All of JDelta's Comments + Replies

Short answer: strong AI is both possible and highly probable. That being the case we have to think about the best ways to deal, with a virtually impossible to avoid outcome of the internet. That is, at some point it basically starts to build itself. And when it does... what will it build?

Upcoming writers should try to chase trends, then step themselves a foot forwards of that trend. Current trends: interconnection, futorology, threat of conflicts that often don't realize, surveillance, and of course new years day and selfies. : )

Very interesting, I default to the same behavior. I notice it working best when I 'play in game mode' in bar situations and other highly social events where high risk/reward behavior has multiple advantages.

Other than that I seem to default about 70% of the time to a non game mode way of thinking.

What are the primary other perspective/framings you have found to be beneficial?

So recently I've been toying with a new idea. It seems that for many of us -- at least for my friends and I -- living a maximally efficient rational life is difficult as one's irrational emotions tend to get the best of us.

To overcome this I have been experimenting with living my life as if I were in a game.

Let me explain:

If I view my life as a (potentially) single shot 'spawn' in an open ended MMORPG, I seem to be able to do more high risk/high reward things with much less irrational restraint.

My first method is to set up a HUD in my head. By visualizing... (read more)

That's a very complicated question but I'll try to do my best to answer.

In many ancient cultures, they used two words for the mind, or for thinking, and it is still used figuratively today. "In my heart I know..."

In my opinion, in terms of expected impact on the course of life for a given subject, generally, more important than their understanding of Bayesian reasoning, is what they 'want' ... how they define themselves. Consciously, and unconsciously.

For "reasoning", no I doubt there is a better system. But since we must (or almost un... (read more)

In a highly chaotic system like our society, small differences (e.g. a reputation in some circles as cultish) can decrease the odds of something gaining influence or acceptance incredibly.

People spend their whole lives researching sales, and any time someone is spreading an idea, sales comes into it. If you think any marketing department of a major company would accept the idea that some website likely visited by many, many, potential members discusses their organization in such a negative light, you are very mistaken. When even the regular members are di... (read more)

Complete is a strong word that I should have qualified. Mastery is a better word. Control over it. Where your emotions bend to the will of your rational mind, not vice versa.

Don't limit yourself without reason. As humans we are agents of change in an incredibly complex, chaotic system (society). Mastering emotional control allows us to become much more effective agents. Someone half as smart but with twice the self control in every area can easily beat the more intelligent opponent. Not every time, but it is a massive advantage. http://scienceblogs.com/co... (read more)

I assume an educated reader will infer the massive negative social connotations of any movement or organization that has a reputation, no matter how small at this point, as being 'cultish' -- such a reputation inevitably makes achieving goals, recruiting members, etc., more difficult.

Thus being careful not to create that image is very important (or should be) to the membership of the site.

The biggest weakness, in my opinion, with purely (or almost purely) probabilistic reasoning is the fact that it cannot ultimately do away with us relying on a number of (ultimately faith/belief based) choices as to how we understand our reality.

The existence of the past and future (and within most people's reasoning systems, the understanding of these as linear) are both ultimately postulations that are generally accepted at face value, as well as the idea that consciousness/awareness arises from matter/quantum phenomena not vice versa.

I would love to see this as well

I never stated LW is a cult. It clearly isn't. It does however have at least several, possibly many, members who appear to think about LW in the way many cult members think of their cult.

Yes, I get definite cultist vibes from some members. A cult is basically an organization of a small number of members who hold that their beliefs make them superior (in one or more ways) to others, with an added implication of social tightness, shared activities, internal slang, difficult for outsiders to understand. Many LW people often appear to behave like this.

In my experience the 'social cost' tends to be paid by people trying to push (hard) concepts and ideas that are, often at least, very true and useful, but when it is not necessarily relevant to the conversation or the person isn't interested.

No price is due -- if anything, the opposite -- as long as you follow a few basic rules, and are able to explain your ideas eloquently and succinctly (and if you can't -- should you be talking about it at all?)

A curse of intelligent people seems to be to want to try to 'show' everyone just how smart they are by talking... (read more)

True, I was referring more, I suppose, to the 'romantic' or 'chase' element of a sexual relationship which a lot of people find exciting.

And, yes, in a simulation environment, one can reasonably assume most desired realities would be implemented, as well as a massive degree of crossover allowable to the player, IE the ability to interact in a (sometimes limited) fashion with players who have chosen different environments. The possibilities are endless.

You don't seem to provide a USP (unique selling point) that would give a random interested individual much reason to join it over the 100s of other larger blogs, forums, etc., discussing such topics.

Creating some sort of portal that allowed access to a wide range of topics related to futorology, rationality, solutions toward a better future, strong AI, philosophy, etc., would be a huge boon and if you could put that together, I believe it would be a massive step forward.

Incidentally, I am a web developer and if anyone is interested in helping out with the project (it's just a concept at this stage, although very practical), I'd love to hear from you :)

A lot of the discussion in both the original post and the comments seems to be stuck in '21st century' (present day social) mindsets.

Firstly, the idea of there being only one or two societies for people to participate in seems highly unlikely in a simulation environment. Computation of the mind is much more complex than computation of the environment, meaning it's difficult to foresee a reason why engineers in charge of the 'sim' would limit the number of environments to anything less than whatever the individuals decide to dream up.

Of course it's likely ... (read more)