Zubon

Karma: 1,394

Zubon Mar 27, 2015, 1:24 PM
4 points
in reply to: pianoforte611’s comment on: Defeating the Villain
Your kind words honor me.

Zubon Mar 26, 2015, 9:49 PM
9 points
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 23 - Mar. 31, 2015

You often see the Doctor say “I’m not going to doom innocents to save a greater number” and something saves everyone anyway

I find that undermines a lot of enjoyment for me. A Hard Choice is presented, the Doctor does something that seems deontologically virtuous but consequentially absurd, and then deus ex machina the consequences of the Hard Choice are wiped away.

Perhaps he knows he is living in a just universe where moral realism proves deontology correct, and ignoring consequentialism leads to the best consequences. Depending on the writer.

Defeating the Villain

ZubonMar 26, 2015, 9:43 PM

48 points

38 comments2 min readLW link

Zubon Mar 20, 2015, 1:40 PM
6 points
on: Twenty basic rules for intelligent money management
Easy way to fight akrasia with respect to saving: when your income increases, put half in savings. Do so through automatic paycheck deductions like a 401(k) to avoid needing to think about it. If you are currently getting by well enough, you don’t strictly need that extra money, and the way to avoid unthinkingly frittering is away it to unthinkingly save it. If you get a 2% raise, increase your withholding by 1%. You still get a bit of a raise, and your savings increase.

This assumes “you are currently getting by well enough.” If you have debts, paying down the debt is your savings. The interest rate on your credit card balance is higher than anything you can get through investing; stop the bleeding.

Zubon Mar 14, 2015, 2:11 PM
16 points
in reply to: Zubon’s comment on: Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015
Related engineer joke: “anybody can build a bridge that won’t collapse–but it takes a real engineer to build a bridge that just barely avoids collapse.”

Zubon Mar 14, 2015, 2:08 PM
11 points
on: Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015

Gordon [Tullock] was on my dissertation committee. After reading all 252 pages of my dissertation within twelve hours of my submitting it, Gordon caught me in the Public Choice hallway at Virginia Tech to give me his assessment: “Minimal but acceptable.” To which I replied, “Optimal. Done!”

-- Richard McKenzie, quoted on Econlog

Zubon Mar 14, 2015, 1:47 PM
3 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015
When you talk in terms of black and white all the time, it is very easy to forget that you don’t think that way.

Zubon Mar 14, 2015, 1:44 PM
6 points
in reply to: AlanCrowe’s comment on: Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015
In practice, the economic “long run” can happen exceedingly quickly. Keynes was probably closer to right with “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent,” but if you plan on the basis of “in the long run we are all dead,” you might find out just how short that long run can be.

Zubon Feb 14, 2015, 6:02 PM
2 points
in reply to: SeekingEternity’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2015
If you feel silly about the particular example or doubt its provenance or application, there is also the New Cuyama sign adding up numbers in an even worse way, the classic riddle where the answer is “you’re adding the wrong things,” or Scott’s latest post with similarly bad math being applied to public policy.

I’m particularly fond of the New Cuyama sign as an illustration of the principle because so much online discourse seems to involve using funny pictures to illustrate points. Your quote works well for a Less Wrong audience, as we seem to be mostly text-based here.

Zubon Feb 14, 2015, 5:36 PM
0 points
in reply to: Adam Zerner’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2015
I’m in a similar range to Ixiel.

I would characterize my 90th percentile experience as a profound sense of peace and contentment, a combination of emotional satisfaction with physical comfort and security. This comes from good brain chemistry (cheerful, optimistic outlook), favorable life circumstances (happily married, no major illnesses, financially stable), and a sustainable enjoyment of katastematic pleasure.

Zubon Nov 22, 2014, 4:46 PM
11 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: Rationality Quotes November 2014
Excellent point, but his prior was even weaker.

Zubon Nov 22, 2014, 3:35 PM
4 points
on: Rationality Quotes November 2014

My little brother who’s 7 was saying girls can’t be scientists, and my little sister who’s 5 looked at him offended and said, “Princess Bubblegum is a girl and she’s a scientist, Jonny!” and he said, “oh yeah…ok nvm,” and they continued eating breakfast like nothing.

Cleffairie on Tumblr (punctuation cleaned up)

The latest in a continuing series on immediate Bayesian updating in response to information. (Also viable as an example of an “unknown known,” since he knew the counter-example but had not thought to apply it.)

Zubon Nov 11, 2014, 4:16 PM
4 points
in reply to: JohnnyCat’s comment on: 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey
Parallel examples:
- Almost everyone below a certain age plays video/computer games, but only a small subset of those people would self-identify as “gamers.”
- You exercise, but do you think of yourself as an “athlete”? You lift weights, but do you think of yourself as a “weightlifter”?
- You are married, but is “spouse” a core part of your identity? You have reproduced, but is “parent” part of your core identity?

Zubon Nov 11, 2014, 4:13 PM
26 points
on: 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey
Survey completed. Some of the questions are ambiguous.

“How many children do you have?” I find this question problematic each year. Biological offspring? Custodial children?

“What is your approximate annual income in US dollars?” Personal income? Household income?

“Gender Default” I wanted something like a Likert scale here. I would not say I would feel “wrong,” “creeped out,” or “freaked out” by switching genders, but I would even less say that I “identify with their birth gender only because they see no reason to go through the hassle and social stigma of transitioning,” which also seems qualitatively different than “a man who would be happy as either a man or a woman, but since they’re a man, they stay a man.” The question sets us a dichotomy that may not be so much false as a mild category error, sort of like “which one of you is the fork?”

Zubon Nov 10, 2014, 10:04 AM
0 points
on: Meetup : Michigan Meetup 11/9
Bonus outcome: folks realized they could carpool to work.

Zubon Nov 2, 2014, 12:32 PM
2 points
on: Meetup : Michigan Meetup 11/9
I’ll be there.

Zubon Oct 25, 2014, 2:23 AM
7 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: question: the 40 hour work week vs Silicon Valley?

“We found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time … They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.”

Link: Here’s Why Google Stopped Asking Bizarre, Crazy-Hard Interview Questions

Zubon Oct 5, 2014, 6:57 PM
13 points
on: Open thread, Sept. 29 - Oct.5, 2014
Is there any set of issues this argument will not work with? From Leaving LW

It’s amazing how quickly you spot the flaws in a community once you stop thinking of yourself as a part of it. The ridiculous emphasis on cryonics and fear of death which the community inherited from Eliezer. The fact that only about 10% of the community is vegn, when vegnism is pretty much the best litmus test I know for whether someone actually follows arguments where they lead.

(“veg*n” = vegetarian/vegan)

The writer self-identifies as an animal rights activist. Hence, “veg*nism is pretty much the best litmus test I know for whether someone actually follows arguments where they lead,” while cryonics is a cult. If you are closer to the LW core, you can conveniently reverse it with no loss: “cryonics is pretty much the best litmus test I know for whether someone actually follows arguments where they lead,” while veg*nism is a cult. Or insert your own pet issue: existential risk, feminism, monarchism, ethical altruism, Objectivism, communism, pretty much any -ism. Whichever one you believe in most is the best test for whether someone seriously follows arguments to their logical implications; whichever one those other people believe in most is just distracting them from your really important issue. This is why you are right but people who agree with you only 90% are “ridiculous.”

The ending is a great example of how to extend that argument: “Obviously, the ideal solution is” for everyone else to agree with you and focus more on your issue.

Zubon Oct 4, 2014, 10:22 PM
0 points
in reply to: pewpewlasergun’s comment on: February 2014 Media Thread
Ancillary Justice is quite good, and it went on to win the Nebula and Hugo awards for the year.

In addition to AI and identity theory, there is also quite a bit about gender and language, as the dominant empire has no gender in its language and little to no dimorphism, either physically or culturally. The AI tends to guess (with mixed results) when dealing with other languages and cultures.

Zubon Sep 18, 2014, 10:24 PM
6 points
in reply to: CCC’s comment on: Rationality Quotes September 2014
Great. I have approximately 6000 years worth of events here, happening across multiple continents, with overlapping events on every scale imaginable from “in this one village” to “world war.” If you can keep the relationships between all those things in your memory consistently using no index value, go for it. If not, I might recommend something like a numerical system that puts those 6000 years in order.

I would not recommend putting “0” at a relatively arbitrary point several thousand years after the events in question have started.

Zubon

Defeat­ing the Villain

Defeating the Villain