So, for me the main message of LW is this: A better definition of rationality is possible.
It's not a different definition of rationality. It's a different word for winning.
If they're not willing to use "rationality" that way, then just abandon the word.
We don't just use 'winning' because, well.. 'winning' can easily work out to 'losing' in real world terms. (think of a person who alienates everyone they meet through their extreme competitiveness. They are focused on winning, to the point that they sacrifice good relations with people. But this is both a) not what is meant by 'rationalists win' and b) a highly accessible definition of winning - naive "Competition X exists. Agent A wins, Agent B loses"). VASTLY more accessible than 'achieving what actually improves your life, as opposed to what you merely want or are under pressure to achieve'
I'd like to use the word 'winning', but I think it conveys even less of the intended meaning than 'rationality' to the average person.
I chose MW as I knew it existed, I had the most familiarity with it, and I wanted to err towards a more featureful bit of wiki software in case I wanted features later. (Inline graphics & mathematics turned out to be useful, though I presume there are other wikis that handle those too.) I didn't do much research to see whether other wiki software could satisfy those constraints, though.
I just want to clarify here -- are you aware that personal wikis and server software such as MediaWiki are different classes of software? The most relevant reason to use personal wiki software rather than wiki serving software is, no server == no consequent security holes and system load, no need to do sysadmin type stuff to get it going. Personal wiki software is generally just an ordinary program, meaning it has it's own GUI and can have features that it would be insecure to expose over the internet.
Personally I have found Zim a little lacking when I wanted tables (it doesn't currently support them, except through diagrams), but it supports most other things I've wanted, including some rather exotic stuff
Anyway I mainly commented because using MediaWiki only for your own personal notes seems rather like cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer.
This post'll be more useful as more people chip in with their diverse methods, so here're mine.
At home I almost exclusively take notes on my PC, where I use MediaWiki, although in retrospect MediaWiki's probably unnecessarily heavyweight. (Everyday use is straightforward but it's cumbersome to install & maintain.) Very occasionally I make & save computer algebra system notebook files.
In transit I don't have an easy way to take notes, but I recently bought an e-book reader and installed a simple notepad application on it. I'll see how that goes.
On campus:
An idea might grow & transmogrify into different formats as I experiment with it. In extremis, an idea might start as 5 or 10 words in the margin of a printout, become a clumsy stream of improvised maths on some scrap paper, get upgraded to a more systematic derivation over a few lab book pages, generate a few emails, then grow an abstract and figures as I turn it into the outline of a potential paper.
Do you take any notes on paper? If so do you scan them or otherwise digilatize them?
I don't systematically scan or digitize paper notes. The nearest I come to that is manually expanding scrappy notes into better-written notes on my computer if I (expect to) try to rework them into a proper project.
Do you have specific strategies for deciding which information to write down?
Nah.
Do you tag your notes?
I use categories in my wiki entries, but that's about it. For other computerized notes normal search tools usually suffice, and I manually search my lab book based on entries' dates & titles.
how private are your notes? Would you allow friends to read in them? Your spouse?
Pretty much. The most embarrassing things in my work notes are little comments like "Oops that's wrong", which is no big deal. Almost all of my home notes are innocuous to the point of being boring, as they're things like extracts or references from books. There is the odd blunt/rude comment about other people in there, though more about authors/public figures than people I know.
Is there some reason you use MediaWiki rather than a personal wiki software (for example Zim)?
Simple part first: yes, I claim that every city has or will soon have near-ubiquitous internet access. If you need to deny your future self the ability to choose to use the internet easily, you won't be able to live in a city. Further, surrounding yourself with internet users is going to prove much harder to resist than surrounding yourself with a non-technical, somewhat isolated community.
Harder part: I don't know what you've tried already (and specifically: get professional psychological assistance, which often requires that you try multiple providers until you find one you trust). This level of avoidance (where you're considering careers based on availability) seems way more than you should undertake via self-diagnosis only.
Simple part first: yes, I claim that every city has or will soon have near-ubiquitous internet access. If you need to deny your future self the ability to choose to use the internet easily, you won't be able to live in a city.
One doesn't follow from the other.
Take out any built-in wifi hardware; get a usb wireless module. These are tiny enough that you can employ almost any security/inconvenience measure on them. Decide which security/inconvenience measures are appropriate. Done.
Eliezer writes, "In general, beliefs require evidence."
To which Peter replies, "In general? Which beliefs don't?"
Normative beliefs (beliefs about what should be) don't, IMHO. What would count as evidence for or against a normative belief?
Evidence that would substantially inform a simulation of the enforcement of those beliefs. For example, history provides pretty clear evidence of the ultimate result of fascist states/dictatorships, partisan behaviour, and homogeneous group membership The qualities found in this projected result is highly likely to conflict with other preferences and beliefs.
At that point, the person may still say 'Shut up, I believe what I want to believe.' But that would only mean they are rejecting the evidence, not that the evidence doesn't apply.
I'd be a lot more inclined to respond to this if I didn't need to calculate probability values (ie. could input weights instead, which were then normalized.)
To that end, here is a simple Python script which normalizes a list of weights (given as commandline arguments) into a list of probabilities:
= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
#!/usr/bin/python
import sys
weights = [float(v) for v in sys.argv[1:]]
total_w = sum(weights)
probs = [v / total_w for v in weights]
print ('Probabilities : %s' % (", ".join([str(v) for v in probs])))
Produces output like this:
Probabilities : 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4
If working standing as opposed to sitting will increase my health,
I desire to have the habit of working standing.
If working standing as opposed to sitting will decrease my health,
I desire to have the habit of working sitting.
Let me not become attached to habits that do not serve my goals.
Yes, that's roughly the reformulation I settled on. Except that I omitted 'have the habit' because it's magical-ish - desiring to have the habit of X is not that relevant to actually achieving the habit of X, rather simply desiring to X strongly enough to actually X is what results in the building of a habit of X.
That's stacking the deck against atheists by considering militant atheists. What does that mean to you? Do you prefer militant Christians over militant atheists? Militant Muslims over militant atheists?
All I meant was an atheist who is as invested in his belief as the committed Christian is in his religion. My committed Christian friends go to church regularly, read the Bible frequently and attend study groups on it, have a strong preference to marry a fellow Christian, and so on. They identify primarily as Christians. I suppose the atheist equivalent would be someone who is a member of the BHA or atheism+ or similar, reads Richard Dawkins, whatever, and strongly identifies as an atheist. These people are not rare, and are in fact overrepresented on lesswrong.
There are also people who don't believe in God in the same way that he doesn't believe in unicorns, and gives the two ideas the same amount of thought. Or indeed, the Christian who never thinks about God. I don't perceive much difference between these two.
Or, a fake invisible friend who makes you hate a lot of people. Who makes you miserable about your sin. Who makes you afraid of eternal torment.
Yes, anything is theoretically possible. And it's a big old world, so no doubt there are even one or two people like that. But in point of fact, the way it works out is that Christianity tends to make people more generous, caring and trustworthy than atheism does. So it goes.
EDIT: To be fair, if you are arguing that the reason committed Christians are nicer than committed atheists is that professed Christianity attracts nicer people whereas professed atheism attracts jerks, then this is also consistent with observation, but I prefer the causal story.
But in point of fact, the way it works out is that Christianity tends to make people more generous, caring and trustworthy than atheism does. So it goes.
But this is not in point of fact. Citation very much needed.
I don't disagree that (strong, ie. 'God does NOT exist' rather than 'there is no evidence that God exists') atheism attracts some jerks, btw. Any belief that is essentially anti-X has the problem of attracting at least some people who simply enjoy punishing belief in X.
Upvoted, but I would like to point out that it is not immediately obvious that the template can be modified to suit instrumental rationality as well as epistemological rationality; At a casual inspection the litany appears to be about epistemology only.
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For group decisions that require unanimity very little passes the process. Raising the bar to formal provability drops even more out of the equation. The CEV might very well be a very trivial common denominator such as "people should live good lifes".
There is a reasonable question about why it is that "For group decisions that require unanimity very little passes the process.". How much of this effect is honest difference in values, and how much is mere linguistic artifacts caused by our tiny communication bandwidth and how sloppily we use it.
IMO any CEV algorithm that had any hope of making sense would have to ignore words and map actual concepts together.