I'm writing a book about epistemology. It's about The Problem of the Criterion, why it's important, and what it has to tell us about how we approach knowing the truth.
I've also written a lot about AI safety. Some of the more interesting stuff can be found at the site of my currently-dormant AI safety org, PAISRI.
Posts
Wiki Contributions
Back when I tried playing some calibration games, I found I was not able to get successfully calibrated above 95%. At that point I start making errors from things like "misinterpreting the question" or "randomly hit the wrong button" and things like that.
The math is not quite right on this, but from this I've adopted a personal 5% error margin policy, this seems to practically be about the limit of my ability to make accurate predictions, and it's served me well.
What does this mean?
Yes, this is why I like the movie better than the short story. PKD did more of what Total Recall did in other stories, like Ubik and A Scanner Darkly and The Man Who Japed, but never sends it fully the way Total Recall does.
Quest (1984)
This movie was written by Ray Bradbury.
It's about people who have 8 day lifespans, and follows the story of a boy who grows up to fulfill a great quest. I like it from a rationalist standpoint because it has themes similar to those we have around AI, life extension, and more: we have a limited to achieve something, and if we don't pull it off we are at least personally doomed, and maybe societally, too.
PT Barnum (1999)
This is a made for TV movie that can easily be found for free on YouTube.
I like it because it tells a somewhat fictionalized account of PT Barnum's life that shows him as an expert in understanding the psychology of people and figuring out how to give them products they'll love. Some might say what he does is exploitative, but the movie presents him as not much different than modern social media algorithms that give us exactly what we want, even if we regret it in hindsight.
The rationalist angle is coming away with a sense of what's it's like to be a live player who is focused on achieving something and in deep contact with reality to achieve it, willing to ignore social scripts in order to get there.
Total Recall (1990)
Based on the Phillip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale". The movie is better than the short story.
I can't tell you why this is a rationality movie without spoilers...
The movie masterfully sucks you into a story where you don't know if you're watching what's really happening, or if you're watching the false memories inserted into the protagonists mind at the start of the film. Much of the fun for rationalists would be trying to figure out if the film was reality or implanted memory.
It's not quite like the dot com bust. Bottom of the market is very soft, with new grads basically having no options, but the top of the market is extremely tight, with the middle doing about like normal. Employers feel they can be more choosy right now for all roles, though, so they are being. That will change if roles sit unfilled for longer.
How would you compare your ideas here to Asimov's fictional science of psychohistory? I ask because while reading this post I kept getting flashbacks to Foundation.
The Typical Mind Fallacy is the most important bias in human reasoning.
How do I know? Because it's the one I struggle with the most!