Maybe I'm missing the point, but Wednesday's problem is not that "Somebody would have noticed!" is a bad heuristic, but rather, that she (and her congregation) doesn't know what counts as evidence, and therefore what it is she (or anyone else) would even be noticing. (RobinZ looks to be making the same general point.)

I think what you've proven is that you need to correctly compute the probability someone would notice (and say something), staying aware of the impediments to noticing (or saying something). (ETA: "You" in the general sense, just to be clear.)

(If necessary, have an intermediary voice your reply.)

Like this old joke. Two economists are walking down the street.

Look! There is an 100 bill on the floor!

No it isn't. Somebody would noticed it before and picked it up!

Forget the WOWer then, how about the M:tG fanatic?

So I see your post as describing a very important initiative we should all be taking, as people: convince others to find happiness in positive-sum games

It's an error to assume that human brains are actually wired for zero or negative sum games in the first place, vs. having adaptations that tend towards such a situation. Humans aren't true maximizers; they're maximizer-satisficers. E.g., people don't seek the best possible mate: they seek the best mate they think they can get.

(Ironically, the greater mobility and choices in our current era often lead to decreased happiness, as our perceptions of what we ought to be able to "get" have increased.)

Anyway, ISTM that any sort of monomaniacal maximizing behavior (e.g. OCD, paranoia, etc.) is indicative of an unhealthy brain. Simple game theory suggests that putting one value so much higher than others is unlikely to be an evolutionarily stable strategy.

I think you basically describe a subset of the bootstrapping problem of rational thought.

But from the perspective of an EEA mind, online interaction with other WoWers is identical (or at least extremely similar) to solitary confinement in that you don't get the signals the brain needs to recognize "okay, high status now". (This would include in-person gazes, smells, sounds, etc.) This is why I dispute that the WoW player actually can consider the other WoW players to be so psychologically real.

Having shared my view on comp.sci. education, I do wish to throw in a recommendation for pursuing a career in software development (beyond the years of formal education). Specifically in contrast to one alternative discussed earlier in this thread, namely a career in finance.

Full disclaimer, my perspective on "jobs that involve working with money" stems mostly from how the mainstream portrays it and is likely to be extremely naive. Despite what I'm about to say, I actually have a great deal of respect for money-savy people. Considering my personal financial situation is a constant source of akrasia, I'm often envious of people who are able to wield money itself as a tool to generate more of it.

I'm realistic enough to admit that income potential is a valid factor in deciding what kind of career to pursue - like most of us, I enjoy food, shelter, and expensive gadgets. Meanwhile, I also believe nobody treats money as the only factor in choosing a caree - we all rather work in fields we're passionate about.

So really, we have a realistic assessment of various career options - all of whom promise at least a decent living. Even agreeing with comments made earlier, that programming is prole and finance has higher likelihood of fast-tracking prestige (and as a programmer, I actually must admit there's some truth to this sentiment), my gut says that your passion and interest far outweighs these observations. I mean, we're not talking about whether you'll become a high-school janitor versus United States president. If you like money and you have knack for using it for growth and your benefit, go to Wall Street. If you like computers and have a knack for using them for innovation, go to Silicon Valley. In both cases you'll be able to afford a grande sugar-free vanilla low-fat soy latte every morning - if that's your cup of tea.

Now all of this is fairly generic advice, nothing you weren't told already by your parents. My reason for chiming in on this discussion has (obviously) to do with how the above is affected by accelerating chance. That's something most parents or advisors haven't really clued into yet, and I felt it worth pointing out.

The question is, assuming the kind of consequences from accelerating change that are commonly accepted in singularity circles; what type of careers promise the most leverage in the future? In other words, what skill set guarantees you can maintain or expand the amount of control you have over the reality that surrounds and affects you?

Presumably there won't be much contention over why leverage is an important metric. Now imagine the world one, two, or three decades from now - and ask yourself; what can I offer that is of value? Value comes in many forms, we can roughly categorize these as: money, ideas (and secrets), goods, labor (and skill). Of these, money and ideas are the ones with the most long term potential. The value of manual labor will dissappear rapidly, even skilled labor (biological enhancement notwithstanding). The value of goods will diminish when life moves from its reliance on matter to information, and our ability to transform and distribute matter improves. The value of secrets is likely to exist for eternity, but those who consider this a worthy pursuit should read Snowcrash, not this email.

It's my belief the only types of leverage with future potential are money and ideas, some conditions apply.

In the case of money, the assumption is that there'll exist a legal system to assure the continuous promise of value in tender. Considering the alternative is impractical barter - or worse - all-out chaos, I believe money will stick around for a long time. In the case of ideas, the assumption is that you can turn them into reality. An idea stuck in your head is useless, so you'll need money, skill, or both to make things happen.

But wait, didn't I just say that skilled labor is a dead-end path? Yes, when speaking of the mechanical kind (i.e., the things you can do by moving your limbs around, such as playing the piano). But when it comes to ideas (and the direction our society is heading) - the kind of skill I'm referring to is of the information-theoretic kind. Future creativity will occur primarily in a universe of bits and bytes, and the more adept you are at wielding these bits and bytes, the more leverage your ideas will have.

There is one more assumption in this, namely that creative information-based skill is of a different nature than biological mechanical skill. It may be that strong AI will leapfrog well past our human ability to merge and enhance, in which case both creative skill and mechanical skill will be displaced. If that's the case, I don't expect money will be much value to humans very long either, and we'll be on a short-lived dead end path.

I'm hoping for a more optimistic future, where intellectual enhancement permits us to remain competitively creative.

So unless you have money, and use it to make more money (e.g., pursue a financial career - a valid option), I recommend people become creative experts in a digital universe. That is, study theoretical computer science (through formal math education, in your spare time, or through a career), familiarize yourself breath-first with the entire hardware and software stack that permits the digital universe (from primitive electronics to silicon to computer architectures to machine language to assembly to compilers to higher level languages to creative tools for both art and process improvement), and pick two or three comp.sci. specialties in which you become a depth-first expert. Ideally, you do this alongside a grounding in a hard physical science, to keep you in touch with the universe you currently embed (it'll be around for a while to come).

That's what you'll need to escape from the consumer end of information, and become a creative source of information - which in turn is your future leverage and source of income. Those with the ability to command, influence, and transform the growing stream bits and bytes will have the most value to offer (and be able to afford two sugar free vanilla soy lattes).

On a bit of a tangential note, this is why I advocate the introduction of a mandatory comp.sci. component from kindergarten all the way up to university - on par with traditional components like math or phys-ed. To verbalize this as: "...our society relies increasingly on computers" is to state the obvious, and the point is not that everybody should become a software developer. The critical point is to raise a generation that understands the notion of algorithmic computation well enough to believe they can (in principle) be in control of a computing device, rather than it controlling them. Computers are not magic, and one day present-day humans won't be either.

Then again, even basic schooling in math and physics fails to teach many people they can (in principle) be in control of their own life. But alas, I digress - lest this become political... :-)

Long post, little value - time to return to my computer and become a better programmer. Gotta make a living...

Two cents,

Jaap Suter - http://jaapsuter.com

[1] To be clear, I love the fundamentals of computer science. It's a great passion of mine. But I believe its place in education is by and large a sub-field of math. I suspect that'll change over time, but I'm not yet sure in which direction (math absorbing computer science, or theoretical computer science growing enough meat to justify recognition as being a field on its own.)

[2] With the additional remark that the fundamental habits of good engineering are timeless and emerge from developing your expertise in the humanities (both in one's ability to interact and cooperate with other people to achieve your goals, and the study of interactions between man, his environment, and the fruits of your labor). The tools we use along the way are fleeting - software and hardware is commonly outdated by the time you've become an expert - better to recognize the underlying patterns.

The "headline" is probably inaccurate. I don't know what metric best measures similarity of value - but by the ones that popped into my head, the various human heavens mostly seem relatively clumped together - compared to what kind of future other creatures might dream of having. It's the close genetic relatedness that does it.

In a thread called Acturial vs. Software Engineering - what pays best?, somebody wrote:

Do any of you know how much of an option it is to start a software engineering career with a math/science but not CS background?

My response...

I encourage most people to pursue a math or science degree, rather than comp.sci., even if their long term goals are in the field of software engineering. My opinion is based on personal hindsight (having majored in computer science, I often wish my ability to absorb and apply fundamental math or hard physics was stronger) and on eleven years industry experience (where I've noticed an inverse correlation between the amount of formal comp.sci. training a person's had and his or her strength as a software engineer).

In regards to my personal hindsight; it could well be that had I studied math or physics, that I'd feel my comp.sci. expertise would need brushing up. That's probably true to some extent, but there's another factor; namely that many comp.sci. programs are a less-than-ideal blend of theoretical math (better obtained through a dedicated programs[1]) and practical engineering (most definitely useful[2], but because of its nature easily accessible in your spare time). That last point is critical; anybody who can afford university education, has access to a computer and a compiler. So why not tinker at home - you're passionate, right? Compare with programs like mechanical engineering, chemistry, and most hard physics programs - you probably don't have access to a particle accelerator or DNA extraction lab at home.

Not yet anyway... :-)

That brings me to my observation from industry experience, namely that the best programmers I've worked with often hadn't majored in comp.sci. The point of course not that a comp.sci. education makes for worse programmers. Rather, that people with the audacity and discipline to pursue hard physics or math who also have a passion for programming have a leg-up on those who are only passionate about programming.

I'm sure there's the occasional failed particle physicist applying for a hundred programming gigs without success, but that person would've been just as unskilled as a programmer had he or she majored in comp.sci.

Recycling an email I wrote in a Existential Risk Reduction Career Network discussion. The topic looked at various career options, specifically with an eye towards accumulating wealth - the two major fields recognized being finance and software development.

Frank Adamek enquired as to my (flippant) vanilla latte comments, which revealed a personal blind-spot. Namely, that my default assumption for people with an interest in accumulating wealth is that they're motivated by an interest in improving the quality of their own life (e.g., expensive gadgets, etc.).

I should know -- especially in X-Risk Network context -- that wealth accumulation is not necessarily predominantly selfish, and that instead wealth can be an effective multiplier to benefit positive futures. Thanks for mentioning this Frank.

The motivation for copying this email here is two-fold.

• One, what else can further rational critic of my own rants teach me?

• Two, I've lurked in this community for a long time, but can't muster gusto to contribute. The quality-bar for top-level posts is well beyond my thinking and writing skills. Which is great, because it means I get to learn and grow. But there's a flip-side, which is the gap between Less Wrong discourse and that of my day-to-day interaction with friends, family, and coworkers. I don't have a solution to this, but perhaps an increase in open-thread comment mediocrity helps close the gap.

Ugh, probably not. Alas, here goes - posted as a reply to myself, because of comment-length limits.

I'm not sure what your thesis is. It sounds like you're talking about a problem with a particular heuristic, but I'm not sure why you would tell the story the way you have to make that point.

Hi.

I've posted an article, and commented once, but still feel like I'm figuring things out here.

Thanks to everyone who is bolder in their contribution than I am.

P(A&B)+P(A&~B)+P(~A&B)+P(~A&~B)=1

Isn't the "1" above a probability?

You can't have high status if no other people are around. But high status is still a local phenomenon. Your brain wants to be in a tribe and to be respected by that tribe. But the brain's idea of a tribe corresponds to what was a healthy situation in the EEA. That meant that you shouldn't be in solitary confinement, but it also meant that your society didn't include distant people with whom you had no personal interaction.

You're not dealing with the actual values the people I described have; you're saying they should have different values.

Your definition of value is not sufficient to encompass how human beings actually process values. We can have both positive and negative responses to the same "value" -- and they are largely independent. People who compulsively seek nonconsensual domination of others are not (if we exclude sociopaths and clinical sadists) acting out of a desire to gain pleasure, but rather to avoid pain.

Specifically, a pain that will never actually happen, because it's based on an incorrect belief. And correcting that belief is not the same thing as changing what's actually valued.

In other words, what I'm saying is: you're mistaken if you think an emotionally healthy, non-sociopathic/psychopathic human actually positively values bossing people around just to watch them jump. IMO, such a person is actually doing it to avoid losing something else -- and that problem can be fixed without actually changing what the person values (positively or negatively).

About half on the most recent such discussion I recall reading.

But like I said earlier, that's like saying, "If you live in solitary confinement [i.e. no interaction even with guards], you're at the top of your hierarchy so obviously that must make you the happiest possible."

You can't selectively ignore segments of society without taking on a big psychological burden.

But we're probably also wired to care mostly about the hierarchies of people with whom we interact frequently. In the EEA, those were pretty much the only people who mattered. [ETA: I mean that they were the only people to whom your status mattered. Distant tribes might matter because they could come and kick you off your land, but they wouldn't care what your intra-tribe status was.]

The #1 WOW player probably considers other WOW players to be much more real, in some psychologically powerful way, than are professional tennis players and their fans. It would therefore be natural for him to care much more about what those other WOW players think.

Thanks for giving additional context. I think you are correct that we have a difference of opinion. Personally, I would be absolutely thrilled to see a discussion on LessWrong of how poker, art valuation, or trading card gaming relate to rationality. Would these subjects not interest you, or is your worry that discussion of them would get too far off-topic to a degree that is bad?

I suppose delving very deep into those subjects could also feel off-topic to me if the connection to rationality was lost, yet I would be comfortable with whatever level of depth people more knowledgeable than me on those subject felt was necessary to elucidate the links to rationality. (And if other people were making truth-claims about the content of those disciplines, and those people often displayed bias or misunderstanding in either a laudatory or critical direction, I would be comfortable seeing those truth-claims evaluated. Even if debate about the merits or nature of a subjects gets away from the direct relationship of that subject to rationality, that debate itself may demonstrate applications of rationality to a controversial subject, which I like to see.)

Your mileage may vary, but I find that I learn in a "hands on" way, and attempting to apply rationality to a practical problem helps me attain a more abstract understanding. See the notion of Contract to Expand, where sometimes solving a specific sub-problem can be helpful for solving a larger, more general problem.

I would consider any subculture or discipline with a "sufficiently active truth-seeking element" to be excellent LessWrong fodder, as long as the discussion (a) was connected to rationality, or (b) addressed the nature of the subcultures and disciplines so that readers can know how they work well enough to evaluate their potential relationship to rationality (particularly if there is disagreement on that nature or relationship). Anyone else have feelings either way?

The harem bit looses some of its appeal when you think about the standards of dental care and how rarely people used to bathe.