Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians

[-]Cayenne14y310

And if anyone is making the group less Fun or scaring off new members, and yes this includes being a creep who offends potential heroine recruits, give them an instant ultimatum or just fire them on the spot.

At the LW meetups I've been to so far, I've seen what I would call 'swarming' around each female present. It doesn't seem malicious, but they each end up being in the center of a group...

I guess this is something for other people to corroborate, I'm just a lonely data point waiting for my line.

Edit - please disregard this post

8jsalvatier14y

Hasn't happened at the (4) meet ups I've been to.

7Paul Crowley14y

I don't think we've seen this in London, but obviously our actual female participants would be better placed to comment.

3taryneast12y

I didn't see it happening while I was there.

3Paul Crowley12y

That's good to hear - thanks! Very keen to hear feedback on this sort of thing.

4CronoDAS14y

I'll confirm that this phenomenon exists; I routinely participate in such "swarms". I do not know to what extent this is actually a problem, though.

3Vaniver14y

I've been to 1 meetup with 5 participants, of which one was female (and married to another participant). So I don't really have much relevant data yet. My guess is if this sort of thing shows up, it happens with larger meetup sizes. I'm not sure it's avoidable, though. I think the best improvement vector is to try to decrease the creepiness without trying to decrease the interest.

3Dorikka14y

How many meetups have you been to and seen this? Do you think it produces negative effects; if so, what? More data, yum yum. :D

1taryneast12y

I can postulate, based on past experience (not with LW meetups). It depends on the person. Some people like a lot of attention and find it energising... some people don't and can find it overwhelming and exhausting. If a person finds it overwhelming and exhausting they may be turned off coming next time.

[-]David_Gerard14y230

Should this be added to the "community" sequence?

[-]Vladimir_M14y170

Being able to accept and consider advice from other people who think you're doing something stupid, without lashing out at them; and the more you show them this is true, and the more they can trust you not to be offended if you're frank with them, the better the advice you can get. (Yes, this has a failure mode where insulting other people becomes a status display. [...])

It also has a more subtle and counterintuitive failure mode. People can derive status and get much satisfaction by handing out perfectly honest and well-intentioned advice, if this advice is taken seriously and followed. The trouble is, their advice, however honest, can be a product of pure bias, even if it's about something where they have an impressive track record of success.

Moreover, really good and useful advice about important issues often has to be based on a no-nonsense cynical analysis that sounds absolutely awful when spelled out explicitly. Thus, even the most well-intentioned people will usually be happier to concoct nice-sounding rationalizations and hand out advice based on them, thus boosting their status not just as esteemed advice-givers, but also as expounders of respectable opinion. At the e... (read more)

[-]jsalvatier14y220

An example would help this comment.

4Vladimir_M14y

You can take any area of life where you could be faced with tough and uncertain choices, where figuring out the optimal behavior can't be reduced to a tractable technical problem, and where the truth about how things really work is often very different from what people say about it in public (or even in private). For example, all kinds of tough choices and problems in career, education, love, investment, business, social relations with people, etc., etc. In all these areas, it may happen that you're being offered advice by someone who is smart and competent, has a good relevant track record, and appears to be well-intentioned and genuinely care about you. My point is that even if you're sure about all this, you may still be better off dismissing the advice as nonsense. Accordingly, when you dismiss people's advice in such circumstances with what appears as an irrationally arrogant attitude, you may actually be operating with a better heuristic than if you concluded that the advice must be good based on these factors and acted on it. Even if the advice-giver has some stake in your well-being, it actually takes a very large stake to motivate them reliably to cut all bias and nonsense from what they'll tell you. Of course, the question is how to know if you're being too arrogant, and how to recognize real good advice among the chaff. To which there is no easy and simple answer, which is one of the reasons why life is hard.

2Dorikka14y

I agree. I think that the grandparent is useful, but I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly what mental levers it's telling me to pull and why to pull them.

5Antisuji14y

The problem of getting good data on how other people see you is a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately. I'd love to see a top-level post on this, because I think it's pretty essential for many areas of self-improvement, and I'd write it myself but I don't think I have a clear enough idea of the problems involved. I didn't think about this particular failure mode, for example. Alternatively, are there any other resources that can help me get this information?

2Error12y

On the off chance this will be spotted in the sidebar: I'm a couple years late responding, but has anyone written anything useful on this subject? Is anyone in a position to do so? Getting a correct model of others' models of oneself, and knowing it's correct, seems ridiculously difficult to me.

6Vaniver12y

I agree that this is a difficult problem. It seems to be that way because the incentive structure is misaligned for truth. The costs of giving someone unbiased feedback are mostly paid by the giver of the feedback, but the benefits are mostly received by the receiver of the feedback. Thus, this is very difficult to get from people who are not close friends and allies- but those people are probably ones who have an above-average view of you. Thus, one of the low-hanging fruit here is rewarding negative feedback, which is in many ways more useful than positive feedback (and yet most people don't reward it). It may be useful to ask people you trust questions like "How do you think other people view me?" The deflection to other people makes it easier to voice their personal concerns under plausible deniability, as well at getting at the question of "how do I present myself to others?" and "what features of my personality and behavior are most salient?"

[-][anonymous]14y140

"Munchkinism" already has a commonly-known name. It's called hacking.

[-]HughRistik14y140

Yes, let's please call it "hacking," or anything other than "Munchkinism."

7Eliezer Yudkowsky14y

Feel free to make concrete alternative suggestions. "Hacking" is taken.

[-][anonymous]14y140

Isn't 'munchkin' sort of taken too? The impression I got from a little googling is that the word as used by RPG players is a derogatory term. Calling someone that isn't a compliment on their cleverness in exploiting the mechanics but mockery for missing much of the point of the game and being an annoyance to other players.

If that's true then calling cryonics munchkinism would sound like agreement with people who say that death gives meaning to life or something like that.

[-]wedrifid14y120

Isn't 'munchkin' sort of taken too? The impression I got from a little googling is that the word as used by RPG players is a derogatory term.

The core of the insult is in the framing of the behavior as a negative (and an assertion of higher status of the speaker). The actual descriptive element of the behavior is a pretty close match to what we are talking about. This is perhaps enough of a reason to discard the word and create a synonym that doesn't have the negative association.

The problem with the MIN-MAXing munchkin - or rather the thing that causes munchkin-callers to insult them is that they think Role Playing Games are about actually taking on the role and doing what the character should do. The whole @#%@# world is at stake so you learn what you need to about the physics and the current challenges. You work out the best way to eliminate the threat and if possible ensure a literal 'happily ever after' scenario. Then you gain the power necessary to ensure that your chance of success is maximised.

But the role of the character is not what (the name-caller implies) the point of the game is about. It is about out what the game master expects, working out your own status within ... (read more)

[-]dugancm14y110

There is no problem with "Munchkinism." The problem is that in old RPG's the rules imply poorly designed (see lack of challenge upon full understanding of the system) tactical battle simulation games with some elements of strategy, while the advertising implies a social interaction and story-telling game without giving the necessary rules to support it. Thus different people think they're playing different games together and social interaction devolves into what people imagine they would do given a hypothetical situation without consequences (at least until the consequences are made explicit, violating their expectations as you note in your example).

[-]wedrifid14y140

devolves into what people imagine they would do given a hypothetical situation without consequences

Put all my points into charisma and charm skills and go find me some wenches? Oh, you mean saving the world. Got it.

Actually that is another problem with RPG designs. There are social skills and stats provided but they are damn near pointless in practice. Even when you want to role play a lovable rogue who can charm, manipulate and deceive his way out of problems you may as well put your skills into battle axes. Because the only person that you need to use social skills on is the DM and that is an out of character action. Unless you somehow manage to find a DM who considers the interaction to be about the character trying to persuade an NPC and not the player trying to persuade him and just lets the player roll some dice already.

"What is the skill check for "seduce the maidservant and get her to show you the secret entrance to the castle"?"
... "No, I don't need to tell you what lines I'm going to use... since I would just have to lie so as to not offend the sensibilities of the company. Dice. I want to use dice and charm wenches!"
... "What? Oh, this is just too much hassle. Let's do what we know works. Guys, you take the guard on the left and I'll take the guard on the right. Rescue the princess and kill everything that tries to stop us."

6TheOtherDave14y

Of course, what actions players enjoy actually role-playing out, and what actions they prefer to just encapsulate into a die-roll, varies a lot among potential players. Most RPG systems I've seen seem optimized for players who enjoy making tactical decisions (do I wield a sword or cast a spell? do I go through this door or that one, and do I check it for traps before I open it?), and so devote an enormous amount of attention to the specifics of different weapon types but don't care very much about the specifics of different wench-charming lines. I could imagine it being different: e.g., the session starts with three or four hours of hanging out at the local tavern swapping stories, and otherwise navigating the tribal monkey politics of a simulated adventuring party, finding out which vendors have the best equipment and give the best deals, bartering with salespeople, etc., etc., etc. ... and then everyone rolls against their "explore dungeon" to determine how successful they were, how much loot they got, who died, how many monsters they killed, etc. ("No, I don't need to tell you which door I'm going to enter through. Dice. I want to use dice and explore dungeons!") But I expect they would appeal to a vastly different audience.

6wedrifid14y

The analogy doesn't fit. The salient difference here isn't one of emphasis on a different aspects of adventuring. It's that the bulk of the significant decisions for everything except the tactics boil down to guessing the DM's password. And that just isn't that fun. Nor is it compulsory (school) or economically worthwhile (paid employment), the other times that password guessing is the whole point of the game. The reason the disgruntled charmer had to fall back on tactical combat is because that is the one aspect of the situation over which the players actually have influence. Because no matter how much attention you pay to that aspect it still amounts to trying to guess how some roleplaying nerd thinks you should pick up wenches! Something just isn't right there. On the hand designing an entire gaming system around a solid theory of social dynamics has real potential as a learning tool if run by those with solid competence themselves. "Lookt! It's a 9 HB. They have a 30 second timeout. Quick, use a +3 neghit then follow up with that new 2d8 identity conveying routine you've been preparing all week! Let me run interference on the AMOG to hold agro while you establish rapport" (No, on second thought, let's not go to Camelot. 'Tis a silly place.)

6TheOtherDave14y

I agree completely with you that "how some roleplaying nerd thinks you should pick up wenches" bears no meaningful relationship to real social dynamics, so it's all password-guessing. From my perspective, the same thing was true of slicing swords through armor, raising allied morale, casting spells, praying for divine intervention, avoiding diseases in the swamp, etc. None of those simulated activities bore any meaningful relationship to the real thing they ostensibly simulated. But I'll grant that in the latter cases, there were usually formal rules written down, so I didn't have to guess the passwords: I could read them in a book, memorize them, and optimize for them. (At least, assuming the GM followed them scrupulously.)

2wedrifid14y

Then, of course, there are the actual strategic roleplaying choices. Not the mere tactical ones of how to fight some orcs. The ones where you have to make a choice on where you go next. Roughly speaking you are often best off choosing what the rational course of action is and then picking the opposite. It's a lot more fun, the battles are both more likely and more of a challenge and you get far more experience! If the DM already has a plan on how long his adventure will take to complete and a rough idea of what you'll be fighting at the end then the more danger you encounter in the mean time the better. So go sleep in that haunted wood then walk into what is obviously a trap. Does anyone remember where Eliezer joked about leaving his spare coins around under random objects? He also made a point that in roleplaying games you are usually best served by going around and doing everything else first instead of doing the thing that is the shortest path to getting what you want.

1loqi14y

I consider this a symptom of poor scenario design - the availability of unpredictably optimal actions is the key technical difference (there are of course social differences) between open-ended and computer-mediated games. If the setting is incompatible with the characters' motivations, it's impossible to maintain the fiction that they're even really trying, and either the setting's incentives or the characters' motivations (or both in tandem) need revision. Running a good open-ended game in the presence of imaginative and intelligent players is hard. You either leave lots of material unused, or rob the game of its key strength by over-constraining the set of possible actions.

1TheOtherDave14y

Sure. Of course, it helps to be clear about what you actually want. IME most computer RPG designers assume their players want to "beat the game": that is, to do whatever the game makes challenging as efficiently as possible. And they design for that, clearly signaling what the assigned challenges are and providing a steadily progressing path of greater challenge and increased capacity to handle those challenges. (As you and EY point out, this often involves completely implausible strategic considerations.) This is also true of a certain flavor of TT RPG, where the GM designs adventures as a series of challenging obstacles and puzzles which the players must overcome/solve in order to obtain various rewards. (And as you suggested earlier, one could also imagine a social RPG built on this model.) In other (rarer) flavors of TT, and in most forum-based RPGs, it's more like collaborating on a piece of fiction: the GM designs adventures as a narrative setting which the players must interact with in order to tell an interesting story. It can be jarring when the two styles collide, of course.

0wedrifid14y

There is far more than a difference of styles at work.

0TheOtherDave14y

Well, that's portentous. Is this meant as a back-reference to the things you've already discussed in this thread, or as an intimation of things left unsaid?

0wedrifid14y

The former, but I suppose both apply. Either way I thought enough had been said and wanted to exit the conversation without particularly implying agreement but without making a fuss.either. A simple assertion of position was appropriate. While strictly true saying "further conversation would just involve spinning new ways of framing stuff for the purpose of arguing for a position and generally be boring and uninformative" would represent connotations that I didn't want to convey at the time. The conversation to that point was positive and had merely exhausted the potential. Quit before it is just an argument. Since you asked.

0CuSithBell14y

Yeah, I think roleplayers and writers share the position that sadism is one of the most important virtues.

0wedrifid14y

I read some Ian Irvine a while back - the punishment he deals out to his two protagonists goes through sadistic and out the other side. But on the other hand he did let the pair hook up and have a stable, secure relationship whenever one or the other wasn't either kidnapped or out alone on the run in the forest with no food and probably a broken leg. I didn't quite make it through the series but I assume they lived happily (albeit in intermittent agony and constant adversity) ever after. So he's just sadistic, not cruel. :)

1wedrifid14y

Like Melf's Minute Meteors doing fire damage. Those things are still supercooled by the time they hit the ground. Those trolls should be fine! (Until you use Melf's Acid Arrow).

5CuSithBell14y

That's an issue that traditional-game GMs go back and forth on all the time - some say "but it's more interesting if you role-play it out", and some say "but you're not making the fighter actually stab people when he wants to make an attack". Personally, in that sort of game I like to have players in-character to an extent, but their social stats should be the thing that determines their character's success at social tasks. There are a ton of spectacular indie games that deal with this in other ways! Wuthering Heights Roleplay is just incredible. Your main stats are Despair and Rage. There are general rules for matching tasks to stat rolls, and specific rules for Duels, Murder, Art, and Seduction. The general trajectory of a game is: a bunch of terrible people obsessed with their own problems (or rather, their Problems) start falling in love with each other and making dramatic revelations, until eventually they're all hacking each other to pieces. It's a fun evening. The Mountain Witch is another interesting one. All "conflicts" are decided by a simple roll-off, d6 versus d6. You get more d6s (keep the highest) if you're working with other people. Players keep track of how much they Trust each other player, and you can spend someone else's Trust in you to help them out with bonuses in conflicts, to gain control of the narration of the outcome of their conflicts, or to give yourself bonuses when directly opposing them. (There's a lot more to this one, but that's the gist of the conflict mechanic.) Cool stuff.

0wedrifid14y

What, no d20s? Or even a d8? Where's the geeky fun in that? P

6CuSithBell14y

Instead, you use poker chips to represent trust! I find that appealing somehow... Yeah, that one just uses d6 - though there's an interesting "duel" mechanic where you and an opponent roll secretly, then decide together whether you'll each roll again - to emulate two ronin staring each other down before deciding the battle with a single cut. (The game has a very specific setting - you're a group of ronin who've been hired to climb Mt. Fuji and kill the Witch (though he's a dude?) that lives on top. You all have secret ulterior motives! I think it's been adapted to similar scenarios such as bank heists.) Uh, Wuthering Heights uses d100, and you roll under or over your Despair / Rage depending on what you want to do. For example, killing someone means rolling below Rage (easier to do the angrier you are), whereas noticing other peoples' feelings and stuff requires a roll over Despair. Ooh, plus, if you're into nerdy dice-related stuff, there's a big Random Table of Problems, like "You are an alcoholic", "You are a homosexual", "You are Irish", "You are in love with a member of your family", or "You are a poet", and everyone has to roll d100 a few times to get their Problems. Oh! And if you just want to chuck lots of different kinds of dice around, you can't go wrong with Dogs in the Vineyard - where you play itinerant teenage pseudo-Mormon enforcers of the faith in a west that never was. All your traits have some amount of dice of some size next to them, and when they come up in a conflict, you roll them into your pool and can use them when raising / seeing. For instance - possessions of any sort are 1d6, 1d4 if they're sorta worthless, 1d8 if they're excellent (criterion: in order to be excellent, a thing has to be good enough that people might remark on how excellent it is), 2 dice if they're big, and an extra d4 if it's a gun (so a big, excellent pistol is 2d8+1d4). Huh, kinda geeked out there. ^-^;

1wedrifid14y

Ok, poker chips qualify as a legitimate nerd-coolness alternative. I'm convinced. :P A Mormon with a deagle you know that's unheard of!

0CuSithBell14y

Hah! And of course, this being a roleplaying game, I defy you to find a player who won't take a big, excellent gun.

6CronoDAS14y

The other problem with Munchkinism is that, once your character actually achieves godlike power by breaking the game system, there's no actual challenge left. It's like solving a Rubix Cube by peeling the colored stickers off of the sides and sticking them back on in the "solved" position; there's really no point to it. So you self-handicap and choose to play a character that isn't Pun-Pun.

6wedrifid14y

Munchkinism is definitely not the same as cheating. You don't break the Rubix cube physics, you work within them. A munchkin probably would google "solve rubix cube" and then apply a dozen or so step algorithm that will solve the cube from any given starting configuration. In fact peeling the stickers isn't even cheating properly. The result doesn't even constitute a solved rubix cube. It constitutes an ugly block that used to be a rubix cube. It is far better to simply dismantle the cube and click it back into place correctly. (This is actually necessary if some clown has taken out one of the blocks and swapped it around such that the entire cube is unsolvable. A cruel trick.) A legitimate challenge there is to set yourself the task of solving it without external knowledge. The one I would go with (if I was interested in playing with the cubes beyond being able to solve them all at will) is to learn to solve the cube blindfolded. You get to look at the cube once for a couple of seconds then you have to do the whole thing by touch (and no, there is no braille there to help you). As a bonus this is exactly the sort of task that grants general improvements in mental focus! That's the kind of thing I like to demonstrate once in principle and then propose a rule change. My usual example is that of playing 500 and the open misere call. I usually propose something of a limitation on frequency of misere calls (and allow any 10 call to beat it). If the other players don't want the limitation I proceed to play open misere every time it is rational to do so (about 1/4 hands, depending on the score at the time). And ask them if they have changed their mind every time I win. I like self-handicaps. At least in the form of giving yourself a genuinely challenging task and then trying to overcome it. My character selections (in RPGs when I have played them and in CRPGs) tend to be based on novelty or and emotional appeal. All the choices after that can be made intelligently.

3Sniffnoy14y

RPGs are kind of a weird case; they're not "games" in the same sense as a competitive game, because there's not one fixed thing specified in the rules that you're supposed to be maximizing (this is part of why I don't play RPGs :P ). With those you start getting derogatory nicknames for those who don't do everything possible to win (e.g. "scrubs"). Though I don't know of any short term for those who do (aside from just "people who play to win"), except in the context of Magic where they're known as "Spikes". Of course, if we're speaking of "winning at life", there it is also not clear should to be maximized! People aren't very good at knowing their own goals. So that's something of a disanalogy.

5katydee14y

Duh, winning.

4wedrifid14y

Twice.

2Dorikka14y

Munchkinism's more vivid in my mind. Then again, I love to make up new words.

8wedrifid14y

On the other hand if 'real' munchkins were anything like 'munchkins' in this sense they would have taken a level in badass then dealt with both the wicked witches themselves without waiting for a fortuitous outside intervention. And made the yellow brick road straight.

8Eliezer Yudkowsky14y

It's not the same thing. Picking locks is a hack. Cryonics is something more, which is why even most people who can pick locks don't go for it.

[-]steven046114y360

I wonder if it's accurate to say that for hacks, it's the means that's considered "cheating", whereas for cryonics, it's the end itself that's considered "cheating".

[-]The Dao of Bayes14y110

That seems like a good distinction between Munchkinism and Hacking, as I've seen them used by their respective cultures. Munchkinism is about using the rules to accomplish an "unacceptable" goal, whereas Hacking is about accomplishing acceptable goals via "unacceptable" methods. Thank you for helping me cement why the two terms felt like very separate ones :)

[-]steven046114y130

http://home.netcom.com/~shagbert/pages/munchkins.html :

Die? You're kidding, right?

8[anonymous]14y

No, it's quite the same thing. -- rms, "On Hacking" Does not the bolded section describe cryonics? Isn't death a "silly rule"? I think your sense of the word "hacking" is too strict.

[-]wisnij14y110

As another example, the Jargon file has a general definition of 'hacker':

(sense 7) One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

That seems to fit pretty well.

[-]wedrifid14y130

(sense 7) One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

That seems to fit pretty well.

It certainly fits 'hacker' (and myself) well. It doesn't fit people who are indifferent to intellectual challenge but just want to live (and so do cryonics) or just want to win (and so min-max the @#%$ out of life).

8wnoise14y

"Min-maxer". Now that could be a reasonable label.

8Risto_Saarelma14y

Slang meaning's very similar to 'munchkin', but doesn't make people who aren't gamers think of fairy-tale midgets. Sounds good to me. It's also got decision theory connotations as a bonus.

4steven046114y

Min-maxing connotes being extremely good at some things by being extremely bad at some others (the "min" part), so it's not quite the right fit.

9Risto_Saarelma14y

Recognizing things that are not worth putting effort in as well as things that are isn't a bad thing, given that there is an infinite number of skills you could use your time to get good at. Such as shaping gravel into mounds exactly 17 centimeters tall, memorizing telephone directories, or playing chmess competitively.

[-]steven046114y150

Okay, but that's not what defines munchkins. Munchkinism, as I see it, is less about getting points in good areas by burning points in bad areas (min-maxing) than it is about getting points in good areas by burning the spirit of the game.

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y200

I think that willingness to burn the spirit of the game when it comes to things like signing up for cryonics instead of confronting the inevitability of your mortality, drinking extra-light olive oil instead of trying to diet by sheer willpower, or building a recursively self-improving AI instead of trying to solve the world's problems the normal way, is exactly what distinguishes Munchkinism from mere hacking.

2RHollerith14y

--game theory connotations, to be specific.

1ameriver14y

Upvoted for this:

2wedrifid14y

I think your model of the space of human attitudes is insufficiently nuanced. I like the 'hacking' attitude as well as that which is being referred to as being a munchkin but they are two complementary features. The part of your quote that you didn't bold is loosely relevant to the distinction.

7wnoise14y

Though I agree "hacking" isn't quite the right word, Only under the most anemic criteria. Overlap between lock pickers and hackers does not make lock picking hacking. Using something not-as-it-was-intended is the start of many hacks, but a simple reversal of function or overcoming of function by itself doesn't make the cut.

6twanvl14y

I am sorry, are you really saying that people don't go for cryonics because it is something more than a hack? I find this causal relationship hard to believe. Do people in general don't go for things that are more than hacks? I think it is a lot more likely that people don't go for cryonics because it is weird, and maybe because it requires thinking about your own mortality. And most importantly, because it is not the default option.

2shokwave14y

Probably a third cause. There is some reason why people don't go for cryonics, which is also the reason it isn't a hack. Too weird might be that cause.

5Alexandros14y

Not all hackers go for the same type of hacks.

1NihilCredo14y

I get the impression that you draw the distinction between 'hacking' and 'munchkining' as "They both work, but would the average guy think that it's clever or dismiss it as crazy / unfair / uncustomary?" Am I correct?

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y100

Not really. It involves the ability to do things that would make other people look at you funny, and a relentlessly optimizing attitude toward all of real life and not just computer science problems or particular locks. There may be something more to it, too. In any case Timothy Ferriss != John McCarthy (albeit McCarthy himself may also have the Munchkin-nature) and people who build championship Magic decks don't think in quite the same way as great programming hackers, though you can also be both.

3NihilCredo14y

So, new attempt: * Hacking = figuring out clever ways to circumvent [apparently] tough problems * Munchkining = constantly identifying which resources are truly relevant, and then actually abiding by that assessment. Or, as a Magic legend once said, "Focus only on what matters." Closer?

7shokwave14y

A hacker is just a satisficer that places little value on a norm or norms. A munchkin is an optimiser. Removing one constraint allows a satisficer to achieve better results on all the other constraints; by contrast, an optimiser will violate as many constraints as it takes to get the best result on the optimised criterion.

0Davorak14y

I came back to ask a similar question. I would not call the issue of choosing cryonics more then a hack. I think it is the difference is that a hacker is often some one who has optimized well in a narrow area while a munchkin will look at the whole system and optimize it and constantly look for new rules to exploit. The difference I see EY drawing is one of local optimization verses global optimization(or at least an attempting to).

1Risto_Saarelma14y

Munchkinism in gaming is also generally connected to zero-sum games, so when gaming against a munchkin you either lose or have to out-munchkin them. The meaning is generally pejorative because more collaborative games tend to become unfun at this point. I've never seen gamers who do odd and massively optimized things that aren't intended for winning zero-sum games, such as building a working CPU in Minecraft, called munchkins. There always seems to be the aspect of outshining the other players within the game in munchkinism. The analogy of this to the social sphere might be why Tim Ferriss got flak from his 4-Hour Workweek.

[-]bgaesop14y130

I've been having some sort of half-formed thoughts recently that this has brought back into my foreground that I'm curious to see other people's thoughts on.

It seems to me that the likelihood is quite high that there are people on here who have inherently competing utility functions (these examples were chosen merely because they are fairly common, directly competing, not obviously insane sets of motivations. I intend no value judgment on either of them). Thus, making one of the people whose utility function is dramatically different from yours more rational could be an extremely counterproductive move for you to make in terms of satisfying your own utility function. Imagine a libertarian rationalist accidentally training a socialist guerilla, who goes on to be very successful at fulfilling his own utility function, and thus dramatically harmful to his teacher's. Or perhaps more realistically, a socialist teacher trains a libertarian who goes on to found a company that does business in the Third World in a way that the teacher disapproves of.

How would we avoid this? Should we avoid this?

A few months I ago I was roundly, and rightly, rebuked for suggesting that rationality will lea... (read more)

[-]TheOtherDave14y190

In other words, if my opponent begins to make choices that better optimize their goals, do I gain or lose?

It seems clear that the answer depends on how many of their goals I share, how many I oppose, and how much I value the shared goals relative to the opposed goals.

Suppose we are Swift's Big-Endians and Little-Endians, who agree on pretty much everything that matters (even by their own standards!) and are bitterly divided over a single relatively trivial issue. If one side is suddenly optimized, everybody wins. That is, the vast majority of everyone's current goals are more effectively and efficiently met, including those of the opposition.

Sure, the optimized party gets all of that plus the value of having everyone open their eggs on the side they endorse... which means their opponents suffer in turn the value-loss of everyone opening their eggs on the side they reject. But they will be suffering that value-loss in the context of an overall increase in their value. I'm not saying everyone wins equally, just that everybody wins. Whether they are happy about this or not depends on other factors, but they seem pretty clearly to be better off.

In that scenario, upgrading my opponents... (read more)

4bgaesop14y

I really hope that this is the case, but I don't think that it is. I think that the difference between the hypothetical socialist and libertarian are more dramatic than the difference between a Big-Ender and a Little-Ender. Consider this situation: All of humanity consists of 100 people, starting at utility 10, and a random one of them is given this choice: either keep things the way they are (everyone has 10 utilons, total of 1000) or one person, at random, is given 990 utilons while everyone else loses 9, so one person will have 1000, and everyone else will have 1, for a total of 1099~11 per person. The expected utility of the latter option is higher than the first so every rational being must pick the latter, right? Though I've learned a lot since that conversation and I no longer would make the same points, I still think that an equitable distribution of utility is better than an unequal one. Many people genuinely think it is a wonderful thing to make it so that the world is highly stratified, that there are a whole lot of people who lose in order to have a few people who really, really win. There are also a whole lot of people who genuinely think it is worth sacrificing some amount of "progress" (by which I mean technological innovation, cheapness of consumer goods, whatever) in order to have people's lives be more equitable. I lie closer to the second camp, but I haven't pounded my tentstakes into the ground, and even if I have, I certainly haven't laid a brick-and-mortar foundation, so I can uproot fairly quickly. I understand the logic that comes to the former conclusion; I think it just starts from different premises than the people who come to the latter (though of course there are crazies who come to both but that goes without saying). It does seem to me, however, that the two actually are fundamentally irreconcilable in very important ways. I hope I'm wrong about that, but it really seems like I'm not... edit: Certainly arguments like "ought gay people

0TheOtherDave14y

Absolutely agreed that the difference between "I'm worse off than I was, and you're better off" (as in your example) and "I'm better off than I was, and you're much more better off than I am" (e.g.; we start off at 10 utilons each, a randomly chosen person gets +1010 utilons and everyone else gets +10 utilons) matters here. I'm talking about the second case... that is, I'm not making the "maximize global utility" argument. This has nothing to do with inequity. The second case is just as unequal as the first: at the end of the day one person has 999 utility more than his neighbors. The difference is that in the second case his neighbors are better off than they were at the start, and in the first case they are worse off. As for whether one or the other real-world cases (e.g., socialist/libertarian) are more like the first or second; I don't really know.

4hwc14y

Maybe after we all become measurably more rational, we can start to talk about politics without mind-killing? Under those circumstances, maybe we'll find that the socialists and libertarians can find more common ground?

2MrMind14y

Politics is mind-killer because the category itself is difference-killing. You just don't discuss politics, you discuss global problems and how to solve them. Without even entering in categorization beforehand...

6hwc14y

I don't actually want to discuss politics. I realize that I hate politics. But I love talking about public policy. But discussing (e.g.) tax policy or monetary policy seems to automatically shift the conversation into politics. And then the yelling begins.

0MrMind14y

That was exactly my thought... so you need to extract the problem that tax policy or monetary policy are trying to solve, contextualize it and maybe even translate it into a metaphor... that should be enough for rational mind to start discussing rationally...

[-]dripgrind14y110

Survivors and cult historians alike agree that this post, combined with the founding of the "rationalist boot camps", set in motion the sequence of events which culminated in the tragic mass cryocide of 2024.

At every step, Yudkowsky's words seemed rational to his enthralled followers - and also to all outside observers. And yet, when it became clear that commercial pressures were causing strong AI to be deployed long before Coherent Awesomeness Extrap-volition Theory could be made mathematically rigorous, the cult turned against itself.

One by one, each member's failure to invent and deploy Friendly AI before IBM-Halliburton turned on its Appallingly Parallel Cheney Emulation Cluster was taken by the feared Bayes Tribunal as evidence that they were insufficiently awesome, and must be ejected from the subterranean bunker complex. With each Bayesian update, the evidence that the cult's ultimate goal could not be achieved was strengthened - and yet, as the number of followers fell, the more Yudkowsky came to fear a fate worse than death - exploring the possible endings to his life within the simulation spaces of Cheney's mind - in a game-theoretic reprisal for his work on Fr... (read more)

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y150

Erm, maybe my standards are too high, but this didn't seem overwhelmingly well-written as fiction and I really worry when material that attacks a target that's supposed to be attacked gets a free pass as art. Or maybe you all actually enjoyed that, and I'm being unreasonable in expecting blog comments to meet publishable quality standards.

[-]jimrandomh14y140

This got a few chuckles from me, but I have found that fiction in which present-day issues escalate implausibly into warfare is a strong indicator and promoter of affective death spirals. You do realize that this story features prominent falsehoods that people actually believe, and is completely absurd in ways not inhereted from the things it's satirizing, right?

[-]David_Gerard14y150

I spent most of January 1990 (I think that was the month) reading the entire run of Astounding/Analog from 1953 to 1985. That was better than quite a lot of the extrapolations therein. Anthologies of the best modernist SF gloss over really quite a lot of the awfulness that was actually published, even in the best magazine ...

5Rain14y

Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crap.

4David_Gerard14y

Well, yeah. But boy did I have it brought home to me.

8hwc14y

In other words, the “Special Committee” will result in slow evaporative cooling?

[-]Luke Stebbing14y180

Or in this case, evaporative freezing.

8Raemon14y

I voted this both up (for cleverness) and down (for distracting from actually important discussion).

[-]wedrifid14y140

I voted this both up (for cleverness)

I voted it down for decidedly non-clever thinking about quantum suicide and a complete misrepresentation (or misunderstanding) of rational thinking. It attributes to Eliezer the complete opposite of the 'Shut Up And Do The Impossible' attitude that Eliezer is notorious for.

5Raemon14y

I voted it up for (I assume) cleverly, satirically representing views other people might have about the group that sound plausible to the mainstream.

-6dripgrind14y

5Alicorn14y

In that order?

6Raemon14y

I didn't actually click any buttons, so I'm not sure it matters. If I were to assign a value to this post, it would be along a multi-dimensional access and tilt sideways in a direction that is negative for the purposes of Less Wrong but positive for my personal enjoyment of life. (It's less negative to Less Wrong than it is positive to my person utility, but when multiplied out the negative-value to Less Wrong may produce more overall negative utility).

-4[anonymous]14y

Of course if you hadn't lied about voting it would tell us the probable final state of the recorded vote.

2Raemon14y

I think you are taking both the original post and my response more literally and seriously than they were intended. I didn't lie. I joked.

1The Dao of Bayes14y

I find it interesting how many people here (including myself) assumed you literally voted it both up and down. I rather liked the idea myself, since I hadn't even considered that set of actions. I'm also curious now, whether that action would be functionally different from abstaining. I'd assume it eats one point of your "downvote capacity" and nothing more, but I could see a system where comments get flagged as "controversial" due to lots of votes in both directions (I even recall a "controversial" flag in the code somewhere...)

1wedrifid14y

And for extra irony it is interesting to note that I wasn't one of them and it didn't even occur to me that it would ever be taken literally. I make the same criticism/compliment myself from time to time and don't actually click anything given the technical equivalence. Actually voting up and down is an optional extra for those with a truth fetish.

2The Dao of Bayes14y

tests Per another commenter, the second vote seems to supersede the first vote, so they're actually not technically equivalent, interesting :) That said, I didn't put any great weight in it being literally true, nor am I offended that it was a joke. It's the sort of joke I'd make myself; it just seemed slightly more likely/interesting[*] that it was meant literally :)

0wedrifid14y

Yes, you have to click the second one twice. ;)

0The Dao of Bayes14y

Based on the karma for my last comment (-2), I'm hoping someone simply forgot that step :)

0wedrifid14y

I'm not sure what happened to the voting in this thread. I assume someone took offense at the whole conversation. Never mind.

1CuSithBell14y

It looks like it just registers the more recent vote, if by "vote up" and "vote down" you mean pressing the buttons labeled as such. Clicking on the same button again retracts the up/down vote. This is my understanding from fooling around with the vote up / down buttons, there may be hidden behaviors.

1wedrifid14y

This is correct. It is just a three state toggle. Up, null, down.

-2wedrifid14y

That I replied to a literal aspect does not mean I failed to comprehend the spirit behind the common reddit jest about simultaneous up and down votes - and given the triviality the word lie isn't an accusation to be offended at. Perhaps I could have gone with "Lies! :P" to make the non-serious unmistakable. Following along within the make believe reality of a jest while the actual topic is in the background is play and "I didn't really so it doesn't matter" is dropping the ball - in the counterfactual jest reality it does matter. It is good form to let others run with what you started and forcing the original frame is what makes things serious.

7Normal_Anomaly14y

Upvoted for amusement value.

[-]bgaesop14y100

I will parenthetically emphasize that every single useful mental technique I have ever developed over the course of my entire life has been developed in the course of trying to accomplish some particular real task and none of it is the result of me sitting around and thinking, "Hm, however shall I Improve Myself today?" I should advise a mindset in which making tremendous progress on fixing yourself doesn't merit much congratulation and only particular deeds actually accomplished are praised; and also that you always have some thing you're trying to do in the course of any particular project of self-improvement - a target real-world accomplishment to which your self-improvements are a means, not definable in terms of any personality quality unless it is weight loss or words output on a writing project or something else visible and measurable.

This section is a little confusing to me, so I'm going to lay out my thoughts on the subject in order to help myself organise them and to see what other people think.

I do attempt to improve myself by thinking "what shall I do to Improve Myself today?" Or rather, I spent several days coming up with plans as to how to impr... (read more)

[-]steven046114y70

I'm extremely relieved to hear that you and Vassar are worrying about dilution of rationality, but if all you require is reaching the absolute threshold of competence, you may not be worrying about it enough. I think it's very possible that the best options available to a group in which the average level of rationality is 9 out of 10 are several times as effective on a per-person basis as the best options available to a group in which the average level of rationality is 8 out of 10.

[-]Vaniver14y140

I am not sure that worrying about the perils of growth to the degree you suggest is wise. Given how difficult it is to separate personal dislikes from competence, it seems to me that having a process to identify and remove specific problems (X is scaring off the ladies, let's train him or boot him) is much better than trying to optimize the group (I have more fun when Y isn't there, let's stop inviting them).

I also suspect this isn't intended to be an ivory tower coterie, but a growing movement- which means you want all people above minimum competence regardless of their current skill level. If you've got that sort of growth atmosphere, you'll eventually get enough people that you can sort, and your immediate group will have more members of the average quality you want.

6Will_Newsome14y

I completely agree with this comment. I don't believe anyone is sufficiently epistemicly rational to have reached the threshold of actual competence, which is roughly 17 orders of magnitude more difficult that reaching the threshold of being known as awesome by your peer group. Thousands of men can work 12 hours a day for many decades without producing as much value as a single clever insight. Friendly AI isn't solved, the Singularity Institute has like 4 real researchers and none of them are really working on FAI even if some of them have seemingly clever ideas, some people like Mitchell Porter and Vladimir Nesov etc are working on Friendliness or very related problems but not many and it's disorganized and no one thinks it's important to actually address disagreements despite all this talk about how disturbed one should be by disagreement, Less Wrong is probably the most rational forum on the web and yet comments that are flat out wrong get upvoted too much, especially about tricky problems like FAI, et cetera. We would not know if we were significantly below the necessary level of competence to have an important-in-hindsight insight. Hell, even the Singularity is just the opening of the rabbit hole. We could be missing some important things about the relevant philosophy. As a stupid example, the current common conception of the Singularity is "we fill the universe with utilitronium" which might not be nearly the correct framing in a Tegmark 'verse. Our comparative advantage is epistemic rationality, whether we like it or not. The reductionistic naturalistic cognitivist realist philosophy of Less Wrong is not satisfying even if it's the best thing we have at the moment. I highly doubt that this is the point at which we can be satisfied with our epistemic ability and start moving lots of cognitive resources to building marginally rational communities. Following the leader doesn't work without a smart enough leader, and there are no smart leaders (even if there ar

1Jonathan_Graehl14y

With sufficient deference given to the more capable, I don't see a problem with a lower average. Maybe you're worried about the phenomenon of 9s receiving numerically many upvotes from easily-impressed 8s, with 10s' contributions not being understood as widely. I don't think this is too much of a concern if people who have the best ideas and judgments improve their teaching.

1Dorikka14y

Except that you need to be careful that that lower average doesn't result in goal dilution. Disclaimer: I'm theorizing here; I haven't actually been to a meetup.

[-][anonymous]14y50

...Your writing style in this reminds me of that of Paul of Tarsus. You need to write more of these. One for every LW meetup in a new city you go to.

Hrmm, this makes me think about the Rationalist equivalent of the Bible.

We'd have the Rationalist Old Testament, which chronicles the invention of the scientific method and some of its many successes, like relativity and computers and evolutionary biology. This is obviously the longer of the testaments, in order for its larger subject matter. We learn about many of the facts and rules. This is the basis of the... (read more)

[-]Dustin14y50

This post makes me literally sad.

Living in rural Missouri limits my opportunities to interact with similar awesome-seekers.

6[anonymous]14y

I run a meetup in St. Louis, if you're ever in the area. http://lesswrong.com/lw/4xl/st_louis_missouri_meetup_now_happening_every_week/

1Dustin14y

Thanks! I'm actually about an hour south of STL...

4Alicorn14y

What ties you to rural Missouri?

[-]Dustin14y180

Wife, child, family, friends, business.

[-]Kai-o-logos14y130

that is sad - I know a friend in rural Nebraska who is in a similar predicament (college) and he says if it wasn't for LW, he might have just concluded that people were just un-awesome.

It is sad that demographics limits potential awesome-seekers. That is another reason why I admire Eliezer so much for making this online community.

[-]Hyena14y50

Some of this post makes me wonder where Less Wrong sits within social networks. I suspect we have close ties to the BoingBoing-Make ecosystem and may even be part of it.

9Barry_Cotter14y

I would be incredibly surprised if we are contained within it. I would be kind of surprised if we're contained to 90% within any 10X larger group. There is definitely a large overlap with Hacker News.

5David_Gerard14y

I concur. I can't think of any Internet group I know of that LW overlaps substantially with. I can spot small segments of groups I'm in and around (Wikipedia, RationalWiki) and I'm actively trying to recruit people with an interest in rambunctious philosophy discussion ... LW has actually interested me in and taught me about philosophy more than anything I can think of, and I studied the stuff many years ago.

6Jolly14y

I note fair levels of overlap between less wrong and those in the transhumanist, H+, singularity, & cryonics communities.

1David_Gerard14y

(cough) well, yes, apart from them, given it's run by the SIAI :-)

3[anonymous]14y

I feel the same way, for what it's worth.

0rfrankel14y

Most of the NYLW regulars aren't HN readers.

[-]psychothumbs13y40

I live in New York and have been lurking on this site for a while (plus reading HPMoR of course). This post has inspired me to try to get involved with the NY rationalist community. What is the deal with how the community actually functions? How are often are there meet ups? Other basic, boring but necessary questions?

4CronoDAS13y

More info on the NYC meetup group.

[-]Giles14y40

"And the more fun we have the more people will want to join us. That last part is something I only realized was Really Important after visiting New York"

This suggests a strong "I don't do the people stuff" bias (HP:MOR24) which will be one of the many points I address in my upcoming epic "How to save the world" sequence.

Stay tuned on the LW discussion area for this. I think I'll lose a lot of friends here if I pollute the main LW board with my particular agenda ;-)

Downvote to -10 if I haven't written a discussion post along th... (read more)

3Giles14y

I consider this commitment fulfilled. http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/5gy/help_i_want_to_do_good/

0NancyLebovitz14y

I think it's a cultural blind spot (fun vs. useful) at least as much. Also, I think maintaining fun is hard, though I'm interested in arguments that it isn't so hard as all that.

0katydee14y

Commitment device recognized.

0wedrifid14y

You can get away with all sorts of stuff if you frame it as trying to save the world. Even altruistic ventures of extremely low expected return are well received.

0Giles14y

I'm curious as to whether this comment is descriptive or normative, and whether it's about LW subculture or society in general. The "bad" side of this is that "trying to save the world" becomes a signalling game of little real value. The "good" side is that we should encourage ventures of little expected return, if people are starting to think along the right lines or finally showing a commitment to "doing".

0wedrifid14y

Definitely entirely descriptive. About LW subculture although it would apply generally as well.

0childofbaud14y

If figuring out how to save the world is your agenda, then I suspect it is a more common one than you think around these parts. Looking forward to your post.

[-]wedrifid14y40

Most trivial nitpick of the week contender:

Finally, remember that the trouble with the exact phrasing of "become awesome" - though it does nicely for a gloss - is that Awesome isn't a static quality of a person.

If you are 'becoming awesome' then the trait must already dynamic. I'd perhaps go with 'concrete' or just leave out 'static' without replacing it. At least I would if I expected the epistle to be declared divinely inspired and made gospel for the next 2,000 years. And this essay does remind me a lot of Paul's letter to Galatians - in an entirely good way!

2feanor160014y

"And this essay does remind me a lot of Paul's letter to Galatians - in an entirely good way!" I second this.

[-]TheOtherDave14y40

the more they can trust you not to be offended if you're frank with them, the better the advice you can get.

I'm fairly sure that was supposed to read "trust you not to be offended if they're frank with you."

2Jonathan_Graehl14y

Yes. Also, Please edit; can't parse. I assume you mean that you cherish the beliefs to the extent that you're actively promoting them.

5TheOtherDave14y

I understood that as: whether the beliefs you most cherish shouting about...

1Jonathan_Graehl14y

I think you're right; that may even be grammatical. If so, a rare total failure to parse on my part. I guess it wasn't total - I stopped trying because I thought an editing error was likely. Anyway, I'd revise it whether or not it's officially in error.

1TheOtherDave14y

I don't normally expect people to edit blog posts for style, though of course it's a fine thing to do if someone wants.

[-]NancyLebovitz14y30

Being able to accept and consider advice from other people who think you're doing something stupid, without lashing out at them;

It's also important not to stonewall.

1Dorikka14y

Briefly elaborate?

4NancyLebovitz14y

Stonewalling is starting from the assumption that making any change is more trouble than it's worth, and politely refusing to take the advice as a possibility. Some advice deserves no better, of course, but stonewalling shouldn't be a reflex.

2David_Gerard14y

"Thank you" is always a good answer, and then one takes the advice away to chew over even if one thinks at the time that one is dismissing it.

[-][anonymous]14y20

I should advise a mindset in which making tremendous progress on fixing yourself doesn't merit much congratulation and only particular deeds actually accomplished are praised; and also that you always have some thing you're trying to do in the course of any particular project of self-improvement [...]

I just realized why resistance training has been working amazingly well for almost 3 months now, but all my other projects have been failing left and right. My exercise has an actual, independent goal - I want to look good. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get there. The other stuff I'm doing more for its own sake. Abandoning the "one true method" would spoil the fun.

[-]Jonathan_Graehl14y20

if anyone is making the group less Fun or scaring off new members, and yes this includes being a creep who offends potential heroine recruits, give them an instant ultimatum or just fire them on the spot.

Consider who might resent a friend's exclusion from the group, especially if it appears capricious. If there are clear norms and people are emotionally prepared to accept the group's priorities (who it wants to include/exclude), then the collateral damage of a person's friends leaving in protest would be taken with relative equanimity by those who remain.

[-]Kai-o-logos14y10

Part of the great trouble of being a rationalist is the great, great trouble of finding like minded people. I am thrilled at the news of such successful meetups taking place - the reason rationalists don't have the impact they should is poor organization

On the other hand, I really like what Eliezer says about courage. It is one thing to preach and repeat meaningless words about being courageous and facing the Truth, but if we are too afraid to look like a fool in society - who says we won't be too afraid to speak the Truth in the scientific community?

0Dorikka14y

I'm parsing the last paragraph as "Getting Things Done is important -- you can talk about courage, but you actually have to use courage for it to matter." Is this accurate?

0MartinB14y

You can start with some truths.

[-][anonymous]14y00

a target real-world accomplishment to which your self-improvements are a means, not definable in terms of any personality quality unless it is weight loss or words output on a writing project or something else visible and measurable

Trying to measure improvement also lets you track it to make sure you're also improving. Vague unmeasured improvement isn't particularly convincingly an improvement.

[+]brazil8414y-110

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Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians

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