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So is there ever a time where you can use absence of evidence alone to disprove a theory, or do you always need other evidence as well? Because is some cases absence of evidence clearly does not disprove a theory, such as when quantum physics was first being discovered, there was not a lot of evidence for it, but can the inverse ever be true will lack of evidence alone proves the theory is false?
In response to
The Value of Those in Effective Altruism
What is a Fermi Estimate? If you could provide a link to an article talking about that I would be thankful.
In response to
Attention! Financial scam targeting Less Wrong users
Please note, in most versions of such scams the perpetrator does not actually send money (as in step 1 in the OP). Instead they use some combination of fake checks (yes, printed checks!), fake "payment confirmation" emails or fake websites along with social engineering and time pressure, to make the victim think money has been sent, in the hope that they will "refund" the overpayment before realising the initial payment was not real.
So if you're reading the OP and thinking "I can just collect the money in step 1 and then ignore the refund request" (whether planning to donate yourself, or even keep it), it's not likely to work out either.
I agree. It is bad to do what scams say, even if you think that you can trick the scammer. Plus, they will put you on a "vulnerable" list and you will get more scams.
In response to
Why Don't Rationalists Win?
I'm not sure how effective this is considering most people who would see this are rationalists and people like to think good of themselves.
In response to
Why Don't Rationalists Win?
I am not so sure that rationalists don't win, but rather that "winning"(ie. starting a company, being a celebrity, etc.) is rare enough and that few people are rationalists that people that win tend not to be rationalists because being a rationalist is rare enough that very few people that win are rationalists, even if each rationalist has a better chance of winning.
In response to
Travel Through Time to Increase Your Effectiveness
I think this is a really good idea. I have wished I could "blink" and then be in the future but still have been doing work during that time, and this is just the way to do that. I am trying to to this because it is a really great idea.
Hmmm, looking at the citation brings me to this page...
According to John Lewis (a University of Arizona planetary scientist), for example, the smallest Earth-crossing asteroid 3554 Amun (see orbit) is a mile-wide (2,000-meter) lump of iron, nickel, cobalt, platinum, and other metals; it contains 30 times as much metal as Humans have mined throughout history, although it is only the smallest of dozens of known metallic asteroids and worth perhaps US$ 20 trillion if mined slowly to meet demand at 2001 market prices.
It seems that, as you point out, that value entirely fails to take into account the severe drop in price caused by the vast amount of metal suddenly on the market...
If all of those asteroids are owned by one company, then they can sell the metal of the asteroids for as much as it was before because they would be the only people with that much metal, having something similar to a monopoly. They would have the choice of lowering the value of the metals, because if they only made $10/ton. of metal and they sold 1 million tons, then they make ten million dollars. However, if a different company with ten tons of metal making $10/ton. of metal would make one hundred dollars, perhaps not be able to pay their workers, and go out of business. That would reduce competition for the company that caught the asteroid. However, if the company sold them for the same prices long-term they could make trillions of dollars.
In response to
Help Build a Landing Page for Existential Risk?
This is my blurb.
Asteroids pose a risk towards life on earth. An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. They pose enough threat that [U.S. and Russia are working together to hunt down asteroids](https://newsela.com/articles/asteroid-crowdsource/id/3960/). In fact, [an asteroid landed in Russia in February 2013 and was 65-feet wide with the force of 500,000 tons of TNT](https://newsela.com/articles/asteroid-crowdsource/id/3960/). However, asteroids could be very valuable to us.If caught, asteroids could be worth one-trillion dollars! They contain more metals than we have ever mined ever! In space, the value of asteroids could be more because of one substance: water. We could potentially separate the water into hydrogen and then use the hydrogen as fuel. This is very money saving because it takes a lot of fuel to move places because if you take fuel to move farther that fuel adds weight so you have to add fuel to carry that fuel and add fuel to carry that fuel… If we make more fuel in space then we get out of that loop. Asteroids pose a potential value to earn lots of money and send space ships farther out than we have before but also a threat of killing thousands.
We belive that one asteroid(just one!) could be worth $1,000,000,000,000.
At... current market prices, or market prices once the asteroid is successfully caught and mining begins?
I don't know the exact numbers, nor how carefully that was found out. The point is that asteroids contain mor metals than we ever mined ever and that adds up to be a lot of money.
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Ouch. I had vague feelings that something was amiss, but I believed you when you said they were all correct. I knew that sociology had a lot of nonsense in it, but to proclaim the exact opposite of what actually happened and sound plausible is crazy (and dangerous!).
I certainly agree. Most of those I instantly believed, and I had a bit of doubt for the one about southern blacks preferring southern to northern white officers (or maybe that is belief as attire, or hindsight bias) but as you said it is crazy that the opposite of what is true is believable when told it is correct.