All of mwacksen's Comments + Replies

I understand that - with some caveats - a waluigi->luigi transition may have low probability in natural language text. However, there's no reason to think this has to be the case for RLHF text.

especially if Ukraine disperses their population.

Something that sounds simple - "dispersing" your population - really comes with a huge cost. You can't just send your population into the fields and expect them to live there.

And trucks can still drive off-road.

For which they require gasoline.

With NATO supply lines, Ukraine can afford to lose a million trucks a month to mud

I don't think this is accurate, Nato doesn't just have a million trucks a month lying around somewhere to send.

If the people aren't in cities, what is Russia going to target?

Me: Do you agree reviewers aim to only accept valid papers, and care more about validity than interestingness?

I've reviewed papers. I didn't spend copious amounts of time checking the proofs. Some/most reviewers may claim to only accept "valid papers" (whatever that means), but the way the system is set up peer review serves mainly as a filter to filter out blatantly bad papers. Sure, people try to catch the obviously invalid papers. And sure, many researches really try to find mistakes. But at the end of the day, you can always get your results publish... (read more)

I previously did an analysis of the tactical utility of nuclear weapons and came to the conclusion that they aren't as cost-effective as precision weapons.

We still live in a world where all use of nuclear weapons is strategic.

What if the Ukrainians take the nuclear threat seriously and disperse their civilian population?

So what? the point of Russia using nukes is to signal that it will do whatever it takes to defeat Ukraine. The tactical effects are beside the point. It's hard to predict what will happen exactly, but if a nuke gets used anywhere, th... (read more)

Yes, I agree, and my argument was an oversimplification. That said, I don't think you're properly considering its context. The context here is that if Ukraine were to be in a situation where it had no chance of winning the war (e.g. due to nuclear weapons being in play). Here is what I'm replying to:

As for Ukrainians there are reasons to believe they're much more willing to die than Japanese in 1945. Anecdotes first. I asked a Ukrainian yesterday what should Ukraine do if nuked. She said obviously keep fighting.

Many of your examples (1-3, arguably 4) a... (read more)

You just have to twist my words and make such an offensive response, don't you? To restate - the siege of Mariupol didn't stop Ukraine from defending Ukraine.

I don't see what's offensive, and I'm not twisting your words but pointing out something that's almost obvious: IF you have no chance of winning THEN you should stop fighting. This was true in Mariupol, and is true for the rest of Ukraine also. The siege of Mariupol absolutely stopped Ukraine from defending Mariupol. The important question is whether the IF applies. But once it does, throwing away ... (read more)

As I said in the comment above the perfect endgame is Putin no longer in power.

Not it isn't, because there are alternatives that are worse than Putin. I hope there are alternatives to Putin that are both realistic and also better, but I haven't seen much evidence for this coming out of Russia.

As for Ukrainians there are reasons to believe they're much more willing to die than Japanese in 1945

Are you familiar with Japan pre 1945 at all? You have heard of kamikaze pilots at the very least, right? I will quote the Wikipedia article on them: "The tradit... (read more)

I agree, though sanctions are always sold as being strategic even when they are moral.

The fact that Putin has not used nukes yet is to his credit, but I do think that there is a marked shift in his demeanor from how would sound in speeches before to now. Make of that what you will.

Then yeah, sure. Everybody would laugh themselves to death.

It's not that simple. Nobody in the West is even in principle open to Crimea becoming Russian (and for good reason). So this wouldn't be as ridiculous as you make it sound, especially given Putin's rhetoric over the years and how salty he is about Kosovo.

But that's the whole point. A dragged out war steadily destroys Russian firepower and manpower.

That's one way of seeing it, but neither Russian firepower nor manpower should be thought of as a fixed finite resource. If Russia's current strat... (read more)

The goal of sanctions is not to incentivize regime change. The goal is to make it a bit more difficult for him to wage the war.

A nice story, but I don't buy it. How exactly does banning Russian flights to Europe, or banning Russian tourists, or banning Russian bank accounts with more than €100k from transacting make it a bit more difficult for him to wage the war? Or confiscating/stealing the wealth of oligarchs? If Putin "doesn't care that much" about sanctions, isn't it pretty stupid that the West is shooting themselves in the foot, and the developin... (read more)

I did refer to people who identify as either Ukrainian or Russian and not as Crimean Tartar when I said non-Crimean Tartar. So non-'Crimean Tartar'.

Aaah got it. My bad.

the main underlying "promise" that such an experiment holds,

I'm sorry for the (very late) side remark but an "underlying promise" is an oxymoron of sorts - if nothing was explicitly promised, nothing was promised :)

I don't see better options. What would you suggest?

The situation is pretty difficult,

a) Providing clear, unambiguous and automatic mechanisms for repealing Western sanctions that are also realistic (i.e. not "we drop sanctions once you get out of Crimea"). While I also like Bryan Caplan's suggestion to offer asylum + military compensation to defecting Russian soldiers, I recognize that this is politically not feasible.

Sanctions that are not directed at the military antagonize the Russian population. Somewhat counterintuitively, they can even lead ordin... (read more)

Bandera was in prison when the atrocities in 1943 took place but not when those in 1941 took place.

First of all, thanks for catching this, I was mistaken. That said, it seems somewhat more complex, according to this link "Bandera was in occupied Poland when on June 30, 1941, his comrades proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state in Nazi-occupied Lviv — and the Germans banned him from traveling to Ukraine."

This doesn't, of course, vindicate him in any way - he was head of an organisation that performed atrocities and worked with Nazi Germany. But it also... (read more)

It seems somewhat more complex, according to this link "Bandera was in occupied Poland when on June 30, 1941, his comrades proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state in Nazi-occupied Lviv — and the Germans banned him from traveling to Ukraine."

Anecdotally speaking, about two months ago a friend of mine tested this with several tests, and while she was consistently positive with nasal tests, she was only sometimes positive even when she swabbed her throat as much as she could.

Bear in mind that foreign authoritarian presidents are generally not considered reliable sources of information

I don't think the "foreign authoritarian" qualifier is necessary here...

But so far only one side has rape as part of its doctrine.

If you think Russian official military doctrine includes rape, then (and I'm trying to put this as politely as possible) you are deluded.

Only one side is engaged in wide spread plundering etc

Probably true, but I do wish we'd actually know how much plundering is going on relative to how many soldiers are there.

That seems like an important distinction.

I saw some pretty nasty psychological warfare-type stuff the Ukranians were doing that the Russian's weren't. Like sending pictures of their ... (read more)

For some reason public discourse in the Western countries gravitates towards either "let's stop helping Ukraine" with weak justifications like "will of the Crimean people" and "Ukrainians aren't saints too" or going all in up to directly fighting Russian army on the ground.

Yes, this is a good point.

I think policy of helping Ukraine but not engaging Russian army directly (basically just sticking to what's already being done) is superior to either extreme.

Wait what? I mean yes, obviously this is superior to batshit crazy options like sending troops to... (read more)

In the Nüremberg trials, we decided that one aspect of our global democratic culture is that those who engaged in the Holocaust and mass murdered Jews and other groups were war criminals even if their excuse was that they followed orders.

While I agree with the conclusion, I really do vehemently object to the framing. Who is "we", and what on earth is "global democratic culture"?

Attempts to rewrite history and glorify fascists go both against our general Western consensus

I mean these are two separate things, and depending on who you ask rewriting his... (read more)

Nobody here seems to have offered an unreserved defence of SMTM, so let me do it:

• SMTM told the author of this post they advised against it, they still did it, and were happy with the result.

• The author says "I don't think that SMTM has done enough to show that it was safe". But I notice that I am confused, because it is not the job of SMTM to make this study 'safe', whatever that means. The world is not "safe", and everyone is an adult, and adults should use their own judgement when following random internet advice. If someone regrets unreservedly fol

Correlation is not causation. If the "best" data is garbage, it's still garbage. We should not update our priors based on garbage data.

My prior for this is that the population-level differences are probably almost entirely centered around care-homes, and questions related to care-homes (or, more generally, very old people). Since my knowledge on comparisons between care-homes in scandinavian countries is close to zero, I cannot really provide any insight here. But something as banal as "did people who are sick stop going to work in care-homes" will probably bias the results far more than population density.

Edit: regarding population density: I don't think there's no effect, I just don't k... (read more)

Not exactly a fair description of what the public health measures have been. What country has been in lockdown for "a year or two" (besides China)?

Is there an end in sight? What country hasn't had covid-related public health measures - especially on entry and exit of the country - for the last year? It may not have been a full lockdown (whatever that means) for most of the time, but public health measures have certainly been in place.

Population density is entirely the wrong metric to look at here. You could fudge the denmark "population density" count by just including Greenland, and including the empty swathes of land in the nordic countries has the same effect.

Funnily enough, I have yet to read a single not-completely-ridiculous cost-benefit analysis that goes this way. We must live in different bubbles.

An average vaccinated 30yo now loses about 6 weeks of expected life from contracting COVID instead of 2 weeks, because of waning vaccine efficacy.

The counterfactual here is "you never get covid", so I'd take this number with a large grain of salt. If, on the other hand, the counterfactual is "you get covid a few years later", then the loss of expected life does not occur. Additionally, if you do get covid, you're (probably) super immune for a while, which presumably increases your quality of life.

It's the terminology you use to signal that you believe the vaccine is safe and effective™ and therefore cannot be fully "evaded".

I'm from Germany but haven't bought any of the rapid tests myself, so I don't have any first-hand experience with the situation. From what I understand, you can use these tests to test yourself, but they aren't considered accurate enough to fulfill a condition of having to get a validated test for the bureaucracies.

I spent some time in Germany recently, and this is (or at least "was", when I was there) wrong. The tests themselves are considered accurate enough, but the bureacracies usually don't trust you to do it (or do it correctly). In some German st... (read more)

though Delta is a bigger risk than Alpha, ignoring effects of vaccination

I keep seeing claims like this get thrown around, but I feel like the evidence isn't really there. Could you comment on why you think this?

Sorry for the late reply. I'm assuming you need to be "infected" in order to infect someone else (define "infected" so that this is true). Since being infected is a neccessary precondition to infecting someone else,

P(you infect someone else) <= P(you are infected),

and it's clear you can replace "<=" by "<".

This is basic probaility theory, I can't follow your notation but suspect that you are using some different definition of "infected" and/or confusing probabilities with expected values..

Sorry for the (very) late reply, but I do not understand this comment and suspect maybe my point didn't come accross clearly, cf. also my other reply to the comment below this one.

Apologies for the really late reply, but I don't think "marginal risk" in this context is well-defined. The marginal risk to yourself grows linearly in the number of people to first order. You could feel responsible for the marginal risk to all the other party goers, but they are people with their own agency, you aren't (in my opinion) responsible for managing their risk.

On the other hand, the other problem is that even if the person is accepting the risk for themselves, I'm not sure they're processing the risk that somebody else gets seriously ill or dies.

Well maybe, but are you thinking of the fact that (trivially) P(you infect someone else) < P(you are infected)?

Say you meet in a group of $n$ people that all care about each other. Then, by your reasoning, each of the $n$ people is responsible for $n^2$ risk, so in fact (by double counting once more as in the original post), the total risk is $n^3$. If however, we share the responsibility equally each person is responsible for $n$ risk which is intuitive. So this quadratic growth assumption is a bit questionable, I'd like to see it done more formally because my intuition says it is not complete nonsense, but it's obviously not the whole truth.

I feel like this is almost too ob... (read more)

Then I have misunderstood Everett's proof of the Born rule. Because the tensor product structure seems absolutely crucial for this, as you just can't get mixed states without a tensor product structure.

Well yeah sure. But continuity is a much easier pill to swallow than "continuity only when you aren't looking".

We don't lose unitarity just by choosing a different basis to represent the mixed states in the tensor-product space.

I think my question isn't really well-defined. I guess it's more along the lines of "is there some 'natural seeming' reasoning procedure that gets me QM ".

And it's even less well-defined as I have no clear understanding of what QM is, as all my attempts to learn it eventually run into problems where something just doesn't make sense - not because I can't follow the math, but because I can't follow the interpretation.

If we accept that mutually exclusive states are represented by orthogonal vectors, and we want to distinguish mutually exclusive states of

Yes, I know all of this, I'm a mathematician, just not one researching QM. The arxiv link looks interesting, but I have no time to read it right now. The question isn't "why are eigenvectors of Hermitian operators interesting", it is "why would we expect a system doing something as reasonable as evolving via the Schrödinger equation to do something as unreasonable as to suddenly collapse to one of its eigenfunctions".

Ok, but OP of the post above starts with "Suppose we have a system S with eigenfunctions {φi}", so I don't see why (or how) they should depend on the observer. I'm not claiming these are just arbitrary functions. The point is that requiring the the time-evolution on pure states of the form $\psi \otimes {\phi }_i$ to map to pure states of the same kind is arbitrary choice that distinguishes the eigenfunctions. Why can't we chose any other orthonormal basis at this point, say some ONB $(w_i{)}_i$, and require that $w_i\otimes \psi \mapsto E_S{w}_i\otimes {\psi }_i$, where ${\psi }_i$ is defined so that this makes sense and is uni... (read more)

Isn't the whole point of the Everett interpretation that there is no decoherence? We have a Hilbert space for the system, and a Hilbert space for the observer, and a unitary evolution on the tensor product space of the system. With these postulates (and a few more), we can start with a pure state and end up with some mixed tensor in the product space, which we then interpret as being "multiple observers", right? I mean this is how I read your paper.

We are surely not on the same page regarding decoherence, as I know almost nothing about it :)

The arxiv-link looks interesting, I should have a look at it.

Right, but (before reading your post) I had assumed that the eigenvectors somehow "popped out" of the Everett interpretation. But it seems like they are built in from the start. Which is fine, it's just deeply weird. So it's kind of hard to say whether the Everett interpretation is more elegant. I mean in the Copenhagen interpretation, you say "measuring can only yield eigenvectors" and the Everett interpretation, you say "measuring can only yield eigenvectors and all measurements are done so the whole thing is still unitary". But in the end even the Evere... (read more)

I'm very confused by the mathematical setup. Probably it's because I'm a mathematician and not a physicist, so I don't see things that would be clear for a physicists. My knowledge of quantum mechanics is very very basic, but nonzero. Here's how I rewrote the setup part of your paper as I was going along, I hope I got everything right.

You have a system $S$ which is some (seperable, complex, etc..) Hilbert space. You also have an observer system O (which is also a Hilbert space). Elements of various Hilbert spaces are called "states". Then you have the joint... (read more)

Thanks for the comments!

I agree with all of these points. In fact, with respect to (4) it is even plausible that some "once infected" people never go on to develop the kind of antibodies that are being tested for. Point (3) is why I control for age/sex, but of course there are a number of further complexities.

These further complexities, along with (1) and (2) are currently "un-modelable complexities" for me. There are just so many selection effects in play that it isn't clear if you gain anything from trying to take them into account. Given that there are ... (read more)