More precisely, if we suppose that sometime in the next 30 years, an artificial intelligence will begin bootstrapping its own code and explode into a super-intelligence, I can give you 2.3 bits of further information on when the Singularity will occur.

Between midnight and 5 AM, Pacific Standard Time.

When someone complains that utilitarianism¹ leads to the dust speck paradox or the trolley-car problem, I tell them that's a feature, not a bug. I'm not ready to say that respecting the utility monster is also a feature of utilitarianism, but it is what most people everywhere have always done. A model that doesn't allow for utility monsters can't model human behavior, and certainly shouldn't provoke indignant responses from philosophers who keep right on respecting their own utility monsters.

Discussion article for the meetup : Saskatoon's First Meetup!

Discussion article for the meetup : Saskatoon's First Meetup!

As mister shminux mentioned somewhere, he is happy and qualified to answer questions in the field of the Relativity. Here is mine:

A long rod (a cylinder) could have a large escape velocity in the direction of its main axe. From its end, to the "infinity". Larger than the speed of light. While the perpendicular escape velocity is lesser than the speed of light.

Is this rod then an asymmetric black hole?

I often hear people speak of democracy as the next, or the final, inevitable stage of human social development.  Its inevitability is usually justified not by describing power relations that result in democracy being a stable attractor, but in terms of morality - democracy is more "enlightened".  I don't see any inevitability to it - China and the Soviet Union manage(d) to maintain large, technologically-advanced nations for a long time without it - but suppose, for the sake of argument, that democracy is the inevitable next stage of human progress.

The May 18 2012 issue of Science has an article on p. 844, "Ancestral hierarchy and conflict", by Christopher Boehm, which, among other things, describes the changes over time of equality among male hominids.  If we add its timeline to recent human history, then here is the history of democracy over time in the evolutionary line leading to humans:

1. Pre-human male hominids, we infer from observing bonobos and chimpanzees, were dominated by one alpha male per group, who got the best food and most of the females.
2. Then, in the human lineage, hunter-gatherers developed larger social groups, and the ability to form stronger coalitions against the alpha; and they became more egalitarian.
3. Then, human social groups even became larger, and it became possible for a central alpha-male chieftain to control a large area; and the groups became less egalitarian.
4. Then, they became even larger, so that they were too large for a central authority to administer efficiently; and decentralized market-based methods of production led to democracy.  (Or so goes one story.)

There are two points to observe in this data:

• There is no linear relationship between social complexity, and equality.  Steadily-increasing social complexity lead to more equality, then less, then more.
• Enlightenment has nothing to do with it - if any theory makes sense, it is that social equality tunes itself to the level that provides maximal social competitive fitness.  Even if we agree that democracy is the most-enlightened political system, this realization says nothing about what the future holds.

I do believe "progress" is a meaningful term.  But there isn't some cosmic niceness built into the universe that makes everything improve monotonically along every dimension at once.

Note: I am testing two versions of my new post on rationality and romance.

Please upvote, downvote, or non-vote the below post as you normally would if you saw it on the front page (not the discussion section), but do not vote on the other version. Also, if your last name begins with l–z, please read and vote on this post first. If your last name begins with a–k, please stop reading and read this version instead. 

 

Rationality Lessons from Romance

Years ago, my first girlfriend (let's call her 'Alice') ran into her ex-boyfriend at a coffee shop. They traded anecdotes, felt connected, a spark of intimacy...

And then she left the coffee shop, quickly.

She told me later: "You have my heart now, Luke."

I felt proud, but even Luke₂₀₀₅ also felt a twinge of "the universe is suboptimal," because she hadn't been able to engage that connection any further. The cultural scripts defining our relationship said that only one man owned her heart. But surely that wasn't optimal for producing utilons?

And thus began my journey toward rational romance — not at that exact moment, but with a series of realizations like that about monogamy, about the assumed progression toward marriage, about the ownership of another person's sexuality, etc. I began to explicitly notice the cultural scripts and see that they might not be optimal for me.

Rationality Skill: Notice when things are suboptimal. Think of ways to optimize them.

 

Gather data

But I didn't know how to optimize. I needed data. How did relationships work? How did women work? How did attraction work? I decided to become a social psychology nerd. The value of information was high. I began to spend less time with Alice so I could spend more time studying. 

Rationality Skill: Respond to the value of information. Don't keep running in what is probably the wrong direction just because you've got momentum. Stop a moment, and invest some energy in figuring out which direction to go.

 

Sanity-check yourself

Before long, I noticed that Alice was always pushing me to spend more time with her, and I was always pushing to spend more time studying psychology. I was unhappy, and I knew I could one day attract better mates if I had time to acquire the skills that other men had; men who were "good with women."

So I broke up with Alice over a long conversation that included an hour-long primer on evolutionary psychology in which I explained how natural selection had built me to be attracted to certain features that she lacked. I thought she would appreciate this because she had previously expressed admiration for detailed honesty. Later, I realized how hard it is to think of a more damaging way to break up with someone.

She asked that I kindly never speak to her again. I can't blame her.

Rationality Skill: Know your fields of incompetence. Sanity-check yourself by asking others for advice, or by Googling "how to break up with your girlfriend nicely" or "how to not die on a motorcycle" or whatever.

 

Study

During the next couple years, I spent no time in (what would have been) sub-par relationships, and instead invested that time optimizing for better relationships in the future. Which meant I was celibate. But learning.

Alas, neither Intimate Relationships nor Handbook of Relationship Initiation existed at the time, but I still learned quite a bit from books like The Red Queen and The Moral Animal. I experienced a long series of 'Aha!' moments, like:

• "Aha! It's not that women prefer jerks to nice guys, but they prefer confident, ambitious men to pushovers."
• "Aha! Body language and fashion matter because they communicate large packets of information about me at light speed, and are harder to fake than words."
• "Aha! Women are attracted to men who make them feel certain ways and have positive subjective experiences. That's why they like funny guys, for example!"

Within a few months, I had more dating-relevant head knowledge than any guy I knew.

Rationalist Skill: Scholarship. Especially if you can do it efficiently, scholarship is a quick and cheap way to level up.

 

Avoid rationalization

Scholarship was comfortable, so I stayed in scholar mode for too long. I hit diminishing returns in what books could teach me. Every book on dating skills told me to go talk to women, but I thought I needed a completed decision tree first: What if she does this? What if she says that? I won't know what to do if I don't have a plan! I should read 10 more books, so I know how to handle every contingency.

The dating books told me I would think that, but I told myself I was unusually analytical, and could actually benefit from completing the decision tree in advance of actually talking to women.

The dating books told me I would think that, too, and that it was just a rationalization. Really, I was just nervous about the blows that newbie mistakes (and subsequent rejections) would lay upon my ego.

Rationalist Skill: Notice rationalizations and defeat them: Consider the cost of time and trust happening as a result of rationalizing. Consider what opportunities you are missing if you don't just realize you're wrong right now.

 

Use science

The dating books told me to swallow my fear and talk to women. I couldn't swallow my fear, so I tried E&J brandy instead. That worked.

So I went out and talked to women, mostly at coffee shops or on the street. I learned all kinds of interesting details I hadn't learned in the books:

• Politics, religion, math, and programming are basically never the right subject matter when flirting.
• Keep up the emotional momentum. Don't stay in the same stage of the conversation (rapport, storytelling, self-disclosure, etc.) for very long.
• Almost every gesture or line is improved by adding a big smile.
• 'Hi. I've gotta run, but I think you're cute so we should grab a coffee sometime" totally works when the girl is already attracted because my body language, fashion, and other signals have been optimized.
• People rarely notice an abrupt change of subject if you say "Yeah, it's just like when..." and then say something completely unrelated.

After a while, I could talk to girls even without the brandy. And a little after that, I scored my first one-night stand.

I was surprised by how much I didn't enjoy casual flings. I wasn't very engaged when I didn't know and didn't have much in common with the girl in my bed. But I kept having casual flings, mostly for their educational value. As research projects go, I guess they weren't too bad.

Rationalist Skill: Use empiricism and do-it-yourself science. Just try things. No, seriously.

 

Try harder

By this time my misgivings about the idea of owning another's sexuality had grown into a full-blown endorsement of polyamory. I needed to deprogram my sexual jealousy, which sounded daunting. Sexual jealousy was hard-wired into me by evolution, right?

It turned out to be easier than I had predicted. Tactics that helped me destroy my capacity for sexual jealousy include:

• Whenever I noticed sexual jealousy in myself, I brought to mind my moral objections to the idea of owning another's sexuality.
• I thought in terms of sexual abundance, not sexual scarcity. When I realized there were thousands of other nearby women I could date, I didn't need to be so needy for any particular girl.
• Mentally, I continually associated 'jealousy' with 'immaturity' and 'neediness' and other concepts that have negative affect for me.

This lack of sexual jealousy came in handy when I grew a mutual attraction with a polyamorous girl who was already dating two of my friends.

Rationality Skill: Have a sense that more is possible. Know that we haven't yet reached the limits of self-modification. Try things. Let your map of what is possible be constrained by evidence, not popular opinion.

 

Finale

I now enjoy higher-quality relationships — sexual and non-sexual — of a kind that wouldn't be possible with the social skills of Luke₂₀₀₅. I went for years without a partner I cared about, but that's okay because the whole journey was planted with frequent rewards: the thrill of figuring something out, the thrill of seeing people respond to me in a new way, the thrill of seeing myself looking better in the mirror each month.

There might have been a learning curve, but by golly, at the end of all that DIY science and rationality training and scholarship I'm actually seeing an awesome poly girl, I'm free to take up other relationships when I want, I know fashion well enough to teach it at rationality camps, I can build rapport with almost anyone, my hair looks great and I'm happy.

Part of the sequence: No-Nonsense Metaethics

Disputes over the definition of morality... are disputes over words which raise no really significant issues. [Of course,] lack of clarity about the meaning of words is an important source of error… My complaint is that what should be regarded as something to be got out of the way in the introduction to a work of moral philosophy has become the subject matter of almost the whole of moral philosophy...

Peter Singer

 

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If by 'sound' you mean 'acoustic vibrations in the air', the answer is 'Yes.' But if by 'sound' you mean an auditory experience in the brain, the answer is 'No.'

We might call this straightforward solution pluralistic sound reductionism. If people use the word 'sound' to mean different things, and people have different intuitions about the meaning of the word 'sound', then we needn't endlessly debate which definition is 'correct'.¹ We can be pluralists about the meanings of 'sound'. 

To facilitate communication, we can taboo and reduce: we can replace the symbol with the substance and talk about facts and anticipations, not definitions. We can avoid using the word 'sound' and instead talk about 'acoustic vibrations' or 'auditory brain experiences.'

Still, some definitions can be wrong:

Alex: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Austere MetaAcousticist: Tell me what you mean by 'sound', and I will tell you the answer.

Alex: By 'sound' I mean 'acoustic messenger fairies flying through the ether'.

Austere MetaAcousticist: There's no such thing. Now, if you had asked me about this other definition of 'sound'...

There are other ways for words to be wrong, too. But once we admit to multiple potentially useful reductions of 'sound', it is not hard to see how we could admit to multiple useful reductions of moral terms.

 

Many Moral Reductionisms

Moral terms are used in a greater variety of ways than sound terms are. There is little hope of arriving at the One True Theory of Morality by analyzing common usage or by triangulating from the platitudes of folk moral discourse. But we can use stipulation, and we can taboo and reduce. We can use pluralistic moral reductionism² (for austere metaethics, not for empathic metaethics).

Example #1:

Neuroscientist Sam Harris: Which is better? Religious totalitarianism or the Northern European welfare state?

Austere Metaethicist: What do you mean by 'better'?

Harris: By 'better' I mean 'that which tends to maximize the well-being of conscious creatures'.

Austere Metaethicist: Assuming we have similar reductions of 'well-being' and 'conscious creatures' in mind, the evidence I know of suggests that the Northern European welfare state is more likely to maximize the well-being of conscious creatures than religious totalitarianism.

Example #2:

Philosopher Peter Railton: Is capitalism the best economic system?

Austere Metaethicist: What do you mean by 'best'?

Railton: By 'best' I mean 'would be approved of by an ideally instrumentally rational and fully informed agent considering the question ‘How best to maximize the amount of non-moral goodness?' from a social point of view in which the interests of all potentially affected individuals are counted equally.

Austere Metaethicist: Assuming we agree on the meaning of 'ideally instrumentally rational' and 'fully informed' and 'agent' and 'non-moral goodness' and a few other things, the evidence I know of suggests that capitalism would not be approved of by an ideally instrumentally rational and fully informed agent considering the question ‘How best to maximize the amount of non-moral goodness?' from a social point of view in which the interests of all potentially affected individuals were counted equally.

I wrote this story at Michigan State during Clarion 1997, and it was published in the Sept/Oct 1998 issue of Odyssey.  It has many faults and anachronisms that still bother me.  I'd like to say that this is because my understanding of artificial intelligence and the singularity has progressed so much since then; but it has not.  Many anachronisms and implausibilities are compromises between wanting to be accurate, and wanting to communicate.

At least I can claim the distinction of having published the story with the shortest title in the English language - measured horizontally.

I

I was the last person, and this is how he died.

Sequence index: Living Luminously
Previously in sequence: Highlights and Shadows
Next in Sequence: Lampshading

Pretending to be multiple agents is a useful way to represent your psychology and uncover hidden complexities.

You may find your understanding of this post significantly improved if you read the sixth story from Seven Shiny Stories.

When grappling with the complex web of traits and patterns that is you, you are reasonably likely to find yourself less than completely uniform.  You might have several competing perspectives, possess the ability to code-switch between different styles of thought, or even believe outright contradictions.  It's bound to make it harder to think about yourself when you find this kind of convolution.

Unfortunately, we don't have the vocabulary or even the mental architecture to easily think of or describe ourselves (nor other people) as containing such multitudes.  The closest we come in typical conversation more resembles descriptions of superficial, vague ambivalence ("I'm sorta happy about it, but kind of sad at the same time!  Weird!") than the sort of deep-level muddle and conflict that can occupy a brain.  The models of the human psyche that have come closest to approximating this mess are what I call "multi-agent models".  (Note: I have no idea how what I am about to describe interacts with actual psychiatric conditions involving multiple personalities, voices in one's head, or other potentially similar-sounding phenomena.  I describe multi-agent models as employed by psychiatrically singular persons.)

Multi-agent models have been around for a long time: in Plato's Republic, he talks about appetite (itself imperfectly self-consistent), spirit, and reason, forming a tripartite soul.  He discusses their functions as though each has its own agency and could perceive, desire, plan, and act given the chance (plus the possibility of one forcing down the other two to rule the soul unopposed).  Not too far off in structure is the Freudian id/superego/ego model.  The notion of the multi-agent self even appears in fiction (warning: TV Tropes).  It appears to be a surprisingly prevalent and natural method for conceptualizing the complicated mind of the average human being.  Of course, talking about it as something to do rather than as a way to push your psychological theories or your notion of the ideal city structure or a dramatization of a moral conflict makes you sound like an insane person.  Bear with me - I have data on the usefulness of the practice from more than one outside source.