Comment author: notsonewuser 11 September 2013 09:15:02PM 0 points [-]

evaluation of you as a one-boxer or two-boxer

Those are not the only precommitments one can make for this type of situation.

Comment author: bsterrett 11 September 2013 10:38:34PM 1 point [-]

Of course! I meant to say that Richard's line of thought was mistaken because it didn't take into account the (default) independence of Omega's choice of number and the Number Lottery's choice of number. Suggesting that there are only two possible strategies for approaching this problem was a consequence of my poor wording.

Comment author: mwengler 10 September 2013 08:50:50PM 0 points [-]

I think this line of reasoning relies on the Number Lottery's choice of number being conditional on Omega's evaluation of you as a one-boxer or two-boxer.

What? I can't even parse that.

There IS a number in the box which is the same as the one at the Lottery Bank. The number either is prime or it is composite.

According to the hypothetical, if I two-box, there is a 99.9% correlation with Omega putting a composite number in his box, in which case my payooff is $2,001,000. There is a 0.1% correlation with Omega putting a prime number in the box in which case my payoffis $1,001,000. If the correlation is a good estimate of probability, then my expected payoff from two-boxing is $2million more or less. If I one-box, blah blah blah expected payoff is $1million.

Comment author: bsterrett 10 September 2013 08:55:35PM 1 point [-]

Sorry for my poor phrasing. The Number Lottery's number is randomly chosen and has nothing to do with Omega's prediction of you as a two-boxer or one-boxer. It is only Omega's choice of number that depends on whether it believes you are a one-boxer or two-boxer. Does this clear it up?

Note that there is a caveat: if your strategy for deciding to one-box or two-box depends on the outcome of the Number Lottery, then Omega's choice of number and the Lottery's choice of number are no longer independent.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 September 2013 07:21:26AM 6 points [-]

Posting before reading comments:

If I one-box then (ignoring throughout the tiny probabilities of Omega being wrong) the number is prime. I receive $1M from Omega and $0 from the Lottery.

If I two-box then the number is composite, Omega pays me $1K, and the Lottery pays me $2M.

Therefore I two-box.

Comment author: bsterrett 10 September 2013 08:18:05PM *  1 point [-]

I think this line of reasoning relies on the Number Lottery's choice of number being conditional on Omega's evaluation of you as a one-boxer or two-boxer. The problem description (at the time of this writing) states that the Number Lottery's number is randomly chosen, so it seems like more of a distraction than something you should try to manipulate for a better payoff.

Edit: Distraction is definitely the wrong word. As ShardPhoenix indicated, you might be able to get a better payoff by making your one-box / two-box decision depend on the outcome of the Number Lottery.

Comment author: Rixie 05 April 2013 11:52:07AM 3 points [-]

And here. Maybe we could start with probability theory, seeing as how that seems to be really central to this site.

Comment author: bsterrett 05 April 2013 02:46:48PM 0 points [-]

I have a copy of Probability Theory, but I've never made a solid effort to go through it. I'd love to commit to a group reading. Definitely interested.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 16 March 2013 11:34:15PM 4 points [-]

I would like to participate in the programming process, but I don't know if I'm up to the task of taking it on single-handedly, due to current mental health issues.

The system will of coursed be used recursively, right? As in, the current tinychatroom, and soon the program that is developed to replace it, will be used to keep the programming team on-track and motivated?

Comment author: bsterrett 18 March 2013 09:24:34PM 3 points [-]

This project now has a small team, but we'd love to get some more collaborators! You wouldn't be taking this on single-handedly. Anyone who is interested should PM me.

I plan to use one of the current mockups like tinychat while development is underway. We are still evaluating different approaches, so we won't be able to use the product of our work to host the study hall in the very short term. We'll definitely make a public announcement when we have something that users could try.

Comment author: maxweber 13 March 2013 07:27:49PM 0 points [-]

Welp. One thing is most people built fallout shelters (build bugout bunkers) for their families; so, maybe that's not directly "personal safety". At any rate, there is also a general belief among preppers that they are a set of people, a group inspired to be prepared; this generally also defines those who do not prep as not prepared. So, you are talking about society but the preppers see two societies. The preppers have websites, books, tv shows, and more. Just as an Army prepares in units, those who built a fall-out shelter were not preparing in isolation. They did not expect they would be the only persons to survive. One can surely argue the inability of hostile forces to build and deploy a nuke is significant: seems some relationship exists between the intellect needed to make these things and the intellect needed to refuse to make or deploy these.

Comment author: bsterrett 13 March 2013 08:50:44PM 0 points [-]

One can surely argue the inability of hostile forces to build and deploy a nuke is significant: seems some relationship exists between the intellect needed to make these things and the intellect needed to refuse to make or deploy these.

Could you state the relationship more explicitly? Your implication is not clear to me.

Comment author: mszegedy 06 February 2013 11:02:41PM 2 points [-]

It took me the whole day to figure even that out, really. Stress from other sources was definitely a factor, but what I observed is, whenever I thought about that idea, I got very angry, and got sudden urges to throw heavy things. When I didn't, I was less angry. I concluded later that I was angry at the idea. I wasn't sure why (I'm still not completely sure: why would I get angry at an idea, even if it was something that was truly impossible to argue against? a completely irrefutable idea is a very special one; I guess it was the fact that the implications of it being right weren't present in reality), but it seemed that the idea was making me angry, so I used the general strategy of feeling the idea for any weak points, and seeing whether I could substitute something more logical for inferences, and more likely for assumptions. Which is how I arrived at my conclusions.

Comment author: bsterrett 14 February 2013 07:08:10PM *  1 point [-]

I was recently reflecting on an argument I had with someone where they expressed an idea to me that made me very frustrated, though I don't think I was as angry as you described yourself after your own argument. I judged them to be making a very basic mistake of rationality and I was trying to help them to not make the mistake. Their response implied that they didn't think they had executed a flawed mental process like I had accused them of, and even if they had executed a mental process like the one I described, it would not necessarily be a mistake. In the moment, I took this response to be a complete rejection of rationality (or something like that), and I became slightly angry and very frustrated.

I realized afterwards that a big part of what upset me was that I was trying to do something that I felt would be helpful to this person and everyone around them and possibly the world at large, yet they were rejecting it for no reason that I could identify in the moment. (I know that my pushiness about rationality can make the world at large worse instead of better, but this was not on my mind in the moment.) I was thinking of myself as being charitable and nice, and I was thinking of them as inexplicably not receptive. On top of this, I had failed to liaise even decently on behalf of rationalists, and I had possibly turned this person off to the study of rationality. I think these things upset me more than I ever could have realized while the argument was still going on. Perhaps you felt some of this as well? I don't expect these considerations to account for all of the emotions you felt, but I would be surprised if they were totally uninvolved.

Comment author: JoshuaFox 20 November 2012 07:18:18PM *  25 points [-]

There may be some who do not possess deep and comprehensive knowledge of Ancient Web Trivia from Before the Dawn of Google. For them, here's the Evil Overlord List .

Comment author: bsterrett 20 November 2012 07:39:02PM *  2 points [-]

59: I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.

Comment author: bsterrett 16 November 2012 06:47:09PM 3 points [-]

For anyone following the sequence rerun going on right now, this summary is highly recommended. It is much more manageable than the blog posts, and doesn't leave out anything important (that I noticed).

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 15 November 2012 02:33:56AM 1 point [-]

Depends on whether the EMs rely on custom hardware.

Comment author: bsterrett 15 November 2012 06:45:39PM 0 points [-]

Has there been some previous discussion of reliance on custom hardware? My cursory search didn't turn anything up.

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