MathiasZaman

Karma: 1,199

MathiasZaman 14 Jul 2017 6:57 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Becoming stronger together
They mean the language used by the majority of where they live, not the language used in the group. Even if all the members are native English speakers, this is still some way of keeping plausible deniability in terms of location.

Edit: reading the OP more cautiously, I think it’s unlikely the group lives in a place where English isn’t the majority language so the phrasing is vague for not reason. Plausible deniability went out of the window given all the information available.

MathiasZaman 15 Oct 2015 18:11 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Rukiedor’s comment on: Stupid questions thread, October 2015
Disclaimer: I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD.

difficulty concentrating

This XKCD is a fair visualization of what difficulty concentrating feels like. I can be doing an activity (even a pleasurable one), but I get a lot of other stimuli coming in that link to different activities that also need doing or would also be fun or pleasurable. Or while doing an activity or trying to think about one specific thing, my mind jumps to other (often related) topics and this has a tendency to escalate. Think about the way people describe going to tv-tropes. You start out reading about the film you just saw, and before you know it, you’re browser is filled up with dozens of tabs (all of which have links that you’ll probably also click).

akrasia

Akrasia feels, to me, a lot like inertia. Sometimes in a very physical way. It’s a feeling of “being stuck” and often translates to physically being stuck, without anything specific holding you physically in place. It’s like the space between thinking “Doing X would be a good idea right about now” and actually doing X is a steep, uphill climb.

MathiasZaman 15 Oct 2015 17:37 UTC
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Stupid questions thread, October 2015
There’s no real way to enforce that. Even with those guidelines you’ll mostly end up with an intuitive system that’s maybe influenced by the guidelines.

MathiasZaman 15 Oct 2015 9:52 UTC
12 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Stupid questions thread, October 2015
Answer the question the interviewer means, not the question as you’d break it down on Less Wrong. Or more broadly: adapt your communication to the intended argument and goal.

In this particular example, you should know the values of the company before you end up at the interview, so this answer should be: Yes, followed by one or two examples show that your values match those of the company.

MathiasZaman 15 Oct 2015 9:14 UTC
5 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Stupid questions thread, October 2015

Is retributive downvoting on other forums, or is it just a LW thing?

Reddit also had it. I don’t frequent other forums that use voting, but a forum I used to be part of had a user that would delve into the history of people he disagreed with and report year-old comments to get those people banned.

Given that it’s an easy way to hinder “opponents” I very much doubt it’s LW exclusive.

Can anyone think of some relationship between rationality and vindication?

Apart from willingness to use tools others would think immoral, no. I also don’t think we need to go that far as an explanation. You only need one person doing it in a community as small as this one for it to become noticeable.

MathiasZaman 14 Oct 2015 19:35 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Fuglinnavon’s comment on: Stupid questions thread, October 2015
(Is “Are big societies optimal for human happiness/quality of life,” a fair rephrasing of your question?)

I’ve been asking myself similar questions lately. As pointed out “made to live” implies things that never happened, in that humans weren’t created, nor were the current societies/civilizations ever consciously designed or created. They just sort of happened.

Since both humans and societies got to where they are through mostly unthinking processes, it’s easy to see how things didn’t end up optimal.

Humans were hunter-gatherers for most of their existence. It’s hard to intuitively grasp how long a time that is, but I find this quote helpful (source):

If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 p. m. we adopted agriculture.

Without wanting to get into bad evolutionary sciences, I think it’s reasonably fair that even modern humans are mostly adapted for the hunter-gatherer life, with a couple of more modern modules thrown in. It’s also reasonably fair that humans were mostly “made” to live in small tribes, hunting and gathering.

Agriculture (and later writing, the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, computers...) gave us reasons to not be hunter-gatherers any more and my naive assessment is that a good number of those reasons are good ones. It’s just that our bodies and brains haven’t caught up.

So where am I going with this? I’m not sure. What I’m trying to say is that I think it’s better to say that (our) big societies weren’t made for humans (at least, they’re not optimal for humans), rather than saying that humans weren’t made for big societies.

MathiasZaman 14 Oct 2015 19:18 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Stupid questions thread, October 2015
UBI means every citizen gets a sum of money in their account each month. Current government programs means people need to jump through multiple hoops in order to get food. I don’t think UBI is a panacea, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’ll reach people who aren’t being helped by the current welfare systems.

MathiasZaman 13 Oct 2015 13:05 UTC
4 points
in reply to: cousin_it’s comment on: Open thread, Oct. 12 - Oct. 18, 2015
What I’m saying is that humans aren’t wrong in trading off some amount of comfort so they can have jokes, fiction, art and romantic love.

MathiasZaman 13 Oct 2015 11:26 UTC
8 points
in reply to: cousin_it’s comment on: Open thread, Oct. 12 - Oct. 18, 2015
Does the story actually says the Superhappies really know humanity’s utility function better? As in, does an omniscient narrator tell it, or is it a Superhappy or one of the crew that says this? That changes a lot, to me. Of course the Superhappies would believe they know our utility function better than we do. Just like how the humans assumed they knew what was better for the Babyeaters.

Similarly, the Superhappies are moral, for their idea of morality. They were perfectly willing to use force (not physical, but force nonetheless) to encourage humans to see their point of view. They threatened humanity and were willing to forcibly change human children, even if the adults could continue to feel pain. While humans also employs threats and force to change behavior, in most cases we would be hard-pressed to call that “moral.”

From a meta-perspective, I’d findit odd if Yudkowsky wrote it like that. He’s not careless enough to make that mistake and as far as I know, he thinks humanity’s utility function goes beyond mere bliss.

The only way I think you could see the Superhappies’ solution as acceptable if you don’t think jokes or fiction (or other sort of arts involving “deception”) are something humans would value as part of their utility function. Which I personally would find very hard to understand.

MathiasZaman 12 Oct 2015 17:52 UTC
1 point
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Emotional tools for the beginner rationalist
This would be a good place to start looking. It’s a list that holds most of the (self-proclaimed) rationalists on tumblr, although I can’t guarantee the quality or level of activity of each tumblr. Notable absences are Scott’s tumblr and theunitofcaring.

MathiasZaman 9 Oct 2015 12:32 UTC
6 points
on: Emotional tools for the beginner rationalist
The rationalist tumblr sphere helped me a lot. It’s a lot more approachable for newcomers than this site is and has a very low barrier for making low-effort, high emotion posts, which is something I could totally use assistance on at the time. It also helped that I could see rationalist practices and the results in (more-or-less) real time, which were highly available examples (I’ve always learned better with good, tangible examples) and showed me that rationality could be practised by “real” people, rather than mythical figures like Jeffreyssai, the Defence Professor or Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Yudkowsky’s fiction also helped because it provided easy-to-read content that teaches the basics. For the same reasons, I Shall Wear Midnight (by Terry Pratchett) was useful

MathiasZaman 9 Oct 2015 12:22 UTC
4 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Emotional tools for the beginner rationalist
To be fair, the LW census also shows an average IQ that is significantly larger than the baseline and we know intelligence and depression to be correlated.

But intuitively (e.g. without any evidence) I can understand why this community could have a higher-than-baseline level of depression, apart from the intelligence issue. Stuff like: “If you aren’t winning, you aren’t being rational?”, “If you are rational, than why aren’t you sitting on a giant pile of utility/money,” and “heroic responsibility” (everything wrong with the world is your fault) can be overwhelming, especially if you are (as many newcomers to this community are) a slightly above average student with no real money and (possibly) no real plan for getting tons of money. It doesn’t even need to be that particular situation. Every time someone has a bad period (for whatever reason), those memes will make them think it’s their fault and their responsibility to fix it, which (probably) isn’t conductive to mental health.

MathiasZaman 13 Aug 2015 9:59 UTC
1 point
in reply to: casebash’s comment on: Ideas on growth of the community

Whenever you post an idea, you might get a few upvotes, but you’ll also get a lot of comments saying that something else is a better idea instead.

Not just that, but you also get a lot of comments nitpicking a minor detail that hardly affects the main points. For me, at least, that sort of response discourages to post anything that isn’t perfect (which nothing ever is).

we need someone crazy like Scott Alexander who will solo producing huge amounts of content 2

You don’t necessarily need one person. The Sequences started due to a conversation between Yudkwosky and Hanson.

MathiasZaman 9 Jul 2015 11:12 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Illano’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
Justice departments notably have trouble keeping up with modern technology. Where I live, it’s still impossible to get a digital copy of your file (leading to a case where someone ate an important document and was able to go free on a technicality).

Not just that, but smartphones are not quite ubiquitous yet. Either you require the person to purchase one, or have the state purchase one, neither of which is ideal.

I suspect there are also legal and human right problems, since ankle monitors are already used as a form of punishment, but have never been used (as far as I know) as a parole/probation measure.

MathiasZaman 8 Jul 2015 9:28 UTC
6 points
in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
Ankle monitors are surprisingly annoying to wear. It would be a big, long-term punishment that would probably come on top of a prison sentence.

MathiasZaman 8 Jul 2015 9:22 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Thomas’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
Are there examples of interventions like this working out well?

MathiasZaman 6 Jul 2015 8:05 UTC
2 points
on: A Federal Judge on Biases in the Criminal Justice System.
Your link is a 42 page document. It’s probably very interesting and it’s certainly an area that interests me in particular, but summary would have been nice to see alongside the link. I doubt you’re going to see much discussion here, because of that reason.

MathiasZaman 29 Jun 2015 11:58 UTC
1 point
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, Jun. 29 - Jul. 5, 2015

One is for signalling, another is to get a martial arts training partner without the awkwardness of physical intimacy with a non-intimate partner, another is for sexual, emotional and social fulfilment and a final one is for a fitness partner, person to share chores with and life coach.

Signalling what, exactly? Sexual desirability? Competent adultness? Showcasing your ability to have a girlfriend? I understand that having a sexual and romantic partner has signalling value, I just don’t think it’s very useful to have signaling as a major goal. (Unless I misunderstood you and signalling is just considered a side-benefit.)

Also keep in mind that finding a person who is compatible with you in a sexual, emotional and social way is hard enough that finding a partner who is all that and likes the same sort of sports and fitness activities as you do is even harder.

I’m treating this as a business problem because my previous approach has yet to work at an age where it has for others!

You’re treating this as a business problem (and I’m unsure if this is the correct approach, but whatever), but what product are you selling? Why would a costumer be interested in consuming your product?

You say you’re unique, but let’s face it, most humans are. (Not to mention that uniqueness is not a good quality by default.) Why should a potential partner be interested in your uniqueness? What do you have to offer that a competitor doesn’t also offer?

I looked up monotone voice on google, and found that it has a positive, redeeming side – attractiveness. In light of this information, I’m no longer interested in adjusting my monotone voice.

Powerful people might have tendency for monotone. This doesn’t mean that everyone with a monotone is perceived as powerful. As other have mentioned, there are probably other factors at play here as well. There are probably different sorts of monotone voices.

A promising new friend also mentioned that he abandoned pickup because it wasn’t working for him. He spoke about vulnerability and how he doesn’t exert so much control on himself now, thus avoiding analysis paralyses.

I only have minimal knowledge of the whole pick-up thing, but I think there’s some truth in what your friend says. Unless it comes natural to you (and this might come with practice, so I don’t want to speak badly about pickup), using predetermined strategies and such will come across as more awkward and less natural than just general social awkwardness.

Being naturally awkward isn’t really such a bad thing, as long as you can own your awkwardness and focus on your other strengths.

I found the people I was talking to really boring. My promising new friend suggested that it was because I was boring, haha.

My brother has this amazing gift. He can talk to anyone and find whatever they say interesting. (Or at least fake it very well.) I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to have at least some knowledge on every subject and in the rare cases he doesn’t he knows exactly what questions to ask to make his conversation partner to feel interesting.

The thing is, hardly anyone is actually boring. Everyone knows something you don’t and it can only be to your benefit to get them to share this. In order to do this, you need to be confident in your own interestingness, so you don’t feel bad when you’re not sharing trivia about yourself and the things you know a lot about. The best way to combat the boringness in others is to develop an interest in everything.

MathiasZaman 18 Jun 2015 11:19 UTC
1 point
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Effectively Less Altruistically Wrong Codex
It might but most redditors don’t really click links. I find it more useful to ignore them, occasionally skimming the arguments and upvoting the non-stupid comments.

MathiasZaman 17 Jun 2015 12:46 UTC
1 point
in reply to: jacob_cannell’s comment on: Effectively Less Altruistically Wrong Codex
/r/Futurology is also really annoying because people keep having the same arguments over and over again.