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If we get only one thing right I think a plausible candidate is right to exit. (if you have limited optimization power narrow the scope of your ambition blah blah)
In response to
[Link] Suffering-focused AI safety: Why “fail-safe” measures might be particularly promising
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Notes on Imagination and Suffering
Thank you for trying this experiment, I think it went well.
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Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016
Rationality lessons from Overwatch, a multiplayer first-person shooter:
1) Learning when you're wrong: The killcam, which shows how I died from the viewpoint of the person who killed me, often corrects my misconception of how I died. Real life needs a killcam that shows you the actual causes of your mistakes. Too bad that telling someone why they are wrong is usually considered impolite.
2) You get what you measure: Overwatch's post-game scoring gives metals for teamwork activities such as healing and shots blocked and this contributes to players' willingness to help their teammates.
3) Living in someone else's shoes: The game has several different classes of characters that have different strengths and weaknesses. Even if you rarely play a certain class, you get a lot from occasionally playing it to gain insight into how to cooperate with and defeat members of this class.
I really enjoyed blacklight:retribution for the instant rationality training. There is literally an update button that lets you wallhack for a second or so. This makes you vulnerable as well, so there is a cost of information. You must keep making choices between information and taking actions based on your current model.
In response to
Buying happiness
Authors don't appear to talk about reverse causation at all. Still worth cargo culting on the cheap and easy wins. See also this infographic: http://happierhuman.com/how-to-be-happy/
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Rationality Quotes June 2016
Even when we seek advice, it is we who choose who to ask.
-Sartre on the boundedness of self-correcting systems :p
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LINK: Performing a Failure Autopsy
Some have tried, they each invent their own vocabulary and the works are generally considered difficult to decipher.
The technique you are using is very similar to a technique for treating traumas (googlefu is failing me I don't remember the name) though in that model you also use visualization of a memory before the target event and after the target event to play in sequence as a movie. Instead of just watching the movie you imagine watching yourself watch the movie.
Indeed I have, along with many other "Portal Fantasy" style SF stories in which a protagonist from a relatively recognizable culture is thrust by the authour into a less recognizable one. :)
highlights? I'm a fan of the sub-genre but haven't encountered many likeable instances, probably mostly because I haven't spent much time searching for short stories rather than novels.
In response to
Open Thread May 16 - May 22, 2016
Wrote Something Story-like
Liking it a lot. Have you read Return from the Stars?
In response to
Open Thread May 9 - May 15 2016
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Something in a related space, http://www.vosviewer.com/ is now being used by a few publishers and it is AWESOME. You can rearrange by researcher links (who published with whom), academic area links, citation links, institution, etc.
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What are rationalist presumptions?
I am new to this rationality and Bayesian ways of thinking. I am reading the sequence, but I have few questions along the way. These questions is from the first article (http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/)
I suppose we do presume things, like we are not dreaming/under global and permanent illusion by a demon/a brain in a vat/in a Truman show/in a matrix. And, sufficiently frequently, you mean what I think you meant. I am wondering, if there is a list of things that rationalist presume and take for granted without further proof. Are there anything that is self evident?
Sometimes a value could derive from other value. (e.g. I do not value monarchy because I hold the value that all men are created equal). But either we have circular values or we take some value to be evident (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal). I think circular values make no sense. So my question is, what are the values that most rationalists agree to be intrinsically valuable, or self evident, or could be presumed to be valuable in and of itself?
Rationalists often presume that it is possible to do much better than average by applying a small amount of optimization power. This is true in many domains, but can get you in trouble in certain places (see: the valley of bad rationality).
Rationalists often fail to compartmentalize, even when it would be highly useful.
Rationalists are often overconfident (see: SSC calibration questions) but believe they are well calibrated (bias blind spot, also just knowing about a bias is not enough to unbias you)
Rationalists don't even lift bro.
Rationalists often fail to take marginal utility arguments to their logical conclusion, which is why they spend their time on things they are already good at rather than power leveling their lagging skills (see above). (Actually, I think we might be wired for this in order to seek comparative advantage in tribal roles.)
Rationalists often presume that others are being stupidly irrational when really the other people just have significantly different values and/or operate largely in domains where there aren't strong reinforcement mechanisms for systematic thought or are stuck in a local maximum in an area where crossing a chasm is very costly.