All of Caue's Comments + Replies

0Gust
You're a Brazilian studying Law who's been around LW since 2013 and I'd never heard of you? Wow. Please show up!
Caue10

I like the sentiment, but the advice is too often not practical. Also, not much to do with rationality.

1Tem42
Engineering a stable social life is certainly rational. I would not take this quote to mean "make random offensive statements to make touchy people leave you alone", but rather "be honest upfront about your beliefs and mental models, so that you can filter out people who react badly to them early on". That is, it is good to politely and quietly (and perhaps indirectly) let people in optional social groups know early on if you are atheist/religious/vegan/liberal/conservative/rationalist/Klingon, so that both you and they can make informed decisions about the value of group membership. There are, of course, non-optional groups in which this may be a terrible idea. But those are not generally referred to as social groups.
Caue00

An internal combustion engine is like Carol's subjective cold-sensation in her left hand - one way among others to bring about the externally-observable behavior. (By "externally observable" I mean "without looking under the hood".) In Carol's case, that behavior is identifying 20 C water. In the engine's case, it's the acceleration of the car.

The subjective cold-sensation in her left hand should be part of the observable behavior, surely? To mix the analogies, if it were my job to disguise the fuel cell as a combustion engine, I ... (read more)

Caue30

Can anyone recommend good sources on the social dynamics of witch-hunts?

Not necessarily about witches, of course. I'm interested in the hand of Moloch in these situations: social incentives to go along, status rewards for being more morally outraged than your fellow citizen, self-protection by avoiding looking insufficiently outraged, the not necessarily intended but still unescapable prosecutorial traps, the social impossibility of denying the actual existence of the outrageous facts...

2Manfred
In sociology literature this will show up as 'moral panic'.
Caue00

Would you attribute essentialist thinking to someone who prefers that watch?

Yes, I don't see why not. The only difference is a mental tag on their map.

(not that I would look down on anyone who has these preferences, or feel particularly inclined to work on diminishing my own similar preferences).

But there are readily perceivable differences. Just look under the hood.

Ok, no differences that would make her prefer the actual combustion engine, besides it having the essence of a real combustion engine.

Caue30

To the extent that there really are no perceivable differences, it looks like essentialist thinking. But I wouldn't call a desire irrational (or rather, I wouldn't call it especially irrational), even a desire for a perceived essence.

A similar example would be two identical watches, one of which was given to you by your grandfather. Or the loss of value when you discover that the autographed picture you bought on e-bay is a forgery.

(maybe it's because I'm primed by a discussion on the stupid questions thread, or because I perceived hints that the third part would be controversial, but the example I had in mind as I read the post was of a heterossexual man rejecting trans women)

1torekp
The grandfather's watch is a great example. Would you attribute essentialist thinking to someone who prefers that watch? But there are readily perceivable differences. Just look under the hood.
Caue40

Also, here's Yvain applying this reasoning to this exact question.

Caue20

(The people producing those videos say he's "producer and co-writer". Cynical-me suspects that "Gamergate fans" think he must be the real driving force because Anita Sarkeesian is a girl and therefore not to be taken seriously. I do hope cynical-me is wrong. Not-so-cynical me thinks Sarkeesian is more likely to be the real driving force because, other things being equal, a woman is more likely to feel strongly about this stuff than a man.)

Since it's been brought up...

As far as I can tell the best evidence they have for this is a wide... (read more)

2Viliam
And some Feminist Frequency tweets repeating what McIntosh posted before: 1, 2, I think there are more but I cannot find them now. (Memetic hazard: here is the "argument" in a form of a youtube video.) By the way Feminist Frequency is a project account, not Sarkeesian's private account (although it uses her photo), so it wouldn't be a damning evidence even if McIntosh would really sometimes use it. Also, when two people cooperate and have similar opinions, it would not be so unlikely to use the same words. = this is just a weak evidence
Caue20

?

No, I mean people sometimes accuse leftists of holding positions motivated by hate. It's more common for this accusation to be made against right-wing positions (which is what the grandparent was talking about), but I don't think the reverse is all that rare.

0Dahlen
Oh. Okay; misinterpreted. I can reasonably imagine someone actually hating all those things except for freedom, because, except for freedom, all of them can be someone's outgroup. But I was thinking, maybe Caue actually encountered the odd one out, and I was wondering how they were like. (Support for slavery, gulags, and totalitarianism? The world is large and people are diverse.)
Caue30

Oh, that's quite close to my experience as well. Any disagreement about policies is actually a smokescreen - people only oppose leftist policies because they benefit from the status quo, you see, but they will invent anything to avoid admitting that (including, I gather, the entire field of Economics).

Caue20

It's not that rare.

Consider accusations of hate against: Israel/Jews; straight cis white men; Christians; America; Freedom; rich people...

4Dahlen
Have you actually seen people claiming to hate freedom? It makes sense if you're talking about some specific understanding of it, e.g. free-market policies or gun rights, but for someone to declare themselves anti-freedom as a concept... Nope, it doesn't map to anything I've ever witnessed.
3skeptical_lurker
Perhaps not that rare, dependent upon where you live and who you mix with. But in my experience, the left tries to frame everything as heroic rebels vs the evil empire, with an almost complete refusal to discuss or consider actual policies.
Caue40

The entire domains of boys toys and girls toys diverge. Previously often one set of toys was sold for and used by boys and girls alike. The play differentiated along roles but still overlapped. But ot any longer. I wondered: Why is that?

I think I'm seeing the opposite (in Brazil). I see a lot of for-girls versions of toys that used to be made for boys when I was a child. Like RC Barbie racing cars, or pink Nerf guns with matching fashion accessories. Traditional girl toys also look more varied than they used to be (e.g. horror-themed dolls).

0Gunnar_Zarncke
Interesting. I wonder what is the pattern behind this. And how successful this kind of marketing is. It looks suspiciously like marketeer trying to push successful brands into the other gender.
Caue00

I was wondering more about the happiness/wellbeing part than the my terminal goal part.

But about that: it would mean it's one of my terminal goals. I'm also not seeing how it would be incompatible with a "transactional relationship".

I feel there's an intended connotation that it should rank high among his terminal goals (in the example, high enough that he shouldn't end the relationship), but this doesn't necessarily follow from "seeing her as an end in herself".

(I think the "intended correct answer" in the scenario is that he... (read more)

Caue00

A healthy attitude to a relationship makes the other person an end in herself.

What does it mean for a person to be an end? In the example, is the end the continuity of the relationship, her happiness, or what?

If the end is the continuity of the relationship regardless of quality, or her happiness regardless of his, it doesn't look very "healthy". But if it's conditional on quality or on his own satisfaction, it doesn't look like the "end".

0Lumifer
It means that this person's happiness/wellbeing is your terminal goal.
Caue30

What I can't figure out is why some noticeable proportion of heterosexual men hate prostitutes.

My bet is that they process it as a purity/sacredness violation.

Caue00

I am, however, stronger than most of the villagers, and could take some of the food that the raiders don't scavenge for.

You'd have to be stronger than the group of villagers.

0Raiden
I'd have to be stronger than the group in order to get more food than the entire group, but depending on their ability to cooperate I may be able to steal plenty for myself, an amount that would seem tiny compared to the large amount needed for the whole group. The example I chose was a somewhat bad one I think though because the villagers would have a defender's advantage of protecting their food. You can substitute "food" for "abstract, uncontrolled resource" to clarify my point.
Caue10

The way status works looks analogous to the way Schelling points work: members of the group expect the other members to act a certain way towards member X, and also expect that everyone will expect everyone else to expect that, and so on. This is clearly how authority works (each grunt obeys the boss because he expects the other grants to obey and punish him if he doesn't, which is what all of them are thinking), and I suspect it might be a special case of the general case of status.

The value of strength, wealth, talent and etc. for high status would then ... (read more)

Caue00

I'm not sure I see what "dominance" is here. If you mean something like the OP's "general purpose ability to influence a group", then my guess is that this person is only "not-dominant" to the extent that they choose not to overtly use it. For instance, I expect the answer to the following questions would be "yes":

When the group is uncertain about an outsider, or someone new, is this person's support more important than that of the average member of the group?

Regarding trivial choices, like ambient temperature or whe... (read more)

Caue10

Maybe I'm missing something, but the mystery of people wanting to be low status appears to vanish if we don't think of binary high/low status, but as a continuum going from highest to lowest status. Then we can see people not wanting to go for highest status (including, perhaps, because they don't think they can manage it), but that doesn't mean they want to be low status.

I find it useful to see status as "fuzzily ordinal", in that it's often possible to identify one or some higher status members of a group, one or some lower status members (or m... (read more)

Caue10

1- I am not sure it would happen, but I think that someone who does shout "fire!" is indeed quite sure people will run.

2 - I don't know Australia's laws, so I don't know what would be protected. But Hugh's speech goes in my first box (the only information being transmited is Hugh's preferences. Also, by analogy: if it were "should I kill him?", both would be responsible).

Caue00

Thanks, this is what I thought. That would be the difference between my first and third types of speech, and an example of a controversy about how to draw the line.

Caue10

Looking at my thought process, I think I'm using this differentiating test:

Look at the probability of the outcome, given the speech - if it's high enough that you can ignore the receiver of the message as an independent agent whose response generates uncertainty, the causation looks pretty direct. But if the outcome is dependent on people freely considering the information and acting on their own conclusions (as they would if the information was known by other means), then it looks indirect enough that I consider "transmiting information" as the function of the speech.

2Lumifer
Example 1: shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Are you quite sure the crowd will stampede? or they'll look at you like you're an idiot and tell you to shut up? Example 2: Russel and Hugh are two best mates living in Australia. Russel says: "An election is coming and I have to vote. I don't care about them slimy politicians and I'll vote for whoever you tell me". Hugh says "Sure, mate, this time vote for the Wombat!". Is Hugh's speech protected?
Caue10

Consider e.g. whisteblowing. Or pretty much any political speech -- are you saying engaging in political speech specifically in order to influence the elections "isn't really protected"?

No, I'm saying that causation is sufficiently less direct in this case (than in cases like shouting "fire" and ordering a murder) that it's more reasonable to put it in the "intent to transmit information" box.

0Lumifer
I really don't see that. Take a plain-vanilla election poster consisting of an ugly mug and "Vote for X!" This is a pretty direct attempt at causation and I don't really see much of information being transmitted.
Caue10

By the presence of this additional element, the intent for the speech to cause a concrete effect besides transmission of information, and its ability to cause it.

ETA: For some reason I only now noticed the "other hand" on your first response. Yes, all speech transmits information (even if just the information that I think A or desire B), and most speech intends some goal (even if just the goal that people think like me). When I think of the problem of putting a speech act in the first or second boxes my mind follows paths similar those used in d... (read more)

3Lumifer
A great deal, might even be most, of speech has intent "to cause a concrete effect besides transmission of information". The freedom of speech laws do not aim to protect transmission of information -- they aim to protect precisely the right to speak in order to produce tangible consequences. Consider e.g. whisteblowing. Or pretty much any political speech -- are you saying engaging in political speech specifically in order to influence the elections "isn't really protected"?
Caue10

Sorry, that was supposed to be "falsely shouting fire". I'll be surprised if someone is punished for shouting "fire" if there really was a fire and they were only transmiting this information. For that reason, I also expect that "I thought there was a fire!" would be an effective defense.

2Lumifer
I reiterate that I don't understand how do you distinguish the two.
Caue10

I've read the comments, and nobody seems to have mentioned the different functions of speech, and the different goals of limitations. Yvain's examples of Holocaust denial and "shouting fire" are not the same sort of thing.

Speech as an act causally linked to a desired consequence unrelated to communication, like falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or commanding a subordinate to shoot someone, or etc., isn't really protected (I'm not very familiar with US Law, but I can't think of counterexamples). These limitations don't usuall... (read more)

0ChristianKl
In the US you can't directly command someone to shoot someone but you can advocate that someone deserves to be shoot (see Brandenburg v. Ohio)
3Lumifer
I don't understand how you distinguish the two. Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater looks like "transmission of information" to me. On the other hand, publishing some compromising material during an election campaign seems to be "an act causally linked to a desired consequence".
Caue50

"Algorithms" feels more related to the Sequences, but may not be the strategic choice. I don't expect non-math/CS types to go "yay, a book about algorithms!".

6Viliam_Bur
I am more concerned about the lack of specific algorithms in the book. If I remember correctly, there is no pseudocode anywhere. It's just metaphorically that the whole book is about human thinking algorithms, etc. But using the word "algorithm" in the title feels like a false promise. EDIT: Okay, the hive mind has spoken, and I accept the "algorithms". Thanks to everyone who voted!
Caue00

The first link doesn't work...

Don argues for God and Christianity on Bayesian reasons.

That is significantly more burdensome. And it seems that the argument presented here doesn't stretch enough to reach a God compatible with Christianity.

Caue90

My first reaction as well.

But that is easy. What I haven't figured out yet is how to get them to read it.

5Ben Pace
I've found that the people most interested in reading it are the ones I've already gotten addicted to HPMOR.
Caue00

The point was just that we should be allowed to weight expected positives against expected negatives. Yes, there can be invisible items in the "cons" column (also on the "pros"), and it may make sense to require extra weight on the "pros" column to account for this, but we shouldn't be required to act as if the invisible "cons" definitely outweigh all "pros".

Caue00

I agree with this.

But then we look, and this turns into "we haven't looked enough". Which can be true, so maybe we go "can anyone think of something concrete that can go wrong with this?", and ideally we will look into that, and try to calculate the expected utility.

But then it becomes "we can't look enough - no matter how hard we try, it will always be possible that there's something we missed".

Which is also true. But if, just in case, we decide to act as if unknown unknowns are both certain and significant enough to override... (read more)

Caue20

(thank you for helping me try to understand him on this point, by the way)

This seems coherent. But, to be honest, weak (which could mean I still don't get it).

We also seem to have gotten back to the beginning, and the quote. Leaving aside for now the motivated stopping regarding religion, we have a combination of the Precautionary Principle, the logic of Chesterton's Fence, and the difficulty of assessing risks on account of Black Swans.

... which would prescribe inaction in any question I can think of. It looks as if we're not even allowed to calculate the... (read more)

1Azathoth123
The phrase "no reason to think" should raise alarm bells. It can mean we've looked and haven't found any, or that we haven't looked.
-1Richard_Kennaway
HIV.
Caue00

I agree with the apparent LW consensus that much of religion is attire, habit, community/socializing, or "belief in belief", if that's what you mean. But then again, people actually do care about the big things, like whether God exists, and also about what is or isn't morally required of them.

I bet they will also take Taleb's defense as an endorsement of God's existence and the other factual claims of Christianity. I don't recall him saying that he's only a cultural Christian and doesn't care whether any of it is actually true.

I would also add

... (read more)
2ChristianKl
You take a certain epistemology for granted that Taleb doesn't share. Taleb follows heuristics of not wanting to be wrong on issues where being wrong is costly and putting less energy into updating beliefs on issues where being wrong is not costly. He doesn't care about whether Christianity is true in the sense that he cares about analysing evidence about whether Christianity is true. He might care in the sense that he has an emotional attachment to it being true. If I lend you a book I care about whether you give it back to me because I trust you to give it back. That's a different kind of caring than I have about pure matter of facts. One of Taleb's examples is how in the 19th century someone who went through to a doctor who would treat him based on intellectual reasoning would have probably have done worse than someone who went to a priest. Taleb is skeptic that you get very far with intellectual reasoning and thinks that only empiricism has made medicine better than doing nothing. We might have made some progress but Taleb still thinks that there are choices where the Christian ritual will be useful even if the Christian ritual is build on bad assumptions, because following the ritual keeps people from acting based on hubris. It keeps people from thinking they understand enough to act based on understanding. That's also the issue with the new atheists. They are too confident in their own knowledge and not skeptic enough. That lack of skepticism is in turn dangerous because they believe that just because no study showed gene manipulated plants to be harmful they are safe.
Caue00

It can also help to illustrate ideas. Taleb basically says that religion1 is a very useful concept. New atheists spend energy arguing that religion2 is a bad concept. That's pointless if they want to convince someone who believes in religion1. If they don't want to argue against a strawman they actually have to switch to talking about religion1.

But you could say that the new atheists do want to argue against what Taleb might call a strawman, because what they're trying to do really is to argue against religion2. They're speaking to the public at large, ... (read more)

0ChristianKl
If you look at priorities of most people that they show through their actions, truth isn't on top of that list. Most people lie quite frequently and optimize for other ends. Just take any political discussion and see how many people are happy to be correctly informed that their tribal beliefs are wrong. That probably even goes for this discuss and you have a lot of motivated cognition going on that makes you want to believe that people really care about truth. When speaking on the subject of religion Taleb generally simply speaks about his own motivation for believing what he believes. He doesn't argue that other people should start believing in religion. Taleb might child people for not being skeptic where it matters but generally not for being atheists. Nearly any religious person while grant you that some religions are bad. As long as the new atheists argue against a religion that isn't really his religion he has no reason to change. I would also add that it's quite okay when different people hold different beliefs.
Caue70

(I haven't read the book)

The way I usually come in contact with something like this is afterwards, when Elinor and her tribe are talking about those irrational greens, and how it's better to not even engage with them. They're just dumb/evil, you know, not like us.

Even without that part, this avoids opportunities for clearing up misunderstandings.

(anecdotally: some time ago a friend was telling me about discussions that are "just not worth having", and gave as an example "that time when we were talking about abortion and you said that X, I kn... (read more)

Caue20

Ambivalent about this one.

I like the idea of rational argument as a sign of intellectual respect, but I don't like things that are so easy to use as fully general debate stoppers, especially when they have a built-in status element.

3Salemicus
But note that Elinor doesn't use it as a debate stopper, or to put down or belittle Ferrers. She simply chooses not to engage with his arguments, and agrees with him.
Caue40

My source were his tweets. Sorry if I can't give anything concrete right now, but "Taleb GMO" apparently gets a lot of hits on google. I didn't really dive into it, but as I understood it he takes the precautionary principle (the burden of proof of safety is on GMOs, not of danger on opponents) and adds that nobody can ever really know the risks, so the burden of proof hasn't and can't be met.

"They're arrogant fools" seems to be Taleb's charming way of saying "they don't agree with me".

I like him too. I loved The Black Swan an... (read more)

8Jayson_Virissimo
I feel like it should be pointed out that being kookish and being a source of valuable insight are not incompatible.
6ChristianKl
"Can't know" is misses the point. Doesn't know, is much more about what Taleb speaks about. Robin Hanson lately wrote a post against being a rationalist. The core of Nassim arguments is to focus your skepticism where it matters. The cost of mistakenly being a Christian is low. The cost of mistakenly believing that your retirement portfolio is secure is high. According to Taleb people like the New Atheists should spend more of their time on those beliefs that actually matter. It's also worth noting that the new atheists aren't skeptics in the sense that they believe it's hard to know things. Their books are full of statements of certainity. Taleb on the other hand is a skeptic in that sense. For him religion also isn't primarily about believing in God but about following certain rituals. He doesn't believe in cutting Chelstrons fence with Ockham's razor.
3Lumifer
I think that Taleb has one really good insight -- the Black Swan book -- and then he decided to become a fashionable French philosopher...
Caue110

Yes, but my point is that this is also true for, say, leaving the house to have fun.

Caue90

Opportunity costs?

I would say it should be the one with best expected returns. But I guess Taleb thinks the possibility of a very bad black swan overrides everything else - or at least that's what I gathered from his recent crusade against GMOs.

1Capla
What? He's crusading against GMOs? Can you give me some references? I like his writing a lo, but I remember noting the snide way he dismissed doctors who "couldn't imagine" that there could be medicinal benefit to mother's milk, as if they were arrogant fools.
7Lumifer
Not quite, as most people are risk-averse and care about the width about the distribution of the expected returns, not only about its mean.

I would say it should be the one with best expected returns.

True, but not as easy to follow as Taleb's advice. In the extreme we could replace every piece of advice with "maximize your utility".

5Azathoth123
His point is that the upside is bounded much more than the downside.
Caue30

Are they really not communicating, though? They seem to be signalling to each other their willingness to cooperate in the prisoner's dilemma.

I'd be very surprised if judges and regulators failed to classify this as a cartel.

1EternalStargazer
If something as simple as this can be considered a cartel, then the entire free market system is a cartel. The whole point is that companies can only communicate with each other in this manner, and not directly, because that would be collusion. When I have time, I'll look up the specific legislation, though i suspect it varies by area.
Nornagest120

They're communicating in an information-theoretic sense, but probably not in a legal sense.

Caue30

Hello again...

I am this guy. For some reason one year ago I thought that translating the name "Less Wrong" into Portuguese would be enough differentiation, but I'm not comfortable with it anymore. It's a wonderful name, but it's not mine.

So I figured I'd just post under my actual (first) name.

I'm still in love with this place, by the way.