All of thelittledoctor's Comments + Replies

I'm fond of Perl as a first language, for a couple of reasons. Foremost among them is that Perl is fun and easy, so it serves as a gentle introduction to programming (and modules) that's easy to stick with long enough to catch the bug, and it's versatile in that it can be used for webapps or for automating system tasks or just for playing around. But I wouldn't recommend making it anybody's only language, because it IS a scripting language and consequently encourages a sort of sloppy wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am approach to coding. Start with it, learn the bas... (read more)

2DSimon
I remember Perl with fondness, but unfortunately it seems to be a dying language. The foretold Perl 6 (literally foretold, there were "exegeneses" and "apocalypses" and everything) has been at a standstill for many years, and the once-amazing CPAN has now been utterly demolished by the likes of GitHub and RubyGems. There's a lot to be said for languages that have active communities regularly supplying new and updated useful libraries. If you miss Perl, try Ruby; it actually was meant at the beginning to be a fairly Perl-like language, and it has many (IMO somewhat underused) features that assist with quick get-crap-done scripts, like the ARGF I/O handle that automatically and conveniently reads through STDIN and/or files specified on the command line.
0vi21maobk9vp
The problem with Perl as a first language (which maybe makes Python a better choice) is that it encourages sloppiness a bit too much. You can certainly resist; but in Python, Pascal, Scheme you can take arbitrary example program off the net and have a decent chance of reading and understanding it quickly. Reading code not written in your presence is an important skill, and developing it with Perl will take more time than with most other proposed first languages.

What a silly thought experiment. The fact that two people use one word to refer to two different things (which superficially appear similar) doesn't mean anything except that the language is imperfect.

Case in point: Uses of the word "love".

Okay. Thank you very much for your insight; I do appreciate it.

I... Was not even aware that such a game existed; I was referring to The Once And Future King. But clicking through the wiki a little bit has me fascinated by the tangle of mythological references.

Just call me le Chevalier mal Fet.

2[anonymous]
Do you get his Noble Phantasm? "Knight of Honor" is potentially one of the most powerful hougu in Fate/Zero.

You make an interesting point. To be sure I've understood: Behave in a more truth-seeking manner in general, because if I do so I will be a more truth-seeking person in the future from force of habit, and if I do not do so then I will be less of one? If the force of habit is really so potent in cases like this then it's a very convincing argument; I wouldn't want to give up the ability to be rational just to be a tiny bit better at manipulation.

6ninelier
Yup. I think "force of habit" undersells it, except to the extent you are a collection of habits. Plus trying to encourage truth-seeking as opposed to truth-labeling as a goal. That is, the phrase you like is "We often say, here, that that which can be destroyed by the truth should be" But you're not destroying her belief by the truth, you're destroying a belief and replacing it with the truth (ish). At least, as you describe yourself. Other stuff (that is, I think this is one of dozens of arguments for why this way of thinking is foolish: more interesting to me is the degree to which the sensible upvoted comments on this page - be nicer and more respectful - lack explication or mechanism).

Both twenty-one. But that is a less useful statistic than emotional maturity, which I think is what you're getting at, so I should note that there is a definite discrepancy in terms of how well we handle feelings - I have a great deal more emotional control than does she. So despite being the same age, there is a power imbalance in a sense similar to the one you're asking about. Of the two undescribed parties, one is older than me (22) and one is younger (19).

Actually, I don't quite have to pretend that the other parties are attempting manipulation in the ... (read more)

-1eightlier
No, the pretense is not that they're trying to manipulate you in the other direction, but that they're manipulating your manipulation. That is, Gwern was being tested on his fairness as a experimenter of fairness. You are being tested on your truth-seeking as an experimenter in truth-seeking. Of course, you are, just not by J. I had two reasons for asking about age (you're right on one). Your narrative sounded pretty juvenile even in its self-description. I was hoping that was true (for both your sakes). Here's another game for you to play: Your brain learns whereof you know not. What general rules is it learning as you interact with J? Someday, if you're luck enough, you can plan on being quite slow. The virtues you currently rely on (roughly: quick-witted) will have left you. You should be investing as quickly as you can in cultivating other personal virtues. Don't plan on the world changing enough that that can be avoided. I can't seem to avoid a patronizing attitude (bad sign for me, similarly: I'm out).

I look forward very much to seeing your sequence.

This is a very valid point, but I'm less interested in whether such a plan is practical than in whether, assuming feasibility, it is ethical.

Explicitly declaring "I am going to try to convert you" to any of these people would definitely eliminate or minimize all potential avenues of influence, and I do not think I am nearly subtle enough to work around that. Still, if I understand what you're saying correctly, it's more an issue of informed consent of study participants than of letting people decide whether they want their buttons pushed. Is that an accurate understanding of your perspective?

1eightlier
Not really, although it's a more careful reading than I expected. I think that would be a distinction without a difference. No, as with Gwern, I think the main issue here is you. What sort of person is Gwern training himself to be? Like Gwern, you act like you're conducting a study on someone, but it's really just two people talking. Pretend, for a moment, the other person is actually much smarter than you and conducting a test of the exact same principle you are testing. In Gwern's case, that leads to a much more interesting interpretation of the incident, since he's clearly horribly biased (the test really does have a result). In your case, you're not at all truth-seeking. I would advise you seek to truth in your relationship with J first (either by self-modification or greater honesty of the unmodified) Here's my frivolous question: How old are you and how old is J? (you can make it approximate if you think it would reveal personal info).

If it shows up in Elcenia, I do declare I shall explode from pure joy.

0[anonymous]
VOLTORB used Selfdestruct!

What's unreasonable about Chick tracts, I think, is that strangers can't really walk up and manipulate you like that unless you're already in an extremely emotionally vulnerable state. It's easier if there's an established relationship.

Unless J is much, much less intelligent than you, or you've spent a lot of time planning different scenarios, it seems like any one of J's answers might well require too much thought for a quick response. For example,

tld: Well, God was there, and now he's left that world behind. So it's a world without God - what changes, what would be different about the world if God weren't in it?

J: I can't imagine a world without God in it.

Lots of theists might answer this in a much more specific fashion. "Well, I suppose the world would cease to exist, woul... (read more)

Yes. Which is a very good reason for me not to trust my inclinations.

2Shmi
I certainly wouldn't be nearly as ethical in your place

Does LessWrong have an actual primer on the Dark Arts anywhere? There's a lot of discussion of Defense Against, but I haven't seen any Practice Of... Perhaps that's beyond the scope of what we really intend to teach here?

2David_Gerard
Discussion in the comments of this post, in which I perceived Luke as heartily recommending skinny-dipping in sewers for self-improvement purposes. "And then I swallowed this sample of engineered resistant mycobacterium tuberculosis, and I felt great! Not that you should do that or anything."
7Eugine_Nier
There are several started sequences, none of which got past their fist post.

Heavens, no. I want my friends to be atheists for purely selfish reasons. It so happens that some of those selfish reasons involve things like "I want my friends to know what's true", but most of them are reasons like "I want this awkward piece of the relationship gone" and "It's a shame none of you believe in casual premarital sex, because I could really go for an orgy right now" and "If I have to hear you talk about how wrong gay marriage is ONE MORE TIME I do declare I shall explode."

In other words, I really do not trust my personal desires as an ethical system, because in a vacuum I'm a pretty unmitigated asshole.

1Alicorn
I am stealing this clause.

I'm going to describe such a conversation (the first of what would, I think, be many) for a girl who I will call Jane, though that is not her name. Some background: Jane is a devout Catholic, an altar girl, a theology major, a performer of the singing-acting-dancing type, and one of the bubbliest people I know. She is also firmly against gay marriage, abortion, premarital sex, and consumption of alcohol or other drugs (though for some reason she has no problem with consumption of shellfish). You may have read the previous two sentences and thought "th... (read more)

Nisan130

Wow. You're, like, literally the Devil.

I mean that in a nonjudgmental way.

I didn't even go to Catholic school, but in the process of Confirmation I learned enough apologetics to deflect or reject or just willfully not understand most of these.

A Good Catholic will tell you that the universe could not exist without God, and/or that nothing good can exist without God, so if there were no God, there would either be no universe, or the universe would be hell.

It would sort of be like me trying to convince you quantum physics is wrong and starting out by saying, "Imagine a world without quantum physics." You have nothing wit... (read more)

I have two words for this: planning fallacy.

[anonymous]220

This.. reads to me like a Chick tract more than anything else. I just don't believe J will be that easy to manipulate.

-1sevenlier
Obvious solution: Give her all the comments from here (or point her to your post here), saying it's you (I checked that your past posting offers no other reason for avoiding this). If your influence/friendship/etc with her is not destroyed by the truth, you may carry on. Dumbest line in your post: "though for some reason she has no problem with consumption of shellfish" ---------------------------------------- Go back and read Gwen in his experiment. Older posts suggest bias (http://lesswrong.com/lw/bs0/knowledge_value_knowledge_quality_domain/6db0), even ignoring complete stupidity of actual result. Gwern's been here a while. Gwern expresses potential martyrdom for LessWrongian principles (http://lesswrong.com/lw/c5f/case_study_testing_confirmation_bias/6hw2) to approbation, but then is shocked by even the mildest of pushback (http://lesswrong.com/lw/c5f/case_study_testing_confirmation_bias/6i9i), and reasons like an idiot. The legalistic parsing of "quoting" also moderately disgusting. Serious question: If Gwern had access to personal info on you in a professional capacity (e.g., private e-mails as Sys Admin or some such), would you trust him not to misuse it? (as you would define "misuse", and he might not) TLD, here is my conclusion to your story. J, after reading this exchange: How could he think that about me? I would never think that way about him. This really hurts (tearing up). Is this really what people think about me? All truthful, moreso than you. Your interaction with J should be humble, perhaps with a bit of self discovery: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/05/what-use-far-truth.html In any event, as appropriate punishments, I call your behavior Gwernian.

Just out of curiosity, do you have the obvious ulterior motive here?

8Shmi
That's pretty good. Of course, there are a few places in this conversation where Jane might deviate from the script, but you know her and I don't. Were I devout enough, I'd say "It's a sin to even imagine the world without God" or "There is only one world, so no point imagining anything else", or "The Bible teaches us that ..." But maybe your gentle hand squeezes redirected the blood flow from her brain to other areas. Anyway, if you decide to go for it, I'm dying to know how it works out!

I caught myself doing more or less the same thing (but for substantially eviller reasons), which is why I asked LW in the first place.

In fact I have attempted such meta-discussion. Unfortunately it's very difficult to get a straight answer to questions like that; people will almost always CLAIM to care about the truth, but that's also what they would claim if they merely thought they cared and didn't reflect enough on it to know otherwise.

The possibility that I am incorrect about what would make them lose their belief is a very real one; I used to think that merely repeating the things that broke MY faith in God would work on everyone, and that was clearly wrong. Still, I'd give p>.33 for success, and thus expect it to work on at least one of the three people I'm writing about.

-1othercriteria
The following point is of interest primarily to the OP and is orthogonal to the OP's question. You should maybe spend some time looking at the foundation of your rationality, as this statement rings some alarm bells. Probability estimates should be numbers, not ranges, unless you're doing something nonstandard. I can understand saying something like "I don't want to commit to saying anything about the probability of event A beyond 0.25 < P(A) < 0.3 because I don't trust my brain's probability-assigning hardware/software". But your range is really wide, and includes probability 1! I don't think you believe that you are certain that you can convert people, so it looks like you are not clearly reporting your probability judgment. I'm addressing this in your comment, which I've ignored in a lot of other comments, because it looks like you're doing this towards a self-serving end. The conclusion you're reaching for is that you'll convert someone, so you claim a lower bound for your probability estimate that let's you assert this. (Incidentally, a conversion probability of 33% gives you a (1 - 0.33)^3 = 30% probability of converting none of the three people.)

You're absolutely right that my primary motivation is simply that I WANT to do it. But ethical reasoning is about what is right in spite of my preferences, is it not? So the question of truth-versus-negative-consequences remains an important one.

Your point about truth-seeking versus atheism as a religion is a very good one. I do generally think that converting atheists to truth-seekers is easier than converting Catholics to truth-seekers, but I had not considered the possibility that I might, rather than failing entirely (which is not unlikely), fail at th... (read more)

2TCB
Aha! I think I was misreading your post, then; I assumed you were presenting truth-seeking as a reason why you wanted your friends to be atheists, as well as a reason why converting them would be moral. Sorry for assuming you didn't know your own motivations!

Absolutely, contingent on being able to convince myself it's ethical to do so. Give me a moment to do some typing and I'll outline how I think one such conversation sequence would go.

6MinibearRex
I just caught myself rationalizing ways to prove that deconverting them would be the right thing, so that I could see the results of this experiment.

Not quite the advice I was hoping for, but thank you for your honesty.

Didn't see this! You're right, that is quite a bit too strong. Let me reduce the strength of that statement: Among theists to whom I have become close enough to ask deeply personal questions and expect truthful answers, such levers seem prevalent.

Even if it were just a matter of telling the truth, I don't think it would be ethically unambiguous. The more general question is whether the value of increasing some person's net-true-beliefs stat outweighs the corresponding decrease in that person's ability-to-fit-comfortably-in-theist-society stat. In other words I am questioning WHETHER they would be better off, not which conditional I should thereafter follow.

1thomblake
Yes, if all you care about is whether they would be better off, then it's merely an empirical question. Normally that's the end of the conversation for a philosopher, but I shall go on. Based on nothing, I'd say they'd be better off. They should just find a new atheist society. With blackjack and hookers.

The first question is a difficult one to answer - more specifically, a very difficult one to get a theist to answer genuinely rather than just as signalling.

I would approve of more-adept friends pushing analogous levers in my own head (emphasis 'friends' - I want them to be well-intentioned), but I am weird enough to make me wary of generalizing based on my own preferences.

I certainly don't mean to say that I have any kind of fully-general way to convert theists. I mean rather to say that as you get closer to individual people, you find out what particular levers they have to flip and buttons they have to push, and that with sufficient familiarity the sequence of just-the-right-things-to-say-and-do becomes clear. But if you would like an example of what I'd say to a specific person (currently there are three to whom I know what I would say), I can do that. Let me know.

5Shmi
Yes, this sounds very intriguing. So, you have a model of their thinking good enough to predict how such conversation would go? Would you be willing to describe it here and then try it IRL (if you deem it appropriate) and report what happened?

And here I always thought it was set to the Imperial March.

9Spurlock
It is. Chapter 30

"as I am no different from anyone else as far as rational thinking is concerned" is the part that bothers me about this. This approach makes sense to me in the context of clones or Tegmark duplicates or ideal reasoning agents, sure, but in the context of actual other human beings? Not a chance. And I think the results of Hoftstadter's experiments proved that trusting other humans in this sense wouldn't work.

evgenit120

I keep thinking that this is one of the big reasons identity and group politics are so prevalent. It helps answer the question "is this person sufficiently like me?".

No; instead I will cut a deal with Clipmega for two million paperclips in exchange for eir revealing the said information only to me, and exploit that knowledge for economic gain of, presumably, ~1e24 paperclips. 1e24 is a lot, even of paperclips. 1e6, by contrast, is not.

You wouldn't likely be able to just dissolve anhydrous caffeine powder in water and keep yourself blinded; it's incredibly bitter (second only, in my experience, to tongkat ali / eurycoma longifolia root powder).

0bogdanb
You just need a similarly bitter placebo. Make (sugar+caffeine) and (sugar+quinine)* such that you can’t tell the difference and ask a friend put to them in two bottles labeled with “A” and “B”. (*: Quinine is probably a bad choice for a placebo, since it has its own effects that might confuse the results. It’s just the first thing that came to mind that’s bitter.)

I think that this may be true about the average person's supposed caring for most others, but that there are in many cases one or more individuals for whom a person genuinely cares. Mothers caring for their children seems like the obvious example.

Well, if his trick for deactivating other wizards' patronuses (patronii?) works, he basically has an unblockable army of instant-death assassins, the only defense against which would be Apparition... That's a pretty good ultimate weapon in a Mutually Assured Destruction sense. And as long as we're discussing mutually assured destruction, there seems little doubt that Harry would be able to transfigure nuclear weaponry. Or botulinum toxin (of which it would take an appallingly small amount to kill every human on Earth). Etc, etc. Harry does not lack for access to Ultimate Weapons.

He does have the ability to turn the world into a lake of fire, true. All powerful wizards have this ability and it is implied that every magical power in the world would turn against him if he tried anything that foolish. He has a giant hammer which he dare not use, if only because he's not evil. Also, he is still amazingly vulnerable to almost any adult wizard who wishes him ill - powerful weaponry doesn't imply a powerful defense. He might have been able to assassinate every member of the Wizengamot, but I doubt he would have survived the attempt. ... (read more)

2CronoDAS
A lethal dose of botulinum toxin is indeed tiny; using it as an Ultimate Weapon, though, requires a delivery system.

It seems irrelevant whether the AI is quote-unquote "highly intelligent" as long as it's clever enough to take over a country and kill several million people.

Assuming, from the title, that you're looking for argument by counterexample...

The obvious reply would be to invoke Godwin's Law - there's a quote in Mein Kampf along the lines of "I am convinced that by fighting off the Jews, I am doing the work of our creator...". Comments like this pretty reliably generate a response something like "Hitler was a diseased mind/insane/evil!" to which you may reply "Yeah, but he was pretty sharp, too." However, this has the downside of invoking Nazis, which in a certain kind of person may prov... (read more)

0Eugine_Nier
Hitler also had a lot of false beliefs about Jews.

Maybe they are just more optimistic about it than to be rotting six feet under.

My feelings exactly.

I had a hidden ugh-field about that one. It took quite a few repetitions of the Litany of Gendlin to grok it.

I confess I rather enjoyed the part where Snape's head exploded. There's a certain window of "So bad it's good" in there, before you get to the "So bad it's horrible". As I said in another comment, it's not bad at the start.

Other than "cheroybbq snzvyvrf znvagnva gurve jrnygu guebhtu neovgenel zbabcbyvrf tenagrq ol gur Jvmratnzbg"?

I never, in Canon, got quite such an impression of Eerie Alien Geometries from the castle as I do in MoR. Thankfully Event Horizon hadn't come out in 1991, or I'd wager a lot of Muggleborns would be very uncomfortable in the upper floors.

Yes, Dumbledore's icy glare at the end seems to imply that he figured it out.

Anubhav210

Or just that he's pissed with Harry for putting himself in Malfoy's debt.

Or for painting a giant bulls-eye on himself.

The icy glare could really mean anything.

I actually found it fairly enjoyable as well for the first few chapters. I didn't realize how much I hated it until I came to Qhzoyrqber'f guvegrragu Ubepehk.

Of course, the mere existence of that spoiler may make you want to read more just to find out how on earth such a thing could happen.

2Joshua Hobbes
Good prediction.

The difference is primarily one of quality. Time Braid is excellent, provided one is willing to accept the rewritten cosmology, while Chunin Exam Day is pretty much universally considered to be refuse.

0Joshua Hobbes
I'm still not sure what specifically is wrong with PKH. The first chapter looks interesting so far...

Something I just noticed on a second read-through - the reuse of the word "riddle" in context here seems like a reminder to Lucius of who he thinks Harry really is, and this is not the first time it's come up when Harry is exposed to Dementors. Perhaps this lends credence to the theory that riddle is the "strange word" he learned when first exposed?

Voldemort used the word to tease as Quirrell and as the cloak and hat. He probably did it in the last war, too. Lucius may think that Voldemort is teasing him just like he used it, when Harry says it.

It's not a strange word, though. That's probably so we know the spell being cast was not AK.

2Joshua Hobbes
Never read that either. Is it like Time Braid?

If he picked the right lottery he'd only need to do that once, period. There are many lotteries paying out well over two million pounds... But I suspect Locke is right on this count.

2wedrifid
By a couple of orders of magnitude (highest in the UK was 150m or so pounds, US has gone up to $390M).

This.

But gaze not overlong into that particular abyss.

Edit: In retrospect, TvTropes itself is probably the bigger abyss of the two. So don't gaze overlong into that one either.

0Daniel_Molloy
Oh dear, I cannot stop gazing. It's actually quite a fun read so far, although it seems more like a sloppy first draft than a polished novel. I guess that's to be expected given the lack of editors in fanfic - I've clearly been spoiled by HPMOR and Luminosity.
4FAWS
Could you summarize to spare us from gazing into that abyss?
2Eliezer Yudkowsky
Wow, I'd totally forgotten where I got that from. But in this particular case, it's deserved, considering that a certain idea I first encountered in PKH is an element of HPMOR. (You probably don't want to read through PKH trying to figure it out. No, seriously, it's figureable from the main text and PKH isn't going to help much.)
2Alsadius
Ye gods.
0Joshua Hobbes
What's wrong with the story?
1Percent_Carbon
His father may make him want what is best for him, what his father thinks is best for him, that is. So maybe he won't want to go back, after all.

Why on earth did this not immediately occur to me? This is usually my first thought in time-travel stories. Clearly my dislike of Lucius is clouding my judgement.

I think my favorite part of this update comes not from the chapter, but from the Author's Notes:

"If you write sufficiently good fanfiction, you can realize your romantic dreams!"

(Although "Make him go away" is either tied for the position or a close second.)

Alsadius140

I have a suspicion that the average fanfic-created relationship is not caused by anything best described as "good".

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