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2frontier64's Shortform
4y
20
Yes, Rationalism is a Cult
frontier641mo56

I feel like a post that was seriously trying to make the case that rationalism is a cult would be significantly longer and more thought out. This post provides a random definition of a set, claims that set = cult, and then makes the true assertion that rationalism is in that set.

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No One is Really Working
frontier641mo10

What do you mean when you say "Compensation Impact: Low"?

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Dark Forest Theories
frontier642mo10

There is no hider-expansionary dichotomy like you describe here. Hiding just means that the civilization is not exposing itself to outside threats by other more advanced civilizations, and is not detectable at our current level of technology. Hiding civilizations can expand, with whatever limitations the necessity of hiding requires.

The Dark Forest theory only tries to explain why our human civilization does not see obvious evidence of other intelligent civilizations.

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Let's stop making "Intelligence scale" graphs with humans and AI
frontier644mo10

How does AI being good at some tasks and worse at others make the graph you posted not a good tool at explaining FOOM or increasing AI capabilities?

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How to end credentialism
frontier645mo10

I'm not saying it isn't a problem at all. I think I explicitly acknowledged that there is a problem where I said "the majority of the downside." But it is a problem that the free market can resolve. The free market can't resolve the doctor problem because the government literally requires the worthless undergrad degree to allow someone to practice medicine or else they'll be jailed.

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How to end credentialism
frontier645mo10

Employers who poorly select employees will most likely be out-competed by employers who make better decisions when selecting employees. We already see this in hiring for software engineers where many employers will accept a bachelors degree or other experience which demonstrates coding skill.

And for software engineering, at least when I went to school, you still had to be able to program at least a little bit to get a degree.

The majority of the downside from credentialism comes from fields where it’s literally illegal to work if you don’t have the right college degree

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How to end credentialism
frontier645mo10

Instead of doing this why not just, not require credentialism? Let the free market regulate doctors. Eliminate laws which put onerous credential requirements on professions where there's high demand and low supply.

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frontier64's Shortform
frontier645mo10

Putting a finite value on both an infinite lifespan of infinite pleasure and an infinite lifespan of torture allows people to avoid difficult decisions in utility maximization such as Pascal's Mugging.

Maybe this is why so many people seem to naively express that they don't actually want to live forever because they would get lonely and all their friends would die and etc. They're actually enacting a smart strategy which provides protection from edge case situations. This strategy also benefits from having a low cost of analysis.

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It Was You Who Made My Blue Eyes Blue
frontier645mo*00

Sorry to necro, but the sailor didn't give anybody any new information with respect to eye colors that they didn't have already. Each person A-E knew that there were 4 other people minimum with blue eyes and they also knew that each other person knew there was at least a minimum of 3 people with blue eyes.

Everyone suddenly gaining the common knowledge that at least one of them has blue eyes is not actually new knowledge at all.

ETA: I envision a story where they realize that if Enuli never takes the Sparkroot again and is no longer a genius logician they can save themselves that way.

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Two New Newcomb Variants
frontier645mo*01

[I'm not completely sure EDT can't do better than this, so corrections with even more elaborate schemes encouraged]

I blindfold myself, weigh two random boxes, then weigh the other two random boxes. I pick the box pair which weighs the least then randomly select between those two. If no weight difference then select randomly. This should net you the maximum amount of $301 if the hosts naively compete against each other as you describe in your scenario (i.e. competing against each other by putting more money in boxes just to arrive at the same 25% equilibrium without any sort of cooperation between them).

Hosts are incentivized to put the maximum amount of money in each other box because if only one Host is putting money in the other boxes they guarantee themselves to be in that least heavy pair (total weight of $202 in pairs without their box and $102 in the pair with their box). If 3 of the Hosts are putting money in the other boxes but 1 Host isn't, he's screwing himself because his box will never be the least heavy pair (total weight of $502 in the pair with their box and only $402 in the pair with the other two boxes). 

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2frontier64's Shortform
4y
20