All of WitheringWeights's Comments + Replies

I was teaching myself bits of cooperative game theory and this is the clearest explanation I've found so far. I think it's a nice complement to this one.

I thought to myself... "That looks familiar..."

 

It is also very similar to the formula for calculating the compound interest rate. 
Just swap the minus with a plus and the function tends to e: after all, compounding interest rates was how the constant got known in the first place.

Me: I dunno, probably around 9 pm. [At this point, I’ve merely offered some information; I think most people would not interpret this as an assurance, and would not blame me much if I show up to the party at 8:30 or 10:00 or even skip it altogether.]


Assuming the conversation doesn't delve further into this, if I were your friend I'd actually be very surprised if you didn't show up. The question 'At what time are you going?' assumes that you're going, however uncertain the details. If you wish to convey the idea of 'you might not see me at all' your answer ... (read more)

An anecdote from which I drew a similar conclusion to yours:

About ten years ago I went with my dad to a music hall where a local marching band was playing. I play a few instruments, have a solid grasp of music theory, etc..., but I'm no professional, while he has 'average Joe' music training.
I found the concert to be genuinely painful to listen to: entire sections not in tune with each other, very poor dynamics (brass way too loud, woodwinds barely audible), melodies all over the place, sudden tempo changes etc...

After the last piece, the audience asked fo... (read more)

silentbob101

I once had kind of the opposite experience: I was at a friend's place, and we watched the recording of a System of a Down concert from a festival that we both had considered attending but didn't. I thought it was terrific and was quite disappointed not to have attended in person. He however got to the conclusion that the whole thing was so full of flaws that he was glad he hadn't wasted money on a ticket. 

Just like you, I was baffled, and to be honest just kind of assumed he was just trying to signal his high standards or something but surely didn't a... (read more)

“Your argument is fallacious because X is not a central category member. And it’s not a central category member because…I say so?”

In my view, part of what makes the non-central argument a fallacy is the ad hoc use of the 'overly restrictive definition'.

Whoever argues that "MLK is a criminal" with the intent of instilling the negative connotation of the term is unlikely to apply the same standard everywhere. 

One in that case could reply that anyone who ever opposed any non-democratic regime and was found guilty of sedition/instigation/etc.... is/was al... (read more)

1LVSN
Upvoted for the finalmost sentence of your post; thank you so much. This is an indictment of the human species, if this purported "unlikelihood" is true. Maybe you should not underestimate the likelihood that your interlocutors have a serious deep resentment of unlawful behavior, however alien this might be to you. Maybe part of their fundamental self-narrative includes the unforgivable harms consistently caused to them by crimes which were superficially dismissed as mild by others. They may think "If this is a mild (read: non-central) crime, I don't want to know what the serious (read: central) ones are." Maybe they feel they have no choice but to become a total "I'll end it forever if it's the last thing I do"-level enemy with criminality in all forms, as a precaution. If humanity is willing to coexist with anything, well, imagine the worst possible thing. Imagine something worse than that. Worse in ways you didn't even realize things could be worse by. Recursive worseness. Explosive worseness via combination of worseness-multipliers. Worseness-multipliers that might seem like normally good things if they weren't being used by your imagination for the explicit purpose of making things worse. (Like hope, for example.) That is a thing which counts as a member of the "anything" set which humanity would be willing to coexist with, in the world where humanity would coexist with anything. Unconditional coexistence is not safe for humans. To refuse coexistence with something that is evil in letter and spirit, on the outside and on the inside, you must have a clear sense of that thing no matter what are the stereotypes — the consensus reality — about its symbolic representation. 
2ymeskhout
If the problem is ad hoc application, then it doesn't matter if the archetype is "central" or not, no? My objection to "MLK is a criminal" is that it has to make too many unannounced jumps to get to its conclusion. The principle I can glean from this type of denouncement is something along the lines of "[Criminals] should not be honored by statutes" but whether or not this is a good argument depends entirely on what definition of [criminal] we're using. If we adopt a barebones definition of the word, we'd end up with something like "[anyone who has ever broken any law] should not be honored by statues" which immediately is exposed as unconvincing, which is why they have to hide behind the connotation. That's why I argue the problem isn't whether it's "central" but rather using labels as reasoning shortcuts.

I believe Gaidai's Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession (Иван Васильевич меняет профессию) also deserves an honorable mention, I am pretty sure it should be available with English subtitles.

2Nina Panickssery
Ah yes I liked this film also! Шурик returns

Assuming that the goal is to 'raise the sanity waterline', I would recommend against engaging on most social media platforms, except for promoting content that resides outside the media circle (e.g. a book, blogpost, paper, etc...).
 

The comments below are just my impressions, hope you'll find them useful.
Generally: frame the problem, define the terms, cite the sources, ask specific questions.

For example:

Statement A: Two of three children survived the day. Is this good or bad?
Answer: Neither, as it is an "is" statement. The moral judgment depends on the context, such as a woman considering aborting triplets.

Statement B: Two of three children were murdered today. Is this good or bad?
Answer: This is bad because murder is considered morally wrong, making it an "ought" statement.


Statement ... (read more)

1milanrosko
I apologize if my previous tone was not as polite as your detailed response deserved. I want to acknowledge your comment and express my appreciation for your constructive feedback.
1milanrosko
Yes obviously, but it is "more concerned" about "ought". It is hard to make formulaic examples because it is also a grammar thing. Sorry but this argument is very often regurgitated everywhere by "smart people" in this form. It is bit baffling to me why you think otherwise. Okay this again. It is quite common in discussions to "pretend" that a statement is an "ought" statement if the underlying subtext is clear. For example if things happened in the past or aren't formulated as an imperative can be "ought" statements plainly because they center around ethics or values. I think you are referring to this part: I don't want to frame discussions but I gave an example how discussions can be inauthentic. Before I start, I want to define a few terms. Ontology: Concerned with the most fundamental aspects of existence and categories. Essence: The “stuff” that makes matter more than what it is but has never been seen or found. Essence is like the core personality of something. It’s what makes a thing uniquely itself, no matter how much you change its appearance or circumstances. The true nature or soul of anything, whether it’s a person, a tree, or even an idea. Imagine two tomatoes growing on the French and Spanish sides of the border from the same crop. In the end, you have a French tomato and a Spanish tomato because of their “essence.” For me, essence is one of the biggest biases out there. Useful: This is an abstractionist concept (as by D. Dennett). We pretend that things have essence because it’s useful, not because essence is real. Authentic: I am arguing outside as dictated by what is logical to inside. Arguing that homosexuals may enter heaven to evade from my inner beliefs is inauthentic. Scientific realism, Empiricism, Rationalism, etc., all lean heavily towards Nominalism and Materialism, meaning they are highly skeptical about “essence” as a general rule. With this, we look at 99% of the discussions around gender: Here, the "rationalist" is essenti

Strongly upvoted, neat overview of the topic.
I especially like the academic format (e.g. with the sources clearly cited), as well as its conciseness and breadth.

1pendingsurvival
Thanks!

“American financial criminal and businessman. Shkreli is the co-founder of the hedge funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital Management, and MSMB Healthcare, the co-founder and former CEO of pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, and the former CEO of start-up software company Gödel Systems, which he founded in August 2016” (Wikipedia).


It should at least be mentioned that Shkreli is a convicted fraudster.

3Parker Conley
Agreed and added.

Most of the sources he cites are also referred to in my article, which of his points do you find the strongest that are not already addressed here?

1bhauth
I linked to a thread on twitter, but what I was pointing at was not primarily the thread but the person. He also wrote replies to many arguments.

I cite and contextualise the news article in my post (see second half of sec. 'Misrepresentation of evidence')
Ebright is cited in Butler's news post on Nature also referred to by Roko. The post is a brief summary of a debate on the usefulness of GoF research, and makes some other points, among which:

-Barich arguing that the project was funded because not so risky as to fall under the moratorium;

-"Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In 2013, resear... (read more)

1bhauth
Some amount of binding to some human receptors doesn't mean a virus can infect humans. When something can infect humans, people say that instead. Also, you're not using those words correctly. Perhaps you mean "without evolution in an intermediate host" - which was, of course, never found.

You can still write posts, it doesn't look like brute-force manufactured consensus to me. Your original post got over 200 karma which seems pretty high for a censorship attempt (whether intentional or not).

An addendum to this: Marinetti embraced an early form of Italian fascism ('sansepolcrino') that already by 1925 had been in fact disavowed by fascist leaders and that was pretty much antithetical to fascism as most people intend it.
Here the 1919 Fascist Manifesto from Wikipedia, I am familiar with the original document and it's correct. Not to be confused with the 1925 Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals.

Politically, the Manifesto calls for:

  • Universal suffrage with a lowered voting age to 18 years, and voting and electoral office eligibility for all ages
... (read more)
Answer by WitheringWeights20

Hi!

I'm rated between 1500 and 1700 on lichess, I'd be happy to take part in the game in whatever role.

Hey, thanks a lot for bringing up the topic, I think it deserves more attention in general and I don't get some of the objections raised in the comments.

I'm not sure I understood how investors would value the perpetuity/annuity.
What I mean is that the least they can expect is to receive the annuity for a minimum of 50 years (following the example), so they would probably go with a valuation of this sort so to already discount the case in which the state reneges on its pledge. When this happens (because of MPs or justices) there's no one left to actually ca... (read more)

2FCCC
I appreciate it. If I do write a longer version, it won't be on here, because I have no tools to moderate the comment section. How would the enforcement perpetuity be valued? I agree, it would not be worth $1T at the moment before default because the market would assign some probability that the legislators would follow through the land value tax. Now, the important question is, “Does that matter?” I say no, it doesn't, and my reasoning is as follows. If you bought a $100M lottery ticket, what's it worth before the numbers come out? Basically zero. But what if the numbers come up and they match your ticket? You've won the jackpot, literally. Now what if that happens, but the lottery owners don't pay? Are you going to be okay with that? Are you going to say, “The ticket was never worth much anyway, so it doesn’t matter”? No, that's a huuuuge breach of contract! You don't just get to not pay $100M dollars and have no impact on your financial credibility. That's crazy talk. If they didn't pay, you’d be very upset, and rightfully so. I don't think that because “It's a one-off, not a repeat lottery business” is a meaningful distinction here. The government issuing debt is a repeat business. My actual work is at an investment fund. If I saw a government being like “Nah, we're not paying that $1T perpetuity because it's a weird security”, I am selling every regular bond of theirs that we own as fast as I reasonably can. If they can just not pay that $1T contract, what else are they capable of? I am significantly increasing my probability of them defaulting. People like me would sell the government's regular bonds ASAP, which drops the bond's prices, thereby increasing the rate of interest that the government has to pay on new debt. The fund managers who didn't do this are having to explain to their investors why they didn't sell before the prices dropped. The government just defaulted on a major debt, and their reaction was to do nothing. That's not a good career move

The main problem I see here lies in implementing an institutional mechanism that ties future governments to bills passed decades before.
What I mean is that future governments are likely to be able to further delay/ignore past 'bills for the future' because a legislature is only bound to act without breaching the respective constitution (usually interpreted by a constitutional court), its bylaws (decided internally by MPs) and the law (written by MPs).
This implies that any law that does not enjoy constitutional ranking can be just as easily repealed by any ... (read more)

1FCCC
I've figured out a solution to the enforcement problem Let me know what you think