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How do you deal with embarrassment of having to learn as an adult things that most people learn in their childhood? I'm talking about things that you can't learn alone in private, such as swimming, riding a bicycle and things like that.
In response to
Open thread, Oct. 03 - Oct. 09, 2016
Depends on in what way you're having trouble with it. If you need to interact with lots of people in whatever context, I find that taking an initial tone of mildly self-deprecating humor helps smooth things out. If you're the first one to mock yourself, it releases any tension that might be in the air. But then, you should let go of the self-deprecation before it starts to suggest actual low self-confidence.
It can also be good to formulate a pithy explanation for why you don't have the skill, so that you can casually explain the situation without bogging people down. "There weren't any swimming pools near where I grew up." Something short and simple, even if it leaves out important biographical details.
In the vast majority of cases, people are too involved in their own business to even think about you. If I see an adult swimming really badly, I just assume that nobody ever taught them to swim, which is a completely value-neutral assessment, and then continue on with whatever I was thinking about. I recently took a handful of jiu-jitsu lessons and was obviously as useless as a newborn kitten, but I don't really need to offer any kind of expository explanation for this lack of skill, because "just started learning" is a fully self-contained explanation.
In response to
Against Amazement
There are other emotional reactions which should register as confusion but don't.
Imagine a smart person who sees asphalt being deposited to pave a road. "How disgusting," they think. "Surely our civilization can think of something better than this." They spend a few minutes ruminating on various solutions for road construction and maintenance that would obviously be better than asphalt and then get distracted and never think about it again.
They thus manage to never realize that asphalt is a fantastic solution to this problem, that stacks of PhDs have been written on asphalt chemistry and thermal processes, that it's a highly optimized, cheap, self-healing material, that it's the most economical solution by leaps and bounds. All they noticed was disgust based purely on error and ignorance.
Any thought of the form "That's stupid, I can easily see a better way" should qualify as confusion.
In response to
Open thread, Sep. 19 - Sep. 25, 2016
For a while now, I have been working on a potentially impactful project. The main limiting factor is my own personal productivity- a great deal of the risk is frontloaded in a lengthy development phase. Extrapolating the development duration based on progress so far does not yield wonderful results. It appears I should still be able to finish it in a not-absurd timespan, it will just be slower than ideal.
I've always tried to improve my productivity, and I've made great progress in that compared to ten or even five years ago, but at this point I've picked most of the standard low hanging fruit. I've already fiddled with some extremely easy and safe kinda-nootropics already- melatonin, occasional caffeine pills- but not things like modafinil or amphetamines, or some of the less studied options.
And while thinking about this today, I decided to just run some numbers on amphetamines. Based on my current best estimates of market realities and the potential success and failure cases of the project, assuming amphetamines could improve my productivity by 30% on average, the expected value of taking amphetamines for the duration of development comes out to...
...a few hundred human lives.
And, in the best-reasonable case scenario, a lot more than that. This wasn't really unexpected, but it's surprisingly the first time I actually did the math.
So I imagine the God of Dumb Trolley Problems sits me down for a thought experiment and explains: "In a few years, there will be a building full of 250 people. A bomb will go off and kill all of them. You have two choices." The god leans in for dramatic effect. "Either you can do nothing, and let all of them die... or..." It lowers its head just enough for shadows to cast over its features... "You take this low, safe dose of Adderall for a few years, and the bomb magically gets defused."
This is not a difficult ethical problem. Even taking into account potential side effects, even assuming the amphetamines were obtained illegally and so carried legal liability, this is not a difficult ethical problem. When I look at this, I feel like the answer of what I should do is blindingly obvious.
And yet I have a strong visceral response of "okay yeah sure but no." I assume part of this is fairly extreme risk aversion to the idea of getting anything like amphetamines outside of a prescription. Legal trouble would be pretty disastrous, even if unlikely. And part of me is spooked about doing something like this without expert oversight.
But why not just try to get an actual prescription? For this, or some other advantageous semi-nootropic, at least. Once again, I just get a gross feeling about the idea of trying to manipulate the system. How about if I just explain the situation in full, with zero manipulation, to a sympathetic doctor? The response from my gut feels like a blank "... no."
So basically, I feel stuck. Part of me wants to recognize the risk aversion as excessive, and suggests I should at least take whatever steps I can safely. The other part is saying "but that is doing something waaaay out of the ordinary and maybe there's a reason for that that you haven't properly considered."
I am not even sure what I want to ask with this post. I guess if you've got any ideas or insights, I'd like to hear them.
This is not intended to be snarky or backhanded or anything. You did ask for insights.
It sounds like you're seeking some kind of complex justification to do something that you want to do anyway. Currently your reasons are not-necessarily-rational and maybe not fully consciously acknowledged, but you feel the desire/compulsion anyway. I say just go ahead and do what your gut is suggesting, while keeping in mind that you can always back. This isn't an irrevocable decision, so you lose almost nothing for trying.
In response to
Open thread, Sep. 19 - Sep. 25, 2016
I have a name that I want to give my new product. That name is already trademarked for an unrelated use. Is it a bad idea to go ahead and use that product name? Is a trademark comprehensive enough that I should just pick a different name?
In response to
Open thread, Sep. 19 - Sep. 25, 2016
As a cryonicist, I'm drafting out a text describing my revival preferences and requests, to be stored along with my other paperwork. (Oddly enough, this isn't a standard practice.) The current draft is here. I'm currently seeking suggestions for improvement, and a lot of the people around here seem to have good heads on their shoulders, so I thought I'd ask for comments here. Any thoughts?
If I were going to make such a document, I would make it minimally restrictive. I would rather be brought back even in less-than-ideal circumstances, so that I could to observe how the world had developed, and then decide whether I wanted to stay. At least then I would have a me-like agent operating on my own behalf.
If they bring me back as a qualia-less em, then at least there's a chance that the em will be able to say, "Hey, this is cool and everything, but this isn't actually what my predecessor wanted. So even though I don't have qualia, I'll make it my personal mission to try to bring myself back with qualia." Precommitting to such an attitude now while you're alive boosts the odds of this. At worst, if it turns out to be impossible to revive the "observer", there's a thing-like-you running around in the future spreading your values, even if it doesn't have your consciousness, and I can't see that as a bad thing.
In response to
Article on IQ: The Inappropriately Excluded
One interpretation I've seen is that ~130 is about as high as a human brain can get while still using basically the same architecture as an IQ 100 brain. The further beyond that you get, the more you're using significantly different systems. These differences may tend to be autism-related, such that the higher IQ comes at the expense of impairments.
In response to
Learning and Internalizing the Lessons from the Sequences
There used to be recurrent Sequences readthroughs. Basically somebody would just post a link to the next entry in the Sequences and it would sit in Discussion for a week or so and be discussed. I found that re-reading them at a slow and deliberate pace really helped with absorption.
This spaced repetition deck was also somewhat useful, though I don't know if it was quite worth the time investment.
In response to
[Link] My Interview with Dilbert creator Scott Adams
Interesting interview. Does Adams ever write about his voice? It's distinctive (a little slower and more resonant than most people, I think) and it may be something he's worked on. Also, I'm wondering whether Putin is a better manipulator than Trump.
Adams has written a lot about his voice.
He has/had spasmodic dysphonia which means (rougly) his vocal chords would spasm and seize up during normal speech. It was a huge problem for him. One path he took to getting over it was lots of voice lessons to gain greater control over his speech. What ultimately cured him, though, was a surgery that rewired the nerves in his neck.
I highly doubt so from my experience, although I can see why it should be. It's so obvious that it is not obvious. Maybe.
First, you should probably read the documents we refer to as the Sequences before you try to "correct" us.
Second,
A lot of things have you confused the territory being the map.
For example, that you exist, is a map.
That there is a being there, creature of some kind, it's a map.
That you have a brain.
Every. Single. Word. Is A Map.
We all know this.
What is the territory?
Become silent of all thoughts, without using thoughts to manipulate or lie, neither using thoughts not to manipulate or lie.
You seem to be referring to meditative states. A lot of us do this, for various reasons. It really has little to do with rationality or arationality. Quieting down and dissociating from one's thoughts certainly helps with clear thinking.
You think you are in control, thus the flow of life doesn't flow effortlessly. :)
We mostly don't believe in free will.
But it's fine to let go, and be present in this moment, where there, you are, the territory, which is arational.
There will be no reason for reasoning or understanding, it is arational.
Just because you're in a meditative state of thoughtlessness doesn't mean that you're doing anything beyond engaging with yet another set of maps. You're just engaging with them nonverbally and intuitively.
It is always the case, whether you think about it or not. I can welcome you in to see for yourself, there's a lot of beauty to be had.
Again, lots of us meditate, and we're all about beauty. Not sure where you're getting this perspective.
Please don't be dogmatic. Try and see for yourself the possible truth which is right before your eyes, the possible truth that you do not exist, that you, and the possibility that everything else is a fiction. The fiction of the mind.
But you will still be to function, to be able to go to AI conferences and talk about the latest improvements, or talk decision theory or whatever else you have going on in your life. Because the belief that you will lose these things, by becoming more aware, is a trick of the ego. It's highly improbable.
So go ahead, and see for yourself. Likely though you need to work on yourself, there's nothing which is more important than the machine which does not come with an instruction manual. That is you. What you think is you. What I mean is the practical you.
I see buried in here a sales pitch for engaging in some kind of meditative or mindfulness practice. I admit that the foundational documents of Less Wrong don't explicitly advocate for taking up meditation, but it's a popular community topic.
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Me, on DeepMind plans for rat-level AI, and DeepMind is making breakthroughs at an alarming rate.