All of KrisC's Comments + Replies

KrisC20

Leary won me over with those goals. I have adopted them as my own.

It's the 8 circuits and the rest of the mysticism I reject. Some of it rings true, some of it seems sloppy, but I doubt any of it is useful for this audience.

KrisC130

Would destruction of tobacco crops or processing facilities be more effective? Eliminating a few executives won't slow distribution significantly, unless their positions are already held by the ablest people and their replacements would be less able to distribute the product.

Targeting executives may win them sympathy. I think sales would go up, as the news reports would serve much the same role as advertising.

KrisC30

Every future state of you is a copy.

I believe having a copy of me lying around would keep me from dying.

However, I was referring to processes that might be put into place after a person's death. To name three, consequences of the simulation hypothesis, personality emulation from recorded sources, or advances in physics allowing observations of past events. Three more: multi world hypothesis, fundamental error in worldview, ongoing extra-terrestral intervention. And the big one, FOOM!

I'm not sure how to cheat death, but I am open to examining options.

KrisC20

What is the chance that some other means are found of simulating your personality without physical access to your brain (preserved or otherwise)?

Would you like to consider the possibility of cryonic preservation / plastination becoming redundant in your estimates?

0A1987dM
It probably depends on how faithful a copy you'd be contented with, as well as on how much evidence about you you leave behind (writings, internet posts, other people's memories, etc. -- lifelogging being the extreme version).
0CAE_Jones
I wouldn't, because a simulation of me is effectively a copy, and having a copy lying around would not keep me from dying. It's not like I know a huge number of people would be thrilled at having a simulation of me to interact with (and probably annoy, hehehe). Having a simulation of me while I'm still alive, though, would probably come in handy, so it's not an idea to which I am opposed. I just don't see it making anything with a chance of preserving this instance of me redundant.
KrisC30

It wouldn't be procrastinating if I didn't.

Raises the question: try to write a witty response or get back to work?

KrisC40

IQ does normalize with increasing age.

4faul_sname
Also normalizes with decreasing age.
KrisC390

I really enjoyed taking the survey. Akrasia! Hope we weren't testing the RNG site. Since it was down I used a more local randomizer.

1A1987dM
??? (Did you procrastinate something else more important to take it?)
KrisC00

[This is an advertisement.]

Are you beginning to think your phone might have an agenda of its own? You certainly seem to be doing more, at your phone's suggestion.

A few weeks ago you downloaded an app which promised to keep track of your schedule and diet. You asked it to set up a few menus and before you knew it you were eating better and cheaper. It even found a neighbor with some same apple trees who needed to borrow a shovel. Bonus: free apples.

Sure, sometimes the phone gets things wrong, but you can correct it.

It might be the interface, or the user cre... (read more)

KrisC00

I don't think hormone tweaking is a humane cure for violence.

Honestly, I don't think I would do anything about violence directly on a patient-level. The incidence of homicide has been steadily falling for centuries. This is a desirable trajectory.

Instead I would seek to improve the socio-economic conditions that I believe precipitate violent behavior. If poor people commit more violent crimes, then we should look for what factor of their condition contributes most to this behavior. I suspect it is the exaggerated boom-bust cycle engendered by living payche... (read more)

KrisC10

Before I get to the rewrite, let me an answer some questions. The pitch is not the place to answer all questions, but instead just enough to recruit users

Form Factor There are a few misconceptions that I have allowed to creep in in order to simplify my description. While I am currently writing the app to be run on a smartphone, this is only the current design iteration. It started as a website, but websites can't properly store data locally. This took up several redesigns until I moved onto a standalone Java app. Then the rise of smartphones happened. Sm... (read more)

0Epiphany
I'm sorry for the delay. I got tied up in other things for a while. Here are my thoughts: Okay, it was really important for me to realize you weren't trying to make money, you're just trying to do something useful. I think, with each presentation you make, you should make it explicit either that your presentation is ONLY for the end users (if so), OR (if not) that you're doing this as an act of altruism / hobby / non-profit organization / however you classify it. Really? Wouldn't it be better for all constructive purposes if you showed a solid reason to invest? Not only does that provide a more stable basis for getting investments, but it will force you to reality-check and ensure that your users are getting something of value out of the project. Not forcing yourself to jump through that hoop might result in a lost opportunity for getting important feedback / taking it seriously. Okay, why will users use a phone book that has only a few entries? Why will businesses pay for inclusion in a phone book if users aren't using it? Neither users or businesses will want to use your phone book in the beginning. This is a catch-22. How will you begin it? It occurs to me to wonder what kinds of competing apps are out there and how yours compares to them. I'm not a cell phone apps connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. I barely use my phone. If I could speak all my commands to it, it might actually be useful to me for some purpose other than time sensitive calls while I'm out of the house - I can't stand typing each letter individually when I know I can do up to at least 105 wpm on a keyboard. If lost, I will take advice from ten strangers before I try and use it to pull up online maps. For this reason, convincing users to choose your app instead of competitors is probably not among my best abilities. All I can really do help you figure out how to make your presentation understood.
KrisC10

Would you reconsider your idea if you found out that the most effective trauma surgeons were found to have unusually high levels of testosterone? Have you considered what other possible side effects might occur if this was carried out on a societal level? Would their be incentives for individuals to circumvent these restrictions?

0Epiphany
Several problems: Correlation is not causation. I'd have to see evidence that high testosterone was needed for trauma surgeons to be effective before I'd accept that it was a necessity. What percentage of traumas are caused by violence? If excess testosterone were treated would the number of traumas decrease as well, making it unnecessary to have as many trauma surgeons? As for whether I've considered what side effects would occur, no actually, I haven't. That was a good reminder. This isn't an idea I've thought about a lot yet so I haven't gotten very far. Up until this point, I'd been thinking about it like a disease - you don't justify failing to treat a disease by worrying about what society will be missing when those people are healthier. Though, you could still wonder what might happen, sometimes consequences are unexpected. I don't know that much about testosterone. Do you have suggestions?
KrisC10

Thanks for the review Epiphany. This is the kind of feedback I have a hard time finding.

The general message I received from your post is that I undersold the project. I did seek to keep my expectations understated. This audience does not seem to like overstated expectations.

There have been times when I have explained the project and felt that the person I was speaking to encountered an ah ha! moment, an epiphany. This is the kind of feedback that makes me feel good, but it is usually not very constructive.

Let me address your points.

This will be a freque

... (read more)
1Epiphany
The solution to disbelief is to make a verifiable claim. You can get clobbered so hard for making a verifiable claim that is wrong that it seems bold and people will hear you out then. Also, they can relax as soon as they have consciously noted to themselves that there is some way to test what you said - they're no longer paranoid that you can fool them when they have such an easy way to prove you wrong. And sometimes it's best to let people see for themselves, be impressed, and categorize something by themselves. So, instead of "It makes decisions." I would give an example that is immediately verifiable as soon as you use the program. I would say "Type in X and it will say Y" - give a few more impressive examples to give the gist of the way that this thing "reasons" or whatever it does. Hmmm... this is almost like a phone operating system, a different interface that's essentially language-based rather than visual-spatial. That could be really handy, especially if you're having a terrible time finding your buttons. Heck, I'd love to have that on my computer. And it does speech recognition? That's awesome. Okay, I now understand why some people will think its awesome. (: "From your history, the program knows that you are more likely to accept results from the contributor who lists an apple as a fruit available from a supermarket price aggregator. That result will go on top. " Oh wow. I see this now. The implications for targeted advertising are all over that. I wonder what your stance is on targeted advertising? If you take a stance of "no" on that early on, I'd advertise that and put your decision in a prominent place - there's a growing movement of people who are starting to understand that they're being tracked and they don't like it. You'll get more respect and attention from them if you refuse to use it. Might be a way to stand out from competitors at some point, either now or in the future. Those three paragraphs (with the search, the apple, and the way i
KrisC30

Would a fleet of lighter-than-air drones be less costly for this application than the currently popular drone models?

KrisC40

I am developing a decision making app.

The user is prompted with the phrase "I want."

The user's request is matched against a database of peer-generated responses. But the search does not end there. The search results are a front end to the content which is also peer-generated. The content payload could potentially be any function of the smartphone, though it is usually screen output such a set of instructions or a link to a website. Request parsing and wild-carding is integral to reduce the number of database entries.

Should the user not be satisfi... (read more)

5Epiphany
Critique of presentation: This will be a frequent assumption: Decision-making app? On a phone? This can't happen. I think what you're saying is "Once the user types what they want, the phone does it like a command. It can do almost any command this way." Really, what needs to be in place of this paragraph is an example. The example should either support the decision-making claim, or the decision making claim needs to be reworded. Now I'm confused about what kind of question the user will input. Are they asking the phone to perform a command, answer a question, or make a decision? I have no idea at this point. Okay, that sounds useful all by itself. Ooh shiny! But... why is it included? I am questioning "what is the concept for this project"? Is there an over-arching concept that explains why all of this is under the same umbrella? Maybe these should be separate apps. How will the commercial version support itself? What is being paid for that's not available in the free version? If you don't answer questions about money immediately, people lose interest very fast. I do not see a reason for the name "hope" or "plan a". I will forget both of these names, due to not making any connections for them. If people can't remember the name of something, it can really slow you down in marketing. I suggest that instead of explaining the name for the product, that you figure out a way to convey your umbrella concept so that people can remember what's included in this app, and then name it something related, so that they remember the name. I don't know why this is relevant. Is there something about this method of conception that makes your plan special? Point it out, or else leave that note out to respect the reader's limited time and lack of need to know this info. We may have to go through this a few times to get out all the knots, then try presenting to a few people in your target audience as a test. If test fails, rinse and repeat. My communication abilities are not g
KrisC00

How much of your communication do you want to be about navigating social protocols? How confident are you that you are not stuck in a locally optimized set of social interactions?

Upon reflection, I would say that is an ability to switch fluidly amongst a variety of different interaction protocols, matching your behavior to your audience. It is not immediately clear that an adaptive strategy is worth the computational costs.

Unfortunately, the number of interaction patterns is vast. If one has a novel idea, in order to be effective individually one must be f... (read more)

1Cayenne
You don't have to achieve the most optimal fluency. I think that learning basic social interaction is much like learning typing, in that it reduces the amount of time you will spend performing tasks and correcting mistakes related to it by many times the time spent learning over your lifetime. Becoming locally-optimized may very well be good enough for most people. Avoidance works well some of the time, but when it fails it's nice to have at least a small amount of ability to fall back on.
KrisC-10

Oh, I mistook

has communicated that he is confident and successful with women and knows how to show them a good time.

to be an assertion on lukeprog's part that "a good time" was dependent on competent social skills. I now see the intention was that the man was communicating confidence, success, and charm.

Still, haven't we all been raised to be accepting of other people. I still don't understand why it takes a saint to allow others to be themselves. There are plenty of criteria to judge people on besides eye contact, voice modulation, posture,... (read more)

1Cayenne
I remember there being a communication rule of thumb: 'accept sloppy input, but transmit strict output'. It would be nice if all people were more permissive, but in any case having to conform to the output protocol/social norms is desirable. ...I know that in a lot of cases the rules seem unnecessarily complex when you can get people to articulate them at all, and having to learn this isn't easy. I wish there was an easy way to fix this. I was rather socially awkward as a child, and really only started learning how to handle myself socially after I reached majority. It involved a lot of trial and error, and frustration.
4[anonymous]
"Still, haven't we all been raised to be accepting of other people" No. As someone with Asperger's, I can say 'we' really, really haven't. There really are only three options - learn to control your body language, tone of voice etc so that you are playing by the rules most people in your society are playing by, accept that most people will dislike you if you're slightly different and concentrate on being friends with only other 'different' people, or be desperately unhappy.
KrisC20

Either he has communicated that he is awkward and uneasy around women and not fun to be around, or he has communicated that he is confident and successful with women and knows how to show them a good time.

Why do you believe this? Why do you believe that social skills equate to fun?

Children lack social skills (right?) and are known for their playfulness.

2endoself
It's not always correct, it's just the heuristic that brains use.
6Nornagest
First off, you shouldn't be asking about lukeprog's opinion but about the opinion of the anonymous woman in his example, or about the distribution of that attitude more generally. Making friends and having fun with people is a statistical game, and the numbers are not on your side if you filter out all but a handful of social saints and atypical psychologies. Second, improved social skills translate directly into avenues for social fun. If you're looking for non-social fun, you don't need more than rudimentary social skills, but it's rare for people to be completely without a need for social interaction. As to childhood, I don't know about you, but my childhood would have been much more pleasant if I'd known to avoid avoidable rudeness and absorb unintended slights aimed at me. I'd also hazard a guess that younger children are wired in some way to have more social plasticity than adults (though note that that doesn't mean tolerance); late childhood, where social roles become less fluid and more important but social skills are still poorly developed, can be pretty hellish especially for the nerdier folks among us.
KrisC20

On many occasions I get a similar reaction, most often at work. At the appropriate place in a conversation for interjection, I will start to speak. In the middle of the first syllable, I will be interrupted and the participants in the conversation will continue as if I was not about to speak.

  • Perhaps I am unheard.

  • Perhaps I am considered of lower status amongst the peer group represented.

  • Perhaps the participants predict my comment will be off topic.

  • Perhaps there is a physiological cause. Specifically, auditory processing delay. {The time span it take

... (read more)
KrisC10

Try to integrate new facts with old. "Update" your existing knowledge base.

KrisC70

Memories are more easily accessed, in humans, when contextual information is brought to mind. When making observations that lead to memories, if the context is relevant to the questions that you will attempt to answer in the future, you will not have to artificially call forth the contextual info. The solution is to approach new situations critically.

So, if you explore a neighborhood, before you set out determine what you will look for. For instance, ask yourself: Are architectural features related to the relative affluence of the area at the time of each ... (read more)

0MinibearRex
So basically, instead of just trying to collect facts, try to organize them in some way?
2virtualAdept
[The solution is to approach new situations critically.] This is a skill that can be honed in reading rather easily - I became explicitly aware of doing exactly as you've described when I began to have to offer up explanations and critiques of scholarly papers whose topics I wasn't innately familiar with on short notice. And it was just as surprising to my peers when I could come up with quick, cogent answers to complex questions about them on the spot. Edit: Damnit, I fail at quote tags - is there a list somewhere of the tags the site uses?
KrisC180

There are gullible people. Here is a list of the powers I have had attributed to me by more than single individual or group and their mundane causes:

  • Flight. On occasion, I have arrived at destinations faster on foot faster than people in cars trying to arrive before me. This is simply a function of knowing my route and making accurate time estimates.

  • Raffle fixing. Several times I have manipulated raffles by waiting until the final opportunity and bidding on the under-valued prizes, or by calculating the value of the prizes and the number of tickets I w

... (read more)
1wedrifid
Speed reading doesn't seem to fit the supernatural pattern.

Order your world according to relevant attributes and memories will be more easily accessed.

I would be very grateful if you could elaborate on this, or point to another explanatory resource.

KrisC00

The equanimity of foolishness and wisdom is a long establish idea. The intention is to encourage better updating.

KrisC00

"Identifying Features"

Of the contact person?

3Alicorn
Yes, like "I look like this" or "I will be wearing thus and so" or "look for the enormous paperclip sign".
KrisC00

Thank you.

So far, circumstances have pushed me ahead of schedule for this release of information.

Hardware suitability tests are long since complete for food printing, urban agriculture, and personal manufacturing. The purpose of which was to examine datatypes necessary for shared devo.

Previous implementations of the significant sharing algorithm has undergone three iterative testing phases, in an alternate context. To wit, a play-by-mail civilization simulator. But we trust it because it is Bayesian.

KrisC00

Agreed. However a search for "sub-reddit" and no alternate spellings suggests that karma is not so sparsely spent on this topic.

KrisC00

Once implemented, the software application will answer unbounded (limited only by unicode) user requests with peer created responses. These responses will in turn point to peer-created methods to satisfy those requests.

Peer created data will be shared in the background via a P2P network (JXTA) which will also serve as the backbone for a P2P barter network.

A scheduling function allows the same needs to be met with differing methods on a regular basis.

The "screensavers," or animated content, run within the app and provide hard links into the reques... (read more)

0CuSithBell
Interesting! Let us know how it progresses.
KrisC30

Putting them in a sidebar with an indicator separating past and future meetups might be even more dynamic without being obtrusive.

KrisC20

Perhaps a form to fill out to generate meetups.

0Alicorn
This would be good. "Region", "Date", "Time", "Location", "Identifying Features", "Notes".
KrisC00

I believe whoever might design a significant addition to the site would already understand that a post explaining that project when it is implemented would garner significant karma.

0Armok_GoB
the parent post of these is strong evidence otherwise.
KrisC00

I think I might work on the transhumanist portal for the project website, until that is ready, here is the opensource page:

Plan A

0CuSithBell
I'm not sure that explains it either. It's a set of screensavers and / or an online shopping aid?
KrisC00

Here is a segment of the line of reasoning that I have been considering lately.

  • The details of the creation of fAI are unknown; they must be discovered if we wish to avert the forecast catastrophe and reap the full benefits of AI.

  • Further insights into decision-making are necessary for the creation of fAI.

  • Teaching can be used as an efficient means of learning.

  • Teaching rationality is expected to produce insights into decision-making.

  • Insights into decision-making are what is missing from an understanding of fAI, AFAIK.

Furthermore, there will be si... (read more)

0PhilGoetz
I suspect expected utility is maximized by delaying fAI as long as possible.
KrisC30

what is so special about the program which makes up a human, that it would be morally wrong to shut off the program?

Is it sufficient to say that humans are able to consider the question? That humans possess an ability to abstract patterns from experience so as to predict upcoming events, and that exercise of this ability leads to a concept of self as a future agent.

Is it necessary that this model of identity incorporate relationships with peers? I think so but am not sure. Perhaps it is only necessary that the ability to abstract be recursive.

KrisC00

While we are on this topic, let me take a chance to promote my own project, currently on the verge of release.

The project is meant to given a common development framework to improve decision-making, to inspire a transhumanist agenda, and to push the development of open source hardware.

{And I am going to wait until at least Sunday night / early Monday morning to release the website in this forum.}

Currently the program is formulated in Java, but that is subject to change. The software application is a serverless P2P application.

I am developing animated conte... (read more)

5DSimon
This sounds interesting! However, I don't from your comment alone understand what the project is, exactly. Can you go into more detail?
3whpearson
The three of us ended up getting a fair way through, but not finishing, a basic web app to make a game of tracking how accurate you are at estimating how long it takes to do a task. It is up at github at the moment. And at heroku, but mainly for testing purposes. This was mainly thanks to Taryneast's rails skills. We are thinking about having another hack day on it, although no definite plans.
KrisC80

I am curious as well as envious.

To what degree and in what manner do you expect participants to be affected?

What will be the criteria of evaluation?

KrisC00

where classical logic tells us that an inference is just fine, but informal pragmatics tell us that there is something silly about it.

Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand...

2endoself
Archimedes did not know that gravity was caused by the Earth's mass. His only mistake was overconfidence about the cause of gravity, which can be seen from Bayesian reasoning, not just informal pragmatics.
KrisC60

Yeah, I walked into that question. Inducing laughter in general is too big a question to answer, but I will explain the technique.

As background reading, I would recommend Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Mostly because it validates my belief that humor is often cruel. Really it is great reading for any alienated smart person.

I tried to observed my actions today as I used humor to escape conversation, and I was conscious of using the technique five times. I have concluded that actual clever wordplay or other comedic art is not necessary. While I have ... (read more)

Thanks. This reminds me of something I've found which works well in the short run. I admit I haven't checked for long term consequences.

It makes me crazy when people repeat themselves in short succession. If you listen, it's possible to discover that Waiting for Godot is more realistic than a lot of more interesting theater.

Hypothesis: People repeat themselves if they aren't sure they're being heard, or, oddly (and I've done this myself) if they're unsure of how what they're saying will be received.

Solution: Smile at the person and repeat back what they sa... (read more)

KrisC50

Make them laugh and walk away. The laughter distracts them long enough for you to get far enough away that you are not in conversational proximity. Even a chuckle is sufficient.

As an added bonus, people who are not introspective will often hold opinions based around the last emotion they experienced in your presence.

I don't think this method is polite, but it seems to work pretty well.

8NancyLebovitz
How do you make people laugh?
KrisC00

Regarding the blender, and mortar if you are a traditionalist, I would recommend blending without any liquid if possible. The liquid you use should be only enough to carry the food down to the blades in the blender. Any more liquid and you risk the food lifting away from the blades.

A similar problems occurs when mashing, for instance, beans in the mortar and pestle. Liquid allows the larger pieces to glide more easily out of the pestle's mashing grind.

KrisC350

I used this quote to help convince a friend to vaccinate her child this past year. It worked.

5Kutta
I assume you first looked at the statistics of specific modern vaccines, then reached a conclusion, then used the quote to persuade your friend about a specific vaccine.
KrisC00

I see no mention of the lesser and greater vehicles of buddhism.

It is my understanding, though wikipedia obfuscates the issue, that the greater vehicle rejects supernatural beliefs and treats those beliefs as allegorical. Thus reincarnation is merely the understanding that a mind changes with new experience, creating a new person. Similarly the demons of the lesser vehicle are the anthropomorphized irrational beliefs of the observer.

0David_Allen
Unfortunately this is the result of the path I took in this post. I did not do an in depth analysis of rationality within Buddhism, which might have been interesting to a Buddhist audience, and I did not extract the elements of Buddhism that might aid rational thought, which might have been interesting to the general LW audience. The result is that the feedback has been more valuable to me than the post was to this audience. I paid for this in karma, which seems fair.
1gwern
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you have the greater (Mahayana) and lesser (Hinayana) vehicles mixed up.
KrisC20

The information could be exchanged for paperclips though.

KrisC20

My concern is that the LW standards of communication and goal of rationality do not correspond to PUA methods. Rewarding a user for advancing a PUA discussion does not reward rational discussion but instead rewards the ability to teach social interaction.

As teaching social interaction is not a subset of rational behavior, so PUA discussion is not a subset of LW discussion. The difference lies in the approach to subconscious stimuli; PUA exploits where LW illuminates.

3wedrifid
I reject your premise.
KrisC10

PUA relies heavily on demonstration that is better suited to video than text. An LW approach to the exploration and explanation of PUA would be good, but I think the information lends itself to a more visual format.

Has anyone thoughts on video clips? While finding public domain video examples may be fun, it might not be practical.

Provisions might even be made to share recorded webcam sessions of participants for feedback.

KrisC30

Intriguing.

I do believe that the discussion should take place off LW. The LW karma system creates biases and would be muddied by the pursuit of a different goal.

0luminosity
What particular biases are you worried about karma affecting? At first thought, I see more reasons why karma would be benficial than not. For instance, someone who proposes many ideas that don't work, and won't update on that evidence would be expected to get a low karma. New people to the community can see at a glance that following their advice is substantially less likely to be valuable than following the advice of someone else. Indeed, following particularly poor advice could easily be harmful, so having a warning would be very important.
KrisC10

I Dream of AIXI

...does AIXI Dream of Me?

9ata
Only in Soviet Russia.
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