Epistemic status: telepathic exam. That is, not an essay, not an argument, not a set of interesting ideas, claims, novel points of view or musings over the meaning of the universe, nor a lot of other things you may think it is. The primary purpose of this particular telepathic exam...
Epistemic status: I've had this concept for a while, and applied it in practice many times. It's fairly easy to convey in an argument, and can clear up some confusion. But there are many loose ends, and I'm not sure it's well formulated. Also, I'm stuck, so I'll just throw...
Epistemic Status: Pattern matching. The model completes a pattern in an intuitive way. Little originality besides the act of pattern completion itself. As I was reading the recent discussion about networks of trust, I noticed a mismatch between models described therein and the social environment around me. In particular, I...
F-35 aren't the crucial component to winning the kind of wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. They also aren't the kind of weapon that are important to defend Taiwan. They are just what the airforce culture wants instead of being a choice made by a hypercompetent military.
I mostly agree with your perception of state (or something) competence, but this seems to me like a sloppy argument? True, the US does have to prepare for the most likely wars, but they also have to be prepared for all other wars that don't happen because they were prepared, aka. deterrence. The F-35 may not be the most efficient asset when it comes to e.g. Taiwan,... (read more)
Epistemic status: telepathic exam. That is, not an essay, not an argument, not a set of interesting ideas, claims, novel points of view or musings over the meaning of the universe, nor a lot of other things you may think it is. The primary purpose of this particular telepathic exam is to be an example of a telepathic exam from which the concept itself can be generalized, and to demonstrate its potential value, not necessarily to be a particularly good instance of it.
Welcome and thank you for participating in this telepathic exam! The purpose of this exam is to test your understanding of agency and consequentialism.
Below are a number of short stories... (read 1007 more words →)
I immediately recognize the pattern that's being playing out in this post and in the comments. I've seen it so many times, in so many forms.
Some people know the "game" and the "not-game", because they learned the lesson the hard way. They nod along, because to them it's obvious.
Some people only know the "game". They think the argument is about "game" vs "game-but-with-some-quirks", and object because those quirks don't seem important.
Some people only know the "not-game". They think the argument is about "not-game" vs "not-game-but-with-some-quirks", and object because those quirks don't seem important.
And these latter two groups find each other, and the "gamers" assume that everyone is a "gamer", the "non-gamers" assume... (read more)
(Meta: writing this in separate comment to enable voting / agreement / discussion separately)
If you want to make the case for tactical nuclear deployment not happening (which I hope is the likely outcome), I want to see a model of how you see things developing differently
I'll list a few possible timelines. I don't think any of these is particularly likely, but they are plausible, and together with many other similar courses of events they account for significant chunks of probability mass.
On Nord Stream sabotage:
Epistemic status: I've had this concept for a while, and applied it in practice many times. It's fairly easy to convey in an argument, and can clear up some confusion. But there are many loose ends, and I'm not sure it's well formulated. Also, I'm stuck, so I'll just throw it out there, hoping that it grows into something.
You are presented with a .bmp file containing a digitalized version of two art pieces. You are told that one is a drawing and the other is a painting. Can you tell which one is which?
On one hand, of course you can't. The .bmp file format doesn't contain information about the history... (read 1616 more words →)
Thus I claim we don't know whether people see dreams.
That's a pretty bold claim just a few sentences after claiming to have aphantasia.
Some of my dreams have no visuals at all, just a vague awareness of the setting and plot points. Others are as vivid and detailed as waking experience (or even more, honestly), at least as far as vision is concerned. Dreams can fall anywhere on a spectrum between these extremes, and sometimes they can even be a mixture (e.g. a visual experience of the place and an awareness of characters in that place that don't appear visually).
Yes, people do see dreams. I'm fairly certain I can tell the difference.
Yes, I'm aware of all that, and I agree with your premises, but your argument doesn't prove what you think it does. Let's try to reductio it ad absurdum, and turn the same argument against the possibility of fast technological or scientific feedback cycles.
If you live in a technologically backwards society (think bronze age), you can't become more advanced technologically yourself, because you'll starve spending your time trying to do science. The technology of society (including agriculture, communication, tools, etc.) needs to progress as a whole. If you live in a scientifically backwards society, you can't have more accurate beliefs, because you'll be burned at the stake by all the people believing... (read more)
It seems pretty likely that moral and social progress are just inherently harder problems, given that you can't [...] have fast feedback cycles from reality (like you do when trying to make scientific, technological and industrial progress).
We can't? Have we tried? Have you tried? Is there some law of physics I'm missing? What would a real, genuine attempt to do just that even look like? Would you recognize it if it was done right in front of you?
Epistemic Status: Pattern matching. The model completes a pattern in an intuitive way. Little originality besides the act of pattern completion itself.
As I was reading the recent discussion about networks of trust, I noticed a mismatch between models described therein and the social environment around me. In particular, I found that I would be happy to participate in the kinds of networks that came up as examples. That confused me, because in practice, I actively try to distance myself from some local communities. In fact, I've always thought that trust-based relationships were just a burden without any practical benefits for anyone involved. As it turns out, the reason for the mismatch is... (read 810 more words →)
I'm not an expert either, and I won't try to end the F-35 debate in a few sentences. I maintain my position that the original argument was sloppy. "F-35 isn't the best for specific wars X, Y and Z, therefore it wasn't a competent military decision" is non sequitur. "Experts X, Y and Z believe that the F-35 wasn't a competent decision" would be better in this case, because that seems to be the real reason why you believe what you believe.