Screwtape

Karma: 5,276

I’m Screwtape, also known as Skyler. I’m an aspiring rationalist originally introduced to the community through HPMoR, and I stayed around because the writers here kept improving how I thought. I’m fond of the Rationality As A Martial Art metaphor, new mental tools to make my life better, and meeting people who are strange in ways I find familiar and comfortable. If you’re ever in the Boston area, feel free to say hi.

Starting early in 2023, I’m the ACX Meetups Czar. You might also know me from the New York City Rationalist Megameetup, editing the Animorphs: The Reckoning podfic, or being that guy at meetups with a bright bandanna who gets really excited when people bring up indie tabletop roleplaying games.

I recognize that last description might fit more than one person.

Screwtape Mar 22, 2025, 1:51 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: Ben’s comment on: Socially Graceful Degradation
No, I think I’m actually just wrong here and River is correct. I don’t know how I wound up with the clockwise rule in my head but I just checked the new driver’s pamphlet and it’s first to the intersection. Updated.

Socially Graceful Degradation

ScrewtapeMar 20, 2025, 4:03 AM

53 points

6 comments9 min readLW link

Screwtape Mar 18, 2025, 9:12 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: Alice Blair’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
but predicted that it was instead about sensitivity to subtle changes in the wording of questions.
If I try this again next year I’m inclined to keep the wording the same instead of trying to be subtle.
Regarding the dutch book numbers: it seems like, for each of the individual-question presentations of that data, you removed the outliers. When performing the dutch book calculations, however, it seems like you keep the outliers in.
Yep. Well, in the individual reports I reported the version with the outliers, and then sometimes did another pass without outliers. I kept all of the entries that answered all the questions for the dutch book calculations, even if they were outliers. I think this is the correct move: if someone’s valuations are wild outliers from everyone elses but in a way that multiplies out and gets them back to a 1:1 ratio, then being an outlier isn’t a problem.
(Imagine someone who values a laptop at one million bikes, and a bike at equal to one car, and a car at one millionth of a of a laptop. They’re almost certainly a wild outlier, and I’m confused as heck, but they are consistent in their values!)

Screwtape Mar 18, 2025, 8:54 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: Garrett Baker’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
Hrm. I guess what would be helpful here would be a sense of the range; the average briers floated around .20 to .23, and I don’t have a sense of whether that’s a tight clustering with a bit of noise or a meaningful difference. To use running a mile as a comparison, differences of seconds mostly aren’t important (except at high levels) but differences of minutes are, right?

Screwtape Mar 18, 2025, 8:45 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: mako yass’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
If Other is larger than I expect, I think of that as a reason to try and figure out what the parts of Other are. Amusingly enough for the question, I’m optimistic about solving this by letting people do more free response and having an LLM sift through the responses.

Screwtape Mar 15, 2025, 10:52 PM
3 points
0
in reply to: jenn’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
Thank you! I felt quite clever setting it up.

Screwtape Mar 15, 2025, 9:38 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: SarahNibs’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
Yeah, I should probably add a bit at the start or end of that section that everything in it is potentially selection effect. I don’t know how to look at the thing I’m curious about without that.
Thinking out loud: If you get a random selection of people from the Pushup Club and count how many pushups they can do, then do the same for general population, the difference could be selection effect. People who like doing pushups are more likely to go to pushup club in the first place, and more likely to stick with it. But I can’t realistically pay a bunch of Mechanical Turkers to hang out on LessWrong for six years and watch what happens. Presumably there’s some approach actual scientists have here, but I don’t know what it is. Suggestions welcome.
In the mean time I’m going to add a bit towards the start of the section warning of potential selection effects.

Screwtape Mar 15, 2025, 9:16 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: Sherrinford’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
No, I think that’s correct.
There’s 107 people who answered above 200, 21 who answered exactly 200, and 113 people who answered below 200. The second quartile (aka the median) is 200. But nobody guessed a negative number, so the people who guessed low aren’t pulling the mean down that much. Meanwhile 33 people guessed 1000 or higher, and they can yank the mean a lot without doing that much to the median. If you’re asking people to generate numbers, you tend to get whole number quartiles because nobody guesses there’s 100.5 stations.
Imagine a the set [1,1,1,2,2,2,2,100,100]. The average is ~23.444, but the median is 2.
Or have I misunderstood the thing that you think needs to be corrected?

Screwtape Mar 15, 2025, 1:56 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: dirk’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
Wouldn’t that get rid of all of the table of contents?
Ideally I’d have a hierarchy of headings. I think what’s happening is it picks up some (but not all) lines that are entirely bold, and treats those as a sort of Heading 4.

Screwtape Mar 14, 2025, 11:53 PM
2 points
0
on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
Future Survey Discussion thread

Screwtape Mar 14, 2025, 11:51 PM
2 points
0
on: 2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results
A Screwtape Point (and upvotes) to whoever can tell me how to fix the table of contents.

HPMOR Anniversary Party: Berkeley Edition

ScrewtapeMar 14, 2025, 10:44 PM

19 points

1 comment1 min readLW link

2024 Unofficial LessWrong Survey Results

ScrewtapeMar 14, 2025, 10:29 PM

104 points

25 comments45 min readLW link

Screwtape Mar 14, 2025, 9:52 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: notfnofn’s comment on: HPMOR Anniversary Parties: Coordination, Resources, and Discussion
That’s just plain unfortunate.

Screwtape Mar 13, 2025, 4:52 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: HPMOR Anniversary Parties: Coordination, Resources, and Discussion
Huh. Let me check with the local organizer and see if they have an update.

Screwtape Mar 13, 2025, 4:07 PM
3 points
0
in reply to: thegreatnick’s comment on: HPMOR Anniversary Guide
Ooh, please share the butter beer recipe?
I was leaning towards reading part of Dumbledore’s letter in 119. There are a lot of funny, silly lines I want to quote throughout the day but this piece is short and poignant.
There can only be one king upon the chessboard.
There can only be one piece whose value is beyond price.
That piece is not the world, it is the world’s peoples, wizard and Muggle alike, goblins and house-elves and all.
While survives any remnant of our kind, that piece is yet in play, though the stars should die in heaven.
And if that piece be lost, the game ends.
Know the value of all your other pieces, and play to win.

HPMOR Anniversary Parties: Coordination, Resources, and Discussion

ScrewtapeMar 11, 2025, 1:30 AM

51 points

6 comments7 min readLW link

Conflict Vs. Mistake

ScrewtapeMar 10, 2025, 1:16 AM

8 points

0 comments1 min readLW link

Screwtape Mar 10, 2025, 1:11 AM
4 points
0
in reply to: ProgramCrafter’s comment on: HPMOR Anniversary Guide
What shape is the screen?
This one is probably my favourite for an event banner.

Crock, Crocker, Crockiest

Screwtape and NoSignalNoNoise

Mar 10, 2025, 1:08 AM

8 points

0 comments1 min readLW link

Screwtape

So­cially Grace­ful Degradation

HPMOR An­niver­sary Party: Berkeley Edition

2024 Unoffi­cial LessWrong Sur­vey Results

HPMOR An­niver­sary Par­ties: Co­or­di­na­tion, Re­sources, and Discussion

Con­flict Vs. Mistake