Posts

Meetup : Oslo Lesswrong meetup, September 2015-08-18T14:15:21.614Z
Meetup : Oslo Meetup at Bitraf. 2015-06-25T16:21:19.797Z
Meetup : Oslo Meetup at Bitraf. 2015-05-29T07:04:15.528Z
Reminder: Oslo Lesswrong meetup... 2015-05-22T06:54:49.344Z
Meetup : Oslo LessWrong Meetup 2015-05-06T05:39:31.162Z
Meetup: Oslo LessWrong meetup planning thread. 2015-04-25T21:09:23.827Z

Comments

Comment by FourFire on The Friendly Drunk Fool Alignment Strategy · 2024-05-19T19:21:47.677Z · LW · GW

I have benefited from linking your post to others as a reference point for non-constructive alignment approaches, so don't feel any guilt I expect that if we live for another few years this post will pay for the damage it's caused ;) 

Comment by FourFire on The Friendly Drunk Fool Alignment Strategy · 2023-07-20T16:53:37.167Z · LW · GW

I believe you have psychologically harmed me.

Well done!


I appreciate what appears to be your very best effort.
We certainly need to keep working on this category of problem until: 

20 years pass and somehow we're still alive and everything is great!

Comment by FourFire on "Publish or Perish" (a quick note on why you should try to make your work legible to existing academic communities) · 2023-03-20T15:55:27.559Z · LW · GW

I must admit confusion, and a quick googling does not alleviate it;
For those of us outside of academia, what exactly do you mean by "AF style publication"?

Comment by FourFire on The Principled Intelligence Hypothesis · 2018-02-20T10:56:22.741Z · LW · GW

My first comment on the new forum, please give feedback on which community norms I inevitably end up violating.

I'll attack the first section of your post, and I'll be disregarding the controversial intelligence-autism correlation.

a person who is both unusually smart

You are an outlier, the rules aren't made with you in mind.

Most people are forced break some rules in order to win, but from the perspective of most people, you can do moves which are impossible.

You can Win without breaking any rules.

Why would you throw away utility by taking unnecessary risk?

You benefit from everyone around you being more constrained by rules which they can't help but break and you can navigate trivally. In short you benefit the most by making the meritocracy gauged by something you're good at.

Risk is either for plebs who can't avoid it, or outliers who have spent their lives practicing how to do risk well.

The latter group we call "billionaires".

Comment by FourFire on Project Hufflepuff: Planting the Flag · 2017-04-12T22:07:56.429Z · LW · GW

My steelmanning of Ialdaboath's claim isn't that it is impossible to succeed without being a psychopath. (Though I would definitely agree that his perspective is rather dreary and pessimistic) It is that the paths to success in society have been distorted by psychopaths into requiring one to express psychopathic traits in order to succeed a lot more of the time than would be the case in absence of psychopaths within the ruling elite.

Comment by FourFire on Project Hufflepuff: Planting the Flag · 2017-04-10T08:30:48.191Z · LW · GW

I think ialdabaoth's claim is valid if, when measured, the most politically and culturally powerful quintile of the world population proves to be more than 1-4% clinical psychopaths.

I am assuming the top quintile of world population is what is meant by winners: people who control a disproportionate amount of the world's resources, and by proxy, people.

The USA has the world's largest prison population, of ~2.2MIllion and a total population of ~316 Million (both 2013)

If we were to expect an even distribution of Psychopathy across the bellcurve of intelligence then there should be between ~1.58 Mn and ~6.32Mn Psychopaths in the US prison system. Furthermore, we should expect 35.5Mn to 142Mn worldwide prison population of 100% <100IQ psychopaths.

However it is a mere 10.3Mn (all 2013 statistics)

This indicates that at least 70%, and perhaps as many as 92% of <100IQ Psychopaths are going free worldwide, this of course does not indicate that these individuals aren't simply part of the exploited lower classes. It also says nothing about the remaining population of >100IQ Psychopaths, presumably of equal size.

There is much hubub around some tabloid 'research' along the lines of "21%of leadership positions filled by psychopaths" However I can't be bothered to validate the source so I won't claim this is true.

This leaves me with a rather weaker position than I expected before writing this but you should draw your own conclusions.

Comment by FourFire on No One Knows What Science Doesn't Know · 2017-03-30T11:10:38.648Z · LW · GW

Enjoy your stay!

I think most of the people who were around ten, or even six years ago now consider this place a mostly static repository of articles which are useful to refer to, rather than a dynamic community forum capable of generating more of said articles.

Comment by FourFire on A quick note on weirdness points and Solstices [And also random other Solstice discussion] · 2017-01-06T23:24:42.266Z · LW · GW

While I agree with your sentiment, I also care substantially more about the continued success and growth of solstices than about one or two participants of such events being deeply offended.

Elo is taking a stand here, which I believe needs to be taken, and few others are due to following the social norms of pre-emptively not offending people.

I admit I am confused; is sidestepping around the issue part of Ask or Guess culture?

Comment by FourFire on A quick note on weirdness points and Solstices [And also random other Solstice discussion] · 2017-01-06T23:16:19.370Z · LW · GW

I wonder where this form of communication lands in Ask, Tell, or Guess Culture?

Comment by FourFire on On the importance of Less Wrong, or another single conversational locus · 2016-11-27T19:29:53.602Z · LW · GW
  1. I agree completely.

  2. Politics has most certainly damaged the potential of SSC. Notably, far fewer useful insights have resulted from the site and readership than was the case with LessWrong at it's peak, but that is how Yvain wanted it I suppose. The comment section has, according to my understanding become a haven for NRx and other types considered unsavoury by much of the rationalist community, and the quality of the discussion is substantially lower in general than it could have been.

  3. Sure.

  4. Codebase, just start over, but carry over the useful ideas implemented, such as disincentivizing flamewars by making responses to downvoted comments cost karma, zero initial karma awarded for posting, and any other rational discussion fostering mechanics which have become apparent since then.

  5. I agree, make this site read only, use it and the wiki as a knowledge base, and start over somewhere else.

Comment by FourFire on Our Phyg Is Not Exclusive Enough · 2016-11-22T22:03:36.912Z · LW · GW

I'm responding to congratulate you on your correct prediction.

I see this account hasn't been active in over four years.

Comment by FourFire on Open thread, Nov. 21 - Nov. 27 - 2016 · 2016-11-22T14:41:00.391Z · LW · GW

Archaeologists estimate that up to 500 persons were required to extract the heavy pillars from local quarries and move them

I wouldn't take this claim for granted, perhaps I can contact one of these archaeologists, to check how they reached their estimate?

There's not many pixels in this source but it explains a concept for low manpower block moving using simple tools probably available to pre-farming civilizations.

Comment by FourFire on Open thread, Nov. 21 - Nov. 27 - 2016 · 2016-11-22T14:29:05.003Z · LW · GW

That might be true, but the fact remains that one person is still completely dependent on and consequently bound to one neural substrate, and the support system for said neural substrate, which permits us (for now) to tie a person's personality to their distinct 'body'.

This remains true even in the spectrum of cases when multiple personalities or possibility even people (appear to) inhabit or share the same neural substrate.

If the substrate is disrupted, the indivdual(s) are destroyed.

This will not always be the case, once technology progresses to such an extent that synthetic and digital persons living in distributed neural substrates become first possible at all and then commonplace in society, the the above statement will be false and a society wide identity crisis will emerge for those not born into the new status quo.

We biological humans, with our antiquated instincts for people in single bodies will be old & regressive compared to the zeitgeist of society.

Comment by FourFire on Your Truth Is Not My Truth · 2016-11-22T14:09:55.149Z · LW · GW

Found my favourite version:

Comment by FourFire on Meetup : Stockholm: When to stop making a decision · 2016-09-30T02:35:08.651Z · LW · GW

Hi, just letting you know that though I wish I could be there, I will not be able to attend this meetup.
I will certainly attend a Stockholm meetup in the future though.

Comment by FourFire on European Community Weekend 2016 · 2016-05-25T08:55:01.519Z · LW · GW

How is availability right now?

I'm looking to attend at least one Community event this year.

Comment by FourFire on 2016 LessWrong Diaspora Survey Analysis: Part One (Meta and Demographics) · 2016-05-20T09:35:03.965Z · LW · GW

Attack Helicopter is probably a reference to this.

Comment by FourFire on Open Thread April 4 - April 10, 2016 · 2016-04-20T17:11:52.368Z · LW · GW

Same, unfortunately, I consider this site to be a mostly sunk ship, as previously stated, I've been mostly inactive since 2011, and I never really posted here anyway.

Comment by FourFire on Open Thread April 4 - April 10, 2016 · 2016-04-20T15:17:50.254Z · LW · GW

I wonder who downvoted you.

I'd argue for more strict dealing of downvote moderation, a higher waterline, if you like; noninsightful posts get downvoted (and otherwise ignored, or if specifically wrong, corrected) and impolite posts also get down-voted and responded to with an explanation. Explanatory responses might need to be encouraged more, in order to permit the author to know why exactly their post is being downvoted, but I'm wary of encouraging the lesswrong community to become more of a politeness before reason community than it already has, and so many other communities out there have.

Comment by FourFire on Open Thread April 4 - April 10, 2016 · 2016-04-18T20:54:52.254Z · LW · GW

In retrospect, reading this thread is hilarious to me since I have been so inactive a user as to not have built up a model of any of the users who have been active since late 2011. You could argue that I have a poor or no theory of mind, but it is still fun attempting to construct temporary models for everyone based solely on the contents of this thread (I have no time to read the previous five years backlog).

Personally I think that there should be a lower limit of lesswrong culture/rationality in each post regardless of it's niceness content, and have a preference towards nicer posts, though (and this next sentence will turn a lot of people against me) making the forum too accessible will encourage Endless September effects worse than what the community on this site is currently buckling under.

Comment by FourFire on Rationality Quotes Thread October 2015 · 2015-11-26T12:31:43.660Z · LW · GW

You seem to have suddenly lost some karma due to your other posts in this thread, I am discouraged from commenting on those posts, so I shall do so here instead.

At first I was surprised that 100% of the downvoted beyond default visible threshold comments in this thread belonged to the same person, and considered that you might be the victim of a downvote brigade, but after reading the comments themselves I realize that I too would downvote these ones, and so do not consider it a conspiracy beyond the stated purpose of the site.

Tangentially, I notice that downvoted comments discourage any response save from those with so many fake internet points that the loss doesn't matter (which may well be the exact intent), or those who don't care about said number. As I understand the mechanism is supposed to prevent flamewars, but it also severely reduces responses from everyone besides the top posters, especially longtime lurkers like myself, when the top posters may not have the time or will to comment on elementary mistakes, as their time is comparatively worth more (and here I notice I am confused, is the time of prolific site users really that valuable? I mean sure, what they have to say has been worth upvoting, but if they have invested so much time into the site then perhaps their time is worth less).

On Telling the story of yourself: undesirable starting states of people exist, it is more beneficial for both the person in question and society as a whole that such people learn and improve rather than maintaining undesirableness, in common psychology this process is called "socialization" and noticeably, those who through circumstance avoided or had lacking and/or deviant socialization have worse outcomes in general.
You would be courageous to do so because it will cost you.

On seduction: A more accurate quote (as in matching reality) would explain that the degree to which you can manipulate another mind is bounded, but unknown, rather than known to be unbounded.

On "True focus": Though I agree that it is important to reassure other people that your decisions are in part (though not mostly) emotionally motivated: by appearance, and that focus is strongly correlated with motivation, I am wary of all claims of "True X", that phrasing speaks of sounding wise.

Comment by FourFire on An alarming fact about the anti-aging community · 2015-10-24T20:54:58.458Z · LW · GW

Alright, I'll bite:

Do you have a list of Labs/Hospitals which will sell storage of frozen tissues (and possibly the future service of thawing and growing them for implantable cloned organs) at competitive prices?

If not, where do you recommend I start, when looking for reputable sellers of such a service?

Comment by FourFire on Meetup : First meetup in Stockholm · 2015-10-02T00:06:37.167Z · LW · GW

I'll have to attend one of the future meetups in this location.

I'm suffering from the same opportunity cost bias that lead to FeepingCreature attending my own meetup last week.

It's awefully tempting to just get a plane ride to the meetup, indeed the cost of the entire trip would be less than a day's wages!

Comment by FourFire on Meetup : Oslo Meetup at Bitraf. · 2015-07-19T12:34:17.472Z · LW · GW

Well, there went another evening filled with interesting discussion, though there were fewer attendees than I anticipated, those of us who did attend covered the aforementioned topics and more.

There was also some very above average pizza.

Anyhow I look forward to future meetups, though none are currently planned, I'll see about getting the next one posted at least six weeks in advance.

Anyone interested in participating in the organization of future meetups, or maybe just dropping a comment is welcome to join the mailing list.

Comment by FourFire on Where are we? · 2015-06-28T14:15:43.324Z · LW · GW

Oslo, Norway.

Comment by FourFire on Intrinsic motivation is crucial for overcoming akrasia · 2015-06-21T15:36:20.454Z · LW · GW

Are any of these open/free to take, because I have use for such a test.

Comment by FourFire on Intrinsic motivation is crucial for overcoming akrasia · 2015-06-21T15:34:55.000Z · LW · GW

I am of the opinion that much better tests can exist, not sure if they do, which can divide people into further categories.

Comment by FourFire on Intrinsic motivation is crucial for overcoming akrasia · 2015-06-21T15:28:03.973Z · LW · GW

I would also like to see these resources. A cursory search yields this, however I don't think it is sufficiently indepth.

Comment by FourFire on Meetup: Oslo LessWrong meetup planning thread. · 2015-05-22T23:33:17.051Z · LW · GW

Hello again, The first meetup was what I consider a success and future meetups are being organized here.

I have high hopes of there being a healthy northern Europe rationality community with time.

Comment by FourFire on Reminder: Oslo Lesswrong meetup... · 2015-05-22T22:47:59.638Z · LW · GW

Thanks to everyone who turned up, and for those who couldn't make it, I look forward to seeing you next time, I certainly had a fun time, and I believe i was not alone :)

Here is the google group (mailing list) for LessWrong Oslo.

Comment by FourFire on Reminder: Oslo Lesswrong meetup... · 2015-05-22T22:16:07.323Z · LW · GW

My apologies, you are correct, I'll simplify my posts in the future in order to avoid potential confusion.

Comment by FourFire on Meetup : Oslo LessWrong Meetup · 2015-05-22T22:11:22.559Z · LW · GW

I had a pleasant and intellectually enticing time tonight.

I look forward to further meetups and invite anyone who couldn't make it tonight to join us in the future.

Comment by FourFire on Is Scott Alexander bad at math? · 2015-05-08T12:59:01.813Z · LW · GW

I myself consider that a large degree of why I find myself to be bad at math is because I have spent very little time really trying to do math as a result of it being actually mentally painful to do due to this effect.

This makes me sad, because even without accomplishment, I feel as if my reasoning ability is "merely above average" and I have no apparent way of leveraging that besides hacking that into making me seem more verbally intelligent (a lame result in my opinion).

However I'm not a programmer either, yet.

Comment by FourFire on Open Thread: June 2010 · 2015-05-07T17:58:23.137Z · LW · GW

I didn't see that until right now, made me chuckle.

Comment by FourFire on Meetup: Oslo LessWrong meetup planning thread. · 2015-04-26T11:05:28.892Z · LW · GW

Please do.

Comment by FourFire on I played as AI in AI Box, and it was generally frustrating all around. · 2015-02-17T18:52:08.336Z · LW · GW

That method of attack would only work for a tiny fraction of possible gatekeepers. The question, of replicating the feats of Elezier and Tuxedage, can only be answered by a multitude of such fractionally effective methods of attack, or a much smaller number, broader methods. My suspicions are that Tuxedage's attacks in particular involve leveraging psychological control mechanisms into forcing the gate keeper to be irrational, and then leverage that.

Otherwise, I claim that your proposition is entirely too incomplete without further dimensions of attack methods to cover some of the other probabilty space of gatekeeper minds.

Comment by FourFire on Elon Musk donates $10M to the Future of Life Institute to keep AI beneficial · 2015-01-18T01:19:22.486Z · LW · GW

Your comment is enlightening, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Comment by FourFire on The Bay Area Solstice · 2015-01-02T21:15:49.749Z · LW · GW

The video appears to be private, which is unfortunat since I was interested in watching how the event progressed.

Comment by FourFire on AIs and Gatekeepers Unite! · 2014-11-17T18:55:30.133Z · LW · GW

I've said the same myself...

Comment by FourFire on AIs and Gatekeepers Unite! · 2014-11-17T15:25:07.896Z · LW · GW

And yet I have not found this post until this very day, how unfortunate...

Comment by FourFire on 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey · 2014-10-25T10:10:01.661Z · LW · GW

I answered every question except the last one (I don't have a scanner set up).

Comment by FourFire on Game Theory As A Dark Art · 2014-08-28T15:25:10.630Z · LW · GW

Indeed I consider that the winning move would be to blackmail the person starting the auction for a small percentage of his winnings, (else you expain to everyone present why he'll get those winnings).

Comment by FourFire on Writing Style and the Typical Mind Fallacy · 2014-07-22T17:34:32.391Z · LW · GW

I am still interested in some good examples of Yvain's posts which invoked this reaction from you, I have been reading somewhat more of his writing recently and though I often agree with his points, I don't recall feeling such explicit urges.

Comment by FourFire on Is there any way to avoid Post Narcissism? [with Video link] · 2014-07-22T17:32:17.874Z · LW · GW

I just came to note that I'm reading through my relatively few posts here, and the above is still true.

Comment by FourFire on I attempted the AI Box Experiment again! (And won - Twice!) · 2014-06-04T11:25:11.071Z · LW · GW

I don't want to mention it directly here, out of embarrassment, if nothing else, but it was a long piece, the ending of which features the immortal An-/Pro-tagonist giving up on the universe, and committing suicide.

Comment by FourFire on I attempted the AI Box Experiment again! (And won - Twice!) · 2014-04-24T15:29:36.804Z · LW · GW

Two can keep a secret... if one is dead.

Comment by FourFire on I attempted the AI Box Experiment again! (And won - Twice!) · 2014-04-24T15:22:46.095Z · LW · GW

I'm sure a lot of people will feel that way if free will is determined to be an illusion, and enhanced humans or nonapocalyptic but still vaguely (apparently) unfriendly AI are loose on the world, manipulating people.

Comment by FourFire on I attempted the AI Box Experiment again! (And won - Twice!) · 2014-04-23T01:41:54.378Z · LW · GW

I myself held this position until I, quite recently as a matter of fact, read some fiction which tipped off an existential crisis, putting me on the verge of a panic attack. Since then, I am more wary of dangerous ideas.

Ignorance might be bliss, but wisdom is gathered by those who survive their youth.

Comment by FourFire on I attempted the AI Box Experiment again! (And won - Twice!) · 2014-04-23T01:35:08.412Z · LW · GW

So, do you maintain your decision, or was it just a spur of the moment lapse of judgement?

Comment by FourFire on [deleted post] 2014-04-03T20:47:13.602Z

I agree that it's depressing, I disagree that we should give up now. No vote either way.