All of MaximumLiberty's Comments + Replies

I'm all over the bias issues. Because I can address them from my own practical experience, I'm happy working with what I know. The AI safety issues are way outside my practical experience, and I know it.

In the moral parliament, I would constantly move that I am appointed dictator forever. Eventually, I will win the lottery. Except of course that everyone else will do the same, so the odds are that someone else will win before I will. I say this to point out that the interesting parts of the moral parliament end up being the constrains on the mechanism, rather than the mechanism itself. The paper, in fact, handles these constraints by abandoning the mechanism! It says that we'll assume everyone acts as if there will be a lottery, but we'll actually just use straight plurality voting.

Two very small contributions:

1. In most jurisdictions, companies can have classes of shares with unequal voting power. If one of your concerns is to enable a veto, share classifications can get  you there pretty flexibly. Also, if outright vetoes are not on the table, you could also embrace the mandatory delay. The class B shares can't say don't do it, but they can say don't do it yet.
2. A spin on Leninist organizations is to have the top of the organization pick the new members at the lowest levels, and the organization has levels that each select the next

I would point to a different cycle to explain the fall of Rome. Set this against both the Malthusian trap theory and the (many) theories around technology. This is an institutional story.

One of the key problems that the Roman state failed to solve was that of who rules. The Republic was semi-successful at this. It used public recognition and generational advancement in social class as its main methods of controlling elites. This ultimately failed after the Carthaginian wars eliminated the external enemy that kept internal politicking in check. At this poin... (read more)

abolishing all labor law would vastly increase the size of the economy

[citation needed], as the saying goes.

I kind of doubt it. There are virtually no serious non-Marxist economists who believe that artificially raising the cost of labor, capital, or any other economic input diminishes output. The real debate is over whether it is appropriate to do so for other reasons, like fairness, justice, equality, and so on. So, if you really need a citation, I'd say that any first-year economics textbook would do it.

it would probably be a mistake for the lis

This is an intended as a provocation to think outside your box. I hope you take it in the spirit intended.

If you are really brainstorming around the risk of a collapse of civilization due to some catastrophe, it is really hard to think outside your own political preferences. I say this from experience because I shy away from certain solutions (and even from acknowledging the problem). So allow me to suggest that your own limitations are making you avoid what I'd call ugly choices.

You suggest international cooperation as a way to prevent widespread destruct... (read more)

I concur. The only point to a putting permanent space stations into orbit is if it helps us along the path to putting humans some place that they can live for years after something really bad happens to Earth. That means a full, independent ecosystem that produces sufficient resources and new people to colonize Earth.

... "Colonize Earth" -- what a strange pair of sentences to write.

Here is a thread on the "Recovery Manual for Civilization," which I thought is a useful addition to your list: http://lesswrong.com/lw/l6r/manual_for_civilization/

And here was (most of) my comment in that thread:

My first conclusion was that there are all kinds of events that could lead to a collapse of civilization without exterminating humanity directly. But it may be impossible for humanity to rise back from the ashes if it stays there too long. Humanity can't take the same path it took to get to where it is now. For example, humanity develop

Here's a link to the base rate fallacy article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy.

A thing to avoid in your situation is focusing excessively on the specifics that lead you to conclude that the local public school will be as good as the private school you are attending. Generally speaking, public schools are lower quality than private schools. But getting a little more narrow might be worthwhile: How are the public schools in your general area compared to public schools in the country, using objective statistics on things like SA... (read more)

When thinking that the local public school is otherwise equivalent to your boarding school, you should consider two things in addition to the things that others have noted:

1. What's the base rate? Generally, private schools are better than public schools. Otherwise, people would not pay for private schools. Anecdotally, I am always appalled by the things I hear about public schools (since my kids went to private school). I'm also appalled by my own memories of public schools. The qualitative difference is usually pretty big.

2. Public schools' reputations are

Here's my answer for being a lawyer.

Lawyers actually talk about this. We have the phrase "thinking like a lawyer." We debated what it meant all the way back in jurisprudence class. We reached no conclusions. (Hey, we're lawyers: a conclusion arrives only with hourly fees!)

The modes of thinking for a lawyer alternate between two things: issue-spotting and issue-analysis. The key to thinking like a lawyer is being able to move back and forth between the two modes of thought. As you are issue-spotting, you have to edit down by quick analysis. As you... (read more)

TL;DR: Group stereotyping, when based on actual group data, is most valuable where it is most unfair and vice versa.

Group stereotyping seems like it would be most useful, and also most unfair, where one uses a proxy for a information that is difficult to obtain. It is hard to come up with an example that is not a political or identity-based mind-killer. So here's a metaphor, with the wariness that a metaphor can mislead as much as it elucidates.

Let's say that we are in the business of basket-weaving. It turns out that the median left-handed person makes ba... (read more)

Absolutely. Best thing I've read in years. Reading Twig now.

(For everyone else, https://parahumans.wordpress.com/. It's free.)

It seems that part of the problem might be that she is afraid of being judged crazy or the equivalent. Having someone talk to her about her being crazy (which is how she will probably perceive it) seems like it runs a risk of being counter-productive. I think so far I've only told you what you are implying or saying.

If I have that right, you might think about finding a story -- fictional or biographical -- written from the perspective of someone suffering from similar symptoms and who resolved it through treatment. If she identifies with the protagonist, it might create some willingness to listen to alternatives.

OK, trying to be fair to the original poster, since it appears that he doesn't plan on responding directly in public. Please take this in the nature of "even the devil deserves an advocate" and an exercise in resisting the fundamental attribution error. It's also informed by the thought that the implication that someone is actually advocating rape is an exception claim, so must be supported by exception evidence. And it's informed by a cussed refusal to be mind-killed.

Take a look at the quantity of words. About half of the piece happens before th... (read more)

Your list of reasons seem to me to be the very reason we have karma. Why does this post deserve moderation in a system where karma sends the message about the community's desire for more of the same?

You have run into the "productivity paradox." This is the problem that, while it seems from first-hand observation that using computers would raise productivity, that rising productivity does not seem to show up in economy-wide statistics. It is something of a mystery. The Wikipedia page on the subject has an OK introduction to the problem.

I'd suggest that the key task is not measuring the productivity of the computers. The task is measuring the change in productivity of the researcher. For that, you must have a measure of research output. You'd ... (read more)

And similarly, here's a quotation from economist George Stigler: “every durable social institution or practice is efficient.” ("Efficient" has a specific meaning in context. Don't over-extend it to "good" or similar ideas.)

The work of Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel prize co-winner in economics) seems relevant. The Wikipedia page on her does a decent introduction. The relevant part of her work was in how societies use customs (other than market transactions) to regulate use of common resources. The relevant observation here is that the customs often seem strange and non-sensical, but they work. She summarized her findings, "A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory."

Similarly, the work of Peter Leeson on ordeals seems relevant. Ordeals were medieva... (read more)

I doubt I know enough to ask good questions. The article has a very bare-bones reference to it, so here are some basic questions:

1. What is the high level objective?
2. Describe the training from the outside: when, where, who, how much?
3. Describe the training from the inside: what gets taught, what gets learned?
4. What role do you expect mentors to play?
5. How do you support the mentors in playing that role?

That is true with an assumption. The assumption is that I will regularly return to LessWrong and read EA articles if I see them. My own assessment of myself is that I won't, so the assumption would be false. (I could be wrong.) I generally avoid EA articles because I'm not all that interested in them. No knock on the field, it's just not why I'm here. But the fact that I have to wade through articles on EA and all the other topics I don't care about deters me from returning to LessWrong, which I do less frequently than I wish I would, because I miss the optimal time to comment on articles.

Can you explain more about your Mentorship Training Program?

I think the key part of that sentence was "I'd like ..."

I can think of several reasons why someone might want to do such a thing.

• They want to begin or enhance a reputation for being an authority in the field.
• They want the organization that they represent to begin or enhance its reputation in the field and to popularize the particular spin that their organization places on such information.
• They are studying the field anyway, so the investment is essentially prettying up their own precis of materials they are reading anyway.
• They want to help t

This is a proposal to replace (or supplement) the tagging system with a classification system for content that would be based on three elements: subject, type, and organization.

For me, one of the problems with current LessWrong is that it has too many interesting distractions in it. Ideally, I would want to follow just a few things, with highly groomed content. For example, I'd like to see a section devoted to summaries of recent behavioral psychology articles by someone who understands them better than I do. I suspect that other people would like to see o... (read more)

My advice is probably better suited for a liberal arts major (compared to a STEM major, say).

Learn more than you know now about the jobs that your field of study might support -- especially salary and life style. This seems like a big blind spot to a lot of students.

Go to professors' office hours. They are fascinating people and know way more than you do. (P.S. I'm not a professor.)

Audit classes that you wish you had time to take.

Actually do the homework before the class in which it is due. (This is less of a problem for STEM majors than in humanities and ... (read more)

Surely "unvisited" is insignificant. There's no current science suggesting any means of faster-than-light travel. So, if you assume that extraterrestrial life would have lifespans grossly similar to terrestrial lifespans, we ought to remain unvisited.

"Saturated in the Great Silence" seems like a far more significant point.

I've not read the Rifkin book, so it may have a response to the criticism I'm about to make of your rendition of the key idea.

"The margin" is a concept that is set in a temporal context. That is, the margin is about a decision being made. Historically, economists think primarily of the short term margin: changed to production that can occur without changes in capital (and so, prototypically only using variations in inputs such as labor, energy, and raw materials). This is where marginal cost can fall to zero.

But economists also recognize two furt... (read more)

A couple of points that I think are relevant:

First, dividing users of bitcoins into people who spend it quickly and those who hold it obscures the more fundamental truth that all bitcoin users hold them for some period of time.

Second, all businesses have cash holdings. Larger ones have entire treasury departments devoted to doing nothing more than getting a few more basis points on that cash by active management in interest bearing accounts.

The combine to make me very skeptical that people will accept a currency that depreciates in value and is not already... (read more)

This seems to me that it significantly raises transaction costs without significantly creating benefits. The value paid in cash in our real economy today will be equal to the sum of the cash payment plus the net present value of risk-discounted future payments in your model. That means that there is zero benefit to the parties involved, but introduces a transfer of risk, and increases the complexity of the transaction.

The place the rubber hits the road on this problem is that companies who would receive payment under this approach will not sign up to a sys... (read more)

I was originally for a pace of two per week, just knowing my own work schedule. But if there are truly going to be 800 articles represented in the book, then one a day is the only workable solution. Do we know that the book will be broken out into something like 800 articles?

I think there's something in business that is similar to the hero-sidekick dichotomy you suggest. In business, I see people who are great individual contributors, but their career path "upwards" takes them into management, at which they suck. The notion that being good at managing doers is "higher" than doing has a parallel in supposed superiority of heroes to sidekicks. It's not a promotion to go from sidekick to hero: it might very well be an awkward misalignment.

Is there something underlying both of these? It might be something about leader-follower and the prestige that comes with being a leader.

I am a maybe. How will I know who you are?

On the poor little macaronis, I think she visualized them having their legs pulled off while still alive. She had already discovered the joy that is bacon, and I think she knew more than Homer Simpson about its tasty source.

(Bacon is my one-word rebuttal to all claims of vegetarian superiority. Also my one-word attempt to convert all orthodox jews and muslims. I'm always surprised it doesn't work 100% of the time.)

It seems like fathers everywhere do this thing about where they tell lies to their children to see what they will believe. Is it that universal? If so, does that say something about it being hardwired?

My own favorite one was from when I took my kids and my parents to eat at a restaurant. My daughter, who was about two, loved macaroni and cheese. She was hungry and discontent at how long the food was taking. My father calmly explained to her that it took a while for the cooks to "pull all the little legs off the macaronis." Her eyes got big and started to tear up as she presumably visualized macaronis having their legs pulled off. A quick retraction was in order. I doubt she was indelibly scarred.

I request evidence for the following assertion:

Children have deepseated evolved instincts to trust what adults tell them.

I think that, at the very least, that statement is far too broad, because it ignores stranger anxiety. Did you mean "what parents (or the equivalent figures) tell them"?

I'm a lawyer, over 20 years out from law school. I took the LSAT cold, so I'm not a good candidate for your questions. I've always liked taking tests and always did well on standardized ones. I did well on the LSAT.

The reason I am responding is to add a bit of information. Lawyers talk, among ourselves and to law students, about what it means to "think like a lawyer." It is a topic of fairly serious debate in jurisprudence for a number of reasons. One is that lawyers have a lot of power in American society. There are issues of justification and e... (read more)

I'm a super-dummy when it comes to thinking about AI. I rightly leave it to people better equipped and more motivated than me.

But, can someone explain to me why a solution would not involve some form of "don't do things to people or their property without their permission"? Certainly, that would lead to a sub-optimal use of AI in some people's opinions. But it would completely respect the opinions of those who disagree.

Recognizing that I am probably the least AI-knowledgeable person to have posted a comment here, I ask, what am I missing?

Or, the following based on http://ew-econ.typepad.fr/articleAEAsurvey.pdf. (I've bolded the answers I think are supported, but you should check my work!)

• "What do economists think about taxes on imported goods?"Most favor; divided; most disfavor.
• "What do economists think about laws restricting employers from outsourcing jobs to other countries?" Most favor; divided; most disfavor.
• "What do economists think about anti-dumping laws, which prohibit foreign manufacturers from selling goods below cost in the US?" Most favor; divi

Did you also attend public school? If so, which did you dislike more? If you didn't, which do you think you would have disliked more?

I'm also curious if you don't mind me asking: what did you hate about it?

On your question 1, I would rephrase it to say that human activities tend to cause global temperatures to rise. Or that human activities have caused global temperatures to rise. Otherwise, you get stuck in the whole issue about the "pause," which might show that temperatures are not currently rising for reasons that are not fully understood and are subject to much debate. The paper you cite was from early 2010, and was based on research before that, so the pause had not become much-discussed by then.

One thing that I think will be interesting if y... (read more)

Or homeschooling. Possibilities:

"Studies show that home-schooled children score worse on tests related to socialization than conventionally educated children." This is false according to the first paragraph under "Socialization" on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling in that always true resource, Wikipedia.

"The most cited reason for parents to choose homeschooling over public schools is the public schools' (a) the lack of religious or moral instruction, (b) social environment, or (c) quality of instruction." The actual answer ... (read more)

I don't quite understand this. Are you objecting to the quoted argument?

Yes, but I should have been more specific, and I think I probably focused overly much on the sentence about deviation and arbitrage. (I'm blaming jet lag.)

I agree that, if someone can produce certificates at less than what they perceive as a stable-ish price, they will produce more than the price will eventually fall. What I disagree with is the idea (familiar from product markets) that deviation will induce arbitrage (i.e. that an increase in price will induce greater supply of new... (read more)

I don't really want to create an account on yet another website, so I'll comment here. Anyone with a login there should feel free to copy and cross post.

It is a thought-provoking idea, but there seem to be serious problems with the model underling the proposal. The model fails to distinguish between flows and stocks.

Then at equilibrium, the price of certificates of impact on X is equal to the marginal cost of achieving an impact on X. Any deviation is an arbitrage opportunity: if you can do X more cheaply, then you can sell the resulting certificates for

I have become everyone's joke at the office because I am so unmotivated that I'm unable to arrive on time every morning, but I've become so good at the job that my boss doesn't mind, and literally everyone asks me about basic stuff all the time. I was head editor for one year, but I almost went into nervous breakdown and requested to be downgraded to regular editor, where life is much more manageable.

This sparked two thoughts.

First, if you are already arriving late to work, you might consider intentionally rearranging your day to get up and write first... (read more)

I was thinking build vs buy or I source vs outsource being much like some of the first point.

I'm not sure why, but I use A-series for epistemology and B-series for metaphysics. That's probably deeply wrong somehow, but it fits with a strong belief in the fallibility of both memory and prediction.

I was thinking about this two days ago, which is an odd synchronicity.

My first conclusion was that there are all kinds of events that could lead to a collapse of civilization without exterminating humanity directly. But it may be impossible for humanity to rise back from the ashes if it stays there too long. Humanity can't take the same path it took to get to where it is now. For example, humanity developed different forms of energy as prices of previous forms rose. For example, we started digging up shallow coal when population grew too high to use charco... (read more)

After you get a haircut you like, get a friend to take a picture of you from all four sides (and top, I suppose) with your phone. In future haircuts, show it to the stylist.

I took the survey. I won't give it back, either.