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"I" is how feeling stuff from the inside feels from the inside.
Optimizing enjoyment of life or security of the future superficially is, if resources are finite and fungible between the two goals.
Agreed. I don't see significant fungibility here.
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Rationalists don't care about the future
Caring about the future is also problematic, because the utility of the distant future then overwhelms any considerations about the present.
Indeed! I am still waiting for this problem to be tackled. At what point is an expected utility maximizer (without time preferences) going to satisfy its utility function, or is the whole purpose of expected utility maximization to maximize expected utility rather than actual utility?
People here talk about the possibility of a positive Singularity as if it was some sort of payoff. I don't see that. If you think it is rational to donate money to the SIAI to enable it to create a galactic civilisation then it would be as rational, once you reached the post-Singularitarian paradise, to donate any computational resources to the ruling FAI to enable it to overcome the heat-death of the universe. Just as the current risks from AI comprise vast amounts of disutility, so does the heat-death of the universe.
At what point are we going to enjoy life? If you can't answer that basic question, what does it mean to win?
Enjoying life and securing the future are not mutually exclusive.
I hereby extend my praise for:
- Your right action.
- Its contextual awesomeness.
- Setting up a utility gradient that basically forces me to reply to your comment, itself a novel experience.
It also seems to me that a general structure for the application of rationality follows a path like this:
- notice a trigger: usually automatically activated bias has an unpleasant feeling attached to it
- insert a space of rest so that the bias doesn't get automatically triggered
- execute instead the rational behaviour
I really like this breakdown. I do think the first item can be generalized:
usually automatically activated bias has a feeling attached to it
since positive-affect feelings like righteousness are also useful hooks.
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Grigori Perelman refused prize because he knows "how to control the universe"
To expand, it may be that intelligent madmen are the ones who accomplish enough to get famous. Well, also artistic madmen - and we also have a cultural expectation that artists are crazy!
I'd definitely be interested in more information here.
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Grigori Perelman refused prize because he knows "how to control the universe"
Googling schizophrenia+creativity leads me to suspect that it's more than a cultural expectation. Though I should disclaim the likely bias induced by my personal experience with several creative schizophrenics.
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Grigori Perelman refused prize because he knows "how to control the universe"
Very true. It seems like madness is correlated with intelligence.
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Grigori Perelman refused prize because he knows "how to control the universe"
I'd actually be a bit surprised if this were true. My guess is that intelligent madmen are more interesting, so we just pay more attention to them. Now I'm tempted to go looking for statistics.
Not doubting the correlation between madness and mathematics, though.
In any case there really isn't any reason to be offended and especially there is no reason to allow the other person to provoke you to anger or acting without thought.
It seems really, really difficult to convey to people who don't understand it already that becoming offended is a choice, and it's possible to not allow someone to control you in that way. Maybe "offendibility" is linked to a fundamental personality trait.
What constitutes a "choice" in this context is pretty subjective. It may be less confusing to tell someone they could have a choice instead of asserting that they do have a choice. The latter connotes a conscious decision gone awry, and in doing so contradicts the subject's experience that no decision-making was involved.
Is this rationality, or the politics of two-year-olds with nukes?
Is this a constructive point, or just more gesturing?
It is a gesture concluding a constructive point.
You're very focused on Wei Dai's statement about backward induction, but I think you're missing a key point: His strategy does not depend on D reasoning the way he expects them to, it's just heavily optimized for this outcome. I believe he's right to say that backward induction should convince D to comply, in the sense that it is in their own best interest to do so.
This is a distinction without a difference. If H bombs D, H has lost (and D has lost more).
If both countries precommit, D gets bombed until it halts or otherwise cannot continue development.
That depends on who precommits "first". That's a problematic concept for rational actors who have plenty of time to model each others' possible strategies in advance of taking action. If H, without even being informed of it by D, considers this possible precommitment strategy of D, is it still rational for H to persist and threaten D anyway? Or perhaps H can precommit to ignoring such a precommitment by D? Or should D already have anticipated H's original threat and backed down in advance of the threat ever having been made? I am reminded of the Forbidden Topic. Counterfactual blackmail isn't just for superintelligences. As I asked before, does the decision theory exist yet to handle self-modifying agents modelling themselves and others, demonstrating how real actions can arise from this seething mass of virtual possibilities?
Then also, in what you dismiss as "messy real-world noise", there may be a lot of other things D might do, such as fomenting insurrection in H, or sharing their research with every other country besides H (and blaming foreign spies), or assassinating H's leader, or doing any and all of these while overtly appearing to back down.
The moment H makes that threat, the whole world is H's enemy. H has declared a war that it hopes to win by the mere possession of overwhelming force.
Speaking of nuclear proliferation and its consequences, you've been pretty silent on this topic considering that preventing proliferation is the entire motivation for Wei Dai's strategy. Talking about "murdering millions" without at least framing it alongside the horror of proliferation is not productive.
I look around at the world since WWII and fail to see this horror. I look at Wei Dai's strategy and see the horror. loqi remarked about Everett branches, but imagining the measure of the wave function where the Cold War ended with nuclear conflagration fails to convince me of anything.
This is a distinction without a difference. If H bombs D, H has lost
This assumption determines (or at least greatly alters) the debate, and you need to make a better case for it. If H really "loses" by bombing D (meaning H considers this outcome less preferable than proliferation), then H's threat is not credible, and the strategy breaks down, no exotic decision theory necessary. Looks like a crucial difference to me.
That depends on who precommits "first". [...]
This entire paragraph depends on the above assumption. If I grant you that assumption and (artificially) hold constant H's intent to precommit, then we've entered the realm of bluffing, and yes, the game tree gets pathological.
loqi remarked about Everett branches, but imagining the measure of the wave function where the Cold War ended with nuclear conflagration fails to convince me of anything.
My mention of Everett branches was an indirect (and counter-productive) way of accusing you of hindsight bias.
Your talk of "convincing you" is distractingly binary. Do you admit that the severity and number of close calls in the Cold War is relevant to this discussion, and that these are positively correlated with the underlying justification for Wei Dai's strategy? (Not necessarily its feasibility!)
I look around at the world since WWII and fail to see this horror. I look at Wei Dai's strategy and see the horror.
Let's set aside scale and comparisons for a moment, because your position looks suspiciously one-sided. You fail to see the horror of nuclear proliferation? If I may ask, what is your estimate for the probability that a nuclear weapon will be deployed in the next 100 years? Did you even ask yourself this question, or are you just selectively attending to the low-probability horrors of Wei Dai's strategy?
Then also, in what you dismiss as "messy real-world noise"
Emphasis mine. You are compromised. Please take a deep breath (really!) and re-read my comment. I was not dismissing your point in the slightest, I was in fact stating my belief that it exemplified a class of particularly effective counter-arguments in this context.
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"Cancer is pretty lethal and we're not really good at fixing it yet, so when we find something that can really reduce the risk (and there aren't many - the only other ones I can think of are the magical substances known as not-smoking and avoiding-massive-doses-of-ionizing radiation), we should be all over that like cats on yarn."
Maintaining moderately high blood levels of vitamin D may reduce over all cancer rates by up to 30%. There is also evidence for green tea significantly reducing cancer rates.
Aspirin is an anti-coagulant so wounds take longer to stop bleeding. A surgeon will require that you stop taking aspirin long enough for the blood clotting factors to recover. (Surgeons hate it when they can't stop the bleeding.) If I were under 30 I wouldn't take a daily aspirin as I doubt it provides any benefit and does increase risk slightly. By the time you are 40 your body tissues are in a state of mild, chronic inflammation. That may be good for fighting off infections but isn't so good for the cardiovascular system, lungs, and brain. I recommend baby aspirin for anyone over 40.
Moderate alcohol use is correlated with a significant reduction in cardiovascular events. As with aspirin I would only recommend it for older people and then only if the likelihood of abuse is small.
Vitamin D is really important. There is an established causal link between vitamin D and immune function. It doesn't just enhance your immune response - it's a prerequisite for an immune response.
Anecdote: Prior to vitamin D supplementation, I caught something like 4 colds per year on average. I'm pretty sure I never did better than 2. I started taking daily D supplements about a year and half ago, and caught my first cold a few days ago. It's worth taking purely as a preventative cold medicine.