Algernoq

Replying toLong Covid Is Not Necessarily Your Biggest Problem

Long Covid Is Not Necessarily Your Biggest Problem

Mad-Eye Moody had once worked out how long it had taken him, in retrospect, to achieve what he now considered a decent level of caution - weighed up how much experience it had taken him to get good instead of lucky - and had begun to suspect that most people died before they got there.

You are here to learn how to defend yourselves against the Dark Arts. Which means, let us be very clear on this, defending yourselves against Dark Wizards.

My sense is that the political risk exceeds the disease risk.

-1

Replying toCovid-19 Points of Leverage, Travel Bans and Eradication

Algernoq5y

Covid-19 Points of Leverage, Travel Bans and Eradication

Father had told Draco that to fathom a strange plot, one technique was to look at what ended up happening, assume it was the intended result, and ask who benefited.

What if we assume that the COVID pandemic was the intended result?

Replying toCognitive Impacts of Cocaine Use

Algernoq5y

Cognitive Impacts of Cocaine Use

Generally, people are biased toward doing what is easy and pleasurable, and making excuses to justify it.

Anecdotally, two programmers who might have occasionally used cocaine ended up quitting their programming jobs to become artists, and have been slowly spending their savings for a few years, working toward making a living through their art (unlikely, they're OK but not that great yet) and thinking the same tier of programming job will be available for them to go back to (doubtful). I strongly suggested that they should both go into AI programming, but they are too normie to listen. So my anecdotal evidence is that the cognitive impact of cocaine is that it makes people make irrational decisions.

-2

Replying toOpen and Welcome Thread – July 2021

Algernoq5y

Open and Welcome Thread – July 2021

Human nature suggests that an all-powerful council-of-elders always becomes corrupt, so that approach might not be possible either.

Replying toOpen and Welcome Thread – July 2021

Algernoq5y

Open and Welcome Thread – July 2021

Good luck man. I did a different kind of engineering, but here is some advice I wish I had heard 15 years ago:

https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2009/03/12/some-thoughts-on-grad-school/

Thought #6: Listen to the Married Graduate Students and Ignore the Unmarried Students Who Live in the Dorms
Students with families have perspective on life and friends outside of the university. They tend to be happy and productive and think sleeping on the futon in your office is childish. They also bathe every day. Which is a nice bonus. The students who are unmarried and living in the dorm have probably escaped, thus far, exposure to the real world in any meaningful form, and because of this they are likely to

... (read 353 more words →)

Replying toFire Law Incentives

Algernoq5y

Fire Law Incentives

It occurs to me that if PG&E were evil, it might decide that it's cheaper to secretly hire 'fire vigilantes' to start fires which PG&E is not responsible for, than to bury the cables.

Replying toProgress, Stagnation, & Collapse

Algernoq5y

Progress, Stagnation, & Collapse

I think they went extinct ultimately because these effects started a process that gradually invalidated the preconditions for reliable cultural transmission in that species

Yeah. I hope Youtube knows what it's doing.

Replying toProgress, Stagnation, & Collapse

Algernoq5y

Progress, Stagnation, & Collapse

In the videogame "Starcraft", it's economics (macro) that wins wars. A player can win every single battle (micro) and still lose the game, if the other player's economy is improving their relative position faster than they are losing militarily. A common tactic is to make small attacks on the other player's economy production units, attempting to do a lot of economic damage without fighting any military units. The true scope of the damage might not be obvious, since the "fog of war" conceals most of what the other player is doing. I remember one game where I thought I was doing quite well, despite several early attacks damaging my economy, and then... (read more)

Replying toWorking With Monsters

Algernoq5y

Working With Monsters

This is a beautifully written story. One criticism is that it seems to have a Moral that assumes the Blue cryonicist acts as he does in the story... an entertaining story, but limits the applicability of the Moral. In particular, signing up for cryonics and going out in a blaze of glory are really quite opposite personality traits if you think about it.

Replying toThe map of cognitive biases, errors and obstacles affecting judgment and management of global catastrophic risks

Algernoq10y

The map of cognitive biases, errors and obstacles affecting judgment and management of global catastrophic risks

Thank you for the kind words.

[spoilers] EY's “A Girl Corrupted...?!” new story is an allegorical study of quantum immortality?

Algernoq

10y

If you haven't read "A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?!” yet, you should.

Spoilers ahead:

Continuing...

The Spell summons the hero with the best chance of defeating the Evil Emperor. This sounds like Quantum Immortality...

Specifically: Imagine the set of all possible versions of myself that are alive 50 years in the future, in the year 2066. My conscious observation at that point tends to summon the self most likely to be alive in 2066.

To elaborate: Computing all possible paths forward from the present moment to 2066 results in a HUGE set of possible future-selves that exist in 2066. But, some are more likely than others. For example, there will be a bunch of paths to a... (read 383 more words →)

Estimate the Cost of Immortality

Algernoq

10y

How much money would it take to engineer biological immortality for at least half of the world's population, within 20 years, with 99% confidence?

115

-3

timeless quantum immortality

Algernoq

10y

Summary: The world looks normal despite Quantum Immortality, because the most likely Universe in which you're immortal is one where your immortality doesn't require much luck.

Recap of Quantum Immortality: The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics states that every time some event is observed (e.g. a coin flip), the Universe splits into separate universes, one for each possible outcome (e.g. Heads universe and Tails universe), and the conscious observer will find themselves in one of these universes (e.g. either see the coin come up Heads or see it come up Tails) with a likelihood proportional to the number of ways this event can happen (e.g. you'll probably never see a coin land on

... (read 274 more words →)

HPMOR and the Power of Consciousness

Algernoq

10y

Throughout HPMOR, the author has included many fascinating details about how the real world works, and how to gain power. The Mirror of CEV seems like a lesson in what a true Friendly AI could look like and do.

I've got a weirder theory. (Roll for sanity...)

The entire story is plausible-deniability cover for explaining how to get the Law of Intention to work reliably.

(All quoted text is from HPMOR.)

This Mirror reflects itself perfectly and therefore its existence is absolutely stable.

"This Mirror" is the Mind, or consciousness. The only thing a Mind can be sure of is that it is a Mind.

The Mirror's most characteristic power is to create alternate realms of existence, though

... (read 918 more words →)

-3

Wealth from Self-Replicating Robots

Algernoq

12y

I have high confidence that economically-valuable self-replicating robots are possible with existing technology: initially, something similar in size and complexity to a RepRap, but able to assemble a copy of itself from parts ordered online with zero human interaction. This is important because more robots could provide the economic growth needed to solve many urgent problems. I've held this idea for long enough that I'm worried about being a crank, so any feedback is appreciated.

I care because to fulfill my naive and unrealistic dreams (not dying, owning a spaceship) I need the world to be a LOT richer. Specifically, naively assuming linear returns to medical research funding, a funding increase of ~10x... (read 835 more words →)

Why I Am Not a Rationalist, or, why several of my friends warned me that this is a cult

Algernoq

12y

A common question here is how the LW community can grow more rapidly. Another is why seemingly rational people choose not to participate.

I've read all of HPMOR and some of the sequences, attended a couple of meetups, am signed up for cryonics, and post here occasionally. But, that's as far as I go. In this post, I try to clearly explain why I don't participate more and why some of my friends don't participate at all and have warned me not to participate further.

Rationality doesn't guarantee correctness. Given some data, rational thinking can get to the facts accurately, i.e. say what "is". But, deciding what to do in the real world requires non-rational

... (read 715 more words →)

193

Cognitive Biases due to a Narcissistic Parent, Illustrated by HPMOR Quotations

Algernoq

12y

A pattern of cognitive biases not yet discussed here are the biases due to having a narcissistic parent who seeks validation through the child’s academic achievements.

HPMOR clearly shows these biases: Harry's mother is narcissistic, impressed by education, and not particularly smart, and Harry does not realize how this affects his thinking.

Here is my evidence:

The Sorting Hat says Harry is driven by "the fear of losing your fantasy of greatness, of disappointing the people who believe in you" (Ch. 77). Psychology texts say that this fear is what children of a narcissistic parent usually feel. The child feels perpetually ignored because the narcissistic parent seeks validation from the child's accomplishments but refuses to... (read 1401 more words →)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

Cognitive Biases due to a Narcissistic Parent, Illustrated by HPMOR Quotations

Why I Am Not a Rationalist, or, why several of my friends warned me that this is a cult

[spoilers] EY's “A Girl Corrupted...?!” new story is an allegorical study of quantum immortality?

Wealth from Self-Replicating Robots

Algernoq

Algernoq

[spoilers] EY's “A Girl Corrupted...?!” new story is an allegorical study of quantum immortality?

Estimate the Cost of Immortality

timeless quantum immortality

HPMOR and the Power of Consciousness

Wealth from Self-Replicating Robots

Why I Am Not a Rationalist, or, why several of my friends warned me that this is a cult

Cognitive Biases due to a Narcissistic Parent, Illustrated by HPMOR Quotations

Algernoq

Cognitive Biases due to a Narcissistic Parent, Illustrated by HPMOR Quotations

Why I Am Not a Rationalist, or, why several of my friends warned me that this is a cult

[spoilers] EY's “A Girl Corrupted...?!” new story is an allegorical study of quantum immortality?

Wealth from Self-Replicating Robots

Algernoq

Algernoq

[spoilers] EY's “A Girl Corrupted...?!” new story is an allegorical study of quantum immortality?

Estimate the Cost of Immortality

timeless quantum immortality

HPMOR and the Power of Consciousness

Wealth from Self-Replicating Robots

Why I Am Not a Rationalist, or, why several of my friends warned me that this is a cult

Cognitive Biases due to a Narcissistic Parent, Illustrated by HPMOR Quotations