Screwtape

Karma: 4,006

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 21 Nov 2024 0:41 UTC
4 points
0
on: Cost, Not Sacrifice
Not the most important response to this essay but “Leave the hand-wringing to those with all their fingers” made me laugh. Thanks for the smile.

A Conflicted Linkspost

Screwtape21 Nov 2024 0:37 UTC

11 points

0 comments3 min readLW link

Screwtape 19 Nov 2024 17:04 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: silentbob’s comment on: The Third Fundamental Question
I can understand that feeling. I currently disagree with it, but I think I understand it.
Lots of people seem to do something like this on intuition. Some people don’t. Take the “why do you care about something boring like horses?” example. What do you say to someone who makes that kind of mistake?
“Did you mean to make them upset?” “No.”
“Did you think about how they would react to you calling their interest boring?” “No. I didn’t mean to call it boring.”
“If you think about it, do you understand how they interpreted what you said as calling their interest boring?” “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Did you think about how they would interpret what you said before you said it?” “Not really.”
“Can you think about how someone will interpret what you say before you say it next time?” “Yeah, I can do that.”
I say please and thank you when asking for a dish at the table. I worked out what kinds of raised voice parses as anger, and don’t use it unless I’m actually angry- and even then, I try to say calmly that something makes me angry rather than yell at people. There are countless small touches in how we phrase things and how we hold ourselves that help everyone feel better about social interactions, and some people genuinely do not do those things automatically. I think it’s better to do them by explicitly thinking about it rather than not do them at all.
You can overdo this, leading to complicated webs of half-truths and things needing to be said just right, and I think that can be bad. You can also overdo this and leave yourself an anxious wreck, overindexed on whether anything you say or do will make people upset with you. But for people who don’t do the thing, and who are regularly running into people getting mad at them? Yeah, I think it’s worth taking some time and energy to practice this.

Screwtape 19 Nov 2024 16:41 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Sting’s comment on: The Third Fundamental Question
Huh! I view it as a bit overbroad since “what do I think I know?” is sometimes about things like “is the bloke across the poker table from me holding an ace?” but I think most of my “what do I think I know?” internal questions are about what’s happened in the past. “Does sugar dissolve in water?” often breaks down into “the last time I tried it, did sugar dissolve in water?” or “have people told me that sugar dissolves in water and were they usually right about things like that?”
Still, the past/present/future frame isn’t the key part of the third fundamental question. Best of luck and skill with the new technique!

Boston Secular Solstice 2024

Screwtape, jefftk and Taymon Beal

19 Nov 2024 5:05 UTC

7 points

0 comments1 min readLW link

The Third Fundamental Question

Screwtape15 Nov 2024 4:01 UTC

64 points

7 comments6 min readLW link

Screwtape 14 Nov 2024 18:27 UTC
9 points
3
in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Anvil Problems
Yep, compilers and booting are good examples. Making a compiler from scratch is a pain in the rear, making a second compiler when you already have the first is easier.
For a concrete example: I once screwed up my operating system and got it into a state where it wouldn’t boot. Downloading a fresh copy of an OS is pretty straightforward, if you have a working copy of an operating system already, but I didn’t. In this case, I wound up asking a friend to download a copy and then used that to get my machine working again.

Screwtape 14 Nov 2024 18:20 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: StartAtTheEnd’s comment on: Anvil Problems
I’m not sure I understand your point, but I think you’re pointing out that these aren’t always booleans?
There’s cases where if you’re doing well, it’s easier to do even better. Money is fairly continuous but so is friendship. (You might have acquaintances even if you don’t have close friends.) The central example of an Anvil here is boolean though; if you have enough juice in your car battery to start the car you’re fine and can charge it up more, but if you don’t have enough juice then you need someone to jump you.

Screwtape 14 Nov 2024 18:15 UTC
2 points
−1
in reply to: Martin Randall’s comment on: Anvil Problems
Darn. Seems like this particular bit of jargon is already taken. I haven’t commonly heard this use of Anvil Problem, hence thinking the phrase was open, but oh well.
The “Anvil” part is pretty core to my mnemonic for it. Anyone have thoughts on whether something like Anvil Issues or Anvil Blockers would be workable?

Anvil Problems

Screwtape13 Nov 2024 22:57 UTC

88 points

12 comments3 min readLW link

Screwtape 13 Nov 2024 19:53 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Cole Wyeth’s comment on: Graceful Degradation
Yep, and to spell out the general case: there are techniques you shouldn’t use unless you’re confident you can use them correctly, because they do not degrade gracefully. Often these techniques aren’t taught unless the instructor is reasonably sure the student has the other pieces to use it well.
As a note of pedagogy I usually prefer when the teachers says something like “This is the basic way to do it, and we’re going to practice this first. If you’re unsure, do it this way. We might get into variations later.”

Registrations Open for 2024 NYC Secular Solstice & Megameetup

Joe Rogero and Screwtape

12 Nov 2024 17:50 UTC

13 points

0 comments1 min readLW link

2024 NYC Secular Solstice & Megameetup

Joe Rogero and Screwtape

12 Nov 2024 17:46 UTC

15 points

0 comments1 min readLW link

The Packaging and the Payload

Screwtape12 Nov 2024 3:07 UTC

76 points

1 comment5 min readLW link

Graceful Degradation

Screwtape5 Nov 2024 23:57 UTC

78 points

8 comments4 min readLW link

Screwtape 3 Nov 2024 13:38 UTC
2 points
0
on: 2024 Unofficial LW Community Census, Request for Comments
Per request, I just added “LLM Frequency” and “LLM Use case” to the survey, under LessWrong Team Questions. I’ll probably tweak the options and might move it to Bonus Questions later when I can sit down and take some time to think. Suggestions on the wording are welcome!

Screwtape 3 Nov 2024 13:37 UTC
9 points
0
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: JargonBot Beta Test
On it!
I just added “LLM Frequency” and “LLM Use case” to the survey, under LessWrong Team Questions. I’ll probably tweak the options and might move it to Bonus Questions later. Suggestions welcome!

Screwtape 2 Nov 2024 0:19 UTC
2 points
0
on: 2024 Unofficial LW Community Census, Request for Comments
So, I think Fight 1 is funny, but it is kind of high context, involving reading two somewhat long stories. (Planecrash in particular is past a million words long!) I’d considered “Who would win in a fight, Eliezer Yudkowsky or Scott Alexander? [“Eliezer”, “Scott”, “Wait, what’s this? It’s Aella with a steel chair!”]” and “Who is the rightful caliph? [“Eliezer Yudkowsky”,”Scott Alexander”, “Wait, what’s this? It’s Robin Hanson with a steel chair!”]” but feel a bit weird about including real people.
I think they’re just as funny though, and far more people will understand it, so maybe I should switch. Anyone have convincing thoughts here?

Screwtape 2 Nov 2024 0:07 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: DanielFilan’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LW Community Census, Request for Comments
I have no opinion on the difference and chatgpt agrees with you, so sure, changed to “eighty percent of the benefit.”

Screwtape 2 Nov 2024 0:05 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: ProgramCrafter’s comment on: 2024 Unofficial LW Community Census, Request for Comments
Thanks for the year catch.
I could check their expected price of bitcoin, but that feels like more weight than I want to put on bitcoin- it’s already a little bit overlapping with the S&P question. What I’d like to replace it with is something that 1. will have a definitive answer by next summer, 2. people have enough context to understand the question, and 3. isn’t at obvious.
The questions are not checking for social skills. I am not sure how I’d do that on an online survey that’s going to be self reported, and if you have thoughts about that I’m kind of curious? What percentage of the survey being about social skills would be sufficient? (I’m heavily into meetups and in-person gatherings for LessWrong events, so I might be one of the more receptive audiences for this line of argument!)