Great example. It is an isomorphic situation, that paints it in a completely different light.
If you are asking me personally, I can see myself doing just that in some cases, though definitely not as a standard way of obtaining goods. The reason for the original question was to see what the rest of you think of the matter.
Yes, pretty much. Has this been discussed before? I did a search and found nothing similar here.
EDIT: I found this somewhat related post: Really Extreme Altruism.
If it is a well known controversial issue, how about a poll to satisfy my curiosity without sparking any flames..
So: legal issues aside, is it ethical to steal from businesses in order to give to [EA-approved] charity?
[pollid:700]
It is just a thought experiment, not something that could realistically exist. Suppose the president/king/whoever gave you (and only you) this power, and while the sellers are furious, they can’t do anything about it. They are not participating by choice.
Suppose you have the option that with every purchase you make, you can divert a percentage (including 0 and 100) of the money to a GiveWell endorsed charity that you’re not personally affiliated with. Meaning, you still pay the same price, but the seller gets less/none, and the rest goes to charity. Seller has no right to complain. To what extent would you use this? Would it be different for different products, or sellers? Do you have any specific examples of where you would or wouldn’t use it?
Also, assume you can start a company, and that the same thing applies to all purchases the company makes, would you do it? Any specific business?
Can the friend and myself come up with a protocol beforehand?
This seems easily testable. Though I cannot recommend any, I’m sure there are online memory tests that let you know how you performed relative to all the other subjects. Maybe not good enough, as there is a selection bias in the sample of people who take those tests, but it will give you some info.
However, I think that you have an above average memory and are only noticing this because you usually hang around people who have above average memory as well[1]. Perhaps a more useful test would be getting your friends to take the test as well and compare the results. Maybe ask on LW for subjects? I’d participate.
[1] Assumptions:
You have an above average IQ. I a priori assume this of all LWers.
There is a positive correlation between IQ and memory. A quick search gives results in favor of the assumption, but I didn’t dig deeper.
You hang around people of similar IQ.
While expanding your selection pool has obvious benefits, I think there is a good alternative route with regards to your tiny circle of friends and acquaintances.
Suppose you can easily quantify the partner-compatibility of a person, let’s say on a 0-10 scale, probably exponential distribution. The best you can find among your friends is a 6. That’s unsatisfactory, so you start searching, and after a while you find an 8, which is satisfactory, and you marry them.
However, this model is flawed: The grades can change over time—both the other person and you can change. These changes are more likely to happen earlier in life, such as during teen years or early twenties. Thus the model would have to be expanded to account for the potential compatibility, or even a function how the compatibility changes with time.
If we were to look at this model, that 6 from high school has a much better potential. In a long term relationship, people effect other people, slowly changing them towards themselves. This process works both ways, so you have two entities slowly pulling each other closer. What can easily happen is that in a few years time that it took to find the 8, you have created an 8. Furthermore, since you were also changed in the process, that 8 might no longer be an 8. It could be a 7, or a 9. It could also have a better rate of change, meaning a potential 10.
I would, however, assume the rate of change slows down as people grow older (I haven’t any data to confirm this assumption), meaning a change from a self-made 8 to a natural 8 wouldn’t yield much benefits.
To expand on the business metaphor: You are running a business, and you need someone to take the position of CTO. You can look for skilled CTOs, but your existing employees have the advantage of already knowing the company and the business process. No doubt, many external applicants, given two years would be better than any of the existing employees, but how many would be better than existing employee with two extra years of experience as CTO? Basically, you need to plot grade(time) for all applicants, see how long will it take for one of the external ones to beat the employee, and decide whether the loss is worth it.
After a brain surgery, my father developed Anterograde amnesia. Think Memento by Chris Nolan. His reactions to different comments/situations were always identical. If I were to mention a certain word, it would always invoke the same joke. Seeing his wife wearing a certain dress always produces the same witty comment. He was also equally amused by his wittiness every time.
For several months after the surgery he had to be kept on tight watch, and was prone to just do something that was routine pre-op, so we found a joke he finds extremely funny and which he hasn’t heard before the surgery, and we would tell it every time we want him to forget where he was going. So, he would laugh for a good while, get completely disoriented, and go back to his sofa.
For a long while, we were unable to convince him that he had a problem, or even that he had the surgery (he would explain the scar away through some fantasy). And even when we manage, it lasts only for a minute or two.. Since then, I’ve developed several signals I would use if I found myself in an isomorphic situation. I had already read HPMoR by that time, but have discarded Harry’s lip-biting as mostly pointless in real life.
If your school hours are flexible, and you can find such a job, you can also consider an inverted approach:
Find a full time job that doesn’t require constant action, something where you spend most of the time on stand by—Let’s say a not-so-busy call center, or a rarely visited shop. That way, you can spend all of the standby time studying.
The downsides are obvious—The job itself will likely be something you don’t enjoy, and the hours you spend doing it won’t give you any new skills. The upside is that you pick any skill to improve in the standby hours, and you get a fulltime pay.
Now, it isn’t easy to find a job where you have that much downtime, and where they tolerate you doing something unrelated, but if you could meet all the prerequisites, I think it would be worth it.
Unlikely to ever make an appearance, due to meta-knowledge:
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You are right. I’m updating in favor of “Tom Riddle” showing on the map. Still not convinced because when Dumbledore says “Show me Tom Riddle” the twins don’t go “Hey, that’s the guy that keeps popping up!”. That might have happened off screen, but we don’t see any evidence that it did.
EDIT: I have re-read that part, and Dumbledore waits until he is alone in the room to say “Find Tom Riddle”.
On the other hand, I admire the poetry where having a taboo on the name and story of Voldemort ultimately dooms you, just because you didn’t want to remember and talk about the bad things. Harry even talks about this in one of the early chapters, I believe.
True.
Also, I assume if they saw Tom Riddle or Salazar Slytherin or some other name they consider utterly evil, they’d tell Dumbledore immediately, rather than dismiss it as a bug. Even if they’ve never heard of Pascal’s Mugging, that’s just the sane thing to do.
I don’t think Tom Riddle would show up on the map, as Dumbledore drew a circle around Quirrell and presented him to the Hogwarts Security System as “The Defense Professor”. I’m guessing the map just taps into that system, so that is all they’ll see. It could be the constant one, as all the others show up by name. but I’m not sure they’d make a fuss about that.
As for the intermittent, I’m guessing it’s Harry when he wears the Cloak—It is explicitly said that it doesn’t just turn you invisible like other cloaks, but hides you completely (except for the eye, apparently).
My other candidate for the intermittent one is Time Turned people, but since several students have Time Turners I’m guessing the twins would figure it out eventually. More likely, it just shows the ‘current’ version of the person.
...Actually, if that were the case, the map could be used to figure out which of the copies isn’t time turned. Not sure what you’d do with that info, though.
This list has been compiled on reddit some time ago. It goes up to chapter 85. Some things have been resolved since then.
That was actually the original topic of a conversation that inspired this question.