All of masha's Comments + Replies

In The Fun Theory Sequence Eliezer writes about the real life applications of this, eg.

Fun Theory is the field of knowledge that deals in questions such as "How much fun is there in the universe?", "Will we ever run out of fun?", "Are we having fun yet?" and "Could we be having more fun?"

and

If no one can imagine a Future where anyone would want to live, that may drain off motivation to work on the project.  The prospect of endless boredom is routinely fielded by conservatives as a knockdown argument agai

I presume the purpose of a utopia is to optimize the feelings of all those in it. This could be done in two main ways: (1) directly, by acting upon the emotional/sensory processing areas of the brain, or (2) indirectly, by altering the environment. This article seems to assume that (2) is the only way to create a utopia. I understand that some degree of effort would need to be spent on optimizing the environment, in order to allow for the practical aspects of (1) to be developed and continually improved, but this article focuses entirely on environmental o... (read more)

If we don’t get bored, we still don’t like the idea of joy without variety. And joyful experiences only seems good if they are real and meaningful

I don't understand what you mean about not liking the idea of joy without variety. Do you mean that people don't want to constantly feel joy, that they would rather feel a range of different emotions, including the unpleasant ones? This is not true for me personally.

Also, why do joyful experiences need to be real or meaningful? I think there is meaning in pleasure itself. Perhaps the m... (read more)

I agree with gfarb that the claimant does not necessarily believe in a belief; taking the parable literally, it is far more likely that the claimant suffers from a delusional disorder and actually genuinely believes that there is a dragon in his garage. As to why he anticipates that no one else will be able to detect the dragon, that would most likely be explained by his past experiences, where other people denied his experiences and failed to find evidence for them.

Truth is important because it is instrumental to all areas of life. By increasing our overall epistemic rationality, we will understand the world better, and so be able to act (or withold action) in ways that increase our quality of life. Without epistemic rationality, instrumental rationality may be incoherent and misdirected, seeking goals that are counterproductive to the agent's and/or common wellbeing. For example, a person might highly value outcome X, and practice instrumental rationality to achieve that outcome. However, if they had a better u... (read more)

I think its great that the apostrophes were left out. Apart from possessive apostrophes, which I think should be used, apostrophes are an extra effort (especially when texting) that add no extra meaning or clarification.

Hi everyone, I have recently started reading this site again after having had a break for a couple years.

What I like most about LessWrong (apart from the name), is that it contains so much good quality information about rationality, all in one place. And the posters maintain such a high standard of reasoning. One thing I would like to see more of on the site, though, is analyses of common human behaviour.

Also, it would be great to see some humour on here.

My model for this is that there are strong norms against optimization. Specifically we are supposed to be genuine, which is to say conduct ourselves in dating as we would normally conduct ourselves, such that the people we date get an accurate view of the "real" us.

From what I have seen of online dating profiles, this view is extremely rare amongst the general population, and even rare amongst members of the rationalist community. Anectodally, people tend to be even more dishonest in their dating profiles than they are irl. Most people don&ap... (read more)