All of Shankar Sivarajan's Comments + Replies

A fun exercise is to look at actual UN resolutions, and see how much they differ from these.

I like that originalism wins in the end.

As with 500 Million, But Not A Single One More, deicide is a versatile (and inspiring!) framing for human advancement. My objection to your conceptualization of Mot is that it'd be more satisfying to break him up into smaller gods who can be slain individually: one for the god preventing "skyscrapers literally miles high" (whom you can also blame for the Tower of Babel), one for the god of keeping humans from flight (responsible for the Fall of Icarus, now pretty thoroughly dead), one for smallpox (Sopona, also basically dead), etc.

This is great: I now curse the names of both Mot and Moloch. May they be slain, and upon their corpses (or from them, à la Ymir, if you prefer), we will build utopia.

This is true, but I've only ever heard people use it while describing their political views, and at that point, "Sherlockian Abduction" is unnecessary. My example is the kind of the thing people might slip into more casual conversation.

I think this is false. I have seen it regularly used to mean something like "particularly evil liberal."

Anyone who uses the noun adjunct "Democrat" instead of the adjective "Democratic" is some flavor of right wing. (Obviously only applicable to America.)

you'd probably be cluttering your mind with largely useless knowledge

You didn't quote Holmes!

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will

The "… I accidentally clicked a radio button and can't un-answer this question" option is funny: it's a good solution to a common problem, but one that doesn't actually exist in this case. 

Since you're willing to straightforwardly exchange cash for status boosts, you could offer some comparable reward for people fitting the same criteria who will publicly take your side of the bet.

I predict that this post will be received favorably: this is what wacky ideas that turn out to work look like. I think your proposed etiology is bunk, and you've stated your hypothesis with way too much confidence, but there seems to be some connection between Alzheimer's and the gut microbiome and your proposed treatment is quite low risk. It's the kind of thing people should try if they've got nothing better, and afaict there is nothing better.

It is my understanding that the US federal government levies taxes on gifts and barter. This proposal sounds to me like something in between the two, and if it is not, can certainly be construed to be by the prosecutor.

The IRS might consider the creation of this app facilitation of tax evasion.

If you think of matrices as lists of vectors, yeah, that works. But I think that's akin to thinking of integers as strings of digits.

In my experience, cranks (at least physics cranks) realize that university email addresses are often public and send emails detailing their breakthrough/insight to as many grad students as they can. These emails never get replies, but (and this might surprise you) often get read. This is not a stupid strategy: if your work is legit (unlikely, but not inconceivable), this will make it known.

In Python, you can zip more than two arrays: the metaphor of a zipper was always a stretch. The word "zip" is common, short, close enough in meaning to "interleave," and has a convenient inverse. "Pack" would probably work too, but "imbricate" would have been a fun choice!

Since you explicitly asked for feedback regarding your downvotes, the "oh, woe is me, my views are so unpopular and my posts keep getting downvoted" lamentations you've included in a few of your posts get grating, and might end up self-fulfilling. If you're saying unpopular things, my advice is to own it, and adopt the "haters gonna hate" attitude: ignore the downvotes completely.

I think you could use a better example for "structure purist, content neutral": that's where carefully crafted deception (without being actually false) would go, and you undersell it by using a polite "white lie" as your central example.

Even a libertarian might eventually recognize that the refrain "internalize your externalities" is being used to exploit him: all anyone who wants to infringe on his liberty needs to do is utter the phrase and then make up an externality to suit.

• You may not engage in homosexual activity because of the externality of God smiting the city and/or sending a hurricane.
• You must be confined to your house and wear a mask because of the externality of grandma dying.
• You may not own a gun because of the externality of children getting shot.
• You must wear a headscarf b

all humans gets rights and the vote.

It seems like all your preceding reasoning has been motivated by wanting to get to this point.

Alternatively:

1. Type (or copy-and-paste) ``Mądry''.
2. Run XeLaTeX instead.

"Disagree and commit" is a good policy for servants and subordinates (which seems to be context it's meant for). Among free and equal men, "When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world, 'No, you move'" is better: if you disagree, you don't actually have to commit to whatever the consensus decision is.

I like the Voltaire (actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall) quote as much as the next guy, but if you would punish me for honestly saying what I believe ("freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences"), "Fuck you, I'm gonna lie to you" is the morally sound response. That works even if it's society as a whole punishing me: I reject entirely your supposed duty to honestly state one's beliefs.

agreeing to recognize Israel within the 1948 borders, and to demilitarization

What you're describing is at best a protectorate, not a sovereign state. (Yes, I know there are some that like to style themselves "protected states" instead.) 

I don't see why this is better than Israel simply conquering the place outright, appointing a governor, and then letting it (or even helping it) develop economically, to become a new Singapore or whatever. 

Is there a prediction market on whether he'll be reinstated?

How many e's are supposed to be in that word?

Embrace the diaresis! Say "peeër." 

Why do you believe this complicated policy is better than simply lying?

Wisdom is well-calibrated intelligence: enough not to get exploited, but not so much that it provokes hatred.

Who said anything about slowly and painfully?

Me. And I don't actually endorse that. That was my point.

And my comments are threatening? Saying I'd defend with my life my loved ones from those (like you) who are happy for them to die to achieve their goals? Sure, I guess, but I stand by that.

Though I may have said otherwise, I do not, in fact, seriously want all "AI safety" researchers to die slowly and painfully, and would not be willing to risk my life to achieve that.

People willing to trade off the lives of my loved ones "for the greater good," on the other hand, yes, certainly. (I do not, however, see a feasible way of getting rid of all of you, or even an appreciable fraction, even at the cost of my life, so rest easy, my fanatical ideals aren't going to translate into deeds.)

If you met a race of aliens, intelligent, friendly, etc., would you "turn into a Warhammer 40K Inquisitor" who considers the xenos unworthy of any moral consideration whatsoever? If not, why not?

someone's immortality

Everyone's immortality. They don't typically make cartoon villains like that.

"In the name of the greatest species that has ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say humanism now, humanism tomorrow, and humanism forever."

At least ternary: an "unsure" option is definitely worth including. (That also seems to be the third most popular option in the questions above.)

I think a fourth option, for "the question is wrong" would also be a good one, but perhaps redundant if there is also a comment section.

And simultaneously, does not even try to satisfy those who favor open access.

this would be a big barrier for small teams

Isn't that the point of this exercise?

I think anorexics are typically defined more by a (pathological) fear of being fat. In practice, of course, that results in them being extremely skinny.

I don't think that fact was meant to be surprising, but rather just to point out that not eating in the first place (or exercising intensely to burn off whatever you ate), like anorexics, seems to work better (well, "better") than the bulimics' "binge and purge" approach.

It might be worth making explicit what you're comparing it to, which is probably eating less in the first place. I.e., your question should be, "Can you sate your hunger by eating a lot, and then 'cheat' by throwing up quickly?"

in a democratic society,

That's true, but irrelevant. In oligarchies, you can just make shit up, à la "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." If the ruling elites want "secret information" to justify a law they want to pass, such information will conveniently materialize on cue.

My argument (which I'm not all that sure I believe myself):

• You need computation done "on-board," not in the cloud, and that requirement drives up prices to an order of magnitude too high to be feasible. 

I think this time is different.

That's what people said last time too. And the time before that.

Fig 1 in the "extra" paper, is hilarious! It's almost entirely blank, and that you need "physical samples" is classified as "key info."

I'm laboring beneath a grave misunderstanding of what a policy paper is actually intended to be

I think you are. It is my understanding that a "policy paper" is essentially a longer, LaTeXed version of a protest sign, intended to be something sympathetic congressmen can wave around while bloviating about "trusting the Science!" It's not meant to be true.

I expect the supposedly dangerous information (that the authors are careful not to actually tell you) is some combination of obvious (to a person of ordinary skill in the art), useless, and wrong, roughly analogous to the following steps for building a nuclear bomb:

1. Acquire 100 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
2. Assemble into a gun-type fission weapon.
3. Earth-Shattering Kaboom!

This "draw the rest of the fucking owl" kind of advice is good for a laugh, and as fodder for fear-mongering about actually open AI (not to be confused with the duplicitously named OpenAI), but little else.

They will believe what they are programmed to believe.

If recent trends persist, likely some version of American progressivism.