Isaac

Karma: 111

Isaac May 5, 2011, 2:31 PM
0 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: Offense versus harm minimization
agree. To some extent, this all shows the best way to have a good reputation is to be good. But some awareness of how others perceive you goes a long way.

Isaac Apr 18, 2011, 7:46 AM
2 points
on: Offense versus harm minimization

This means that ever admitting you were offensive is a huge status hit implying you are some combination of callous, ignorant, and racist. Sometimes people may be willing to take this status hit, especially if upon reflection they believe they really were in the wrong, but since most people’s actions seem reasonable to themselves they will not be willing to accept a narrative where they’re the villain.

More likely, they will try to advance an alternative interpretation, in which their actions were not legitimately offensive or in which they have the “right” to take such actions. Such an interpretation may cast the offended party as a villain, trying to gain power and control by pretending to be offended, or unduly restricting the free speech of others.

Sociopathy 101: the best response in this situation is usually to admit wrongdoing. If you try and defend yourself, you’ll just dig yourself into a bigger hole. (“I’m not a racist, I just think … ” - we all know how that sounds). You don’t need to actually believe you’ve done wrong, but make it at least sound like you’ve realised the error of your ways.

You still need to avoid a big status hit, so don’t grovel. You should stay “on-message”, and your message should be on the lines of “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I was being offensive, but I accept that I was. Thanks for helping me to be less prejudiced. I’m going to try and change in future”. How you deliver this message depends on context—if you’re not a public figure it’s not like you can just hold a press conference, so you’ll probably have to deliver this message to individuals, in which case you’ll have to make it sound more personalised and natural.

Accepting a small status hit in this way can actually be high status. This strategy also works in the more general situation whenever someone accuses you of being X, where X is some negative trait. Ignore the overwhelming desire to explain why you are not X, with reasons. It will just make it sound like you don’t “get it”. Even if the criticism is totally invalid, the correct response is to accept it and promise to change.

Exceptions: if you think people will agree that your infraction was minor and the other party is overreacting (especially if they keep throwing new accusations at you after you accept the first), you can (and should) stand up for yourself.

If your infraction was very serious, or you’ve overused this tactic to the point people realise your tricks, it can backfire badly. I don’t really know what to advise you in this situation, but you might need to accept some more-than-token punishment.

Isaac Apr 18, 2011, 7:13 AM
0 points
on: Shanghai Less Wrong Meetup April 30th, 2pm
I can’t attend, but good luck from Hong Kong! AFAIK this will be the second Asian LW meetup. I was also unsure if HK had enough rationalists for a meetup, but I managed to get 3 of us LWers together, and we enjoyed an interesting chat about OpenCog and other topics… So it’s worthwhile even if you can only get a few people. And of course, you have to start somewhere.

Isaac Mar 23, 2011, 2:17 PM
2 points
in reply to: free_rip’s comment on: Rationality Boot Camp
http://rejection.posterous.com/ - this is one person’s experience with it. I agree that sometimes it sounds iffy, but I think it’s useful for people who have that problem. When you say it sounds ‘scary’ do you mean scary to try or scary what could happen if everyone tried it?

By the way, you sound a lot smarter than the average 16-year-old. (I speak as one who also used to tell people online my age at the age of 16, in the hope I’d get such compliments :) )

Isaac Mar 10, 2011, 3:39 PM
1 point
in reply to: ferrouswheel’s comment on: Hong Kong LW meetup
Awesome!

Since at the moment it looks like it’ll just be the three of us, I’ll suggest meeting up in the bar ferrouswheel mentioned below (168 Future) at 6pm. Will add the details to the article if anyone else wants to drop by.

I’ve stumbled across OpenCog before and thought it sounded like an interesting approach, though I never looked into it in much detail. My bachelors thesis is actually about writing a texas holdem-playing AI, focusing on using machine learning to model an opponent’s behaviour—which I guess has some slight relation to yousen’s project. Well, it should be one thing to talk about anyway.

Will try and msg tomorrow to confirm.

Isaac Mar 8, 2011, 4:19 PM
5 points
in reply to: sark’s comment on: Rationality Quotes: March 2011
“When the truth is, their adherence to such absurdly costly principles is precisely to signal that, compared to those who cannot afford their morality, they have it easy.”

I think the idea that “morality is a form of signalling” is inaccurate. I agree that moral principles have an evolutionary explanation, but I think that standard game theory provides the best explanation. Generally, it’s better to cooperate than to defect in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma; and the best way to convince others you’re a cooperator is to be, truly, madly and deeply, a cooperator.

Cf. Elizier’s claim that he wouldn’t break a promise, even if the whole of humanity was at stake. It certainly makes him seem more trustworthy, right?

Isaac Mar 5, 2011, 5:59 PM
0 points
in reply to: NihilCredo’s comment on: Rationality Quotes: March 2011
To be fair, I think he was using “we” to refer to the Conservative party.

Isaac Mar 5, 2011, 5:51 PM
0 points
in reply to: VincentYu’s comment on: Hong Kong LW meetup
Between Monday to Friday (in the evenings) also works for me. I don’t know about everyone else, since no other HK-based Lesswrongers have yet emerged. Bummer...

Isaac Mar 4, 2011, 6:10 AM
0 points
in reply to: Daniel_Burfoot’s comment on: Hong Kong LW meetup
Out of curiosity, in what way do you think the experience of rationalists in HK will be exceptional (as compared to other cities)? Or am I misreading your comment?

Isaac Mar 3, 2011, 3:28 PM
10 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Rationality Quotes: March 2011
I wasn’t sure who this was referring to (I thought it was about Socrates), so I looked it up. It’s about Epicurus.

Isaac Mar 3, 2011, 3:26 PM
7 points
in reply to: Dr_Manhattan’s comment on: Rationality Quotes: March 2011
This interestingly seems to parallel a comment by the current British Prime Minister David Cameron, when he first entered office.

“We’re all going to have things thrown back at us. We’re looking at the bigger picture. … And if it means swallowing some humble pie, and if it means eating some of your words, I cannot think of a more excellent diet.”

This was in response to a reporter who asked him why he was working with Nick Clegg, a man he had once described as a “joke”. At the time I thought it was a spontaneous remark, but after seeing the above, it looks like he may have been quoting.

Isaac Mar 2, 2011, 9:54 AM
5 points
in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: Hong Kong LW meetup
And my nefarious plot to gain cheap karma comes to fruition, muahaha...

Just kidding ;-) Moved to the front page.

Isaac Mar 1, 2011, 6:59 AM
13 points
in reply to: Larks’s comment on: Hong Kong LW meetup
I don’t have sufficient karma to post to the main page.

Isaac Feb 20, 2011, 5:11 PM
8 points
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Rationality Quotes: February 2010
I’m interested to find that you read ribbonfarm.com, since along with lesswrong it’s one of my two most-visited blogs.

I sometimes think Venkatash’s way of thinking might be on a level above that of many of the posts here. As an engineer he seems to have internalized the scientific/rationalist way of thinking, but he’s combined that with a metaphorical/narrative/artistic way of looking at the world. When it works well, it works really well. What do other people think?

Interestingly, he has PhD in an AI-related field (specifically, control theory), but thinks the Singularity is unlikely to happen: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/01/28/the-misanthropes-guide-to-the-end-of-the-world/

Another article that might contradict a common belief of this community: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/09/28/learning-from-one-data-point/

Anyway, certainly a blog I’d recommend to lesswrongers.

Isaac Feb 19, 2011, 4:42 PM
5 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: Spoiled Discussion of Permutation City, A Fire Upon The Deep, and Eliezer’s Mega Crossover
I felt the same way. I feel the same way about a lot of science fiction—interesting ideas, often worth reading for the ideas alone, but falls flat on plot, or characters, or writing, or all of the above.

With Permutation City I got the sense that he was trying hard to make his characters 3-dimensional, but it didn’t work for me. [SPOILER WARNING] For example, one supporting character spent most of the novel trying to overcome the guilt of murdering a prostitute. The idea is promising, but the execution was irritating.

(In fact, I have a theory that some popular works of genre fiction—I would include thrillers and romances as well as sci-fi—are popular because of their flaws. For example, when reading The Da Vinci Code, you don’t have to worry about any interesting characters or beautiful prose distracting you from the puzzles and conspiracies.)

Isaac Feb 11, 2011, 4:42 PM
9 points
on: Subjective Relativity, Time Dilation and Divergence
Small error at “It’s difficult to conceive of an intelligence that experiences around 30,000 years in just one second”

One billion * one second = ~30 years, not ~30,000 years.

Isaac Dec 16, 2010, 3:49 PM
14 points
in reply to: Will_Newsome’s comment on: Confidence levels inside and outside an argument
Surely declaring “x is impossible”, before witnessing x, would be the most wrong you could be?