All of Capla's Comments + Replies

This is a brilliant essay. One of the best in the sequences, I think.

If you are interested in AI risk or other existential risks and want to help, even if you don't know how, and you either...

1. Live in Chicago
2. Attend the University of Chicago
3. Are are intending to attend the University of Chicago in the next two years.

...please message me.

I'm looking for people to help with some projects.

[I'll post on next week's open thread as well.]

If you are interested in AI risk or other existential risks and want to help, even if you don't know how, and you either...

1. Live in Chicago
2. Attend the University of Chicago
3. Are are intending to attend the University of Chicago in the next two years.

...please message me.

I'm looking for people to help with some projects.

Also, I'm not sure why anyone would want alcor (or anyone) to offer such necklaces. Don't we want' people to sign up for cryonics?

That kind of misses the point. There are lots of neckslaces that have peace sign on them, but they're not at all a good signal of pacifism, or nuclear disarmament (what the peace sign originally stood for). Think of how many people where a ying yang because it looks cool instead of to convey an affinity, much less a dedication to, for Taoist ideals.

It is because the necklace is expensive and represents an actual (if small) step towards destroying the awful-thing, that it is good signalling.

Part of this is because the more expensive the thing and the more ... (read more)

I'd think of the hulk's universal strength as something like the difference between species instead of between individuals. I don't know, but I imagine that a mountain gorilla is much stronger than me, at bench pressing, at deadlifting, at overheard pressing, at throwing, etc.

Hmm...Let me check that out.

There's the polypahsic society. They are more-or-less the representatives of consensus among polyphonic folks. (I think. Perhaps I'm misrepresenting them?)

Stampi is not very helpful for figuring out what polyphasic people are doing while they sleep. So far, I've yet to find a single paper that features a polysomnographic evaluation of someone doing uberman or everyman, much less one that does a basic evaluation of whether someone who has been polyphonic (long term) is exhibiting clinical symptoms of sleep deprivation. Both of those, but particularly the polysomnograph, would be very informative.

I agree with your skepticism. The polyphasic community claims that they are able to make drastic reduction in sleep time because they go straight into REMs when taking a nap. This conflicts with a lot of my understanding.

It is my suspicion that they are mistaken about that, and that actually, if a person has acclimated to polyphasic, he/she isn't going into REM at all and that this is where gains come from.

Can I get a little clarification? Are people up-voting because they like the content of this post or because they like the prospect of later posts on sleep?

I was unsure of whether to put this up, since I thought it didn't have much in the way of novel insight, just background knowledge.

Since jujutsu is very...uh...intimate.

Personal experience says you should just used to this. It is weird at first, but it isn't that bad.

I am curious to what extent the info in this post is common knowledge. Are these things familiar to people?

Better?

Ok. I just read another comic by the same author, Demon, about a (sociopathic) character who discovers that he can't die (in an interesting way). It's great! The protagonist does exactly the sort of experimentation I would do in his situation, and several charterers make plans that are authentically clever, and legitimately surprising.

Highly recommended.

That was fantastic!

Aren't most of the apples on earth precisely the ones we bread to be edible (and tasty)?

I generally don't care what level a post is at if I'm going to upvote it, but when I see something has a negative core that I think is unfair, I'll bump it up by one.

I'm a little disturbed by the thought of reconstructing my personality from others' impressions of my personality.

which is what is the most any person, more specifically, I can do for FAI?

First thing you should do is talk to the people that are already involved in this. CFAR seems to be the gateway for man people (at least, it was for me).

So maybe the first step would be to upload some humans and give them more processing power,

I would like this plan, but there are reasons to think that the path to WBE passes through nueromorphic AI which is exceptionally likely to be unfriendly, since the principle is basically to just copy parts of the human brain without understanding how the human brain works.

Is your position written out somewhere where I can read it?

The smarter you are, the more likely you are to think you're the exception, and neglect the outside view.

I didn't realize until you said it.

Yep.

Sure. But religion is supposed divinely inspired and thus completely correct on every point. If one piece of the bundle is disproven, the whole bundle takes a hit.

With which of those books should I start?

I'm leading a rationality training group. We're working through the most recent CFAR curriculum, but I also want to work from parts of the sequences.

Which posts in the sequences were particularly impactfull for you? Not just ones that you found interesting, but ideas that you actually implemented in your thinking about object-level stuff.

I'm particularly interested in posts that we could spin out into techniques to practice, like noticing confusion or leaving a line of retreat.

And as the level of interaction with the rest of reality increases, P(D1) approaches 50%. Right?

and this is de-coherence? This is why the macro-world is seemingly classical? There are some many elements in the system that you never get anything that doesn't intact with something else and all the configurations are independent?

Clarification: an amplitude is the value of a configuration?

so { a photon going from A to B = (-1 + 0i) } is a configuration and { (-1 + 0i) } is an amplitude?

I'll add two extra posts to the suggested readings, if you have time (but focus on the main four).

http://mindingourway.com/desire-is-the-direction-rationality-is-the-magnitude/

and

http://mindingourway.com/ephemeral-correspondance/

I might be pushing it, but it shouldn't take more than a half hour to read all six.

I'm reminded of another Feynman anecdote: when he invented his own mathematical notion in middle school. It made more sense to him, but he soon realized that it was no good for communicating ideas to others.

"The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well."

• Ursula k. Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea

How long is that preface?

Is it worth buying a more recent edition for the preface?

I chose to love regardless of how the other feels towards me.

Hmm...I would very much like to know if my very stringent criteria for basic-possibility-of-a-relationship will change with time. I suppose I should evaluate my goals and why I have those criteria.

upvote for noticing a (possibly) uncharitable reaction in yourself and taking steps to do better.

No stupid questions thread?

What make a person sexual submissive, sexually dominant, or a switch? Do people ever change d/s orientation?

I've been planing on staring this soon. Is it important to have a recent edition. How much has changed since the first publishing?

Similarly, I go the same answer, but only by process of elimination. I knew it didn't have dots, I knew it didn't have a diamond, I knew it didn't have an x, by just extrapolating from the "cut offs" in the problem. That left me with 2, but it felt...wrong. It didn't feel intuitively right. If I had to pick on without thinking about it, number 2's the last one I'd pick.

I only understand the pattern in a cohesive way from looking at the comments. Now it makes sense, instead of being deduced from bits of dis-unified information.

Do I know my IQ now?

Thanks.

Why is this on Vimeo instead of Youtube? I can adjust the play-speed on YT videos.

Tell me where and how. If I can preserve cell samples for under $1000, I'll almost certainly do it. I think it would be relatively easy to convince my parents it's a good idea ("just in case"), and I can use the commitment effect from this minor precaution as a foothold to convince them to sign up for cryonics.

I want to spend a few weeks seriously looking into cryonics: how it works, the costs, the theory about revival, the changes in the technology in the past 60 years, the options that are available.

I want to become an expert in cryonics to the extent that I can answer, in depth, the questions that people typically have when they hear about this "crazy idea" for the first time. {Hmm...That sounds a little like bottom-line reasoning, trying to prepare for objections, instead of ferreting out the truth. I'll have to be careful of that. To be fair, I will need to overcome objections to get my family to sign up. Still, be careful of looking for data just to affirm my naive presumption.}

What should I read?

Since, neither is listed on the best textbooks thread, can anyone recommend good textbooks for

1) Social psychology

2) Cognitive psychology

?

Ok. I'm not saying you're wrong, but what on what basis. You call bullocks, and I check...what? We can't really make concrete statement bout how these scenarios will work.

Sure, but also, P(those-jokes-weren't-funny) .

Is the author unaffiliated with LessWrong?

Other than Superintelligence and Global Catastrophic Risks what should I read to find out more about existential risk?