I don’t mean to nitpick, but “ahteism” looks very weird when spelled that way.
Rune
Karma: 379
Seconded. Terrible exposition; it trivializes something that is non-trivial. Also, it would be nice if the writer used paragraphs and did not use CAPS (unless really shouting).
You’re a rationalist if there’s a portrait of you in an attic somewhere getting increasingly irrational everyday.
Rationalist pickup line: “If I asked you out, would your answer be the same as the answer to this question?”
Thanks!
Say Omega appears to you in the middle of the street one day, and shows you a black box. Omega says there is a ball inside which is colored with a single color. You trust Omega.
He now asks you to guess the color of the ball. What should your probability distribution over colors be? He also asks for probability distributions over other things, like the weight of the ball, the size, etc. How does a Bayesian answer these questions?
Is this question easier to answer if it was your good friend X instead of Omega?
I can’t imagine anyone assigning the event probability 0.5 just because it’s a Yes/No question. Does the probability drop to 1⁄3 if I added 1 more option to the question?
The person who assigns probability 1/k to all outcomes of any question with k options is NOT a Bayesian. That’s someone who has misunderstood Bayes rule and should re-read all of Eliezer’s posts.
Why does the Bayesian say that the probability of there being life on Mars is 0.5?
I think the Methuselah Foundation’s credit card idea might also be a good way to receive donations without people actively donating money. Probably also buys more warm fuzzies per dollar, since you can feel good every time you use your credit card.
What is completely sad (besides this horrible murder case), is the inability of either website linked to present a coherent, rational argument. In fact, I haven’t been able to find one website that reveals all facts and then explains them with their point of view in a rational (or even semi-rational) way.
I find this situation almost as depressing as the murder. I couldn’t come to any conclusion based on the poor quality of reasoning used on most websites. Wikipedia, as usual, presents a decent collection of facts.
From the Wikipedia article I could only ascertain that Rudy Guede is very likely guilty. My probabilities for the other two being guilty are low (but have a lot of uncertainty), certainly not enough for me to feel that the verdict is correct.
Advice for future creators of tests: There are people who live outside the US. No one outside the US cares about the 3rd person to be the second dead uncle of the fourth president of the US.
For instance, a majority of tommccabe’s quiz questions are highly US-specific.
The point here is that non-Americans will end up guessing almost all questions, making the whole exercise painful and useless.
Yes, lots of fun was had. Thanks to Michael Vassar and Eliezer Yudkowsky for making it a fun evening for all of us!
I’ll just add my “yes”, even though I suggested the meetup.
WeiDai, good work on reading through Scott’s PostBQP=PP paper and explaining the BQP_p contained in NP result so clearly.
Yeah, my interpretation was similar. It is far too specific to simply be used as an exhibit of sexist thinking.
How is this an LW/OB quote?
LW/OB Rationality Quotes—August 2009
“There is a courage that goes beyond even an atheist sacrificing their life and their hope of immortality. It is the courage of a theist who goes against what they believe to be the Will of God, choosing eternal damnation and defying even morality in order to rescue a slave, or speak out against hell, or kill a murderer… You don’t get a chance to reveal that virtue without making fundamental mistakes about how the universe works, so it is not something to which a rationalist should aspire. But it warms my heart that humans are capable of it.”
-- Eliezer Yudkowsky
“To worship a phenomenon because it seems so wonderfully mysterious, is to worship your own ignorance.”
-- Eliezer Yudkowsky
LessWrongers maybe? Instead of LessWrongians?