All of Kellopyy's Comments + Replies

At best I might call myself aspiring rationalist (like Kenny elsewhere in this thread suggested) because I fail very often as rationalist.

As for experiences that have led me to try to be more rational...

I read Sophie's world[1] when I was about 14 years old and that inspired me to think I how I could tell if I wasn't actually living in a 'real world'.

I was curious about different beliefs humans have in my teens and if there might be truth to some of those beliefs (and which ones). After finding local christianity unsatisfying for several reasons and loo... (read more)

I'd like there to be a separate Anonymous account for posting potentially controversial posts open for all.

Problem might be that it would be used to post frivolous off-topic posts, but reddit-like votes should keep them away from most users anyway.

Advantage would that you could also see what other people have posted as Anonymous nicely collected under single account.

2Kaj_Sotala
Of course, if you want to post something controversial, you can always just register a separate account for that purpose. It's a bit more of a hassle than having a dedicated 'anonymous' account, but accomplishes the same purpose. (And if it turns out your controversial post became really popular, you having control of the account means you can verifiably reveal your identity, which you couldn't do if you'd posted it via an anonymous account.)
2Vladimir_Nesov
It could be more conveniently presented by having a checkbox under a comment editing form, "post anonymously".
2anonym
This is probably too much of a hassle to implement. It would mean that you'd have to have a separate class of account (with this one instance for now) where the password may not be changed, past posts may not be edited or deleted, preferences are restricted, the account cannot be deleted, etc. If it were a normal account, trolls would render it unusable immediately. An alternative is to just allow commenting without being logged in or anonymously while logged in, but I assume they have specific reasons for setting things up the way they did. It would be nice to be able to post things from time to time without having to worry about it being an unpopular viewpoint that the agree/disagree-bots will vote down as much as they can. I like the slashdot system, where anonymous posting is allowed, with anonymous posts starting with a lower moderation value, and users being able to assign a positive or negative karma modifier for anonymous posts.

So long as the heart doth pulsate and beat, So long as the sun bestows light and heat, So long as the blood thro' our veins doth flow, So long as the mind in knowledge doth grow, So long as the tongue retains power of speech, So long as wise men true wisdom do teach. (from depths of internet and attributed to Prof. Haroun Mustafa Leon)

I will study what you write in addition to my normal readings in any case. Problem with programming, science and math is that one doesn't know how long finding an answer will take in general.

So.. (even taking MST3K into account)

Akon certainly has gone mad. He believes that he is in unique position of power (even his decision markets and his Command staff is divided) and he has to make the decision NOW with great unlikely secrets revealed essentially just to him. There are too many unlikely events to believe in for Akon. I think he has failed his excercise or whatever he is living in.

Let's say this is supposed to be a economic weirdtopia - or something like that.

Let's suppose there is more or less constant connectivity to internet equivalent so that you can 'see' whatever other people are broadcasting as information. Twitters and facebooks of the new era are widely adopted. Essentially this will also make possible to have near perfect sousveillance.

This is world where people find meaning to their lives through stories - endless damsels in distress and knights in shining armor, wise wizards, devious politicians and whatever. People lea... (read more)

Knowing how theories and experiements were chosen would make this more sensible problem. Having that information would affect our expectations about theories - as others have noted there are a lot of theories one could form in ad hoc manner, but question is which of them was selected.

First theory has been selected with first ten experiements and it seems to have survived second set of experiements. If experiements were independent from first set of experiements and from each other this is quite unlikely so this is strong evidence that first theory is the c... (read more)

I was expecting to read yet another mathy post tonight, but I was dissapointed. Less mathy stuff is ok, but shouldn't really come at cost of anything intresting.

I agree with Kriti - introductory essay, post, etc would be useful.

Since I would not be one of the people affected I would not consider myself able to make that decision alone. In fact my preferences are irrelevant in that situation even if I consider situation to be obvious.

To have situation with 3^^^3 people we must have at least that many people capable of existing in some meaningful way. I assume we cannot query them about their preferences in any meaningful (omniscient) way. As I cannot choose who will be tortured or who gets dust specks I have to make collective decission.

I think that my solution would be to take t... (read more)