Self's Shortform
Feb 4, 20252
Self
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I feel like 100$, or even 10$, might work even better in practice. Trivial inconveniences and all that.
(I at least suspect this is my comparative advantage. But I'm not good at communicating [insights], a skill that comes neither with <analytical rigor> nor with <high-res introspective access>.
It also seems like the <after controlling for situational factors, status psychology explains more than half of variance in human behavior> camp is essentially right, which colors most genuine discussion less pretty than most people would prefer, especially those with less introspective insight.
I (somewhat predictably, given my status incentives) hold that this is an important, central problem civilization has, bc mutual information is the fundament of cooperation, or expressed more concretely the better we model each other the easier it is to avoid common deception & adversity attractors.)
Replying toExpectation = intention = setpoint
... (read more)You [don't] have to believe!
You know how high school sports coaches like to go on about how "You have to believe you will win!"? And how the standard rationalist response is "Nonsense, of course you don't. Beliefs are supposed to track reality, not be wishful thinking. Believe what looks to be true, try your best, and find out if you win"?
The coach does have a point though, and there's a reason he's so adamant about what he's saying. If you expect to lose -- if you're directing attention towards the experience of your upcoming loss -- then you are intending to lose, and good luck winning if you aren't gonna even try.
“Pretend the emotion is a person or cute animal who can talk” is a pretty great trick.
Huh. Tried this on my social media cravings.
Couldn't visualize them as an animal, but managed <a stream of energy between me and my laptop screen>. Managed to make the stream talk in my mind.
This behaved like a "talking lens" laid over my perception. As if the craving itself was live-reacting to objects on my screen while I clicked and scrolled.
Informative via making the involved needs concrete.
Improved my intuitions, ty.
Replying toPropagating Facts into Aesthetics
Keeps baffling me how much easier having a concept for something makes thinking about it.
What about this one:
"Hivemind" is best characterized as a state of zero adversarial behavior.
"Humanity becomes a hivemind" is the single least dystopic coherent image of the future.
Replying toAI as Super-Demagogue
Illustrative post. The downvotes confuse me.
Depression is a formidable cognitive specialization.
With colors you can in principle display data in 5-dimensional space on a 2D medium without flattening.
Bottlenecks (cognitive):
- intuitively knowing the RGB values of colors you're seeing
- intuitively perceiving color differences as 3-dimensional distances
Feasible? Useful?
Latest in Shit Claude Says:
Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs)
Ideas spread not through their inherent quality but through costly displays of commitment by believers. Words are cheap; actions that would be irrational if the belief were false are persuasive.Predictive angle: The spread of beliefs correlates more strongly with observable sacrifices made by believers than with evidence or argument quality.
Novel implication: Rationalists often fail to spread ideas despite strong arguments because they don't engage in sufficient credibility enhancing displays. Effective belief transmission requires demonstration through personal cost[1].
The easiest way for rats to do this more may be "retain nonchalant confidence when talking about things you're certain are true, even in the face of audience skepticism"
- ^
I think the "personal cost" angle is mistaken. Costly Signaling only requires the act would be costly if you didn't posses the trait.
Deception: An optimizer falsifies another optimizer's models in order to steer its behavior
Had a minor braincoom discovering Mimetic Theory
Best model/compression I took away is a mental image evoked by "Desire is triangular, not linear" depicting how desires are created via copying
Claude 3.7 explains some basics:
Desire is triangular, not linear - We don't want things directly; we want what others want. Every desire has a hidden "model" we're unconsciously imitating.
... (read more)Conversion happens through the model - We convert to a new worldview by imitating someone we admire, not through intellectual persuasion. Reason follows mimetic conversion.
The interdividual self - Girard rejects the autonomous individual entirely. The "self" is actually a collection of desires borrowed from others. What we call "personality" is just the unique pattern of our
(Vague musing)
There's a type of theory I'd call a "Highlevel Index" into an information body, for example, Predictive Processing is a highlevel index for Neurology, or Natural Selection is a highlevel index for Psychology, or Game Theory and Signaling Theory are highlevel indexes for all kinds of things.
They're tools for delving into information bodies. They give you good taste for lower level theories, a better feel for what pieces of knowledge are and aren't predictive. If you're like me, and you're trying to study Law or Material Science, but you got no highlevel indexes for these domains, you're left standing there, lost, without evaluability, in front of a vast sea of lower-level... (read more)
Insightful: https://takingchildrenseriously.com/the-evolution-of-culture/
- Best intro on memetics I've seen
- Gave me an additional "evaluability dimension" for cultures and history
This is a special post for quick takes (aka "shortform"). Only the owner can create top-level comments.
- DHEA is a metabolic precursor of testosterone, among other things, and an OTC supplement in the US
- Single dose DHEA seems to 1:1 have increased my BigFive::Extraversion::Assertiveness[1]
- As a subset of that, it seems to have boosted my executive functioning
- The execfunc boost is (as I read later) vaguely consistent with ADHD research
- It also changes my cognition and motivation in ways I'm not fully comfortable with
There's a subjective 15% chance the mindstate switch was instead placebo-induced
Comparative advantage at work