“We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”

The map is based on 100+ page text which lists a 200+ biases and other cognitive problems which may arise during identification and prevention of x-risks. 

The map is very preliminary, after all. Much more biases could be identified. The main idea is to show that there are many biases, so any our judgement about x-risks will be distorted. Larger safety margins though required.

The map also intended to show that we could classify biases and other obstacles, and it could help to navigate us to truth and safety. The goal of the map is to show complexity of prediction and management of future x-risks, as well as help to identify sources of mistakes.

Each box has link on full explanation of the bias.

Boxes which were covered in Eliezer Yudkowsky about cognitive biases article are red.

Numbers in the boxes arrow on paragraphs in the full text.

The Y axis of the map shows stages of x-risk prevention in time, on which certain biases may work. Some biases could influence assessment of risks and other will show themselves in management of dangerous situations.

The X axis gives very rough typology of biases based of their sources.
See Bostrom's article for the similar typology:  

He suggests 3 types of biases: believes, shortcomings of our mind and ignorance.

Sorry that it all looks like tetris. ))

Read pdf with clickable links.


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64 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 5:54 PM

Thank you for doing this work. I think that a graphical representation of the scope of the challenge is an excellent idea, and merits continuous effort in the name of making communication and retention easier.

That being said, I have questions:

1) What is the source of that text document? The citations consist almost exclusively of works concerning nanomachines. None of the citations concern biases, and do not reference people like Bostrom or Kahneman despite clearly being familiar with their work (at least second hand).

2) Am I correct to infer that the divisions along the X and Y axis are your own? Could you comment on what motivates them?

Also, I have suggestions:

Without having read the text document first the numbers confuse, and they are distracting to navigating the image. What do you think of: A, removing the numbers entirely; B, renumbering the text file and the image so the image provides the organization?

What do you think of a way to distinguish between biases that operate individually versus on a group? In example, #51 at (Underestimation, Heuristics) reads "An overly simplistic explanation is the most prominent.", which for an individual could be considered a special case of the Availability Heuristic. Argument against similar problems is found in arguing from fictional evidence, or alternately a form of information hazard. If the prominence of the explanation is the problem, that is a group failing rather than an individual failing.

I also think this warrants a pass for spelling and grammar, but that is merely a question of housekeeping. Would I be right to guess that English is a second language?

Good work!

Thanks for your comment. I think if the document as draft, and I published it to get some valuable feedback. In the text version of the document there is literature after each chapter, and Kanneman is there, may be not as often as he should be.

But most biases was "reinvented" by me, as well as idea to use X and Y axis for typology and timing. It is interesting idea to add collective biases.

I am also thinking about adding a block of biases which impede scientific research, like publication bias. It will be collective biases.

My first language is Russian and I used the help of an editor to spell-check and rewrite some parts of the map.

Assuming this is all true...it's not at all clear that cooperation is my best move.

I refuse to sacrifice my life to protect billionaires who would not do the same for me. I won't labor under pointlessly annoying conditions to protect an ownership class that despises the technological progress and growth that I worked to create.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but...scientists get less sex than criminals.

In my personal experience...all of my ex-girlfriends had sex with someone who doesn't share my values -- a criminal, a future lawyer/financier, or an actual Owner with inherited wealth -- before meeting me, and lied to me about it. I experienced mental anguish and other negative consequences as a result of this bad system.

It's not illegal to always defect in prisoner's dilemmas. It's illegal to punish people who always defect in prisoner's dilemmas.

Fuck this; I'm out.

This doesn't seem to have much to do with the OP.

Fuck this; I'm out.

Out of what?

OP wants me to help stop global catastrophic risks.

It's illegal to hurt the people who created the global catastrophic risks, so count me out. I don't work for free. I'd rather enjoy a nice life.

"Why, no," said Professor Quirrell. "I stopped trying to be a hero, and went off to do something else I found more pleasant."

"What? " said Hermione without thinking at all. "That's horrible! "

OP hasn't asked you to do anything; just presented some information that he hopes will help people trying to stop global catastrophic risks. If that's not a thing you want to do, it's just not addressed to you.

(You sound very angry and upset. This probably isn't a helpful thing to say right now, but I'll say it anyway: if you can get less angry that will probably help you be less upset.)

True. Voldemort would have spent less time sulking than I have.

I have spent 9 years writing texts about x-risks prevention. I spent a lot of money on it and lost a lot of business opportunities. I have been cheated all the time, in business, relationship and even science field. I have been humiliated in sexual field many times. I thought about suicide even I consider it impossible because of quantum immortality.

I thought to stop doing it many times. Nobody reads my texts and even if some one is reading it has zero influence on total probability of extinction.

But... I just return to my computer and continue to work on the texts in mornings, and try to have parties in evening. In fact solving complex intellectual problems provides me with consistent many hours pleasure. Relationship thing do the opposite.

Thanks for your work.

I wouldn't be so sure that no one is reading what you write. Powerful people have little incentive to let it be known that they read odd websites like Less Wrong, but I assume they sometimes waste time browsing the internet like the rest of us. And insofar as high IQ and rationality are related to business success, it makes sense that wealthy people would disproportionately have LWish cognitive profiles and be interested in reading things LWers are interested in. There are a number of wealthy software entrepreneurs who have given large amounts to MIRI, for instance (Thiel, Tallin, McCaleb).

[-][anonymous]7y00

Even if powerful people don't browse themselves, people who have influence with them might.

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply

I hope you continue to find happiness.

It's illegal to hurt the people who created the global catastrophic risks, so count me out. I don't work for free.

Do you consider hurting "the people who created the global catastrophic risks" payment?

No...Voldemort isn't altruistic, and considers the "global community" too disorganized to be an ally worth seeking favor with.

[-][anonymous]8y30

...you do realize he is Voldemort? The one who acted to prevent, what he thought to be, the global catastrophic risk?

acted to prevent, what he thought to be, the global catastrophic risk?

That makes it all OK, right?

Hooray! I can be sociopathically self-centered as long as I describe it in a politically-correct way!

[-][anonymous]8y00

No, that makes it inconsistent.

I refuse to sacrifice my life to protect billionaires who would not do the same for me.

Elon Musk has risked his entire fortune for you. "In my case, I think these things are important... I need to do it, I promised people I would do it, but I'm not doing it because this is the most fun way to live."

The world's wealthiest people (the "ownership class") is increasingly made up of scientists and engineers:

If you work your way down the Forbes 400 making an x next to the name of each person with an MBA, you'll learn something important about business school. After Warren Buffett, you don't hit another MBA till number 22, Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike. There are only 5 MBAs in the top 50. What you notice in the Forbes 400 are a lot of people with technical backgrounds. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Gordon Moore. The rulers of the technology business tend to come from technology, not business.

- Paul Graham

Paul has written 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 essays that touch on the topic of why cooperators tend to get rich in Silicon Valley rather than defectors. The Silicon Valley elite is giving their money away significantly earlier in life than previous generations of wealthy people, and there are indicators that they care more about having their philanthropic dollars actually do good--here's tech billionaire Sean Parker on his giving philosophy. (Not to say that other wealthy people are especially lacking in their philanthropy--check out the Giving Pledge signatories.)

Scientists get less sex than criminals.

High IQ people, regardless of gender, have less sex. But it's hard to tease out exactly why. I lean towards Paul Graham's explanation--highly intelligent people tend to be interested in things other than sex, whereas average people structure large amounts of their lives around it (for example, it's typical for every Friday and Saturday evening to be spent drinking carcinogens and searching for sexual partners). More evidence for this hypothesis: Intelligent people seem to be taller and better looking on average. And intelligent friends of mine who have chosen to optimize for having more sexual partners have done well, especially if they're willing to date down in intelligence (to avoid the problem that highly intelligent women are outnumbered by highly intelligent men and also relatively uninterested in sex) and live in an area with a favorable gender ratio. If you want more sexual partners, a good first step is to start working out--it will give you a masculine physique, help you live longer, improve sleep, improve immune system, improve willpower, etc. Once you've spent some time optimizing to increase your number of sexual partners, you'll likely feel less insecure about who your girlfriends have slept with. (And once you've conquered your insecurities, you can work on cool stuff like decreasing existential risk.)

(BTW note that there are more women graduating college nowadays than men, at least in the US, so being educated gives you a leg up.)

all of my ex-girlfriends had sex with someone who doesn't share my values

You're looking at a small number of data points. Psychological research, insofar as it relates to this topic, is more mixed. Research also seems to indicate that having lots of sexual partners is associated with decreased happiness. Those dominant "defector" types are often rejected by women for longer-term relationships, which sucks a lot more than you would think (speaking from personal experience as someone with a dominant/masculinized facial appearance).

It's illegal to punish people who always defect in prisoner's dilemmas.

If there's a particular sort of defection you are concerned about, you can work to change society in order to disincentivize it. This probably isn't the best example, but I've always wondered why we don't punish rapists (and maybe other criminals) with castration. It seems like something that both the far left and the far right could get behind--the far left is full of feminists who think rapists are unadulterated evil, and the far right can appreciate the eugenic benefits of sterilizing criminals. It's cheaper and more humane than locking someone in a hellish prison cell for years on end. It helps solve the root problem, given testosterone's role in facilitating aggression. And it sends the right message to other folks in society. "Here's a man who defected against the rest of us. He speaks in a high voice now because we literally chopped his balls off. He tried to rape a woman, but now he will never have sex again." I think castrated criminals who lived in lower class communities would inevitably get bullied and made fun of, which seems like exactly what we want to happen (as long as someone is going to get bullied and made fun of in lower class communities, which seems inevitable).

I had the impression castration in adulthood doesn't actually mean never having sex again, and while reducing testosterone levels may make someone less aggressive, having had their balls cut off may make someone more angry and hence more aggressive. And (whether it makes sense or not) a lot of people class any sort of physical mutilation as cruel and unusual punishment even if it actually causes the punishee less suffering than e.g. locking them up for 10 years.

FWIW, my impression is that high-IQ guys tend to be almost all single until their early 20s and almost all taken from their mid-20s onwards, whereas low-IQ guys' sexual success tends to stay about the same or even decrease with age.

A lot of great topics here.

Elon Musk has risked his entire fortune for you.

I am a huge fan of Elon Musk.

I suspect a big reason Mr. Musk tries to make the greatest possible positive difference for humanity is to reduce his risk of being murdered by established players. He’s pissed off a lot of powerful people, but provided benefits to many more.

He was forced out of controlling PayPal...and his vision for PayPal was to make it a “full-service financial institution”. He wanted to “convert the financial system from a series of heterogeneous insecure databases to one database.” This is threatening to the global elite in a way that going to Mars is not. Thus, he was forced out.

While he risked his personal fortune on SpaceX in 2013 when it looked like they would run out of money, he also had plans to sell a large interest in Tesla to Google in order to acquire funding for additional SpaceX launches. The story he tells about betting all of his assets with no recourse is true but under-emphasizes his backup plans for additional launches.

Paul has written 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 essays that touch on the topic of why cooperators tend to get rich in Silicon Valley rather than defectors.

I am a huge fan of Paul Graham as well.

However, his advice can mislead young technical people into thinking that a startup is going to make them rich. He says, “If you wanted to get rich, how would you do it? I think your best bet would be to start or join a startup....you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years”. But in reality most startups fail and waste 5 years of the founders’ time in the process. Plus, for every founder, there are dozens of joiners/employees who work for below-market-rate salary plus a small percentage (often 0.1%) of the new company. Thus, his advice to “start or join a startup” is dangerously misleading because his target audience is young technical people without the political or sales skills to actually succeed.

Arguing for the opposition is Michael Church. I was intrigued by The 3-Ladder System of Social Class in the US (summary: college-educated technologists learned how to make wealth, not how to own it) and his VC-istan series (summary: Silicon Valley got colonized by MBA financiers who extracted all the goodwill). He alleges he deleted his blog archive and left the Valley because of threats from financiers affiliated with Paul Graham.

The Forbes 400 does not and cannot track privately-held wealth. Thus, the Forbes 400 only includes rich people who wanted to appear there.

Sean Parker on his giving philosophy...

That’s a marketing piece. Rich people often hide their wealth, but if they can’t they market themselves as hyper-successful good people, not as the driven perfectionist tyrants they often are. As the MacLeod Hierarchy explains, rank-and-file workers work best if they think they’re climbing a career ladder. Rich people climbed a different ladder, then hid it.

There’s a tradition of robber barons giving away vast wealth to manage their public image.

highly intelligent people tend to be interested in things other than sex,

I agree with this.

But it's hard to tease out exactly why.

The truth is not just politically incorrect; the truth is disgusting and offensive.

The Red Pill says is clearly: women want good genes and good resources. This means that men with good genes have the opportunity for lots of sex, and men with good resources get strung along in sexless relationships, and men with neither good genes (looks) nor good resources (money/power) get nothing except shame. Women want the best they can get, so the top 10% of men have sex with the top 80% of women. Below-average men get nothing. Traditional marriage is illegal (“until death do us part” is legally unenforceable). Many women try to copy the behavior of the most attractive men -- promiscuous casual sex that they lie about -- and then settle down with someone much less attractive than their casual sex partners once they reach their late 20s. And for men: most men are weak, emotionally-manipulated, directionless sheep.

This explains why rock band front-men, criminals, and selfish finance bros enjoy lots of sex despite their toxic behavior: they have looks plus power.

If you want more sexual partners, a good first step is to start working out

Yup. Will do. To be clear, the advice is to develop a ripped body that generates tingly feelings in women’s vaginas, not to “be a good person” or “make a positive difference” or even “have a job”. We deserve the coming global Apocalypse.

you'll likely feel less insecure about who your girlfriends have slept with.

So it was OK for them to lie to me? Fuck you. If that’s how it works, I’m gonna go date 5 young women at the same time by telling them lies, then blame them for being insecure when the truth comes out.

Do not mistake my righteous anger for “insecurity”. That’s what old women do when they’re trying to shame a man into marrying them.

you can work on cool stuff like decreasing existential risk.

I don’t see how this would benefit me. “Cool” is a fossilized instinct for what is powerful. I’d rather go get what will really make me powerful: a shitload of money, and skill at building alliances I control.

Research also seems to indicate that having lots of sexual partners is associated with decreased happiness.

For women, definitely. For men, the data is inconclusive.

Those dominant "defector" types are often rejected by women for longer-term relationships

Did you start acting like a non-dominant non-defector type, and get dumped soon after? Or did you become less attractive/successful/high-status over time? The struggle is real.

Psychological research, insofar as it relates to this topic, is more mixed.

The Art of Manliness is clickbait for unsuccessful beta males. A psychological survey is a hilariously inaccurate methodology for gaining insight into a biological response.

If there's a particular sort of defection you are concerned about, you can work to change society in order to disincentivize it.

I don’t have the power to make a difference.

For example, I want to make it illegal to lie about one’s relationship status and sexual history. But, I can’t at my current power level. More specifically: I have met 3 different employees of a certain investment bank, who all were more sexually successful than me despite routinely lying to women to get sex. One tried to seduce my girlfriend at the time despite having one “girlfriend” and several “casual sex partners” who were unaware of each other, and who he implied possible long-term relationship potential with. Another tried to set me up with a woman he was tired of seeing (she wanted a relationship; he just wanted sex) without disclosing that he had had sex with them. A 3rd talked to me about startup projects while badly hiding the micro-expressions for “smugness/contempt” and “duping delight” and then predictably failed to follow up. I’m pretty sure at least 2 of these guys are into spreading genital herpes. But, I looked up the slander laws and it’s illegal for me to publicly shame these selfish men or their firm without recorded evidence (there’s a presumption of innocence), and it’s illegal for me to collect that evidence (two-party consent required for recording, and they avoid using email for their games). Thus, they win, and I lose, and their sex partners lose, and the people they do business with lose (their attitude carries over to their business dealings...it’s all about wealth extraction.).) Check out Wall Street Playboys for a description of the “finance bro attitude” including advice about being attractive enough for someone in a relationship to want to cheat with. I’ve thought about creating some sort of morality Leviathan app, to track people’s “trust graphs” over time to provide a permanent record of who burned who, but this has the potential to go badly wrong.

Thus, I figured the best thing to do was to pull a Voldemort and go all-in on selfishness. Investing in other people and in relationships is a bad deal because the relationships inevitably end. Successful people only invest in relationships that they control. God is OK with animals violently killing each other all the time, with zero regard for suffering or fair play, and who am I to question God? The 48 Laws of Power (by Robert Greene) has some fascinating ideas about how to find common grounds to shit in.

This probably isn't the best example, but I've always wondered why we don't punish rapists (and maybe other criminals) with castration.

False convictions. “Cruel and unusual” punishments are illegal because they make people angry in a way just locking up the wrong person doesn’t. Can you imagine the rage of the Black Lives Matter movement if the US Government was routinely castrating rapists? Or, more accurately, rich people are against physical punishments because they can’t be undone (whereas a long prison sentence + enough expensive lawyers = freedom).

what we want to happen

Taking a step back here...I shouldn’t be this angry for this long with this little forward progress.

Better to choose a specific dream and make it happen.

Undisciplined flailing with no single clear goal has kept me middle-class for a decade.

Yup. Will do. To be clear, the advice is to develop a ripped body that generates tingly feelings in women’s vaginas, not to “be a good person” or “make a positive difference” or even “have a job”. We deserve the coming global Apocalypse.

Would you date a woman who is a good person and makes a positive difference and has a job but whom you don't find sexually attractive at all?

I'm sexually attracted to overachievement. Your question is paradoxical.

The Red Pill says is clearly: women want good genes and good resources. This means that men with good genes have the opportunity for lots of sex, and men with good resources get strung along in sexless relationships, and men with neither good genes (looks) nor good resources (money/power) get nothing except shame.

High IQ means good genes.

Traditional marriage is illegal (“until death do us part” is legally unenforceable).

There a huge difference between illegal and not legally enforceable.

He was forced out of controlling PayPal...and his vision for PayPal was to make it a “full-service financial institution”. He wanted to “convert the financial system from a series of heterogeneous insecure databases to one database.” This is threatening to the global elite in a way that going to Mars is not. Thus, he was forced out.

Do you have actual evidence that this happened or is it just a hunch? I've read a bit about it, and my understanding is that there were other factors... e.g. Musk was pushing the team away from open source and towards using Windows Server for everything.

The Red Pill says is clearly: women want good genes and good resources. This means that men with good genes have the opportunity for lots of sex, and men with good resources get strung along in sexless relationships, and men with neither good genes (looks) nor good resources (money/power) get nothing except shame. Women want the best they can get, so the top 10% of men have sex with the top 80% of women. Below-average men get nothing. Traditional marriage is illegal (“until death do us part” is legally unenforceable). Many women try to copy the behavior of the most attractive men -- promiscuous casual sex that they lie about -- and then settle down with someone much less attractive than their casual sex partners once they reach their late 20s. And for men: most men are weak, emotionally-manipulated, directionless sheep.

I'm familiar with this school of thought, and I think it's a useful perspective to keep in mind. My impression is that its prominence online has more to do with it plugging in to the rage-generating part of a man's brain (helpful for virality) than it having a solid evidential base. (It seems similar to leftist SJW canard in this regard.) Note the lack of citations in the essay you link to. Here are some data points that cause me to think the Red Pill folks overstate their case:

  • Cuckoldry seems relatively rare in non-self-selected populations.

  • Data does not seem to support the notion of extreme sexual inequalities based on how good looking a man is.

  • Only 3-5% of mammals pair bond. Humans are in that 3-5%. If women cheated with bad boys as consistently as the Red Pill types claim they do, pair bonding behaviors would have been selected against. (Note: I believe, though I have no evidence to prove it, that women use their relationship with their father as a cue re: whether to perform more of an r-selected or K-selected mating strategy. If their father is absent, that's evidence that r-selected mating is working out better in the current environment, and hence she feels low self-esteem, feels insecure that no man will ever love her, and assuages that insecurity by hooking up with high status men to prove to herself that she's worth something--or something like that, I don't know the exact psychological mechanism evolution has used to implement this. The takeaway is to date women who have good relationships with their fathers if you want a long-term monogamous partner, not women with "daddy issues".)

And for men: most men are weak, emotionally-manipulated, directionless sheep.

"Now it may be true that modern life leaves most men testosterone-deficient. But if that’s true, the culprit isn’t feminism. It’s bisphenol-A, low protein diets, fructose, alcoholism, vitamin A & D deficiency, and porn addiction." (JD Moyer) Men being weak and sheep-like seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Famed psychologist Philip Zimbardo has the story.

Notice the contradiction in the Red Pill worldview. The Red Pill crowd thinks that women ruthlessly choose to mate with assertive, dominant men due to their biological imperative. The Red Pill crowd also notes that the vast majority of guys are milquetoast, submissive "beta" men. But if women have a biological imperative to mate with assertive, dominant men, then why isn't the population of men already made up of 100% assertive, dominant men? You'd expect the submissive "betas" to have been selected out of the population by now.

Even if there's something about modern society that has unleashed hypergamy in women, wouldn't one expect to see a corresponding unleashment of assertiveness and dominance among men?

My answer: It's not so much that women are hypergamous as they seek a baseline level of competence and confidence. For an emotionally stable woman, a committed relationship with a respected brave is far better than a fling with the chief. And men of the past typically possessed this baseline level of competence and confidence:

I had dinner with Stefan Cavallo, a test pilot for NASA (“NACA” in those days) during World War II (interview). Cavallo intentionally flew a P-51 fighter into a thunderstorm to figure out why they were breaking up on the way back from bombing runs into Germany whereas the supposedly weaker B-17s were fine. It turned out that the stresses from turbulence caused the engine internals to come apart. Gaining this knowledge meant the loss of the airplane and Cavallo was forced to bail out of the test airplane.

Cavallo is also notable for being an inventor of the rigid flight helmet. His 1943 design was used by the federal government as prior art in a patent infringement lawsuit defense and subsequently donated to the Smithsonian. [look at that, he was a scientist]

What does this quiet widower hero, still flying light airplanes, think of the society that younger folks have created? “Somewhere along the way younger Americans squandered what we had built,” said Cavallo, though not with any bitterness. When he looks at us he sees timid paper shufflers, aggressive divorce lawsuit plaintiffs, and a general “can’t do” attitude: “By our mid-20s nearly all of us were in what would turn out to be lifelong marriages and we already had kids. The Empire State Building was built in a year.” I was pretty sure that this was an embellishment. They could not have actually built the world’s tallest building in 1/5th the time that we would today spend in the planning and approval process, could they have? Wikipedia shows that Cavallo’s 94-year-old brain is in fact working better than mine!

...

A bunch of us in our early 40’s were staying at the Sangre Froelicher hut (near Leadville, CO) in the late 90s (as I recall) – this hut is part of the 10th Mountain Division hut system in Colorado. There were several older men who it turns out served in the 10th Mountain Division in WWII, I believe they were in their 80’s. We all were humbled by their energy (up at 6am chopping wood, skiing all day, talking till late in the evening) and their camaraderie. It was remarkable, and I will never forget those people. I can only imagine the raw power, energy, and drive they possessed as 20 year olds.

Source. Do you think a man who intentionally flies a fighter jet in to a thunderstorm is a "weak, emotionally-manipulated, directionless sheep"? Do you think the men who built the Empire State Building in a year were also "weak, emotionally-manipulated, directionless"?

Younger British men are less likely to feel completely masculine than older men. Young women complain that men are afraid to initiate conversations with them in real life, preferring to arrange hookups via Tinder. And then there's this tidbit:

It’s a curious medical phenomenon, the increased erectile dysfunction in young males, which has been attributed to everything from chemicals in processed foods to the lack of intimacy in hookup sex.

How does the Red Pill crowd explain that? I'll give you some hints: I don't think there's been some kind of sudden evolutionary pressure for erectile dysfunction in young men, and I don't think it's a feminist conspiracy (both perpetual Red Pill bogeymen--analogous to "cishet white males" on the SJW side of things). It has to be something in the environment, like JD Moyer suggests. See also.

To be clear, the advice is to develop a ripped body that generates tingly feelings in women’s vaginas, not to “be a good person” or “make a positive difference” or even “have a job”. We deserve the coming global Apocalypse.

I'm suggesting this as a first step to fixing your issues with "weakness" and "directionlessness". To a first approximation, I think emotionally stable women (the sort who make good long term partners) are attracted to the product of how good a man is and how powerful he is. So it makes sense to address the area you're weaker in.

But if women have a biological imperative to mate with assertive, dominant men, then why isn't the population of men already made up of 100% assertive, dominant men? You'd expect the submissive "betas" to have been selected out of the population by now.

Not exactly. While someone with "bad genes" usually produces children with "bad genes" someone who has "good genes" doesn't always produce children with "good genes". Mutations happen and most of them are bad.

Being able to walk upright on two feet is key to reproductive success, and thus the fraction of babies that are born crippled (due to mutations) is quite low. If being dominant and assertive has been key to reproductive success among men for a long time, one would expect the fraction of male babies that are born nondominant/nonassertive (due to mutations) to be quite low.

If being dominant and assertive has been key to reproductive success among men for a long time

Not necessarily. Historically, once you get too many "dominant and assertive" men in close proximity, they start to kill each other. Their reproductive success is conditional on not being dead and in evolutionary terms that condition ceased to be very important only a moment ago.

Their reproductive success is conditional on not being dead and in evolutionary terms that condition ceased to be very important only a moment ago.

It's still pretty important, it's not like modern homicide rates and ancestral homicide rates are totally incomparable. Even if you don't get killed, gangsters are at risk of going to prison, and I hear prison is not a good place to meet girls.

But there's a lot of room between "weak, emotionally-manipulated, directionless sheep" and "violent enough to be at risk of getting killed or jailed". And it's a puzzle, to me at least, that this middle zone gets filled so rarely nowadays. Most traits are distributed on a bell curve, and one would expect to see the same for this trait, with most men having some mid level of "firefighter masculinity" that would be enough to impress women but not so much to be at serious risk of homicide or imprisonment. This doesn't seem to be the case, and I offered some possible explanations above. (Insofar as there's a two-humped distribution, my guess is that the humps are based (a) easy access to streaming pornography during childhood or (b) need to overcompensate for deep insecurities through hypermasculine show behaviors. BTW, it's incorrect to think that gangsters are secure in themselves.)

it's a puzzle, to me at least, that this middle zone gets filled so rarely nowadays

Where do you get your sample from? Do you think that your conclusion applies to, say, rural Idaho? or to blue-collar working men?

Being able to walk upright is a binary criteria. The fact that having a high IQ correlates with being tall suggests that there are a lot of basic genes involved in high IQ or being tall. There are many different genes that can mutate and that slightly reduce effectiveness of the organism.

Being unable to walk is mostly due to single mutations that can be removed easier by evolution.

Few people are dominant and assertive when they are weaker than their peers. People are usually dominant and assertive as a result of being stronger.

Do you have actual evidence that [Elon Musk was pushed out of PayPal by a secret cabal of global financiers who wanted to ensure global financial markets stayed opaque] or is it just a hunch?

Just a hunch. But, "to understand a complex plot look at the outcome and see who benefits."

Cuckoldry seems relatively rare in non-self-selected populations.

Over 1% risk for unsuspecting men is enough that I'll paternity-test all of my children prior to claiming legal fatherhood.

For an emotionally stable woman, a committed relationship with a respected brave is far better than a fling with the chief.

The woman ideal is getting support/resources from the brave (good resources) while cheating with the chief (better genes). It's why human women evolved to hide their fertility and can have sex during their entire cycle, not just when they're fertile. The woman would have sex with the good-genes guy during her fertile window, and have sex with the good-resources guy the rest of the time.

Cavallo is also notable for being an inventor of the rigid flight helmet. His 1943 design was used by the federal government as prior art in a patent infringement lawsuit defense and subsequently donated to the Smithsonian. [look at that, he was a scientist]

Test pilots are not scientists...most of test pilot work is routine precision flying, and it's the engineers, not the pilots, who typically design the test program.

Nietzche said "Science acts only as a means of self-anesthetization for sufferers (scientists) who do not want to admit that they are such."

I don't think there's been some kind of sudden evolutionary pressure for erectile dysfunction in young men, and I don't think it's a feminist conspiracy (both perpetual Red Pill bogeymen--analogous to "cishet white males" on the SJW side of things).

The Red Pill also speculates about TV, porn, and carbs as causes of male weakness.

To a first approximation, I think emotionally stable women (the sort who make good long term partners) are attracted to the product of how good a man is and how powerful he is.

goodness = willingness to self-sacrifice for others' benefit.

The truth is ugly. Burn it down.

Burn it all down.

I am free.

Over 1% risk for unsuspecting men is enough that I'll paternity-test all of my children prior to claiming legal fatherhood.

As would I--there's no reason not to. But I think you are putting too much emphasis on the importance of this. In a healthy relationship, a paternity test is like an air bag: it's a safety measure to guard against something that has a very low chance of happening. Don't let the fact that bad female actors exist deter you from having happy relationships with good female actors. There's a woman on this very forum who precommitted to having her kids paternity tested.

Test pilots are not scientists...most of test pilot work is routine precision flying, and it's the engineers, not the pilots, who typically design the test program.

He invented the rigid flight helmet.

The woman ideal is getting support/resources from the brave (good resources) while cheating with the chief (better genes).

Nope, the best case scenario is to marry the chief or otherwise secure the commitment of a high status man. Cheating has a huge downside: it's possible to get caught and become ostracized. In the EEA, if a single mother was ostracized, her child's chance of success was considerably diminished. This created evolutionary pressure for women to be loyal, and that's why over 90% of births are non-cuckold births. That's why loyalty to a respected brave is a strategy that has higher expected value than cheating on a respected brave with the chief.

It doesn't take a genius to think of stuff like this, but it does not trigger male outrage and thus does not gather tons of pageviews and get repeated ad nauseum.

BTW I recommend http://reddit.com/r/purplepilldebate for getting some perspective on Red Pill ideas. But just in general keep in mind that they're presenting the ideas in the way that gets you maximally riled up due to memetic selection effects (see outrage link).

Don't let the fact that bad female actors exist deter you from having happy relationships with good female actors.

"Good" = doing what benefits others. "Bad" = doing what benefits me.

It's safest to assume that any woman will dump/manipulate/cheat me the second it's in her best interest to do so.

It's safest to assume all guns are loaded.

Nope, the best case scenario is to marry the chief or otherwise secure the commitment of a high status man.

Nope, for any given high status man the woman is able to marry, there exists an even higher status man the woman would be able to fuck, but not marry, given a large population, and assuming infidelity is legal. Thus, in the real world, a woman marrying the most wealthy man who wants to marry her and then cheating with the most attractive man who wants to fuck her gives her the best combination she can achieve. A man who was both as rich as her husband and as hot as her affair partner would never marry her.

It doesn't take a genius to think of stuff like this

Any time this phrase occurs: think about it harder, and insist domain experts check it.

assuming infidelity is legal

http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationexecuters_not_fitnessmaximizers/

Anyway, it sounds like you've gone through a lot. I'm sorry to hear of your suffering. I hope that someday you will have joyful experiences that help you put your current suffering in perspective.

Thank you for the kind words.

There are guys who primarily car about having sex with hot woman and there are woman who primarily care about having sex with hot man.

In both cases that's not the whole population.

Furthermore for many woman having sex with a man with whom they are in a love relationship is better than having sex with man with whom they aren't.

It's safest to assume that any woman will dump/manipulate/cheat me the second it's in her best interest to do so.

Ask and ye shall receive.

You're setting yourself up for an unhappy life.

"What good is life experience to someone who plays Quidditch?" said Professor Quirrell, and shrugged. "I think you will change your mind in time, after every trust you place has failed you, and you have become cynical."

"You have to get seriously burnt by friends/employers/family members (ideally all three) over women/money/jobs (again ideally all three) before you realise that you create more hassle for yourself and crush opportunities if people perceive you to be smart/rich/well connected. Most people simply are not worth knowing and are too insecure to be good friends with."

I am pretty cynical already and I don't see the point of this quote. I am not saying you should be a loyal friend to the whole world.

You, I presume, have been recently burned and so your sense of risk-reward is skewed at the moment. Yes, you can arrange your life to be almost entirely safe from emotional harm, but I suspect it will be a barren and highly unsatisfying life.

So it was OK for them to lie to me?

I did not say that.

I’m gonna go date 5 young women at the same time by telling them lies, then blame them for being insecure when the truth comes out.

If women were as terrible as you claim they are, it would not be necessary to tell them lies. Telling them about the other women you were seeing would increase their attraction to you.

Roosh (Red Pill thought leader) has written multiple times about how girls he's slept with have cried when they found his blog. This is also a data point that works against Red Pill ideology--if Roosh's online personality was actually one that women found attractive, they should want to fuck him even more after finding his blog. I suspect what is going on is that Roosh used disrespect for women as a crutch to overcome the fact that he used to be a weak, directionless man (as a result of unknown environmental factors--see my other comment) and overcome his fear of them. Then once he was reinforced for this behavioral strategy (with what is possible evolution's strongest reinforcer), he kept it up. Mark Manson wrote a good piece on this.

For example, I want to make it illegal to lie about one’s relationship status and sexual history. But, I can’t at my current power level. More specifically: I have met 3 different employees of a certain investment bank, who all were more sexually successful than me despite routinely lying to women to get sex. One tried to seduce my girlfriend at the time despite having one “girlfriend” and several “casual sex partners” who were unaware of each other, and who he implied possible long-term relationship potential with. Another tried to set me up with a woman he was tired of seeing (she wanted a relationship; he just wanted sex) without disclosing that he had had sex with them. A 3rd talked to me about startup projects while badly hiding the micro-expressions for “smugness/contempt” and “duping delight” and then predictably failed to follow up. I’m pretty sure at least 2 of these guys are into spreading genital herpes. But, I looked up the slander laws and it’s illegal for me to publicly shame these selfish men or their firm without recorded evidence (there’s a presumption of innocence), and it’s illegal for me to collect that evidence (two-party consent required for recording, and they avoid using email for their games). Thus, they win, and I lose, and their sex partners lose, and the people they do business with lose (their attitude carries over to their business dealings...it’s all about wealth extraction.).)

OK, so I think you are making a sort of classic geek mistake of believing that the stated rules are the actual rules. This is something most people figure out relatively early in life, but the same cognitive reallocation that makes geeks so good at analytical stuff, and the internal honesty that makes them good at building accurate world models, may mean they take a while to pick this hypocrisy stuff up. To fix this mistake, internalize the fact that the rules don't apply to you. The rules apply to people who follow the rules. Operate with more of a consequentialist mentality. Sometimes the world needs Chaotic Good agents of justice to use Tor through a proxy and talk trash about people online. It sounds like this issue is important to you--this is your opportunity to be a hero. Just keep in mind: "It's only illegal if you get caught". Wait a while after you have left the lives of these men to write about them, and distort your accusations so they won't think of you while you're reading them. Do thorough thinking/planning/research--this is your project, not mine.

BTW a quote from the Playboys blog you link to suggests that Graham's remarks about West Coast wealth may generalize surprisingly well to East Coast wealth:

Regular People Believe Rich People Are Mean: Another false assumption. Rich people are generally extremely logical. If you ask for a favor that you know he can easily do and he says “no” this does not imply that the person is mean. Instead? It implies that he has no reason to grant the favor.

From a consequentialist perspective, I would much rather see you seek revenge in order to get this off your mind and then join aturchin on the good guy team (a relatively high-trust group, by the way, with few bad actors) than stew in effective egoism. And research has found that giving back increases long term happiness, so selflessness may the selfish route in the long run.

So it was OK for them to lie to me?

I did not say that.

To fix this mistake, internalize the fact that the rules don't apply to you. The rules apply to people who follow the rules.

Sounds like you're saying lying is OK.

If you ask for a favor that you know he can easily do and he says “no” this does not imply that the person is mean. Instead? It implies that he has no reason to grant the favor.

That's selfishness...maximizing one's own utility at the expense of total utility. Apparently this is OK.

Roosh (Red Pill thought leader) has written multiple times about how girls he's slept with have cried when they found his blog. This is also a data point that works against Red Pill ideology.

Red Pill ideology says women want a "naturally" successful guy, and seeing how the sausage is made is disgusting to them (male struggles, male suffering, time at the gym, time reading weird forums, steroids, shoe lifts, etc.). Roosh's blog reveals that he is a fake, low-status, STD-spreading manipulator, which is disgusting to most women. His persona, however, is not unappealing.

The Red Pill explained some painful mistakes I had made, more clearly than any other source. Examples:

"Beta orbiting": why demonstrating good character, high value and virtuous restraint through being friends with an attractive woman is disgusting to them, why I spent years in sexless relationships, and why many women I was attracted to dated liars who pushed for sex quickly instead of me.

"Hypergamy": why all of my exes lined up other sexual prospects while in a relationship with me, and dumped me as soon as it was in their best interest. Also why my aunts with fat or poor husbands got divorced, while my uncles with fat or poor wives stayed married.

"Tingles Uber Alles": why tall, muscular and slightly scary men get a lot of sex, and why my outgoing middle-class Asian friend who's 5'3" is a virgin at age 30.

"Alpha Fucks; Beta Bucks": why many women enjoy casual sex, and lie about it without hesitation or remorse, including one of my exes.

Look it up. Or don't. Actually, it's better for me if you stay naive.

It sounds like this issue is important to you--this is your opportunity to be a hero. I would much rather see you seek revenge in order to get this off your mind and then join aturchin on the good guy team (a relatively high-trust group, by the way, with few bad actors) than stew in effective egoism.

Thank you for permission to turn evil. I make my own rules from now on. My revenge will be legal, general (not targeting any specific group, people or company), and anonymous.

For the sake of argument, if my sexual fetish was nuking densely populated cities and fucking in the heat of the fireball while listening to the screams of the dying, can you say with certainty that this is morally wrong?

Sounds like you're saying lying is OK.

Sure, in certain circumstances. I think I agree with Chris Hallquist at least.

That's selfishness...maximizing one's own utility at the expense of total utility. Apparently this is OK.

A person who's maximizing total utility is not going to grant every favor asked of them.

Red Pill ideology says women want a "naturally" successful guy, and seeing how the sausage is made is disgusting to them (male struggles, male suffering, time at the gym, time reading weird forums, steroids, shoe lifts, etc.). Roosh's blog reveals that he is a fake, low-status, STD-spreading manipulator, which is disgusting to most women.

Women cried when they found his blog. They did not blow a raspberry in disgust. They cried because they thought they had some kind of connection with a guy who turned out to be callously manipulating them.

The Red Pill explained some painful mistakes I had made, more clearly than any other source.

I agree it's a perspective worth keeping in mind and I said so above. I'm just saying that the case the RP folks make is overstated.

Think about it this way: Crime happens. Sometimes people get mugged. And it makes sense to take steps to protect yourself from getting mugged. Maybe you're going to learn martial arts. Maybe you're going to avoid walking through sketchy areas at night. Maybe you're going to pack heat. But even though crime happens, that doesn't mean that everyone is a criminal. It's easy for a person who had one or two really emotionally significant muggings to update on those experiences and start assuming the world is full of criminals even if that isn't actually the case.

I spent years in sexless relationships

I don't think it's normal for unmarried men to stick with women who don't have sex with them for years, so if you don't mind I'm going to psychoanalyze you a little bit.

It sounds to me like what might have happened in your case is that you focused really hard on being "good" and not so much on being "powerful" (see my good power attraction equation from above). You were passed over by women looking for monogamous relationships, because they thought they could do better than you in the "power" department, and get a respected brave instead of a disrespected one. However, you were an ideal mate for "dual mating strategy" bad actor women. For these women, the fact that your "power" stat was low did not matter since they were just* looking for a provider to work their dual strategy. Since your relationship prospects were filtered in this way, this gave you a distorted picture of what a typical woman is like.

Another possibility is that in the same way some neighborhoods are bad neighborhoods that have a lot of crime, you live in a city that has a dog-eat-dog dating culture.

Thank you for permission to turn evil. I make my own rules from now on. My revenge will be legal, general (not targeting any specific group, people or company), and anonymous.

It seems kind of pointless and counterproductive to take revenge on randoms that have not done anything to harm you...? BTW, I gave you "permission" to take revenge only on people who harmed you.

Consider a world in which nondirected revenge is normal. In such a world, revenge does not act as a deterrent to bad actions (because nondirected revenge isn't likely to result in bad consequences for a particular bad actor) and it also results in an expanding circle of harm (because victims of nondirected revenge are liable to engage in nondirected revenge themselves--consider the possibility that the bad actors you were harmed by were themselves acting in aggression in response to some bad situation like growing up with an absent father).

For the sake of argument, if my sexual fetish was nuking densely populated cities and fucking in the heat of the fireball while listening to the screams of the dying, can you say with certainty that this is morally wrong?

Jesus christ dude. I'm a moral anti-realist but I certainly would prefer you did not do that.

Jesus christ dude.

I put a check mark for today on the calendar I use to track my Quirrelmort-inspired cynicism.

But even though crime happens, that doesn't mean that everyone is a criminal.

Brains evolved to enable people to exploit dumber people.

It sounds to me like what might have happened in your case is that you focused really hard on being "good" and not so much on being "powerful"

I naively believed the best way to get a good wife was to act like a good husband.

It turns out that the best way to get a good wife is to be powerful...and the way to become powerful is to selfishly build up skills/power/experience, including sexual experience.

you live in a city that has a dog-eat-dog dating culture.

Welcome to any metropolitan city.

consider the possibility that the bad actors you were harmed by were themselves acting in aggression in response to some bad situation like growing up with an absent father

Probably. But what difference does it make? They still hurt me, violating norms of civil behavior, and were not (and cannot) be punished for it. Thus, the rational thing for me to do is to do unto others first.

Justice is a lie told by the powerful.

A person who's maximizing total utility is not going to grant every favor asked of them.

I am a "happiness monster". My utility deserves a 1000x multiplier.

Interpretation: you think that despite all the supposed/possible/theoretical/whatever goodwill, your effort will not actually be rewarded with anything. And not only that, you fear that while you're putting effort in that, other people put effort in themselves and once the great disaster is averted, your standing will be worse off compared to those that invested in themselves.

Confirm/deny?

Pretty accurate. Why sacrifice, when the payment is shame, not praise? Why be a good person, when I am called a weak coward for not taking as much as I can?

Why be a good person, when I am called a weak coward for not taking as much as I can?

Heh. Really, why?

I agree with your observations about girls and had the same experiences.

But I also believe in optimisation power of intelligence in reaching any goal.

I am going to create a map of SexTech by the way - about all current and future technologies in relationship, sex and love.

What's your thoughts on virtual reality?

In Sextech it is promising but current implementations are not impressive

You ask your girlfriends about the sociopolitical values of their exes? 8-0

I don't ask but it comes up. Certain occupations have corresponding values, that align with "cooperate" or "defect" strategies. For example, scientists "cooperate", while criminals and finance guys "defect" whenever they think it'll be profitable.

I notice you are using shaming language. I realize my beliefs are unusual but I am not clear what your question means.

For example, scientists "cooperate", while criminals and finance guys "defect" whenever they think it'll be profitable.

I think that's a picture of the world that's crude enough to be unusable.

I notice you are using shaming language.

Not quite, I don't shame people, but I do find your attutude unusual. What it maps to for me is the concept of a class enemy. A nice proletarian girl isn't supposed to sleep with a bourgeious man, that makes her worse than a slut -- that makes her a traitor. And the thing about class enemies, you don't care about who they personally are, you just label them by class (e.g. "an actual Owner"). I'm somewhat surprised to find this attitude on the 'net in 2016.

A nice proletarian girl isn't supposed to sleep with a bourgeoise man, that makes her worse than a slut -- that makes her a traitor.

If she can get a bourgeoise man to marry her, good for her. But chances are she won't, and she will never tell the proletarian man she ends up marrying about her past with the bourgeoisie man. This causes the proletarian man to suffer increased health risks.

I'm somewhat surprised to find this attitude on the 'net in 2016.

This is liberal shaming language.

If she can get a bourgeoise man to marry her, good for her.

Heh. "My sister got lucky, married a yuppie..." :-) But the point is the whole framework where the important thing about the girl is that she's a proletarian and the about that man is that he's bourgeoisie.

This is liberal shaming language.

I do not intend to shame. How do you think I can express my surprise without you reading it as shaming?

But the point is the whole framework where the important thing about the girl is that she's a proletarian and the about that man is that he's bourgeoisie.

Yes. Making generalizations about groups of people is a powerful, useful tool for decision-making.

express my surprise without you reading it as shaming?

Your surprise implies criticism. I assume you believe "it's dirty/wrong to generalize about groups of people. it's especially dirty/wrong to have negative beliefs about poor people and about lower-class people". I appreciate the criticism, though I imagine you find my beliefs repugnant.

Making generalizations about groups of people is a powerful, useful tool for decision-making.

Sometimes. And sometimes it will lead you astray. Especially if your classification scheme is... suspect.

Your surprise implies criticism.

Why? I am surprised at a lot of things, finding something unexpected and finding something worthy of criticism are orthogonal things.

I assume you believe "it's dirty/wrong to generalize about groups of people. it's especially dirty/wrong to have negative beliefs about poor people and about lower-class people".

I am sorry to disappoint you, I believe no such thing. Nothing even close to that.

I don't follow what about my beliefs is surprising to you, then.

As I mentioned, I associate your approach with the idea of a "class enemy". This comes straight out of Marxism and was a popular approach around the turn of the century -- the XX century, so more than a hundred years ago.

Marxism (and in particular the whole idea that social interactions are defined by the class struggle) has been pretty much discredited by now. Outside of some diehard pockets (in academia and hard-left organizations) no one really tries to claim that the class struggle is what drives social relationships. LW isn't particularly Marxist, either.

So that's why I was surprised to see what to me is an old and unpopular idea here -- and moreover, see it applied to a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship, not even to employment or something like that.

Can you argue the content? "Old" and "unpopular" are weak refutations.

Classism is part of current politics, as well as my personal experience.

I was explaining my surprise, not arguing the content, but do you want me to argue against the the claim that the class struggle is the main driver behind social organization and social relationships? I think it's a well-trodden ground.

On the basic level, the Marxist approach lacks explanatory power and makes wrong predictions.

"Being surprised" is privileging your own beliefs over others.

Denying the realities of class doesn't make them go away. Your beliefs are the map, but the terrterritory includes rich people who own the brands that own your mind.

"Being surprised" is privileging your own beliefs over others.

What?? Sense makes not.

Surprise is the sensation you get when you prior beliefs (even if weak) were overturned or at least contradicted by empirical evidence. How is that "privileging your own beliefs"?

Besides, I certainly privilege my own beliefs over beliefs of other people. I don't know how one can function otherwise.

rich people who own the brands that own your mind

No they don't. I'm quite sure that my mind isn't owned by any brands (among other things I actively dislike advertising).

You're still doing it. Surprise + shaming instead of argument.

Nope. But it seems we've gone full circle.