Comment author: Za3k 19 February 2010 12:28:50PM 0 points [-]

On the note of self-testing vs. controlled experiment, has anyone here tried the polyphasic ("uberman") sleep cycle? Does anyone know of any controlled experiments, either self-administered or larger-scale, which I could look at? I was interested in trying it a few years ago, but dropped in in about 24 hours (before I could have really even been said to try it) due to microsleep in waking hours.

Comment author: Maniakes 17 May 2013 12:14:48AM *  1 point [-]

I tried it for a few months in grad school. It works better than you'd expect, but not as well as you'd hope.

Days 2-3 were very rough, but after I acclimated, my subjective experience was similar to staying up a few hours past my normal bedtime (mild fatigue, but not unpleasant or debilitating if I was actively doing something).

Three things killed it for me:

  1. It is very difficult to maintain a social life if you need to go home and nap every 3.5 hours on a strict schedule.

  2. My class schedule was different on different days of the week, so I had to fudge my nap schedule around the classes. The fatigue was much worse on the days (Tuesdays and Thursdays, I think) that I couldn't keep my usual nap schedule.

  3. Any stimulants at all will wreck the sleep cycle, and weird sleep cycle or no, I often find myself needing caffeine in order to acheive the mental energy I need to force myself to focus on something I need to get done.

As for formal experiments, the best source I know of is "Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep" by Claudio Stampi. It documents most of the existing studies as of when it was written (1992) as well as a formal study conducted by the author. It's out-of-print and fairly rare, but there's a PDF available here: http://sleepwarrior.com/Claudio_Stampi_-_Why_We_Nap.pdf

In response to comment by [deleted] on Rationality Quotes April 2013
Comment author: wedrifid 11 April 2013 05:16:30AM *  17 points [-]

WAYS TO KILL 2 BIRDS W/ 1 STONE

  • Radioactive stone in nest.
  • Use stone to seal off the air supply to a cage of birds.
  • Economist: Sell a precious stone (diamond? Ruby?). Use the proceeds to purchase several dozen chickens. The purchase produces an expected number of bird deaths equal to approximately the number of chickens purchased through tiny changes at the margins, making chicken farming and slaughter slightly more viable.
  • Omega: Use stone to kill the dog that would have killed the cat that will now kill 40 birds over its extended lifespan.
Comment author: Maniakes 18 April 2013 01:01:46AM 8 points [-]

Punster: go on a hunting trip with Mick Jagger.

Comment author: jimrandomh 10 July 2012 01:29:37PM *  29 points [-]

Be warned! Signaling that you understand signaling is a terrible signal, because it throws all your other signals into doubt. Revealing that you are optimizing your signaling separately (for example, talking about "PUA") is among the worst signals of all.

Comment author: Maniakes 12 July 2012 08:46:34PM 0 points [-]

Maybe he's countersignalling, deliberately offering a superficially-negative signal in order to signal that he doesn't need to send the "expected" superficially-positive signal. See this article, also by Yvain.

Comment author: Maniakes 03 April 2012 12:51:28AM 30 points [-]

There are big differences between "a study" and "a good study" and "a published study" and "a study that's been independently confirmed" and "a study that's been independently confirmed a dozen times over." These differences are important; when a scientist says something, it's not the same as the Pope saying it. It's only when dozens and hundreds of scientists start saying the same thing that we should start telling people to guzzle red wine out of a fire hose.

Chris Bucholz

Comment author: Maniakes 02 February 2012 12:41:11AM *  19 points [-]

"Today we will be dragoons, until we are told otherwise"

"Where are our horses, then?"

"We must imagine them."

"Imaginary horses are much slower than the other kind."

Neal Stephenson, The Confusion

Comment author: dlthomas 10 January 2012 09:04:01PM 1 point [-]

"I would like to have a cat, provided it barked" states that U(barking cat) > U(no cat) > U(nonbarking* cat). Preferring a meowing cat to no cat is a contradiction of what was stated. The issue you raise can still be seen with U(barking cat) > U(barking dog) > U(no pet) > U(nonbarking cat), however - a belief in the attainability of the barking cat may cause someone to delay the purchase of a barking dog that would make them happier.

*In common usage, I expect that we should restrict it from "any nonbarking cat" to "ordinary cat", based on totally subjective intuitions. I would not be surprised by someone who said "I would like an X, provided it Y" for a seemingly unattainable Y, and would not have considered whether they would want an X that Z for some other seemingly unattainable Z. I think they just would have compared the unusual specimen to the typical specimen and concluded they want the former and don't want the latter. This is mostly immaterial here, I think.

Comment author: Maniakes 11 January 2012 08:37:18AM 2 points [-]

I stand corrected.

Comment author: Document 10 January 2012 07:58:38AM 0 points [-]

If the preference order were (1. Barking Cat, 2. Barking Dog, 3. Meowing Cat, 4. No Pet)

That's strictly ruled out by the wording in the quote. While people often miscommunicate their preferences, I don't see particular evidence of it there, or even that the hypothetical person is under a misapprehension.

To take it back to metaphor: the flip side of wishful thinking is the sour grapes fallacy, and while the quote doesn't explicitly commit it, without context it's close enough to put me moderately on guard.

Comment author: Maniakes 10 January 2012 08:53:04PM 2 points [-]

Here is the full article from which the quote was taken: http://www.johnlatour.com/barking_cats.htm

Comment author: Document 10 January 2012 03:18:36AM 0 points [-]

What would you think of someone who said, "I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"?

That since their preference harms nobody (apart from unadopted cats) and the utility function is not up for grabs, I have no grounds to criticize them?

Comment author: Maniakes 10 January 2012 06:48:19AM 2 points [-]

The preference alone is mostly harmless. When the preference is combined with the misapprehension that the preference can be fulfilled, it may harm the person asserting the preference if it leads them to make a bad choice between a meowing cat, a barking dog, or delaying the purchase of a pet.

If the preference order were (1. Barking Cat, 2. Barking Dog, 3. Meowing Cat, 4. No Pet), then the belief that a cat could be taught to bark could lead to the purchase/adoption of a meowing cat instead of the (preferred) barking dog.

Likewise, in the above preference order, or with 2 and 3 reversed, the belief in barking cats could also lead to the person delaying the selection of a pet due to the hope that a continued search would turn up a barking cat.

The problem is magnified, and more failure modes added, when we consider cases of group decision-making.

Comment author: gwern 03 January 2012 10:09:27PM 2 points [-]

cannot demand that cats bark or water burn

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong.

Comment author: Maniakes 03 January 2012 11:01:32PM 11 points [-]

There are valid quibbles and exceptions on both counts. Some breeds of cats make vocalizations that can reasonably be described as "barking", and water will burn if there are sufficient concentrations of either an oxidizer much stronger than oxygen (such as chlorine triflouride) or a reducing agent much stronger than hydrogen (such as elemental sodium).

In the general case, though, water will not burn under normal circumstances, and most cats are physiologically incapable of barking.

The point of the quote is that objects and systems do have innate qualities that shape and limit their behaviour, and that this effect is present in social systems studied by economists as well as in physical systems studied by chemists and biologists. In the original context (which I elided because politics is the mind killer, and because any particular application of the principle is subject to empirical debate as to its validity), Friedman was following up on an article about how political economy considerations incline regulatory agencies towards socially suboptimal decisions, addressing responses that assumed that the political economy pressures could easily be designed away by revising the agencies' structures.

Comment author: Maniakes 03 January 2012 08:24:54PM 12 points [-]

I replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, "I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? [...] As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"

-- Milton Friedman

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