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gwern comments on Anyone read Erfworld? - Less Wrong
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So, I'm a little ways in, and I run into Ender's Game references - just like MoR. I suspect I will like it.
EDIT: archive-binged it. I like it so far although I find it strange that Hamster has not figured out how to remove Stanley.
EDITEDIT: See my later comment on the rest of the strip.
Have YOU figured out how to remove Stanley? (Bear in mind that he's under thinkamancy that forces him to serve, which presumably means not to try and figure out a way not to have to serve).
Thinkamancy is specified to have a loophole where you can seek their 'higher good', as exhibited already by what's-her-name.
For Hamster, it's really obvious that having Stanley in control is seriously endangering Stanley's project of world domination. On a more philosophical ground, he's failing to grow and is becoming unhappier as his limits become obvious even to him. That's two ways in which Stanley's removal is an improvement.
How could he remove Stanley's control? The thinkamancy could be undone by a turnermancer (like the one recently introduced, working for Charlie) and there's apparently a -mancy which specializes just in undoing other -mancies (one example given being undoing a flying bonus). Or heck, he could just ask his mathamancy artifact; I mean, if it can answer questions like 'will Charlie regret blowing all his calculations on question X?', it should be able to answer a question like how to undo his loyalty.
It doesn't matter if he could escape if he wanted to, because he couldn't want to escape unless he already had done so. Friendliness is stable under self-modification.
Edit: I managed to type that whole thing without quite realizing how perfect Parson is as a lay-accessible model for what an alien intelligence looks like. The perversity of his ingenuity, stemming from the fact that he doesn't share the prejudices of the people around him, is a major part of what people fail to anticipate in AI.
I initially read "I archive-binged it" to mean "I'm using Archive Binge to read it at a reasonable pace" rather than "I just binged my way through the whole archive", and was annoyed to see apparent spoilers in the reply. (I wasn't spoiled -- I'm caught up -- but thought you would be.)
(Turns out Erfworld isn't offered by Archive Binge.)
I thought it was a reference to Bing, the search engine, and was thoroughly confused. Thanks for the clarification.
Well, where do you think Archive Binge got its name from? 'archive-binging'.
Yes, I realized that afterward. :/
Not to mention the TV Tropes definition of "archive binge"...