Rationality Quotes June 2012

4 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 02 June 2012 05:14PM

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

  • Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately.  (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments.  If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
  • Do not quote yourself
  • Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
  • No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Comments (413)

Comment author: Grognor 01 June 2012 01:46:09PM 5 points [-]

To change your mind it does not suffice to change your opinion.

-Aaron Haspel

Comment author: MixedNuts 01 June 2012 02:05:13PM 5 points [-]

There's no context in the source, so: WTF?

Comment author: Grognor 01 June 2012 02:28:10PM 1 point [-]

He is using "mind" in a broader sense than people usually do with the phrase "change your mind".

Comment author: MixedNuts 01 June 2012 03:19:30PM 7 points [-]

A reasonable interpretation could be "changing one of your beliefs doesn't automatically change your other related beliefs, your aliefs, your habits and your behavioral triggers". But "changing your mind" could also mean "changing anything about your mind, such as a personality trait or even a mood".

Comment author: fubarobfusco 01 June 2012 07:07:10PM 10 points [-]

For instance, becoming intellectually convinced that sexual jealousy is a bad idea does not purge you of experiencing any.

Comment author: Manfred 03 June 2012 09:14:26PM -1 points [-]

Ah. So not only is he using "mind" unusually, he's also using "opinion" unusually. And "change" idiomatically.

Well then, it's trivial!

Comment author: Grognor 02 June 2012 09:29:36PM 6 points [-]

Another example: Learning that an opinion of yours was wrong does not destroy all the broken cognitive processes that generated the wrong opinion in the first place.

I think people are seriously underestimating the value of this quote, but then again of course I do; I'm the one who posted it.

Comment author: wmorgan 01 June 2012 02:27:20PM 0 points [-]

You have to know exactly what you want, and you have to know exactly how to get it.

Eben Moglen, on how to change the world

Comment author: gwern 02 June 2012 07:31:00PM 2 points [-]

I don't think Moglen always knew exactly what he was doing.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 June 2012 07:52:56PM 2 points [-]

And I've never heard of him, so perhaps he didn't change the world either.

Comment author: gjm 02 June 2012 10:49:31PM 8 points [-]

One of the defence team of Phil Zimmermann in the PGP case. General counsel of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center. Mostly responsible for the changes between version 2 and version 3 of the GNU General Public License.

I'm not sure any of that counts as changing the world, but it does seem like he's had some impact.

Comment author: wedrifid 02 June 2012 11:02:22PM *  0 points [-]

And I've never heard of him, so perhaps he didn't change the world either.

I assume this message is intended as some sort of irony? (Just because the message as a straight statement seems wrong and not in fitting to what your world saving attitudes seem to be.)

Comment author: JoshuaZ 02 June 2012 11:12:05PM *  15 points [-]

A lot more people have heard of Michael Jordan than have heard of Norman Borlaug. Yet Borlaug is one of the few humans on the planet who can be personally credited with saving millions of lives. Who one has heard of is not likely to be highly correlated with what impact people have had.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 June 2012 12:04:23AM 1 point [-]

(I did perform a quick Google check after writing the comment and before posting it, just to make sure.)

Comment author: gwern 03 June 2012 12:50:52AM 2 points [-]

Somewhat ironically, I actually have heard of Moglen for what he's really famous for, but I thought the quote was from Elon Musk (for whom, it should be said, the quote would be much truer - so far). I was surprised you hadn't heard of him, so I checked Wikipedia and then realized my mistake.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 June 2012 03:41:26AM *  1 point [-]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G2VHf5vpBy8#!

Moglen on what the world needs -- in particular, for young people to have full access to computer hardware and software so that they can innovate, and privacy so that people can reboot their lives. I'm not sure whether this is giddy idealism or reasonable and important.

Comment author: tgb 03 June 2012 03:31:08PM 1 point [-]

In the context of the youtube link where the quote is from, he is saying what he learned from working under Thurgood Marshall - a man who probably did change the world.

Furthermore, what he is saying seems trivially true; the thing you need to know to change the world is how to get the change that you want. Knowing which things you need to know doesn't imply that you know those things!

Comment author: ChristianKl 03 June 2012 05:44:30PM 1 point [-]

When it comes to big things I don't think that you often know beforehand exactly how to get it. As you progress you learn more and it makes often sense to change course. A lot of startups have to pivot to find their way to change the world.

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 01 June 2012 02:31:58PM *  37 points [-]

Two very different attitudes toward the technical workings of mathematics are found in the literature. Already in 1761, Leonhard Euler complained about isolated results which "are not based on a systematic method" and therefore whose "inner grounds seem to be hidden." Yet in the 20'th Century, writers as diverse in viewpoint as Feller and de Finetti are agreed in considering computation of a result by direct application of the systematic rules of probability theory as dull and unimaginative, and revel in the finding of some isolated clever trick by which one can see the answer to a problem without any calculation.

[...]

Feller's perception was so keen that in virtually every problem he was able to see a clever trick; and then gave only the clever trick. So his readers get the impression that:

  • Probability theory has no systematic methods; it is a collection of isolated, unrelated clever tricks, each of which works on one problem but not on the next one.
  • Feller was possessed of superhuman cleverness.
  • Only a person with such cleverness can hope to find new useful results in probability theory.

Indeed, clever tricks do have an aesthetic quality that we all appreciate at once. But we doubt whether Feller, or anyone else, was able to see those tricks on first looking at the problem. We solve a problem for the first time by that (perhaps dull to some) direct calculation applying our systematic rules. After seeing the solution, we may contemplate it and see a clever trick that would have led us to the answer much more quickly. Then, of course, we have the opportunity for gamesmanship by showing others only the clever trick, scorning to mention the base means by which we first found.

E. T. Jaynes "Probability Theory, The Logic of Science"

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 01 June 2012 02:40:23PM *  40 points [-]

Then there is the famous fly puzzle. Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 m.p.h. At the same time a fly that travels at a steady 15 m.p.h. starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound one, then turns around and flies to the front wheel of the southbound one again, and continues in this manner till he is crushed between the two front wheels. Question: what total distance did the fly cover ?

The slow way to find the answer is to calculate what distance the fly covers on the first, northbound, leg of the trip, then on the second, southbound, leg, then on the third, etc., etc., and, finally, to sum the infinite series so obtained. The quick way is to observe that the bicycles meet exactly one hour after their start, so that the fly had just an hour for his travels; the answer must therefore be 15 miles.

When the question was put to von Neumann, he solved it in an instant, and thereby disappointed the questioner: "Oh, you must have heard the trick before!"

"What trick?" asked von Neumann; "all I did was sum the infinite series."

An anecdote concerning von Neumann, here told by Halmos.

Comment author: Vaniver 01 June 2012 02:57:55PM 3 points [-]

It's "Jaynes."

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 01 June 2012 03:19:10PM 3 points [-]

Fixed. Thanks.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 01 June 2012 03:12:50PM 36 points [-]

I recall a math teacher in high school explaining that often, in the course of doing a proof, one simply gets stuck and doesn't know where to go next, and a good thing to do at that point is to switch to working backwards from the conclusion in the general direction of the premise; sometimes the two paths can be made to meet in the middle. Usually this results in a step the two paths join involving doing something completely mystifying, like dividing both sides of an equation by the square root of .78pi.

"Of course, someone is bound to ask why you did that," he continued. "So you look at them completely deadpan and reply 'Isn't it obvious?'"

I have forgotten everything I learned in that class. I remember that anecdote, though.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 June 2012 06:10:39PM *  3 points [-]

IIRC there was an xkcd about that, but I don't remember enough of it to search for it.

EDIT: It was the alt test of 759.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 02 June 2012 07:18:47PM *  2 points [-]

Is 759 the one you are thinking of? The alt-text seems to be relevant.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 June 2012 08:19:32PM 0 points [-]

Yes.

Comment author: gjm 02 June 2012 10:39:04PM 17 points [-]

Note that xkcd 759 is about something subtly different: you work from both ends and then, when they don't meet in the middle, try to write the "solution" in such a way that whoever's marking it won't notice the jump.

I know someone who did that in an International Mathematical Olympiad. (He used an advanced variant of the technique, where you arrange for the jump to occur between two pages of your solution.) He got 6/7 for that solution, and the mark he lost was for something else. (Which was in fact correct, but you will appreciate that no one was inclined to complain about it.)

Comment author: BlazeOrangeDeer 03 June 2012 03:33:30AM 0 points [-]

Does anyone have a link to an ebook of this book?

Comment author: gwern 03 June 2012 03:36:04AM 4 points [-]

libgen.info has a variety of versions.

Comment author: BlazeOrangeDeer 03 June 2012 03:56:19AM 0 points [-]

Thank you! Looking forward to reading.

Comment author: gwern 03 June 2012 08:10:09PM 2 points [-]

Honestly, I think PT:TLoS is probably best for those who already understand Bayesian statistics to a fair degree (and remember their calculus). I'm currently inching my way through Sivia's 2006 Data Analysis: A Bayesian Tutorial and hoping I'll do better with that than Jaynes.

Comment author: khafra 04 June 2012 07:39:17PM 3 points [-]

I'd agree, with the exception that chapters one and five (and maybe other sections) are great for just about anybody to get a qualitative understanding of Jaynes-style bayesian epistemology.

Comment author: gwern 04 June 2012 08:17:54PM 2 points [-]

Ah, yeah - chapter 5 is pretty good. (I recently inserted a long quote from it into my Death Note essay.)

Comment author: Karmakaiser 05 June 2012 05:20:42PM 3 points [-]

Jaynes begins it with a caution that this is an upper undergrad to graduate level text, not knowing a great deal of probability in the first place, I stopped reading and picked up a more elementary text. What do you think are the core pre-reqs to reading Jaynes?

Comment author: gwern 05 June 2012 06:09:12PM *  4 points [-]

I have no idea - I'll tell you when I manage to satisfy them!

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 06 June 2012 09:51:56AM 5 points [-]

I think PT:TLoS is probably best for those who understand frequentist statistics to a fair degree. He spends a whole load of the book arguing against them, so it helps to know what he's talking about (contrary to his recommendation that knowing no frequentist statistics will help). The Bayesian stuff he builds from the ground up, calculus is all that's needed to follow it.

Comment author: James_Miller 01 June 2012 04:27:55PM 2 points [-]

Humor is the brain rewarding us for finding errors and inconsistencies in our thinking.

Eric Barker

Comment author: fubarobfusco 01 June 2012 06:34:49PM 8 points [-]

How does this account for the use of humor in mocking outgroup members?

Comment author: James_Miller 01 June 2012 07:04:37PM 11 points [-]

It doesn't.

Comment author: James_Miller 01 June 2012 04:34:51PM *  17 points [-]

“My other piece of advice, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (HT Cafe Hayek.)

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 02 June 2012 07:26:59PM 10 points [-]

A reasonable start, but quite insufficient for the long run. Sixpence savings on twenty pounds income is not going to insulate you from disaster, not even with nineteenth-century money.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 05 June 2012 11:17:29PM 2 points [-]

Sixpence savings on twenty pounds income is not going to insulate you from disaster, not even with nineteenth-century money.

A disaster is an abrupt fall in income or abrupt increase in expenditures, so it falls under the general claim.

Comment author: Emile 01 June 2012 08:14:26PM *  6 points [-]

If you want something to exist, make it!

-Vincent Baker

Comment author: wedrifid 01 June 2012 09:43:44PM 7 points [-]

No. If I want something to exist I'll offer a reward or plain and simple pay someone to build it.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 June 2012 09:19:28AM 5 points [-]

No. If I want something to exist I'll offer a reward or plain and simple pay someone to build it.

Perhaps by "it", he meant money.

Comment author: Karmakaiser 04 June 2012 03:41:30PM 2 points [-]

Doubtful. Money already exists, but it doesn't exist my pocket.

Comment author: billswift 03 June 2012 12:52:11AM 1 point [-]

Any muttonhead with money can have a nice house or car or airplane, but how many can build one?

Dean Ing, The Ransom of Black Stealth One

Comment author: wedrifid 03 June 2012 01:12:15AM *  13 points [-]

Any muttonhead with money can have a nice house or car or airplane, but how many can build one?

Dean Ing, The Ransom of Black Stealth One

Exactly. Buying things is far more practical, harnessing the power of specialization and comparative advantage. Building the thing yourself is almost always the incorrect decision. Build it yourself if you are good at building that kind of thing and, more importantly, suck at doing other things that provide more (fungible) value.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 June 2012 12:50:02PM 6 points [-]

Build it yourself if you are good at building that kind of thing and, more importantly, suck at doing other things that provide more (fungible) value.

Or if you enjoy the process of building it. Or if the process of building it will help you relax or something so that you'll be able to do more things-that-provide-more-value later. Or if you're trying to impress someone. Or any other of the reason people have hobbies. (Also, “suck” suggests a much lower threshold than there actually is, especially in times of unemployment and recession. Telling people who have to cook because they can't afford eating at restaurants twice a day that they “suck” at making money sounds bad to me.)

Comment author: wedrifid 03 June 2012 01:00:57PM 3 points [-]

Or if you enjoy the process of building it. Or if the process of building it will help you relax or something so that you'll be able to do more things-that-provide-more-value later. Or if you're trying to impress someone. Or any other of the reason people have hobbies.

Those are all reasons to build things. But not the subject of the context.

If you want something to exist, make it!

Closely related principle: Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 June 2012 10:01:22AM 3 points [-]

If what you want is difficult to explain, it might be as easy to do it yourself.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 01 June 2012 09:45:47PM *  39 points [-]

The categories and classes we construct are simply the semantic sugar which makes the reality go down easier. They should never get confused for the reality that is, the reality which we perceive but darkly and with biased lenses. The hyper-relativists and subjectivists who are moderately fashionable in some humane studies today are correct to point out that science is a human construction and endeavor. Where they go wrong is that they are often ignorant of the fact that the orderliness of many facets of nature is such that even human ignorance and stupidity can be overcome with adherence to particular methods and institutional checks and balances. The predictive power of modern science, giving rise to modern engineering, is the proof of its validity. No talk or argumentation is needed. Boot up your computer. Drive your car.

Razib Khan

Comment author: Alejandro1 02 June 2012 12:35:00AM 11 points [-]

"The veil before my eyes dropped. I saw he was insincere ... a liar. I saw marriage with him would have been marriage to a worthless adventurer. I saw all this within five minutes of that meeting.” As if she heard a self-recriminatory bitterness creep into her voice again, she stopped; then continued in a lower tone. “You may wonder how I had not seen it before. I believe I had. But to see something is not the same as to acknowledge it."

-- John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

Comment author: [deleted] 02 June 2012 05:26:51AM *  15 points [-]

Problem solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.

Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

Comment author: Kyre 04 June 2012 07:16:46AM 9 points [-]

The other day a client sent me a new sighting of a bug I'd been stalking for a while. The new info allowed me to trap it between two repository revisions, flush it out of the diffs and stomp on the sucker. It did briefly feel kind of primal.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 June 2012 05:39:30AM 2 points [-]

To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery.

George Pólya

Comment author: VKS 02 June 2012 10:43:30PM *  2 points [-]

Duplicate of this. (Well, close enough that the monicker should apply.)

Comment author: [deleted] 03 June 2012 03:32:02AM *  0 points [-]

Serves me right for lazily typing o instead of ó in the search field.

...actually, it's recent enough that I probably copied it down hastily and then forgot where it came from.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 June 2012 05:40:17AM *  39 points [-]

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.

Pearl S. Buck

Related.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 June 2012 10:07:31PM 18 points [-]

Upvoted for the "related".

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 June 2012 01:14:46PM 3 points [-]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12H7khht7o&feature=player_embedded

Video by Fallon, a scientist who found out that he was a sociopath-- he says it doesn't bother him that everyone he knew said he was bad at connecting emotionally, but he does seem motivated to work on changing.

Comment author: wedrifid 02 June 2012 11:53:58PM 6 points [-]

Related.

I really wish we had brain scans of this guy at 19 and at 25. I want to see which areas were developed!

Comment author: wedrifid 02 June 2012 11:55:29PM *  5 points [-]

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel

Yes I can. Speak for yourself (Buck).

Comment author: Endovior 03 June 2012 04:57:56PM 0 points [-]

Really? Are you sure you're not just making yourself believe you feel something you do not?

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 03 June 2012 05:13:18PM 5 points [-]

I'm sure. Certain feelings are easier to excite than others, but still. All it takes is imagination.

A fun exercise is try out paranoia. Go walk down a street and imagine everyone you meet is a spy/out to get you/something of that sort. It works.

(Disclaimer: I do not know if the above is safe to actually try for everyone out there.)

Comment author: WrongBot 03 June 2012 06:33:00PM 6 points [-]

Anger is pretty easy, too. All I have to do is remember a time I was wronged and focus on the injustice of it. Not very fun, though.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 June 2012 07:24:24PM *  1 point [-]

I'm not sure it would work for me, knowing that (e.g.) setting my watch five minutes early doesn't work to make me hurry up more even though it does work for many people I know.

On the other hand, I can trigger the impostor syndrome or similar paranoid thoughts in myself by muling over certain memories and letting the availability heuristic make them have much more weight than they should.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 June 2012 10:42:04PM 8 points [-]

Really?

Yes. It's not an unusual ability to have. It can take a long time and concerted effort to develop desired control over one's own feelings but it is worth it.

to Are you sure you're not just making yourself believe you feel something you do not?

Yes.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 June 2012 07:17:03PM 4 points [-]

The distinction may be between setting up the preconditions for a feeling (which has some chance of working) and trying to make a feeling happen directly (which I think doesn't work).

Comment author: [deleted] 03 June 2012 07:22:48PM 2 points [-]

Well, what works for someone may not work for someone else. (Heck, what works for me at certain times doesn't work for me at other times.)

Comment author: Grognor 05 June 2012 02:02:34PM 4 points [-]

I read it more charitably, as being isomorphic to Schopenhauer's "A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills." The idea is that you are feeling something and not something else, and regardless of what you are feeling you can and should do right.

Comment author: pkkm 02 June 2012 07:04:03AM *  16 points [-]

People who do great things look at the same world everyone else does, but notice some odd detail that's compellingly mysterious.

Paul Graham, What You'll Wish You'd Known

Comment author: gwern 02 June 2012 04:00:25PM 14 points [-]

Also true of, say, OCD.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 June 2012 08:40:08PM *  32 points [-]

Bit of a tangent, but something from that essay always bothered me.

I recently saw an ad for waiters saying they wanted people with a "passion for service." The real thing is not something one could have for waiting on tables.

Paul Graham

So I began to linger in my duties around Vincent's tables to observe his technique. I quickly learned that his style was to have no single style. He had a repertoire of approaches, each ready to be used under the appropriate circumstances. When the customers were a family, he was effervescent—even slightly clownish— directing his remarks as often to the children as the adults. With a young couple on a date, he became formal and a bit imperious in an attempt to intimidate the young man (to whom he spoke exclusively) into ordering and tipping lavishly. With an older, married couple, he retained the formality but dropped the superior air in favor of a respectful orientation to both members of the couple. Should the patron be dining alone, Vincent selected a friendly demeanor—cordial, conversational, and warm. Vincent reserved the trick of seeming to argue against his own interests for large parties of 8 to 12 people. His technique was veined with genius. When it was time for the first person, normally a woman, to order, he went into his act. No matter what she elected, Vincent reacted identically: His brow furrowed, his hand hovered above his order pad, and after looking quickly over his shoulder for the manager, he leaned conspiratorially toward the table to report for all to hear "I'm afraid that is not as good tonight as it normally is. Might I recommend instead the [blank] or the [blank]?" (At this point, Vincent suggested a pair of menu items that were slightly less expensive than the dish the patron had selected initially.) "They are both excellent tonight." With this single maneuver, Vincent engaged several important principles of influence. First, even those who did not take his suggestions felt that Vincent had done them a favor by offering valuable information to help them order. Everyone felt grateful, and consequently, the rule for reciprocity would work in his favor when it came time for them to decide on his gratuity. Besides hiking the percentage of his tip, Vincent's maneuver also placed him in a favorable position to increase the size of the party's order. It established him as an authority on the current stores of the house: he clearly knew what was and wasn't good that night. Moreover—and here is where seeming to argue against his own interests comes in—it proved him to be a trustworthy informant because he recommended dishes that were slightly less expensive than the one originally ordered. Rather than trying to line his own pockets, he seemed to have the customers' best interests at heart. To all appearances, he was at once knowledgeable and honest, a combination that gave him great credibility. Vincent was quick to exploit the advantage of this credible image. When the party had finished giving their food orders, he would say, "Very well, and would you like me to suggest or select wine to go with your meals?" As I watched the scene repeated almost nightly, there was a notable consistency to the customer's reaction—smiles, nods, and, for the most part, general assent.

Robert Cialdini, Influence

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 02 June 2012 09:42:27PM 9 points [-]

...and "Influence" goes onto my "to read" list.

Comment author: gjm 02 June 2012 10:20:41PM 31 points [-]

It doesn't seem to me that Vincent-as-described-by-Cialdini is someone with a passion for waiting at tables; especially not the sort that could also be described as a "passion for service". If anything, he has a passion for exploiting customers, or something of the kind. I would expect someone with a genuine passion for table-waiting -- should such a person exist -- to be as reluctant to mislead customers as, say, someone with a passion for science would be to spend their life working for a partisan think tank putting out deliberately misleading white papers on controversial topics.

(To forestall political arguments: I am not implying that all think tanks are partisan, nor that all white papers put out by partisan think tanks are deliberately misleading.)

Comment author: Daermonn 04 June 2012 06:16:55AM *  6 points [-]

This speech was really something special. Thanks for posting it. My favorite sections:

"If it takes years to articulate great questions, what do you do now, at sixteen? Work toward finding one. Great questions don't appear suddenly. They gradually congeal in your head. And what makes them congeal is experience. So the way to find great questions is not to search for them-- not to wander about thinking, what great discovery shall I make? You can't answer that; if you could, you'd have made it.

The way to get a big idea to appear in your head is not to hunt for big ideas, but to put in a lot of time on work that interests you, and in the process keep your mind open enough that a big idea can take roost. Einstein, Ford, and Beckenbauer all used this recipe. They all knew their work like a piano player knows the keys. So when something seemed amiss to them, they had the confidence to notice it."

And:

"Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. In either case you let yourself be defined by what they tell you to do. The best plan, I think, is to step onto an orthogonal vector. Don't just do what they tell you, and don't just refuse to. Instead treat school as a day job. As day jobs go, it's pretty sweet. You're done at 3 o'clock, and you can even work on your own stuff while you're there."

Great stuff.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 June 2012 05:25:23PM 22 points [-]

[About the challenge of skeptics to spread their ideas in society] In times of war we need warriors, but this isn't war. You might try to say it is, but it's not a war. We aren't trying to kill an enemy. We are trying to persuade other humans. And in times like that we don't need warriors. What we need are diplomats.

Phil Plait, Don't Be A Dick (around 23:30)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 03 June 2012 10:58:26AM 4 points [-]

Voted up for the link to the video, which is a good explanation for why dumping hostility on people is not an effective method of convincing them.

Comment author: Mark_Eichenlaub 02 June 2012 11:52:31PM 29 points [-]

And clearly my children will never get any taller, because there is no statistically-significant difference in their height from one day to the next.

Andrew Vickers, What Is A P-Value, Anyway?

Comment author: Stabilizer 03 June 2012 12:15:48AM *  1 point [-]

It was impossible for sure. OK. So, let’s start working.

-Philippe Petit. On the idea of walking rope in between the World Trade Center towers.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 June 2012 12:25:41AM *  1 point [-]

It was impossible for sure. OK. So, let’s start working.

-Philippe Petit. On the idea of walking rope in between the World Trade Center towers.

It's not impossible for sure now. If he thought it was impossible when they were actually in existence then he doesn't remotely understand the word. That is beyond even a "Shut up and do the impossible!" misuse.

Comment author: Stabilizer 03 June 2012 02:03:13AM 3 points [-]

I don't understand. Are you saying it wasn't impossible enough?

He actually did it in 1974. It took nearly six years of planning. In order to practice for the walk between the World Trade Center towers he first did tightrope walks between the towers of the Notre Dame and then the Sydney Harbor Bridge. All of these were of course illegal. In WTC case, he had to sneak in, tie the ropes between the towers without anyone knowing and walked between the towers without any harness for nearly 45 mins at that height with the wind and everything. For the complete details, watch the documentary 'Man on Wire'. I think it was as impossible as it got in his line of work.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 June 2012 09:02:32AM *  -1 points [-]

I don't understand.

How on earth could you not understand? If this is sincere incomprehension then all I can do is point to google: define.

Are you saying it wasn't impossible enough?

Yes. This quote is an example of nothing more than how to be confused about words and speak hyperbole for the sake of bravado.

If you have to ask whether something is "impossible enough" you have already answered your question.

Comment author: Stabilizer 03 June 2012 09:45:43PM *  2 points [-]

How on earth could you not understand?

Your sentence wasn't clear enough.

About your gripe with use of the word impossible: it's a quote. Most of the quotes are like applause-lights. Everybody who read that quote understood the intent and meaning. Philippe Petit didn't employ the literal meaning of impossible. But the literal meaning of 'impossible' is rarely used in colloquial contexts. Even in 'Shut up and do the impossible', the absolute literal meaning is not employed. Because if the literal meaning is used, then by definition you can't do it, ever. So the only thing left is the degree of impossibility. You say that the task was too doable to be considered 'impossible' under your standards. Fine. Just mentally replace 'impossible' in that sentence with 'really goddamn hard that no one's done before and everyone would call me crazy if I told them I'm going to do it' and you'd read it the way most people would read it. The spirit of the quote would still survive.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 June 2012 10:08:29PM *  -2 points [-]

About your gripe with use of the word impossible: it's a quote. Most of the quotes are like applause-lights.

Yes, it's an applause light. It isn't one that made me applaud. It isn't a rationalist quote. It doesn't belong here.

Just mentally replace 'impossible' in that sentence

No. I instead choose to mentally replace the quote entirely with a better one and oppose this one. Even Nike's "Just Do It" is strictly superior as rationalist quote, despite being somewhat lacking in actionable detail.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 03:13:54PM 2 points [-]

It isn't a rationalist quote. It doesn't belong here.

I am forced to disagree; a quote about conquering the (colloquially) impossible with sufficient thought and planning is very appropriate for this site.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 June 2012 09:45:47PM 4 points [-]

How on earth could you not understand? If this is sincere incomprehension then all I can do is point to google: define.

Have you seen Google's definitions yourself? Because 2. does seem to match what Stabilizer means.

Comment author: Spectral_Dragon 03 June 2012 12:35:55AM *  5 points [-]

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

-- Albert Einstein

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 03 June 2012 05:02:56AM 3 points [-]

Any fool can also make a simple theory to describe anything, provided he is willing to hide dis-confirming evidence under the rug.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 June 2012 12:40:51AM 10 points [-]

Humility bids us to take ourselves as we are; we do not have to be cosmically significant to be genuinely significant.

  • Patricia Churchland
Comment author: [deleted] 03 June 2012 12:42:35AM *  9 points [-]

[...] if you make yourself really small you can externalize virtually everything. The imaginative pressure to think of yourself as very small is easy enough to find. When I raise my arm, well what is it? There must be some part of my brain that is sort of sending out the signal and then my arm is obeying me, and then when I think about the reasons why, it’s very natural to suppose that my reason store is over there somewhere, and I asked my reason store to send me some good reasons. So the imagery keeps shrinking back to a singularity; a point, a sort of Cartesian point at the intersection of two lines and that’s where I am. That’s the deadly error, to retreat into the punctate self. You’ve got to make yourself big; really big."

  • Daniel Dennett
Comment author: bbleeker 04 June 2012 09:30:54AM 0 points [-]

Where is that from? I think I'd like to read it.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 09:57:27AM 1 point [-]

That particular quote is from Susan Blackmore's book Conversations on Consciousness: What the Best Minds Think about the Brain, Free Will, and What It Means to Be Human, the book is divided into specific interviews with philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists. Great read.

Though I think that the point of quote is something that imbue most of his work.

Comment author: bbleeker 04 June 2012 10:44:14AM 0 points [-]

Thanks!

Comment author: Alejandro1 04 June 2012 04:56:33PM *  3 points [-]

In addition to what Wix said, if you'd like a deeper elaboration of his point the book to read is "Freedom Evolves". (There are very similar passages there--I thought that was the source before seeing Wix's response). This is the book that really sold compatibilism to me, changing my view of it from "hmm, interesting argument, but isn't it a bit of a cop-out?" to "wow, free will makes much more sense viewed this way".

Comment author: bbleeker 05 June 2012 09:04:07AM 0 points [-]

Thanks! It's being delivered to my Kindle right now.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 05 June 2012 09:25:43AM 0 points [-]

"hmm, interesting argument, but isn't it a bit of a cop-out?"

Precisely what I currently think, except with a little more emphasis and more colorful words.

Guess I'll have to look at that book.

Comment author: Grognor 05 June 2012 02:08:13PM 0 points [-]

Interesting reaction. I shall admit that even though Eliezer's free will sequence was intellectually convincing to me, it did not change my alief that free will just isn't there and isn't even a useful allusion. So this is going on my reading list.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 June 2012 06:27:46PM 1 point [-]

it did not change my alief that free will just isn't there

What? You are clearly anticipating as if you have control over your actions, or you would not have attempted to type that comment.

(assuming you are acting approximately like a decision maker. Only agents need to anticipate as if they have free will)

Comment author: Grognor 05 June 2012 08:57:23PM 0 points [-]

No, it just happened. You're underestimating the degree to which people can have different aliefs.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 04 June 2012 10:01:52AM 0 points [-]

You’ve got to make yourself big; really big

Why?

Comment author: Strange7 04 June 2012 10:22:04AM 1 point [-]

Defining yourself down to nothing reduces your willingness to engage with the larger world. Mote-person doesn't care so much about the loss of a handful of pocket change, a court case, a car, a limb, but that sort of stuff adds up.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 04 June 2012 10:36:45AM 0 points [-]

Appeal to consequences?

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 02:40:21PM 1 point [-]

yes?

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 04 June 2012 05:00:15PM *  -2 points [-]

Last I checked that was a fallacy...

I mean what about truth of the matter? Accuracy? Is there no difference between possible definitions in how well they carve reality, or how deep an understanding they reflect?

Or is it that anything goes, and we can define it however we please and might as well choose whatever is most beneficial.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 07:17:11PM 8 points [-]

Not a fallacy when designing.

Identity is not a feature of the world to be understood. It is a feature of a cognitive system to be designed.

I suppose you could ask empirical questions about what form identity actually takes in the human mind, but Strange's comment is referring to instrumental usefulness of a design.

Comment author: Grognor 05 June 2012 02:09:44PM 8 points [-]

Spot the fallacy in:

We should not hit ourselves on the head with hammers, because that would lead to us being in pain.

It's appeal to consequences, after all. Ooh, or better yet, spot the fallacy in:

Argument from consequences leads to being wrong, and therefore you should not do it.

Comment author: Ben_Welchner 05 June 2012 02:25:02PM 0 points [-]

Unless you expect some factual, objective truth to arise about how one should define oneself, it seems fair game for defining in the most beneficial way. It's physics all the way down, so I don't see a factual reason not to define yourself down to nothing, nor do I see a factual reason to do so.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 05 June 2012 03:53:32PM *  0 points [-]

Why yes, when I ask who I am, I am indeed interested in objective truth, or whatever objective truth of the matter may or may not exist. What the relation actually is, between our sense of self, and the-stuff-out-there-in-reality. I don't understand why this seems so outlandish.

If identity really were up for grabs like that, then that just seems to me to mean that there really ain't no such critter in the first place, no natural joint of reality at which it would make most sense to carve. In that case that would be what I'd want to believe, rather than invent some illusion that's pleasing or supposedly beneficial.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 01:00:49AM 0 points [-]

Why yes, when I ask who I am, I am indeed interested in objective truth, or whatever objective truth of the matter may or may not exist. What the relation actually is, between our sense of self, and the-stuff-out-there-in-reality. I don't understand why this seems so outlandish.

It might be more fruitful to ask instead "How is my sens of self generated? - Whatever that may be" and "What work do the self preform - might there an evolutionary advantage for an organism to have a self?"

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 10:53:27AM *  6 points [-]

Because if you don't you'll fail to see what is doing all the thinking, you can't strip a car of all it's parts and still expect it to run, if you do, you're left with saying "nothing is making the wheels turn".

Comment author: wedrifid 04 June 2012 11:18:30AM 2 points [-]

You’ve got to make yourself big; really big."

When I read the opening line I guessed he was going to go in the opposite direction - as Paul Graham probably would have.

I can see uses to both ways of simplifying one's relationship with the rest of the universe.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 12:31:03PM 0 points [-]

How would Paul Graham approach it?

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 02:39:30PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 June 2012 02:56:58PM 2 points [-]

I now want to make up bumper stickers that read "What Would Paul Graham Do?"

Granted, I want to do other things that preclude doing so even more.

Comment author: gwern 04 June 2012 03:23:57PM 2 points [-]

Looking briefly at a few sites specializing in custom bumper stickers, I estimate you could probably make and pay for some in half an hour to an hour. Do you want to do those other things that badly?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 June 2012 03:49:11PM 4 points [-]

You know, it's actually a really good question.

I think what's true here, now that I'm considering it for more than five seconds, is that I don't actually want to do this at all, I just think it's a funny idea and wanted to share it, and I chose "I want to X" as a conventional way of framing the idea... a habit I should perhaps replace with "It would be funny to X" in the spirit of not misrepresenting my state to no purpose.

Comment author: gwern 04 June 2012 03:52:12PM 2 points [-]

Yes, I figured as much. :)

Comment author: [deleted] 04 June 2012 03:45:11PM 4 points [-]

This is only tangentially related, but:

It's probably really important to notice when you feel a desire to signal affiliation with someone or something by purchasing paraphernalia or, e.g., getting a bumper sticker. Wanting to signal that you like something generally means that your identity has expanded to include that thing. This, of course, can be both a symptom and a cause of bias (although it isn't necessarily so). See also all this stuff. Or, more concisely: "I want to buy a bumper sticker/t-shirt/pinup calendar/whatever" should sound an alarm and prompt some introspection.

(I'm not trying to imply that you have a bias towards Paul Graham, just making a general statement.)

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 June 2012 03:50:26PM 0 points [-]

Yeah, I agree with (at least the core of) this.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 05 June 2012 03:44:03AM 0 points [-]

Of course, that's why you what to identify with Paul Graham.

Comment author: Alejandro1 04 June 2012 04:51:58PM *  11 points [-]

Aren't Graham and Dennett talking about different things entirely? Dennett is trying to help us understand better how materialism is compatible with having free will and a conscious self; his prescription here is to avoid a common pitfall, that of dismissing all "upwards" processing of perception and all "downwards" action-starting signals as "mechanical computing, not part of the self" and locating the Cartesian self at the zero-extension intersection of these two processes. It is better to think of the self as extended in both directions. When Graham says "keep your identity small", he is talking about a different sense of "identity" and "small", roughly "do not describe yourself with labels because you might become overly invested in them and lose objectivity and perspective".

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 June 2012 09:59:31AM *  0 points [-]

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

-Eric Hoffer

Comment author: DanArmak 04 June 2012 07:20:51AM 12 points [-]

That may be Deep Wisdom but it's surface nonsense. Propaganda contains many untruths that people end up honestly believing in. The quote effectively says "propaganda is useless if only one is brave enough to believe what they know (how?) is really true". This is simply wrong.

Comment author: Strange7 04 June 2012 08:52:02AM 6 points [-]

I think the idea is that propaganda provides an easy answer, but doesn't really prevent anyone from doing research to find the harder answer. A more detailed example here.

Comment author: bbleeker 04 June 2012 09:28:42AM 1 point [-]

Upvoted for the link to that story.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 05 June 2012 03:35:04AM *  2 points [-]

Except people don't have the time to research every statement they hear.

Comment author: Strange7 05 June 2012 04:11:24AM 0 points [-]

Of course not every statement!

Assuming widespread literacy and other educational prerequisites for industrialization, two or three hours per citizen per month poking at the justifications behind the reigning political party's most central claims, including (but certainly not limited to) seeking out and asking reasonable questions of those who already disagree with such claims, would be enough to utterly shred most historical propaganda efforts by sheer weight of numbers. If even half the people who attended one of Hitler's rallies thought afterwards "Those were some pretty strong claims; I should go find some Jewish spokesperson to hear the other side of the story" and then made a reasonable effort to do so, do you think things would have gone the same way?

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 05 June 2012 09:12:34PM 0 points [-]

Except people don't have the time to research every statement they hear.

But they also often accept statements they should doubt based on the information they already have. Motivated thinking is there, it just needs an official voice that reassures them that they will be in majority even if they are actually wrong.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 June 2012 05:18:02AM 0 points [-]

As mentioned in this post, I think you're underestimating how many of our ideas come from the group.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 04 June 2012 09:18:25AM *  5 points [-]

That may be Deep Wisdom but it's surface nonsense.

It definitely isn't nonsense, because I know it is literally false.

Propaganda contains many untruths that people end up honestly believing in. The quote effectively says "propaganda is useless if only one is brave enough to believe what they know (how?) is really true". This is simply wrong.

Agreed.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 June 2012 10:01:09AM 29 points [-]

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

-Eric Hoffer

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 June 2012 10:11:44AM 22 points [-]

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.

-Charles Babbage

Comment author: fortyeridania 05 June 2012 02:36:56PM 3 points [-]

On the other hand:

A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.

Alexander Pope

Comment author: khafra 05 June 2012 04:24:43PM 4 points [-]

I'd heard that quote before, but this was the first time I recognized the referent for Mount Stupid.

Comment author: othercriteria 05 June 2012 03:19:07PM *  3 points [-]

Only if you're using a consistent estimator. (Yes, that's a frequentist concept, but the same sorts of problems show up in a Bayesian context once you try to learn nonparametric models...)

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 June 2012 10:13:25AM 8 points [-]

In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except that it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all postures; so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended.

-Roger Bacon

Comment author: shminux 04 June 2012 07:14:13AM *  7 points [-]

"Rich people plan for three generations. Poor people plan for Saturday night." -- Gloria Steinem

The rest of her quotes are pretty good, too.

Comment author: Thomas 04 June 2012 09:21:43PM 6 points [-]

No experiment should be believed until it has been confirmed by theory!

  • Arthur S. Eddington
Comment author: Emile 04 June 2012 09:50:15PM 22 points [-]

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.

-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 June 2012 01:45:04PM 15 points [-]

I don't think that the idea that politicians don't change their position has much basis in reality. There are a lot of people who complain about politicians flip-flopping.

When a politician speaks publically, he usually doesn't speak about his personal decision but about a position that's a consensus of the group for which the politician speaks. He might personally disagree with the position and try to change the consensus internally. It's still his role to be responsible for the position of the group to which he belongs. In the end the voter cares about what the group of politicians do. What laws do they enact? Those laws are compromises and the politicians stand for the compromise even when they personally disagree with parts of it.

A scientist isn't supposed to be responsible for the way his experiments turn out.

And if you take something like the Second Vatican Council there's even change of positions in religion.

Comment author: fortyeridania 05 June 2012 03:39:29PM 3 points [-]

Yes, politicians flip-flop, and they take heat for it. And religious organizations do revise their doctrines from time to time.

But they don't like to admit it. This shows itself most clearly in schisms, where it's obvious at least one party has changed it stance, yet both present the other side as the schismatic one (splitters).

Thus even though they have changed, they do not "update"--or they do, but then they retcon it to make it look like they've always done things this way. (Call it "backdating," not updating.) This is what the superstates do in 1984.

Coming up with real examples is trivial. Just find a group that has ever had a schism. That's basically every group you've heard of. Ones that come to mind: Marxists, libertarians, Christians, the Chinese Communist Party. Triggering issues for the above groups include the nature of revolution, the relationship between rights and welfare, the Trinity, the role of the state in the economy...

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 June 2012 10:57:56PM *  4 points [-]

How many scientific papers contain the lines: "In the past the authors of this papers were wrong about X, but they changed their opinion because of Y"?

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 06 June 2012 01:00:02AM 2 points [-]

None, because journals are really careful about proof-reading.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 June 2012 04:17:44PM *  1 point [-]

Do you mean:

1) Because journals are really careful about proof-reading and there are no errors in journal articles?

2) Because journals are really careful about proof-reading, they delete every sentence where a scientist says that "I've been wrong in the past"?

3) Some other way in which careful proof-reading removes the possibility that "I've been wrong in the past" appears in a journal article?

Comment author: Ben_Welchner 06 June 2012 04:21:08PM 5 points [-]

It was grammar nitpicking. "The authors where wrong".

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 07:47:14PM 0 points [-]

I had guessed it must be something like that, but I failed to see the typo in the grandparent and changed my mind to the parent being some different joke I didn't get or something. (I've retracted the downvote to the parent.)

Comment author: Multiheaded 05 June 2012 07:19:37AM *  2 points [-]

The Western World has been brainwashed by Aristotle for the last 2,500 years. The unconscious, not quite articulate, belief of most Occidentals is that there is one map which adequately represents reality. By sheer good luck, every Occidental thinks he or she has the map that fits. Guerrilla ontology, to me, involves shaking up that certainty.

I use what in modern physics is called the "multi-model" approach, which is the idea that there is more than one model to cover a given set of facts. As I've said, novel writing involves learning to think like other people. My novels are written so as to force the reader to see things through different reality grids rather than through a single grid. It's important to abolish the unconscious dogmatism that makes people think their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world. My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything. If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind. It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.

That's what guerrilla ontology is — breaking down this one-model view and giving people a multi-model perspective.

Robert Anton Wilson, from an interview

Comment author: bramflakes 05 June 2012 11:49:04PM *  2 points [-]

"Most people have a wrong map, therefore we should use multiple maps" doesn't follow. Reversed stupidity isn't intelligence, and in this case Aristotle appears to have been right all along.

If I'm out charting the oceans, I'd probably need to use multiple maps because the curvature of the Earth makes it difficult to accurately project it onto a single 2D surface, but I do that purely for the convenience of not having to navigate with a spherical map. I don't mistake my hodge-podge of inaccurate 2D maps for the reality of the 3D globe.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 03:03:15PM 4 points [-]

No, but your "hodge-podge of inaccurate 2D maps", while still imperfect, is more accurate than relying on a single 2-D map - which is the point I took from the original quote.

Comment author: Emile 06 June 2012 04:08:06PM 1 point [-]

Note that Google Maps can be described as "a hodge-podge of different maps"; a satellite map and a street map (and sometimes a 3D map if you use Google Earth), and using that hodge-podge is indeed more convenient than using one representation that tries to combine them all.

I know that you didn't mean hodge-podge in the same sense (you were talking of 3D-> 2D), but I think that Google Maps is a good illustration of how having different views of the same reality is useful.

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 06:13:43PM *  1 point [-]

If you're favoring hedgehogs over foxes, you're disagreeing with luminaries like Robin Hanson and billionaire investors like Charlie Munger. There is, in fact, far more than one globe--the one my parents had marked out the USSR, whereas ones sold today do not; and on the territory itself you won't see those lines and colorings at all.

Some recent quotes post here had something along the lines of "the only perfect map is a 1 to 1 correspondence with everything in the territory, and it's perfectly useless."

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 07:54:43PM *  2 points [-]

Isn't “convenience” also the reason not to use the territory itself as a map in the first place? You know, knowing quantum field theory and general relativity isn't going to give you many insights about (say) English grammar or evolutionary psychology.

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 06 June 2012 06:59:10PM *  6 points [-]

It depends what kind of maps. Multiple consistent maps are clearly a good thing (like switching from geometry to coordinates and back). Multiple inconsistent ad-hoc maps can be good if you have a way to choose which one to use when.

Wilson doesn't say which he means, I think he's guilty of imprecision.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 June 2012 12:20:04PM 3 points [-]

Understand that your system will resist change: Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience -- Admiral Rickover

found here

Comment author: Alejandro1 05 June 2012 03:26:47PM *  23 points [-]

When I was 11, I was fascinated with a flame and I didn't know what it was. I went to a teacher and said, "What's a flame? What's going on in there?" And she said "It's oxidation." And that's all she said. And I never heard that word before, so that was like, calling it by another name.

--Alan Alda, in an interview at The Colbert Report, telling the story that gave rise to The Flame Challenge. It has been mentioned on LW before, but I thought it was worth posting it here as a perfect illustration of a Teacher's Password.

Comment author: cmessinger 05 June 2012 05:21:47PM 9 points [-]

Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought. -Matsuo Basho, poet (1644-1694)

Seems like a good way to think of the "seek to succeed, not to be rational" idea.

Comment author: cmessinger 05 June 2012 05:22:24PM 4 points [-]

Margaret Fuller, intoxicated by Transcendentalism, said, "I accept the universe," and Thomas Carlyle, told of the remark, supposedly said, "Gad, she’d better."

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 June 2012 05:04:45AM 3 points [-]

This depends on what is meant by "accept the universe". Does this mean that you're ready to deal with reality, or that you accept the way the universe currently is and aren't going to try to make it better?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 05:02:38PM 1 point [-]

Given Carlyle's general attitude towards Fuller, I suspect what he meant was that it's a good thing for the universe that Fuller accepts it, for otherwise the results might be bad for the universe.

Comment author: shminux 05 June 2012 06:05:55PM *  14 points [-]

If you pay nothing for expert advise you will value it at epsilon more than nothing, if you pay five figures for it you will clear your schedule and implement recommendations within the day. In addition to this being one of consulting’s worst-kept secrets, it suggests persuasive reasons why you should probably extract a commitment out of software customers prior to giving them access for the software. Doing this will automatically make people value your software more

Patrick McKenzie, the guy who gets instrumental rationality on the gut level.

More from the same source:

I always thought I really hated getting email. It turns out that I was not a good reporter of my own actual behavior, which is something you’ll hear quite a bit if you follow psychological research. (For example, something like 75% of Americans will report they voted for President Obama, which disagrees quite a bit with the ballot box. They do this partially because they misremember their own behavior and partially because they like to been seen as the type of person who voted for the winner. 99% of geeks will report never having bought anything as a result of an email. They do this because they misremember their own behavior and partially because they believe that buying stuff from “spam” is something that people with AOL email addresses do, and hence admitting that they, too, can be marketed to will cause them to lose status. The AppSumo sumo would be a good deal skinnier if that were actually the case, but geeks were all people before they were geeks, and people are statistically speaking terrible at introspection.)

Comment author: gwern 05 June 2012 06:22:56PM 12 points [-]

If you pay nothing for expert advise you will value it at epsilon more than nothing, if you pay five figures for it you will clear your schedule and implement recommendations within the day.

Obviously I need to figure out how to start charging for my website!

Comment author: shminux 05 June 2012 07:54:37PM *  8 points [-]

I've had the impression that you've been selling yourself short for quite some time.

Maybe you can start by following Patrick's example and offering some of the choice data you collect and analyze to the people subscribing to your mailing list. You can also figure out who might be interested in the information you collect (a cool project in itself), and how much it would be worth to them.

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 06:09:17PM 5 points [-]

I do value your research and writings. I was thinking about offering to buy you a laptop because it sounded like you had an old POS that was hampering said research and writings, but then I decided that would be too weird.

Comment author: gwern 06 June 2012 06:14:42PM *  1 point [-]

I did have a POS, but in July 2010 I finally bit the bullet and bought a new Dell Studio 17 laptop that has since worked well for me. (The hard drive died a few months ago and I had to replace it, almost simultaneously with my external backup drive dying, which was very stressful, but Dell doesn't make the hard drives, so I write that off as an isolated incident.)

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 06:51:11PM 5 points [-]

Ah, then I only need to buy you a 2-year backblaze subscription, that's far cheaper.

Comment author: gwern 06 June 2012 07:03:53PM 0 points [-]

Backblaze sounds great, but they don't have a Linux client.

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 07:28:07PM 10 points [-]

tarsnap it is, then.

Comment author: gwern 06 June 2012 09:19:36PM 2 points [-]

Tarsnap is cool - I like Colin's blog and stuff like scrypt. (The latter was relevant to one of my crypto essays.)

Comment author: shminux 06 June 2012 07:30:25PM 1 point [-]

Crashplan does.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 June 2012 10:45:00PM 6 points [-]

They do this partially because they misremember their own behavior

FFS, how can people misremember who they voted for in an election with only two plausible candidates?

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:58:00PM 5 points [-]

I suspect, with no data to back me up, that is those who were ambivalent when they stepped into the polling booth that genuinely misremember. Others know they voted for the other guy, but want to be seen as one of the 'winners'.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 04:35:41PM 7 points [-]

There are many U.S. elections I have voted in where there were two candidates for an office and I couldn't tell you which one I voted for. Admittedly, no cases involving Presidential candidates; I'm usually pretty sure who I'm voting for in those cases.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 07:49:42PM 3 points [-]

I suspect, with no data to back me up, that the latter class contains many more people than the former. (If I were that ambivalent, I wouldn't vote for either major candidate at random; I would either vote for a minor candidate, or not vote at all. But I guess not everybody is like me.)

Comment author: Multiheaded 06 June 2012 07:55:28AM -1 points [-]

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

George Carlin

Comment author: Grognor 06 June 2012 02:17:21PM 5 points [-]

The presupposition is that passing judgment on somebody’s “lifestyle” (for those who do not speak psychobabble, this means the English word behaviors) is an activity which is forbidden. It follows immediately that when the person says to you “Don’t be all judgmental” they are in fact passing judgment on your behavior. In other words, they are “being all judgmental.” It is, therefore, impossible not to pass judgment. I do not mean “impossible” in the colloquial sense of “unlikely”, but in the logical sense of “certainly cannot be no matter what.”

-William M. Briggs

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 04:44:04PM 1 point [-]

It doesn't follow, from the fact that passing judgment on someone else's act of passing judgment on people is itself an act of passing judgment on people, that it is impossible not to pass judgment on people.

I'm also not quite clear on whether "passing judgment on" is denotatively the same or different from "judging." (I understand the connotative differences.)

All that said, for my own part, I want to be judged. I want to be judged in certain ways and not in others, certainly, and the possibility of being judged in ways I reject can cause me unhappiness, and I might even say "don't judge me!" as shorthand for "don't apply the particular decision procedure you're applying to judgments of me!" or as a non-truth-preserving way of expressing "your judgment of me upsets me!", but if everyone I knew were to give up having judgments of me at all, or to give up expressing them, that would be a net loss for me.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 05:48:02PM 0 points [-]

The statement in the quote does not seem to follow, assuming that you have the choice of simply not saying anything. Passing judgement suggests that you actuallly have to let someone else know what you think. On the subject of the value of judgement, it is hard to understand why people are so averse to being judged. Whether someone is being kind or malicious by telling you what they honestly think of your actions it still gives you better information to make future choices.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 06:00:47PM 0 points [-]

Is it any harder to understand than why some people experience as a negative stimulus being told they have a fatal illness, or stepping on a scale and discovering they weigh more than they'd like, or being told that there are termites in their walls?

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 June 2012 11:23:05PM -1 points [-]

No, the only things that follows logically is that not being judgemental is something that you can't teach someone else directly without judging yourself.

The zen monk that sits in his monastery can be happy and accepting of everyone who visits him.

Explaining what it means to not passing judgment to someone who never experienced it is like telling a blind person about the colors of the rainbow. If you talk about something being blue they don't mean what you are talking about.

If you ask the zen monk to teach you how to be nonjudgmental he might tell you that he's got nothing to teach. He tell you that you can sit down when you want. Relax a bit.

After an hour you ask him impatiently: "Why can't you help me?" He answers: "I have nothing to teach to you."

Then you wait another two hours. He asks you: "Have you learnt something?" You say: "Yes". You go home a bit less judgmental than when you were at the beginning.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:42:53PM -1 points [-]

Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.

William S. Burroughs

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:48:55PM *  0 points [-]

Very few people see their own actions as truly evil.... It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not.

Laurell K. Hamilton

A quote I find useful when considering both rationalizing, and the differences of relative perspective.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 04:37:33PM 2 points [-]

Huh. Their victims decide, rather than everyone they affect deciding?
I don't think I agree.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 11:53:53PM *  2 points [-]

I can't see how but that both the victims, and everyone else they affect, deciding. That doesn't mean they'll all come to the same conclusion, of course.

I'm pretty sure that's where politics comes from, personally...

Edited to add: I do not mean to imply that if one group decides X, another Y, and a third Z, that it necessarily means that any of them are wrong.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:53:10PM 4 points [-]

There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is seeing something that isn't there.

Thomas Hardy

Comment author: AlexMennen 06 June 2012 04:31:12PM 15 points [-]

The present impossibility of giving a scientific explanation is no proof that there is no scientific explanation. The unexplained is not to be identified with the unexplainable, and the strange and extraordinary nature of a fact is not a justification for attributing it to powers above nature.

-The Catholic Encyclopedia

Comment author: Oligopsony 06 June 2012 07:06:56PM *  28 points [-]

So, let's say some bros of mine and I have some hand-signals for, you know, bro stuff. And one of the signals means, "Oh, shit. Here comes that girl! You know. That girl. She's coming." That signal has a particular context. Eventually, one of my bros gets tired of sloppy use of the signal, and sets about laying out specifically what situations make a girl that girl. If I used the signal in a close-but-not-quite context, he'd handle it and then pull me aside and say, "I know she and I had that thing that one time, but we never... well, it wasn't quite THAT. You know? So that signal, it freaked me out, because I thought it had to be someone else. Make sure you're using it properly, okay?" And I'd be like, "Bro. Got it."

Another friend of mine, he recognizes the sorts of situations we use the signal in have a common thread, so he begins using the hand signal for other situations, any situation that has the potential for both danger and excitement. So if someone invites us to this real sketchy bar, he'll give me the signal - "This could be bad. But what if it's not?" And I'd respond, "I see what you did there."

Maybe you see where this is going. We're hanging out one day, and some guy suggests we crash some party. Bro #2 signals, and bro #1 freaks out, looking around. And then he's like, "OH FUCK I HAVE TO CALL HER." And #2 says, "No, dude, there's no one coming. I just meant, this is like one of those situations, you know?" And they're pissed at each other because they're using the same signal to mean different things. I'm not mad, because I generally know what they each mean, but I have more context than they do.

The same thing probably happens with analytics and Continentals.

Philosophy Bro

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 07:56:40PM 1 point [-]

Upvoted for introducing me to one of the funniest blogs I've ever seen. The ironic writing style is brilliant:

Aw yeah, the is-ought problem. Shit's classic, bro