Comment author: whowhowho 27 January 2013 08:27:02PM 1 point [-]

Humans without an known feature are easier to imagine that humans with an extra feature.

Comment author: Tynam 08 March 2013 10:14:50AM 3 points [-]

Exactly. Note that the writers intended to give them the extra feature "behaves logically", and failed completely. They managed "behaves like a human, then complains that it's not logical", which is very far from being the same thing.

Comment author: Rutledge_Kuhn 10 August 2008 05:36:48AM -3 points [-]

Bulls are powerful and sometimes unpredictable animals which, if uncontrolled, can kill or severely injure their handlers. The nose ring assists the handler to control a dangerous animal with minimal risk of injury or disruption by exerting stress on one of the most sensitive parts of the animal, the nose.

Hitler or a child can walk a bull around the stockyard.

Make a nose ring and build anything you want without concern. The concern should be with who has control of the ring, and that a ring exists.

Comment author: Tynam 08 March 2013 10:00:50AM 8 points [-]

Only until you build a self-modifying super-intelligent bull. Because the first thing it will do is become smart enough to persuade you to give the ring to someone else, who it's calculated it can con into taking the ring off.

Human minds are really badly adapted for defence against con artists operating on the same level; how on earth would we defend ourselves against an exponentially smarter one?

Comment author: robertskmiles 10 January 2011 04:29:22PM 14 points [-]

There's no exemption whereby, if you manage to go without stealing all year long, you can skip the word gazalnu and strike yourself one less time. That would violate the community spirit of Yom Kippur, which is about confessing sins - not avoiding sins so that you have less to confess.

That's true, but perhaps a little unfair. I always understood the fact that everyone confesses to everything as a simple necessity to anonymise the guilty. Under a system where people only admit to things they have actually done, if there's been one murder in the community this year, unsolved, then when the 'We have murdered' line comes, everyone is bound to be listening very carefully.

Comment author: Tynam 04 April 2012 08:44:08AM 5 points [-]

As I was taught, that's also a little unfair, or at least oversimplified. That everyone confesses to everything is not just primitive anonymisation, it's a declaration of communal responsibility. It's supposed to be deliberate encouragement to take responsibility for the actions of your community as a whole, not just your own.

Comment author: DSimon 09 September 2010 02:08:54AM 7 points [-]

Anyone who finds the game described at the top of the article interesting, check out Zendo, a game based upon a similar idea. I've found Zendo handy when explaining the concept in the OP and the various other ideas of experimental design and inductive investigation. Plus, it's lots of fun. :-)

Comment author: Tynam 24 April 2011 07:55:35PM 4 points [-]

Zendo is my go-to exercise for explaining just about any idea in inductive investigation. (But it's even more useful as a tool for reminding myself to do better. After years, the number of Zendo games I lose due to positive bias is still far higher than I'd like... even when I think I've taken steps to avoid that.)

In response to Cached Thoughts
Comment author: Rob_Spear2 12 October 2007 02:27:49PM -3 points [-]

Statistical proofs of things don't necessarily work if the world is controlled by an intelligent entity.

In response to comment by Rob_Spear2 on Cached Thoughts
Comment author: Tynam 19 April 2011 10:21:52AM 15 points [-]

Yes they do. If the world is controlled by an intelligent entity, then statistical proofs tell you about the behaviour of that entity, rather than impersonal laws of physics, but they still tell you what's likely to happen.