Comment author: GuySrinivasan 16 July 2016 06:59:20PM 3 points [-]

What they said about the U(-)=0 problem. But the way I think about it resolves more contradictions, more easily, IMO.

  • Utility is no more than a mathematical artifact, do not phrase questions in terms of utility

Utility functions are equivalent under positive affine transforms. This is a huge clue that thinking about utility will lead to major intuition problems. Instead, use quantities that are not ambiguous. You're gonna have to get rid of the a and b in au(x)+b, so you're going to need three states of the world, always, before you're allowed to use intuition. You can combine them in different ways, but I like

r = [U(x)-U(z)] / [U(y)-U(z)]

Mere differences in utility are not pinned down, because of scale. Ratios of differences in utility are great, though. It's 2.67x as good to go from nothing to chocolate as to go from nothing to vanilla. 0 and 3 and 8, or 4 and 7 and 12, those are just there for computational convenience in some circumstances and can be ignored.

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 25 May 2016 10:10:35PM *  0 points [-]

tl;dr: If you have less than ~$13k saved and have only enough income to meet expenses, picking B might legitimately make you sad even if it's correct.


I'd take B every time. But it depends on your financial situation. If the stakes are small relative to my reference wealth I maximize expected dollars, no regrets, and if you can't without regrets then maybe try playing poker for a while until you can be happy with good decisions that result in bad outcomes because of randomness. You may not make that exact decision again, but you make decisions like it plenty often.

If the stakes are large relative to my reference wealth then the situation changes for two reasons. One, I probably won't have the opportunity to take bets with stakes large relative to my wealth very often. Two, change in utility is no longer approximately proportional to change in dollars. Perhaps $240 is a non-trivial amount to you? For a hypothetical person living in an average American city with $50k saved and an annual income of $50k, an additional $240 is in no way life changing, so dU(+$240) ~= 0.24 * dU(+$1000) and they should pick B. But with 1000x the stakes, it's entirely possible that dU(+$240,000) >> 0.25 * dU(+$1,000,000).

Another way of looking at this is investing with Kelly Criterion (spherical cow but still useful), which says if you start with $50k and no other annual income and have the opportunity to periodically pay $24x for a 25% chance at $100x, you should start by betting ~$657 a pop for maximum growth rate, which is within shouting distance of the proposed $240 - and KC is well known to be too risky for individuals without massive wealth, as people actually have to spend money during low periods. This is proportional to wealth, so the breakeven wealth before you're sad that you have to bet so much at once ($240) is, under the too-risky KC, about $18k, which means actually it's probably like $10k-$15k.

I have very little intuition how this translates if, for example, you have heaps of student load debt and are still trying to finish education in hopes of obtaining a promised-but-who-knows well paying job in a few years.

Comment author: TheAltar 07 March 2016 07:26:49PM 0 points [-]

Should "pop slurper" be 10 letters?

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 07 March 2016 07:36:42PM 0 points [-]

Looks like 9 to me. It's not crazy.

Comment author: Elo 07 March 2016 05:01:58AM 0 points [-]

Why?

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 07 March 2016 05:40:52AM 2 points [-]
Comment author: GuySrinivasan 07 March 2016 04:02:12AM 4 points [-]

Puzzle playtesters needed! I'm looking to beta test a whole bunch of puzzles for the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt. I've got many types - logic, math, words, uncategorizable, etc. Best done with a friend or 7. PM me for details if you're interested. Example of (an easier version of) the kinds of puzzles I mean, insofar as any one puzzle could possibly be an example: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwYx-fx5mJcaa3kxSUFHVjAtVG8xQlZYcHpKS25ZSHhTSTdN

Comment author: Dagon 26 August 2015 03:24:19PM 5 points [-]

This happens to my spouse and me very often. We've gotten pretty good at noticing after the second "I dunno, what do you want to do" round that we need to switch from ask mode to tell mode. Don't give options, just propose something, and say "any objection must take the form of a counterproposal" (yes, we say literally this sentence to each other a few times a week).

Especially when one partner is more tired than the other, we can instead just have the more engaged partner pick something and the tired one get one or two vetos before being forced to step up and actually accept something. This isn't always comfortable, especially when it's unclear that there exists a good solution.

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 27 August 2015 05:53:15PM 0 points [-]

"any objection must take the form of a counterproposal"

Most of my social circle says "dinner semantics" to mean exactly this. So far we've skirted but basically avoided the trap of gaming it by bluffing - proposing an option you know is unacceptable to force someone else to propose.

Comment author: Elo 15 July 2015 08:25:17PM 1 point [-]

This makes sense. And growing to overcome these feelings? Have you done anything specifically? or did it shift over time?

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 15 July 2015 09:47:05PM 1 point [-]

Some things I did during recovery which feel related, though I make no hard claims:

  • regular talk therapy including about those issues
  • be completely genuine with at least one person
  • change employers
  • mentor an intern
  • work with a team who were all selected to be both high-functioning and low-ego
  • learn about imposter syndrome
  • accept that I was depressed to the point that I lost a number of years of experience ("explain away" a certain portion of the feeling as genuine)
  • work with an individual who I felt was competent but who I was distinctly more competent than in select areas
  • complete a substantial at-home coding project

It is entirely possible that recovery was simply regression to the mean. I do not know.

Comment author: Elo 14 July 2015 11:18:54PM 3 points [-]

I know a few people with varying forms of Imposter syndrome. I have never felt the similar experience and would like to bridge the gap of understanding, and see if I can pull some advice out of your experience. Can you explain more?

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 15 July 2015 04:34:16PM 5 points [-]

For me, when I had it (I have since crawled out and am merely underconfident, scared, etc), the feeling is "I am secretly not nearly* as good as people think I should be and therefore as people think I am because they don't look closely and if they did then they'd find out so wow I hope they don't look closely good thing people are usually content with surface thought hahaha but really oh god".

*understatement

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 06 May 2015 03:21:14PM 2 points [-]

Different folks have different reasons, and it's not just a noisy-but-additive result, since some folks use an algorithm like "upvote an article that 'feels like' an article that should end up at +5 if it's currently below +5, otherwise don't, or even downvote" for whatever value of 5 the article makes them feel. A control system in the midst.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 27 April 2015 05:51:15PM *  1 point [-]

Additionally, I'm a little worried about the control group part. I expect it's relatively easy to recruit people to play a game and have them be motivated to play it, but if I tell people that "oh, but you may be randomly assigned to the control condition where you're given more traditional math instruction instead", I expect that that will drop participation. And even the people who do show up regardless may not be particularly motivated to actually work on the problems if they do get assigned to the control condition, especially given that I'm hoping to also educate people who'd usually avoid maths. How insane would it be to just not have a control group?

Comment author: GuySrinivasan 27 April 2015 06:17:21PM 3 points [-]

Do you have access to units of caring?

Are you trying to gain knowledge, get a piece of paper, both, one as a side effect of another?

"actually graduate" versus "see if they learn anything" might hugely inform your process. Off-the-cuff I'm guessing you want to actually graduate first with hopes of nice learning side effects, then see if they learn anything via something that takes longer.

Also a consideration: 3+ arms. Instruction game, instruction non-game, and non-instruction game. Also possibly non-instruction non-game.

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