I agree that "think for yourself" is important. That includes updating on the words of the smart thinkers who read a lot of the relevant material. In which category I include Zvi, Eliezer, Nate Soares, Stuart Armstrong, Anders Sandberg, Stuart Russell, Rohin Shah, Paul Chistiano, and on and on.
I will say that .PDF format is end-user hostile.
I first attempted to post this in 2009, but bounced off the karma wall. Since then, MY forgetfulness and procrastination have been its nemesis.
I invite you to listen (read) in an unusual way. "Consider it": think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, "That's so wrong!", I really weaken my ability to "pan for the gold".
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/when_you're_up_to_your_neck_in_alligators,_it's_easy_to_forget_that_the_initial_objective_was_to_drain_the_swamp
I looked over the tag cloud and didn't see:
Admittedly, searching on war did provide a few results.
I invite you all to let this concern guide your posts: humanity is on a path toward multiple futures, and... (read more)
Thanks, Eliezer!
This one was actually news to me. Separately is more efficient, eh? Hmmm... now I get to rethink my actions.
I had deliberately terminated my donations to charities that seemed closer to "rescuing lost puppies". I had also given up personal volunteering (I figured out {work - earn - donate} before I heard it here.) And now I'm really struggling with akrasia / procrastination / laziness /rebellion / escapism.
"You could, of course, reply that you don't trust selfish acts that are supposed to be other-benefiting as an "ulterior motive" ". That's a poisonous meme that runs in my brain. But I consciously declare that to be nonsense. I don't ever want to discuss "pure altruism" ever again! I applaud ulterior motives, "Just so long as people get helped." If you can figure out your ulterior motives, use them! Put them in harness. You might as well, they aren't going away.
Thanks, Matt!
That's a nice educational post.
I want to pick a nit, not with you, but with Gigerenzer and " ... the conjunction fallacy can be mitigated by changing the wording of the question ... " Unfortunately, in real life, the problems come at you the way they do, and you need to learn to deal with it.
I say that rational thinking looks like this: pencil applied to paper. Or a spreadsheet or other decision support program in use. We can't do this stuff in our heads. At least I can't. Evolution didn't deliver arithmetic, much less rationality. We teach arithmetic to kids, slowly and painstakingly. We had better start teaching them rationality. Slowly and painstakingly, not like a 1-hour also-mentioned.
And, since I have my spreadsheet program open, I will indeed convert probabilities into frequencies and look at the world both ways, so my automatic processors can participate. But, I only trust the answers on the screen. My brain lies to me too often.
Once again, thanks Matt. Well done!
Thanks, Eliezer!
That's good stuff. I really relate to " ... the poisonous meme saying that someone who gives mere money must not care enough to get personally involved." That one runs on automatic in my head. It's just one of many ways my brain lies to me.
“Every time I spend money I feel like I'm losing hit points. ” Now, I don’t know your personal situation, and I can certainly relate. My mother is a child of the Great Depression and lived her life out of a fear of poverty. She taught me to worship Bargain and Sale and to abhor “unnecessary” spending.
I suspect that most... (read more)
Thanks, Eliezer!
As one of your supporters, I have been sometimes concerned that you are doing blog posts instead of working out the Friendly AI theory. Much more concerned than I show. I do try to hold it down to an occasional straight question, and hold myself back from telling you what to do. The hypothesis that I know better than you is at least -50dB.
This post is yet another glimpse into the Grand Strategy behind the strategy, and helps me dispel the fear from my less-than-rational mind.
I find it unsettling that " ... after years of bogging down I threw up my hands and explicitly recursed on the job... (read more)
“If you don't believe that the outputs of your thought processes are entangled with reality, why do you believe the outputs of your thought processes? ”
I don’t. Well not like Believe. Some few of them I will give 40 or even 60 deciBels.
But I’m clear that my brain lies to me. Even my visual processor lies. (Have you ever been looking for your keys, looked right at them, and gone on looking?)
I hold my beliefs loosely. I’m coachable. Maybe even gullible. You can get me to believe some untruth, but I’ll let go of that easily when evidence appears.
Thanks, Eliezer!
“Are there motives for seeking truth besides curiosity and pragmatism?”
I can think of several that have showed up in my life. I’m offering these for consideration, but not claiming these are good or bad, pure or impure etc. Some will doubtless overlap somewhat with each other and the ones stated.
My reason for writing this is not to correct Eliezer. Rather, I want to expand on his distinction between prior information and prior probability. Pages 87-89 of Probability Theory: the Logic of Science by E. T. Jaynes (2004 reprint with corrections, ISBN 0 521 59271 2) is dense with important definitions and principles. The quotes below are from there, unless otherwise indicated.
Jaynes writes the fundamental law of inference as
P(H|DX) = P(H|X) P(D|HX) / P(D|X) (4.3)
Which the reader may be more used to seeing as
P(H|D) = P(H) P(D|H) / P(D)
Where
H = some hypothesis to be tested
D
That's a terrible focus on punishment. Read "Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor and learn about behavior shaping through positive rewards.