All of BlueSun's Comments + Replies

Typically, as long as the expense is deemed prudent by regulators, utilities are permitted to 'rate base' the expense and earn a return on investment. If PG&E think it's politically possible to increase expenses by $20-30B because there's a good narrative to offset complaints of rising utility prices, it's the selfish thing to do. The times that require strict scrutiny for investor-owned utilities is when they jump on the bandwagon of a politically popular spending proposal (wise infrastructure investments comes from experts getting the politicians on board, not politicians getting the experts on board).

Liberals see the free market as a kind of optimizer run amuck, a dangerous superintelligence with simple non-human values that must be checked and constrained by the government - the friendly SI. Conservatives just reverse the narrative roles.

I like this analogy. So basically, how do you want to balance the power between your two overlords, one much much smarter than you but with non-human values, and the other much dumber than you but with human (mostly) values.

Thanks. I'd love to share this material with people but the format makes it hard as many people seem to have an aversion to a collection of blog posts. I look forward to buying the book so I can loan it to people.

Competed the survey. Thanks for doing this, the results are always interesting.

Does anyone know what happened to the version that was supposed to be reviewed/edited down by a professional so it could be publishable length? There's so much good stuff there I'd love to be able to send to friend and family but 500k worth of blog posts is much harder to send someone than a nicely published 200k version.

Yes but as soon as you thought of it it becomes a known known :)

The "known knowns" quote got made fun of a lot, but I think it's really good out of context:

"There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know."

Also, every time I think of that I try to picture the elusive category of "unknown knowns" but I can't ever think of an example.

I deconverted in large part because of Less Wrong. Looking back at it now, I hadn't had a strong belief since I was 18 (by which I mean, if you asked most believers what the p(god) is they'd say 100% whereas I might have said 90%) but that might just be my mind going back and fixing memories so present me thinks better of past me.

I'd be happy to do an AMA (I went from Mormon to Atheist) but a couple of the main things that convinced me were:

• Seeing that other apologists could make up similar arguments to make just about anything look true (for example, ot

My take away from this is that you need to "shut up and multiply" every single time. Looking at the math skills study, the thought was that people glance at the raw numbers (instead of looking at the ratios) and stop there if they fit their ideological beliefs. If it conflicts with your beliefs though you spend a little longer and figure out you need to look a the ratio. So if we train ourselves to always "shut up and multiply" hopefully some of this effect will go away. Maybe a follow-up study to see if people who actually do the math still get it wrong?

I'm already booked that day but if it's a weekly thing I wouldn't mind stopping by sometime.

Hmm, the microeconomics of outsourcing child production to countries with cheaper human-manufacturing costs... then we import them once they're university aged? You know you've got a good econ paper going when it could also be part of a dystopia novel plot.

would you seriously, given the choice by Alpha, the Alien superintelligence that always carries out its threats, give up all your work, and horribly torture some innocent person, all day for fifty years in the face of the threat of a 3^^^3 insignificant dust specks barely inconveniencing sentient beings? Or be tortured for fifty years to avoid the dust specks?

Likewise, if you were faced with your Option 1: Save 400 Lives or Option 2: Save 500 Lives with 90% probability, would you seriously take option 2 if your loved ones were included in the 400? I wou... (read more)

Can players coordinate strategies? There's an advantage if two or more submitter can identify themselves (in game) and cooperate.

If there is an 'm' reward, you get the same reward whether or not you choose to hunt? I'm confused how this adds incentive to hunt when your goal is to "get more food than other players," not "get food."

Are the sequences still going to be made into a publishable book? If so, how is that process coming along?

Is there a thread somewhere about effective ways to plant the 'rationalist seed' in your children? I'd like to see something other than anecdotes ideally. But just ideas about books to read, shows to watch, or places to visit for different ages of children would be useful to me. For example,

My 2 and 4 year old both love Introductory Calculus For Infants

And a couple of years ago I got the the Star War ABC which lead to a HUGE love of Star Wars. I'm hoping that turns into a love of Science Fiction...

Maybe it's just where my mind was when I read it but I interpreted the quote as meaning something more like:

"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

Tim Harford has some relevant comments:

What does that tell us – that prisoners take care of each other? Or that they fear reprisals?

Probably not reprisals: they were promised anonymity. It’s really not clear what this result tells us. We knew already that people often co-operate, contradicting the theoretical prediction. We also know, for instance, that economics students co-operate more rarely than non-economists – perhaps because they’ve been socialised to be selfish people, or perhaps because they just understand the dilemma better.

You think the priso

This is what I was trying to avoid with my asterisk, i.e., just talking about stealing candy does raise the probability they stole the candy. But once they're talking, confessing raises the probability they did it so not confessing should lower it.

On reflection, when my original question was designed to help make situations clearer, using an example that I felt I had to asterisk probably wasn't wise.

How would I update my probabilities if I saw the opposite piece of evidence? What I’m trying to get at here is that “A” and “not A” can’t really be evidences for the same thing. And often it’s more obvious which way “not A” is pointing. A couple of examples:

I saw someone suggesting that maybe a certain Mr. Far Wright was secretly gay because, when the subject was broached, he had publicly expressed his dislike of homosexuality. There was even a wiki page (that I now can’t find) laying out the “law” that the more a person sounds like they hate gays the more... (read more)

Some variation of “What is the other person’s actual objective?” Or “Why did they do that?” or “What are they actually asking me?”

I started this habit in chess where it’s always useful to ask ‘why did my opponent make their last move?’ (and then see if there are answers past the obvious one). But I’ve also found it useful in other areas. Several times at work I've gone through iterations of something with someone because I answered exactly what they said instead of what they actually wanted. I now try to stop and ask them what their actual purpose is and it often saves me a bit of work.

A question I have is how to evaluate the morality of the two options:

• A) Make it so that an animal is born, then later cause it considerable suffering
• B) Change the conditions so that the animal never exists

If everyone went vegetarian, the animal population would likely be greatly diminished and it isn't obvious to me that I'd choose option B over option A if I were on the menu. Are there some standard objections to the idea that option A is better than option B?

One quick objection might be that it proves too much. If John Beatmykids told me he wouldn't... (read more)

I was going to point that out too as I think it demonstrates an important lesson. They were still wrong.

Almost all of their thought processes were correct, but they still got to the wrong result because they looked at solutions too narrowly. It's quite possible that many of the objections to AI, rejuvenation, cryonics, are correct but if there's another path they're not considering, we could still end up with the same result. Just like a Chess program doesn't think like a human, but can still beat one and an airplane doesn't fly like a bird, but can still fly.

I was writing an article and trying to refer to www.worstargumentintheworld.com but it appears to be down. Is the registration still valid and/or going to be renewed?

An easy way to do it would be to charge the "correct" marginal cost for all kWh and have a separate fixed fee. My water bill is something like $50 fixed and then a small amount for the water I use after it; the electric bill could work the same. Ronald Coase argued that here

Commercial meters have priced kW for a long time and I think the reason residential didn't was more along the lines of they're more homogeneous than the meter costs. But either way, it seems everyone is getting smart meters now and you could match it up to theory exactly if it were politically feasible.

This doesn't apply in all countries. In UK for instance, it is common to have a standing charge (flat fee per day) as well as a usage charge (fee per kWh). Or some utilities charge a high price for the first few kWh, and then a lower price for subsequent kWh, which has a similar effect. See here for some details.

My perspective is US-centric, but from what I'm aware the per kWh price in most countries for most people is well above the marginal costs. Many places do have a daily or monthly charge but that tends to be $10 or less--not even close to high en... (read more)

The real life example here is electric utilities. The way they're regulated they charge a kWh price roughly equal to the average total cost (let’s say about 12 cents). The proper way to price would be at the marginal cost (at around 4 cents). The fact that marginal costs are below average total costs are what makes them a natural monopoly.

The somewhat obvious better solution would be to charge marginal cost for each kWh and then have some other method to collect the massive fixed costs. But for whatever historic reasons, we don't do that and most (all?) u... (read more)

Great article, I have a particular fondness for this line of reasoning as it helped me leave my religious roots behind. I ended up reasoning that despite assurances that revelation was 100% accurate and to rely on it over any and all scientific evidences because they're just "theories", there was a x% chance that the revelation model was wrong. And for any x% larger than something like 0.001%, the multiple independent pieces of scientific, historic, and archaeological evidences would crush it. I then found examples of where revelation was wrong and it became clear that x% was close to what you'd expect from "educated guess." And yes, I did actually work out all the probabilities with Bayes theorem.

Something a Chess Master told me as a child has stuck with me:

How did you get so good?

I've lost more games than you've ever played.

-- Robert Tanner

I'd like to see a study result on that.

In Art History class I learned that a common way for great artists to learn to paint was by copying the work of the masters. I then asked the art teacher why it was a rule that we couldn't copy other famous historical paintings. I can't remember her exact answer but the times I haven't followed her advice and went and copied a great painting, I seem to have learned more. But again, I'd like to see a study result.

I think the subtitle creates some interesting imagery when contrasted with the typical stereotypes of SLC.

I don't mean to be rude but as an FYI:

At times, this evidence can be of critical importance. I can attest that I have personally saved the lives of friends on two occasions thanks to good situational awareness, and have saved myself from serious injury or death many times more.

Lowers my confidence of the post. Almost everyone I know has a story about how they almost died except for a moment of abnormal cunning or pure luck; yet I know few people who have died for reasons that would have been avoidable had they or someone around them been more observan... (read more)

I wonder if we could get Pundit Tracker to start tracking him? They've mentioned tracking technology pundits in the future.

I'm thinking of it more like Minecraft in real life. I want a castle with a secret staircase because it would be awesome. What I did was spend a day of awesomeness building it myself instead of downloading it and only having five minutes of awesomeness.

Just some feedback: I'm probably about average in math skill here (or maybe below average, the most math I've done is calculus 10 years ago) and with some work I'm able to get through some of this. When I first looked at it I didn't understand anything but reading the wikipedia on VNM utility theorem and the always helpful List of Mathematical Symbols I was able to get through most of Lemma 1. I was able to prove it to my satisfaction using the solver in Excel and can follow most of the proof up until "Thus, the result follows", I don't see how i... (read more)

I really like this analysis a lot. For whatever it adds, Google Trends shows it peaking in July 2011, but mostly holding steady. There might be a small decline in the last six months though.

I took it. Thanks for doing this every year, the results are very interesting.

Good post. Programming would be my vote for higher level subject most useful to individuals. Then economics (given my bias that it's my area of focus). And really it's helpful to be proficient in both so you can be a good data analyst.

But I do think you underestimate how important economics is for "how to run a government." Yes, there are a huge number of near Pareto efficient policies that economists recommend that politicians don't implement for political reasons, but one of the biggest differences between the wealth of nations is how well they... (read more)

That's a good point too. which brings up the question of why they're not as well accepted. I've kind of figured it was because prediction markets are a new(er) idea and "science advances one funeral at a time." I predict the next wave of economists will all think in terms of prediction markets, p=80%.

Coming from an Econ background, I'm amazed that people don't understand how much information a properly functioning price mechanism conveys and how valuable it is. For me, thinking about the implications of I, Pencil was valuable in helping me understand this and I'd recommend it. People need to understand how the invisible hand and profit motive work (and have some confidence that they do) before they can understand how a prediction market can aggregate all the relevant information into a meaningful probability because prediction markets are a logical ext... (read more)

I like this as a parable. I've been talking to several people trying to explain cosmology and Occam's razor and why the default position should be "I don't know" instead of "I don't know therefore X" but they just don't seem to get it. Instead of trying to start the conversation with life, the universe, and everything, I should probably start with an example like the George the Giant story above. It should be relatively easy for them to see why George the Giant was a bad belief, even though it satisfied the four criteria (i.e., because it fail's Occam's razor and there's no reason to elevate it above an infinite number of similarly complex answers)

Here's a good example of where I was fooled where I shouldn't have been if I'd been thinking like a proper Bayesian. Prior to reading the article I would have given something like 1/1000 that computers could "solve" a main-line chess opening (to the definition given in the article, which is just that the computer evaluates each line as winning, not that every possible position has been examined). I'd also try to plug in reasonable numbers for newspapers reporting a story as true/false when the story is actually true/false as something like p(news... (read more)

Company mission statements are notoriously abstract and might make a good starting place. If someone didn't know anything about a company and they went and read the mission statement, they probably wouldn't have a much better idea of what the company actually did.

For example, if (stereotypical) Grandpa asked you what Google was and you replied, "they organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful" you probably wouldn't do much to help him understand what Google is (despite that being one of the best mission stateme... (read more)

A couple minutes before 7:00

I just caught myself mid sentence making an error because of cognitive bias in a situation that might make for a good question. We had a family member that was suppose to come at 6:00 tonight to visit. The person is often (but not always) late so earlier in the evening I said my estimate for them arriving was 6:30. About 6:15 we were sitting waiting for them to come and I looked up at the clock and said, "We'll they're 15 minutes late so far but I'll--" I was going to finish with "stand by estimate of 6:30" but realized that would likel... (read more)

Not "scripture" study. I suggest scripture study is at least a deadweight loss, perhaps worse. I imagine the purpose of scripture study and so forth in the Mormon context is to enforce conformity.

I had a friend who did family scripture study every day and he (and his 5 or 6 siblings) were among the best readers in school, because they'd sat there and practiced it every single day since they were born. So there are definitively benefits to the scripture reading.

Also, many Mormons do appear to benefit from going on a mission. (To my surprise, ma... (read more)