eli_sennesh comments on 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong
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I did the survey.
I felt that I had to leave blank some of the questions that ask for a probability number, because no answer that complies with the instructions would be right. For instance, I consider the "Many Worlds" hypothesis to be effectively meaningless, since while it does describe a set of plausible alleged facts, there is, as far as I know, no possible experiment that could falsify it. ("Supernatural" is also effectively meaningless, but for a different reason: vagueness. "Magic", to me, describes only situations where Clarke's Third Law applies. And so forth.)
I would like to participate in a deeper discussion of the idea of the Singularity, but don't know if that's welcome on LW. I want to attack the idea on several levels: (1) the definition of it, which may be too vague to be falsifiable; (2) the definition of intelligence -- I don't think we're talking about a mere chess-playing computer, but it's not clear to me whether Minsky's criteria are sufficient; (3) if those first two points are somehow nailed down, then I'm not at all sure that a machine intelligence is desirable, and certainly I'd hesitate to connect one to hardware with enough abilities that the revolution in "I, Robot" becomes possible; and (4) if such a change does happen, I would prefer, and I think most people would insist, that it happen relatively slowly to give everyone then alive time to cope with the change, thus making it not really a singularity in the mathematical sense.
(I do like the transhumanist notion that humans should feel free to modify our own hardware individually, but I don't see that as necessarily connected with a Singularity, and I don't use the jargon of transhumanism for the same reason I avoid the jargon of anarchism when talking politics -- it scares people needlessly.)
I left both MIRI questions blank because I don't know who or what MIRI is.
Re. The Great Stagnation: This theory asserts that we are in an economic stall, if you will, because of a lack of innovation, and is set against the assertion of a "Great Divergence" in which rising income inequality and globalization are to blame for the stall. I didn't answer because I consider both views to be baloney -- we are in an economic stall because of unnecessary and crony-driven overregulation, much of it done in the name of the misguided green and "social justice" movements.
I didn't do the finger length questions; not sure what "the bottom crease" is, or maybe I don't have them. (Do you mean the crease at the base of the fingers, or one farther down on the hand?)
Re. feminism, I answered based on what I believe the current use of the term is, which is not at all like the definition on Wikipedia. Wikipedia calls it more or less pro-equality and I support that, but the current usage is more like "social justice" and that whole concept is complete hooey.
I agree with this position, and it was apparently controversial on the LW-TelAviv mailing list.
You really ought to back that up.
I'm not sure what I could post here that would back that up: it requires some economics knowledge. I can refer you to good economics blogs such as Marginal Revolution and Cafe Hayek, or to Mises' Human Action.
It was MR that sent me here to LW in the first place.
Austrianism and "economics knowledge" do not go together. Science is built on empiricism, not on deliberately ignoring data because your ideology tells you there can be no empirical examination of human beings.
I am sorry, and on which basis do you make sweeping claims about schools of economic thought?