Xachariah

Karma: 3,634

Xachariah Aug 22, 2013, 9:37 PM
5 points
on: Are ‘Evidence-based’ policies damaging policymaking?
What the heck does opposing ‘Evidence-based’ policy mean that you support?

Non-evidence based policy? Really?

Super-evidence-based policy? (That’s some damn interesting marketing propaganda.)

I literally cannot wrap my head around what the first article wants us to base our policy on except “listen to what we say, and ignore any contrary evidence.”

Xachariah Jul 28, 2013, 5:08 AM
0 points
in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: The Robots, AI, and Unemployment Anti-FAQ

raising the minimum wage makes lower-productivity workers permanently unemployable, because their work is not worth the price, so no one can afford to hire them any more.

Employment is a function of being “worth the price” as you put it. But “worth the price” is not a fixed point; it is a function of demand. If only a handful of people want to buy your product, adding another person for $5/hr may not be worth the price. If everyone in the world were willing and able to buy your product, then you’d hire even if you had to pay $50/hr if you needed to.

Demand is a function of employment and wages. If wages go up then demand goes up… which increases employment.

Increasing minimum wage has never been shown to send away jobs.

Xachariah Jul 27, 2013, 4:51 AM
8 points
in reply to: maia’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96

until one day he took it off and got screwed

He took it off and gave it to his son. In canon he meets death intentionally.

Xachariah Jul 25, 2013, 11:02 AM
0 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Instrumental rationality/self help resources
Correct. My point is that the Blueprint has conflicting messages about male attraction. It says one thing explicitly and very different thing implicitly.

I hold that the implicit teachings more closely match reality.

Xachariah Jul 21, 2013, 11:28 PM
1 point
in reply to: Velorien’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
The people who point this out would be asked “Where’s the proof?”

And if they could produce some, everyone would believe. And if they couldn’t produce any… well why should they believe it in the first place?

Xachariah Jul 21, 2013, 11:27 PM
3 points
in reply to: BlindIdiotPoster’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
Your intuitions about evolution and my intuitions must be drastically different.

I can imagine no possible world where human bodies were attached to an immortal decision-making engine, on an evolutionary timescale, where human brain biology still looks practically indistinguishable from all other mammal brain biology and where human grief behavior still corresponds to other mammal grief behavior.

Xachariah Jul 20, 2013, 9:39 AM
0 points
in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: Instrumental rationality/self help resources
whoops, misplaced a word. I’ve edited it.

Xachariah Jul 20, 2013, 4:26 AM
7 points
in reply to: baiter’s comment on: Rationality Quotes July 2013
If wishes were horses we’d all be eating steak.
- Jayne Cobb, Objects in Space, Firefly

Xachariah Jul 19, 2013, 11:44 PM
9 points
in reply to: Velorien’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
It’s not Harry’s observations; it’s everybody’s observations of the world. People don’t act like souls exist. If Dumbledore really thought that people just go on to another great adventure when they die, he wouldn’t have a bunch of pedestals of broken wands.

Nobody in HPMOR believes in souls or acts like they exist. That’s why Harry can decisively conclude that they don’t exist.

Xachariah Jul 19, 2013, 8:32 PM
3 points
in reply to: gothgirl420666’s comment on: Instrumental rationality/self help resources
Yes I disagree. The blueprint covers that both sexes attraction is value based. Women’s attraction is dynamic because man’s value is dynamic; man’s attraction is static because women’s value is static (looks based). I’d argue that women’s value is static because they don’t know how to hold intrinsic value and project that value to others aside from with their looks, just as 90% of men don’t know how to do so either.

A repeated message in the blueprint is the idea that you’ll become attractive towards women, sleep with a lot of attractive girls, then you’ll find the one that you really want and use your blueprint skills maximize your chance to get her, then you’ll settle down with the one when you’re ready to exit the game. This is basically the promise that’s made throughout. However, the one you really want isn’t defined as the hottest girl, but the awesome girl that you want to be with more than anything. There’s an implicit acknowledgement that traits other than physical attractiveness matter when men look at women.

My argument is that yes those traits matter, and yes they’re the same traits that the blueprint teaches men to have.

Xachariah Jul 19, 2013, 10:10 AM
7 points
in reply to: gothgirl420666’s comment on: Instrumental rationality/self help resources
The blueprint makes that distinction but it’s wrong. Male attraction is isomorphic to female attraction. The blueprint simply doesn’t look into what it takes to attract men, so it doesn’t make any statements about male attraction other than the superficial.

Anecdotally, as I became more attractive to women I became more attractive to men too. Not in a gay way, they just wanted my approval more and listened more and wanted to be my friends more than before. I felt the same way about my PUA friends as well; I could tell that they were getting cooler and I just wanted to be around them more.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the teachings work on men too.

Xachariah Jul 18, 2013, 11:58 PM
4 points
in reply to: pianoforte611’s comment on: Instrumental rationality/self help resources
Yes. It’s not exclusively about picking up women, and from what I can recall the vast majority is about becoming an attractive person in general. Even the stuff about attracting women should generalize to women/gay men attracting straight/gay men.

Xachariah Jul 16, 2013, 4:16 AM
7 points
in reply to: FiftyTwo’s comment on: Open thread, July 16-22, 2013
Karen Pryor’s Don’t Shoot the Dog.

Just kidding… sorta (Spoiler: It’s a book on behavior training.)

Xachariah Jul 12, 2013, 5:54 AM
0 points
on: [LINK] If correlation doesn’t imply causation, then what does?
Seems like a much longer (and harder to read) version of Eliezer’s Causal Model post. What can I expect to get out of this one that I wouldn’t find in Eliezer’s version?

Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there’.

-XKCD

Xachariah Jul 12, 2013, 12:57 AM
24 points
on: Seed Study: Polyphasic Sleep in Ten Steps
Having done Uberman in the past, I’d like to recommend a few tweaks and general advice.

1) Consider swapping from 20 minute naps to 24 minute naps. The optimal is 24 minutes asleep with 1-2 minutes to fall asleep. I can’t seem to find the original article by NASA atm, but here’s an article referencing NASA’s original study on optimal naps.

2) Devise a program to get from part 7 to part 10 instead of “try to space out longer”. I did a standard uberman schedule and going even 20 minutes past my appointed nap time would immediately put me into sleep deprivation which risked oversleeping an alarm. I’m not sure how you plan to soft adjust to longer spaces between naps, but just winging it while sleep deprived seems like a recipe for danger.

3) Stock up on food. Expect to eat 50% more.

4) Make a list of things to do while sleep deprived at 4am for the adjustment period. I thought I was going to learn a new language with Rosetta Stone; I ended up reading fanfiction and watching through TV series. I simply didn’t have the mental juice to do anything until after I’d adjusted.

5) Set up a sleep cycle calendar so you’ll know what you’re going to do every wedge, and what you’re doing every day. It’s very easy to lose track of days on a polyphasic schedule.

6) Buy a sleep mask. It’s so much easier to sleep during the day with one.

Xachariah Jul 9, 2013, 1:34 AM
3 points
in reply to: ikrase’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94
ch 30

He’d sustained that Transfiguration for seventeen days, and would now need to start over.

Could’ve been worse. He could’ve done this fourteen days later, after Professor McGonagall had approved him to Transfigure his father’s rock. That was one very good lesson to learn the easy way.

Note to self: Always remove ring from finger before completely exhausting magic.

This implies to me that that his finger would’ve gotten wrecked if that was a rock. Remember, finite on the rock blew out both the front and back of the troll’s head. It wasn’t just expanding in a confined spot; it expanded fast enough to blow out both sides. Explosive de-transfiguration. Certainly enough to tear off a 10 year old’s finger.

Xachariah Jul 8, 2013, 10:14 PM
7 points
in reply to: CAE_Jones’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94
Harry will already lose a finger if anyone finite’s his ring. He practiced with the marshmallow because the rapid expansion of the rock would tear off his finger.

Ringmione isn’t much more of a personal risk to him.

Xachariah Jun 30, 2013, 11:46 PM
5 points
in reply to: William_Quixote’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
He’s familiar with cryonics then, or at least the concept of suspended animation.

It was another good outside-the-box idea, but Harry told his brain to keep thinking...

The next line implies that he’d have used the plan if he didn’t immediately think up a better one. Any plan he comes up with to save Hermione has to be at least as likely to succeed as cryonics.

Xachariah Jun 30, 2013, 9:57 PM
9 points
on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
Why are people here reacting like Hermione is perma-dead?

I get that they’d act that way on reddit, but people here actually believe and sign up for cryonics. Harry’s got a whole team of Alcor cryonic specialists right in his wand. And if he can’t manage the magic, Dumbledore can. Hermione’s soul and magic may have exploded in an impressive lightshow, but her brain is still fully oxygenated and hasn’t even begun to decompose.

Everything that makes her her is still doing fine.

(And on a meta level, Elizer knows that fictional examples are strong drivers of behavior. A fictional example of cryonics working would be big for cryonics adoption.)

Xachariah Jun 16, 2013, 9:55 PM
43 points
on: On manipulating others
Bullshit.

Never use “I’m too good at something to win” or “I only lose because other people are so bad”. Those sort of explanations are never true. Not ever.

I don’t know if there’s some kind of word for this fallacy (maybe a relative of the Dunning-Kruger effect), but if your mind ever uses it in the future then you need to give your logic center a curbstomp in the balls. This sort of logic is ego protection bullshit. Hearing this explanation is the number one indicator that a person will never improve in a skillset.

How could they possibly get better if they think they already have the answer and it doesn’t involve any work on their part?

Here’s my alternate hypothesis. Manipulating people is hard and takes tons of practice. You haven’t put in your 10,000 hours.

Edit: Also, you aren’t getting downvoted because this belongs in the Open Thread. The downvotes are because you’re wrapped in one of the most dangerous self-delusions that exists. It’s even more insidious than religion in some ways because it can snake it’s way into any thought about any skillset. The good news is that you’ve given it voice and you can fight it. And I hope you do.