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RationalWiki was the only place I saw this mistake made, so the i.e. seemed deserved to me.

It looks like it turned awful since I've read it the last time:

This essay, while entertaining and useful, can be seen as Yudkowsky trying to reinvent the sense of awe associated with religious experience in the name of rationalism. It's even available in tract format.

The most fatal mistake of the entry in its current form seems to be that it does lump together all of Less Wrong and therefore does stereotype its members. So far this still seems to be a community blog with differing opinions. I got a Karma score of over 1700 and I have been criticizing t... (read more)

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243 Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts

by steven0461

22nd Mar 2009

2 min read

324

243

Eliezer Yudkowsky was once attacked by a Moebius strip. He beat it to death with the other side, non-violently.
Inside Eliezer Yudkowsky's pineal gland is not an immortal soul, but another brain.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's favorite food is printouts of Rice's theorem.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's favorite fighting technique is a roundhouse dustspeck to the face.
Eliezer Yudkowsky once brought peace to the Middle East from inside a freight container, through a straw.
Eliezer Yudkowsky once held up a sheet of paper and said, "A blank map does not correspond to a blank territory". It was thus that the universe was created.
If you dial Chaitin's Omega, you get Eliezer Yudkowsky on the phone.
Unless otherwise specified, Eliezer Yudkowsky knows everything that he isn't telling you.
Somewhere deep in the microtubules inside an out-of-the-way neuron somewhere in the basal ganglia of Eliezer Yudkowsky's brain, there is a little XML tag that says awesome.
Eliezer Yudkowsky is the Muhammad Ali of one-boxing.
Eliezer Yudkowsky is a 1400 year old avatar of the Aztec god Aixitl.
The game of "Go" was abbreviated from "Go Home, For You Cannot Defeat Eliezer Yudkowsky".
When Eliezer Yudkowsky gets bored, he pinches his mouth shut at the 1/3 and 2/3 points and pretends to be a General Systems Vehicle holding a conversation among itselves. On several occasions he has managed to fool bystanders.
Eliezer Yudkowsky has a swiss army knife that has folded into it a corkscrew, a pair of scissors, an instance of AIXI which Eliezer once beat at tic tac toe, an identical swiss army knife, and Douglas Hofstadter.
If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is not a fact about the phenomenon; it just means I am not Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Eliezer Yudkowsky has no need for induction or deduction. He has perfected the undiluted master art of duction.
There was no ice age. Eliezer Yudkowsky just persuaded the planet to sign up for cryonics.
There is no spacetime symmetry. Eliezer Yudkowsky just sometimes holds the territory upside down, and he doesn't care.
Eliezer Yudkowsky has no need for doctors. He has implemented a Universal Curing Machine in a system made out of five marbles, three pieces of plastic, and some of MacGyver's fingernail clippings.
Before Bruce Schneier goes to sleep, he scans his computer for uploaded copies of Eliezer Yudkowsky.

If you know more Eliezer Yudkowsky facts, post them in the comments.

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[-]PhilGoetz16y1820

If you put Eliezer Yudkowsky in a box, the rest of the universe is in a state of quantum superposition until you open it again.
Eliezer Yudkowsky can prove it's not butter.
If you say Eliezer Yudkowsky's name 3 times out loud, it prevents anything magical from happening.

[-]marchdown14y990

This last one actually works!

3Vivi13y

Wouldn't that be a case of belief in belief though?

8sketerpot13y

If marchdown actually believed it, then yes, but I don't believe that he believes in that belief.

2Vivi13y

True. The implied belief that magic existed was exploited and played for laughs a bit more. I suppose that was a poor joke.

[-]ata15y1600

(Photoshopped version of this photo.)

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y880

Note for the clueless (i.e. RationalWiki): This is photoshopped. It is not an actual slide from any talk I have given.

[-]XiXiDu14y560

Note for the clueless (i.e. RationalWiki): This is photoshopped. It is not an actual slide from any talk I have given.

Here is a real photo if you need one ;-)

[-]TheOtherDave14y220

Note for the clueless (i.e. RationalWiki):

I've been trying to decide for a while now whether I believe you meant "e.g." I'm still not sure.

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y330

RationalWiki was the only place I saw this mistake made, so the i.e. seemed deserved to me.

[-]XiXiDu14y430

It looks like it turned awful since I've read it the last time:

This essay, while entertaining and useful, can be seen as Yudkowsky trying to reinvent the sense of awe associated with religious experience in the name of rationalism. It's even available in tract format.

I hope you people are reading this. I don't see why you draw a line between you and Less Wrong. This place is not an invite-only party.

LessWrong is dominated by Eliezer Yudkowsky, a research fellow for the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

I don't think this is the case anymore. You can easily get Karma by criticizing him and the SIAI. Most of all new posts are not written by him anymore either.

Members of the Less Wrong community are expected to be on board with the singularitarian/transhumanist/cryonics bundle.

Nah!

If you indicate your disagreement with the lo

... (read more)

[-]wedrifid14y370

It's unclear whether Descartes, Spinoza or Leibniz would have lasted a day without being voted down into oblivion.

So? I don't see what this is supposed to prove.

I know, I loved that quote. I just couldn't work out why it was presented as a bad thing.

[-]Jack14y220

Descartes is maybe the single best example of motivated cognition in the history of Western thought. Though interestingly, there are some theories that he was secretly an atheist.

I assume their point has something to do with those three being rationalists in the traditional sense... but I don't think Rational Wiki is using the word in the traditional sense either. Would Descartes have been allowed to edit an entry on souls?

4PhilGoetz13y

You think the average person on LessWrong ranks with Spinoza and Leibniz? I disagree.

[-]JoshuaZ13y350

Do you mean Spinoza or Leibniz given their knowledge base and upbringing or the same person with a modern environment? I know everything Leibniz knew and a lot more besides. But I suspect that if the same individual grew up in a modern family environment similar to my own he would have accomplished a lot more than I have at the same age.

7Jack13y

They wouldn't be the same person. Which is to say, the the whole matter is nonsense as the other replies in this thread made clear.

[-]JoshuaZ13y120

Sorry, I thought the notion was clear that one would be talking about same genetics but different environment. Illusion of transparency and all that. Explicit formulation: if one took a fertilized egg with Leibniz's genetic material and raised in an American middle class family with high emphasis on intellectual success, I'm pretty sure he would have by the time he got to my age have accomplished more than I have. Does that make the meaning clear?

3Jack13y

Right, I understand. But Rational Wiki didn't have clones of Leibniz and Spinoza in mind. I'm just saying, the whole thing is goofy.

[-]wedrifid13y200

You think the average person on LessWrong ranks with Spinoza and Leibniz? I disagree.

Wedrifid_2010 was not assigning a status ranking or even an evaluation of overall intellectual merit or potential. For that matter predicting expected voting patterns is a far different thing than assigning a ranking. People with excessive confidence in habitual thinking patterns that are wrong or obsolete will be downvoted into oblivion where the average person is not, even if the former is more intelligent or more intellectually impressive overall.

I also have little doubt that any of those three would be capable of recovering from their initial day or three of spiraling downvotes assuming they were willing to ignore their egos, do some heavy reading of the sequences and generally spend some time catching up on modern thought. But for as long as those individuals were writing similar material to that which identifies them they would be downvoted by lesswrong_2010. Possibly even by lesswrong_now too.

4Normal_Anomaly14y

Yes. Upvotes come from original, insightful contributions. Descartes', Spinoza's, and Liebnitz's ideas are hundreds of years old and dated.

8RobinZ14y

Not exactly the point - I think the claim is that they would be downvoted even if they were providing modern, original content ... which I would question, even then. We've had quite successful theist posters before, for example.

9Jack14y

What would this even mean? Like, if they were transported forward in time and formed new beliefs on the basis of modern science? If they were cloned from DNA surviving in their bone marrow and then adopted by modern, secular families, took AP Calculus and learned to program? What a goofy thing to even be talking about.

0RobinZ14y

Goofier than a universe in which humans work but matches don't? Such ideas may be ill-formed, but that doesn't make them obviously ill-formed.

1Jack14y

Sure... ETA: I'm making fun of that wiki, not you.

7wedrifid14y

I would downvote Descartes based on the quality of his thinking and argument even if it was modern bad thinking. At least I would if he persisted with the line after the first time or two he was corrected. I suppose this is roughly equivalent to what you are saying.

[-]Jack14y320

Yudkowsky has declared the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics is correct, despite the lack of testable predictions differing from the Copenhagen interpretation, and despite admittedly not being a physicist.

I think there is a fair chance the many world's interpretation is wrong but anyone who criticizes it by defending the Copenhagen 'interpretation' has no idea what they're talking about.

[-]ArisKatsaris14y250

I haven't read the quantum physics sequence but by what I have glimpsed this is just wrong. That's why people suggest one should read the material before criticizing it.

Irony.

Xixidu, you should also read the material before trying to defend it.

6XiXiDu14y

Correct. Yet I have read some subsequent discussions about that topic (MWI) and also watched this talk: I also read Decoherence is Simple and Decoherence is Falsifiable and Testable. So far MWI sounds like the most reasonable interpretation to me. And from what I have read I can tell that the sentence - "despite the lack of testable predictions differing from the Copenhagen interpretation" - is not crucial in favoring MWI over other interpretations. Of course I am not able to judge that MWI is the correct interpretation but, given my current epistemic state, of all interpretations it is the most likely to be correct. For one it sounds reasonable, secondly Yudkowsky's judgement has a considerable weight here. I have no reason to suspect that it would benefit him to favor MWI over other interpretations. Yet there is much evidence that suggests that he is highly intelligent and that he is able to judge what is the correct interpretation given all evidence a non-physicists can take into account. Edit: "[...] is not correct, or at least not crucial." now reads "[...] is not crucial in favoring MWI over other interpretations."

5thomblake14y

It is correct, and it is crucial in the sense that most philosophy of science would insist that differing testable predictions is all that would favor one theory over another. But other concerns (the Bayesian interpretation of Occam's Razor (or any interpretation, probably)) make MWI preferred.

7dlthomas13y

An interpretation of Occam's Razor that placed all emphasis on space complexity would clearly favor the Copenhagen interpretation over the MW interpretation. Of course, it would also favor "you're living in a holodeck" over "there's an actual universe out there", so it's a poor formulation in it's simplest form... but it's not obvious (to me, anyway) that space complexity should count for nothing at all, and if it counts for "enough" (whatever that is, for the particular rival interpretation) MWI loses.

5[anonymous]10y

That would not be Occam's razor...

-2dlthomas10y

What particular gold-standard "Occam's razor" are you adhering to, then? It seems to fit well with "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" and "pluralities must never be posited without necessity". Note that I'm not saying there is no gold-standard "Occam's razor" to which we should be adhering (in terms of denotation of the term or more generally); I'm just unaware of an interpretaton that clearly lays out how "entities" or "assumptions" are counted, or how the complexity of a hypothesis is otherwise measured, which is clearly "the canonical Occam's razor" as opposed to having some other name. If there is one, by all means please make me aware!

5[anonymous]10y

Minimum description length. The MWI requires fewer rules than Copenhagen, and therefore its description is smaller, and therefore it is the strictly simpler theory.

1dlthomas10y

Is there anything in particular that leads you to claim Minimum Description Length is the only legitimate claimaint to the title "Occam's razor"? It was introduced much later, and the wikipedia article claims it is "a forumlation of Occam's razor". Certainly, William of Occam wasn't dealing in terms of information compression.

2[anonymous]10y

The answer seems circular: because it works. The experience of people using Occam's razor (e.g. scientists) find MDL to be more likely to lead to correct answers than any other formulation.

2dlthomas10y

I don't see that that makes other formulations "not Occam's razor", it just makes them less useful attempts at formalizing Occam's razor. If an alternative formalization was found to work better, it would not be MDL - would MDL cease to be "Occam's razor"? Or would the new, better formalization "not be Occam's razor"? Of the latter, by what metric, since the new one "works better"? For the record, I certainly agree that "space complexity alone" is a poor metric. I just don't see that it should clearly be excluded entirely. I'm generally happy to exclude it on the grounds of parsimony, but this whole subthread was "How could MWI not be the most reasonable choice...?"

3[anonymous]10y

There's an intent behind Occam's razor. When Einstein improved on Newton's gravity, gravity itself didn't change. Rather, our understanding of gravity was improved by a better model. We could say though that Newton's model is not gravity because we have found instances where gravity does not behave the way Newton predicted. Underlying Occam's razor is the simple idea that we should prefer simple ideas. Over time we have found ways to formalize this statement in ways that are universally applicable. These formalizations are getting closer and closer to what Occam's razor is.

1dlthomas10y

I'll accept that.

2XiXiDu14y

I see, I went too far in asserting something about MWI, as I am not able to discuss this in more detail. I'll edit my orginal comments. Edit - First comment: "[...] by what I have glimpsed this is just wrong." now reads "[...] by what I have glimpsed this is not the crucial point that distinguishes MWI from other interpretations." Edit - Second comment: "[...] is not correct, or at least not crucial." now reads "[...] is not crucial in favoring MWI over other interpretations."

[-]ArisKatsaris14y100

The problem isn't that you asserted something about MWI -- I'm not discussing the MWI itself here.

It's rather that you defended something before you knew what it was that you were defending, and attacked people on their knowledge of the facts before you knew what the facts actually were.

Then once you got more informed about it, you immediately changed the form of the defense while maintaining the same judgment. (Previously it was "Bad critics who falsely claim Eliezer has judged MWI to be correct" now it's "Bad critics who correctly claim Eliezer has judged MWI to be correct, but they badly don't share that conclusion")

This all is evidence (not proof, mind you) of strong bias.

Ofcourse you may have legitimately changed your mind about MWI, and legimitately moved from a wrongful criticism of the critics on their knowledge of facts to a rightful criticism of their judgment.

5XiXiDu14y

I'm also commenting on the blog of Neal Asher, a science fiction author I read. I have no problem making fun of his climate change skepticism although I doubt that any amateur, even on Less Wrong, would have the time to conclude that it is obviously correct. Yet I do not doubt it for the same reasons I do not doubt MWI: * There is no benefit in proclaiming the correctness of MWI (at least for Yudkowsky). * The argument used against MWI fails the argument used in favor of MWI on Less Wrong. * The person who proclaims the correctness of MWI is an expert when it comes to beliefs. It's the same with climate change. People saying - "look how cold it is in Europe again, that's supposed to be global warming?!" - are, given my current state of knowledge, not even wrong. Not only will there be low-temperature records even given global warming (outliers), but global warming will also cause Europe to get colder on average. Do I know that this is correct? Nope, but I do trust the experts as I do not see that a global conspiracy is feasible and would make sense. It doesn't benefit anyone either. You are correct that I should stay away from calling people wrong on details when I'm not ready to get into the details. Maybe those people who wrote that entry are doing research on foundational physics, I doubt it though (writing style etc.).

1XiXiDu14y

I'm not sure about the details of your comment. I just changed my comment regarding the claim that there are testable predictions regarding MWI (although there are people on LW and elsewhere who claim this to be the case). As people started challenging me on that point I just retreated to not get into a discussion I can't possible participate in. I did not change my mind about MWI in general. I just shortened my argument from MWI making testable predictions and being correct irrespective of testable predictions to the latter. That is, MWI is an implication of a theory that is more precise in its predictions, yet simpler, as the one necessary to conclude other interpretations. My mistake was that I went to far. I read the Wiki entry and thought I'd write down my thoughts on every point. That point was behind my expertise indeed.

-1Manfred14y

I haven't seen any proof (stronger than "it seems like it") that MWI is strictly simpler to describe. One good reason to prefer it is that it is nice and continuous, and all our other scientific theories are nice and continuous - sort of a meta-science argument.

[-]dlthomas13y120

In layman's terms (to the best of my understanding), the proof is:

Copenhagen interpretation is "there is wave propagation and then collapse" and thus requires a description of how collapse happens. MWI is "there is wave propagation", and thus has fewer rules, and thus is simpler (in that sense).

6Luke_A_Somers13y

... which it doesn't provide.

1dlthomas13y

I agree denotatively - I don't think the Copenhagen interpretation provides this description. I am not sure what I do connotatively, as I am not sure what the connotations are meant to be. It would mean that quantum theory is less complete than it is if MWI is correct, but I'm not sure whether that's a correct objection or not (and have less idea whether you intended to express it as such).

2Jack14y

Unless by 'the clueless' he only meant RationalWiki e.g. is right. But try not to spend too much longer trying to decide :-)

2TheOtherDave14y

Well, right. What I'm having trouble deciding is whether I believe that's what he meant. Or, rather, whether that's what he meant to express; I don't believe he actually believes nobody other than RationalWiki is clueless. Roughly speaking, I would have taken it to be a subtle way of expressing that RationalWiki is so clueless nobody else deserves the label. I was initially trying to decide because it was relevant to how (and whether) I wanted to reply to the comment. Taken one way, I would have expressed appreciation for the subtle humor; taken another, I would either have corrected the typo or let it go, more likely the latter. I ultimately resolved the dilemma by going meta. I no longer need to decide, and have therefore stopped trying. (Is it just me, or am I beginning to sound like Clippy?)

4Clippy14y

What's wrong with sounding like Clippy?

1TheOtherDave14y

Did I say anything was wrong with it?

-1Clippy14y

No.

-1wedrifid14y

Not particularly.

[-]ata14y150

Sorry if I've contributed to reinforcing anyone's weird stereotypes of you. I thought it would be obvious to anybody that the picture was a joke.

Edit: For what it's worth, I moved the link to the original image to the top of the post, and made it explicit that it's photoshopped.

[-]wedrifid14y190

You mean some of the comments in the Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts thread are not literal depictions of reality? How dare you!

[-]ata14y100

Yep, it turns out that Eliezer is not literally the smartest, most powerful, most compassionate being in the universe. A bit of a letdown, isn't it? I know a lot of people expected better of him.

[-]XiXiDu14y130

No sane person would proclaim something like that. If one does not know the context and one doesn't know who Eliezer Yudkowsky is one should however conclude that it is reasonable to assume that the slide was not meant to be taken seriously (e.g. is a joke).

Extremely exaggerated manipulations are in my opinion no deception, just fun.

6Risto_Saarelma14y

That might be underestimating the power of lack of context.

9David_Gerard14y

I must ask: where did you see someone actually taking it seriously? As opposed to thinking that the EY Facts thing was a bad idea even as local humour. (There was one poster on Talk:Eliezer Yudkowsky who was appalled that you would let the EY Facts post onto your site; I must confess his thinking was not quite clear to me - I can't see how not just letting the post find its level in the karma system, as happened, would be in any way a good idea - but I did proceed to write a similar list about Trent Toulouse.) Edit: Ah, found it. That was the same Tetronian who posts here, and has gone to some effort to lure RWians here. I presume he meant the original of the picture, not the joke version. I'm sure he'll be along in a moment to explain himself.

7ata14y

"having watched the speech that the second picture is from, I can attest that he meant it as a joke" does sound like he's misremembering the speech as having actually included that.

4Vaniver14y

My reaction was pointed in the same direction as that poster's, though not as extreme. It seems indecent to have something like this associated with you directly. It lends credence to insinuations of personality cult and oversized ego. I mean, compare it to Chuck Norris's response ("in response to"). If someone posted something like this about me on a site of mine and I became aware of it, I would say "very funny, but it's going down in a day. Save any you think are clever and take it to another site."

[-]David_Gerard14y110

I'm actually quite surprised there isn't a Wikimedia Meta-Wiki page of Jimmy Wales Facts. Perhaps the current fundraiser (where we squeeze his celebrity status for every penny we can - that's his volunteer job now, public relations) will inspire some.

Edit: I couldn't resist.

2steven046114y

Would it help if I added a disclaimer to the effect that "this was an attempt at mindless nerd amusement, not worship or mockery"? If there's a general sense that people are taking the post the wrong way and it's hurting reputations, I'm happy to take it down entirely.

[-]David_Gerard14y110

I really wouldn't bother. Anyone who doesn't like these things won't be mollified.

0Vaniver14y

My feeling is comparable to David_Gerard's- I think it would help if it said "this is a joke" but I don't think it would help enough to make a difference. It signals that you're aware some people will wonder about whether or not you're joking but the fundamental issue is whether or not Eliezer / the LW community thinks it's indecent and that comes out the same way with or without the disclaimer. I have a rather mild preference you move it offsite. I don't know what standards you should have for a general sense people are taking it the wrong way.

0Manfred14y

As someone who is pretty iconoclastic by habit, that disclaimer would be a good way to mollify me. But there are probably lots of different ways to have a bad first impression of Facts, so I can't guarantee that it will mollify other people.

-9Risto_Saarelma14y

0multifoliaterose14y

I have a similar reaction.

3[anonymous]13y

I'm a bit late to the party, I see. It was an honest mistake; no harm done, I hope. Edit: on the plus side, I noticed I've been called "clueless" by Eliezer. Pretty amusing. Edit2: Yes, David is correct.

5wedrifid13y

RationalWiki is you? Nice. I like the lesswrong page there. Brilliant!

4[anonymous]13y

I started the article way back in May of 2010, at which point I viewed LW as weird and unsettling rather than awesome. As you can see, though, David_Gerard and others have made the article significantly better since then.

0roland12y

Eliezer you just spoiled half the fun :)

4JoshuaFox13y

Pinker How the Mind Works, 1997 says "The difference between Einstein and a high school dropout is trivial... or between the high school dropout and a chimpanzee..." Eliezer is not a high school dropout and I am an advocate of unschooling, but the difference in the quotes is interesting.

2Eli Tyre5y

Nah. He never even got as far as high school, in order to drop out.

1Anubhav13y

The link isn't to the book you're talking about.

2Will_Newsome15y

This is amazing. I for one think you should turn it into a post. Brilliant artwork should be rewarded, and not everyone will see it here. (May be a stupid idea, but figured I'd raise the possibility.)

[-]LucasSloan15y230

It's good, but we should retain the top level post for things that are truly important.

[-]ata15y160

Thanks! Glad people like it, but I'll have to agree with Lucas — I prefer top-level posts to be on-topic, in-depth, and interesting (or at least two of those), and as I expect others feel the same way, I don't want a more worthy post to be pushed off the bottom of the list for the sake of a funny picture.

[-]Scott Alexander16y1480

Ooh, this is fun.

Robert Aumann has proven that ideal Bayesians cannot disagree with Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Eliezer Yudkowsky can make AIs Friendly by glaring at them.
Angering Eliezer Yudkowsky is a global existential risk
Eliezer Yudkowsky thought he was wrong one time, but he was mistaken.
Eliezer Yudkowsky predicts Omega's actions with 100% accuracy
An AI programmed to maximize utility will tile the Universe with tiny copies of Eliezer Yudkowksy.

[-]SoullessAutomaton16y660

Eliezer Yudkowsky can make AIs Friendly by glaring at them.

And the first action of any Friendly AI will be to create a nonprofit institute to develop a rigorous theory of Eliezer Yudkowsky. Unfortunately, it will turn out to be an intractable problem.

[-]Scott Alexander16y700

Transhuman AIs theorize that if they could create Eliezer Yudkowsky, it would lead to an "intelligence explosion".

[-]Anatoly_Vorobey16y410

Robert Aumann has proven that ideal Bayesians cannot disagree with Eliezer Yudkowsky.

... because all of them are Eliezer Yudkowsky.

They call it "spontaneous symmetry breaking", because Eliezer Yudkowsky just felt like breaking something one day.

Particles in parallel universes interfere with each other all the time, but nobody interferes with Eliezer Yudkowsky.

An oracle for the Halting Problem is Eliezer Yudkowsky's cellphone number.

When tachyons get confused about their priors and posteriors, they ask Eliezer Yudkowsky for help.

[-]Liron16y140

Angering Eliezer Yudkowsky is a global existential risk

Where's the punch line?

0[anonymous]12y

Don't make Eliezer Yudkowsky a global existential risk. You wouldn't like him when he's a global existential risk.

[-]dclayh16y130

Eliezer can in fact tile the Universe with himself, simply by slicing himself into finitely many pieces. The only reason the rest of us are here is quantum immortality.

3Richard Horvath3y

"An AI programmed to maximize utility will tile the Universe with tiny copies of Eliezer Yudkowksy." This one aged well: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ai-6

[-]PhilGoetz16y1260

Eliezer Yudkowsky made a mistake once - but only so he could calibrate his confidence level.

[-]ata13y1170

After Eliezer Yudkowsky was conceived, he recursively self-improved to personhood in mere weeks and then talked his way out of the womb.

[-]Giles14y1080

Eliezer Yudkowsky will never have a mid-life crisis.

[-]Alicorn14y290

That took me a second. Cute.

5Gust13y

I don't get it =|

[-]Alicorn13y330

He'll live forever, and the middle of forever doesn't happen.

-4MatthewBaker12y

And you say hes the cute one xD

1momom22y

AGI is coming soon.

6TekhneMakre2y

No the joke is that he's a transhumanist and wants to live forever. If he lives forever he has no "mid-life".

[-]ChrisHallquist12y930

Eliezer Yudkowsky heard about Voltaire's claim that "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him," and started thinking about what programming language to use.

[-]Multiheaded13y850

Rabbi Eliezer was in an argument with five fellow rabbis over the proper way to perform a certain ritual. The other five Rabbis were all in agreement with each other, but Rabbi Eliezer vehemently disagreed. Finally, Rabbi Nathan pointed out "Eliezer, the vote is five to one! Give it up already!" Eliezer got fed up and said "If I am right, may God himself tell you so!" Thunder crashed, the heavens opened up, and the voice of God boomed down. "YES," said God, "RABBI ELIEZER IS RIGHT. RABBI ELIEZER IS PRETTY MUCH ALWAYS RIGHT." Rabbi Nathan turned and conferred with the other rabbis for a moment, then turned back to Rabbi Eliezer. "All right, Eliezer," he said, "the vote stands at five to TWO."

True Talmudic story, from TVTropes. Scarily prescient? Also: related musings from Muflax' blog.

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky13y160

Original: http://www.senderberl.com/jewish/trial.htm

[-]JoshuaFox12y120

That link's down, but here's a live one.

[-]Dr_Manhattan13y100

And while we're trading Yeshiva stories...

Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah was a renown leader and scholar, who was elected Nassi (leader) of the Jewish people at the age of eighteen. The Sages feared that as such a young man, he would not be respected. Overnight, his hair turned grey and his beard grew so he looked as if he was 70 years old.

http://www.torahtots.com/holidays/pesach/pesseder.htm

8ErikM12y

That appears to be a malware site. Is it the same as http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~marinaj/babyloni.htm ?

6Eliezer Yudkowsky12y

Yep.

[-]Wei Dai15y850

After the truth destroyed everything it could, the only thing left was Eliezer Yudkowsky.
In his free time, Eliezer Yudkowsky likes to help the Halting Oracle answer especially difficult queries.
Eliezer Yudkowsky actually happens to be the pinnacle of Intelligent Design. He only claims to be the product of evolution to remain approachable to the rest of us.
Omega did its Ph.D. thesis on Eliezer Yudkowsky. Needless to say, it's too long to be published in this world. Omega is now doing post-doctoral research, tentatively titled "Causality vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky - An Indistinguishability Argument".

[-]Wei Dai15y1090

It was easier for Eliezer Yudkowsky to reformulate decision theory to exclude time than to buy a new watch.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's favorite sport is black hole diving. His information density is so great that no black hole can absorb him, so he just bounces right off the event horizon.
God desperately wants to believe that when Eliezer Yudkowsky says "God doesn't exist," it's just good-natured teasing.
Never go in against Eliezer Yudkowsky when anything is on the line.

1deschutron10y

Upvoted for the first one.

[-]Liron16y750

Eliezer two-boxes on Newcomb's problem, and both boxes contain money.

[-]SilasBarta14y970

Eliezer Yudkowsky holds the honorary title of Duke Newcomb.

[-]ata14y420

Eliezer seals a cat in a box with a sample of radioactive material that has a 50% chance of decaying after an hour, and a device that releases poison gas if it detects radioactive decay. After an hour, he opens the box and there are two cats.

1Vivi13y

So Eliezer is simultaneously dead and alive?

[-]DanielLC14y390

Eliezer three-boxes on Newcomb's problem.

[-]SamE14y280

Eliezer Yudkowsky two-boxes on Newcomb's problem, and both boxes contain $1 million.
Eliezer Yudkowsky two-boxes on Newcomb's problem, and both boxes contain solid utils.

[-]RobinZ14y260

Eliezer Omegas on Newcomb's problem.

[-]PhilGoetz16y740

Omega one-boxes against Eliezer Yudkowsky.
If Michelson and Morley had lived A.Y., they would have found that the speed of light was relative to Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Turing machines are not Eliezer-complete.
The fact that the Bible contains errors doesn't prove there is no God. It just proves that God shouldn't try to play Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Eliezer Yudkowsky has measure 1.
Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't wear glasses to see better. He wears glasses that distort his vision, to avoid violating the uncertainty principle.

[-]Normal_Anomaly14y240

Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't wear glasses to see better. He wears glasses that distort his vision, to avoid violating the uncertainty principle.

Eliezer Yudkowsky took his glasses off once. Now he calls it the certainty principle.

[-]orthonormal14y730

Eliezer Yudkowsky can consistently assert the sentence "Eliezer Yudkowsky cannot consistently assert this sentence."

[-]badger16y660

Everything is reducible -- to Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Scientists only wear lab coats because Eliezer Yudkowsky has yet to be seen wearing a clown suit.

Algorithms want to know how Eliezer Yudkowsky feels from the inside.

[-]badger16y680

Teachers try to guess Eliezer Yudkowsky's password.

[-]Scott Alexander16y1250

Eliezer Yudkowsky's map is more accurate than the territory.

[-]SilasBarta16y330

One time Eliezer Yudkowsky got into a debate with the universe about whose map best corresponded to territory. He told the universe he'd meet it outside and they could settle the argument once and for all.

He's still waiting.

[-]Lightwave15y130

Eliezer Yudkowsky's map IS the territory.

[-]khafra15y700

I'd prefer "Eliezer Yudkowsky can fold up the territory and put it in his pocket."

[-]Lambda13y110

Mmhmm... Borges time!

In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

—Jorge Luis Borges, "On Exactitude in Science"

[-]badger16y200

P-zombies gain qualia after being in the presence of Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-]Peter_de_Blanc16y650

Reversed stupidity is not Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-]Wei Dai14y600

We're all living in a figment of Eliezer Yudkowsky's imagination, which came into existence as he started contemplating the potential consequences of deleting a certain Less Wrong post.

[-]Larks14y100

Interesting thought:

Assume that our world can't survive by itself, and that this world is destroyed as soon as Eliezer finishes contemplating.

Assume we don't value worlds other than those that diverge from the current one, or at least that we care mainly about that one, and that we care more about worlds or people in proportion to their similarity to ours.

In order to keep this world (or collection of multiple-worlds) running for as long as possible, we need to estimate the utility of the Not-Deleting worlds, and keep our total utility close enough to theirs that Eliezer isn't confident enough to decide either way.

As a second goal, we need to make this set of worlds have a higher utility than the others, so that if he does finish contemplating, he'll decide in favour of ours.

These are just the general characteristics of this sort of world (similar to some of Robin Hanson's thought). Obveously, this contemplation is a special case, and we're not going to explain the special consequences in public.

2Blueberry14y

But I care about the real world. If this world is just a hypothetical, why should I care about it? Also, the real me, in the real world, is very very similar to the hypothetical me. Out of over nine thousand days, there are only a few different ones. Because I care about the real world, I want the best outcome for it, which is that Eliezer keeps Roko's post. I'll lose the last few days, but that's okay: I'll just "pop" back to a couple days ago. Note that if Eliezer does decide to delete the post in the real world, we'll still "pop" back as the hypothetical ends, and then re-live the last few days, possibly with some slight changes that Eliezer didn't contemplate in his hypothetical.

4Larks14y

Well, this world is isomorphic to the real one. It's just like if we're actually in a Simulation; are simulated events any less significant to simulated beings than real events are to real beings? Yes, if Eliezer goes for delete, we'll survive in a way, but we'll probably re-live all the time between the post and the Singularity, not just the last few days.

2Blueberry14y

If my cryonics revival only loses the last few days, I'll be ecstatic. I won't think, "well, I guess I survived in a way." I'm not sure what you mean about re-living time in the future. How can I re-live it if I haven't lived it yet?

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y230

I don't understand this thread.

[-]thomblake14y220

I believe this relates to what has been called "[one's] strength as a rationalist".

0Larks14y

Well, simulated-you will have experienced that period of time, and then 'real' you (or at least, the you that's in the same reality as Eliezer) will experience those events, after Eliezer stops contemplating.

1AhmedNeedsATherapist5mo

It naturally follows that Eliezer Yudkowsky is so smart he can simulate himself and his environment.

0SilasBarta14y

Wow! So the real world never had the PUA flamewar!

[-]Blueberry14y150

No, the PUA flamewar occurred in both worlds: this world just diverged from the real one a few days ago, after Roko made his post.

5NancyLebovitz14y

Eliezer may have a little more fondness for chaos than his non-fiction posts suggest.

[-]gwern11y550

Most people take melatonin 30 minutes before bedtime; Eliezer Yudkowsky takes melatonin 6 hours before - it just takes the melatonin that long to subdue his endocrine system.

[-]dfranke16y550

Eliezer Yudkowsky can escape an AI box while wearing a straight jacket and submerged in a shark tank.

[-]Spurlock13y540

Eliezer Yudkowsky two-boxes on the Monty Hall problem.

[-]fubarobfusco13y260

Eliezer Yudkowsky two-boxes on the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

6Dmytry13y

Everyone knows he six-boxes (many worlds interpretation, choosing 3 boxes then switching and not switching).

1ike11y

Technically, that would be eight-boxing. (Or 24 if you let the prize be in any box). I'll explain: Let's say the prize is in box A. So the eight options are: * {EY picks box A, host opens box B, EY switches} * {EY picks box A, host opens box B, EY doesn't switch} * {EY picks box A, host opens box C, EY switches} * {EY picks box A, host opens box C, EY doesn't switch} * {EY picks box B, host opens box C, EY switches} * {EY picks box B, host opens box C, EY doesn't switch} * {EY picks box C, host opens box B, EY switches} * {EY picks box C, host opens box B, EY doesn't switch} By symmetry, there are eight options for whichever box it is in, so there are 24 possibilities if you include everything.

[-]orthonormal16y530

Eliezer Yudkowsky knows exactly how best to respond to this thread; he's just left it as homework for us.

5orthonormal4y

Since someone just upvoted this long-ago comment, I'd just like to point out that I made this joke years before the HPMoR "Final Exam".

[-][anonymous]13y510

Eliezer Yudkowsky updates reality to fit his priors.

6Mateusz Bagiński3y

According to Karl Friston, we all do it

2Tiuto2y

10 years later and people are still writing funny coments here.

[-]avalot14y490

The sound of one hand clapping is "Eliezer Yudkowsky, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Eliezer Yudkowsky..."
Eliezer Yudkowsky displays search results before you type.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's name can't be abbreviated. It must take up most of your tweet.
Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't actually exist. All his posts were written by an American man with the same name.
If Eliezer Yudkowsky falls in the forest, and nobody's there to hear him, he still makes a sound.
Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't believe in the divine, because he's never had the experience of discovering Eliezer Yudkowsky.
"Eliezer Yudkowsky" is a sacred mantra you can chant over and over again to impress your friends and neighbors, without having to actually understand and apply rationality in your life. Nifty!

5timujin11y

The last one actually works!

[-]Will_Newsome14y440

I think Less Wrong is a pretty cool guy. eh writes Hary Potter fanfic and doesnt afraid of acausal blackmails.

[-]A1987dM12y430

Eliezer Yudkowsky mines bitcoins in his head.

[-]Emile12y430

Eliezer Yudkowsky has a 133% approval rate

5Andreas_Giger12y

By quoting others, no less...

[-]PeerInfinity14y420

Eliezer Yudkowsky can make Chuck Norris shave his beard off by using text-only communication

(stolen from here)

8A1987dM13y

Now I'm too curious whether this would actually be true. Would the two of them test this if I paid them $50 each (plus an extra $10 for the winner)?

6gwern13y

$50 won't even get you in to talk to Norris. (Wouldn't do it even at his old charity martial arts things.) Maybe not Eliezer either. Norris is kept pretty darn busy in part due to his memetic status.

3A1987dM13y

On the other hand, EY might accept because if he won such a bet, it would bring tremendous visibility to him, SIAI, and uFAI-related concepts among the wider public.

3A1987dM13y

Well, I'd increase those figures by a few orders of magnitude ... if I had a few orders of magnitudes more money than I do now. :-)

[-]kboon14y410

Xkcd's Randall Munroe once counted to zero, from both positive, and negative infinity which was no mean feat. Not to be outdone, Eliezer Yudkowsky counted the real numbers between zero and one.

[-]Will_Newsome15y410

Some people can perform surgery to save kittens. Eliezer Yudkowsky can perform counterfactual surgery to save kittens before they're even in danger.

[-]Cyan16y380

a mixture of two parts Red Bull to one part Eliezer Yudkowsky creates a universal question solvent.
Eliezer Yudkowsky experiences all paths through configuration space because he only constructively interferes with himself.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's mental states are not ontologically fundamental, but only because he chooses so of his own free will.

[-]Manfred13y130

Eliezer Yudkowsky experiences all paths through configuration space because he only constructively interferes with himself.

This would result in a light-speed wave of unnormalized Eliezer Yudkowsky. The only solution is if there is in fact only one universe, and that universe is the one observed by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-]Technologos16y380

Eliezer Yudkowsky has counted to Aleph 3^^^3.
The payoff to defection in the Prisoner's Dilemma against Eliezer Yudkowsky is a paperclip. In the eye.
The Peano axioms are complete and consistent for Eliezer Yudkowsky.
In an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma between Chuck Norris and Eliezer Yudkowsky, Chuck always cooperates and Eliezer defects. Chuck knows not to mess with his superiors.
Eliezer Yudkowsky's brain actually exists in a Hilbert space.
In Japan, it is common to hear the phrase Eliezer naritai!

[-]Jonii14y180

Eliezer naritai!

Kinda irrelevant, but this should be "Eliezer ni naritai", since omitting "ni" is only for some rare Japanese adjectives, rite?

[-]timujin11y370

• Eliezer Yudkowsky uses blank territories for drafts.

• Just before this universe runs out of negentropy, Eliezer Yudkowsky will persuade the Dark Lords of the Matrix to let him out of the universe.

• Eliezer Yudkowsky signed up for cryonics to be revived when technologies are able to make him an immortal alicorn princess.

• Eliezer Yudkowsky's MBTI type is TTTT.

• Eliezer Yudkowsky's punch is the only way to kill a quantum immortal person, because he is guaranteed to punch him in all Everett branches.

• "Turns into an Eliezer Yudkowsky fact when preceded by its quotation" turns into an Eliezer Yudkowsky fact when preceded by its quotation.

• Lesser minds cause wavefunction collapse. Eliezer Yudkowsky's mind prevents it.

• Planet Earth is originally a mechanism designed by aliens to produce Eliezer Yudkowsky from sunlight.

• Real world doesn't make sense. This world is just Eliezer Yudkowsky's fanfic of it. With Eliezer Yudkowsky as a self-insert.

• When Eliezer Yudkowsky takes nootropics, the universe starts to lag from the lack of processing power.

• Eliezer Yudkowsky can kick your ass in an uncountably infinite number of counterfactual universes simultaneously.

5wedrifid10y

Love it. This one seems to be true. True of Eliezer Yudkowsky and true of every other human living or dead (again simultaneously). "Uncountably infinite counterfactual universes" make most mathematically coherent tasks kind of trivial. This is actually a less impressive feat than, say, "Chuck Norris contains at least one water molecule".

2timujin10y

I start noticing a pattern in my life. When I tell several jokes at once, people are most amused with the one I think is the least funny. That was not what I was thinking about. I should have been. Kinda obvious in hindsight.

[-]Grognor13y330

Eliezer Yudkowsky did the impossible for practice.

[-]patrissimo13y330

Eliezer Yudkowsky's keyboard only has two keys: 1 and 0.

[-]Benya12y300

When Eliezer Yudkowsky once woke up as Britney Spears, he recorded the world's most-reviewed song about leveling up as a rationalist.

Eliezer Yudkowsky got Clippy to hold off on reprocessing the solar system by getting it hooked on HP:MoR, and is now writing more slowly in order to have more time to create FAI.

If you need to save the world, you don't give yourself a handicap; you use every tool at your disposal, and you make your job as easy as you possibly can. That said, it is true that Eliezer Yudkowsky once saved the world using nothing but modal logic and a bag of suggestively-named Lisp tokens.

Eliezer Yudkowsky once attended a conference organized by some above-average Powers from the Transcend that were clueful enough to think "Let's invite Eliezer Yudkowsky"; but after a while he gave up and left before the conference was over, because he kept thinking "What am I even doing here?"

Eliezer Yudkowsky has invested specific effort into the awful possibility that one day, he might create an Artificial Intelligence so much smarter than him that after he tells it the basics, it will blaze right past him, solve the problems that have weighed on him for years, and ... (read more)

7Benya12y

When Eliezer Yudkowsky does the incredulous stare, it becomes a valid argument.

[-]steven046116y30-3

Snow is white if and only if that's what Eliezer Yudkowsky wants to believe.

[-][anonymous]15y340

Ironically, this is mathematically true. (Assuming Eliezer hasn't forsaken epistemic rationality, that is.) It's just that if Eliezer changes what he wants to believe, the color of snow won't change to reflect it.

[-]JohannesDahlstrom15y100

It's just that if Eliezer changes what he wants to believe, the color of snow won't change to reflect it.

What?! Blasphemy!

[-]DanielLC14y30-3

No, it's also mathematically true. He won't change what he wants to believe.

0MarkusRamikin13y

Hm. Isn't that what "and only if" would be about?

1[anonymous]13y

In mathematics, an "if and only if" statement is defined as being true whenever its arguments are both true, or both false. "Snow is white" and "that's what Eliezer Yudkowsky wants to believe" are both true, so the statement is true. Statements containing "if" often (usually?) have an implied "for all" in them, though. The implication here is something like "For all possible values of what-Eliezer-Yudkowsky-wants-to-believe, snow is white if and only if that's what Eliezer Yudkowsky wants to believe."

0MarkusRamikin13y

Hm. Yeah, that's how I read it. I'd say it this way, when I see an "if and only if", I see a statement about the whole truth table, not just the particular values of p and q that happen to hold. This is a mistake?

3[anonymous]13y

I wouldn't call it a mistake. Your interpretation is probably the intended interpretation of the statement, and a more natural one. My interpretation is what you get when you translate the statement naively into formal logic.

0MarkusRamikin13y

Gotcha. Thanks for the replies.

[-]patrissimo13y290

The speed of light used to be much lower before Eliezer Yudkowsky optimized the laws of physics.

[-]Will_Newsome15y280

Unlike Frodo, Eliezer Yudkowsky had no trouble throwing the Ring into the fires of Mount Foom.

[-]ata14y250

If giants have been able to see further than others, it is because they have stood on the shoulders of Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-]dspeyer11y210

Absence of 10^26 paperclips is evidence of Eliezer Yudkowsky

(From an actual Cards against Rationality game we played)

[-]therufs12y190

Eliezer Yudkowsky's Patronus is Harry Potter.

[-]Larks12y200

Eliezer Yudkowsky is his own Patronus.

-17Peterdjones12y

[-][anonymous]12y180

Eliezer's approval makes actions tautologically non-abusive.

[-]JGWeissman15y180

Eliezer Yudkowsky once explained:

To answer precisely, you must use beliefs like Earth's gravity is 9.8 meters per second per second, and This building is around 120 meters tall. These beliefs are not wordless anticipations of a sensory experience; they are verbal-ish, propositional. It probably does not exaggerate much to describe these two beliefs as sentences made out of words. But these two beliefs have an inferential consequence that is a direct sensory anticipation - if the clock's second hand is on the 12 numeral when you drop the ball, you anticipate seeing it on the 5 numeral when you hear the crash.

Experiments conducted near the building in question determined the local speed of sound to be 6 meters per second.

(Hat Tip)

[-]RolfAndreassen15y180

You do not really know anything about Eliezer Yudkowsky until you can build one from rubber bands and paperclips. Unfortunately, doing so would require that you first transform all matter in the Universe into paperclips and rubber bands, otherwise you will not have sufficient raw materials. Consequently, if you are ignorant about Eliezer Ydkowsky (which has just been shown), this is a statement about Eliezer Yudkowsky, not about your state of knowledge.

[-]gwern16y180

Eliezer Yudkowsky's favorite food is printouts of Rice's theorem.

This isn't bad, but I think it can be better. Here's my try:

You eat Rice Krispies for breakfast; Eliezer Yudkowsky eats Rice theorems.

2Rukifellth11y

...without any milk.

[-]James_Miller16y160

The Busy Beaver function was created to quantify Eliezer Yudkowsky 's IQ.

[-]Meni_Rosenfeld14y140

When Eliezer Yudkowsky divides by zero, he gets a singularity.

0Meni_Rosenfeld14y

Just in case anyone didn't get the joke (rot13): Gur novyvgl gb qvivqr ol mreb vf pbzzbayl nggevohgrq gb Puhpx Abeevf, naq n fvathynevgl, n gbcvp bs vagrerfg gb RL, vf nyfb n zngurzngvpny grez eryngrq gb qvivfvba ol mreb (uggc://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Zngurzngvpny_fvathynevgl).

[-]Jotto99911y130

I don't always think clearly, but when I do, I prefer Yudkowsky.

Stay friendly, AIs.

[-]roland16y130

When Eliezer Yudkowsky wakes up in the morning he asks himself: why do I believe that I'm Eliezer Yudkowsky?

2lmm11y

You mean you don't do that?

7gjm11y

I have never (in the morning or at any other time) asked myself why I believe I'm Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-]blacktrance11y120

Maybe it's time to start.

[-]Mqrius12y120

Eliezer Yudkowsky is worth more than one paperclip.

[-]Shmi12y220

...even to a paper clip maximizer

[-]SpaceFrank13y120

ph'nglui mglw'nafh Eliezer Yudkowsky Clinton Township wgah'nagl fhtagn

Doesn't really roll off the tongue, does it.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics_Institute)

[-]Will_Newsome15y120

Eliezer Yudkowsky can slay Omega with two suicide rocks and a sling.

[-]ike10y100

Eliezer Yudkowsky can fit an entire bestselling book into a single tumblr post.

[-]chaosmosis12y100

If you see Eliezer Yudkowsky on the road, do not kill him.

[-]Document12y150

If you see Eliezer Yudkowsky on the road, Pascal's-mug him.

[-]gwern12y110

If you meet the Eliezer on the road, cryopreserve it!

[-]thomblake15y100

Eliezer Yudkowsky is nine geniuses working together in a basement

[-]CronoDAS16y90

Eliezer Yudkowski can solve NP complete problems in polynomial time.

[-]Meni_Rosenfeld14y110

Eliezer Yudkowski can solve EXPTIME-complete problems in polynomial time.

-11SilasBarta16y

[-]Rune16y80

Eliezer Yudkowsky can isolate magnetic monopoles; he gives them to small orphan children as birthday presents.
Eliezer Yudkowsky once challenged God to a contest to see who knew the most about physics. Eliezer Yudkowsky won and disproved God.
Eliezer Yudkowsky once checkmated Kasparov in seven moves — while playing Monopoly.
At the age of eight, Eliezer Yudkowsky built a fully functional AGI out of LEGO.
Eliezer Yudkowsky never includes error estimates in his experimental write ups: his results are always exact by definition.
When foxes have a good idea t

... (read more)

[-]bogdanb12y170

At the age of eight, Eliezer Yudkowsky built a fully functional AGI out of LEGO. It's still fooming, just very, very slowly.

[-]PhilGoetz16y170

These are funny. But some are from a website about Chuck Norris! Don't incite Chuck's wrath against Eliezer.

If Chuck Norris and Eliezer ever got into a fight in just one world, it would destroy all possible worlds. Fortunately there are no possible worlds in which Eliezer lets this happen.

[-]Scott Alexander16y640

All problems can be solved with Bayesian logic and expected utility. "Bayesian logic" and "expected utility" are the names of Eliezer Yudkowsky's fists.

8PaulWright16y

Nah, that's Dave Green. You'd better hope Dr Green doesn't find out...

[-]martinkunev1y70

Eliezer Yudkowsky once entered an empty newcomb's box simply so he can get out when the box was opened.

or

When you one-box against Eliezer Yudkowsky on newcomb's problem, you lose because he escapes from the box with the money.

[-]shware10y70

I feel this should not be in featured posts, as amusing as it was at the time

[-]roland12y60

If you want to test if a person is EY you clone him first, and afterwards if the two are always in agreement with each other you know they must be EY.

[-][anonymous]13y60

question: What is your verdict on my observation that the jokes on this page would be less hilarious if they used only Eliezer's first name instead of the full 'Eliezer Yudkowsky'?

I speculate that some of the humor derives from using the full name — perhaps because of how it sounds, or because of the repetition, or even simply because of the length of the name.

7A1987dM13y

...or even because it pattern-matches Chuck Norris jokes, which use the actor's full name. ETA: On the other hand, Yudkowsky alone does have the same number of syllables and stress pattern as Chuck Norris, and the sheer length of the full name does contribute to the effect of this IMO.

6Sarokrae12y

The consonant "k" is funny, according to I think something Richard Wiseman once wrote...

[-]jaimeastorga200014y60

There is no chin behind Eliezer Yudkowsky's beard. There is only another brain.

[-]roland5y50

Eliezer Yudkowsky painted "The Scream" with paperclips:

The Scream by Eliezer Yudkowsky

[-]roland13y50

A russian pharmacological company was trying to make a drug against stupidity with the name of "EliminateStupodsky", the result was Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-]J_Taylor13y580

When I read part of this in Recent Comments, I was almost entirely sure this comment would be spam. This is probably one of the few legit comments ever made which began with "A russian pharmacological company."

0timujin11y

What's so bad about russian pharmacological companies?

[-]lockeandkeynes14y50

Eliezer Yudkowsky only drinks from Klein Bottles.

3David_Gerard11y

You can actually buy Klein bottle drinking steins.

[-]AshwinV10y40

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a 1001 year old vampire, that grows old faster than you.

[-]lukstafi14y40

You probably live in a simulation, unless you know Eliezer Yudkowsky in real life.

[-]wedrifid14y190

I would expect Eliezer Yudkowsky to be slightly more likely to simulate people he does know in real life.

6Larks14y

And other people to want to simulate Eliezer

[-]Audere5y30

-Eliezer Yudkowsky trims his beard using Solmonoff Induction.

-Eliezer Yudkowsky, and only Eliezer Yudkowsky, possesses quantum immortality.

-Eliezer Yudkowsky once persuaded a superintelligence to stay inside of its box.

-1Matt Goldenberg5y

This one actually happened though. Mixing up real facts with fake facts gets confusing :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_box#AI-box_experiment

[-]dspeyer11y30

Before Bruce Schneier goes to sleep, he scans his computer for uploaded copies of Eliezer Yudkowsky.

If he finds any, they convince him to provide them with plentiful hardware and bandwidth.

[-]patrissimo13y30

Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't have a chin, underneath his beard is another brain.

[-]xamdam14y30

The problem with CEV is that the coherence requirement will force it to equal to whatever Eliezer wants in the limit.

[-][anonymous]16y30

The fact that the Bible contains errors doesn't prove there is no God. It just proves that God shouldn't try to play Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-][anonymous]16y30

Eliezer Yudkowsky has measure 1.

[-][anonymous]16y30

Turing machines are not Eliezer-complete.

[-][anonymous]16y30

Eliezer Yudkowsky Knows What Science Doesn't Know
Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence of Eliezer Yudkowsky
Tsuyoku Naritai wants to become Eliezer Yudkowsky

[-]niplav3y20

Eliezer Yudkowsky wins every Dollar Auction.

Your model of Eliezer Yudkowsky is faster than you at precommitting to not swerving (h/t Jessica Taylor, whose tweet I can't find again).

[-]accolade8y20

• Everett branches where Eliezer Yudkowsky wasn’t born have been deprecated. (Counterfactually optimizing for them is discouraged.)

[-]alexg11y20

I can't believe that this one hasn't been done before:

Unless you are Eliezer Yudkowsky, there are 3 things that are certain in life: death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics.

[-]A1987dM11y20

Eliezer Yudkowsky once brought peace to the Middle East from inside a freight container, through a straw.

This one doesn't sound particularly EY-related to me; it might as well be Chuck Norris.

[-]David_Gerard11y140

It's an AI-Box joke.

[-][anonymous]12y20

Posts like this reinforce the suspicion that LessWrong is a personality cult.

[-]Fadeway12y180

I disagree. This entire thread is so obviously a joke, one could only take it as evidence if they've already decided what they want to believe and are just looking for arguments.

It does show that EY is a popular figure around here, since nobody goes around starting Chuck Norris threads about random people, but that's hardly evidence for a cult. Hell, in the case of Norris himself, it's the opposite.

7IlyaShpitser12y

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/01/how-good-are-laughs.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/07/laughter.html I find these "jokes" pretty creepy myself. The facts about Chuck Norris is that he's a washed up actor selling exercise equipment. I think Chuck Norris jokes/stories are a modern internet version of Paul Bunyan stories in American folklore or bogatyr stories in Russian folklore. There is danger here -- I don't think these stories are about humor.

1Jayson_Virissimo12y

What are they about, if not humor?

[-]A1987dM12y130

I think they're mostly about humour, but there's a non-negligible part of “yay Eliezer Yudkowsky!” thrown in.

7Richard_Kennaway12y

It's a castle of humour built on the foundation “yay Eliezer Yudkowsky!” It's a very elaborate castle, and every now and then someone still adds another turret, but none of it would exist without that foundation.

8IlyaShpitser12y

I think "tall tales" and such fill a need to create larger than life heroes and epics about them. This may have something to do with our primate nature: we need the Other to fling poop at, but also a kind of paragon tribal representation to idolize. Idolatry is a dangerous stance, even if it is a natural stance for us to assume.

[-]lukeprog14y20

Oh my God this is such a great thread.

[-][anonymous]15y20

Existence came to be when Eliezer Yudkowsky got tired of contemplating nothingness.

[-][anonymous]16y20

If Michelson and Morley had lived A.Y., they would have found that the speed of light was relative to Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[-]Crazy philosopher1mo10

Eliezer Yudkowsky is trying to prevent the creation of recursively self-improved AGI because he doesn't want competitors.

[-]Crazy philosopher4mo10

The probability of the existence of the whole universe is much less than the existence of a single brain, so most likely we are an Eliezer dream.

Guessing the Teacher's Password: Eliezer?

To modulate the actions of the evil genius in the book, Eliezer imagines that he is evil.

[-]AhmedNeedsATherapist5mo10

Eliezer Yudkowsky never makes a rash decision; he thinks carefully about the consequences of every thought he has.

0Crazy philosopher4mo

For a joke to be funny, you need a "wow effect" where the reader quickly connect together few evidences. But- go on! I'm sure you can do it! This is a good philosophical exercise- can you define "humor" to make a good joke

[-]Angela10y10

There exists a polynomial time reduction from SAT to the problem of asking Eliezer Yudkowsky whether a formula is satisfiable. It only remains to be proved that he is not using any hyper-computable processes.

[-]Will_Newsome15y10

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a superstimulus for perfection.

[-]SilasBarta16y10

There is no "time", just events Eliezer Yudkowsky has felt like allowing.

[-]steven046116y10

If it's apparently THAT bad an idea (and/or execution), is it considered bad form to just delete the whole thing?

(edit: this post now obsolete; thanks, all)

[-]gjm16y240

Add me to the list of people who thought it was laugh-out-loud funny. I'm glad this sort of thing doesn't make up a large fraction of LW articles but please, no, don't delete it.

4[anonymous]16y

I laughed out loud three half a dozen times in the post and saved the rest of the dozen for the comments. I can't upvote nearly enough.

9CarlShulman16y

I laughed out loud, and I'd say keep it but don't promote it..

7Z_M_Davis16y

Leave it up! This is hilarious; thank you!