty bad to put it mildly!
Weirdly, though I think that bitcoins will succeed (and accordingly have some) I don’t think Calacanis’ article is well-founded. To focus just on the points I feel I can judge with some merit:
Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.
I don’t think this is true. Shutting down of all legitimate currency exchanges would tend to increase the barrier to investment by legitimate investors and be likely to decrease interest in Bitcoins. Anecdote: I would get less interested in bitcoins if this happened. Also, a focused government campaign against it might succeed in branding it as evil in public eyes, again reducing interest. I do recognize that these factors wouldn’t destroy bitcoin, but they would reduce the chances of it “changing the world”.
Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.
Again, I’m not so sure of this. Can anyone give me any legitimate reasons to anticipate this? So far I’ve just people on the bitcoin forums saying that the dollar/euro will collapse and bitcoin will attain worldwide dominance.
Basically, I predict they’ll find a decent niche, won’t replace any currency system in any major country and won’t increase in value to insane levels.
Hi Less Wrong!
Decided to register after seeing this comment and wanting to post give a free $10 to a cause I value highly.
I got pulled into less wrong by being interested in transhumanist stuff for a few years, finally decided to read here after realizing that this was the best place to discuss this sort of stuff and actually end up being right as opposed to just making wild predictions with absolutely no merit. I’m an 18 year old male living in the UK. I don’t have a background in maths or computer sci as a lot of people here do (though I’m thinking of learning them). I’m just finishing up at school and then going on to do a philosophy degree (hopefully—though I’m scared of it making me believe crap things)
I’ve found the most useful LW stuff to be along the lines of instrumental rationality (the more recent stuff). Lukeprog’s sequence on winning at life is great! My favorite LW-related posts have been:
The Cynic’s Conundrum: Because I used to think idealistically about my own thought processes and cynically about other people’s. In essence I fell into comfortable cynicism.
Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger): Because this was just really galvanizing and made me want to do better, much more than any self-help stuff ever did!
A Suite of Pragmatic Considerations in Favor of Niceness: Fantastic as I tended (and still tend to) be mean for no real reason and this post put a lot of motivation towards stopping. I’ve actually started to have niceness as a terminal value now, which is a tad odd.
So anyway, I’m happy to have registered and I hope to get stronger and have fun here!
Your right action is most excellent!
What initiatives is the Singularity Institute taking or planning to take to increase it’s funding to whatever the optimal level of funding is?