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hamnox — LessWrong

Replying toAI Induced Psychosis: A shallow investigation

AI Induced Psychosis: A shallow investigation

Wait wait hold on a moment.

This is far from the most important thing to discuss about your post, but I have to say it. Your project's git repo has a list of archived characters, with no explanation for why they were passed over—I'm interested in knowing the reasoning for why they each weren't picked, but my lack of insight there is not why I'm posting now.

I want to talk about how there's one named Tim, who's psychotically convinced he's an AI alignment genius.

Had to put my phone down for a moment to process this level of irony. I don't have to ask why you didn't use that one—I can think of several reasons—but why even make it? How dare you be so funny in a github repo, where I least expected it?

Replying to[Fiction] [Comic] Effective Altruism and Rationality meet at a Secular Solstice afterparty

hamnox5mo

[Fiction] [Comic] Effective Altruism and Rationality meet at a Secular Solstice afterparty

It's quite a conversation. Deep topics, but touched with a lightness as two similar but different people feel each other out.

The art too. /chefs kiss🤌/. There's something beautiful about the subtle lineart of interaction behind the text, the cup passing hands and their true-to-character sitting postures. I didn't notice it consciously on the first read through, just felt its seamless effect. Brilliant how it all slowly goes dark, til the sun rises in the end—mirroring the solstice I imagine they met to celebrate.

Replying to[Fiction] [Comic] Effective Altruism and Rationality meet at a Secular Solstice afterparty

hamnox5mo

[Fiction] [Comic] Effective Altruism and Rationality meet at a Secular Solstice afterparty

The premise intrigued me. That was lovely to read. I'm glad I did.

It feels like this exposed something important, a crux that always lived in my head and relationships, but in such a way that stays deeply integrated. If that makes any sense. No part of it stood out as a quotable or author tract; I stayed in emotional connection rather than jumping out and up a meta level to intellectualize. I want to share this.

Replying toWinning the power to lose

hamnox8mo

Winning the power to lose

In disagreements where both sides want the same outcome, and disagree on what’s going to happen, then either side might win a tussle over the steering wheel, but all must win or lose the real game together. The real game is played against reality.

Winning the fight for control over the steering wheel is a very powerful visual metaphor, I'm glad to have it in my arsenal now. Thank you for writing this.

Replying toMy "2.9 trauma limit"

hamnox3y

My "2.9 trauma limit"

It generally had to do with me trying to navigate a part of me that really wanted to just have a nice village, and be a humble village priest who helped their local community be nice. And a part of me that felt "man, the village is not safe. I can't in good conscious just stay here having a nice life. The spirit of the village compels me to leave the village and figure out how to help protect the village. But man something about that feels really sad/bad."

OOF.

Had a similar realization recently. It sucks. I was really lucky¹ to have access to competent emotional support when I did.

¹ not in fact luck, but skilled organizers who were prepared-in-advance for an increased likelihood of such events AT their event.

Replying toFollow up to medical miracle

hamnox3y

Follow up to medical miracle

"an easy lever might be a guide to obvious failure modes of supplements and medications"

I desire to see more things like this.. Especially if they're presented not as a list of "gotchas", but as specifics of a general moving-parts model of how naive models/strategies operate in a complex space. Should be lots of base rates being thrown around.

A system for recognizing when things are helping and hurting, and phasing treatments out if they don’t justify the mental load

This part has been a historical blocker to me using luck/exploration based medicine. If one is dissociated, alexythmic, or has an experience completely dominated by one sensation like pain or anxiety, then it's going to... (read more)

Replying to(My understanding of) What Everyone in Technical Alignment is Doing and Why

hamnox3y

(My understanding of) What Everyone in Technical Alignment is Doing and Why

I wanna offer feedback on the READING.

at "Off the cuff I’d give something like 10%, 3%, 1% for these respectively (conditioned on the previous premises) which multiplies to .003%", the verbal version doubled back to remind what the referents for each percentage we're, then read the sentence again.

that was PERFECT. high value add. made sure the actual point was gotten across, when it would have been very easy to just mentally tune out numerical information.

Replying toTEAM: a dramatically improved form of therapy

hamnox3y

TEAM: a dramatically improved form of therapy

In TEAM, the therapist takes on a different role: instead of trying to convince the patient to change his or her thoughts, the therapist tries to find reasons that the patient should not change.

I recognize this model! The book "Immunity to Change" goes into great detail on a similar process.

Applying that specifically in a therapeutic context, to clear the path for treatment to really work, is SO BRIILLIANT!

I see it as morally wrong to create a AGI at our current human development

This.. this statement really bugs me. It seems floating. What does it being morally right or wrong cash out to in terms of anticipations? Being morally wrong wouldn't stop it from happening! It wouldn't stop AI from having terrible effects if pursued unsafely!

I wish you luck but don't see an easy entry point. I've been struggling to create one for a while. Reading Rationality A-Z all the way through has historically worked to some degree, but very inefficiently.

Outline: The Rectifying of Maps

hamnox

Epistemic status: a hunch that having something like this matters a lot, and a basic outline for people to play with

In my culture, we take updating when we notice an error in our thinking very seriously. We have a cultural toolkit for it. In those moments, we want the comfort of a familiar social script to help us navigate our uncertainty and, importantly, NOT LOSE the update because it could not gain traction in a belief network where incorrect ideas had already entrenched and reinforced themselves. Truly novel thoughts can be so fleeting...

There's a personal update version and a group update version. They differ from each other in smooth degrees more than... (read 443 more words →)

Replying toMIRI announces new "Death With Dignity" strategy

hamnox4y

MIRI announces new "Death With Dignity" strategy

scalable decentralized currency/contract/communication systems

Oh? Do say more

Cheerful Harberger Day

hamnox

This is a proposal for a holiday.

I'm provisionally calling it "Cheerful Harberger Day" for lack of a better idea of what to call it.

Imagine that once a year, perhaps on February 12th, or July 27th, you have invited your friends over for a special evening. In preparation for this evening, you walk around your house with a pad of sticky notes and label many things you see laying around with a dollar value.

This value is a cheerful price for parting with the item. Notably, the cheerful price is not a "fair" price, or a market clearing price, or a price you're willing to repeatedly transact at. Your Cheerful Price is a fact... (read 411 more words →)

i wish for a modern nomadic tribe

imagine a group that was intelligent, rational enough they could rapidly adjust to new circumstances like (snap) *that*. they carry what they need in with them, wherever they go, and have the science of bootstrapping from the ground up down to an art form.

imagine they had a burning man ethos of 'leave no trace', or even left the place behind them better than it was found. imagine they stealth into a settled community like brownies to turn leather scraps into shoes.

imagine a culture of intentionality: rapid prototyping and testing of norms, thoughtul adoption with an eye to the long term.

i wish. now what?

dropping some predictions in my shortform for safekeeping
------------------------------------------
country invades another this year 20%

total covid cases in california < 7.4mil by end 2022 90%
total covid deaths in california < 110,000 by end 2022 93%
https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/

Dow Jones closes year between 17k and 42k 90%
Dow Jones does not exceed 17k and 42k bounds during year 85%
NASDAQ closes year between 8k and 17k 90%
NASDAQ does not exceed 8k and 17k bounds during year 88%
S&P 500 closes year between 3.5k and 6k 90%
S&P 500 does not exceed 3.5k and 6k bounds during year 86%

2024 US Presidential Election is Trump vs. Biden 23%
New Supreme Court Justice in 2022 15%
Omicron variant less lethal than Delta 94%

Faerie Ring meet #2: At Gather.Town

hamnox

This is the second meeting of a Faerie Ring, an instance of a copyable ritual for community. Here's slightly more explanation of the format.

A group of up to 8 people
A call once every 2 weeks, for 2-3 months.
Checking in with each other and seeing how we can help one another

My ring still has room for more peeps, and I'm looking to fill predominantly rationalists so I'm advertising here.

We will meet on Gather.town.

Please RSVP with your email address in a DM, or on this google doc

Decentralized Networks Thoughts
Scuttlebutt, IPFS, and Dat

Networking can be demonstrated with people as an anology, and it usually works except for how the speeds are magnitudes off and people naturally handle errors more gracefully.

And the way we currently structure internet applications is analogous to, like, a command economy. All the locus of decision exists in one spot, in a server. It may delegate, but it doesn't ever truly *co*-ordinate. And there's no way that's computationally efficient. The internet allows to access a distant computer with our own, and that's *all* we're doing most of the time. It's exactly like having a whole country of self-interested intelligences close to their individual problems, and trying... (read more)

Faerie Ring: A Small Gather.Town Call

hamnox

This is an instance of a copyable ritual for community.

A group of up to 8 people
A call one every 2 weeks, for 2-3 months.
Here's more explanation

My ring is not yet at capacity, and I'm looking to fill predominantly rationalists so I'm advertising here.

We will meet on Gather.town.

Please RSVP in the comments or in this google doc

Faerie Rings

hamnox

This post describes "Faerie rings", a copiable form of community that forms a building block for capturing the upsides: learning from each other, deeper relationships, and support to solve problems that are beyond one's abilities. I believe it counts as a nascent prototype for an Iterated Trust Kickstarter.

I copied most of this description outright from @mixmix on the scuttlebutt platform. Citation details:

@ye+QM09iPcDJD6YvQYjoQc7sLF/IFhmNbEqgdzQo3lQ=.ed25519
%YrKbs+z2CmLt2+VtaEvUCDY+DUQAqQgB7vuUh3kNsdk=.sha256

The form

A group of up to 8 people
A call once every 2 weeks, for 2-3 months. The schelling days for this are Full Moon and New Moon.

Everyone has a turn checking in

how are you
how is it going

There's a host (who changes)

They open & close the circle
They make sure everyone gets to

... (read more)

anatomy of a summer solstice talk. comments?

anatomy of a solstice talk

- Dig your roots deep, and spread your leaves wide

- We sometimes associate summer with passion, with fire and flash. As we celebrate today, I say lean into this. Let's have fun. Let's have passionate joy. Let's dive head-first into the gut sense of living at its best. Not to stoke burning hot coals of determination, just to enjoy it. Take in the warmth and light for its own sake. Life is not just abstractly good and important, it's viscerally so.

Pretty good theme. Have fun, be wild. I could end my speech there.

Instead, I'll ask you to think about a tree. A... (read 634 more words →)

How do politics actually happen? I have so few gears in my model. I don't like trying to figure out the object level of what's going on through layers of other people's interpretations and commentary. I want there to be eyes on the ground collecting what's newsworthy from a Gearsy or EA perspective, and for I might as well give it a try it myself. Ground up, by skimming meeting agendas and possibly video feeds to figure out play by play what powerful people are spending their time on.

Of the US Gov, I want to know

What Congress is up to -
What the Senate is up to -
What the President is up to

... (read more)

So this is what I've spent my time thinking about. It's a consideration of how to structure a Roam-alike cross-referencing notes system on the data mesh structure of CTZN.

\o/ Federated Peer-to-Peer for the WIIIIN!

What I Learned From Running a Pol.is Conversation

hamnox

Try Things

A couple weeks ago, I asked around facebook and discord for people willing to test out Polis, an interactive survey tool.

Polis appealed to my aesthetic. It hosts a conversation where participants submit twitter-size comments on a topic which other participants vote on by clicking "agree", "disagree", or "pass". It uses these votes to cluster participants into like-minded groups and identifies "consensus" points about which all the clusters agree.

I saw a lot of promise in their model. Social media tends to addict and polarize, and I am constantly seeking for healthier alternative technologies. I had hope this could enable positive communication and group problem-solving.

So I made a "conversation" in polis, just to... (read 591 more words →)

Agency Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

hamnox

previously, in this series

Noticing the taste of Lotus

This has really lovely prose.

Friend said he resented the premise that life is more than just a series of lotuses to eat. the writing made it sound so easy not to fall into them, and did not acknowledge let alone offer any concrete solutions to help with its very real difficulty. I think my friend has a point.

Takeaways

Just look. notice when something grabs your wanting.
Notice especially when someone else built the want-grabber.
Be at ease and let yourself get grabbed if you want to, just pay attention to what happens as a result.

The Tails Coming Apart As Metaphor For Life

The intuitive geometric explanation works for a... (read 763 more words →)

Epistemology Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

hamnox

Intro

This post compiles my personal comments on the Epistemology book from the Lesswrong 2018 bookset. I put almost no effort into making it legible or relevant to anyone else.

A sketch of good communication

For research, we want to exchange deep models
For logistics team, okay to err on side of comparing shallower nodes just to come to agreement.
Has implications for #sbub . Centralized and federated systems look an awful lot like the bad case of communication. The only way to converse is to straight up adopt the output. If I want #sbub to empower people trying to deeply understand the world, there has to be a lot of space just for interacting with other

... (read 2268 more words →)

Epistemology
1. Intro
  1. This post compiles my personal comments on the Epistemology book from the Lesswrong 2018 bookset. I put almost no effort into making it legible or relevant to anyone else.
2. A sketch of good communication

... (read 3043 more words →)

Epistemology
1. Intro
  1. This post compiles my personal comments on the Epistemology book from the Lesswrong 2018 bookset. I put almost no effort into making it legible or relevant to anyone else.
2. A sketch of good communication

... (read 3055 more words →)

I went to some martial arts class, jiu jitsu, and before they taught me anything else they taught me how to break falls safely. Same with parkour class. You're going to fall, they said. You need a way to catch yourself without fucking up your arms or back. It's not just as mistakes when you're learning a new move, either, though it will certainly happen more often then. You're throwing yourself all over the place, tripping each other; you're going to hit the ground at momentum. You need to know how to handle yourself when that happens, how to roll with it and get up right after safe and sound. Every class,

... (read more)

I could discuss everything within a few very concrete examples. A concrete example tends to create a working understanding in a way mathematical abstraction fails to. I want to give my readers real knowledge, so I do often insist on describing concepts in the world without numbers or equations or proofs.

However, math exists for a reason.

Some patterns generalize so strongly that you simply cannot communicate the breadth of its applications in concrete examples. You have to describe the shape of it by constraint. To do otherwise would render it a handful of independent parlor tricks instead of one sharp and heavy blade.

Jester's Court - Mini Group Exercises

hamnox

Practice your skills at thinking clearly and acting effectively, as both individuals and in groups, with a grab bag of exercises and structured discussion. Hosted by Mel at the Berkeley REACH, usually Tuesdays.

Expectations

Court is held in a sitting circle. One may lead, but it is always a choice to follow or not.
Each person decides and adopt their Role: a mindset to take, or an objective to meet in this time. The center of the circle holds a collection of suggested secret roles for beginners. Advanced members consider what is genuinely the most important thing they could accomplish with their next few hours.
The court breaks for 5 minutes to take any quick immediate

... (read 251 more words →)

Jester's Court - Mini Group Exercises

hamnox

Expectations

Court is held in a sitting circle. One may lead, but it is always a choice to follow or not.
Each person decides and adopt their Role: a mindset to take, or an objective to meet in this time. The center of the circle holds a collection of suggested roles for beginners. Advanced members consider what is genuinely the most important thing they could accomplish with their next few hours.
The court breaks for 5 minutes to take any quick immediate

... (read 234 more words →)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

hamnox

Meetup : Love and Sex in Salt Lake City

What I Learned From Running a Pol.is Conversation

Epistemology Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

Faerie Rings

hamnox

hamnox

Outline: The Rectifying of Maps

Faerie Rings

What I Learned From Running a Pol.is Conversation

Agency Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

Epistemology Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

hamnox's Shortform

What would a zetetic explanation be for the rationality community?

hamnox

Meetup : Love and Sex in Salt Lake City

What I Learned From Running a Pol.is Conversation

Epistemology Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

Faerie Rings

hamnox

hamnox

Outline: The Rectifying of Maps

Faerie Rings

What I Learned From Running a Pol.is Conversation

Agency Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

Epistemology Volume of "A Map That Reflects the Territory" Set - My Personal Commentary

hamnox's Shortform

What would a zetetic explanation be for the rationality community?

The form

Try Things

Noticing the taste of Lotus

The Tails Coming Apart As Metaphor For Life

Intro

A sketch of good communication

Table of Contents

Table of Contents