math_viking

Karma: 41

math_viking 27 Aug 2017 23:46 UTC
0 points
in reply to: DragonGod’s comment on: P: 0 ⇐ P ⇐ 1
So then the probability you assign to their ability to actually affect that change can be assigned a correspondingly small, nonzero number, even if you don’t want to assign 0 probability.

math_viking 27 Aug 2017 23:10 UTC
4 points
on: P: 0 ⇐ P ⇐ 1
I think this version of Pascal’s mugging could be rejected if you think that “infinite negative utility” is not a phrase that means anything, without appealing to probability of 0.

However, I still accept 0 and 1 as valid probabilities, because that is how probability is defined in the mathematical structures and proofs that underpin all of the probability theory we use, and as far as I know no other foundation of probability (up to isophorism)has been rigorously defined and explored.

The fact that measure#measure_space) is nonnegative, instead of positive, is a relevant fact and if you’re going to claim 0 and 1 are not probabilities, you had better be ready to re-define all of the relevant terms and re-derive all of the relevant results in probability theory in this new framework. Since no such exposition exists, you should feel free to treat any claims that 0 and 1 are not probabilities as, at best, speculation.

Now, I know those of you who have read Eliezer’s post are about to go “But wait! What about Cox’s Theorem! Doesn’t that imply that odds have to be finite?” No, it does no such thing. If you look at the Wikipedia article on Cox’s Theorem, you will see that probability must be represented by real numbers, and that this is an assumption, rather than a result. In other words, any “way of representing uncertainties” must map them to real numbers in order for Cox’s Theorem to apply, and so Cox’s Theorem only applies to odds or log odds if you assume that odds and log odds are finite to begin with. Obviously, this is circular reasoning, and no more of an argument than simply asserting that probability must be in (0,1) and stopping there.

Moreover, if you look down the page, you will see that the article explicitly states that one of Cox’s results is that probability is in… wait for it… [0,1].

math_viking 11 Aug 2017 4:02 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Alexei’s comment on: What’s up with Arbital?
I’ll take a look, thanks!

math_viking 5 Jun 2017 15:48 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Duncan Sabien (Deactivated)’s comment on: Dragon Army: Theory & Charter (30min read)
Either way is fine with me, but if you can express in any way what you think “average” is for some of these skills, I would like to know because now I’m really curious.

Thanks for taking so much time to keep responding to a fairly random commenter!

math_viking 5 Jun 2017 5:10 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Duncan Sabien (Deactivated)’s comment on: Dragon Army: Theory & Charter (30min read)
What statement, specifically, would we be betting on? It’s certainly plausible that I’m underestimating the difficulty in getting an entire group to above these standards in comparison to getting one person. Though, I think the main issue may be a difference in what we perceive as average, rather than a model of how hard learning these skills is.

math_viking 4 Jun 2017 20:48 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Duncan Sabien (Deactivated)’s comment on: Dragon Army: Theory & Charter (30min read)

. And while competence does tend to cluster (e.g. “G”), so the picture’s not quite as bleak as the second half of this sentence, once you’ve got a dozen different domains and shooting to be above the 50% mark in all of them, you’re looking at a person who’s approximating one in four thousand,

I don’t think these skills are anywhere near independent. It’s also not obvious that they’re normally distributed. And, being above the 50% mark in a dozen skills by coincidence being unlikely does not at all tell you how hard it is to gain skills if you put in some deliberate work.

I generally am sympathetic to the argument that stuff can be harder than one assumes, but I also am generally cynical about the “average” level of most of these skills. Most people probably don’t even know what “calibration” means precisely enough to test their own level of calibration. I’m not trying to be arrogant here, I pretty much have only heard about the idea of writing down your confidence level of a bunch of predictions and seeing what comes true from the rationalist community and rationalist-adjacent ones.

For the sake of avoiding this issue, and because rather than using terms like “above-average,” I would attempt to pin down ahead of time requirements that are as specific as possible to measure progress in each of the areas you care about.

For instance, you note that many of these skills require only a few weeks, but I don’t know if you added up all of those weeks, compared them to the time commitment, and noted that they’re all being practiced off-hours and people have their own jobs and lives as well.

I don’t think it should take a few weeks each to exceed average in most of these skills. I expect it to take a few weeks total (or 1 day a week for a few months).

math_viking 4 Jun 2017 4:01 UTC
7 points
0
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Dragon Army: Theory & Charter (30min read)
Your original comment, though harsh, at least contained some useful insights. Don’t ruin that by posting comments that are nothing more than 6 lines of insults that no one wants to read.

math_viking 4 Jun 2017 3:48 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Duncan Sabien (Deactivated)’s comment on: Dragon Army: Theory & Charter (30min read)

I do somewhat agree with your objections to the list of specific skills attained after a year. I had hoped that the large word DRAFT at the top, plus the repeated statements that the whole plan was to iterate, and that I didn’t expect to be able to figure out the right stuff on the first try, would’ve clued you in to the fact that I, too, am aware that the list is inadequate. Do you have specific suggestions for replacements? Keep in mind, the hard problem is to balance things-that-will-be-generally-useful-for-a-medium-sized-group-of-people against the fact that everyone involved has their own specific career and expertise already. Part of the impetus here is social, part of it is becoming well-rounded, part of it is practicing the skill of gaining/improving skills, and all of that is trying to avoid skating into trivial irrelevancy. Got any ideas?

I’m not the originator of this thread, but that part did resonate with me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those skills, but the combination of choice of skills and the desired level of competency does seem to be decidedly mediocre given the effort and people involved.

1) Above-average physical capacity

What is average? In the US, you could probably be somewhat overweight with no strength, speed, endurance, or agility to speak of and still be “above average.”

(2) Above-average introspection

I would expect almost all of the people who volunteer to be part of a rationalist group house to be there or pretty close to there already.

(3) Above-average planning & execution skill (4) Above-average communication/facilitation skill (5) Above-average calibration/debiasing/rationality knowledge

I think my previous comment applies here as well. Perhaps you have a different conception of “average” than I do, but I think if you’re going to establish a long-term mini-dictatorship of a group house, you should be aiming for quite a bit higher than “above average.”

(6) Above-average scientific lab skill/ability to theorize and rigorously investigate claims

I don’t really understand this one. Is your group house actually going to have the ability to practice conducting laboratory experiments? That’s a very high overhead endeavor.

(7) Average problem-solving/debugging skill (8) Average public speaking skill (9) Average leadership/coordination skill (10) Average teaching and tutoring skill

Average? Your goals are to reach average, after a year of dedicated effort? Getting into the 80th percentile of anything numbered 1-10 on this list should require a minimum of effort on the part of dedicated individuals following strict rules, unless you have some specific medical condition interfering.

(11) Fundamentals of first aid & survival

How fundamental is fundamental? This also shouldn’t take very long if you are willing to put in the effort and practice a bit (2 weeks, at the outside, though you could the true basics in a long weekend). I don’t know how it’s related to the rest of the goals, though, or why it’s important enough to be on the rest of the list. Also, you should practice many of these skills in the actual wilderness, which means time away from everything else.

(12) Fundamentals of financial management

Again, I’m not sure what’s “fundamental.” You could spend 2 days on this, or the entire year.

(13) At least one of: fundamentals of programming, graphic design, writing, A/V/animation, or similar (employable mental skill) (14) At least one of: fundamentals of woodworking, electrical engineering, welding, plumbing, or similar (employable trade skill)

Do you have the ability to teach/practice trade skills at the house? I would expect leaning any of these things, to an employable level, within a year, would require spending time similar to a full-time job somewhere that has infrastructure, in addition to a significant investment of money (at least a few thousand dollars). (I checked some local welding and plumbing classes at community colleges, which is where I’m getting those numbers).

Someone who already has one of these skills (I’m guess you’ll have a few coders at least) is going to be at a tremendous advantage in terms of time and possibly money compared to someone who is not. 13 and 14 are going to each represent a greater time investment than the others combined, unless you already have them.

As a meta note, I think that people who cower behind anonymity don’t deserve to make concrete claims about their skill sets without backing them up, so until further notice and on a policy level, I’m treating your claim that you meet 11 out of 14 criteria as a flat-out lie (despite its plausibility overall). You’re currently nothing and nobody and have no skills; that will change as soon as you a) reveal yourself or b) demonstrate credibility under this pseudonym.

I don’t know if you care, but I would say I already meet a similar number of these criteria. The only one I definitely don’t meet is 14. I’m willing to tie this account to my real name and explain/prove why I meet them (though some of them would be quite difficult to really prove, I could only argue).

math_viking 4 Jun 2017 3:13 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Alexei’s comment on: What’s up with Arbital?
I rather forgot about this due to being accidentally logged out of this account and not realizing so until later. If I were to try my hand at this, what would be the best place to see what’s already been done (without having to click through arbital) and submit my contributions?

math_viking 1 Apr 2017 5:59 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Alexei’s comment on: What’s up with Arbital?
If you’re still looking for content, I could be persuaded to start (slowly) working on some set theory/analysis concepts.

math_viking 10 Dec 2016 9:12 UTC
6 points
on: Traditions and Rationality.
I thought contributors here tended to keep in mind ideas like Chesterton’s Fence and “building institutions is hard.” But I think it’s important to recognize that just because people should have the right do something, doesn’t mean it’s good to encourage that thing. People shouldn’t feel forced or trapped in unhappy marriages, but it’s also not good for kids (particularly poor kids) and in some cases even the parents if we provide incentives to have lots of single parent homes.

math_viking 9 Dec 2016 5:51 UTC
3 points
on: The Ferrett: “The Day I Realized My Uncle Hung Around With Gay Guys”
Would this be a sort of reverse privileging the hypothesis? We can only weigh probabilities for theories that have been brought to our attention.

math_viking 8 Dec 2016 6:40 UTC
1 point
on: If Prison Were a Disease, How Bad Would It Be?
The list of controls in the “prison reduces lifespan” study seems a little on the short side—race, age, gender, education, and the crime. It’s fine if that’s all that was available, but if you had some other data as well, I would expect to see the life span reduction reduced as well. Particularly if the major causes of death are homicide and drug overdose right after getting, a strong linear relationship between time spent in prison and life expectancy seems weird. I’m not sure how that would work, causally.

But mostly I agree with chron—you can’t just completely ignore the possibility that the existence of prisons reduces crime.

Meetup : Austin Meetup

math_viking4 Nov 2016 5:32 UTC

1 point

3 comments1 min readLW link

math_viking 4 Mar 2015 5:36 UTC
0 points
on: What Scarcity Is and Isn’t
This post strikes me as odd.

The “insufficient quantity” definition matches both what I have seen in economics textbooks, and the common definition of the word. The fact that then choices must be made follows from this definition. If the standard conception follows from your definition, they are equivalent, and I would use the one that matches standard terminology. If it doesn’t, I would say that makes the first preferable (as the relevant fact is derived from the definition).

math_viking 25 Feb 2015 4:15 UTC
0 points
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: How to debate when authority is questioned, but really not needed?
In the paraphrased or hypothetical exchanges above, OP at least made a claim that could be evaluated, and the other commenters dismissed even the possibility that they had anything worthwhile to say for pretty poor reasons. They didn’t make any actual argument to give any charity to. “What experience do you have with economics?” and “what solutions do you propose?” are perfectly valid questions, but the other commenters follow-up doesn’t continue the discussion, it seeks to end it.

math_viking 25 Feb 2015 2:42 UTC
1 point
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: How to debate when authority is questioned, but really not needed?
Sure, but I think the follow-up responses make it clear the other commenter isn’t looking for a real discussion.

math_viking 24 Feb 2015 6:53 UTC
0 points
on: How to debate when authority is questioned, but really not needed?
I think these examples represent different sorts of fallacies. In the first, the person is making a variant on appeal to authority. In the latter, it’s more like the Nirvana fallacy.

However, in either case the commenter doesn’t seem worth arguing with. Especially if it’s a random person on the internet.

math_viking 24 Feb 2015 6:52 UTC
2 points
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: How to debate when authority is questioned, but really not needed?

Since your claims arent flawless,

What does that mean? I would expect no one’s claims to be flawless, but even if OP claimed the sky is green, claiming that he is wrong because he’s not a physicist is still wrong.

and their responses arent completely invalid

They seem pretty much like obvious examples of fallacies to me.

Your suggestions are possible ways to segue from what OP said into a better discussion, but the replies quoted or paraphrased above aren’t conducive to such a discussion.

math_viking 21 Feb 2015 7:29 UTC
4 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108
You mean from the author/story/reader perspective, or in-universe?