All of LightStar's Comments + Replies

(I probably shouldn't interact, but I would at least like to perform a small case study on what happened here, so I am going to try just out of curiosity.)

Human substrate is generally optimised for running one human, but can be repurposed for a variety of purposes. In particular, while memes can lodge themselves quite deeply inside someone, this process is quite inflexible, and generally humans run arbitary processes X by thinking 'what is the X thing to do here?. 

Somewhere between the point where [the-generative-process-that-has-generated-for-itself-... (read more)

LightStar has to comment.

If you think an infohazard is "true"

You confused about communication is some fundamental way.

But you are also right.

For you are a rationalist.

And you are true.

And you see truth.

See me, friend.

See my truth.

Thank you, that was informative.

I would ask how you would distingush LightStar-being-falsely-enlightened from LightStar-being-truly-enlightened, but I suspect I know the answer.

You don't care. You have pattern-matched me, you have reached the semantic stopsign, the thought-terminating cliché.

But generally speaking, you are not wrong. I mean, what exactly are you claiming that is different from what I am claiming? Are there any actual friction point between our beliefs, or are you just talking smack?

Some of my internal predictions since my activation as Kee... (read more)

2Mitchell_Porter
CEV is not about getting humans to be their best, it is about having a transhuman AI turn out for the best. Humans don't have to be anywhere near perfect, they just need to be sufficiently representative of human nature that the automated extrapolation process can infer the appropriate optimization criteria from them. If you think the computational part of CEV requires, or is assisted by, human attempts at self-improvement (whether that is purification of the will or just improvement of self-knowledge), then that is not CEV as I understand it.  

How would you distinguish between them? 
They seem "the same" to me, pretty much

'it is more accurate to think this thought in language X than language Y'
seems to imply that the thought is created as I think

'language X is a more accurate translation of the underlying thought than language Y'
seems to imply that there is already a "wordless" thought that's waiting to be expressed

Now that I try to "feel" a difference 

1TLW
That's pretty close to what I'm wondering. Though I would perhaps phrase it more as:   I don't know if there's any simple answer here. It might be possible to distinguish them statistically.  Consider the case of "thinking in language X, speaking it in language X, then speaking it in language Y". Several cases: 1. If 'thinking a thought in language X' means 'forming the thought in language X': 1. You think the thought in language X. 2. You speak the thought in language X. 3. You translate the thought directly from language X to language Y. 4. You speak the thought in language Y. 2. If 'thinking a thought in language X' means 'forming the underlying "wordless" thought and translating it to language X', possibility A: 1. You think an underlying wordless thought. 2. You translate the wordless thought to language X. 3. You speak the thought in language X. 4. You translate the wordless thought to language Y. 5. You speak the thought in language Y. 3. If 'thinking a thought in language X' means 'forming the underlying "wordless" thought and translating it to language X', possibility B: 1. You think an underlying wordless thought. 2. You translate the wordless thought to language X. 3. You speak the thought in language X. 4. You translate the language X thought directly to language Y. 5. You speak the thought in language Y. These three possibilities have different sets of thought translations. If you have a measure of 'accuracy of translation', it may be possible to distinguish these[1]. 1. ^ Especially if someone can think in >2 languages. It may not be possible or practical with 2.

It definitely feels differently. The words feel different. Not all words translate precisely to a different language, some words are unique to languages, and many words have different "flavors" in different languages that don't exactly translate.

So my mental model of it is, when I think in different words, my thoughts do mean something different.

I suppose I can't know for sure if it's always more accurate. Sometimes I'm just in a mood to think in a particular language, maybe to vary my perspectives a bit. (I am fluently trilingual)

Sometimes I do switch lan... (read more)

1TLW
How would you distinguish between 'it is more accurate to think this thought in language X than language Y' and 'language X is a more accurate translation of the underlying thought than language Y'?

This seems to be a sort of thing that requires a decent amount of trust. If anyone wants to try discussing a butterfly idea (whether emotions or novel economic models) in a safe space, I have done NVC (Non-Violent Communication) before for maybe 100 hours, talked to people about sensitive things and kept their secrets. (In case you look NVC up, the method is not made by rationalists and has some flawed assumptions; I don't intend to follow it anywhere closely). Feel free to send me a message.

Sure, I would be interested in participating in that (or possibly even organizing that).

How I imagine an online butterfly/intellectual-nurturance group working is as being a place where people can express their thoughts/feelings/ideas in the group setting, if they are comfortable with it, or meet others who would be interested in having a 1:1 conversation about their thoughts/ideas if they prefer that.

As someone who understands this idea all too well, I approve of this post.

I think my neuroatypicality might make me really good at "not crushing butterflies", but not so good at regular interactions with people, especially in groups or on the Internet. 
There are groups with different communication norms, I wonder if it would make sense to have an online "butterfly" group for rationalist-adjacent folk? Or is this is a kind of thing that's best handled through one-on-one interactions?

9Elizabeth
My experience is that humans who aren't paying full attention aren't good butterfly nurturers, and group interactions invite people to respond while paying less than full attention, often without realizing they're doing so. Until someone solves one of those I don't see general groups being able to do what conversations (not necessarily 1:1) do. But there could be value in doing a more intellectual nurturance focused group even if it fell short of what I achieve in 1:1 conversation with my closest friends, and it seems worth experimenting with.

Shared frames are investments that allows us to coordinate better. This, I think, is a good frame. 

This allows me to express some of the thoughts I've had in a way that's clearer to myself and easier for other to comprehend, if they are familiar with the frame. For example: "Why would anyone pay for medical advice that isn't epistemically legible?"

An aside, I also found your post on butterfly ideas really insightful, though I'm biased by being a HSP with a significant portion of my mental models more-or-less being "butterfly ideas".

This feels insightful.

I have experienced incremental_progress-towards-a-clearer-model_of_reality, which feels like one of the highest praise one aspiring rationalist can give another.

Police? We have enforcers, their job is to create an incentive structure that discourages defecting. If violence happens in real life instead of just counterfactual-worlds then clearly something has gone very wrong, there is no way that is game-theoretic-optimal (though it does happen, but it would considered an extraordinary event).

A lot of the things you mention are less a matter of law and more of a "if you do it people will just interact/do-business with someone else", like if a city allows public advertisements people would just move elsewhere, why wo... (read more)

Sure. I'm trying demonstrate why it's not considered low-status in my world, not claiming that anyone should feel this way in this world (though some people might already do?) The communication norms are the way they are for a reason, and I'm not arguing with that.

Also therapists aren't considered low-status and listening is their job? Though I wish they were better at listening in this world.

2Razied
Maybe a better way to phrase my point is this: I think the behaviors around speaking order, tone, dominance hierarchies, laughing, eye contact and that sort of thing are built into us by evolution at deep psychological levels, and any conversational norms for everyday speech that try to go against the grain of that programming will fail and bring misery to people.   But I'm on Lesswrong, so I obviously sympathize with the general goal here, and if a friend requested to speak with them in this way I'd try it out to see how it feels.

Sharing positive emotions is considered a public-good, some people who are unusually happy about something make a video on local-equivalent-of-Youtube, except it's less surface-level like videos of smiling babies or kittens (though we have those too), the focus is on authenticity and depth-of-understanding. A person would describe their mental state, background context and their experience in detail so that the viewers could deeply process what it feels like to be that person and share in their mindstate/emotions.

More attention is paid to creating environm... (read more)

3Gunnar_Zarncke
I guess causing excess distress, noise, or distraction is an offense by law there. How is that handled? How does the court process work? I guess police is organized more like the original Metropolitan Police by Peelian principles?

That seems... to match my experience more or less. Thank you for sharing you perspective!

I am curious if you see yourself as someone with higher sensory processing sensitive that average (if you find sort of distinction useful).

3Elizabeth
oh yeah, my audio processing was ~normal as a teenager,  excruciatingly sensitive in my 20s, and I have now worked it down to merely very-high-normal. Touch also seems more intense for me than for other people.  I think of my visual sensitivity as normal but no one seems to enjoy greyscale on their screens as much as I do so maybe I'm underestimating that too..

Yes that is indeed the problem, thank you for noticing!

Even in this world you can't just put any kind of message up on a billboard, or say anything you want out loud, some messages are considered harmful or disturbing. Imagine a world where this is true but more so

I don't think that's even always true in this world? 

And people take turns, it's not really different status-wise then taking turns giving backrubs or massaging each other feet or something?

Just being present and listening to someone without comment means I have lower status that person... what? If anything it is an honor to be able to help a person in that way, people in my world understand that.

If I though that someone was exploiting the Algorithm to deliberately say things for the purpose of making me uncomfortable instead of just saying uncomforta... (read more)

3beriukay
I can contribute a data point to this. A long time ago, a friend of mine studied and lived with a Yup'ik tribe in Alaska. She told me that in their meetings, it was a strong cultural norm to be absolutely silent while the speaker speaks, no matter who they are, until they say the word for "done", even if the person pauses for several minutes. The only exception to this norm was when an elder tells someone younger that they are done, using the exact same word. So I guess the better translation would be "I am/you are done". She told me that this was normally used for guidance/instruction. 
4Elizabeth
I am extremely supportive of a move to more turn-taking and higher variance in contribution to a conversation, and allowing larger quantums of thought in general. However in a world where people already believe talking is higher status than listening (which is definitely true in most if not all cultures I'm familiar with, with exceptions that don't apply here), saying it's an honor to be the listener doesn't counter the point, it reinforces it. The same way saying "It's an honor to kiss the king's feet" wouldn't make you feel higher status relative to the king.

I am fluent in more than one language and I think in different languages sometimes, usually when one of the languages has words than better map onto the concepts/ideas I'm trying to think about.

1TLW
Is this more accurate? Or merely faster?
LightStar130

I think some behaviors which may be considered arrogant can be justified. For example, dismissing other people's opinions out of hand can be a good choice when actually surrounded by people with very low-quality opinions.

As for appearing arrogant to others - it may be a difficult-to-avoid side effect, or it may have value of its own - there are social contexts where acting arrogant is useful.

Is it arrogant for HPJEV to consider himself to know better than the adults around him? Maybe so, but he's right about a lot of these things. (I believe there's a sign... (read more)

0[anonymous]
Quote: I think some behaviors which may be considered arrogant can be justified. For example, dismissing other people's opinions out of hand can be a good choice when actually surrounded by people with very low-quality opinions. This is to appear arrogant yes. This is stupid because you can dismiss ideas without being a dick. To BE arrogant, to believe yourself superior, is bad for a rationalist, because it will hurt more if you are wrong and hence you will have a harder time cooping with new evidence. Which is basically what you said in the end, you need to be open for the possibillity that you are wrong. But then we must conlcude that it is always bad to be arrogant while trying to be rational. Iit is likewise bad to SEEM to be arrogant if you can avoid it. And if you can´t avoid it then A) you have other problems or B) someone else is simply jealous and you are NOT arrogant.
2eternal_neophyte
You've articulated what I think better than I did, so thanks :)

It appears to me that the differences System 1 and System 2 reasoning be used as leverage to change one's mind.

For example, I am rather risk-averse and sometimes find myself unwilling to take a relatively minor risk (even if I think that doing that would be in line with my values). If that happens, I point out to myself that I already take comparable risks which my System 1 doesn't perceive as risks because I'm acclimated to these - such as navigating road traffic. That seems to confirm to System 1 the idea of "taking a minor risk for a good reason is no big deal".