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It looks like all the participants are consequentialists in good standing. The argument is over whose model of the world more accurately predicts consequences.
I mentioned on Slate Star Codex as well, it seems like if you let consequentialists predict the second-order consequences of their actions they strike violence and deceit off the list of useful tactics, in much the same way that a consequentialist doctor doesn't slaughter the healthy traveler for the organ transplants to save five patients, because the consequentialist doctor knows the consequence of destroying trust in the medical establishment is a worse consequence.
In response to
LINK: In favor of niceness, community, and civilisation
A part which seems missing in the discourse -- probably because of politeness or strategy -- is that there are more than two sides, and that people on your side don't necessarily share all your values. When someone tells you: "Harry, look how rational I am; now do the rational thing and follow me in my quest to maximize my utility function!" it may be appropriate to respond: "Professor Quirrell, I have no doubts about your superb rationalist skills, but I'd rather use my own strategy to maximize my utility function." Your partner doesn't have to be literally Voldemort; mere corrupted hardware will do the job.
On the battlefield, some people share the common goal, and some people just enjoy fighting. Attacking the enemy makes both of them happy, but not for the same reasons. The latter will always advocate violence as the best strategy for reaching the goal. (The same thing happens on the other side, too.)
And an imporant part of the civilizing process Scott described is recognizing that both your side and the other side are in a constant risk of being hijacked by people who derive their benefits from fighting itself, and who may actually be more similar to their counterparts than they are to you. And that miraculous behavior which shouldn't happen and seems like a losing strategy, is actually the civilized people from the both sides half-knowingly forging a fragile treaty with each other against their militant allies and leaders.
Which feels like a treason... because it is! It is recognizing that there is some important value other than the official axis of the conflict, and that this value should be preserved, sometimes even at cost of some losses in the battlefield! -- This is what it means to have more than one value in your utility function. If you are not willing to sacrifice even epsilon of one value to a huge amount of the other value, then the other value simply does not exist in your utility function.
So, officially there is a battle between X and Y, and secretly there is a battle between X1 and X2 (and Y1 and Y2 on the other side). And people from X1 and X2 keep rationalizing about why their approach is the best strategy for the true victory of X against Y (and vice versa on the other side).
Civilization is a tacit conspiracy of decent people against psychopaths and otherwise defective or corrupted people. Whenever we try to make it explicit, it's too easy for someone to come and start yelling that X is the side of all decent people, and Y is the side of psychopaths, and this is why we from X have to fight dirty, silence the heretics in our own ranks and then crush the opponents. So we stay quiet amidst the yelling, and then we ignore it and secretly do the right thing; hoping that the part of conspiracy on the other side is still alive and ready to reciprocate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; but on average we seem to be winning. And I wouldn't trade it for a "rationalist" pat on shoulder from someone I don't trust.
So, officially there is a battle between X and Y, and secretly there is a battle between X1 and X2 (and Y1 and Y2 on the other side). And people from X1 and X2 keep rationalizing about why their approach is the best strategy for the true victory of X against Y (and vice versa on the other side).
This part doesn't make clear enough the observation that X2 and Y2 are cooperating, across enemy lines, to weaken X1 and Y1. 2 being politeness and community, and 1 being psychopathy and violence.
Heh. So: Harry <Rational>, or Rational (Harry), or (Rational) Harry (for C-style casting)? That would be amusing to see. It does seem slightly less readable, though.
(Rational) Harry
Seemed eminently more readable than rationalist!Harry to me when I first encountered this notation, although now it's sunk in enough that my brain actually generated "that's more keystrokes!" as a reason not to switch style.
I don't subvocalise, and when I learned that other people do I was very surprised. A data point for subvocalisation being a limit on reading speed: I read at ~800wpm.
I'm not sure if stimulants are adequately described as turning money into time. They generally speed up time perception, meaning that you experience the same period of time as subjectively shorter. Sure, you get more stuff done in it, but still... The formulation is perhaps misleading.
It was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion to begin with (an amusing contrast to all the others saying 'turn money into time'), but modafinil has a unique claim to "buying time": it lets you function just as well and usually better than average, on less sleep. A more thorough analysis
Doesn't work for me. I feel much worse for a about a week after using it.
My sympathies; I find it wonderful.
You'd go pretty far just telling the audience the character was unintelligent, by giving them unintelligent status markers. Give them a blue-collar career, and very low academic achievement, while also coming from a stable family and average opportunity.
It's been a while since I watched it, but do you think Ben Affleck's character in Good Will Hunting was rational, but of limited intelligence?
There are scattered examples of this sort of "humble working man, who lives honest and true" throughout fiction.
It's been a while since I watched it, but do you think Ben Affleck's character in Good Will Hunting was rational, but of limited intelligence?
Yep, a pretty good example, I think
Look, you're my best friend so don't take this the wrong way, but if you're still living here in 20 years, still working construction, I'll fuckin' kill ya. Tomorrow, I'm gonna wake up and I'll be fifty, and I'll still be doing this shit. And that's alright, that's fine. But you're sitting on a winning lottery ticket and you're too scared to cash it in, and that's bullshit. Cause I'd do fucking anything to have what you got. Hanging around here is a waste of your time.
So far, so normal, you don't need to be a rationalist to say these sorts of things to make your friend start using their talents.
Every day, I come by your house, and I pick you up. We go out, have a few drinks, a few laughs, it's great. You know what the best part of my day is? It's for about ten seconds, from when I pull up at the curb to when I get to your door. Cause I think maybe I'll get up there and I'll knock on the door and you won't be there. No goodbye, no see-ya-later, no nothing. You just left.
Now this is what it looks like when a rationalist actually believes in something. You actively enjoy imagining your friend's left without a word, a horrible thing for a friend to do - because you knows that your friend starting to use their potential is so important as to drown out even being totally abandoned by them.
In response to
How can I spend money to improve my life?
Turn your money into time; that is, purchase modafinil.
Yes. To be exact, not all capitalized words, but all capitalized words that my English spellchecker does not recognize. With all capitalized words the list would start like this:
- 1523 I
- 1327 The
- 558 It
- 428 If
- 379 But
Of course the spellchecking method is itself a source of errors. Previous years I never felt like manually correcting these, but checking now it seems like these were the main victims:
- Graham 43
- Bacon 20
- Newton 18
- Franklin 18
- Shaw 17
- Silver 12
- Pinker 10
Graham is actually number one. I added them to this list, and also to the "Top original authors by karma collected" list. Not retroactively, though, just for 2013.
With all capitalized words the list would start like this:
You know that feeling you get when you're coding, and you write something poorly and briefly expect it to Do What You Mean, before being abruptly corrected by the output? I think I just had that feeling at long distance.
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Beeminder Beeminder Beeminder. Having an email reminder to exercise, and a penalty for not doing so, has been tremendously helpful for me- I now actually lift weights three times a week, as compared to just when I remembered to do so on my own.
Counterpoint: Beeminder does not play nice with certain types of motivation structures. I advocated it in the past; I do not anymore. It's probably not true for you, the reader (you should still go and use it, the upside is way bigger than the downside), but be aware that it's possible it won't work for you.