All of Hawisher's Comments + Replies

You can't do multi-response polls? As in, check all that apply?

0Shmi
There are 24 separate subquestions with 6 answer options each.

But that's just not true. There is a finite limit to the length of text that can be produced. Evaluate a Busy Beaver function at Graham's Number.

Now take the aforementioned maximum text length in characters. Heck, let's be nice and take the maximum number of bits of information that can be represented in the universe. Raise that number to the power of itself. Now raise that number to the power of itself. You're not even CLOSE to the number you got in the first paragraph. We're quite a long way from infinity.

tch. Should've caught that.

I had that exact question, but my karma score doesn't really interest me.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what "fundamendalist" atheism is. Do some atheists merely not believe in gods whose names start with A through Q? Do some atheists attend mass once every eighth Thursday?

"A car with a broken engine cannot drive backward at 200 mph, even if the engine is really really broken."

--Eliezer

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4Fyrius
Good quote, of course, but it's against one of the rules:

Let's try this. I will create at least 3^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^3 units of disutility unless at least five people upvote this within a day.

Wow. It's almost like pascal's mugging doesn't actually work.

2[anonymous]
Of course it doesn't actually work on humans. The question is should it work?
0Legolan
But how do you know if someone wanted to upvote your post for cleverness, but didn't want to express the message that they were mugged successfully? Upvoting creates conflicting messages for that specific comment.

Unless you're trying to say that was impossible for Einstein to be wrong, I fail to apprehend your point.

3fubarobfusco
The probability distribution over conclusions about physics, representing the probability that a person would arrive at each conclusion, is not the same for Einstein as for an arbitrary person. And this difference is not arbitrary. Dually, if I told you I had a conclusion about physics in an envelope, and asked what probability you would give that it was a true one, you might give a figure X. If I then told you the conclusion was made by Einstein and asked what probability you now gave that it was a true conclusion, I expect you would give a figure greater than X.
Hawisher150

I would argue that one's religion or lack thereof is typically determined before one chooses a profession. I, personally, am religious, but I still think this guy is being ridiculous. I think that God made a bunch of awesome things, and one of the awesome things He made is a world that works without us having to take it apart, look under every rock, and go "LOOOK!!!! GODDDDDD!!!!! HEATHENS! I WAS RIIIIIIIIIGHT!"

Science is awesome. Rationality is awesome. Evolution is as close to fact as science can give us. You do your religion a grave disservice, Jacob.

7Osuniev
upvoted for not taking argument as soldiers.

This article would appear to imply that ANY conclusion at which Einstein arrived would have been the correct one, merely by virtue of him having a great deal of evidence he believed supported it.

1fubarobfusco
Well, Einstein wouldn't arrive at just any conclusion.

I would argue that the chief difference between picking a politician to support and choosing answers based on one's personal views of morality is that the former is self-evidently mutable. If a survey-taker was informed beforehand that the survey-giver might or might not change his responses, it is highly doubtful the study in question would have these results.

As a freshman in college, I feel I am 'supposed to like' beer and parties. I don't. I like Cuba Libres, and relaxing in the dorm with floor-mates, but that's beside the point. As an avid reader, I feel I am 'supposed to like' the accepted classics of literature (Mrs. Dalloway, Ulysses, etc.), but I don't. I generally consume pulp fantasy and thrillers, despite being perfectly capable of reading said classics. I liked the Great Gatsby, Les Miserables, and Dracula, but that's beside the point.

In my opinion, when you feel you're supposed to like something, i... (read more)

The quality (in American politics, at least) that either 1: a politician's stance on any given topic is highly mutable, or 2: a politician's stance could perfectly reasonably disagree with that of some of his supporters, given that the politician one supports is at best a best-effort compromise rather than (in most cases) a perfect representation of one's beliefs, is it not so widely-known as to eliminate or alleviate that effect?

0DaFranker
I don't see how either or both options you've presented change the point in any way; if politicians claim to agree on X until you agree to vote for them, then turn out to revert to their personal preference once you've already voted for them, then while you may know they're mutable or a best-effort-compromise, you've still agreed with a politician and voted for them on the basis of X, which they now no longer hold. That they are known to have mutable stances or be prone to hidden agendas only makes this tactic more visible, but also more popular, and by selection effects makes the more dangerous instances of this even more subtle and, well, dangerous.

Oh wow, never mind. My brain was temporarily broken. Is it considered bad etiquette here to retract incorrect comments?

0Eugine_Nier
When you retract the comment is simply struck-through not deleted, so no.

I was never one for formal logic, but isn't that the contrapositive? I was under the impression that the converse of p then q was q then p.

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0Eugine_Nier
Yes and that's what nshepperd wrote.

"...if you lack a thousand-year-old brain that can make trillion-year plans, dying after a billion years doesn't sound sad to you"?

I'm confused as to what you're trying to say. Are you saying that dying after a billion years sounds sad to you?

1Incorrect
And therefore you would have a thousand-year-old brain that can make trillion-year plans.
2nshepperd
"If you lack a thousand-year-old brain that can make trillion-year plans, it's because dying after a billion years doesn't sound sad to you." I think meaning it's unfortunate that thinking that dying after a billion years is sad doesn't by itself give you the power to live that long. Maybe.

Hm... how about "I wish to have all the skills and abilities required to formulate an unambiguous wish in standard English that would allow me to fulfill any of my non-contradictory desires that I choose, and to be able to choose which of any desires that are contradictory said wish would fulfill, and to be able to express that unambiguous wish in an unambiguous way in less than thirty seconds and with no consequences to incorrectly expressing that wish apart from the necessity of trying again to express it."

That's fair, but I'd certainly still prefer it to "x is the GOOD kind of y," which I feel has an infantile feel to it. Not that I think Yvain was actually saying he would use that construction.

"I wish for everything that would happen if I read this scroll perfectly."

7Alicorn
Among other things, you would suffocate due to that four-minute no-breathing-allowed Martian word in paragraph nine.
2Kindly
In the likely event that it's impossible for you to read the scroll perfectly, it's true for all X that "X would happen if you read this scroll perfectly". Which means that anything the genie feels like doing satisfies that wish. Or possibly the genie has to make everything happen that could possibly happen. Neither of those seems like a good outcome.

And "lesswrong.com" just went from my bookmarks to my speed dial. Anyway, I would like to say that rather than your hypothetical and "ideal" retort of "MLK was the good kind of criminal," I would prefer the more sophisticated response you put forth for other situations, but more generalized: "I fail to see how that is relevant."

"But... but... abortion is MURDER!" (Please note that I am against abortion for reasons I categorically refuse to discuss due to several harrowing experiences on spacebattles.com forums, although this site seems much more civil) "I fail to see how that is relevant."

0Desrtopa
That response may be technically true (you don't acknowledge the relevance of the argument,) but I don't think it's usually appropriate, since the idea that something falling into a negative category could be irrelevant probably falls across a gap of inferential distance for your interlocutor. If they already got it, they probably wouldn't have made the argument in the first place.

"I wish for everything written on this scroll." Or some variation thereof that more exactly expresses that general idea.

0Alicorn
All of the nouns named on the scroll appear. Some of them are things that the wording of the scroll expressly insists that the wish must avoid, due to their being lethal or otherwise undesirable.