All of almkglor's Comments + Replies

Somebody suggested that people in LessWrong may be interested in my resume, and may be able to hire, so I updated my website on github.io to include my resume.

https://amkg.github.io/alan-resume.pdf

Re: underestimating tech salaries, thanks for the corrections; I may have discounted similar information before because even senior software developers I know personally locally are <$30,000/yr, and "start at $100,000/yr" sounded much too good (this is retrospectively obviously a bad heuristic and I will now strive to do better). In retrospect, checking the salaries of relatives who migrated to the USA should have corrected this.

re: moving to 1st-world country as a goal, my wife has this as a goal (FWIW it's a common goal for a sizable fracti... (read more)

Hmm, yes, my wife is suggesting Singapore too (she has relatives there, although I'd prefer not to impose). I've also suggested Canada. My wife wants it "nearby", so maybe I'll consider Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia more.

Re: geopolitical situation of China, I hope you're right ^^.

Thanks for the reply, I'll consider your advice more!

re: English, fluent writer, my spoken English is sometimes halting (it's not like I can go back and edit my vocal utterances, unlike in "written" English on a computer). re: Scheme, I'm not so sure if a Schemer would say I "contributed" to the Scheme language with SRFI-110 - there's significant resistance against indent-based syntaxes - but I know a few implementations have picked up SRFI-105 (Guile at least, I think a few others).

0[anonymous]
It's been a few months, how are things going?

Jonvon, there is only one human superpower. It makes us what we are. It is our ability to think. Rationality trains this superpower, like martial arts trains a human body. It is not that some people are born with the power and others are not. Everyone has a brain. Not everyone tries to train it. Not everyone realizes that intelligence is the only superpower they will ever have, and so they seek other magics, spells and sorceries, as if any magic wand could ever be as powerful or as precious or as significant as a brain.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

I prefer "disputation arena" because "group thinking" is too close to "groupthinking".

Is there a better term for "techniques for discussing things so that lots of thinking people can give their input and get a single coherent set of probabilities for what are the best possible choices for action" other than "disputation arena" or "group thinking technique"?

I do want to be precise, and "disputation arena" sounded kewl, but whatever.

0gjm
I don't know of any other term with that meaning. Making one up wouldn't really be any worse than using "disputation arena", I think, because to an excellent first approximation no one knows what "disputation arena" means anyway.

Okay, so that's a sub-goal that I didn't think about. I will think about this a little more.

Still, assuming that group exists and needs to do some thinking together, I think techniques like Delphi are fine.

Anyway, I assumed that LW's groups are more cohesive and willing to cooperate in thinking exercises in groups (this is what I was thinking when I said "This makes it not only desirable to find ways to effectively get groups of rationalists to think together, but also increasingly necessary."), but apparently it's not as cohesive as I thought.

0ChristianKl
Successful online communities have a low bar to entry. As a result they aren't as cohesize as a hierachical institution where you can simply order a group to make some decision via Delphi. LessWrong is a network. It's no hierachical institution and isn't market driven. If you want some high level understanding of the network paradigma, I recommend "In Search of How Societies Work" by David Ronfeld.

I suppose that works for pre-scientific, pre-rational thinking: back when you couldn't do a thing about nature, but you could do a thing about that schmuck looking at you funny.

However, now, as humanity's power grows, we can actually do something about nature: we can learn to predict earthquakes, build structures strong enough against calamity, vaccinate against pestilence, etc etc.

So the bias, I suppose, arises from evolution being too slow for human progress.

1Emile
I think you're missing Eugine's point. Consider someone that may or may not rape your daughter - the probability that he does so is function of how likely it is you'll spend your day and nights hunting him down in order to slowly torture him to death, with no concern for law or personal safety. Consider an earthquake that may or may not destroy your house. The probability that it does so is independent of what you precommit to doing afterwards. Sure, in both cases we can prevent the tragedy through other ways, but that's not the main issue. (Edit: Oops, thanks Eugine)
almkglor-10

On 18 December 2012 09:13:14PM, user "aronwall" replied "yes" to the question "So you're saying that if the evidence goes against you, you are going to stop being a Christian and self-identify as atheist (note that we do not capitalize that word)?". This comment is to ensure that user "aronwall" shall not be able to disavow this reply; please ignore it otherwise.

shrug it's best practice at a particular time and place, but is it the best practice at all times and places?

I'll grant that the procedure "tell all participants: 'hold off on proposing solutions'" is a good procedure in general, but is it the best procedure under all circumstances? How about enforcing the "hold off" part, rather than just saying it to participants? (cref. NGT's silent idea generation).

You did write a long post on different systems for discussion and you did ignore it in that post.

I thought it would be unnecessary, as I thought the people here would already know and it would be repetitive to do reiterate what is already known here. I'll try to see if I can come up with some description of the local status quo, then, and edit the article to include it. I'm a little busy, Christmas is important in this country.

Within your list you didn't discuss systems that have shown to work in the real world to solve the kind of issues that you w

... (read more)
almkglor140

The fact that I have an opinion about where the evidence as a whole leads does not prima facie make me impossible to argue with.

So you're saying that if the evidence goes against you, you are going to stop being a Christian and self-identify as atheist (note that we do not capitalize that word)?

aronwall130

yes

I don't think you understand what I mean with the word highly formalized in this context. LessWrong has also a bunch of rules. Those rules are however made in a way where they don't constrain the way one can use LessWrong as much as the rules of Delphi constrain it's participants.

Okay, what exactly do you mean by "highly formalized"?

Constraints on behavior are not necessarily bad, in much the same way that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy: constraining things to a subset that can be shown to work c... (read more)

0ChristianKl
You did write a long post on different systems for discussion and you did ignore it in that post. Within your list you didn't discuss systems that have shown to work in the real world to solve the kind of issues that you want to solve. If you don't like LessWrong as an example take an online community like Wikipedia as an example. If you don't know the specifcs of any system that actually works in the real world, you are in a poor position to propose new system. Being a heretic is hard work. I would say that in the US corruption and government ineffiency are also central problems. If you however want to solve those kinds of problems in your country than you have to choose. One way would be to get the IWF to promote some Good Government program in your country in a top-down way. The other way involves finding supporters in your own country. For both strategies I doubt that the LessWrong public is the right audience. Join/found some Liquid Feedback based political party in your country. You might even try to adept Liquid Feedback to be more Delphi like. One of the most effective calls for support to highly intelligent nerds was probably Julian Assange's call that among other thing involved him telling the audience that they won't get Christmas presents when they don't cooperate. Julian Assange didn't try to organise some vote to get consenus.

I'm worried about the bits that are internal to a person, where people just have some common failure modes when trying to solve problems.

shrugs Well, seatbelts don't stop accidents, but they do reduce the side effects of getting into one. While the disputation arenas do not directly prevent such internal failure modes, they help prevent that internal failure mode in a key influential person from spreading to the rest of the group. Yes, hold off on proposing solutions (don't drink and drive). But also put some extra railing and padding so that others making a mistake do not necessarily get you into error either (seatbelts)

LessWrong is one way of implementing groups of rationalists thinking together. One might say that it provides a centripetal phase: the discussion forums. But what centrifugal phase exists that prevents groupthink? Yes, we have "hold off on proposing solutions" - but remember that no current rationalist is perfect, and LW may grow soon (indeed, spreading rationality may require growing LW).

Also remember that people - including LessWrong members - tend to favor status quos, and given a chance, people tend to defend status quos to the death.

At th... (read more)

0ChristianKl
I don't think you understand what I mean with the word highly formalized in this context. LessWrong has also a bunch of rules. Those rules are however made in a way where they don't constrain the way one can use LessWrong as much as the rules of Delphi constrain it's participants. No, if you propose an alternative it makes sense to explain how it would improve the status quo. Ignoring the status quo that provides a system that actually works in practice is a bad idea. At the moment there no working Delphi system that allows rationalists to discuss solutions for handling insane governments. The cases where Delphi was used successfully are cases where it gets implented top-down. Whether the same approach works in an online community is up for discussion. I don't know of a single case where such a system got enough users to work. If you want to discuss how to tackle "insane governments" restristing yourself to claims that can be judged as true or false in short time frames probably removes most of the interesting questions from the discussion. If you think otherwise, please illustrate how you would tackle the issue you brought forward in your post with Prediction Markets. How to tackle it with Delphi would also be interesting. I'm also not clear about why we need to find consensus on "insane governments, insane societies, insane individuals, and the singularity".

Because the article about it specifically mentions that this is the failure mode to avoid:

Norman R. F. Maier noted that when a group faces a problem, the natural tendency of its members is to propose possible solutions as they begin to discuss the problem. Consequently, the group interaction focuses on the merits and problems of the proposed solutions, people become emotionally attached to the ones they have suggested, and superior solutions are not suggested. Maier enacted an edict to enhance group problem solving: "Do not propose solutions until

... (read more)
0Luke_A_Somers
Somehow I think that "let's follow best practices in our cognition" isn't exactly a 'proposed solution' in the sense that one should be holding off from doing it.
0Manfred
Well, close. But as life is not always that cute, not quite :P I agree that this will definitely help with the social bits - I'm worried about the bits that are internal to a person, where people just have some common failure modes when trying to solve problems. To give a personal anecdote, say I give someone a polarizing filter, a light intensity sensor, and a piece of plastic and say "when this piece of plastic is at an angle, what happens to the light?" If they immediately start looking for solutions, rather than playing around, they will fail. 9 times out of ten. Kiss of death, no social stuff needed. The people who figure out the correct answer with any reasonable rate are the same people who explore things just to explore things.

"Hold off on proposing solutions" is an important technique because the Human brain is lazy, and once it thinks of one solution, it will not try to look for another.

I'd say that the interface between the "centrifugal phase" and the "centripetal phase" implicitly reduces the explicit need to protect ideation using "hold off on proposing solutions" - sure, you can present the solution you thought about in the "centrifugal phase" immediately, but the solution gets pushed into the meat grinder of whatever &quo... (read more)

0Manfred
Hmm. Why do you think that? As the number of potential solutions increases, I feel like even proposing solutions gets harmful.

Stripped to its essentials, every decision in life amounts to choosing which lottery ticket to buy. . . . Most organisms don't buy lottery tickets, but they all choose between gambles every time their bodies can move in more than one way. They should be willing to 'pay' for information---in tissue, energy, and time---if the cost is lower than the expected payoff in food, safety, mating opportunities, and other resources, all ultimately valuated in the expected number of surviving offspring. In multicellular animals the information is gathered and translated into profitable decisions by the nervous system.

  • Steven Pinker

I proffer the following quotes rather than an entire article (I think the major problem with post-modernism isn't irrationality, but verbosity. JUST LOOK AT YOURSELF):

"For the sake of sanity, use ET CETERA: When you say 'Mary is a good girl!' be aware that Mary is much more than 'good'. Mary is 'good', nice, kind, et cetera, meaning she also has other characteristics." - A.E. Van Vogt, World of Null-A

"For the sake of sanity, use QUOTATIONS: For instance 'conscious' and 'unconscious' mind are useful descriptive terms, but it has yet to b

... (read more)
-2living_philosophy
Ya, I can see that criticism. Here's a shorter version for you: arguing against post-modernism by arguing against the use of a different term (post-colonial, or even worse the made-up post-utopian) is a complete straw-man and fallacious argumentation. It also makes the OP and commenters look exceptionally naive when the thing they argue against (post-modernism) would actually agree with their point (critiquing literary genres), and preempted them in making it (thus the discussion of deconstruction above). Also, thanks for the quotes :) And remember, being overly verbose is a critique of communication, not of the rationality of a position or method. SELF-EXAMINATION & MODIFICATION COMPLETE

How about an expanded version: if we could be a timeless spaceless perfect observer of the universe(s), what evidence would we expect to see?

-2Pavitra
Can you guarantee that a TSPO wouldn't see epiphenomenal consciousness?

Although it might be good to be aware that you shouldn't remove a weapon from your mental arsenal just because it's labeled "dark arts". Sure, you should be one heck of a lot more reluctant to use them, but if you need to shut up and do the impossible really really badly, do so - just be aware that the consequences tend to be worse if you use them.

After all, the label "dark art" is itself an application of a Dark Art to persuade, deceive, or otherwise manipulate you against using those techniques. But of course this was not done lightly.

I'm not sure about others, but while I initially felt that way ("Thank .... who?") whenever something like that happened, careful thought-screening and imagining situations (i.e. simulation) helped weed it out. I'd be surprised if I slip something like that these days, unless it's really really nasty.

almkglor280

"It's frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what is going on." - Amos Tversky

almkglor120

"Speed is what distinguishes intelligence. No bird discovers how to fly: evolution used a trillion bird-years to 'discover' that - where merely hundreds of person-years sufficed." - Marvin Minsky

2gwern
http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/AlienIntelligence.html
-2Thomas
It may be easier with already evolved intelligence.

I just finished my NaNoWriMo novel, Judge on a Boat (latest revision kept here), last month in November, and this month I'm going through the process of fixing it up and improving it. I described it on LessWrong yesterday.

Why this project? Well, I've been lurking on Less Wrong (and before that, Overcoming Bias) for years, and yet I recently realized that I've not been very rational in actual practice. So I decided to write a novel about rationality and moral philosophy, just to make sure that I managed to actually understand the topics well enough to pu... (read more)

What do you think about David Brin's "disputation arenas?"

Maybe we could get a group of scientists to try out some form of disputation arena (Delphi Method for example) and see if they can be more effectively managed that way?

almkglor130

Hello Less Wrong,

My first comment ever. I have been lurking on Less Wrong for several years already (and on Overcoming Bias before there was even a Less Wrong site), and have been mostly cyber-stalking EY ever since I caught wind of his AI-Box exploits.

This year 2012, on a whim, I joined the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) last November, and started writing a novel I had been randomly thinking of making, "Judge on a Boat". The world is that humanity manages to grow up a little without blowing itself up, rationality techniques are taugh... (read more)

6davecotter
My name is Dave, this is my first post. I consider myself an aspiring newbie epistemic rationalist, having been turned on to it by HPMOR, i've been studying it for a couple months now and feel I have already greatly benefited from learning even the most basic concepts. I have read "Judge on a Boat" and found it quite as satisfying as HPMOR, and would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for another highly engaging, thought-provoking, rational fiction.