All of dugancm's Comments + Replies

The game aspect is trying to get a higher "score" of hi-fives at the end of each day. Sort of like Tetris or Bejeweled where you always run out of space/time eventually, but can play again to improve your score.

When working in a textiles warehouse I would make it fun by imagining someone I'd met walking down a familiar street while showing off the shirt/hat/etc. I just sorted/tagged/profiled in a ridiculous fashion show montage, then turning to me with a smile and a wink or thumbs-up and saying, "Thanks, man!" or similar after I finished X items depending on the day's quota. The person would then step into a crowd behind me cheering me on, who I would imagine turning around and "hi-five"-ing one at a time after arbitrary milestones to celebrat... (read more)

Took the entire survey and all extra credit questions in one go; minus ACT, SAT2400 and Respectable(tm) IQ scores since I don't have them, and </=140 character LW description because I was starting to get tired after the 40 min. IQ test.

So much fun! I'm very curious to see the results.

Meetup report! We had a total of 4 Attendees plus a well behaved infant. Much lower than usual, but not unexpected due to scheduling issues.

Meta-meetup discussion: Nominated planner for next meetup. It has been suggested that in the future, if an organizer/presenter cannot make it to their meetup, that it not be postponed unless at least 3-7 days notice can be given (since not everyone checks their email, facebook and/or the Less Wrong posting daily).

Presentation: Skipped in favor of scouting the area as a location for future meetups. While I'm currently r... (read more)

An example of "having the child occupied by some solitary activity" from my past: Almost as soon I could walk my parents started sending me on quests to find and retrieve various items throughout grocery stores, then put them back and find another if they weren't quite what was asked for. Wasted almost none of their time while keeping me entertained and feeling (while learning to be) useful to them in that context.

...you should NOT paint your room and lose your deposit if you are not decently-off financially.

Unless the apartment owners and managers only care what it looks like when you leave and you can afford to add a few layers of white base paint just before doing so, to avoid losing the deposit. Such policies are often clearly delineated in the lease contract, and you can sometimes negotiate leniency with the management as long as you do so in writing and have it attached to the contract pre-signature. YMMV

I was not aware of this rumor. How did you come to the conclusion it is widespread, and why do you think it's worth taking seriously?

For those who've never used a command line interface and find them intimidating (one of my hurdles on the way to learning to program), I'd recommend Learn Code the Hard Way: The Command Line Crash Course. The exercises are designed to trip you up and force you to figure some things out for yourself, which has quickly increased my confidence and self-reliance so far.

I have not finished the book, but am already getting slightly addicted to "commanding" my computer to do my bidding instead of having to dig my way through windows explorer and context menus to get anything done. Am I right in thinking this may be good prep for migrating to linux?

This wasn't done. "My enemy is status signalling" is a moderately effective general purpose attack against positions one doesn't like but doesn't apply here (except in the Hansonian "Everything is Signalling" sense.)

I don't consider Vaniver an enemy, but will forgo brevity and taboo "status" to better show where I think I disagree with you:

1. I agree with the content of the message; that frivolous use of the word "rationality" and its conjugates in post titles needs to be curtailed and prevented.

2. I object to that

Is the temporary amusement of some at the sniping of those others' status worth potentially alienating them from the community, even if they number less than "most"? I do not want such "ridicule of the less socially experienced and/or quick to read sequences" norms to become prevalent here.

Downvoted because, while I agree with the content of the message [1], I object to the way it was delivered, which seems to me to imply that an acceptable reaction to those who make the mistake is, "That was so stupid, I'm not even going to explain why you're wrong. Just do what I say." That they're worth little enough to the community as to be acceptable targets of ridicule. If I had been publicly admonished in this way, I would feel alienated.

[1] Frivolous use of the word "rationality" and its conjugates in post titles needs to be curt... (read more)

Seconding "The Tripods Trilogy" by John Christopher. It was my introduction to sci-fi and had a stong emotional impact.

I found this person's anecdotes and analogies helpful for thinking about self-optimization in more concrete terms than I had been previously.

A common mental model for performance is what I'll call the "error model." In the error model, a person's performance of a musical piece (or performance on a test) is a perfect performance plus some random error. You can literally think of each note, or each answer, as x + c*epsilon_i, where x is the correct note/answer, and epsilon_i is a random variable, iid Gaussian or something. Better performers ha

Web app idea: I'm posting this comment immediately and without editing so I don't forget the idea before I get a chance to write it down/work it out more, as I have to leave my computer soon.

1. Display a short passage that illustrates something irrational that people do or think, with instructions for the reader to enter into a text box the first or most important thing that came to mind and then press a "ready" button.
2. Ready button reveals a question of the form, "Were your thoughts similar to any of the following?" with a list of quest

Happiness, as a state of mind in humans, seems less to me about how strong the "orgasms" are than how frequently they occur without lessening the probability they will continue to occur. So what problems might there be with maximizing total future happy seconds experienced in humans, including emulations thereof (other than describing with sufficient accuracy the concepts of 'human' and 'happiness' to a computer)?

I think doing so would extrapolate to increasing population and longevity to within resource constraints and diminishing returns on improving average happiness uptime and existential risk mitigation, which seem to me to be the crux of people's intuitions about the Felix and Wireheading problems.

After sleeping on this and thinking about it all day at work, I made a game. I'd like to make the wording more ritualistic and provide descriptive play examples eventually, but here's a good untested first draft: (Note: I did not read any comments before posting this.)

ETA: I will be editing the rules to remove/redirect perverse incentives and add classroom/tournament formats and examples, but may not always have this post completely up to date. The most recent version can always be found here.

The Un-Naming for 2-6 players

Materials: A deck of words. (stack... (read more)

Yep! I and my father will be going anyway.

After some thought, I hereby create Max Agency! Plucky comic superhero mascot of Zenith Agency (Z.A. Huzzah!) ...for Consequential Action (Z.A.C.A.) The acronym for which happens to be Max's battlecry, but only when shouted in triplicate of course!

Now that I have a word, the idea of an agency without agents (only aspiring agents) tickles me tremendously.

Other thoughts: Agency Institute for Rationality Training (A.I.R. Training)

Agency Foundation for Applied Rationality (A.F.A.R.)

Ditto.

I like how SIAI's name references both the event you're working toward and method of achieving it. Is there a single word that describes a watershed event that would indicate the rationality institute's direct success like "Singularity" does an intelligence explosion? That supporters could rally around and label themselves by (singularitarian)? A word for approximating the ideal Bayesian updater, for felling akrasia, for actually changing one's mind? Can we create or annex one?

Exaltation, Transcendence, Apotheosis, Enlightenment, Upload, Elevatio... (read more)

Super Sapiens! ...I mean sapience.

Adroit Acumen

Elevated Erudition

Superb Sagacity

Crack Contemplation

In this case it's redirecting minds. That's the ultimate goal isn't it?

Now that would be completely unacceptable indeed. Is, say, being on the business end of the mental health system in the worst way possible something like that? For myself, I don't consider a life with something like that to be worth living.

So, the only reason you're still alive is that you haven't bothered (or been able) to verify whether you've forgotten thoughts you don't remember having had? My sympathies.

Born and raised in Price Hill on the edge of Delhi. I have no recent close-up photos of myself, but you can probably find an old one by googling my username. Otherwise I'll be the pale, nearsighted ginger with a ponytail, and some pi on his shirt.

Holding off on proposing locations. I am not familiar with the northern half of Cincinnati.

Ooh! This excites me. I'll start looking at possible venues here in Cincy when I get off work today. I can also ping the local skeptic and atheist meet-up groups to see if there are any LessWrong readers among them who missed the poll and this posting (as I almost did) and have them reply.

Elena Huston - Future In My Hands: An anthem against status quo bias, the sunk costs fallacy and appeals to authority (interpreting each even quatrain as a denigration of the prior odd quatrain).

I don't know what donating my time to SI would entail other than writing, so find it difficult to imagine in a positive frame. I may be able to get around this by training myself on the five-second level to instead mentally contrast a charity's desired future outcomes with the present (or your favorite charity's desired future outcomes, when tempted to switch) when asked, but how many others in my position will do so?

So where can I find anecdotes about how awesome and fun it is to be saving the world through FAI research and how rewarding it is to see your work have a direct impact, so I have something vicariously available to imagine when you ask me to donate my time?

If you have three arbiters and require at least two of them to be party to any transactions and the creation of new arbiters, one can be a trusted or paid third party without risking theft, account freeze or unauthorized arbiter creation and you can safely recover from losing a single device.

I am ignorant of the details necessary to implement this and how difficult it might be.

There is no problem with "Munchkinism." The problem is that in old RPG's the rules imply poorly designed (see lack of challenge upon full understanding of the system) tactical battle simulation games with some elements of strategy, while the advertising implies a social interaction and story-telling game without giving the necessary rules to support it. Thus different people think they're playing different games together and social interaction devolves into what people imagine they would do given a hypothetical situation without consequences (at least until the consequences are made explicit, violating their expectations as you note in your example).

Yes, that would be fair. Are you aware of any good methods for learning and practicing to be more concise?

On top of that, I expect there are already plenty of non-native, dedicated translators and interpreters for a given language gap. Oops, thank you both.

Oops. I realize now that I was confusing the definition of belief used here with the definition used for the game (a principled to-do list), so the idea isn't as applicable as I originally thought, but I'll try to answer you anyway.

As a player you can change your character's beliefs almost as often as you like and the game rewards you for tailoring them to the context of each scene you enact, with different rewards depending on whether you act in accordance with them or undermine them (this encourages you to have conflicting beliefs, which increases the dr... (read more)

for just about any language there are huge numbers of native speakers who speak professional-level English

Exception: Sign Languages, though they have relatively small populations.

Re-reading this post reminded me of Burning Wheel, a table top role playing game that's reward system actively encourages questioning, testing and acting upon the goals and beliefs of a fictional character created by the player, but simultaneously and subversively places the character in complex situations that force the player to change those beliefs over time as a result of the conflicts they cause (and somewhat according to chance). The player has to accept that his character may become something completely alien to how it started during the course of p... (read more)

As would I.