TropicalFruit

• TropicalFruitMar 29, 2023, 10:28 AM

  3 points

  on: Gen­er­al­iz­ing From One Example

  A classic example of the typical mind fallacy: everyone has an internal monologue.

  Actually, no, they don’t: https://​​irisreading.com/​​how-do-i-know-if-i-have-an-inner-monologue/​​

  I’d expect nearly every LW’er talks to themselves, likely constantly. I certainly believed everyone had an inner monologue for most of my life, until the idea that people don’t started spreading around the internet a few years ago. Both parties were shocked that the other existed (myself included).

  It makes me wonder just how many other things are out there like this.

• TropicalFruitMar 29, 2023, 10:21 AM

  7 points

  0

  in reply to: scientism’s comment on: Gen­er­al­iz­ing From One Example

  This 1000x.

  Related is replacing the naive idea that “money corrupts” with the truer “money makes you more of what you are.”

  Most people’s inherent corruption and selfishness is reigned in by a lack of power. Money allows it to come out. The nice thing about (ideal) capitalism is that only hard working, risk taking, creative people end up with power, which leads to more hard work, more risk taking, and more creativity.

  It’s the people who acquire money through other means that end up “corrupted” by it, even though they’re really just showing who they were all along.

• TropicalFruitMar 29, 2023, 10:14 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: bill’s comment on: Gen­er­al­iz­ing From One Example

  I think my inability to image form like this is why I’ve always been so bad at chess.

  I can really only hold an image of one word in my mind. If I want to read “God” on the top, I completely lose the second and third rows. I can also write in “Gas” in the first column and read it (barely), but the second I add the second word, everything gets blurred (abstractly). The information just… isn’t there.

  Despite this, I’m extremely good at mental rotations… which seems strange because it’s also visual imagery. Somehow, I’m a lot better at holding a shape in my mind and rotating it, than I am at holding a grid in my mind and writing on it.

  Growing up always being told how smart I was, it was kind of jarring to be so bad at a simple intelligence task like visual imagery. Chess gave me the hint—in every other game, I’d be trivially top 20% or so after just learning the rules, but in chess, I had to grind for like a 1500 ELO, and just auto-piloting, I can’t even play at a 1200 level consistently.

  Good life lesson I guess though.

• TropicalFruitMar 19, 2023, 1:01 AM

  0 points

  1

  on: What did you do with GPT4?

  I like getting it to write funny stuff based on it’s left leaning, mainstream slant. So “Write me an article: We need to talk about the racism problem with pennies.”

  It’s amazing. You should try it.

• TropicalFruitMar 17, 2023, 3:10 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Charlie Sanders’s comment on: Begin­ning to feel like a con­spir­acy theorist

  How are these the same thing?

  • believing data which turns out to be wrong

  • asserting that people are conspiring to cause some bad outcome

  Some studies say masks work, some don’t. If you incorrectly evaluate the evidence and believe that they don’t work… how is that related to accusing people of conspiring? You’ve just analyzed the evidence wrong, but you haven’t made any claims relating to any people, or plans, or schemes.

• TropicalFruitMar 17, 2023, 3:05 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Insub’s comment on: Begin­ning to feel like a con­spir­acy theorist

  Do you think it’s worth actually memorizing a few actual references? I.e. - Study by X done in X year, instead of just “other studies.”

  It often seems like “other studies disagree” is only one small step above just asserting it.

  This is coming from someone who (as you know) makes this assert-contrarian-without-sources faux pas all the time.

• TropicalFruitMar 17, 2023, 3:02 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: tailcalled’s comment on: Begin­ning to feel like a con­spir­acy theorist

  Conspiracy =/​= wrong + contrarian. That’s an issue with the current Overton window. Conspiracy used to mean people conspiring.

  So there’s a difference between “carbs bad”—which is probably just wrong and contrarian, and “cereal companies colluded to convince you meat and fat are unhealthy, so you’d eat their sugar cereal,” which is a conspiracy theory.

  The reason conspiracy theories are typically (rightly) ridiculed is that they tack on a whole bunch of non Occam’s Razor propositions to a theory, without the accompanying evidence. The conspiracy from cereal companies is one possible explanation for why meat/​fat were incorrectly demonized, but it requires more evidence to assert than just “fat and meat have been incorrectly demonized.”

  All this is to say—he’s not a conspiracy theorist, even with the carbs/​fat thing. He might be wrong and contrarian (I also believe carbs are fine, so I believe he is), but to call it “conspiracy” is incorrect.

• TropicalFruitMar 17, 2023, 2:58 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: M. Y. Zuo’s comment on: Begin­ning to feel like a con­spir­acy theorist

  No that’s expressly NOT what he’s saying. For example—obesity is dangerous. Everybody thinks obesity is dangerous, and they’re correct.

  He’s just saying that some of the public wisdom seems totally wrong. That [everybody thinks it] has turned out to be much weaker evidence than he originally thought, though still evidence in favor, and certainly not evidence against.

• TropicalFruitMar 15, 2023, 2:30 AM

  1 point

  1

  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Will the Bit­coin fee mar­ket ac­tu­ally work?

  Gold used physical-world trade for a long long time, it did not (and still does not) self-host ownership transfers.

  You’re right, it’s not identical. However, monetary supply was decided via proof-of-work. Chain of ownership and custody was not. I was referring to monetary policy here, but that is an important distinction.

  There’s no intrinsic value behind it (that is, no industrial use and no government demanding their taxes/​payments in that form)

  The use of gold in electronics makes it a worse form of money, not better. The fact that you have to put money in your phone to make it work is very economically awkward.

  As for intrinsic value—no currency has intrinsic value. It’s a network of people who agree something has value in order to animate trade.

  Bitcoin’s value proposition is that it functions as a unit of account/​store of value better than any other currency right now, incentivizing people to store value and account in it. Right now, it’s store of value is there. Unit of account may be close, and medium of exchange seems a ways off, if it does, in fact, get there. That’s the value proposition—better money, thereby causing better economic coordination.

  The question of whether a currency is inflationary or deflationary for any given period of time is pretty small

  I hadn’t considered this. I guess we’d also expect the rate of economy fluctuation to increase, like everything else does. It’s quite possible we’ll see a technology better than Bitcoin, or even something stranger, like successful friendly AI obviating the need for money, within a century. Still, I think that if the claims of deflationary death spirals from history are accurate (which I do suspect they aren’t), then it makes sense to ask this question, even in the short-ish term.

• TropicalFruitMar 12, 2023, 3:20 AM

  4 points

  0

  in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: Against Com­plete Black­out Cur­tains For Sleep

  If I trust my body to tell me when it’s tired, I’ll work all night until about 8-9am, and then go to sleep.

  Are there things you do to get your body’s natural sense to actually match up to reality? Turning down the lights or altering the temperature?

  My body literally doesn’t send sleep signals. It might send vague fatigue signals at some points, but without actual effort, I would literally stay up all night, every night.

  The only exception is on days when I’m already very sleep deprived. Say I slept 2 hours and then worked a 10 hour day. That night, I’ll fall asleep at 9-10 without any effort, but that’s the rare exception.

• TropicalFruitMar 12, 2023, 2:33 AM

  7 points

  0

  in reply to: RHollerith’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  Okay but I just don’t agree.

  Let each black box have some probability to kill you, uniformly chosen from a set of possible probabilities. Let’s start with a simple one: that probability is 0 or 1.

  The a prior chance to kill you is .5.

  After the box doesn’t kill you, you update, and now the chance is 0.

  What about if we use a uniform distribution from [0,1)? Some boxes are .3 to kill you, others .78.

  Far more of the experiences of not dying are from the low p-kill boxes than from the high p-kill ones. When people select the same box, instead of a new one, after not being killed, that brings the average kill rate of selected boxes down. Run this experiment for long enough, and the only boxes still being selected are the extremely low p-kill boxes that haven’t killed all their subjects yet.

  This time, could you make a stronger objection, that’s more directly addressed at my counter-example?

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 9:47 PM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: RHollerith’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  Replace thief with a black box that either explodes and kills you, or doesn’t. It has some chance to kill you, but you don’t know what that chance is.

  I was put in a room with black-box-one 5 times. Each time it didn’t explode.

  Now, I have a choice: I can go back in the room with black-box-one, or I can go to a room with black-box-two.

  I’ll take black-box-one, based on prior evidence.

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 5:28 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: wolajacy’s comment on: Dice De­ci­sion Making

  Your Latex didn’t quite work.

  Also, here’s three quick examples for anyone still wondering exactly how this works. Remember that the chance of flipping tails until a given digit in the binary expansion, then flipping heads, is $(\frac{1}{2}{)}^n$ where n is the digit number (1/​2 for the first digit after the decimal, ¹⁄₄ for the second, etc).

  $P=\frac{1}{4}$

  $P_2=.01$

  My chance to land on the 1 with a heads is exactly $\frac{1}{4}$.

  $P=\frac{2}{3}$

  $P_2=.101010...$

  My chance to land on a 1 with my first heads is $\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{32}+...=\frac{2}{3}$

  $P=\frac{1}{7}$

  $P_2=.001001...$

  My chance to land on a 1 with my first heads is $\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{64}+...$

  The only semi-tough part is doing the base 2 long division to get from your fraction to a binary decimal, but you can just use an online calculator for that. The coolest part is that your expected number of flips is 2, because you stop after one heads.

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 5:06 AM

  2 points

  1

  in reply to: Victor Novikov’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  Since reading the sequences, I’ve made much more accurate predictions about the world.

  Both the guiding principle of making beliefs pay rent in anticipated experience, as well as the tools by which to acquire those accurate beliefs, have worked for me.

  So at an object level, I disagree with your claim. Also, if you’re going to introduce topics like “meta-rationality” and “nebulosity” as part of your disagreement, you kind of have to defend them. You can’t just link a word salad and expect people to engage. The first thing I’m looking for is a quick, one or two paragraph summary of the idea so I can decide whether it’s worth it to pursue further.

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 4:56 AM

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Noosphere89’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  I think it’s appropriate to draw some better lines through concept space for apocalyptic predictions, when determining a base rate, than just “here’s an apocalyptic prediction and a date.” They aren’t all created equal.

  Herbert W Armstrong is on this list 4 times… each time with a new incorrect prediction. So you’re counting this guy who took 4 guesses, all wrong, as 4 independent samples on which we should form a base rate.

  And by using this guy in the base rate, you’re implying Eliezer’s prediction is in the same general class as Armstrong’s, which is a stretch to say the least.

  A pretty simple class distinction is: how accurate are other predictions the person has made? How has Eliezer’s prediction record been? How have his AI timeline predictions been?

  I don’t know the answers to these questions, maybe they really have been bad, but I’m assuming they’re pretty good. If that’s the case, then clearly Eliezer’s prediction doesn’t deserve to classified with the predictions listed on that page.

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 4:48 AM

  6 points

  2

  in reply to: MSRayne’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  I’ve also noticed those tendencies, not in the community but in myself.

  Selfishness. Classification of people as “normies.” Mental health instability. Machiavellianism.

  But...

  They get stronger as I look at the world like a rationalist. You read books like Elephant in the Brain and find yourself staring at a truth you don’t want to see. I wish God were real. I wish I were still a Christian with those guardrails erected to prevent me from seeing the true nature of the world.

  But the more I look, the more like it looks like a non-moral, brutally unfair, unforgiving stochastic game we’re all forced to play for… no real reason?

  Obviously I’d like to me mentally healthier, more loving and selfless, etc, but… I don’t know. I can’t lie to myself. I’m stuck in between losing my old flawed, factually inaccurate philosophies, but not really having something better to replace them with yet. Just staring into the abyss of the amoral world and getting lost. I suspect most new rationalists are also in that space.

  What links here?

  • What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture? by tailcalled (Mar 10, 2023, 1:17 PM; 16 points)

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 4:40 AM

  7 points

  0

  in reply to: RHollerith’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  Counterpoint:

  I’m at a local convenient store. A thief routinely robs me. He points a gun at me, threatens me, but never shoots, even when I push back a little. At this point, it’s kind of like we both know what’s happening, even though, technically, there’s a chance of physical danger.

  Had this guy shot me, I wouldn’t be alive to reason about his next visit.

  Now consider a different thief comes in, also armed. What is my probability of getting shot, as compared with the first thief?

  Much, much, higher with the second thief. My past experiences with the first thief act as evidence towards the update that I’m less likely to be shot. With this new thief, I don’t have that evidence, so my probability of being shot is just the based rate based on my read of the situation.

  I believe updating on the non-fatal encounters with the first thief is correct, and it seems to me analogous to updating on the sun not having exploded. Thoughts?

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 4:35 AM

  10 points

  10

  in reply to: RHollerith’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  Off topic, but I’d just like to say this “good/​bad comment” vs “I agree/​disagree” voting distinction is amazing.

  It allows us to separate our feeling on the content of the comment from our feeling on the appropriateness of the comment in the discussion. We can vote to disagree with a post without insulting the user for posting it. On reddit, this is sorely lacking, and it’s one (of many) reasons every sub is an unproductive circle jerk.

  I upvoted both of your comments, while also voting to disagree. Thanks for posting them. What a great innovation to stimulate discussion.

• TropicalFruitMar 11, 2023, 4:30 AM

  6 points

  4

  in reply to: lc’s comment on: What do you think is wrong with ra­tio­nal­ist cul­ture?

  I feel the same way. I like talking with people on here, but in almost every subject I have nothing substantive to contribute; I’m just a consumer.

  I wish there were a broader, reddit-style aspect to this site for more ordinary posts. They don’t have to be about Kim Kardashian or anything, but just regular economics, the current bank runs, Bitcoin, lifestyle/​fitness/​nutrition stuff, interesting links. You know, minus the reddit toxicity and religious zealotry in every subreddit.

  Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe having the majority of the sub dedicated to AI alignment really is the way to go. It’s just… I’m not smart enough, nor do I have the resources to meaningfully help on that front, and I suspect there are many like me in the IQ 130-145 range who absolutely love finally finding a community they can relate to, but don’t have the 160+ IQ to really break ground on alignment research.

  Unless I’m selling us regular geniuses short, but I don’t think I am (sadly).

[Question] Will the Bit­coin fee mar­ket ac­tu­ally work?