root

Karma: 22

root Jul 18, 2016, 3:38 PM
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Open thread, Jul. 18 - Jul. 24, 2016
Still not sure.

Why “either or”?

My English sucks, and I should stop thinking in a binary format.

root Jul 18, 2016, 2:59 PM
5 points
on: Open thread, Jul. 18 - Jul. 24, 2016
What are the differences between the ‘big names’ of higher education, in comparison to other places?

For example, I often hear about MIT, Oxford, and to a lesser extent, Cambridge. Either there’s some sort of self-selection, or do graduates from there have better prospects than graduates of ‘University of X, YZ’?

In a little bit of unintended self-reflection I noticed that I have a strange binary way of thinking of higher education. It feels that if I don’t go to one of the top n, my effort is wasted. Not sure why.

I’m just becoming somewhat paranoid regarding the real world after reading HPMOR because I always get a ‘how much do I really know?’ feeling. I’m not sure how my impressions were formed and I better double-check how well does the ideas in my mind reflect the real-world truth but at the same time I’m not even sure what’s a reliable indicator.

Post-high education LWers, do you think the place you studied at had a significant effect on your future prospects?

root Jul 17, 2016, 4:33 PM
0 points
in reply to: Gunnar_Zarncke’s comment on: Open thread, Jul. 11 - Jul. 17, 2016
I’ve read (mostly things by Ron Maimon) that marijuana* can actually impair your ability to do calculations (and in extent, I’d also assume your ability to make decisions) and I’m curious if there’s any truth to that.
- Is there a difference between marijuana, medical marijuana, weed, instert_name_here? They seem to be used interchangeably. At least they seem to cause a similar if not the exact same effect.

root Jul 17, 2016, 1:28 PM
0 points
in reply to: turchin’s comment on: The map of cognitive biases, errors and obstacles affecting judgment and management of global catastrophic risks
What’s your thoughts on virtual reality?

root Jul 17, 2016, 1:07 PM
1 point
in reply to: Algernoq’s comment on: The map of cognitive biases, errors and obstacles affecting judgment and management of global catastrophic risks
Interpretation: you think that despite all the supposed/possible/theoretical/whatever goodwill, your effort will not actually be rewarded with anything. And not only that, you fear that while you’re putting effort in that, other people put effort in themselves and once the great disaster is averted, your standing will be worse off compared to those that invested in themselves.

Confirm/deny?

root Jul 7, 2016, 5:01 AM
0 points
in reply to: goonthen’s comment on: Checklist of Rationality Habits
Bookmarks in your browser. There’s also the diskette icon between the two horizontal bars that separate the article and the comment section.

root Jul 5, 2016, 9:08 PM
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open thread, Jul. 04 - Jul. 10, 2016
I remember that LW has an API. It should only be a matter of finding all your posts that do not have any replies and then deleting them.

I’m referring to programming of course, but I can’t help you with it more specifically.

root Jun 30, 2016, 9:46 AM
−3 points
on: The Ethics of AI and Its Effect On Us
If Microsoft were in charge of PR for sex the human race would be extinct.

Wouldn’t trust them with an AI.

root Jun 28, 2016, 5:35 AM
1 point
on: Meme: Valuable Vulnerability
You should look into Brene Brown’s stuff. Here’s a TED talk

root Jun 27, 2016, 3:06 PM
−1 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016
You have a point. I’m mostly at fault here to be honest as I’m getting slowly more and more skeptical of ‘stuff on the internet’ (the site being called Art of Manliness already gives me some certain ideological connotations) and seeing how many things which look appealing intuitively don’t really yield much tasty fruit in real life, I’ll often label things clickbait rather than actually put some time in them.

root Jun 27, 2016, 7:20 AM
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016

Thoughts on the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover archetypes? Useful?

That website looks like a pretty big clickbait. Not footnotes either, which could be me overestimating people who put footnotes, but it might also be that whomever wrote that could be attempting to avoid being accused of wordplay.

root Jun 22, 2016, 4:53 PM
3 points
on: Are smart contracts AI-complete?
Haven’t people been making contracts for a pretty long time? What is this new ‘smart contract’ thing and how is it unique?

in a way that’s already illegal.

Someone cracking a smart contract wouldn’t really mind the law.

root Jun 22, 2016, 11:53 AM
2 points
in reply to: Daniel_Burfoot’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread

Not much lives 1000m under the surface.

Under the surface (for example, below the European continent) or in the deep seas? I’m not sure about the former but I’m quite confident that the following applies to the latter:

My layman impression is that investigating lower altitudes becomes increasingly (perhaps exponentially) difficult the lower you go. Wikipedia also says that “Humans have explored less than 2% of the ocean floor” so I would disagree with your assessment of “not much lives 1000m under the surface”.

I’m honestly interested in how you came to that conclusion though—If you have an interesting and reputable text that refutes me, please share. I came to mine based on reading Wikipedia too much.

root Jun 18, 2016, 8:24 PM
2 points
in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
https://status.fsf.org/fsf

Good enough?

root Jun 18, 2016, 8:11 PM
0 points
in reply to: Elo’s comment on: Open Thread May 9 - May 15 2016
Then yet another feature for LW 2.0: open threads published with cron. (I’m assuming that you’re not familiar with wget/curl so there wasn’t even a manual script written)[1]

[1] You can also use Python or some other language in a similar tier.

root Jun 18, 2016, 9:15 AM
1 point
in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: Crazy Ideas Thread
Too easily exploitable. It was common in the fax era to waste a lot of ink (paper too but you can’t waste more than one paper per paper) by sending a completely black document.

There’s probably more sophisticated ways to attack such a system, but don’t ask me. Go read Bruce Schneier.

root Jun 15, 2016, 3:48 PM
−4 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Revitalising Less Wrong is not a lost purpose
I do hope you’re not taking the hypothetical person in the second footnote bent on revitalizing LessWrong with a knack for movie scripts seriously.

I did have an extra footnote at ‘rationality is winning’ mentioning if someone with an extreme desire to see LW prosper would kidnap CFAR staff and other prominent bloggers in order to achieve his goal, but that victory would be too suspicious to pass. The possible escape scene seems interesting, but I can’t think of a way to make the villian worthwhile if he gets outsmarted too easily (Let’s say Eliezer does a sequence of posts and one post has 4 paragraphs, and they begin with H, E, L, and P. But I suppose the villian also read GEB and so he might notice it)

Anyhow, that supposed situation has a low enough probability that it shouldn’t be a worry and there are probably better people to shoot rather than neutrals.

EDIT: And let’s also stop this here, this is getting offtopic.

root Jun 15, 2016, 3:13 PM
−13 points
on: Revitalising Less Wrong is not a lost purpose
Man, I don’t really care what happens to LW but if I had to choose, I honestly would say, ‘dunno, shoot me’.

I’m just really getting the ‘I don’t know what to decide’ feeling here. It’s a bet, and by ‘bet’ I mean something I cannot put into concrete, set-in-stone numbers that I must decide on. For example, I recently got a new haircut. I didn’t get one compliment for it. Do you think it was a good bet? I could’ve got a better haircut. But on the other hand, I’m pretty satisfied with it. I got tired of the same old haircut I had and, despite not getting even one compliment, I’m going to keep going with it.

I once did some mindkilling and tried to cold approach[1] women. A significant majority of them said that they have a boyfriend. Only a few women totally appreciated it. Some of them probably invented an imaginary boyfriend. Maybe some of them later went on Facebook or some other media and complain about random guys hitting on them. I suppose that I made this particular branch of universe a slightly worse place to live in. But a very small minority gave me a wide, unexpected smile and at that moment I wanted to middle finger the non-existing camera filming my life and say “420 is for wankers”.[2]

Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting a previous workplace to say thank you (and ask to keep contact) to a woman who, the moment she saw me, had a welcoming smile and we engaged in conversation in a record-breaking speed of human cognition. And actually part of me screams that this woman is probably nice, or was just curious, or perhaps just happy to see me again, and that the whole effort of dressing up, going the non-trivial travel time, all for what could be yet another (possibly imaginary) boyfriend is a huge waste. But part of me also believes that I could succeed here. Do I know for sure? Nope! It’s yet another bet, and the dealer is the laws of physics (maybe biology is a better fit) and who knows what cards I get.

So let’s wrap this up. I know you like Mark Manson[3] so you probably noticed a similar theme[4] here. The people that believe LessWrong is going to make it should place their bets—bet with what you will. Money, effort, rationality is winning. The other party already placed their bets and the cards are still not revealed and the roulette has still not started spinning. Place your bets and we’ll see who wins.

[1] I basically went with some variation of an introduction, saying that she’s gorgeous and if she’d like to talk or meet up later.

[2] Imagine a Loony Toons character breaking the fourth wall. Alternatively, a paranoid schizophrenic psych ward escapee.

[3] markmanson.net does have excellent stuff. What are you waiting for?

[4] The theme is having to make a decision under unknown possibility of success. Which is the way I see it because I personally haven’t seen too much from the LessWrong 2.0 camp, despite the enthusiasm.

root Jun 15, 2016, 1:55 PM
0 points
in reply to: Manfred’s comment on: Revitalizing Less Wrong seems like a lost purpose, but here are some other ideas
Excellent. Much appreciated.

root Jun 12, 2016, 2:10 PM
0 points
on: Revitalizing Less Wrong seems like a lost purpose, but here are some other ideas
Two questions:
1. Can anyone who is a user for a significant amount of time give links to anything that wasn’t deemed worhy of the sequences but is a worthy read? I have no idea when the sequences were collected but if LW was really great in the past, there would’ve been a bunch of other high-quality posts that are easily missed. This could also double as proof that LW was, indeed, as great as advertised.
2. What do other places have that LW doesn’t? If LW is dedicated to human rationality, is it truly doing that?
3. Am I a complete dumbass for typing this? In hindsight, it doesn’t take a special variation of Godwin’s law to think ‘someone probably posted a similar question before’.