Neil

The smallest possible button (or: moth traps!)

tl;dr: The more knowledge you have, the smaller the button you need to press to achieve desired results. This is what makes moth traps formidable killing machines, and it's a good analogy for other formidable killing machines I could mention. Traps I was shopping for moth traps earlier today, and it struck me how ruthlessly efficient humans could be in designing their killing apparatus. The weapon in question was a thin pack in my hands containing just a single strip of paper which, when coated with a particular substance and folded in the right way, would end up killing most of the moths in my house. No need to physically hunt them down or even pay remote attention to them myself; a couple bucks spent on this paper and a minute to set it up, and three quarters of the entire population is decimated in less than a day. That’s… horrifying. Moth traps are made from cardboard coated with glue and female moth pheromones. Adult males are attracted to the pheromones, and end up getting stuck to the sides where they end up dying.[1] The females live, but without the males, no new larvae are born and in a few months time you’ve wiped out a whole generation of moths.[2] These traps are “highly sensitive” meaning that they will comb a whole room of moths very quickly despite being passive in nature. Why are moth traps so effective? They use surgically precise knowledge. Humans know how to synthesize moth pheromones, and from there you can hack a 250-million-year-old genetically derived instinct that male moths have developed for mating, and then you set a trap and voilà. The genetic heuristic that worked 99% of the time for boosting reproductive rates in moths can be wielded against moths by obliterating their reproductive rates. Moth traps aren’t even the pinnacle of human insecticidal war machines. Scientists have, after all, seriously considered using gene drives to eliminate an entire species of mosquitoes with a single swarm and some CRISPy cleverness.[3] The sm

126Sep 2, 2023

Neil

Message

I'm bumping into walls but hey now I know what the maze looks like.

1047

149

Consequentialism is a compass, not a judge

Tl;dr: Consequentialism works as a compass for your actions, not as a judge of moral character. The compass and the judge A woman steps onto a crowded bus, trips on a sitting man's outstretched foot, and breaks her arm. The Everett branches split: in one world, the man looks down...

Apr 13, 202426

Privacy and writing

Epistemic status: N=1 I've always written several thousand words a day in a private Google doc about anything that came to mind. Only recently have I started publishing to LessWrong. It's a long and arduous process for me, too slow to be worth the effort usually. [1] Still, publishing on...

Apr 6, 202420

How does it feel to switch from earn-to-give?

I suspect this phenomenon is common in the LW/EA spheres, but I've never seen it presented like this. I describe the way that switching from earning-to-give to working-in-altruism has consequences on one's sense of responsibility and trust. I wonder if others have experienced this and how. Delegating responsibility One of...

Mar 31, 202429

Politics are not serious by default

[This is part of a series I’m writing on how to convince a person that AI risk is worth paying attention to.] tl;dr: People’s default reaction to politics is not taking them seriously. They could center their entire personality on their political beliefs, and still not take them seriously. To...

Mar 28, 202419

Evolution is an observation, not a process

(It's just selection bias.) 1. [Note: I wrote this post for a friend who doesn't undertand the idea behind evolution (here). It was not originally meant for LessWrong in particular: frankly I'm just hoping you people can tear it to pieces so that I can better understand it myself.] >...

Feb 6, 20248

You can rack up massive amounts of data quickly by asking questions to all your friends

tl;dr I asked 15 friends and acquaintances a question out of the blue because I was curious about something. I collected a massive amount of evidence, and it was fun, and I’m more agentic now than I was yesterday. Do it too. Last night I randomly remembered that I had...

Jan 21, 202414

Detachment vs attachment [AI risk and mental health]

> "What? Why would I choose cosmic energy over Katara?" > > Avatar the Last Airbender "You idiot" said the monk from atop his mountain, "there's all this fresh air up here and the view is breathtaking and you're down there dredging mud ." The mud-dredger only grit his teeth....

Jan 15, 202415

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Neil

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Neil

The smallest possible button (or: moth traps!)

You don't get to have cool flaws

Some rules for life (v.0,0)

If you are too stressed, walk away from the front lines

Neil

Consequentialism is a compass, not a judge

Privacy and writing

How does it feel to switch from earn-to-give?

Politics are not serious by default

Evolution is an observation, not a process

You can rack up massive amounts of data quickly by asking questions to all your friends

Detachment vs attachment [AI risk and mental health]

The smallest possible button (or: moth traps!)

You don't get to have cool flaws

Some rules for life (v.0,0)

If you are too stressed, walk away from the front lines

Consequentialism is a compass, not a judge

Privacy and writing

How does it feel to switch from earn-to-give?

Politics are not serious by default

Evolution is an observation, not a process

You can rack up massive amounts of data quickly by asking questions to all your friends

Detachment vs attachment [AI risk and mental health]