Simulation_Brain comments on Luck II: Expecting White Swans - Less Wrong

6 Post author: fowlertm 15 December 2013 05:40PM

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Comment author: Simulation_Brain 19 December 2013 02:06:53AM 0 points [-]

Wow, I feel for you. I wish you good luck and good analysis.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 19 December 2013 04:00:17AM *  1 point [-]

nod on an individual level, I appreciate the feels. In my case, I know computer programming, and I've just this week managed to claw my way out of five years of unemployment and back into a reasonably well-paying career job, so I should have access to the necessary resources shortly.

But remember that many, many people do not. As EY keeps pointing out, the world is hideously unfair, and there are all sorts of completely random and harsh events that can cause otherwise intelligent and creative and "deserving" people to fail to live up to their potential, or even permanently lose a portion of that potential. (Or, in the case of death, ALL of that potential.) If we really want to see a world that is less crazy, those of us who have the power to might consider ways to build environments that don't throw people into such destructive, irrational feedback loops. "Here's how people who don't suck behave" is less useful for that than "here's what environments look like that don't make people who suck as often."

Comment author: Error 19 December 2013 09:00:17PM 0 points [-]

If we really want to see a world that is less crazy, those of us who have the power to might consider ways to build environments that don't throw people into such destructive, irrational feedback loops. "Here's how people who don't suck behave" is less useful for that than "here's what environments look like that don't make people who suck as often."

This reminds me of what CFAR does with comfort zone expansion. I'm not sure what else they have in that vein, but it does seem to fit under "fixing broken social modules."

Comment author: ialdabaoth 19 December 2013 09:10:17PM 1 point [-]

Indeed. As soon as I have money and time saved up, I am going to dive whole-heartedly into CFAR workshops.

Comment author: hyporational 19 December 2013 08:37:52AM 0 points [-]

"Here's how people who don't suck behave" is less useful for that than "here's what environments look like that don't make people who suck as often."

What would such environments look like? Can you point out any existing examples? What kinds of costs do those environments impose on healthy people? Is torture vs dust specks relevant? Btw you don't suck.