Did the survey. Thanks, Yvain.

Instrumental stupidity is the art of winning at Pinkie Pie's utility function.

Looks like a very useful list. One comment: I found the example in 2(a) a bit complicated and very difficult to parse.

Took the whole survey. My preferred political label of (Radical) Centrist survived all explicit radio buttons.

I generally dislike owning things that I can't physically carry with me at all times (because "if you don't have something with you, owning it probably hasn't made you more powerful").

This seems false on all sorts of levels.

• I own a kettlebell. It makes me literally and figuratively stronger.
• I have shelves full of performance enhancing substances. They make me stronger and not all of them require that I have them with me or even have a dose currently in my system.
• The Nuclear ICMB that I own is too big to carry around but being able to have it launched at will (or even if I fail to report in with a don't-launch code at regular intervals) certainly makes me more powerful.
• I can't carry a mansion with me, or a racehorse, yacht or business. Yet owning these things changes the way people perceive me and makes them more likely to do what I want. That is power.
• Owning the tools of my professional trade has made me more powerful---they allow me to earn more money. I don't carry them with me at all times.
• Owning jacket suitable for wet and cold conditions increases my power---it means I can go to cold wet places without getting cold. I don't carry with it with me when it's summer at the beach. I carry my surfboard instead. Generalising this principle I can't use all my power at once, so I only carry the power enhancing objects that are relevant to the immediate task.

My default position towards things is hate. I hate stuff. It gets dusty, it has to be managed, it takes up space. A room with lots of stuff in it is cognitively difficult for the brain to process; having lots of stuff around actually drains your mental energy.

http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html

I generally dislike owning things that I can't physically carry with me at all times (because "if you don't have something with you, owning it probably hasn't made you more powerful"). Consequently, the majority of what I own I carry with me. The only real exceptions are clothes and books, and I launched a project this week to replace the latter with digital versions which is moving at a decent rate of ten shelves a day.

Content-related suggestion. Comics are great tools for people too lazy/busy to read long articles, so here's XKCD's take

Just read over the story (okay, browsed really so I am working on incomplete information and thus this isn't a 100% proper assessment) so I'll list my thoughts on the matter.

[1] Celestia here doesn't seem to be having fun. I know well that this deals with the death of her prized student and that isn't a thing to be happy about but there are so many other things that she doesn't seem to enjoy. Such as when she mentions she doesn't look at the moon anymore. Her sister controls the night, had an episode 1,000 years ago when she thought her work wasn't being appreciated, and was recently freed from being imprisoned in the moon itself.

If Celestia made it a point to stay up and look at the moon more and maybe say, "For a millennium, I raised the sun at dawn but ignored the moon, I took it for granted. Then when I was forced to imprison my sister, I raised the moon as well. For a thousand years I carried that thing through the sky, looking at the picture of Luna imprisoned in it. Generations of ponies looke up and saw the "Mare in the Moon" not knowing who she was or if she was real."

"Then, Twilight came and with her friends freed my sister from her curse. That day I got my sister back, and for once I could watch her raise the moon as she did all those years before. That day, I and so many others were able to look up at the beautiful moon in the sky and see it as it had been before it had been used as a prison."

"I must say, the moon is beautiful."

Basically.... this is character who had seen things as they were thousands of years before and watched things grow and develop and had even orchestrated a thousand year long plan to save her sisters and (to an extent) restore the moon to the way it looked per-banishment. It would make sense that she would seek to look at the beauty in things.

Or even "Heh, I remember those first few years. Every once in a while after a hard days work I would prepare for bed as I have done for centuries. Then, I would look out the window and spot the moon... only it was different! I'd blink look again to find that the Mare in the Moon was gone and I'd panic. Hah hah... I remember once I was worried that Nightmare Moon had escaped when I wasn't looking! But then I'd remember how Luna had gotten out and Twilight freed her."

"Then, on those nights I would find my sister standing on the top balcony, looking up at the stars as she moved them into place. I would stand there and admire them as she worked."

"I can't believe I never appreciated the work she puts in all those stars."

Or whatever... I guess I'm saying that with immortal characters it would make sense to have at least one major thing that they really enjoy. Something they have done over the centuries that they are very proud of, or some hobby that they have tracked for all this time and they note how its changed. ("I pity the people who think cheddar is the only type of cheese around. I've traveled the world and had cheeses from all over... I've even got a 200 year old wheel of English Brie in the cellar... I really should crack that thing open one of these days for a special occasion. Hell, I'll do it this thursday. Make a party of it.").

[2] She seems to talk down to the ponies (or "mortals") around her. I think that's what gradually put me off Methods of Rationality and Luminosity is that the protagonists of these sorts of "Rational" stories seem to plop labels on others. Oh I know that deep down we all have habits and ingrained instincts and stuff and a sufficiently intelligent person can see those things as they really are but its rather off putting when the protagonists have such low regard of people who aren't immortal super geniuses.

"That was why I instituted cutie marks. Mortals are like apples, and will thoughtlessly grow wherever they fall unless you give them a good kick."

Because obviously labeling every singly pony in the world with a permanent symbol on their bodies that represents (what one can assume to be) their life goal is totally conductive to making ponies go about and try new things. IN OPPOSITE LAND!

(Sorry, about that. Its just the idea that sufficiently advanced intelligence would covertly label people with symbols to designate their status in life doesn't seem very friendly).

[3] As far as the life vs death thing goes... I'm of the personal opinion that living beyond the point where life isn't enjoyable isn't necessarily a good thing. If one can increase the happiness of a living person then that's great. If you can prolong the life of someone who is happy then that's also good. If you prolong the life of someone who isn't enjoying themselves... then it kind of defeats the purpose. (plus there are cases involving those who cause unhappiness for other in which case prolonging life isn't good) The Celestia in this story doesn't seem to enjoy herself so there really is no reason why she can't pass on the torch to someone else who might do a better job of it.

Or alternately, have Twilight analyze whatever magical essence allows immortality and try duplicating it.

As a side note: Living for the benefit of others is also a good thing (though not ideal). If someone doesn't personally enjoy their life but brings happiness to others then one can argue that suicide would be inappropriate.

"Twilight, I've never really said this before but I really don't enjoy life... oh, I don't hate it or anything but sometimes when I'm not working then I just feel... empty. Like whatever spark in me allows for self-enjoyment has been extinguised long ago. My purpose in this world is to raise the sun, to rule Equestria in a benevolent manner... and that's it. I've eaten so much cake over the centuries that it has stopped being a novelty, sex, games, theater, books... I've either experienced them all or reached the point where I can't imagine experiencing them would improve my quality of life in any way."

"It could be a chemical imbalance, some side effect of my condition, or perhaps my mind has had so many experiences over the eons that there just isn't that much room for anything else anymore."

"The point is that right now I live for others. I do not fear non-existance for my own sake, I just know that if I were to... die then my little ponies would not know what to do. They need someone to lead them and care for them and right now I think you would be an ideal candidate."

"A long and well-lived life is a blessing and I have lived over a thousand years before I found it no longer bearable. Perhaps you will last for two thousand? Heh... it is a puzzle, to live forever with only the limits of the mind to hold you back. I'm sure between you and Pinkie, you will find an answer to that."

(sorry this came out really long and the auto-formatting made it look weird)

Arrives late to the party

Really great story, iceman. Some comments:

*Running the story through a beta group of non-LW bronies would definitely be a good idea to catch which ideas may need more explanation.

*I really like how it's repeatedly show that when you interact with a super-intelligence, even if it's just free conversation, the state of mind you leave in is probably going to be the state of mind it wants you to leave in. As others have said, this could be driven home even stronger by showing CelestAI strongly tailoring her interaction to different humans. Maybe even have her directly contradict herself in the information she uses to persuade people to upload.

*Related to the above, I can imagine a non-LW reader getting to chapter 5 and forever after wondering why Lars or anyone else never tries to shut Celestia down. I'm not sure how obvious an intuition it is that by the time you notice a super-intelligence doing things that make you want to stop it, it's probably already far too late to stop it. In this case I assumed Celestia would have made sure that she is already invincible by the standards of human technology before launching any plan that's going to antagonize people, but an unsophisticated reader might not get that.

*This may just be me, but I'd prefer a bit more closure on the cosmic scale story. What is Celestia's plan against running out of matter? Slow the clock speed of her servers over time? Bust open the physics textbooks and hope for a useful paradigm shift?

Anyway, very good stuff.

Daily I measure weight and workout performance.

Monthly I look at my receipts and spending and whether there were any large deviations from my budget.

Every six months I pick an unexceptional week and log everything I do by category (e.g. sleeping, preparing food, working, studying). I create summary tables for the typical week and use them to choose two or three improvements to implement in the next iteration.