TheOtherDave comments on Competent Elites - Less Wrong

46 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 September 2008 12:07AM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 22 October 2013 10:15:08PM 0 points [-]

That's fine.

I adopted the "no better uses" formulation because you initially seemed to be contrasting them with the less-sparkly and less-alive of us who you seemed confident are made of atoms that can be put to better use, and I was trying to stay consistent with that usage, I'm not committed to it.

So, rephrasing my question in the terms you use here: How many individuals are you aware of for whom you have a reasonably strong prior weight that any other configuration of atoms that will contribute to equally positive changes in the future as their current configuration would take longer to search for in configuration space than simply letting them continue to exist as-is?

Comment author: ialdabaoth 22 October 2013 10:22:55PM *  0 points [-]

So, rephrasing my question in the terms you use here: How many individuals are you aware of for whom you have a reasonably strong prior weight that any other configuration of atoms that will contribute to equally positive changes in the future as their current configuration would take longer to search for in configuration space than simply letting them continue to exist as-is?

Heh. MAN, English sucks for this.

I'd say a few hundred that I'm directly aware of (either through direct acquaintance or media awareness); given my sample sizes and some back-of-the-envelope math, I can extrapolate that out globally to "a few million people".

Comment author: TheOtherDave 23 October 2013 12:01:43AM 0 points [-]

(nods) kk, thanks