Suppose that there were to exist such an entity as the Bayesian Conspiracy. I speak not of the social group of that name, the banner under which rationalists meet at various conventions – though I do not intend to disparage that group! Indeed, it is my fervent hope that they...
In this comment thread, I gave the following idea, on the topic of a method by which one might judge the Book of Mormon from a rationalist perspective: > Why not make this an online thing? Day-by-day, or perhaps week-by-week, post (somewhere, not necessarily on Less Wrong, so as not...
That's where the virtue of experimentation comes in. Let us know what you find! :D
(Purely incidentally, I love what you're doing on We've Got Worm. Didn't know you ran in these circles, though I might have guessed.)
If you can convince people that the standards of the new journal are actually beter than the existing ones that further helps with making the decision to publish in the journal seem virtuous.
I concur with the implication, but that's a very big "if". It's possible that many scientists know that e.g. the CONSORT standards are good, but how many do you think would be able to differentiate between two sets of standards, and determine which one is "better"? In addition, I'm not sure that "virtue" really is much of a factor when deciding in which journal to publish one's research, otherwise we wouldn't see people following the incentive gradients they are.
Finally I... (read more)
You could try to bite bullets and believe the inconvenient facts.
You could try to find the facts and change your politics to fit.
You mention that you "feel committed to the last". If you had used the word "beliefs" instead of "politics," I would endorse and agree with your commitment. Given that you used the word "politics," though, I'm inclined to believe that the better path is somewhere between the two positions quoted above.
I agree that "[for] almost any political position, there is at least one inconvenient fact." (Or, at least, I think I agree; I think that you are using the terms "political position" and "inconvenient" in the way that is... (read more)
Adding to the Markdown parsing comment: if we're going to type in Markdown anyway instead of having a proper WYSIWYG editor (make no mistake; I prefer the former!) (Although I see that highlighting text causes a WYSIWYG panel to open up, which I think is excellent), I think it makes sense to separate the raw input from the formatting. I would prefer a system such as Reddit or Stack Exchange have, where the text-box shows the raw Markdown, and the resultant formatted text is displayed elsewhere for review. Combining the two into one area makes fine editing more difficult.
I'm inclined to believe that this would also go some way toward fixing Jiro's... (read more)
Even if the money alone isn't enough to warrant the scientist to publish in a no-name journal, the journal would soon stop being a no-name journal because scientists would expect that their colleges want to publish in the journal to get the money. That expectation makes the journal more prestigious. The expectations that other people expect the journal to get more prestigious in-turn will increase it's prestige.
I'm inclined to dispute this point. Setting quite aside the difficulty of setting up such a project, supposing that the money came ex nihilo and we magically caught the ear of prestigious scientists... it is my intuition that our journal would nevertheless fail to gain prestige. I... (read more)
The Navbar is transparent on the About page on Android -- when I scroll down, the content and the navbar text overlap each other. Not sure if that's intentional, but it seems a bit awkward to me.
Actually, much of my experience on Android has been buggy -- is mobile performance not a high development priority right now?
... huh. I wonder if Neal Stephenson is a LW reader. See his (most recent?) book, REAMDE, for an implementation of this idea.
I'm not sure that the difference between 4D states and 3D states is meaningful, with respect to eudaimoniac valuations. Doesn't this overlook the fact that human memories are encoded physically, and are therefore part of the 3D state being looked at? I don't see any meaningful difference between a valuation over a 4D state, and a valuation over a 3D state including memories of the past.
In other words, I can think of no 3D state whose eudaimoniac valuation is worse than that of the 4D state having it as its endpoint.
(In fact, I can think of quite a few which may in fact be better, for pathological choices of 4D state, e.g. ones extending all the way back to the Dark Ages or before.)
P.S. Is there a standardized spelling for the term which I have chosen to spell as "eudaimoniac"? A quick Google search suggested this one as the best candidate.
Oh dear; how embarrassing. Let me try my argument again from the top, then.
Suppose that there were to exist such an entity as the Bayesian Conspiracy.
I speak not of the social group of that name, the banner under which rationalists meet at various conventions – though I do not intend to disparage that group! Indeed, it is my fervent hope that they may in due time grow into the entity which I am setting out to describe. No, I speak of something more like the “shadowy group of scientists” which Yudkowsky describes, tongue (one might assume) firmly in cheek. I speak of such an organization which has been described in Yudkowsky's various fictional works, the secret and sacred cabal of mathematicians and empiricists who seek... (read 1509 more words →)
In this comment thread, I gave the following idea, on the topic of a method by which one might judge the Book of Mormon from a rationalist perspective:
Why not make this an online thing? Day-by-day, or perhaps week-by-week, post (somewhere, not necessarily on Less Wrong, so as not to clutter the site; though perhaps Less Wrong would actually be the ideal locale, due to familiarity, extant population, etc?) a chapter of the Book of Mormon and allow discussion of it, separately from the rest of the Book, using terms common to Rationalists.
I would appreciate feedback on this idea, for an admittedly selfish reason: I am trying to instigate in myself a Crisis... (read more)
That's where randomized controlled trials come in. Rigor! Scholarship! Risks to one's health! That's the scientific method!