katydee

With respect to power dynamics point one and two, there is another person known to the community who is perhaps more qualified and already running something which is similar in several respects - Geoff Anders of Leverage Research. So I don't think this is precisely the only group making an attempt to hit this sort of thing, though I still find it novel and interesting.

(disclaimer: I was at the test weekend for this house and am likely to participate)

Replying toI Want To Live In A Baugruppe

katydee9y

I Want To Live In A Baugruppe

Something like this also happened with Event Horizon, though the metamorphosis is not yet complete...

Replying toHow often do you check this forum?

katydee9y

How often do you check this forum?

Once every few days or so.

Replying toStrategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection

katydee9y

Strategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection

Broadly agreed - this is one of the main reasons I consider internal transparency to be so important in building effective organizations. in some cases, secrets must exist - but when they do, their existence should itself be common knowledge unless even that must be secret.

In other words, it is usually best to tell your teammates the true reason for something, and failing that you should ideally be able to tell them that you can't tell them. Giving fake reasons is poisonous.

Replying toStrategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection

katydee9y

Strategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection

In some cases it can be - and I will discuss this further in a later post. However, there are many situations where the problems you're encountering are cleanly solved by existing paradigms, and looking at things from first principles leads only to reinventing the wheel. For instance, the appropriate paradigm for running a McDonald's franchise is extremely understood, and there is little need (or room) for innovation in such a context.

Strategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection

katydee

Perhaps the most important concept in strategy is the importance of operating within the right paradigm. It is extremely important to orient towards the right style or the right doctrine before you begin implementing your plan - that could be "no known doctrine, we'll have to improvise", but if it is you need to know that! If you choose the wrong basic procedure or style, you will end up refining a plan or method that ultimately can't get you to where you want to, and you will likely find it difficult to escape.

This is one of the Big Deep Concepts that seem to crop up all over the place. A few examples:

In software

... (read 534 more words →)

Replying toRationality Quotes Thread January 2016

katydee10y

Rationality Quotes Thread January 2016

This is one of the worst comments I've seen on LessWrong and I think the fact that this is being upvoted is disgraceful. (Note: this reply refers to a comment that has since been deleted.)

Replying toWhy CFAR's Mission?

katydee10y

Why CFAR's Mission?

Excellent link.

Replying to[LINK] Waitbutwhy article on the history and future of space exploration, SpaceX and more

katydee10y

[LINK] Waitbutwhy article on the history and future of space exploration, SpaceX and more

This post seems better suited for the Discussion section.

Replying toLesswrong, Effective Altruism Forum and Slate Star Codex: Harm Reduction

katydee11y

Lesswrong, Effective Altruism Forum and Slate Star Codex: Harm Reduction

So, maybe this is just my view of things, but I think a big part of this conversation is whether you're outside looking in or inside looking out.

I'm on the inside and I think we should get rid of these things for the sake of both insiders and outsiders.

Is that true? I mostly don't notice people scoring cheap points by criticizing religion; I mostly notice them ignoring religion.

See for instance Raising the Sanity Waterline, a post which raises very important points but is so unnecessarily mean-spirited towards religion that I can't particularly show it to many people. As Eliezer writes elsewhere:

Why would anyone pick such a distracting example to illustrate nonmonotonic reasoning? Probably because the author just couldn't resist getting in a good, solid dig at those hated Greens.

Replying toLesswrong, Effective Altruism Forum and Slate Star Codex: Harm Reduction

katydee11y

Lesswrong, Effective Altruism Forum and Slate Star Codex: Harm Reduction

In terms of weird fixations, there are quite a few strange things that the LW community seems to have as part of its identity - polyamory and cryonics are perhaps the best examples of things that seem to have little to do with rationality but are widely accepted as norms here.

If you think rationality leads you to poly or to cryo, I'm fine with that, but I'm not fine with it becoming such a point of fixation or an element of group identity.

For that matter, I think atheism falls into the same category. Religion is basically politics, and politics is the mind-killer, but people here love to score cheap points by criticizing religion. The fact that things like the "secular solstice" have become part of rationalist community norms and identity is indicative of serious errors IMO.

For me, one of the most appealing things about EA (as opposed to rationalist) identity is that it's not wrapped up in all this unnecessary weird stuff.

[LINK] Yudkowsky's Abridged Guide to Intelligent Characters

katydee

11y

Some of you have likely seen this already, but for those of you who haven't, Eliezer recently finished a series of Tumblr posts on writing intelligent characters in fiction. It can be found at http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing and is IMO worth a read.

One Year of Goodsearching

katydee

11y

Followup to: Use Search Engines Early and Often

Last year, I posted about using search engines and particularly recommended GoodSearch, a site that donates one cent to a charity of your choice whenever you make a (Bing-powered) search via their site.

At the time, some seemed skeptical of this recommendation, and my post was actually downvoted-- people thought that I was plugging GoodSearch too hard without enough evidence for its quality. I now want to return to the topic with a more detailed report on my experience using GoodSearch for a year and how that has worked out for me.

What is GoodSearch?

GoodSearch is a site that donates one cent to a charity of your choice... (read 644 more words →)

A Day Without Defaults

katydee

11y

Author's note: this post was written on Sunday, Oct. 19th. Its sequel will be written on Sunday, Oct. 27th.

Last night, I went to bed content with a fun and eventful weekend gone by. This morning, I woke up, took a shower, did my morning exercises, and began eat breakfast before making the commute up to work.

At the breakfast table, though, I was surprised to learn that it was Sunday, not Monday. I had misremembered what day it was and in fact had an entire day ahead of me with nothing on the agenda. At first, this wasn't very interesting, but then I started thinking. What to do with an entirely free day,... (read 241 more words →)

Strawman Yourself

katydee

12y

One good way to ensure that your plans are robust is to strawman yourself. Look at your plan in the most critical, contemptuous light possible and come up with the obvious uncharitable insulting argument for why you will fail.

In many cases, the obvious uncharitable insulting argument will still be fundamentally correct.

If it is, your plan probably needs work. This technique seems to work not because it taps into some secret vault of wisdom (after all, making fun of things is easy), but because it is an elegant way to shift yourself into a critical mindset.

For instance, I recently came up with a complex plan to achieve one of my goals. Then... (read more)

Skills and Antiskills

katydee

12y

One useful little concept that a friend and I have is that of the antiskill. Like a normal skill, an antiskill gives you both the ability and the affordance to do things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. The difference between a skill and an antiskill is that a skill gives you the ability and affordance to do things that are positive on net, while an antiskill gives you the ability and affordance to do things that are negative on net.

For instance, my friend believes that dancing is often an antiskill, because it gives you an affordance to dance rather than have interesting conversations while at parties, and he considers... (read 209 more words →)

The Problem of "Win-More"

katydee

12y

In Magic: the Gathering and other popular card games, advanced players have developed the notion of a "win-more" card. A "win-more" card is one that works very well, but only if you're already winning. In other words, it never helps turn a loss into a win, but it is very good at turning a win into a blowout. This type of card seems strong at first, but since these games usually do not use margin of victory scoring in tournaments, they end up being a trap-- instead of using cards that convert wins into blowouts, you want to use cards that convert losses into wins.

This concept is useful and important and you should... (read 175 more words →)

Worse than Worthless

katydee

12y

There are things that are worthless-- that provide no value. There are also things that are worse than worthless-- things that provide negative value. I have found that people sometimes confuse the latter for the former, which can carry potentially dire consequences.

One simple example of this is in fencing. I once fenced with an opponent who put a bit of an unnecessary twirl on his blade when recovering from each parry. After our bout, one of the spectators pointed out that there wasn't any point to the twirls and that my opponent would improve by simply not doing them anymore. My opponent claimed that, even if the twirls were unnecessary, at worst they... (read 278 more words →)

Online vs. Personal Conversations

katydee

12y

When I was younger, I thought that conversations in real life were much more likely to promote true beliefs and meaningful changes than conversations online, because people in real life were only willing/able to cite evidence they were actually confident in, while those online were able to easily search for arguments favoring their position.

While this is obviously wrong—the concept that people in real life only cite evidence they are justifiably confident in is comically false—I do think the dichotomy illustrated there is interesting. One thing I've noticed is that in general the "rigor" of discussions online is higher (in terms of citations, links to external content, etc.), but that conversations in real... (read more)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

The Zeroth Skillset

Suggestion: Read Paul Graham

A Day Without Defaults

Making Fun of Things is Easy

katydee

katydee

Strategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection

Did social desirability effects mask Trump's true support?

[LINK] Yudkowsky's Abridged Guide to Intelligent Characters

One Year of Goodsearching

A Day Without Defaults

Strawman Yourself

Skills and Antiskills

katydee

The Zeroth Skillset

Suggestion: Read Paul Graham

A Day Without Defaults

Making Fun of Things is Easy

katydee

katydee

Strategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection

Did social desirability effects mask Trump's true support?

[LINK] Yudkowsky's Abridged Guide to Intelligent Characters

One Year of Goodsearching

A Day Without Defaults

Strawman Yourself

Skills and Antiskills