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All these comments and nobody has anything fnord to say about the Illuminati?
In response to
The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You
I can't for the life of me imagine why such a disturbing and offensive post hasn't been downvoted to oblivion. You're a sick genius to be so horrifying with just twelve words.
Holy crap! You can be prosecuted by a country you no longer belong to because they think you stopped belonging to them to avoid paying them taxes? You stopped having to pay taxes to them when you stopped being an American citizen!
Maybe he's talking about American residents who renounced their citizenship but remained in the country? I have no idea how America can tax non-resident non-citizens without their nation making it more trouble than it's worth.
If it appears to be happening "for no reason", most people will infer a much more plausible causal explanation than time-traveling punishment — for instance, that this type of hardship contributes to people becoming criminals.
Wasn't there some Twilight Zone episode about this, where a Jewish time traveller used a mind-control device to torment Hitler, which caused his anti-semitism?
I had a hard time parsing "you shouldyou maximize your preferences, but of course you shouldme maximize my preferences." Can someone break that down without jargon and/or explain how the "should_x" jargon works?
I think the difficulty is that in English "You" is used for "A hypothetical person". In German they use the word "Man" which is completely distinct from "Du". It might be easier to parse as "Man shouldRaemon maximize Raemon's preferences, but of course man shouldMatt maximize Matt's preferences."
On the jargon itself, Should_X means "Should, as X would understand it".
In response to
A Possible Solution to Parfit's Hitchiker
Of course, you lose regardless if the value of your clothes to yourself is less than the utility he loses by taking you to town.
Unless, of course, you just pay him when you get to town.
I think that's the point of Parfit's Hitchiker: being a jerk and breaking deals because you can isn't really that rational.
In response to
The Orange Head Joke
I guess I'm in the middle? I thought it was mildly funny.
For whatever it says about me, my all-time favorite joke is this one:
Q: What's brown and sticky? A: A stick!
"What's green, whistles, and hangs on a wall?"
"No idea"
"A Salmon!"
"Salmon aren't green!"
"So I painted it green."
"They don't hang on walls!"
"They do if you nail them up"
"Fish can't whistle!"
"Yeah, I just put that in so it wouldn't be too easy."
In response to
The Orange Head Joke
CEV FAIL.
I think you're just being parochial in your assumption that having an orange for a head is a "bad" thing.
Can you imagine the horror of a universe filled with people eternally yearning for oranges as heads, but being unable to do so because of your actions? That would make you history's greatest monster.
I don't think the humor is in the non-answer, I think the humor is in the fact that we're introduced to a person who demonstrates what is apparently rational, goal seeking behavior, and then proceeds to ask for something he doesn't want and has no reason to want.
Exactly, but I think the parodistic element is important as well. We expect (both from all the similar stories about genies and all the less wrong posts about what genies can be trusted) that he made a seemingly useful wish that backfired, presumably in a humourous manner (like how "The building explodes and your elderly mum is blown into the sky" is humourous, in a slapstick manner). We think he's going to ask for something he wants, but instead gets something he doesn't want, when he instead asks for something he doesn't want and gets it.
Also, you're obviously right when you think of "King Midas is starving to death. How? Magic." has no clear genre. It's a morality play about wealth and not making stupid wishes if the answer is "He used magic to wish for all he touched to turn to gold, not realising this meant his food as well. Being unable to digest gold he started to starve." and a joke if the answer is "He used magic to wish to starve to death. What a maroon!" Also, regarding OP, just making the answer magic is as silly as "Why is that man wearing a suit? Economics" and "Why is King Midas starving? Biochemistry."
In response to
The Orange Head Joke
It made me laugh, which is a reasonable proxy for thinking it's funny.
I suspect a lot of why it made me laugh is that I recognized the "twelve-inch pianist" template and spent the entire joke trying to anticipate what the analogous punch line could be, which set me up to be surprised by the punchline. I'd expect someone who wasn't trying to anticipate the punchline to not think it was funny.
I'm reminded of "What did the Zen master say to the counter-worker at Dunkin' Donuts? 'Large coffee and a chocolate crueller to go, please.' " Which got a huge laugh at the time, but you really had to be there.
Given that "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is considered the prototypical joke, anti-humour is pretty popular. You may say that a man with an orange for a head is more inherently funny than a chicken, but I would refer you to D Zongker 2006
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I believe that many if not most people value some things more than happiness.
"Man does not seek happiness, only the Englishman." -Nietzsche, on Utilitarians.