Ok, let's go back and review this conversation.

You started out by saying, in essence, that general AI is just a matter of having good enough hardware.

You were wrong. Dead wrong. The opposite is true: it is purely a matter of software, and sufficiently good hardware. We have no idea how good the hardware needs to be. It is possible that a general AI could be programmed on the PC I am currently using, for all we know. Since we simply do not know how to program an AI, we do not know whether it could run on this computer or not.

You supported your mistake with the false claim that AIXI and Solomonoff induction are computable, in the usual, technical sense. You spoke of this as though it were a simple fact that any well educated person knows. The truth was the opposite: neither one is computable, in the usual, technical sense. And the usual technical sense of incomputable implies that the thing is incomputable even without a limitation on memory or clock speed, as long as you are allowed to execute a finite number of instructions, even instantaneously.

You respond now by saying, "Solomonoff induction is not in fact infinite..." Then you are not talking about Solomonoff induction, but some approximation of it. But in that case, conclusions that follow from the technical sense of Solomonoff induction do not follow. So you have no reason to assume that some particular program will result in intelligent behavior, even removing limitations of memory and clock speed. And until someone finds that program, and proves that it will result in intelligent behavior, no one knows how to program general AI, even without hardware limitations. That is our present situation.

Again, you are mistaken. I assumed that you could execute any finite number of instructions in an instant. Computing Solomonoff probabilities requires executing an infinite number of instructions, since it implies assigning probabilities to all possible hypotheses that result in the appearances.

In other words, if you assume the ability to execute an infinite number of instructions (as opposed to simply the instantaneous execution of any finite number), you will indeed be able to "compute" the incomputable. But you will also be able to solve the halting problem, by running a program for an infinite number of steps and checking whether it halts during that process or not. As you said earlier, this is not what is typically meant by computable.

(If that is not clear enough for you, consider the fact that a Turing machine is allowed an infinite amount of "memory" by definition, and the amount of time it takes to execute a program is no part of the formalism. So "computable" and "incomputable" in standard terminology do indeed apply to computers with infinite resources in the sense that I specified.)

If you can't use Google, see here. They even explain exactly why you are mistaken -- because Solomonoff induction is not computable in the first place, so nothing using it can be computable.

Sorry, you are simply mistaken here. Go and read more about it before you say anything else.

Depending on what is their goal. There are many possible levels of "winning".

You can win on individual level by quitting LW and focusing on your career and improving your skills. People who achieve that can easily disappear from our radars.

You can win on group level by creating a community of "successful rationalists"; so you are not only successful as a lonely individual, but you have a tribe that shares your values, and can cooperate in effective ways. We would probably notice such group, for example because they would advertise themselves on LW for purposes of recruitment.

And then you can win on civilizational level, by raising the planetary level of sanity and building a Friendly AI. Almost sure we would notice that.

Okay, the third one is outside of everyday life's scope, so let's ignore it for now.

I don't know how much I am generalizing here from my own example, but winning on an individual level would now feel insufficient for me, having met rationalists on LW website and in real life. If I could increase my skills and resources significantly, I would probably spend some time trying to get others from the rationalist community on my level. Because having allies I could achieve even more. So I would probably post much less comments on LW, but once in a while I would post an article trying to inspire people to "become stronger".

(had the idea after seeing this)

Each person's vote should be weighed by their life expectancy given their age.

(ETA: I will downvote any comment in this subthread discussing the object-level issue of whether Britain had better stay in the EU, no matter how reasonable and insightful it is.)

I don't think nothing of consequence changed for the Iraqi's through the election of Bush.

"A few short lines of code..."

AIXI is not computable.

If we had a computer that could execute any finite number of lines of code instantaneously, and an infinite amount of memory, we would not know how to make it behave intelligently.

Absolutely and unequivocally, you need to get out of IC design and into software engineering.

As mentioned by others, you are vastly underestimating the earning potential of 1st world software engineer. Someone fresh out of college or otherwise with little experience should expect $100k/yr from a typical technology company. A senior software engineer is probably $150k or more per year. Expect 35-50% of it to go to taxes, depending on where you live. If you're in Canada those taxes go towards wonderful things like universal health care that keep down your cost of living. If you're in the USA they mostly go to foreign wars and the parasitic healthcare industrial complex and you pay for things out of pocket. :shrug:

That said, expenses for a family of 4 are going to be a lot larger. I would expect to pay $36k or more in rent per year to live in a large enough apartment in a suburb of the SF bay area commuting distance from your job and with not terrible schools. Almost certainly another $12k on groceries, and $6k on car ownership (a necessity in our poorly designed cities). In the US (not Canada), you'll need an additional $6k or so for basic family medical insurance. If I assume that you land a $120k//yr (pre-tax) salary, that leaves you with only $18k left after taxes and basic living expenses. So if you did nothing else (no preschool, no daycare, no traveling home, no lifestyle creep, no leisure activities whatsoever) you'd be able to save approximately your entire current pre-tax annual salary.

Improvement? Yes, but there were a heck of a lot of 'if's in there. And as you note you can basically do the same thing or better by living on your family's land and getting freelance / remote work, taking advantage of the cost of living differences. Many tech workers in the USA dream of doing exactly what you could very easily be doing: go live in a cheap 3rd world country while earning USA-sized freelance salaries. On the internet, no one really cares where you are living or what your daily expenses are, just that you're doing a good job.

That said, it can be daunting to start freelance work, and hard to get your rates up without the professional network that comes from having worked in 1st world tech hubs. If you were single and unattached I might recommend the move to California or Toronto or something, but I'm not sure that's a good fit to your current situation, unless moving to the USA or elsewhere was your goal anyway.

Good reasons to move: Escape the Philippine drug war, network with other rationalists, cryonics, and transhumanist people, acquire better passport,, better opportunities for your children.

Bad reasons to move: Income (you can do as good or better freelancing), grass is greener (it's not).

If you chose not to move, you can still do effective networking by attending conferences and other professional events, as well as open-source hackathons and meetups in the locales you pass through. Choose and industry that you are not going to be fighting an uphill battle to establish yourself in, and then become reasonably well known and respected in that community. Often this will allow you to get travel support for attending conferences and community events, at least to cover all or part of your flight and hotel. Long-duration remote work will probably also involve frequent 1- or 2-week travel to the company or team headquarters. Expect to travel 1-2 months of the year. In any case you can and should take advantage of whatever nearby meetups are available either in your subfield or the rationalist/lesswrong & transhumanist communities.

By the way, Is your resume available? There are actually people here who might be able to hire you.

Side note: you should be able to sign up for Alcor even if you live in the Philippines. Have you properly looked into this? There are surcharges for foreign cryopreservations, so your insurance will have to be higher, but there is precedent for this. I don't know about the Philippines, but one of the recent Alcor cases was a 4yo Thai girl.

Side note 2: having been through a CFAR workshop, I don't think it would be worth the much higher relative cost for you to attend. There are cheaper low-hanging fruit to engage with in any case. And besides, the epistemologically confirmed parts of CFAR knowledge-base can be picked up $1.50 in late fees from your local library.

China's goal is to re-establish itself as the center of the world ...

This part looks true.

... by dominating the global economy.

And this part looks... incomplete. For example, I don't see how constructing artificial islands (aka "unsinkable carriers") in contested waters helps with dominating the global economy.