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All of Nighzmarquls's Comments + Replies

Against the Linear Utility Hypothesis and the Leverage Penalty
Nighzmarquls10

While reading your article I had trouble continuing to take your perspective in good faith after I got to this point:

"For instance, suppose you're given a choice between the following two options: 1: Humanity grows into a vast civilization of 10^100 people living long and happy lives, or 2: a 10% chance that humanity grows into a vast civilization of 10^102 people living long and happy lives, and a 90% chance of going extinct right now. I think almost everyone would pick option 1, and would think it crazy to take a reckless gamble like option 2. ... (read more)

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5AlexMennen
The Linear Utility Hypothesis does imply that there is no extra penalty (on top of the usual linear relationship between population and utility) for the population being zero, and it seems to me that it is common for people to assume the Linear Utility Hypothesis unmodified by such a zero-population penalty. Furthermore, a zero-population penalty seems poorly motivated to me, and still does not change the answer that Linear Utility Hypothesis + zero-population penalty would suggest in the thought experiment that you quoted, since you can just talk about populations large enough to dwarf the zero-population penalty. Refuting a weak argument for a hypothesis is not a good way to refute the hypothesis, but that's not what I'm doing; I'm refuting weak consequences of the Linear Utility Hypothesis, and "X implies Y, but not Y" is a perfectly legitimate form of argument for "not X".
The Importance of Sidekicks
Nighzmarquls40

In table top gaming terms you just described a good GM. I find it very interesting that there would be such a particular overlap.

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What if "status" IS a terminal value for most people?
Nighzmarquls00

I refused to use anything but capital letters in my hand writing until I took calculus because I saw no functional difference between A and a as far as writing was concerned and A was easier to write.

In hind sight that seems like it would be evidence of low status valueing.

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Absent Transhumanism and Transformative Technologies, Which Utopia is Left?
Nighzmarquls00

1. Take apart the earth, use it to build a fleet of smaller habitats that make use of the materials to generate maximum sustainable habitat space.

2. Distribute these habitats into combinations of nature preserve biomes, agricultural systems and urban centers.

3. All habitats should be given sufficient technological infrastructure to power all their life support with some extra. All habitats should have internet capabilities and backup stores of all human knowledge.

4. Redistribute the population of earth into their preferred habitat with the kinds of people ... (read more)

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What are you working on? June 2012
Nighzmarquls40

Deeprise

I'm authoring/managing this collaborative fiction project.

The format I'm using for this project is one that is ultimately yoked to reader input. So I feel it would be valuable if a few rationalists inclined and entertained by the content contributed some input of their own.

The ultimate goal of this piece is to be an exemplar of the world and creatures I constructed, which I intend to make available as a complete visual/cultural element available for free creative commons use by anyone who has need of beings to fill various roles in the drama.

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This post is for sacrificing my credibility!
Nighzmarquls20

Compensating over duplicitous behavior in models can tend to clog up simulations and lead to processing halting.

I generally would take all statements as reflective of exactly what some one means if at all possible.

Its also great fun to short circuit sarcasm in a similar way.

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