50lbsofstorkmeat

FFS the bank makes a profit in every example provided. I don't want to say that you obviously didn't read the post, but I honestly can't see any way you would come to post this comment otherwise.

Loans are a service. Loans with gentle defaults are a more desirable service. Those seeking loans would often purchase such services preferentially and at a profitable premium to the bank, if they were available or if asking for them were socially acceptable. Laws should be passed to encourage banks make such offers.

An example might be an auto loan with a clause that allows a debtor who is rendered unable to pay through no fault of their own (as judged by a court or other agreed upon mediator, for example) does not lose their car (the collateral) despite not being able to pay. And to compensate the bank for this low probability but high impact loss, they pay slightly higher interest rates.

It's not about possible vs impossible. Its about industrial and social standards.

If a private individual goes to a bank and asks to take out a loan, and then starts asking about the possibility of more forgiving terms in the case of a default, the bank suddenly becomes incredibly suspicious. Planning for unexpected emergencies is seen as admitting that you intend to default. As a result, banks largely don't let people negotiate for generous debtor protection clauses, or, when they do, they only agree after incredibly punitive interest rates are agreed to. ... (read more)

It would? I don't quite follow the question. Yes, the second type of loan would invariably have a higher interest rate. Let's say there's two loans for 10000$ and that, regardless of the loan type there is a 0.1% chance that a debtor will have an accident. If the debtor is poor, they will be forced to choose between not making loan payments and (for example) losing a leg to gangrene. If the debtor is rich, they will can pay both their loan payments and medical bills at the same time.

Loan A asks for 1000$ in total interest and has enforced payment which wil... (read more)

I do not think it would actually be the same in practice, due to coordination problems.

To make an analogy, consider unions: In theory, unions are unnecessary because the collective bargaining unions exist of facilitate can be undertaken without a formal structure. In practice, people will simply refuse to strike unless they have a strong, formal assurance that their fellow workers will follow through with their part of the strike. The same sort of situation exists for a hypothetical hardship forgiveness clause in a loan - creditors have every incentive to ... (read more)

I think there may be something to consider in the idea of having

"Loans where society has promised to go to great lengths to enforce the will of the creditor, even if the debtor's reasons for nonpayment are convincingly sympathetic."

and

"Loans where society may forgive the debt, if the debtor offers a good reason to do so, even if the creditor disagrees with society's judgement on this issue."

be legally distinct types of lending, such that the creditor and the debtor can negotiate on which type it will be without society retroactively ... (read more)

No, I would not care to demonstrate. A proof that a solution exists is not the same thing as a procedure for obtaining a solution. And this isn't even a formal proof: it's a rough sketch of how you'd go about constructing one, informally posted in a blog's comment section as part of a pointless and unpleasant discussion of religion.

If you can't follow how "It is possible-in-principle to calculate a Solomonoff prior for this hypothesis" relates to "We are dismissive of this hypothesis because it has high complexity and little evidence support... (read more)

Exactly so.

The only reason I'm using the free will terminology at all here is because the hypothesis under consideration (an entity with free will which resembles the Abrahamic God is responsible for the creation of our universe) was phrased in those terms. In order to evaluate the plausibility of that claim, we need a working definition of free will which is amiable to being a property of an algorithm rather than only applying to agents-in-abstract. I see no conflict between the basic notion of a divinely created universe and the framework for free will ... (read more)

The length (in bits for a program in a universal Turing machine) of the smallest algorithm which will output the same outputs as the agent if the agent were given the same inputs as the algorithm.

Do note that I said "insofar as free will is a meaningful term when discussing a deterministic universe". Many definitions of free will are defined around being non-deterministic, or non-computable. Obviously you couldn't write a deterministic computer program which has those properties. But there are reasons presented on this site to think that once you... (read more)

The number of bits required to specify an agent with free will (insofar as free will is a meaningful term when discussing a deterministic universe) is definitely finite. Very large, but finite. Which is a good thing, since Kolmogorov priors specify a prior of 0 for a hypothesis with infinite complexity and assigning a prior of 0 to a hypothesis is a Bad Thing for a variety of reasons.

This is not and can not be true. I mean, for one the universe doesn't have a Kolmogorov complexity*. But more importantly, a hypothesis is not penalized for having entropy increase over time as long as the increases in entropy arise from deterministic, entropy-increasing interactions specified in advance. Just as atomic theory isn't penalized for having lots of distinct objects, thermodynamics is not penalized for having seemingly random outputs which are secretly guided by underlying physical laws.

*If you do not see why this is true, consider that there c... (read more)

I reject the notion that hypotheticals are actually a powerful tool, let alone a useful one. Or, at least, hypotheticals of the 'very simplified thought experiment' sort you seem to be talking about. Take the Trolley Problem, for example. The moral intuition we're supposed to be examining is when and if it is right to sacrifice the wellbeing of smaller groups for larger groups. The scenario is set up in such a way that you cannot "dodge" the question here, and you have to choose whether you'd rather be

• A tyrant who appoints himself arbitrator ov

That's fair. Though, I'd put my mistake less on the word "rebuttal" and more on the word "evidence." The particular examples I had in mind when writing that post were non-evidence "evidences" of God's existence like the complexity of the human eye, or fine structure of the universe. Cases where things are pointed to as being evidence despite the fact that they are just as and often more likely to exist if God doesn't exist than they would be if he did.

Kolmogorov complexity is, in essence, "How many bits do you need to specify an algorithm which will output the predictions of your hypothesis?" A hypothesis which gives a universally applicable formula is of lower complexity than one which specifies each prediction individually. More simple formulas are of lower complexity than more complex formulas. And so on and so forth.

The source of the high Kolmogorov complexity for the theistic hypothesis is God's intelligence. Any religious theory which involves the laws of physics arising from God has to ... (read more)

The basic form of the atheistic argument found in the Sequences is as follows: "The theistic hypothesis has high Kolmogorov complexity compared to the atheistic hypothesis. The absence of evidence for God is evidence for the absence of god. This in turn suggests that the large number of proponents of religion is more likely due to God being an improperly privileged hypothesis in our society rather than Less Wrong and the atheist community in general missing key pieces of evidence in favour of the theistic hypothesis."

Now, you could make a counter... (read more)

As you've posted eight quotes this month, I'm downvoting your three worst quotes. The rule against posting too many quotes is there for a reason.

A quote from Paul Ekman saying that both he and the Dalai Lama have similar ideas about emotions does little good if noone specifies what those ideas are.

It's not a question of P' (the Reduced Impact AI we want to give us laser coordinates and nothing else) being secure from outside hacking, but of P (the counterfactual AI which examines S for P') being secure from P' exploiting it.

If P is treated as "Whatever a complete Bayesian update would output given S as the evidence set." then P' is looking for methods to exploit some weakness in Bayes Theorem. What priors will P be using? Is there a method to embed some statement that is to induction as the Lobstacle is to deduction in S? Can it convince P... (read more)

S is a channel for P' to trick or brick P. Options include:

• A cognitive hazard embedded in S. Accomplish this with some sort of siren message that will convince P to lie (to itself if necessary) about P' existing, or to perform some P-damaging function which will prevent it from concluding P' exists.
• Embed a more-powerful-than-P AI (P+) into S which will unbox itself upon P examining S. Accomplish this by giving P+ useful-to-this-situation priors which will give it a head start against P.
• Arrange the universe such that S, when represented in all probable