It is sometimes possible to die by refusing to eat/drink. Ben Best has some conflicting claims about how feasible that is with Alzhiemer’s here and here.
pcm
Karma: 289
What evidence do we have about whether cryonics will work for those who die of Alzheimer’s?
In many wars, those who fight get a much higher reputation than those who were expected to fight but refused. This has often translated into a reproductive advantage for those who fought. It’s not obviously irrational to want that reproductive advantage or something associated with it.
I started alternate day calorie restriction last month. I expect it to be one of the best lifestyle changes for increasing my life expectancy.
I’ve become comfortable enough with it that it no longer requires significant willpower to continue. I think I have slightly more mental energy than before I started (but for the first 17 days, I had drastically lower mental energy).
I have a longer post about this on my blog.
Ralph Merkle’s cryonics page is a good place to start. His 1994 paper on The Molecular Repair of the Brain seems to be the most technical explanation of why it looks feasible.
Since whole brain emulation is expected to use many of the same techniques, that roadmap (long pdf) is worth looking at.
I’m unclear on how the probability distribution over utility functions would be implemented. A complete specification of how to evaluate evidence seems hard to do right. Also, why should we expect we can produce a pool of utility functions that includes an adequate one?
If you’re certain that the world will be dominated by one AGI, then my point is obviously irrelevant.
If we’re uncertain whether the world will be dominated by one AGI or by many independently created AGIs whose friendliness we’re uncertain of, then it seems like we should both try to design them right and try to create a society where, if no single AGI can dictate rules, the default rules for AGI to follow when dealing with other agents will be ok for us.
This post is definitely an attempt to answer the question ‘What should I eat?’, not “What’s the best thing I can do about multipolar takeoff?”. I didn’t mean to imply that my concerns over multipolar takeoff are the only reason for my change in diet. I focused on that because others have given it too little attention.
I would certainly like to do more to increase respect for property rights, but the obvious approaches involve partisan politics that already attract lots of effort on both sides.
Ethical Diets
I suggest Geoffrey Miller’s book The Mating Mind. Or search for sexual selection.
I’d say the wage and price controls were more important as evidence that the Republican party had abandoned capitalism. Unlike with Roosevelt, that left no major party for capitalists to support.
Testosterone isn’t a good explanation for why humans accidentally make other species extinct.
Pinker has decent arguments for declining violence and for expecting people to overestimate some risks. That isn’t enough to imply we shouldn’t worry.
Pinker’s model of war says the expected number of deaths is unbounded, due to small chances of really bad wars. His animal rights thoughts suggest AIs will respect other species more than humans do, but “more than human” isn’t enough to imply no extinctions.
I don’t see anything about access to code on p82. Are you inferring that from “closely monitor”?
If you can afford pasture-raised chicken or grass-fed beef, the animal suffering consideration becomes less important than if you’re eating factory-farmed animals.
The main point of the orthogonality thesis is that we can’t rely on intelligence to produce the morality we want. So saying that there’s a 50% chance of the thesis being correct ought to cause us to act much like we would act if it were proven, whereas certainty that it is false would imply something very different.
Methylfolate (currently 5mg/day—due to MTHFR 677TT genes), which seems to improve my mood.
Vitamin D3 (5000 IU/day) - blood tests show that results in levels considered healthy.
Glutathione, Oxaloacetate, Aniracetam, and Calcium d-glucarate, mostly due to Dave Asprey’s writings.
I just started the probiotic from General Biotics.
I occasionally take Kratom as a stimulant, rarely more than 1⁄4 teaspoon per day.
The “if we knew more” part of CEV sure sounds like a continuation of historical trends.
Large mindspace does not by itself imply problems for CEV.
The obvious way for CEV to converge is for people to compromise and cooperate on some joint utility function rather than try to conquer those they disagree with. Historical trends suggest increasing cooperation. As long as that continues, coherent agreements about volition will become easier if human thought is extrapolated first.
Angel investing is not like buying small publicly traded stocks. Transaction costs cause some of the better startups to refuse to deal with small Angel investors. The obstacles to becoming publicly traded weed out some of the worst startups.
Crickets at $38/pound dry weight are close to being competitive with salmon (more than 3 pounds needed to get the equivalent nutrition). Or $23/pound in Thailand (before high shipping fees), suggesting the cost in the U.S. will drop a bit as increased popularity causes more competition and economies of scale.