All of talelore's Comments + Replies

Domain: Math and Game Dev

Link: Shaders for Game Devs

Person: Freya Holmer

Why: She shares a lot of practical knowledge about math and shaders in her streams. She explains not just what, but why, answering people's questions as she goes using her in-depth industry knowledge.

1Parker Conley
Thanks! Added.

Domain: VFX

Link: Vfx artists react to bad & great cgi

Person: Corridor Crew

Why: They're skilled VFX artists reacting to good and bad VFX in movies. In doing so, they share tacit knowledge on compositing, lighting, 3D modelling, etc. They have lots of high profile guests from Seth Rogen to Adam Savage.

1Parker Conley
Thanks! Added.

Yep, but of course the common opinion on Hacker News is that this is horrible.

I also find the wording of the saying unclear, and usually say, "eat your cake and still have it".

I don't usually comment on here, but I wanted to mention that my friend had his entire connected bank account drained by PayPal (by a third party, but PayPal did nothing about it), and that simply not holding a balance within PayPal is not enough. You have to close the PayPal account.

I can't provide evidence of this, but you can see similar stories online.

I suspect a sufficiently intelligent, unaligned artificial intelligence would both kill us all immediately, and immediately start expanding its reach in all directions of space at near light speed. There is no reason for there to be an either-or.

4romeostevensit
Knowing you came from neuromorphic architecture, and other than humans being threatening to you, why would you destroy the most complex thing you are aware of? Sure, maybe you put a few humans on ice and get rid of the rest.

A different measure than IQ might be useful at some point. An IQ of X effectively means you would need a population of Y humans or more to expect to find at least one human with an IQ of X. As IQs get larger, say over 300, the number of humans you would need in a population to expect to find at least one human with such an IQ becomes ridiculous. Since there are intelligence levels that will not be found in human populations of any size, the minimum population size needed to expect to find someone with IQ X tends to infinity as IQ approaches some fixed valu... (read more)

2jbash
X-factor does seem better than IQ, of course with the proviso that anybody who starts trying to do actual math with either one, or indeed to use it for anything other than this kind of basically qualitative talk, is in serious epistemic trouble. I would suggest that humans run more like -2 to 1 than like -3 to 3. I guess there could be a very, very few 2s. I get the impression that, except when he's being especially careful for some specific reason, EY tends to speak as though the X-factor of an AI could and would quickly run up high enough that you couldn't measure it. More like 20 or 30 than 5 or 6; basically deity-level. Maybe it's a habit from the 1995 era, or maybe he has some reason to believe that that I don't understand. Personally, I have the general impression that you'd be hard pressed to get to 3 with an early ML-based AI, and I think that the "equal capabilities" handicap could realistically be made significant. Maybe 3?

It's funny, the text generated reminds me of babbling.

7Valentine
I first heard Eliezer describe "dying with dignity" as a strategy in October 2021. I'm pretty sure he really means it.

Also, look at his bet with Bryan Caplan. He's not joking.

And, also, Jesus, Everyone! Gradient Descent, is just, like, a deadly architecture. When I think about current architectures, they make Azathoth look smart and cuddly. There's nothing friendly in there, even if we can get cool stuff out right now.

I don't even know anymore what it is like to not see it this way. Does anyone have a good defense that current ML techniques can be stopped from having a deadly range of action?

9Rafael Harth
Probably not; Eliezer addressed this in Q6 of the post, and while it's a little ambiguous, I think Eliezer's interactions with people who overwhelmingly took it seriously basically prove that it was serious; see in particular this interaction. (But can we not downvote everyone into oblivion just for drawing the obvious conclusion without checking?)

The dividend part made more sense - when people have more money, they can spend it on what's most urgent. And they know that, better than anyone else.

Yes! I apologize that my writing was a bit unclear, I didn't mean to advocate for specific legal rights such as a right to a decent home, but rather to advocate for a system under which everyone can afford a decent home, if they choose to buy one. That said, I'm not against some of these rights being enforced legally (Canadian here, and a huge fan of our healthcare system, excepting the fact that we don't include dental or eye care. Are my eyes and teeth not a part of my body?)

It is possible that other solutions would work for solving the problems I outline. Taxing companies more could be a benefit, though taxing companies does lead to a drag on the economy. Also, companies can move overseas, but land cannot. Attaching minimum wage to some measure of inflation I don't think would work, because landlords can eat the extra wages. I think rents are determined by what people can afford, AKA what landlords can get away with charging.

You're probably right about the word 'Manifesto'. I've changed this now.

(What is a spam list?)

A link would be nice, in case people reading this (the original post) haven't read that.

Good idea!

2Pattern
(A word I made up.) I understand the guidelines for this site, to some degree. I'd say it used to be 'no politics', but things have since gotten more complicated. I was just throwing an idea out, but if there's a procedure in place for spam, which is open, I'm curious about what it is. Something like a list might not be sophisticated enough, but if someone decided to advertise (a scam), posting the same message in a lot of places might work. So, in principle, a list might work. (But if things are deleted if they're on that list, then I don't see them, or know how complicated they are.)

Sure, but it's a question of magnitudes. My claim is that what Joe Rogan is saying on his podcast has less impact on your life than the fact that the value of the land is being sucked up by landlords, rather than being shared by all. Of course, this isn't the only important issue facing our society, I just think it's one of the most important (aside from existential risks, probably), and that much less important issues only serve as a distraction from the more important ones.

Software: emacs

Need: Code editor (and personal information management system, and the only good git ui, and an email client, and...)

Other programs I've tried: Sublime Text, Atom, VsCode, vim

Why emacs is the best: Emacs can be whatever you want it to be. It can do everything and anything, all in one unified space where all your keybindings work, all your plugins work, etc. There is literally nothing you can't change about it, and people have created many "modes" for it that do a lot of things. In particular, org-mode renders all of those todo apps pointless... (read more)

2Pablo
I decided to switch to Emacs 1.5 years ago, and I feel it's the most important computing decision I made since... starting to use a computer? I may write a more detailed post on what things I use Emacs for, but here I just wanted to endorse the above recommendation, including its caveats ("Don't bother with it though if you don't have some time to invest in learning it"), and emphasize that Emacs can fulfill many needs besides "code editor" (I am not a programmer myself).
1ibid
I always struggle whilst using Emacs against this feeling I'm not using it "properly", and as such spend far too long adjusting my config to be just right. Although extremely powerful maybe I'm too prone to tinkering to use it as my primary editor, that and I was forced to use a windows computer for a prolonged period of time last year due to corporate reasons, and Emacs on windows is terribly slow, although I think the likely culprit there is git on Windows being slow also.
2sudoLife
Doom Emacs is also about Vim's powerful tools like norm and :%s. It's basically taking the best from the both world (granted, that's subjective). Love it!
9Hans R
+1 for doom emacs. I'm an emacs novice and doom makes it palatable to learn - not easy, but it more clearly showcases the power of emacs.

There is, in fact, a sedative level, and higher doses aren't less effective, they just induce more side effects, from what I understand. I tried every dose under the sun, including tiny ones. The effect was always weak at best.

2ChristianKl
Scott does write "A meta-analysis of dose-response relationships concurred, finding a plateau effect around 0.3 mg, with doses after that having no more efficacy, but worse side effects" but that doesn't mean that higher doses keep their efficiency.  His article for example goes on to say "And Pires et al studying 22-24 year olds found that 0.3 mg worked better than 1.0." Which is likely 
2ChristianKl
Where did you get the idea that there's a sedative level for melatonin?

I'd wonder about the effect of atmospheric pollutants. Altitude would clearly also have an effect if obesity was being caused by pollutants in the air.

The effect size of melatonin use is usually pretty small. I think most studies say it shifts your cycle by 10-20 minutes. As I tended to go to bed an hour or two later every night, this was not enough. 

As for light therapy, it's not strange that it would have a different effect. Light stimulates a neural pathway going straight to your suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is the core circadian clock in your brain. (Melatonin is not involved in this, though melatonin is affected downstream.) Melatonin, on the other hand, is released by the pineal gland and is used to regulate the SCN (among other things), but it's not involved directly in the core timing mechanisms of the SCN.

1deepthoughtlife
Melatonin actually causes a shift much larger than ten to twenty minutes -when taken early. Melatonin taken in the morning causes a large shift to delay the cycle (this can cause a shift of several hours). Melatonin taken after several hours hastens the cycle, also by hours. If this weren't the case, it would be useless as I currently use it. The ten to twenty minutes is as a sedative, when taken twenty minutes before bedtime.  There are, of course, a number of pathways affecting sleep timing, including the uninformatively named System X that just tries to keep track of time by dead reckoning. I believe, perhaps wrongly, that the SCN's sleep related functions are mostly directly by melatonin; melatonin reduces the firing rates of the parts of the SCN that increase in firing rate in the presence of light (according to Wikipedia). This is the core timing mechanism of how light affects the SCN, isn't it? Edit: Looking at it again, the relevant part of the SCN article ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprachiasmatic_nucleus )(in the electrophysiology section) does not have direct citations, but I'll assume it's correct unless this activity of melatonin is directly disputed. Edited again: An edit changed the structure of what I was saying, making for a strange sentence I don't endorse.

I should note that my sleep issues are completely under control now, primarily due to the light therapy, as well as making sure I wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. I now sleep like a normal, healthy person.

For a long time, especially when I was living in a dim basement, I had bouts of non-24 hour sleep-wake rhythm and I even had periods of irregular sleep-wake rhythm, which was a nightmare. So the light therapy etc. has taken me a long way. Fixing my sleep also played a large role in fixing my depression (and vice versa), since the como... (read more)

2ChristianKl
There's no sedative level and most melatonin products have doses that are too high to be clinically effective. What was the lowest dose you took?
1deepthoughtlife
Honestly, it's a little strange that light therapy would help and melatonin not (since light therapy  shifts circadian rhythms via [probably] lowering your melatonin levels in the morning). It's good you have your sleep issues under control.

Based on my experience with circadian rhythm issues (delayed sleep phase syndrome etc.):

- Turning off the blue light in your devices in the evening is probably less impactful than lowering the brightness of your devices in the first place. Do both, but don't expect a blue light filter to work if the device is still blasting your eyeballs.

- Many indoor environments are underilluminated. Your bedroom is probably 100x times darker than the sun. That's not an exaggeration -- we just don't notice because we perceive light on a curve. Get much brighter lights. G... (read more)

0deepthoughtlife
A thought: if you required large doses of melatonin for use as a sedative, maybe you simply needed to use a larger dose than you tried for circadian shifting as well, or longer before bedtime [I would suggest the latter first]. Melatonin definitely shouldn't have no effect unless something is particularly wrong [perhaps a bad batch, anxiety, or a physical problem]. (It will change your circadian rhythm, but that is only one aspect of whether you actually sleep.) I have noticed no tolerance effects whatsoever when used as a circadian shifter, though there were some when used as a sedative. I personally find melatonin extremely useful, taking a significant dose four to six hours before I plan to sleep. (My body otherwise thinks days are about 28-30 hours long.) By the time I actually try to sleep, it is trivial to do so, even though I had severe insomnia. It still works even if it is out of your system by then, and will not impact the quality of the sleep [I do not like the effects of it on my first few hours of sleep if I use it as a sedative], just its ease. Your other points seem reasonable and important to keep in mind.   Unrelatedly, if you are overweight, that might be a cause of insomnia. I know my weight had a large effect in increasing my insomnia [due to lack of comfort and physical issues]. Losing it helped quite a bit, though I still need circadian shifting. edit: Removed an extraneous word and fixed a spelling error.

Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is fear. To quote Alan Watts:

"To remain stable is to refrain from trying to separate yourself from a pain because you know that you cannot. Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape."

Exposure therapy techniques are useful if there's something causing you more fear than it ought, but some level of fear is inevitable. Accepting the fear is the only way to conq... (read more)