ygert

Karma: 1,483

ygert Jan 22, 2014, 7:42 AM
5 points
in reply to: PrometheanFaun’s comment on: Dark Arts of Rationality
Yeah, I agree, it is weird. And I think that Hofstadter is wrong: With such a vague definition of being “smart”, his conjecture fails to hold. (This is what you were saying: It’s rather vague and undefined.)

That said, TDT is an attempt to put a similar idea on firmer ground. In that sense, the TDT paper is the exploration in mathematical language of this idea that you are asking for. It isn’t Hofstadterian superrationality, but it is inspired by it, and TDT puts these amorphous concepts that Hofstadter never bothered solidifying into a concrete form.

ygert Jan 21, 2014, 11:50 AM
3 points
in reply to: PrometheanFaun’s comment on: Dark Arts of Rationality
Agreed. But here is what I think Hofstadter was saying: The assumption that is used can be weaker than the assumption that the two players have an identical method. Rather, it just needs to be that they are both “smart”. And this is almost as strong a result as the true zero knowledge scenario, because most agents will do their best to be smart.

Why is he saying that “smart” agents will cooperate? Because they know that the other agent is the same as them in that respect. (In being smart, and also in knowing what being smart means.)

Now, there are some obvious holes in this, but it does hold a certain grain of truth, and is a fairly powerful result in any case. (TDT is, in a sense, a generalization of exactly this idea.)

ygert Jan 20, 2014, 9:55 PM
1 point
in reply to: Nornagest’s comment on: Group Rationality Diary, January 16-31

Let’s not pat ourselves on the back too much.

That was never my intention. I actually initially meant to stress this more, but I cut it as it didn’t really fit.

The most important note that it is not necessarily a good thing to ignore social cues. They exist for good reasons. Discourse flows a lot better when it is polite and well presented. Those who ignore that do so at their own peril.

Some do, however. Including us, to some exten. You cannot deny that the population of Less Wrongers is weighted heavily towards the type of people that might be known as nerds, who dismiss the social glue, and prefer more bluntness in their discourse than is usual. Again, this is not necessarily good: See Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate.

In some ways it is good, though: It encourages the virtues of truth-seeking and of not responding to tone, and in general is an attitude that is conductive to the types of things discussed around here. (This is why Less Wrong is neuroatypical in specifically this direction.)

ygert Jan 20, 2014, 8:30 PM
4 points
in reply to: Error’s comment on: Group Rationality Diary, January 16-31
Perhaps people on Less Wrong are less attuned to the nuances of social norms, and rather upvote/downvote based only on the content of the post in question?

The ideal of upvoting/downvoting based only on value is one that has appeal to many of the sort of people who hang around here. We are all still human, but I would not be surprised to be told that many or most Less Wrongers are atypical in this way. (Pay less attention to social contexts, and more to content.)

ygert Jan 13, 2014, 11:33 AM
6 points
on: Karma query
Karma points count as “last 30 days karma” if they are votes on a post you made within the past month. If someone upvotes/downvotes/removes a previously made upvote/removes a previously made downvote from an older comment, you get/lose karma, but not 30 day karma. I assume that is what happened here.

ygert Jan 8, 2014, 8:36 AM
2 points
in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: Open thread for January 1-7, 2014
I see what you are saying, but the whole point behind anti-fragility is that change is for good, not bad. By default, in fragile things, change is bad. But in antifragile things, that change is harnessed for good.

Hm. The best way to clearly demarcate that would probably to move the word “bad” from describing the word “change”, and put it as part of the first sentence.

Things sometimes break, and that is a bad thing that you do not want happening. It happens when outside forces cause changes to it and to the world it acts in. …

ygert Jan 7, 2014, 6:48 PM
1 point
in reply to: Shmi’s comment on: Open thread for January 1-7, 2014
That’s a fun challenge. It was hard to try to summarize the motivation behind the idea of antifragility in such a restricted vocabulary. Here is my attempt:

Things sometimes break. This happens when outside forces cause bad changes to it and to the world it acts in. Things that this can happen to are not things you can put much trust in. It would be a lot better to have something that does not change because of things happening to it, or even better, one that gets better the more those bad things happen to it. It is a good idea to make the things you have be of this sort, but that can not be done all of the time. To find things that match this idea is not easy, but it is true that there are some situations in the real world where this does happen.

ygert Jan 7, 2014, 12:01 PM
10 points
in reply to: Apprentice’s comment on: [LINK] Why I’m not on the Rationalist Masterlist
Very well put. I agree entirely with what you are saying, and I think you said it very well.

I want to add though an emphasis that the line specifically between libertarianism and reactionary-ism is a very narrow one. Both philosophies come from the same background, with similar axioms. It is surprising, so it bears emphasis.

I am in the same boat as Apprentice when it comes to these matters, and whenever I read a reactionary post I feel a certain familiarity, along the lines of: “this may not be fully valid, but the people arguing it are very smart, and what’s more actually started from a surprisingly similar position to me. I may not agree with most of the conclusions, or with the tone it is presented in, but I cannot deny that they have certain good points.”

ygert Jan 7, 2014, 10:45 AM
8 points
in reply to: tanagrabeast’s comment on: Open thread for January 1-7, 2014
I’m glad you like my recommendation. After you have used it for a while, perhaps consider writing up a post about your experiences teaching using an SRS. It’s a topic which could be very interesting, and I’m sure that many would wish to read such a report. I certainly would.

ygert Jan 6, 2014, 6:05 PM
10 points
in reply to: tanagrabeast’s comment on: Open thread for January 1-7, 2014
Look into memrise.

It has an app, it has a lot of the bells and whistles that Anki lacks (like a scoring/gamification system) that could be helpful with the population you are teaching, and it is all around a solid SRS system. The only thing I think it lacks are those Easy/Good/Hard buttons that Anki has to differentiate between how well you know the answer, but that’s something I can live without. I use both it and Anki on a day to day basis.

ygert Jan 5, 2014, 9:26 AM
6 points
in reply to: Halfwitz’s comment on: January 2014 Media Thread
Evangelion is… Evangelion. It’s the kind of work that is very hard to apply adjectives to. That said, it’s very good.

Just be sure that you watch The End of Evangelion after watching all the episodes. I have a friend who watched all the episodes of Evangelion, then went around for quite some time thinking he had finished watching the whole show. Only months later did he find out that there was more, and that he had in fact missed out on the entire climax of the show.

ygert Jan 3, 2014, 10:11 AM
0 points
in reply to: JenniferRM’s comment on: A proposed inefficiency in the Bitcoin markets
This is a long and well presented comment: I will chime in with army1987 that you could certainly write this up as a top level discussion post.

My response to it is that I think you are overestimating the value of our current form of government. This could be taken the wrong way, so let me be clear: It is a very good thing that w have a government. Without it, our lives would be nasty, brutish and short. Despite this, government-as-we-know-it (nationalism) is a very recent invention, and while it does some great things (and some not-so-great things), it (in its current form) is far from essential for society.

Democracy is better than monarchy, yes, but that does not mean it is the ideal government. (Recall that famous Churchill quote.) Trying to preserve it when future technology renders it obsolete is a bad idea, in my opinion.

So what should replace it? That is a deep and important issue, and one I can philosophise in depth over. This comment is already long, so I will spare a lengthy discussion here, but it suffices to say that while I am not sure, and this is a topic that needs much deep research and serious thought, I do see several possible directions and solutions that could bare fruit. If you are interested in continuing this conversation I would be happy to expound upon them.

In short, my two related arguments are that: 1) While Bitcoin may or may not bring down nationalism, that in itself does not mean anarchy and and a Hobbesian state of nature; and 2) Democracy is nice, in that it’s better than most other forms of government, but it’s by no means essential.
What links here?
- JenniferRM's comment on A proposed inefficiency in the Bitcoin markets by Liron (Jan 3, 2014, 10:41 PM; 7 points)

ygert Jan 2, 2014, 2:49 PM
2 points
in reply to: AndHisHorse’s comment on: Doubt, Science, and Magical Creatures—a Child’s Perspective
I don’t understand: could you explain what specifically you are claiming remains? Social power implies that it impacts other people and their actions, which I don’t think is the case in this situation.

ygert Jan 2, 2014, 10:29 AM
0 points
in reply to: TobyBartels’s comment on: Doubt, Science, and Magical Creatures—a Child’s Perspective
Sorry, but I disagree. Personally, I rather dislike going through arbitrary pointless motions. The “magic” is already gone, and mindlessly trying to go through the same motions to bring it back is futile. We are better off without it.

ygert Dec 30, 2013, 11:52 AM
13 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: Doubt, Science, and Magical Creatures—a Child’s Perspective
I think the point is that she enjoyed getting free money more than she disliked being chuckled at, so she was willing to suffer being chuckled at in order to receive the free money.

ygert Dec 29, 2013, 9:26 PM
2 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Doubt, Science, and Magical Creatures—a Child’s Perspective
The answer to that is “But maybe the parents are misinformed about the tooth fairies’ abilities?” You can go on and on like this, but at this point I would stop praisuing the child for pursuing the ratinal method for solving problems, and strat educatting the child in the next lesson of rationality: 0 and 1 are not probabilities, all knowledge is probibalistic, and you need to do VoI calculations before rushing off to try to rule out narrow and increasingly unlikly options.

ygert Dec 29, 2013, 9:19 PM
3 points
in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Doubt, Science, and Magical Creatures—a Child’s Perspective
Yes...

But seriously, there are simpler tests to do, or to do first. Try telling your parents not out loud, but in a written note. That would rule out audio bugging. Try telling an empty room, when no one else is around. That could rule out your parents. Try telling someone you know won’t understand you. (Like a younger sibling.) Try miming it to your parents without using words. Try falsely telling your parents that a tooth fell out, when none did. Try telling your parents about your tooth that fell out, but not putting it under your pillow that night. Try giving your fallen-out tooth to a younger sibling and tricking him into pretending that that tooth was his to your parents. (Although that would probably mean giving up the income from that tooth.)

All in all, there are a lot of possible open tests that could be done, to narrow down the search space dramatically.

ygert Dec 29, 2013, 11:10 AM
10 points
in reply to: Heka’s comment on: Doubt, Science, and Magical Creatures—a Child’s Perspective
Oh, but the money did keep on flowing in! My parents may not have handled the situation perfectly, but they most certainly didn’t cut off the money just because I uncovered their lies. To do so would be punishing me for finding out, which was certainly not their intention.

After that point, whenever a tooth fell out, I’d just hand it to my mother and she would dig out the cash for me, without the whole ritual of putting the tooth under the pillow and having it be replaced by an imaginary being who collects teeth for some reason.

ygert Dec 28, 2013, 8:55 PM
19 points
on: Doubt, Science, and Magical Creatures—a Child’s Perspective
That’s a good rationalist success story. You remind me of my own story with the tooth fairy: I will not relate it in detail here, as it is similar to yours, just less dramatic. At a certain point, I doubted the existence of the tooth fairy, so the next time a tooth fell out I put it under my pillow without telling anyone, and it was still there the next day. I confronted my parents, and they readily admitted the non-existence of the tooth fairy.

In fact, it went off as a perfect experiment, which kind of ruins its value as a story, at least when compared with yours. I did an experiment, got a result, and that was that. The one thing I’m still kind of bitter about is my parents’ first reaction to my confrontation of them: Rather than praising me on my discovery and correct use of the scientific method, their reaction was along the lines of “If you suspected, why didn’t you just tell us? We would have just admitted it. There was no need for that test to find proof to confront us with.”

ygert Dec 26, 2013, 1:54 PM
13 points
in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: Review of Scott Adams’ “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big”
And so many of those books seem to have that same piece of advice: “Actually go out and do things; don’t just read about them and forget to do them!”