All of Bound_up's Comments + Replies

"once those things get a little bit smart they're not going to stop at a little bit smart for very long they're gonna be unbelievably smart like overnight. "

Celebrity opinions count for something in ways that expert opinions do not. They seem to reach more people, for one thing. That's partially because people just accept what celebrities say because they admire them, but it seems to me that it's also because celebrities tend to find ways of expressing the essence of ideas that are more accessible to laypeople.

Anyway, for what... (read more)

What's the exact wording and origin of the "when you don't know what to choose, choose power" quote?

I'm looking for a piece in the rationalist sphere, I think from 2018.

The section I remember talks about how if someone asks you what you're watching on TV, that updates your model of the world in several simultaneous ways, some true and some not. The point of the piece is that you can't "just tell the truth." No matter what you do or say, you will update people in the correct way, but also update people in other incorrect ways.

I thought it was called "You can't just tell the truth" or "The Impossibility of Just Telling the Truth" or something like this, but I'm not finding anything

That's a fine point! I think I understand pretty well why there's usually not sexual attraction between people of the same sex...If you take "love" and subtract the sex part out of it, is that what a close friendship looks like, or is there more to it than that?

An important lesson. At the same time, it can go both ways, at least, when applied broadly. Maybe the nuance to include is that slowness is for training and for learning. In the moment when you want maximum output right NOW, pushing to the limit will usually out-compete going slowly. So, methodical training, to-the-limit performance

I get a lot of mileage out of using Rationalist Taboo, or out of thinking about concepts rather than about words.

All of the following hot-button questions are very easily solved using this technique. As Scott Alexander points out, you can get a reputation as a daring and original thinker just by using this one thing over and over again, one of the best Hammers in the rationality community.

1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Is Islam a religion of peace?
3. Is America a Christian nation?
4. Is Abortion murder?
5. But do I really love him?
6. Does the Constitution create a wall of

I am indeed repeating myself. New descriptions and examples pointing at the same concept over and over. Is that a problem?

Warp sounds right. I'm picturing an uneven lens type of thing that exaggerates some things and diminishes others as you look through it

Thank you, he speaks about some very interesting things. It's possible that, as you say, he has great in-person speaking power.

I've definitely seen exactly this in large group dynamics. In 1-on-1 conversations, or maybe even with 3 or 4 people, I've seen chill conversations where people regularly pause for maybe up to 10 seconds before being interrupted.

It's probably fair to say Julia's good. I wasn't aware of this valentinue figure; can you recommend a video of them speaking?

I'm describing two extremes, really, so no one person embodies either extreme. The question to ask when talking to someone is not "Is this person a nerd or a normal?" but rather something more like "How nerdy vs political is this person about this topic?" and then adjust your speaking accordingly so that you can cause true beliefs

In order to cause only true beliefs, you must understand both languages and then speak in the language of your interlocutor. As long as you talk nerdy to nerds and political to politicals, I'm not sure I see how trust might break down. That seems like a perfectly sustainable dynamic to me, but one of greater appeal and more general value.

Yes, it is a sad truth that it is easier to explain a math equation to people if you're good-looking, have a nice voice, competently play social games and other things that should be, but are not (and we must come to terms with that), irrelevant

Excellent points. My model above happens, but it's not the only kind of argument. As usual, there's a spectrum, and I was mostly just describing one extreme of it.

It's also worth pointing out that logic or proper reasoning don't weaken this kind of argument. They're unnecessary, but if you're well-put-together enough to use them without having to stop and think, they'll make you seem all the more impressive. So, logic doesn't ruin this kind of social grandstanding; it's just not necessary

A wonderful example of this is Richard Dawkins (nerd) meeting with Bill O'Reilly (competent political player) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FARDDcdFaQ&t=1m27s

The great point is when Dawkins uses a reductio ad absurdum to point that Bill's argument proves too much, it can be used just as well for Mithras and Thor, and Bill's response is "Man, I saw Apollo over there; he's not doing so good. You don't want to go with Apollo." PERFECT example. Repulsive nonsense; perfectly effective political rejoinder.

A nerd might... (read more)

I'm not quite sure how I've managed to give this impression. The rank-and-file, order-repeating members of most coalitions don't necessarily have any skills at all. Naturally, some do; some are personable and charming and creative and so on, but that's not my point at all. Their ability to get others to join their coalition is probably just about being good representatives of their coalition, seeming nice and powerful, while also offering status to joining members, I suppose. I think of them them as completely different from the people ... (read more)

As for conspiracy theories, you may well be right. My first thought is that rationalists don't make up a strong enough faction, nor do they "infect" others enough to be worth paying attention to. It's also possible that, practically speaking, you don't turn a lot of normal order-following people into rationalists, you only turn nerds into rationalists, which is hardly a loss worth noticing.

Speculation aside, as I said, I have no reason to think this is happening; I mention a prediction that this whole system would make (or, at least, what might superficially seem like an appropriate prediction) as a way of clarifying it, by addressing it from another angle.

I probably should have been clearer.

Good players in general are trying strengthen political coalitions in the form of political parties, special interest groups, political movements, etc. So, there's a natural push to grow each of these groups, that is, to fill them with people who will receive orders and carry them out in the form of reciting the groups talking points.

Then, the talkings come top-down, and are designed to use those groups, and the order-following, talking points-reciting pawns that make them up as vehicles to carry their vision, ie, t... (read more)

Oh, and the difficult part is to realize that the status-maximizing answers resemble descriptions of reality, so you have to be careful about interpretation, and remember to consider the status-maximizing hypothesis when you hear someone giving logically contradictory answers without caring to fix the contradictions when they find them.

Insofar as we are "overthinking things," they seem to agree that they think less in certain ways. That's purely descriptive, which was my whole purpose. Normal people tend to use system 2 and abstraction less, near as I can tell.

If I were to get prescriptive, I'd agree that nerds tend to use System 2 at some times when they should use System 1. Neither system is unequivocally superior, though, since it's a spectrum, I wonder if there are some lucky souls who's dispositions land at the sweet spot in the middle.

As for calling th... (read more)

You are correct that someone is unlikely form a new belief about how the world functions or something just because they hear someone say so. On the other hand, they're very likely to form new beliefs about you, and in politics, about your fellows and your constituents, on the basis of what they hear you say.

Some things can be very clear, sure. First, I'd invite you to consider what you would do, as they say, in the least convenient possibel world. If you did have to work around impossible communication barriers that forced you to either shut up o... (read more)

Have you ever heard someone say "Don't you trust me?" And maybe you think "What's that supposed to mean? I basically trust you to act like you've acted in the past; in your case, that means I expect you to display behaviors X and Y with great consistency, and behavior Z with moderate consistency..."

I've done that a lot. "I trust you to do XYZ," I would say. But...even at the time, I had a nagging feeling that this wasn't really what they meant. This is what I (and other nerds) mean by trust, not what t... (read more)

You seem to have already covered much of this in your own way. Thanks for the links; I'm going to look them over.

By the way, this focus on social stuff and so on..is this what they call metarationality? I've never quite understood the term, but you seem like you might be one who'd know

I think you're right that it's really rare. I mean, we're sort of looking for beliefs(1) about how beliefs(2) feel from the inside. They'd have to turn to the nerd side, at least, they'd have to for this one area.

My first thought is that trying to get them to dig deeper by asking them about their responses is likely to lead mostly to:

1. Free-associating off of your words (rather than your concepts) which will randomly push their buttons, ejecting the slips of paper stored therein.
2. Blurring the lines between what you really asked and th

Thank you. I do feel it's a work in progress and am hoping to produce at some point a much more understandable and thorough version

It's dehumanizing according to nerd standards, but, then again, we're familiar with the kind of social status afforded nerds.

Which I don't mean in a "we can hit them 'cuz they hit us" sense, but merely to say that they don't think it's dehumanizing to think their way.

Normal people are the majority after all, the ones who are political through and through are both the mob and its leaders, whereas nerds tend to be political only about...most things? A lot of things? Even if they're not political for humans, they&#... (read more)

I may have a better background in this than I realize. Having been exposed to the ins and outs of city and smaller state campaigns, I've seen what it takes to win and been unimpressed with the difficulty of it. Winning even a state office of some significance will require beating opponents who are only sometimes even moderately interesting to speak or listen to (even for their constituents).

While not trivial, the strategy of running for a smaller office and then just knocking on a few thousand (of the right) doors over the months leading up to the ele... (read more)

According to worldnomads.com, my healthcare as a US citizen in the UK would be about $70 a month, or 60ish pounds, if I had to guess

Hey, D_Alex.

It's been a long time, I know, but I was thinking about going to Australia. Any tips you could give for the current day?

I'm thinking of going to Australia as recommended here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/43m/optimal_employment/

It looks like the program run by a fellower LWer at http://ozworkvisa.com/ is gone now?

Does anyone know if there are still people who've put together a fast track for going to work in Australia?

I'm trying to find Alicorn's post, or anywhere else, where it is mentioned that she "hacked herself bisexual."

"My utility function includes a term for the fulfillment of your utility function."

Awww.... :)

The obvious way in my case would be to do what I'm doing here, talk in my native tongue about the foreign one I should learn.

A powerful single piece of information would have been to talk about system 1 and 2 and talk over the specific times each fails, and how I should learn to be instinctive and reactive in many social and physical activities.

Another useful thing would be to watch exactly the kind of media I once found pointless and make explicit the rules going on. Chick flicks and girl TV are great for this.

The Improv and the Theatre text would have helped, as also The Gervais Principle series.

In my case...I think the instinct was there, but was effectively missing a lot of the time because it was being drowned out by the much louder filter in my head, the one interpreting things in a much more rigid, word-based, "literal" way. The nerdy way, as I've come to think of it.

I think that was the result of my search for truth. I spent time trying to nail down exactly what things meant and so on. This interfered with my thinking about things like "what will they think I mean?" and "what do they think that word means" stuff since I had formed beliefs about the true meaning of their words and stuff.

So, more that it's not so much inaccurate as it is coming from an unnecessarily unhappy place?

Would it be fair to say you don't think the post is inaccurate so much as you think it is unkind?

That's my greatest fear about this.

We're all in our social bubbles, such that some of us don't know a single Young Earth Creationist or Trump fan (or hardly do), so we reject out of turn the idea that so many humans might work this way simply because the ones we hang out with don't.

I could find a better social circle; it sounds like you have, and I don't doubt it's more enjoyable for you. But, either way, let's not forget that the people we don't hang out with still exist, and there's a reason we don't enjoy hanging out with them as much as we do people li... (read more)

I've classically been a literalist super-honest guy, and now intend to be super-honest about what I make the other person hear.

I think them knowing I'm being honest about what they hear is sufficient to grant me all the benefits I've enjoyed in the past, while avoiding some of the disadvantages

Try for a while. You might be surprised how easy the game becomes once you explicitly understand the rules

I'm actually just starting to look into hypnosis a bit. I found a blog by an LW person at https://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/

You have any recommendations? I'm getting enough to tell there's something interesting being described, but not enough to get it quite down pat.

That is what most people are already doing. It has its advantages and disadvantages, but there are no advantages to being oblivious to how people are thinking

Some of what Trump says is both emotionally and empirically wrong. The concept of "emotional truth" isn't a carte blanche to claim that anything you want is "true in some way;" it's a different way of communicating, and can be used to deceive as well as inform.

Some things Trump says are empirically wrong, but emotionally true, and those I have some measure of sympathy for.

We're mostly on the same page, really.

Much of what I've said applies to politics with large electorates, where the default case is that you can't effectively teach new concepts and people don't want to learn them, anyway.

In small groups, by all means, there are times when it's a very powerful move to try and teach people. There are even times, in all arenas, where saying "I'm better than you" is a useful move, you just don't want to be limited to that one move.

I also strongly value being honest and known to be honest. I find "you're the best... (read more)

Suppose that a vast group of statements that sound (they really, REALLY sound) like propositions about economic cause and effect are ALL interpreted by a great many people always and only as either "Yay blues" or "Boo blues."

In that case, your ability to tell the truth is limited by their way of filtering your statements, and your ability to tell lie is equally hampered. All you can do is decide whether to say Yay or Boo or not say anything at all (which will also often be interpreted one way or the other if you're involved in politics)... (read more)

I think you've hit upon one of the side effects of this approach

All the smart people will interpret your words differently and note them to be straightforwardly false. You can always adjust your speaking to the abilities of the intelligent and interested, and they'll applaud you for it, but you do so at the cost of reaching everybody else

Supposing that Y is the correct answer to a question, but you are incapable of communicating it to Y, some kind of less or differently true substitute must be used, in terms of the language that they speak and understand

Can you say it again while tabooing "lie?"

My guess is that you're saying that if X says something that they know will be interpreted as abc, then it is a lie even if abc is true, if X personally interprets the statement as xyz, or perhaps if the "true" meaning of the thing is xyz instead of abc

The dialogue about Trump on climate change is a perfect example of how most people think in opposition to how careful, abstract nerdy-types think.

To a nerd, it's a crucial distinction to say something like while we may not, based on economic models, want to do anything about it, it is an entirely separate question whether or not global warming is actually occurring.

A great many people will not make that "fine" distinction. All they can hear is "yay my tribe" and "boo my tribe." If that's all they can understand, then is it rea... (read more)

Thanks, Jimmy. Sounds great!