Comment author: skilesare 20 April 2015 05:47:40PM 3 points [-]

I think it is semantics that depend on your assumptions:

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicrent.asp

Profits are economic rent are the same in a lot of instances. If all markets were perfect their would be neither profit nor economic rent. Can you think of a situation where profit is not economic rent?

Comment author: Letharis 22 April 2015 01:34:37AM 2 points [-]

When you talk about perfectly competitive markets having no profit, you're probably thinking of the term "economic profit". The sort of profit everyone usually thinks of is revenue minus cost, which is called accounting profit by economists so as to distinguish it from economic profit. Also economists are really bad at naming things. Economic profit is revenue-costs-opportunity costs.

In perfect competition, firms do make accounting profit, but they don't make economic profit.

Thanks for posting your model here and getting involved in the discussion. It's always good to be able to discuss these things publicly because I'm sure many people are learning a lot from it.

Comment author: jimrandomh 24 November 2014 10:29:09PM 9 points [-]

I am also aware that LW and MIRI are bothered by RationalWiki.

I was a little bit at first, but then I tried clicking "random page" a few times to get a sense of what RationalWiki is like as a whole. Other than stubs, every page I landed on contained an attack of some sort. Being upset about a RationalWiki entry being unfair and negative is... like being upset about Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary being linguistically inaccurate. It doesn't really matter and that's not really what they do.

Comment author: Letharis 25 November 2014 01:26:07PM 13 points [-]

I'm bothered by it more than you are I guess. I mean, for people already involved in the rationality community maybe RationalWiki can just be seen as some silly vindictive website dressed up as a place to learn. But I feel like RationalWiki has decent pagerank and random people do get sent there in google searches. To have that site be the first or one of the first introductions a person has to a given rationality topic seems pretty destructive.

Comment author: KatjaGrace 11 November 2014 02:05:42AM 3 points [-]

Do you buy the orthogonality thesis?

Comment author: Letharis 11 November 2014 01:48:45PM 0 points [-]

I'm glad it was discussed in the book because I'd never come across it before. So far though I find it one of the least convincing parts of the book, although I am skeptical that I am appropriately evaluating it. Would anyone be able to clarify some things for me?

How generally accepted is the orthogonality thesis? Bostrom presents it as very well accepted.

Danaher's Motivating Belief Objection is similar to an objection I had while reading about the orthogonality thesis. Mine was not as strict though. It just seemed to me that as intelligence increases new beliefs about what should be done are likely to be discovered. I don't see that these beliefs need to be "true beliefs" although as intelligence increases I guess they approach true. I also don't see that they need to be "necessarily motivating", but rather they should have some non-zero probability of being motivating. I mean, to disprove the orthogonality thesis we just have to say that as intelligence increases there's a chance that final goals change right?

In response to comment by [deleted] on Open thread, Sept. 29 - Oct.5, 2014
Comment author: D_Malik 02 October 2014 07:47:59AM *  21 points [-]

Some clusters that seem related but not much discussed on LW:

  • The "aspiring Mentat" cluster, which includes the entire mnemonics subculture, various brain-training groups, the mental math subculture, and some parts of the magic tricks / mentalism subculture and professional gambling subculture. Some weirder parts are the lucid dreaming groups, the hypnosis groups, and the tulpamancy groups. Slightly overlapping subcultures are those around various games, e.g. chess and speed-solving of Rubik's cubes. For an example, see the book Mind Performance Hacks, or the Mentat Wiki. This overlaps with some very obscure Russian inventions, such as the TRIZ system of innovation, the theory of "psychonetics", and the Trachtenberg system of speed mathematics. There's also some overlaps with conlang subculture, such as Ithkuil and Lojban.

  • The "aspiring Ubermenschen" cluster. Some names that come to mind as prototypical: Tim Ferriss, Jason Shen, Sebastian Marshall. This is a part of the larger productivity culture, which includes e.g. Cal Newport, the GTD people, etc. They tend to monetize their writings, for obvious reasons. There's a spectrum here from the saner groups to the more woo-ful, e.g. Steve Pavlina. This overlaps with a "drugs for self-improvement" subculture, which includes various nootropics groups, and parts of the steroid subculture. Also overlaps with the self-tracking / quantified self subculture.

  • The "outlandish schemes to improve the world" cluster, which includes e.g. Esperanto, veg*anism, the writings of Buckminster Fuller, various anti-nationalism movements, etc. (Veg*anism definitely correlates with Esperanto, for instance. Of course, a lot of veg*ans don't engage in the rest of this cluster.) Overlaps with more woo-ish things like various forms of non-theistic spirituality.

Some others:

  • The psychoactive drug subculture.

  • The cypherpunk subculture. "Hacker" culture in general is very close to LW memespace.

  • The manosphere.

Also groups associated with various professions, such as tech people, econ people, and math people.

Comment author: Letharis 04 October 2014 01:40:12PM 0 points [-]

Great list, but why the manosphere?

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 19 August 2014 08:45:56AM 13 points [-]

Yeah, the propaganda on this issue seems to have been quite effective since before reading this I had no idea the problem was (still) so severe.

Comment author: Letharis 20 August 2014 01:13:07AM 2 points [-]

While I recognize the true HIV prevalence is probably higher than most people would guess, what propaganda are you referring to?

Comment author: knb 07 August 2010 07:02:53PM *  7 points [-]

Fun fact: if you pause the video and click to different random points, you get to look at a random sampling of Wright's facial expressions, which oscillate between frustration, exasperation, and red-faced rage. Eliezer's expressions move between neutral, amused, serene, and placid.

Comment author: Letharis 09 August 2010 01:20:04AM 1 point [-]

I agree that Eliezer maintained his calm better, but I don't believe that Wright is the simpleton you seem to be painting him to be. I've watched a lot of his videos, and I would say there are very rarely moments of "red-faced rage," and certainly none in this video. He was at times frustrated, but he really is working to understand what Eliezer is saying.

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