h-H

Karma: 60

h-H 18 Feb 2013 6:59 UTC
3 points
in reply to: DanArmak’s comment on: LW Women: LW Online
Gender relations = politics.

h-H 17 Feb 2013 20:34 UTC
1 point
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Rationalist Lent
Not speaking of Lent specifically, but abstinence can restore enjoyment as much as teach impulse control. Take chocolate for example; overindulge and it’ll lose it’s appeal, so then take a month/40 days/etc break from it and you’ll be able to eat it again. Or -more anecdotal- in Ramadan Muslims are supposed to abstain from food & sex during the day, this leads to a lot of ‘feasting’ once night falls as well as a marked increase in sex.

You don’t have to do Lent or whatever, but such rituals are/can be quite useful.

h-H 13 Jan 2013 3:01 UTC
10 points
on: [Link] St. Paul: memetic engineer
The idea that Christianity was born under a foreign military occupation and had to compromise with it & Islam didn’t and went on to make it’s own empire is correct.

But the author’s assertion that Islam can be nothing but theocratic—”it lacks separation of church and state”- is far from accurate. In the first place, the first Muslim civil war was fought over the question of whether government was secular (Sunni’s) or theocratic (Shi’a) and was resolved in favor of the secular side. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims past and present theoretically & practically confirm secular over theocratic government is not a minor footnote, the author paints with a very wide stroke here.

Muslims did have institutions besides the basic Caliphate structure, in fact the Arabs borrowed quite heavily from the Roman/Byzantine tradition in the early (Umayyad) years, going on to absorb the Sassanid modes of government in latter (Abbasid) times. Successive Muslim kingdoms and empires mixed and merged those traditions with their own according to their specific tradition (Turkish, Berber etc) well enough to rule over vast swathes of the old world and their numerous peoples and traditions for well over a millennium, continuing to this day. So the claim that “Islam” lacked/s institutional ingenuity/flexibility is moot. All ‘civilizations’ have up and down periods, history is not so simple as to be explained from first principles yet.

He makes another inaccurate assertion; that Europeans left the Middle Easterners and co. in the dust because of “separation of church and state”.

The advancements in science and technology the Europeans used to gain an edge with weren’t hindered by the church by the sixteenth century or thereabout when the Ottomans began receding. In fact some of those discoveries were made by men of the church in the first place. My point being; church and state as in “political and religious power lying in separate hands” isn’t what gave the Europeans an advantage, my own opinion is that geographic and ethnic factors played that role but that’s a post of it’s own so I’ll stop here.

As an exercise, does “give unto Ceaser …” explain why say, the Chinese succumbed (Unequal Treaties, Opium Wars)? Does democracy? The United Kingdom is both a democracy and fairly prosperous, but current china is an authoritarian ‘People’s Republic’ and seems poised to be even more prosperous. Yes there are differences in scale but then wasn’t Qing China -the guys who lost the Opium Wars- much larger and more populous than the British Isles back then too? Whatever it was that made the British beat the Chinese back then or makes China ascend so quickly today as to leave All of Europe combined let alone the UK in its dust, it’s clear that simplistic answers like “Separation of Church and State” or “Favorite Ideology” are not sufficient if you want to say something meaningful about history.

h-H 1 Jan 2013 9:28 UTC
1 point
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: [Link] The Collapse of Complex Societies
hey gwern, I like your writings & have developed a taste for stuff like this, any more recommendations?

h-H 20 Dec 2012 23:02 UTC
0 points
on: Beware Selective Nihilism
“You can’t reject absolutes without un-restraining certain particulars -that should remain just that- to replace it” is this a fair description of your position here Wei?

h-H 8 Dec 2012 5:47 UTC
2 points
on: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
“old dead guys” is mind kill, and it sounds immature/impolite.

On the post itself, it’d be awesome if SIAI starts this in-house, something along the lines of semester long CFAR boot camp.

h-H 29 Sep 2012 8:48 UTC
0 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: EY “Politics is the Mind Killer” sighting at Washington Examiner and Reason.com
Thanks for the clear reply, and I agree with your points.

IMO the fact that Politics is a moderately functional substitute for direct bloodshed means that the ‘rational’ in any ‘rational alternative’ has little to do the masses becoming more rational, as opposed to careful grooming by an informed clique capable of long term planning.

That doesn’t necessarily imply a shadowy cabal of super secret rationalists deftly maneuvering the public for it’s own good. Rather, something as simple as spreading basic rationality skills is sufficient if we emphasize ‘long term’, as we should.

But that good work has to come with a working theory of capital r ‘Rational Politics’ or LW’s knowledge base has a huge chunk missing under the ‘Practical knowledge’ heading, say an LWer of high karma by some twist or other became adviser to the Archduke of Wallachia, will the people be better off or not?

In other words, if despite the impressive body of knowledge created here the preferred way for dealing with politics is either: a. Outright tabooing the subject or b. Denouncing the masses as prone to being insane...

Then surely as a community can do better than that?

Admittedly I’m not that well versed in political studies myself, and I’m not calling for Eliezer or anyone else for that matter to focus on this, rather I believe the community is mature enough to have a theoretical discussion about politics -and yes, that includes discussion of parties, partisan positions etc- without devolving into mudslinging or shouting matches.

A curated area in LW with strict rules -default set to anonymous posting, no more than 5 posts per day etc- should solve most potential issues, the hullabaloo that happened during say, the feminist war is not impossible to contain.

h-H 29 Sep 2012 6:59 UTC
−4 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: EY “Politics is the Mind Killer” sighting at Washington Examiner and Reason.com
Wedrifid, I was disappointed that Eliezer so succinctly identified the problem then mostly left it hanging.

Now, your comment fundamentally missed the point I was making, furthermore you seem to be acting out a common politician’s caricature, I don’t see you making an actual argument here & tbh I’m slightly surprised as you usually do much better than that.

Either way. in the interest of preserving the sanity waterline I’ll stop here.

h-H 29 Sep 2012 6:35 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: EY “Politics is the Mind Killer” sighting at Washington Examiner and Reason.com
I was encouraging the reader not to identify with either raiders or victims.

h-H 28 Sep 2012 6:49 UTC
−16 points
on: EY “Politics is the Mind Killer” sighting at Washington Examiner and Reason.com
If we didn’t have politics, we’d raid each others’ villages and steal the women and sheep instead. Politics is a way to avoid direct bloodshed, and as such is an improvement.

What I’m saying is, Eliezer identifies the problem, but where’s the alternative?

h-H 25 Jun 2012 15:14 UTC
0 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: How can we get more and better LW contrarians?
I have a habit of editing a comment for a bit after replying, actually I didn’t see your response until after editing, I don’t see how this changes your response in this instance though?

I added that caveat since the former group might have members who originally suffered more from procrastination as per the model, but eventually learned to deal with it, this might skew results if not taken into account.

h-H 24 Jun 2012 23:04 UTC
0 points
in reply to: shokwave’s comment on: Reply to Holden on ‘Tool AI’
I’m happy you asked, I did need to make my argument more specific.

h-H 24 Jun 2012 22:50 UTC
0 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: How can we get more and better LW contrarians?
Upvoted for good reasons for upvoting :)

For data, we could run a LW poll as a start and see. And out of curiosity, why would you be surprised?

h-H 24 Jun 2012 22:35 UTC
2 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: How can we get more and better LW contrarians?
Yes & I’d modify that slightly to “the former group needs to more actively combat procrastination”.

h-H 24 Jun 2012 22:08 UTC
1 point
in reply to: shokwave’s comment on: Reply to Holden on ‘Tool AI’
Yes, and this is why I asked in the first place. To be more exact, I’m confused as to why Eliezer does not post a step-by-step detailing how he reached the particular confidence he currently holds as opposed to say, expecting it to be quite obvious.

I believe people like Holden especially would appreciate this; he gives an over 90% confidence to an unfavorable outcome, but doesn’t explicitly state the concrete steps he took to reach such a confidence.

Maybe Holden had a gut feeling and threw a number, if so, isn’t it more beneficial for Eliezer to detail how he personally reached the confidence level he has for a FAI scenario occurring than to bash Holden for being unclear?

h-H 24 Jun 2012 21:41 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Reply to Holden on ‘Tool AI’
hmm, I have to ask, are you deliberately vague about this to sort for those who can grok your style of argument, in the belief that the sequences are enough for them to reach the same confidence you have about a FAI scenario?

h-H 24 Jun 2012 21:21 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: How can we get more and better LW contrarians?
The Akrasia you refer to is actually a feature, not a bug. Just picture the opposite: Intelligent people rushing to conclusions and caring more about getting stuff done instead of forsaking the urge to go with first answers and actually think.

My point is, we decry procrastination so much but the fact is it is good that we procrastinate, if we didn’t have this tendency we would be doers not thinkers. Not that I’m disparaging either, but you can’t rush math, or more generally deep, insightful thought, that way lies politics and insanity.

In an nutshell, perhaps we care more for thinking about things -or alternatively get a rush from the intellectual crack- so much that we don’t really want to act, or at least don’t want to act on incomplete knowledge, and hence the widespread procrastination, which given the alternative, is a very Good thing.

h-H 9 Jan 2012 3:14 UTC
2 points
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: New Year’s Prediction Thread (2012)
I like this, source please?

h-H 4 Oct 2011 2:06 UTC
3 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: Knox and Sollecito freed
upvoted for empathy remark, but I don’t know JoshuaZ, a “slow painful, agonizing death” for a mistake sounds too vengeful to me..

h-H 1 May 2011 4:09 UTC
0 points
in reply to: AdeleneDawner’s comment on: Meditation, insight, and rationality. (Part 1 of 3)
but isn’t being presented with a to-do list or alternatively feeling hungry then finding food different than ‘forming goals’?

to be more precise, maybe the ‘survival instinct’ that leads them to seek food is not located in their emotional centers so some goals might survive regardless. but yes, the assumption is untested AFAIK.