Is the ultimate point of this set of posts this:
If you assume Omega has a probability δ of making an incorrect prediction, then your optimal strategy tends to one-boxing as δ tends to 0, therefore you should one-box in the original problem.
It seems like a lot of words to not quite come out and say that, though, so I'm probably missing something.
You would say these words if you would want to check whether you have found a "stable" equilibrium.
If you consider that "0 is not a probability", there is a point in checking for that.
Does Uspenskiy have an opinion on Zero-knowledge proofs? They differ from standard proofs in that they have a probability of being wrong (which can be as small as you want), and the key property which is that if I use one to convince you of something, you aren't able to use it to convince anyone else.
Does anyone consider them the proofs in the ordinary sense?
I could ask him, but given that experience of verification of ZKP is an example personal/non-transferrable evidence, I see no question here.
And in some sense, ZKP proofs are usualy proofs of knowledge. If you represent ZK prover as a black box with secret information inside that uses random number generation log and communication log as sources to calculate its next message, access to this blackbox in such form is enough to extract some piece of data. This piece of data makes the proven statement trivial to verify or to prove conventionally - or even to play prover in ZKP. So all the efforts in ZKP are about showing you know some secret without letting me know the secret.
there are people who understand spoken words better
Someone who is familiar with the relevant cognitive science is encouraged to correct me if it turns out that my current contrarian opinion is merely the result of my ignorance, but---I'm inclined to just call that a cognitive disability. To be sure, if you happen to be so lucky as to have a domain expert nearby who is willing to spend time with you to clear up your misconceptions, then that's a wonderful resource and you should take advantage of it. But human labor is expensive and text is cheap; people who understand something deeply enough to teach it well have better things to do with their lives than give the same lecture dozens of times. What happens when you want to know something that no one is willing to teach you (at an affordable price)? To be so incompetent at reading as to actually be dependent on a flesh-and-blood human to talk you through every little step every time you want to understand something complicated is a crippling disability, much much worse than not being able to walk. I weep for those who are cursed to live with such a hellishly debilitating condition, and look forward to some future day when our civilization's medical technology has advanced enough to cure this awful disease.
Whether it is a cognitive disability is not a useful question; the question is whether there is something that is cost-effective to offer to these people.
My main point was that having this situation is not incompatible with being on LessWrong.
About cheapness: you oversimplify. A good recorded video lecture requires noticeably less effort to produce than a good textbook. And even simple lectures for big audience are quite good w.r.t. scalability.
There is a blog that I would care never to read again, even in moderation. I added the blog to my localhost list so now I can't visit the blog anymore. But my lizard-brain has found a workaround: if I google the blog I can read Google's cache. Is there a way to block Google's cache of the blog without blocking the rest of Google's functions?
Depends on the amount of effort you are willing to spend. I have a local Squid caching proxy (maybe privoxy or 3proxy or something else is better for you), I have set up URL rewriting and among other things I block some URL patterns for various reasons. It is not too hard to set up and there are various ways to do this with various proxies.
(Well, a good textbook or expository webpage is more than just proofs and definitions, but wording quibbles aside---)
I don't believe you. There are many unfortunate people who suffer from cognitive disabilities such that they can't learn (e.g.) calculus from a book, but if you're reading this site, you're almost certainly not one of them.
People are different.
As far as I see around, there are people with various optimal bite sizes.
For something I do want to consume in entirety, I prefer long-form writing; there are people who prefer smaller-sized pieces or smaller-sized pieces with a rare chance to interrupt and ask a question.
I learn better from text; there are people who understand spoken words better. Spoken words have intonations and emotional connotations (and often there are relevant gestures at the same time); text reading speed can be changed without any loss.
So, I wouldn't discount the option that another form of presentation can be hypothetically interesting to some 10% of population. It would be just one separate thing for the mto consider, of course.
I don't understand how Uspensky's definition is different from Eliezer's. Is there some minimum number of people a proof has to convince? Does it have to convince everyone? If I'm the only person in the world, is writing a proof impossible, or trivial? It seems that both definitions are saying that a proof will be considered valid by those people who find it absolutely convincing. And those people who do not find it absolutely convincing will not consider it valid. More importantly, it seems that this is all those two definitions are saying, which is why neither of them is very helpful if we want something more concrete than the colloquial sense of proof.
As I understand Eliezer's definition: "Your text is proof if it can convince me that the conclusion is true"
As I understand Uspenskiy's definition: "Your text is proof if it can convince me that the conclusion is true and is I am willing to reuse this text to convince other people".
The difference is whether the mere text convinces me that I myself can also use it succesfully. Of course this has to rely on social norms for convincing arguments in some way.
Disclosure: I have heard the second definition from Uspenskiy first-person, and I have never seen Eliezer in person.
Fair enough -- I tend to figure at the point where we're talking about people knowingly taking actions that they are pretty sure will result in the extinction of local humanity, the additional motive to grab those guys over there within easy reach is not hard to tack on.
Well, it does look likely (not guaranteed - just 50% likely) that the primary target for the strike would be The Enemy (China-USA-Russia-EU-India-whoever). From what is publically known, the prepared plans from 20th century referred to first-strike/revenge dynamics...
Risking extinction on the Earth could be done just to slightly improve your chances not to be enslaved in the fallout or at least not to let The Enemy get away less destroyed than you. It means that you spend all that you can on your selected targets.
Africa would (except South Africa, maybe) would be collateral damage; striking Mars would be expending a lot of resources on bystanders.
If Mars has some interplanetary weapons, it can 1) credibly claim neutrality (we don't even trade with any side - not that we could hide that...) and 2) try to destroy strike from Earth mid-transit (Mars has months to prepare interceptors, and doing counter-interception maneouvres during interplanetary flight is very expensive).
may significantly reduce the x-risk posed by many other x-risk categories (bioengineered threats, catastrophic climate change, global nuclear catastrophe, grey goo scenarios, etcetera)
Wouldn't Earth after catastrophic climate change or global nuclear war be still more livable than Mars? If we are OK with living in shielded colonies with artificial atmosphere and controlled climate, why not build them on Earth? We wouldn't suffer from low gravity here.
If we consider malicious actions (like a big war), such colonies on Earth are just too convenient for military installations to be left untouched.
Mars colony is too far away to be able to deal a sneak attack; so wiping it is not as urgent, and after 3 hours there are no rockets anywhere on Earth for next 5 years.
Also, I am not sure that the cheapest way to "filter CO2 and CO, boost O2" is more expensive than "filter all possible chemical weapons and kill all designer bacteria".
Whether a war that realy destroys every human (maybe not immediately, but over the range of a century) is likely is another question.
Of course, intact Mars colony would also have to keep quite a lot of physics, engineering and biology knowledge even if some of it were lost on Earth.
I tried 'position 2' and it works fairly well; 3 doesn't work for me though because my chair rotates. I also occasionally sit for short periods at my desk, even though the keyboard tray is just below shoulder height and I have to tilt my gaze upwards about 20 degrees to see the screen. I can also set my laptop on the top (monitor) level of the desk (not optimal for typing), or use it sitting down in a variety of positions. If I pay attention, I do notice that I shift around a decent amount while standing, most likely only because it's uncomfortable to stand perfectly still for any length of time, as you mentioned.
I've only been using the standing desk for 2 weeks; I'm not sure whether I'll revert back to sitting all the time if I do get a high stool, but I'm considering getting one so I can have the option.
Yup, I tried sitting at the desk with The Thing there, it is annoyingly uncomfortable.
My chair is actually rotatable and even has wheels; it is just worn enough that it requires slight effort to make it roll or rotate.
I noticed that when standing it is easier to shift around than when sitting, which is sometimes nice. Also, when sitting you can sometimes get your legs numb because of compressing something not inteded for being compressed - no such problem when standing.
By the way, I tried almost shoulder-height position for notebook (abuse of a preexisting shelf); this is slightly more comfortable for the reading part but noticeaby reduces typing comfort. I guess with a desktop computer and a real standing desk you get best of both worlds here.
For me it would not be good, though - working on the notebook has some benefits, and I also need around three movements to switch to "sit down together and talk" mode whenever I discuss something with coworkers.
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Well, it does look that killing a big species is like freezing a body to absolute zero.
I am ready to buy that 0%-10% killers are distributed according to the promised power law, if you buy that reducing human population from X to kX costs -log k. Note that this doesn't alter your observed power law at all.
Why this? Because you have to be stronger than random resistances (due to genetics, lifestyle, health conditions etc.) present in different slices in populations.
Also, any virus will evolve while it infects a billion humans; there is a pressure to spread better and leave host alive.
And long incubation period cuts both ways — either you are stealth for years, or you are spread by air next week.