Broken link:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2l0/should_i_believe_what_the_siai_claims/2f14
Expected behavior: You can see the comment, a la archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170424155218/http://lesswrong.com/lw/2l0/should_i_believe_what_the_siai_claims/2f14
(do make sure you hit the '+')
Actual behavior: You can't see the comment on the page unless you click "show more" comments. Click "show more," and the page reloads, and it zooms down to see his comment. Given that lesswrong.com/{...}/2f14 is a direct link to that comment, it should show that comment.
Some time ago I stopped telling people I'd be somewhere at ish-o'clock. 4PM-ish for example. I really appreciate when people tell me they'll be somewhere at an exact time, and they're there.
I've heard that people are more on-time for a meeting that starts at 4:05 than one at 4:00, and I've used that tactic (though I'd pick the less-obviously-sneaky 4:15).
Yeah--when the person asking the question said, "90 years," and the Turing award winners raised some hands, couldn't they be interpreted to be specifying a wide confidence interval, which is what you should do when you know you don't have domain expertise with which to predict the future?
This intuitively feels epistemologically arrogant, but it succeeds in solving the probability language discrepancy.
In general I support the thought that you avoid a lot of pitfalls if you're really precise and really upfront about what kinds of evidence you'll accept and not. I suspect that that kind of planning is not discussed enough in rationalist-circles, so I appreciate this post! You're upfront about the fact that you'll accept a non-explicit signal. I see nothing wrong with that, given that you're many inferential steps from a shared understanding of probability.
Oh! Thanks.
First: Yes I agree that my thing is a different thing, different enough to warrant a new name. And I am sneaking in negative affect.
Yeah, no kidding it’s easier to catch people doing it—because it’s a completely different thing!
Indeed, I am implicitly arguing that we should be focused on faults-we-actually-have[0], not faults-it's-easy-to-see-we-don't. My example of this is the above-linked podcast, where the hosts hem and haw and, after thinking about it, decide they have no sacred cows, and declare that Good (full disclosure: I like the podcast...
I sometimes hear rationalist-or-adjacent people say, "I don't have any sacred-cow-type beliefs." This is the perspective of this commenter who says, "lesswrong doesn't scandalize easily." Agreed: rationalists-and-adjacents entertain a wide variety of propositions.
The conventional definition of sacred-cow-belief is: A falsifiable belief about the world you wouldn't want falsified, given the chance. For example: If a theist had the opportunity to open a box to see whether God existed, and refused, and wouldn't let anyo...
(as Elizier says, it is dangerous to be half a rationalist, link, there's a better link somewhere, but I can't find it)
This might be it: http://lesswrong.com/lw/3h/why_our_kind_cant_cooperate/
Excerpt:
And you do not warn them to scrutinize arguments they agree with just as hard as they scrutinize incongruent arguments for flaws. So they have acquired a great repertoire of flaws of which to accuse only arguments and arguers who they don't like. This, I suspect, is one of the primary ways that smart people end up stupid.
(it also mentions tha...
I'm going to write soon about how I don't care about existential risk, and how I can't figure out why. Am I not a good rationalist? Why can't I seem to care?
In one compound sentence: Personal demons made me a rationalist; personal demons decide what I think/feel is important.
I'm still angsty!
I personally will have no strong beliefs about the truth value of their hypothesis if I have too much conflicting evidence. However, I won't want to put much effort into testing the hypothesis unless my plans depend on it being true or false.
I like how you said this.
The people with whom I was speaking were successful members of society, so they fell into the uncanny valley for me when they started pushing the idea that everyone has their own truth. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that they didn't quite literally believe that, but...
I think I know what you mean by "rationalists really do wipe the floor with the competition." But in the interest of precision, what do you mean? I'm not convinced they do; I alluded to this in my post here: https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/dPLLnAJbas97GGsvQ/leave-beliefs-that-don-t-constrain-experience-alone
It may be that the community already has a standard article on this; I'd be happy with a link. It may also be that I should read more rigorously about what exactly a rationalist is. If there is no standard article, I'm curious about your thoughts.
You want to do better than a Nobel Prize? Not the prize of course, but the contribution to society? I'm intrigued. Could you expand on that?
My intrigue comes from my bar-of-what-is-possible, John von Neumann. He probably has more beliefs-that-pay-rent than me, but he also has a "practically unlimited" capacity for work, tons of "mathematical courage," and "awe-inspiring" speed[0]. It'd be so great if those things were simply beliefs-that-pay-rent!
So I tell myself, "To do better than I have been doing, I must inc...
Thank you! I updated my post.
Responding to the prompt for discussion: Once one finds deeply rooted filters with poor calibration, how should you go about fixing them?
I've heard people comment and meta-comment about how rationality seems to help people only in indirect ways. I'd also say that about myself!
I also have rarely asked for help. This is a deeply-rooted, poorly-calibrated filter. My first answer is: do the hard thing the easy way.
"Complaining more" is my way of "asking for help." Specifically, complaining that's directed toward a tractable p
(Will you all get this comment as an email?) Looking forward to meeting! I'll bring nametags and a sign up sheet and some extemporaneously-chosen food.