This is a special post for quick takes by Said Achmiz. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Said Achmiz's Shortform
3rd Feb 2023
18Said Achmiz
6Vladimir_Nesov
4JenniferRM
2the gears to ascension
14JenniferRM
2the gears to ascension
8Said Achmiz
8DirectedEvolution
4Said Achmiz
2Dagon
2Said Achmiz
2Said Achmiz
4Said Achmiz
2Said Achmiz
14 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 10:01 AM
Note for the record:
I can no longer reply to comments addressed to me (or referring to me, etc.) on the post “Basics of Rationalist Discourse”, because its author has banned me from commenting on any of his posts.
That's shaping up to be a really interesting club. If the world wasn't currently on fire, or if I enjoyed this sort of thing, I would've considered taking the time to write up some essays as an application for joining it, something about efficient communication (as opposed to effective-if-you-try-real-hard) and pragmatic navigation of disagreement (that cultivates progress towards changing one's mind without unsustainable urgency). But I might be on track anyway (edit: the reference is to the fact that the linked comment was surprisingly heavily karma-downvoted; now it's back to the positives, and some disagreement-vote is reasonable).
It does seem that Lesswrong is becoming more "archipelagic" lately, which... I mean... I guess that's what it now says on the tin is what it is explicitly aiming for? So it seems hard to complain <3
That said, I wish the mods and perhaps Duncan himself would spend more time thinking about the CAP theorem, and the importance and value of healing "partitions" quickly and thoroughly, rather than taking the risk of letting minor confusing disagreements explode into all out forks.
partitions are good, as long as information flow between them continues, and they are able to have useful disagreements. Those are not trivial desiderata, but they're achievable, and it's worth it to allow and encourage there to be multiscale grouping. We should be trying to reduce graph orientability; every node should make their own decisions, and yet via each node observing the graph and making themselves more like outliers in connectivity pattern, no node should stay an outlier in connectivity statistics. we need scale free soft groupings with no outgrouping.
I think, ideally, for anything that really matters, I'd selfishly prefer to just be in consensus with flawless reasoners, by sharing the same key observations, and correctly deriving the same important conclusions?
The whole definition of a partition here is "information NOT flowing because it CANNOT easily flow because cuts either occurred accidentally or were added on purpose(?!)" and... that's a barrier to sharing observations, and a barrier to getting into consensus sort of by definition?
It makes it harder for all nodes to swiftly make the same good promises based on adequate knowledge of the global state of the world because it makes it harder for facts to flow from where someone observed them to where someone could usefully apply the knowledge.
If an information flow blockage persists for long enough then commitments can be accidentally be made on either side of the blockage such that the two commitments cannot be both satisfied (and trades that could have better profited more people if they'd been better informed don't happen, and so on), and in general people get less of what they counted on or would have wanted, and plans have to be re-planned, and it is generally just sad.
I'm in favor of privacy, if that's what you're talking about? But I don't see how reply bans advance the normal and valid goals of privacy. If someone is spreading lashon hara, I think reply bans would tend to make it worse, if anything?
Maybe you're saying something super clever about "multiscale grouping"? When I google that term I just find stuff that... might be old school machine vision algorithms? Maybe there is a metaphor here, but I don't see it yet.
I think, ideally, for anything that really matters, I'd selfishly prefer to just be in consensus with flawless reasoners, by sharing the same key observations, and correctly deriving the same important conclusions?
But you're embedded in physics, and can rely on the fact that you will never be a flawless reasoner. You're made of neurons, none of which are flawless reasoners, but they are able to work together to be a single agent by nature of keeping each other informed about what your opinion is as that opinion gets refined. Your neurons operate at or near criticality, so any neuron could potentially cause an update that propagates through the whole brain; neurons' uncertainty about whether other neurons will provide an insightful contribution, combined with consensus network that refines away errors in ways that diffuse towards your self, is what allows free will to fall out of a deterministic system: your neurons inform each other of your personality, and you move your environment towards yourself.
In a social network, overly dense connectivity can break edge-of-chaos, criticality-seeking behavior, by resulting in a network that accept updates from people with too little processing. This is especially severe when there's any sort of hierarchy, especially when that hierarchy is related to a hierarchy of control or dominance.
I propose that, if there are conflicts about approach to reasoning, information flow should continue, and if things go well, the partition should be one that results in the networks staying overlapped but separating partially.
(I do not intend to be at all metaphorical. I am intending to make claims that these patterns are literally the same, not mere metaphor. If they are not literally the same, my claim is wrong, and discovering it will teach me new things.)
I can link some lectures I've watched recently about this. Eg, I liked this one on "what is complexity", which goes over how complex systems science is about the process of understanding what laws can be stated universally about large systems that are neither simple due to high entropy nor simple due to low entropy. It is not highly relevant such that it is worth it if that's not new to you, but if it is new to you, it may be important background knowledge.
Also, keep in mind that there's a good chance I'm straight up just not as smart or educated as most people on here; I compensate for that the same sort of way as current models do - I've seen a lot more stuff shallowly than most people study deeply. (but a real PhD would actually be good at stuff I merely fangirl about.)
on reread, seems like I may have missed components of your reply in my reply. I'm about to sleep; if you reply to me with emphasis on which parts I missed I'll reply tomorrow
A comment I wrote in response to “Contra Contra the Social Model of Disability” but couldn’t post because @DirectedEvolution seems to have banned me from commenting on his posts.
You say:
First, try reading [the below quotes] with the conventional definition of “disability” in mind, where “disability” is a synonym for “impairment” and primarily means “physical impediment, such as being paraplegic or blind.” Under this definition, which we’ve just seen is not the one they use, they sound ridiculous.[1]
Then, see how the meaning changes using the definition of “disability” these articles actually use, where “disability” specifically means “the things society does to restrict or discriminate against impaired people, or its omissions in enabling impaired people to participate in society.” Under this definition, they sound like ways of helping us understand exactly what they mean when they use the term “disability” in this new, more specific way.
But the problem is that if we try to read the quotes that way, they become incoherent or tautological.
Take the first quote:
Individual limitations are not the cause of disability. Rather, it is society’s failure to provide appropriate services and adequately ensure that the needs of disabled people are taken into account in societal organization.
So, “society’s failure to provide appropriate services and adequately ensure that the needs of disabled people are taken into account in societal organization”… is the cause of… “the things society does to restrict or discriminate against impaired people, or its omissions in enabling impaired people to participate in society”? That’s neither a factual claim nor a definition; it’s a tautology.
Likewise:
The model says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference.
People are what by barriers in society? “Disabled”? What does that mean, if “disability” already means “barriers in society”?
(And it’s interesting to note the phrase “impairment or difference”—well, are we talking about impairments or aren’t we? It does, actually, matter whether the “difference” is, in fact, in any way bad for the person in question! Indeed it’s the crux of the whole question!)
And again:
It is [the] environment that creates the handicaps and barriers, not the disability.
From this perspective, the way to address disability is to change the environment and society, rather than people with disabilities.
It’s the environment that creates the handicaps and barriers, not… “the things society does to restrict or discriminate against impaired people, or its omissions in enabling impaired people to participate in society”…?
The bottom line is: there just isn’t any way of getting around the fact that these are language games being played by people who are trying to push their agenda without having to convince people of their claims (which they know they can’t do, because their claims are manifest nonsense).
FYI, I had accidentally banned you and two other users in my personal posts only some time ago, but realized when you commented that I hadn’t banned you in all my posts as I’d intended. The ban I enacted today isn’t specifically in response to your most recent comments. Since you took the time to post them and then were cut off, which I feel bad about, I’ll make sure to take the time to read them. I fully support you cross posting them here.
I mean, testing with a production account is not generally best practice, but it seems to show things are operational. What aspect of things are you testing?
I (a real human, not a test system) saw the post, upvoted but disagreeed, and made this reply comment.
My solution for the stag hunt is to kill the hunter who leaps out and the rabbit, then cook & eat his flesh.
(Source; previously)