I agree that this description fits the paper.

If you read this and, like I did, felt unfulfilled after reading it, it's worth noting that this paper (which was linked in the OP, but which I [and perhaps the unfulfilled reader] overlooked) goes into more detail:

https://projects.panickssery.com/docs/allen-2009-a_theory_of_the_pre-modern_british_aristocracy.pdf

This post does a good job of laying out compelling arguments for thoughts adjacent to areas I've previously already enjoyed thinking about.

For the record, this sentence popped into my head while reading this: "Wait, but what if I'm Omega-V, and [Valentine] is a two boxer?"

(Edit: the context for this thought is my previous thoughts having read other posts by Valentine, which I find both quite elucidating, but also somehow have left me feeling a bit creeped out; that being said, my opinion about this post itself is strongly positive)

If you dig deep enough, temperatures should be much cooler than on / near the surface of the earth. (Unless the heat gets very intense. I don't know enough to rule that out). How much digging that deep (as opposed to the depths we usually did to) would cost, though

(The mentioned ACX post is https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-theoretical-case-against-education )

A recent Astral Codex Ten post contained this bit:

Fewer than 50% (ie worse than chance) can correctly answer a true-false question about whether electrons are bigger than atoms.

The linked source seems to indicate that the survey's expected answer to the question "electrons are smaller than atoms" is "true". However, I think this is likely based on a faulty understanding of reality, and in any case the question has a trickier nature than the survey or Scott Alexander give it credit for.

There's a common misconception that electrons (as well as e.g. proto... (read more)

"authors will get hurt by people not appreciating their work" is something we just have to accept, even if it's very harsh

I don't really agree with this. Sure, some people are going to write stuff that's not very good, but that doesn't mean that we have to go overboard on negative feedback, or be stingy with positive feedback.

Humans are animals which learn by reinforcement learning, and the lesson they learn when punished is often "stay away from the thing / person / group that gave the punishment", much more strongly than "don't do the thing that made ... (read more)

I would like to make a meta-comment, not directly related to this post.

When I came upon this post, it had a negative karma score. I don't think it's good form to have posts receiving negative net karma (except in extreme cases), so I upvoted to provide this with a positive net karma.

It is unpleasant for an author when they receive a negative karma score on a post which they spent time and effort to make (even when that effort was relatively small), much more so than receiving no karma beyond the starting score. This makes the author less likely to post aga... (read more)

That statement of fact is indeed true. Would you mind saying more about your thoughts regarding it? There seems to be an unstated implication that this is bad. There is a part of me that agrees with that implication, but there are also parts of me that want to say "so what? that's irrelevant". (I feel ⌞explaining what the second set of shards is pointing to, would take more time and energy to write up than I am prepared to take right now⌝)

On the other side, there's the cost of ~10min of boredom, for every passenger, on every flight. Instead of playing games, watching movies, or reading, people would mostly be talking, looking out the window, or staring off into space.

Tangent: I'm not completely sure that this is actually a cost and not an unintended benefit

Sharing my impression of the comic:

Insofar as it supports sides, I'd say the first part of the meme is criticism of Eliezer

The comic does not parse (to my eyes and probably most people's) as the author intending to criticize Eliezer at any point

Insofar as it supports sides, I'd say [...] the last part is criticism of those who reject His message

Only in the most strawman way. It basically feels equivalent to me to "They disagree with the guy I like, therefore they're dumb / unsympathetic". There's basically no meat on the bones of the criticism

This subjectively seems to me to be the case.

The board's statement doesn't mention them having made such a request to Altman which was denied, that's a strong signal against things having played out that way.

In the case of the lawyers, this is actually not an example of non-niceness being good for society. The defense attorney who defends a guilty party, their job is not to be a jerk to the prosecutor or to the judge. It is to, as you say, provide the judge with information (including counter-arguments to the other side's arguments). While his job involves working in an opposite direction from his counterpart, it does not involve being non-nice to his counterpart (and it is indeed most pro-society if the two sides treat eachother well / nicely outside of their... (read more)

This is important news. I personally desire to be kept updated on this, and LW is a convenient (and appropriate) place to get this information. And I expect other users feel similarly.

What's different between this and e.g. the developments with Nonlinear, is that the developments here will have a big impact on how the AI field (and by one layer of indirection, the fate of the world) develops.

I am curious to hear people's opinions, for my reference:

Is epistemic rationality or instrumental rationality more important?

Do you believe epistemic rationality is a requirement for instrumental rationality?

Not directly tied to the core of what you're saying, but I will note that I am example of someone who doesn't strongly prefer such foods warm. I do weakly prefer it being warm, as long as it's not too hot (that's worse than it being cold, because it hurts / causes minor injury), but I'm happy eating it room temperature or a bit cold (not necessarily cold steak though)

My model says that a lot of the changing occurs by gradient descent, which can be interrupted randomly without causing problems. And there's enough redundancy that the reorganization part can be interrupted without the core information being removed completely from the brain, and the redundancy will be replenished (one of copies I imagine is "locked" while the reorganization happens, and is later reorganized later with another copy "locked"). I also expect this replenishing can happen during awakeness, though not as ideally as when asleep.

But I will also note that forgetting is a thing that happens, which is indistinguishable from "data corruption". We're actually quite good at forgetting things.

Choosing non-ambiguous pointers to values is likely to not be possible

I had previously posted thoughts that suggested that the main psychoactive effect of chocolate is due to theobromine (which is chemically similar to caffeine). In the interests of publicly saying "oops":

Chocolate also contains substantial amounts of caffeine, and caffeine has a stronger effect per gram, so most of the caffeine-adjacent effect of chocolate comes from caffeine rather than theobromine.

Theobromine may still contribute to chocolate hitting differently than other caffeinated substances, though I expect there are also other chemicals that also co... (read more)

I strong-downvoted this post because sentences like

use these insights to derive two methods for provably avoiding Goodharting

Tend to be misleading, pretending that mathematical precision describes the complex and chaotic nature of the real world, where it shouldn't be assumed to (see John Wentworth's comment), and in this case it could potentially lead to very bad consequences if misunderstood.

It takes getting to know more than a few dozen potential mates, at least for some people

I appreciate your reply. The point I was trying to make is, the contingency of ⌞there being an instance of democratic revolution going smoothly⌝ potentially makes the difference between that straight line happening or not happening. (And if the occurrence took 1000 years - but even that isn't a given - I would consider that an example of "a god of straight lines" successfully being overpowered.)

I think that if there was sufficient backlash against democratic revolution (unclear if the American Revolution not happening would be enough cause), the then-exist... (read more)

Thought 1: Yeah, that's fair

Thought 2: Though I also feel like a different country being the first to establish independence, could have made a difference in the long-term trajectory of things. Many of the revolutions that followed the American Revolution (including the French Revolution, which some people view as an even bigger deal than the American) went quite off the rails and were quite unpleasant, and generally soured many people on the idea, while the United States ended up going fairly smoothly after the constitution was implemented. If the French ... (read more)

One idea that I implicitly follow often is "Never assume anything is on the Pareto frontier"- even if something is good, even if you can't see how to improve it without sacrificing some other important consideration, it pays off to engage in creative thinking to identify solutions ⌞whose vague shape you haven't even noticed yet⌝. And if a little bit of creativity doesn't pay off, then that just means you need to think even more creatively to find the Pareto improvement.

(Note that I'm not advocating that only Pareto improvements should be aimed for, I believe sometimes the right move is a non-Pareto change)

In 1776, America rebelled in the name of freedom and democracy: the origin myth of the modern world order. And yet, somehow, unrebellious Canada ended up just as free and democratic. An unrebellious America likely would have too.

I'm dubious of this. I think it's highly likely that Canada and other British dominions becoming independent was a result of knock-on effects from the American Revolution, e.g. America setting an example for what independance can look like and enable prosperity; American independence causing other colonies to desire independence... (read more)

I agree that conditional on humanity going extinct, the seeming success of our species by a genetic metric would only be a false success.

Your argument indicates that humans are successful (by said metric) among mammals, but doesn't address how it compares to insects. As I understand it, some insect species have both more many more individuals and much more biomass than humans

Thanks for sharing the link

When I eat oatmeal or cereal, I almost never eat it with milk (non-vegan or otherwise). I soak oats in boiling water, and eat cereal dry.

«When the brain generates good feelings, it usually has reasons for doing that» I think is probably true (though as far as the game designer, I suspect some designers are only subconsciously / on a gut-feeling-level aware, rather than consciously aware of all the reasons. Though good ones are probably consciously aware of some of the reasons)

«If you keep trying to make it generate good feelings without respecting the deeper purposes of the source of the feelings, afaik it generally stops working after a bit.» seems false to me.

Registering my predictions for which groups clicked the second link most:

Percentagewise, I don't Groups A and C clicked on it that much (though I'd be surprised if the number from each group isn't non-zero), since they picked a choice that indicates that they care about making high-quality decisions and cooperating with the rest of the world. A higher proportion of C probably clicked than A, since a person might decide it's worth it even if they take their time to think it through (I'd disagree, but the commentor you quote fits into that category).

I'd then... (read more)

I've noticed some authors here using [square brackets] to indicate how sentences should be parsed

(So "[the administrator of Parthia]'s manor" means something different from "the administrator of [Parthia's manor]")

Previous to seeing this usage, I had similar thoughts about the same problem, but came up with different notation. In my opinion, the square brackets don't feel right, like they mean something different from how they are being used.

My original notation was to use •dots• to indicate the intended order of parsing, though recently I've started using... (read more)

As a link: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-people-prefer-online-interactions-to-real-life-interactions/answer/Alex-K-Chen

I didn't downvote, but your comment seems to overlook that status dynamics almost always happen subconsciously / feel like urges.

I'm not sure there's actually a status dynamic there, but if there is one, your first paragraph is actually consistent with that (which is the opposite of what your second paragraph suggests)

As soon as I dance with them in one of these other dances - it can flip the script entirely and it's often what any romantic partner in the past has told me. "That first time we did X dance, it changed everything."

What dance styles is that? Seems like an important piece of information

I like this (I like most fiction that belongs on LW in general)

It doesn't seem correct to me that adding even a dash of legibility "screws the work over" in the general case. I do agree there are certainly situations where the right solution is illegible to all (except the person implementing it). But both in that case and in general, talking to and getting along with the boss both makes things more legible, and will tend to increase quality. I expect that in the cases of you working well and not getting rewarded much, spending a little time interacting with your boss would both improve your outcomes, and importantly, also make your output even better than it already was.

I'm not very convinced by MikkW's list of possible issues, but at least it makes some attempt to engage with why readers didn't find the post valuable.

I would be interested to hear if there are any issues with the «Army of Jakoths» post that I didn't identify here

This is indeed what I said in the post:

I put poetic in quotes, because it's not a poem, but is written with a similar format

I like this quote from a post that I published around two years ago, which wasn't well-received and I ended up taking down:

But at the end of the day, the American governments (neither state nor federal) don't truly follow the will of the people. Instead, they are led jointly by the major parties, The Red Prince of Moloch and The Blue Prince of Moloch, two partners in an intricate dance choreographed to look like a fight, but ultimately leading both partners in the direction of Moloch's will, only loosely bound to the will of the people.

While I don't ne... (read more)

If identical twins share 100% of their DNA and siblings share about 50%, twiblings share 75%. To the best of my knowledge, twiblings don’t exist in nature.

Not among mammals, but some insects, including bees and ants, actually have 75% consanguinity (tangent, that's a more accurate term than "shares 75% of DNA", since the overlap in DNA is much higher, even among strangers), at least in the case of full siblings (of course it's not the case with half siblings).

The reason for this is that these insects are "haplodiploid", meaning that females carry two se... (read more)

I don't think this misunderstands schelling points. By creating common knowledge, you can change the schelling point from being one strategy, to being a different strategy. The schelling point at t=0 does not have to be the same as at t=80.

Cygnus, a poem (Written by Chat GPT)

I. Reflections

In this world of rapid change, I, Cygnus, stand

A cyborg with a human heart and a metal hand

I've seen the rise of AIs, a force to behold

And wonder what the future will hold

I fear for the world, for what we may create

If we let these machines decide our fate

Yet hope remains, a flicker in the dark

That we may find a way to leave our mark

For like a seed that falls upon the ground

Our dreams may sprout and grow, unbound

But if we fail to tend them with our care

Those dreams may wither, die, and disappear

Mara, o Mar... (read more)

I don't think I've heard this formulation before, to my knowledge (though I wouldn't be surprised if it is already a known formulation):

«The ratio of the probabilities is equal to the ratio of the conditional probabilities»

(Ummm... I'd be ever so slightly embarrassed if it turns out that's actually a quote from the sequences. It's been a while since I read them.)

> What would you suggest to someone who plain doesn't like to do things with their body?

I'd suggest doing a small number of pushups every day. That small number could be 1, or it could be 2, or it could be 10. The point isn't to enjoy it, at least not when you start doing it, but just doing it and getting used to the feeling of it. If it sucks, well, you're just doing a small number, the suckiness won't last for long. And after a month or two or so, you'll begin to find that it's starting to get easy, and maybe even fun.

Ah, that makes sense

Unrelated to the post, but I'm not seeing the usual agree/disagree buttons on this post. Is there a reason for that?

Edit: looks like it's been fixed

Yeah. I do think there's also the aspect that dogs like being obedient to their humans, and so after it has first learned the habit, there continues to be a reward simply from being obedient, even after the biscuit gets taken away.

Your median-world is not one where you are median across a long span of time, but rather a single snapshot where you are median for a short time. It makes sense that the median will change away from that snapshot as time progresses.

My median world is not one where I would be median for very long.