Open Thread, June 2-15, 2013

Just increased my subjective probability that John Wittle is Satan.

I am really disappointed in you, gwern. Why would you use an English auction when you can use an incentive-compatible one (a second price auction, for example)? You're making it needlessly harder for bidders to come up with valuations!

(But I guess maybe if you're just trying to drive up the price, this may be a good choice. Sneaky.)

Sorry to ruin the fun but I'm afraid this sale is impossible. Gwern lacks the proprietary rights to his own soul. As the apostle St Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians (chapter 6), "Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body." It clearly states that "you are not your own" which at least applies to baptized Christians (and as a confirmed Catholic, it may even apply to a higher degree). Unless gwern provides some scriptural basis for this sale, it cannot proceed. Even when Satan tempted Christ, the only proferred exchange was worship in return for temporal power. There are no cases (even hypothetical ones) of a direct sale of one's soul in the Church's Tradition.

In exchange for ruining this sale, I'll pray for your soul for free.

so souls likely constitute a lemon market.

applause

you still benefit infinitely by bargaining him down to an agreement like torturing you every day via a process that converges on an indefinitely large but finite total sum of torture while still daily torturing you & fulfilling the requirements of being in Hell.

A tactic that almost definitely should be referred to as "Gabriel's Horn."

Note that if you can get a high price from Satan on your own soul (e.g. rulership of a country), this is a no-lose arbitrage deal since souls are fungible goods.

My soul is here defined as my supernatural non-material essence as specified by Judeo-Christian philosophers, and not my computational pattern (over which I continue to claim copyright); transfer does not cover any souls of gwerns in alternate branches of the multiverses inasmuch as they have not consented.

What? This is lame. The definition of the soul as used by 16th century Catholic theology, which is friendly to information theory, is clearly the common sense interpretation and assumed among reasonable people. Sure some moderns love the definition you use but they are mostly believers of moralistic therapeutic deism, one hardly needs more evidence of their lack of theological expertise.

I certify that my soul is intact and has not been employed in any dark rituals such as manufacturing horcruxes; I am also a member in good standing of the Catholic Church, having received confirmation etc. Note that my soul is almost certainly damned inasmuch as I am an apostate and/or an atheist, which I understand to be mortal sins.

Not sure how much I can trust the word of a damned. After all, lying is no more of a mortal sin than apostasy. And for an atheist there is no extra divine punishment for lying.

One person who did this years ago spun the event into a book, a popular blog, and endless speaking gigs.

Huh, reading this made me realize that there's apparently still a small bit of my brain that doesn't alieve in atheism. For a moment I considered whether I should try to get some profit out of selling my soul as well, and then felt uncomfortable over the idea, thinking "I should hold onto it, just in case..."

The quitclaim doesn't help here. It merely quits your claim, which is relevant if ownership is disputed, but it doesn't give any more rights to the buyer than to anyone else (just more documentation of the quit). You should have been suspicious when taterbizkit mentioned that you can sell quitclaim deeds for a single item to multiple buyers.

After some unfortunate imperial entanglements, the sale has been completed:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

I, the undersigned, do irreversibly sign over to the purchaser possession of my soul, karmic balance, or whatsoever ontologically basic mental system might underly my own consciousness, in the event that we live in a functionally dualistic or monistically spiritual universe, for the sum of $121 USD on this June the Eleventh 2013 (with delayed payment calculated at 9% interest compounded annually), to be paid to the PayPal account identifiable as gwern0@gmail.com If our universe is reductionistic, and yet, some alien agency continues to compute the mental processes of our minds after death, giving us pleasurable or painful experiences based on how optimized our earthly behavior was as measured against some criteria, then I explicitly sign over possession of the weight of all the actions I took in life over to the purchaser, with the resolution of any problems to be determined by the aforementioned alien agent.

This day being the Seventh of June 2017, I now accept payment of $144 from the purchaser such that the above terms are binding.

- --
Gwern Branwen
gwern0@gmail.com
Bitcoin hash: 00000000000000000055b0bee08bfeb235bc60bc22a27951501d78b10883484a
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=IaKZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

conversely, if Satan insists on my soul, I can let Satan have my soul and use yours instead.

FYI, according to galactic law, transactions like this are valid only to the extent that the implicit metaphysics of the contract is correct. If you wish to guarantee the property rights of your soul's new owner, you should add a meta clause indicating valid interpretive generalizations of content and intent.

Heh, I would have bid 0.5btc if I had known I would be the only bidder...

My soul is here defined as my supernatural non-material essence as specified by Judeo-Christian philosophers, and not my computational pattern

What if these are in fact the same thing, in extension if not intention? Then you would be selling your computational pattern, in contradiction with

(over which I continue to claim copyright)

You definitely should auction it off in other places, where prospective buyers value such things much higher.

has never been anyone else's

Hindus and some other groups may disagree with that. ;)

My soul is here defined as my supernatural non-material essence as specified by Judeo-Christian philosophers[...]

What do you intend to do with your soul(s) as defined by other schools of philosophy?
By Plato's theory of Ideal Forms, selling your soul would be tantamount to selling bits of the gods - and man has no claim to the gods. I'd advise against this lest you wish to become fate-brothers with Prometheus.

Are you accepting bids in things other than currencies commonly used for exchange? I would like to offer a finely crafted narrative instead of bitcoins.

I flashed back to Bill Wilingham's Proposition Player. Highly recommended for an amusing fantasy take on this particular deal.

I laughed out loud when I read this. I'm not incredibly surprised someone would bid, but at the same time, disappointed.

Maybe this will help?

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/55494.html

What about for the site overall?

Can you comment on your methodology - tools, wget scripts or what?

I'll provide these values for the first ten respondents who want them.

Yes please. I have no idea what they will look like.

If I'm counting the replies correctly, nine respondents requested them so far. I'd like my word values. Thank you!

May I have mine? Thanks.

An alternative would be to ask people for donations to Against Malaria Foundation or your preferred charity.

I'll provide these values for the first ten respondents who want them.

I'd like mine, please.

mine, please.

I'd like mine, please!

Ooh, go on then.

Sure, why not? Thanks!

Cool! This (judging the relevance of words in documents in a corpus and analogous problems) is a subject I muse about sometimes. Thanks for introducing me to TF-IDF.

I'd like my top scoring words please.

Curious to hear mine.

I notice that almost all of those books are about things that are considered "mental problems" (the exceptions being chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and relationship problems, which are nevertheless specific problems). So if a self-help book isn't about a particular problem (like How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Seven Habits), or the problem it talks about isn't primarily psychological (like Getting Things Done), then it won't appear on that list regardless of how good it is.

(Stating my opinions here so that you won't have to guess: My brother, who seems quite sensible and whom I admire very much, states that all three of the books mentioned here are very good. Getting Things Done taught me one extremely useful lesson, probably among the top five most useful things I have ever learned. I have little evidence, apart from this stuff, that any of these books are useful.)

Fuck cancer. Fuck mortality. We must work faster.

Improving my social skills is going to be my number one priority for a while. I don't see this subject discussed too much on LW, which is strange because it's one of the biggest correlates with happiness and I think we could benefit a lot from a rational discussion in this area.

Discussion on lesswrong on that subject would most likely not be rational. Various forms of idealism result in mind killed advice giving which most decidedly is not optimized for the benefit of the recipient.

Stuff that breaks from the traditional narrative of "just be nicer and more confident" is particularly appreciated. (Unless maybe that is all it takes.)

Get out of your house, go where the people are and interact with them. Do this for 4 hours per day for a year (on top of whatever other incidental interactions your other activities entail). If "number one priority" was not hyperbole that level of exertion is easily justifiable and nearly certain to produce dramatic results. (Obviously supplementing this with a little theory and tweaking the environment chosen and tactics used are potential optimisations. But the active practice part is the key.)

Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice. You have to go out of your way to hang out with people to get any good at being fun to hang out with. WARNING: This does not mean you have to spend time at loud parties or bars or clubs. While they pretend to be areas for socializing, they're not really. It's one thing if you enjoy dancing or drinking, but places that are less loud and crowded are a lot better for conversation.

The best advice I've ever received along these lines is "treat people as though they were already close friends." In my case, that mostly means having conversations with them about topics I actually care about, as opposed to conventional topics.

IME, this weirds a number of people out, who subsequently don't interact with me much, but that's not necessarily a problem.

It also causes people to think I'm coming on to them, which is sometimes a problem, but was less of one when I was in the dating pool.

It might help to precise-ify some of the language around what you mean by "more friends" and "more popular"? What kind of friends? What kind of popularity? Are there types of friends or popularity you don't want? Also, what kind of people can you usually hang out with one-on-one?

am a 19 yo male (as of tomorrow)

So, are you trans?

If so, the queer clubs are a slam dunk, if you get along okay with that "type". One thing to bear in mind is, a lot of the opening chatter will be about gender and sexuality issues, which gets a little tiresome. Just accept that this is the new smalltalk for these spaces --- instead of talking about sports or what your major is, young queer kids often ask each other about coming out stories, etc. People are also trying on the role --- it's all new and unfamiliar to them, too. Many are unused to having an in-group, and overdo "tribe signalling".

I guess I'm just advising you to be wary of the fundamental attribution error in these spaces, which can make people seem very narrow.

You can also turn this around and realise that there are ways you can help people avoid making the fundamental attribution error with you, too. For instance, if you're recently transitioning, I imagine that will feel really weird for a while. It's okay to talk about that! You can excuse some of your awkwardness this way, and I expect most of the folks in these spaces will find that quite endearing.

I suggest practice in groups. Does Toastmasters charge money, and do they have any meetings near you?

Advice from the Less Wrong archives.

You could practice by yourself by reading out loud. I really should do that again myself, too - I have the tendency to speak too fast, and not pause enough for breath, which leads to me *gasp*ing for air a lot. Try to relax and pay attention to your breath. It's a bit weird speaking aloud by yourself, but I think it helps. If you're braver than me, you could even record yourself and listen back, to hear how you'd sound to others.

I have wanted to do some sort of speech training for a few years, but can't seem to find an appropriate avenue to investigate. The closest I've found is media training, but it tends to only cater towards corporate clients.

bonding behaviors (e.g. parent-child, pets, snuggling / Karezza)

Playing a team sport. Killing other people with your allies in combat. Being held in captivity and/or abused severely enough.

Do you have a source on oxytocin and sex with vs without orgasm? My understanding was that sex increased oxytocin secretion pretty much the same whether you orgasmed or not.

I wonder if taking oxytocin supplements might work even better for this.

I'll definitely be trying it in one way or another, though.

I think that common-sense reasoning states that if the idea of doing something makes you uncomfortable, then perhaps you should make yourself comfortable before doing it. To me, this "using oxytocin to counteract ugh fields" idea isn't obviously more credible or more useful than this common-sense idea.

I'll say what I said on facebook: The most effective paths historically for the bettering of the human condition are technology and trade. The net effect of the republican party on american well-being, however crazy they are, is way smaller than cheap cellphones or widespread computers or good public transportation. You can spend 20 years getting to a position of power as a republican or you can spend 20 years inventing energy storage systems or cheap and accessible travel or healthy but palatable alternatives to snack foods that are more achievable and have the positive benefit of providing you with experience and connections that aren't based 100 percent on lies.

In practice, desire to implement reform-from-within is a strong negative to promotion to positions that could implement the change. If the organization thought your issue was a problem, they probably would address it without your intervention. Since they don't, that means they don't agree that your issue is a problem.

One could adopt a false persona for years to get the promotions to powerful positions. But you still might not get the promotion. And do you want to be a faithful cog in implementing bad policy in the meantime?

And even if you did, you still might not be in position to make the change you want. With the benefit of hindsight, we know Gorbachev could and did make major reforms. But could he have predicted that at the beginning of his career, even if he wanted to?

Probably safer to do that after HPMoR is finished. Otherwise there is a chance she would forward the letter to her lawyer, the lawyer would send a cease and desist letter to CFAR, and then what?

If the same thing happens after HPMoR is finished, it can be removed from web and shared among LW members in ways that give plausible deniability to CFAR. But you can't have plausible deniability while Eliezer continues to write new chapters.

Incidentally, I'm confused over the fact that so few sites or people seem to use Flattr, despite it basically solving this problem. (Well, it's microdonations rather than micropayments, so you can't really require your users to pay anything, but still.)

The interesting thing about that observation is that it's very much about how the internet get's used in the West. In China where a lot of internet use happens in internet cafés where uses pay the internet café by the hour micropayments for virtual goods are used more frequently than in the West.

Additionally transaction costs are a big deal when it comes to micropayments. Paypal's micromayment fee is 5% + $0.05 per transaction. If we would have cheap micropayment there a chance that a greater ecosystem of services that need micropayments can grow.

Bitcoin did promise being cheap but still have some substantial transaction costs. On the other hand Ripple (https://ripple.com/) provides the opportunity of a cost of $0.0001 per transaction.

The inconvenience of setting up a payment method may play some role.

You can't control whether or not the girl will hit or insult you. As a result hoping that she would do one of those things goes against stoicist ideals.

It's much better to seek out-of-comfort zone experiences where you can control that you have the experience. Instead of depending on the bully in the bus to provide an experience in which you can grow you can go and have fun dancing in the bus.

A year ago I was in a personal development seminar that's partly about improving one's charisma and finding the courage to do what one likes.

At the end of the day there's live music and most people just sit there listening and watching the musicians. I went and danced in alone in front of >200 people because I felt like dancing. I got a bunch of positive social feedback for it.

Stoicism doesn't have to be about having no fun and doing nothing. It's rather about reducing negative emotions.

I've submitted a ticket to the LW bug tracker.

Alternative explanation: They're shutting up and multiplying.

Most people have gone through the education system. Most people know how to guess the teacher's password. Most people have learned better than to assume their answers will be counted correct just because they have (in their opinions) good reasons for holding those answers.

Does putting an incentive on getting the answers "right" lead to "right" answers, or does it lead to people answering the way they expect you to treat as being right? My own educational history suggests the latter.

I can't parse this bit:

that this study suggests that all the studies about where people are likely to make strong factual errors supporting their own partisan positions are less likely to occur when people are given money for correct answers

Going by the syntax, it seems like you're saying "that this study suggests that all the studies [about certain things] are less likely to occur [under certain circumstances]", i.e. the study you're talking about was about the frequency of other types of studies. This doesn't seem to make sense.

The most linear way to read Eliezer's Sequences is in chronological order by date of original posting, although it might not be the best way.

this might resemble the kind of list you were looking for:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2un/references_resources_for_lesswrong/

I want to improve my exposition and writing skills, but whenever I think "what do I know that I can explain to people that isn't explained well elsewhere?" not much comes to mind

If improving your skills is your main goal, you should just write, regardless of whether better explanations already exist elsewhere. Actually, such explanations already existing could even be an advantage, as it provides you with feedback: after writing your own, you can look up existing ones and compare what you did better and what you did worse.

I think that happens because it is hard to just do a search of everything that I know.

There are tools you can use to solve this problem! Have you tried mindmapping everything you know, e.g. with FreeMind?

whenever I think "what do I know that I can explain to people that isn't explained well elsewhere?" not much comes to mind.

At least in math, many topics are explained well at some high level but not explained well at a lower level. There's always more work to be done explaining math to the general population; the gulf between what could be explained and what has already been explained is absurd.

Pretend you're to have a conversation with a friend in which you need to explain a topic before proceeding. Write your dialogue.

I want to improve my exposition and writing skills, but whenever I think "what do I know that I can explain to people that isn't explained well elsewhere?" not much comes to mind.

That seems like the wrong question to start with for casual writing. Some version of it might make sense for academic publishing.

Is there some math you're having fun with that you'd like to try explaining?

If you'd like a great big project, how about rationality for people of average intelligence?

I wish you all a nice profit!

Thanks, you too!

It is the Capitalism Day today. As every first Sunday in June.

Why is Capitalism Day on a weekend? Monday would seem more appropriate...

This might be helpful.

These are natural mathematical equivalents of the Godel "true but undecidable" sentence. They can be proved in a larger system which is generally accepted as a valid form of reasoning, but are undecidable in a more limited system such as Peano Arithmetic.

"Real life" doesn't even remotely resemble the ancestral environment. In the modern world, a big family is evidence about your cultural background, especially the relationship between your cultural background and contraception, and that might be a turn-off for some. This is the same kind of phenomenon that makes having extra fat evidence, in the ancestral environment, that you were good at acquiring food and other resources, but in the modern world it's evidence that you're poor or lack access to good food or lack self-control or whatever.

Do you (not) observe this both with males and females?

Baboons are supposed to be a good model for human social structure, though not as smart as apes. They are matrilocal, so they don't know how big the male's family was. The female's status is largely determined by alliances, which are made of family blocks. They do get some grooming work out of allies. They might be able to get work out of low status females, who love to hold high status babies, but the mothers don't trust them, perhaps out of fear for the baby, perhaps out of fear of status contagion. Anyhow, since (2) is true, it's hard to measure (1). But it is probably better to look at anthropological evidence than baboons.

Large families mean low infant mortality and low maternal mortality. Low infant mortality might be due to good genes, or good provisioning. A woman from a large family might provide genetic protection against maternal mortality, but not a man from a large family. If infant mortality is due to bad infant genes, siblings testify to this kind of gene, but it might not be different from other kinds of robustness that can be measured in adulthood. If it's paternal provisioning, then maybe it's evidence that the man inherited dad strategy genes (vs cad strategy), but hunter-gatherer couplings probably were not long term so the large family is not highly informative. The farming environment seems like it should select for the behavior you suggest, but people usually assume it didn't last very long so didn't shape much.

Why does evo. psych imply this result? The fact that you can spawn healthy children may make you more attractive to an additional potential mate, but the potential mate must also consider whether you can provide resources to support additional children.

more people will share resources to help my kids survive. (emphasis added)

This seems like the opposite of what evo. psych would predict. Your relatives might be willing to provide you more support if you have more kids, but why would strangers be more willing to support you based on your reproductive fitness? As for relatives of additional potential spouses, the considerations of I discussed above still apply.

Well, the more kids are in a family, the less resources can be allocated to each child, all other things being equal. That said, it isn't obvious to me that your premise is true. I have found that my esteem for somebody grows for some reason when I learn they have siblings.

Why, then, don't more people realize that many worlds is correct?

Note that you are using Eliezer!correct, not Physics!correct. The former is based on Bayesian reasoning among models with equivalent predictive power, the latter requires different predictive power to discriminate between theories. The problem with the former reasoning is that without experimental validation it is hard to agree on the priors and other assumptions going into the Bayesian calculation for MWI correctness. Additionally, proclaiming MWI "correct" is not instrumentally useful unless one can use it to advance physical knowledge.

'hey, maybe at that point half of the superposition just vanishes, at random, faster than light'

It's worse than that, actually. In some frames it means not just FTL but also back in time. But given that this is unmeasurable, it matters not in the slightest if you adopt the Physics!correct definition.

Why, then, don't more people realize that many worlds is correct?

I am going to try and provide short answer, as I see it. (Fighting urge to write about different levels of "physical reality".)

Many Words is an Interpretation. An interpretation should translate from mathematical formalism towards practical algorithms, but MWI does not go all the way. Namely, it does not specify the quantum state an Agent should use for computation. One possible state agrees with "Schroedinger's experiment was definitely set up and started", another state implies "cat definitely turned out to be alive", but those certainties cannot occur simultaneously.

Bayesian inference in non-quantum physics also changes (probabilistic) state, but we can interpret it as a mere change of our beliefs, and not a change in the physical system. But in quantum mechanics, upon observation, the "objective" state fitting our knowledge changes. MWI says "fitting our knowledge" is not a good criterion of choosing quantum state to compute with (because no state can be fitting enough, as example with Shroedinger's cat shows) and we should compute with superposition of Agents. MWI may be more "objectively correct", but it does not seem to be more "practical" than Copenhagen interpretation. So physicists do like to cautiously agree with MWI, then wave hands, proclaim "Decoherence!" and at the end use Copenhagen interpretation as before.

Introductory books emphasize experiments, and experimental results do not come in form of superpositioned bits. So before student gets familiar enough with mathematical formalism to think about detectors in superposition, Copenhagen is already occupying slot for Interpretation.

Sure it's not in plasma?

This is definitely the case according to my experiences and pretty much every self-help text I've ever read. You might want to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broaden-and-build

Well, I certainly find that the two are correlated... when my mood is low, I don't get much done compared to when my mood is elevated.
Whether that's because getting things done influences my mood (and something else influences my productivity), or whether my mood influences my productivity (and something else influences my mood), or whether neither is true (and something else influences both), or various combinations, is harder to tease out.
My impression is that all three are true at different times.

When I have above usual levels of productivity, I'm moderately happier than the norm. When I have below usual levels, I'm much unhappier than normal.

I've noticed the converse seems to be true in me, at least to a degree: getting useful work done causes me to feel happier. I have not noticed happiness causing me to get more useful work done.

Interesting. My correlations go in the opposite direction.

I'm interested. If you plan on posting semi-regularly or irregularly, please consider adding an RSS feed. It's the only way to follow sites that don't have a regular update schedule.

Please add it to the list of blogs by LWers in the wiki.

I've see only a math post. Do you plan to write in what kind of topics?

in sans-serif than in serif font.

FWIW, most of my pages on gwern.net seem like they'd count as 'long texts', but my just concluded font A/B test using 2 sans-serif and 2 serif fonts doesn't see any difference in reading time when you split by serif: http://www.gwern.net/a-b-testing#fonts

You only need an emergency fund if you do not have access to credit at reasonable terms. Investments you don't touch outside of emergencies coupled with open lines of credit should outperform excessive "emergency" savings. After all, lines of credit are typically free when you don't use or need them, while not getting the best rate of return on your savings isn't.

EDIT: I was reminded of a relevant saying: If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports.. Similarly, if you never have to borrow money for emergencies, your investments are too liquid.

Eric Tyson's Personal Finances for Dummies discusses this. He recommends putting your emergency fund into a tax-free money market with check writing privileges. I keep about 2-3% of my liquid assets in such an account, and maybe another 2% in checking and savings accounts at regular banks (one online, plus two local banks in locations where I live and work.) However the percentages aren't as important as the absolute numbers. You need a local account (or a fire-resistant safe that's rated for at least 60 minutes against tools and torch) for when you need a lot of cash right away, and enough cash across your cash accounts for maybe six months of living expenses.

Lines of credit can be useful, but banks do have an annoying habit of cancelling them at the worst possible times; e.g. when the whole economy is imploding as it did in 2008 and clients aren't paying their bills either.

Some banks offer money market accounts, or even a savings account might be a good idea.

Here's one answer.

In the summer of 1922, the Paris weekly newspaper L'Intrasigeant posed as their "Man on the street" question

"An American scientist announces that the world will end, or at least that such a huge part of the continent will be destroyed, and in such a sudden way, that death will be the certain fate of hundreds of millions of people. If this prediction were confirmed, what do you think would be its effects on people between the time when they acquired the aforementioned certainty and the moment of cataclysm? Finally, as far as you're concerned, what would you do in this last hour?"

The novelist Marcel Proust responded:

"I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it -- our life -- hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.

But let all this threaten to become impossible for ever, how beautiful it would become again! Ah! If only the cataclysm doesn't happen this time, we won't miss visiting the new galleries of the Louvre, throwing ourselves at the feet of Miss X, making a trip to India.

The cataclysm doesn't happen, we don't do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire. And yet we shouldn't have needed the cataclysm to love life today. It would have been enough to think that we are humans, and that death may come this evening."

I suspect that without mortality salience I would have more trouble getting out of bed and doing something useful every morning. Or I would just play games forever.

For a reflectively consistent person (let's call her Alice), the word "ought" according to Alice means whatever Alice ought according to Alice believe that it means.

Politics is the mind killer for a variety of reasons besides ridiculously strong priors that are never swayed by evidence. Strong priors isn't even the entirety of the phenomena to be explained (though it is a big part), let alone a fundamental explanation.

Also, I really like Noah's post (and was about to post it in the current open thread before I found your post). Not only did Noah attach a word to a pretty commonly occurring phenomenon, the word seems to have a great set of connotations attached to it, given some goals about improving discourse.

PITMK?

The talk is now online, here.

I'm currently in a weeklong design meeting. On Monday, the guy leading the meeting proposed a schedule for what we were doing when, in which my presentation was Monday, a likely followup for my presentation was Friday, and various other things were true. Some people objected, and he changed some stuff, though not those two things. Nobody objected to it, and it's the schedule we're using.

I have no idea what we're going to do this afternoon or tomorrow, and I was surprised by what we did yesterday and this morning. At no time have I ever known, I didn't bother to listen when it was announced. I don't care what we discuss when, as long as I know when my topics are so I can prep.

Still, I'm happy to say that our schedule is an aggregate of public opinion.

Would you disagree?

I approach public policy in a democracy similarly. Sure, most of us don't know anything about anything, but I'm not sure how much that really matters.

That being said, I'm also not sure how much I endorse public policy driven by public discourse. "Worst system in the world except for everything else we've ever tried" comes to mind.

Note that this isn't particularly specific to the US. The situation is pretty much the same in every country, AFAIK.

between XiXiDu and Aris Kats Aris

A small note: "Katsaris" is my last name and a single word, it doesn't split into "Kats Aris". :-)

Aaronson is just trying to make the point that it's possible to make a formal distinction between nondeterminism and randomness. Mathematically, a nondeterministic function is a function that returns a set of values rather than a value, and a random function is a function that returns a probability distribution over values rather than a value. The fact that we can make such a formal distinction suggests that we ought to also be able to make an informal distinction.

Well, he's saying that. I don't know which part of this is the part you're having trouble with.

In a competitive and efficient market, he'll profit on average to the tune of the risk-free interest rate (~2% or so now) but higher since renting is not risk-free. So you could start by figuring out his risks in renting out to you.

Based on guidelines I've come across, I would be surprised if it were much more than $50, and that's generally the estimate without taking into account the costs of not renting out the property if you can't find tenants.

I have a question. Assume that non-profit MIRI develops a fAGI (I like the acronym this way). They realise they can use the fAGI to generate profit. Taking for granted they only wish to make enough profit to sustain the institution free of donor-support, would they then be able to switch to a for-profit institution, despite having created the fAGI while non-profit?

If MIRI (or anyone else) create an AGI that is friendly to them they can do whatever they goddamn please.

The assumption is that fAGI would render any questions of profit moot.

Let's taboo "nonprofit." If a tax deductible charity starts making more than de minimis business profit, the charity is no longer eligible to offer tax deductions. But the purpose and mission of any charity is not tied to its tax status. In fact, there are many charities that haven't procedurally qualified to give tax deduction for donations.

But as others have said, I'm not sure why this would be a problem if MIRI had a foom fAGI.