= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
ikrase comments on Overcoming bias guy meme | quickmeme - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (77)
... damn, we are never going to live down that rape bullshit are we. What the hell, Hanson?
Have to say I don't like it. Wonder who made these.
Referenced post
Having only become involved with Lesswrong after it had split off, I've never seen the appeal of "Overcoming Bias." There are a few interesting posts, but a lot of dross and random weird political/incendiary things (like the above). All the good stuff seems to be expressed better elsewhere (mainly on LW).
Possibly this just means LW's voting system is doing its job, but I still notice I'm confused by the appeal. Can anyone enlighten me?
Well, I'll stick up for OB and Hanson.
Hanson posts about interesting things in a droll way. That's intentional, I believe: sometimes he seems to be trying to get a rise out of people, but most of the time he's trying to reduce emotional reactions to his posts.
He's really, really invested in ideas like evolution: simple theories that explain lots of different phenomena. This is why we get lots and lots of posts about signaling, near/far, and farmers/foragers. He thinks that these explain far more than people currently give them credit, so he's trying to expand their influence. If this seems boring, let me just point at that Hanson has provided or advertised:
1) Probably the best explanation for why medical expenditures in the US grow faster than health outcomes.
1.a) What I consider the best post on any blog about what economists can say about health care reform
2) An explanation for traditional scifi aesthetics
3) Why dumbed-down arguments work better in politics
4) An ev/psych hypothesis for left/right political divide
5) An ev/psych hypothesis for the appeal of adventure novels and video game settings
6) Problems with the business world and how to fix them (and why they won't be fixed)
7) The dark side of cooperation
He's also interested in experimentation and clever solutions to social problems. Hence,
1) A fantastic (but probably politically unworkable) way to solve the problem of CEO value.
2) Futarchy, of course. I doubt it would be very efficient on a large scale because of target/noise problems, but on a local government scale I think it could be amazing.
3) Other numerous applications he's come up with or advertised: solving standardization/focal point problems (like blu-ray vs hdvd), solving which movie scripts to fund, etc.
If you have seen much of this expressed better elsewhere, consider the value of originating an idea vs. explaining in different words. A lot of the LW community was around for the OB days when Eliezer and Robin blogged together and many of us have absorbed insights from both of them. And these are all just memorable posts from the top of my head. Digging for them, I found many more interesting posts.
Those political posts that seem like trolling seem to me about questioning our moral instincts, which are often very bad. I appreciate a seemingly bizarre hypothesis over another self-congratulation about why X moral theory confirms what we all already believe anyway, hooray.
Overcoming Bias can be interesting, but (as with the post on rape) I often feel that people like me (with left/feminist leanings) are being trolled.
I don't think that Hanson is trolling so much as he's choosing deliberately provocative subjects to pontificate frankly on (I think any definition by which this would be considered "trolling" is inappropriately broad.)
I do think that he does tend to treat a few concepts as hammers which turn everything else into nails, and often bases his arguments on shaky premises. I don't think he has a very good sense of how far he can extrapolate before he's basically speculating blindly.
Not sure. Overcoming bias is both Hanson's own blog (where he pushes ideas such as ems (those are uploaded people, right?) and cynicism) and a general project about rationality / what it says on the tin.
I've always liked the Less Wrong aristocracy (Compliment!) better as they often seem to make fewer "theory class" mistakes.
To my knowledge, ems are uploaded people self-optimizing for pure computational efficiency in a sort of malthusian race to the bottom.
[edit] Correction, em is just a shorthand for whole-brain emulation. The malthusian race was a proposed scenario, but not a necessary one.
Seems like it would be easier to make expert systems (Possibly out of uploaded infants or animals?) than use humans?
Well if expert systems make better ems [edit] uploads they'll outcompete the human ems and dominate the market, so humans will self-modify to become more like expert systems or stop getting allocated computing time.
(and that's why you don't run future supertech on capitalism!)
Waitwhat? Also, are we calling everything an em?
What are all these people computing in the first place? Also, it seems like the obvious choice is for a human to own several expert-system or trained animal ems and rent their services or something. ????
Sorry, I said that wrong. Also, the human is strictly overhead. There's no reason to expect we'd necessarily be better than an expert system at owning and managing expert systems.
What they're computing in the first place, I have no idea. I think the assumption is that there'll be a computing-based economy of any kind, not necessarily what the specifics of it are. And data mining is already an enormous industry, for instance.
GAAAAAAHHH!
I think somebody forgot to have something to protect! Is this Hanson's actual idea or your idea of the consequences. Frankly I expect an energy-and-matter based economy.
This is a positive prediction, not a normative one.
I am not very confident I'm accurately representing his position. Really, I'm hoping somebody'll correct me if I'm too far offbase. Grain of salt, go read his posts on the topic, etc etc.
See, it's things like this that makes LW seem creepy to me.
Are you saying that you dislike the LW aristocracy, or that you dislike the fact that LW has an aristocracy?
A non-neurotypical person. This one displays something I'd actually call humor; the rest are just OB references or "take that, OB!" references.
That isn't a phrase I prefer to see used as (what amounts to) an insult.
My complaint is that is either a euphemism for autistic (in which case, just say autistic- if that feel "Squicky", re-evaluate your statement), or it is so vague as to lose all meaning- someone with bi-polar disorder is non-neurotypical, but is no more likely to have made these than anyone else.
If you do mean specifically autistic, you may want to broaden your understanding of autism. Autism is not standard, it can present in many, many ways, including many that would not create this type of image. The images are indicative of a poor grasp of humor, and a poor grasp of the original subject matter, but I do not see a higher probability for an autistic person to create these against the general population.
(It likely isn't your intention but I'm a little uncomfortable having these 'you' claims as replies to me when it isn't me to whom they apply.)
My apologies, I was meaning a more general "you", as in "the person who uses this phrase". Not directed at you you, just the common you, and you are certainly not the you I meant for "you" to refer to.
Not actually true (in the specific example, although I support your general objection about terminology misuse). In a hypo-manic phase someone is more likely to get caught up with the kinda-clever notion of making Hanson memes and get carried away dumping all his ideas, exercising less judgement and restraint than he otherwise would. (Of course some time later they would later be able to look at their work and see why it isn't funny and delete it. They are also more likely than average to come up with a whole bunch of awesome memes.)
Fair enough- I should have chosen a clearer example.
Sociopathy would be a perfect example (in the sense that I would expect them to be less likely to make terrible jokes like that). Dyslexia would work too. Definitely not schizophrenia though.
You're one of the last people I would have expected to show strong moral disapproval for a neutrally-phrased, true statement. Which of these claims offends you more? "People on the autism spectrum usually have problems understanding or generating statements considered humorous by neurotypicals," or "Obese people usually have problems climbing several flights of stairs quickly"?
The phrasing may be neutral but the decision to use it in the particular context was not, and that conveyed social meaning of the type that I felt it appropriate to assert opposition to. (A thought that I recall crossing my mind was "Hmm... this is getting dangerously close to 'non-neurotypical person' being used where 'retard' once may have been, before that became a politically incorrect move.")
I am perhaps less confident of the Autism diagnostic capability of the memes in question. In fact, I might consider the fact that the person follows OvercomingBias at all to be stronger evidence!
Neither of those offends me.
I agree, but I'm not sure it was intended as an insult. The effect in (some) readers is similar though, so maybe I'm splitting hairs.
Interestingly, that one is nothing more than a quote from HPMOR. From chapter 63:
Am I correct in my impression that Rational!Quirrel is in part inspired by Hanson?
I certainly have that impression as well, yes.
Also Yvain mentioned his 'Evil Hansonian' and 'Bleeding Heart Liberal' internal interlocutors once.
CharlieSheen, I guess?