Posts

Should the US House of Representatives adopt rank choice voting for leadership positions? 2023-10-25T11:16:14.223Z
Who is liable for AI? 2023-05-30T13:54:45.776Z
In AI Risk what is the base model of the AI? 2023-05-01T03:25:11.821Z
ChatGTP "Writing " News Stories for The Guardian? 2023-04-07T12:16:38.256Z
Is _The Age of AI: And Our Human Future_ worth reading 2023-01-24T21:05:31.218Z
What is the best way to approach Expected Value calculations when payoffs are highly skewed? 2022-12-28T14:42:51.169Z
Do any of the AI Risk evaluations focus on humans as the risk? 2022-11-30T03:09:44.766Z
When trying to define general intelligence is ability to achieve goals the best metric? 2022-10-22T03:09:51.923Z
Simple question about corrigibility and values in AI. 2022-10-22T02:59:15.950Z
How much of China's Zero COVID policy is actually about COVID? 2022-10-14T07:23:20.961Z
Interesting predictions on manifold.markets 2022-10-01T16:09:46.005Z
Seeking opinions on the current and forward state of cryptocurrencies. 2022-07-05T05:01:39.890Z
Anyone Familiar with Ground News? 2022-04-24T12:46:04.335Z
Will/Has the Russia-Ukraine war been a tipping point for the shift from oil energy? 2022-04-22T11:07:07.497Z
Predictions on when the requirement for pre-flight COVID testing for returning citizen will be dropped? 2022-04-06T01:30:51.178Z
How much, and on what margins, should we be rethinking quarantine protocols? 2022-01-05T20:29:58.945Z
Viral Mutation, Pandemics and Social Response 2021-12-01T18:36:59.409Z
COVID Era: Updating On Life Risks 2021-11-29T17:27:28.354Z
Use of GPT-3 for identifying Phishing and other email based attacks? 2021-05-29T17:11:39.766Z
PrinciplesYou - Seems to be a new personality assessment tool 2021-04-22T19:20:46.384Z
AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine and blood clots 2021-03-15T13:16:24.878Z
For those who advocate Anki 2021-01-31T00:01:20.698Z
What do people think of the Futurism site? 2020-11-21T17:32:21.794Z
In 1 year and 5 years what do you see as "the normal" world. 2020-09-10T12:47:35.497Z
What is the current process for increases testing? 2020-07-12T17:21:49.847Z
Restricted Diet and Longevity, does eating pattern matter? 2020-06-01T21:28:19.010Z
Will the many protests throughout the USA prove to be good test cases for reopening? 2020-05-31T12:15:31.400Z
If bacteria gave us a tool for bio engineering, have viruses given us a delivery mechanism? 2020-05-20T22:31:08.099Z
Do any mammal species exhibit an immune response in some of the herd in response to the infection in other herd members? 2020-05-16T17:33:24.946Z
Will the world hit 10 million recorded cases of COVID-19? If so when? 2020-05-13T17:26:07.232Z
Settle Investment Trades Only Daily an improvement? True or False 2020-05-11T21:56:04.882Z
COVID-19 from a different angle 2020-05-04T17:58:02.100Z
Should we be reassessing the argument for globalization? 2020-04-26T13:52:40.126Z
Could city design impact spread of infections? 2020-04-22T14:57:54.511Z
COVID-19 and the US Elections 2020-04-08T18:25:20.425Z
What is going on in Singapore and the Philippines? 2020-04-06T11:27:25.268Z
What marginal returns now? 2020-03-30T23:12:03.853Z
Ideas on estimating personal risk of infection 2020-03-23T16:33:29.442Z
North Korea and COVID-19 2020-03-19T15:51:48.428Z
When will total cases in the EU surpass that of China? 2020-03-17T12:34:32.980Z
What might be learned from the COVID-19 buying patterns? 2020-03-15T02:58:26.078Z
Best time to take supplements? 2020-03-13T15:11:40.293Z
Dealing with the left overs: COVID-19 2020-03-05T14:10:02.299Z
To mask or not mask 2020-03-04T15:55:04.646Z
Did everyone miss the big thing about your phone? 2020-03-04T13:35:15.495Z
Is there a better way to define groups for COVID-19 impact? 2020-03-04T13:24:51.221Z
SARS, MERS and COVID-19 2020-03-01T20:53:06.459Z
Will the current COVID-19 outbreak increase the use of block-chain in supply chain management globally? 2020-02-28T14:53:15.777Z
Literature regarding epidemics and political stability? 2020-02-24T13:21:50.937Z
Making Sense of Coronavirus Stats 2020-02-20T15:12:51.292Z

Comments

Comment by jmh on Modern Transformers are AGI, and Human-Level · 2024-03-28T15:52:35.184Z · LW · GW

I found this an interesting but complex read for me -- both the post and the comments. I found a number of what seemed good points to consider, but I seem to be coming away from the discussion thinking about the old parable of the blind men and the elephant.

Comment by jmh on Wei Dai's Shortform · 2024-03-27T15:20:44.129Z · LW · GW

I like the insight regarding power corrupting or revealing. I think perhaps both might be true and, if so, we should keep both lines of though in mind when thinking about these types of questions.

My general view is that most people are generally good when you're talking about individual interactions. I'm less confident in that when one brings in the in group-out of group aspects. I just am not sure how to integrate all that into a general view or princple about human nature.

A line I heard in some cheesey B-grade horror movies, related to the question of a personal nature and the idea that we all have competing good and bad wolves inside. One of the characters asks which wolve was strongest, the good wolf or the bad wolf. The answer was "Which do you feed the most?"

Comment by jmh on Daniel Kokotajlo's Shortform · 2024-03-25T03:33:33.851Z · LW · GW

It would be interesting to have a reference to some source that makes the claim of a paradox.

It is an interesting question but I don't think economists are puzzles by the existance of corporation but rather by understanding where the margin is between when coordination becomes centralized and when it can be price mediated (i.e., market transaction). There is certainly a large literature on the theory of the firm. Coases "The Nature of the Firm" seems quite relevant. I suppose one could go back to Adam Smith and his insight about the division of labor and the extent of the market (which is also something of a tautology I think but still seems to capture something meaninful).

I'm not sure your explanation quite works but am perhaps not fully understanding your point. If people are hiring other people to do stuff for them that can be: hire an employee, hire some contractor to perform specific tasks for the business or hire some outside entity to produce something (which then seems a lot like a market transaction).

Comment by jmh on Shortform · 2024-03-24T14:19:47.703Z · LW · GW

Not really memoirs but a German documentary about WWII might be of interest for you. Der unbekannte Soldat

I watched on Amazon Prime and you can still find the title there in a search, not sure if it is only available for rent/sale now or if you can stream with Prime membership.

Comment by jmh on Open Thread Spring 2024 · 2024-03-20T14:32:14.943Z · LW · GW

You might find this link helpful for your questions. 

This is a link to the glossory from the above site.

This is from the FRB of St. Louis.

Last, I would suggest you can also just ask any of the available LLM's out there now to explain the term you are interested in and get a pretty good initial explanation.

As for books, I have three. How good they are is subjective as one textbook is from years ago but they should cover most of the investment markets side of things:

Options as a Strategic Investment (Lawrence McMIllan)

Technical Analysis (Kirkpatrick & Dahlquist)

Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management (Frank Reilly) -- the old textbook I kept around.

If your interest in more in the economic terms and theory area you might look for The MIT Dictionary of Modern Economics or a similar dictionary of economic terms.

Comment by jmh on The Worst Form Of Government (Except For Everything Else We've Tried) · 2024-03-19T03:10:23.698Z · LW · GW

I'm not entirely sure the thesis quite captured exactly what was going on. It's true balancing the factions was a big deal to the founders and there were number of ways one can cast the USA into some dichotomous buckets -- North/South (which is largely industrial/agrarian) or the Federalist/Anit Federalist and probably some others. But the other point of the separation of powers and the nature of the bicameral struture was about checks and balaces both within the population and within government itself. In that sense I agree one can cast the position as some type of veto for the large minority but it was probably more about just increasing the costs of passing legislation at the federal level. 

An interesting compare/contrast here might be looking at the federal level and then looking at the States.

The idea probably also needs to be run through the lens of modern political economy (Public Choice/Social Choice) theory as many of the conclusion from that literature is that in general the majority is hardly ever really doing anything -- special interests and narrow factions are in more control.

I think it was Knut Wicksell that suggested the idea that Constitutions should have a rule whereby legislation didn't pass with just a simple majority but needed some higher level of approval, e.g., 60%. But he didn't stop there. The Constitution would then allow a smaller number of people repeal the law. So if once implemented and 15% of the legislature were getting ear fulls from their constituents they could force the repeal of the law with a vote and only need to meet that 15% theashold. I don't think that was ever implement and no idea just how seriously it was discussed but clearly is about providing that type of veto power to a minority that might be feeling abused.

The other thing to point at was the political and something of a constitutional crises that arose in the early 1830s in the Tarrifs of Abomination. The South hated that and I think it came close to Civil war. While true, this was after the addition of new states (I think there were 24 states during that period). So there may have been early warning signs of the imballance to any check on existing status quo powers for opposing change. Looking at some of the additions over time another interesting fact show up. More than a few new states were infact part of existing states rather than due to territorial expansion. Would looking into what might have been driving that result through the lens of significant minority lacking a veto help support the thesis? 

The following is a bit tangetal to John's point. It's also not well presented, but since we're talking about forms of government I'll toss the thought out. 

I've been mulling over the idea posing the question "What should a 21st Century Government look like?" The one's we have can all largely be called 18th Century forms (and likely earlier). In thinking about this I tent do contrast government and market -- two very significant social institutions. Unlike, say, David Friedman (_Machinery of Freedom_) I don't think they are interchangable. The exist to solve different social "problems". Both do involved exchanges and mediating diverse preference/interests. But a key difference is that government is nearly always seen as an "actor" while markets are an environment inwhich people act.

I wonder how much scope there might be for shifting things the government is actively doing into a government structure that is more like markets -- in that it provides an institutional setting that reduces organizational costs for collective action by various groups in the polity and even in some cases all people (in the 90% sense of "all" maybe). Two sources of discontent are not being able to get things done socially you are interested in seeing done and having things you don't want done done in your name -- i.e., you're footing the bill like it or not.

I'll kind of cherry-pick an example here: Social Welfare progams the government runs. I suspect there would still be a role here but not in the heavy handed way we currently have. Clearly with all the go-fundme and other crowd source funding that exists the technology is largely in place. I'm not 100% sure about this but trust the source of the comment (old professor of mine). Britain supposedly established government welfare programs because people of the time feared that too much money was being given away. It was difficult for any one person wanting to help to know just who else has been providing funding. If so, then perhaps government social programs were and are structued to reduce the total amount, not maximize or spend efficiently. Given the current state of things, in the US and probably elsewhere, the rally cry is that we need more spending. If government was not the active agent in delivering these social services would we perhaps see more (and possibly better) spending?

Clearly there are other areas where government is some type of informational and organizational cost reducing, passive strucure than the active agent in control won't work. Butit seems like the more we can collectively accomplish without having some central actor as opposed to some central insitutional environment within to act for ourselves. To the extent that can work it would seem to remove the need to have some veto mechanism other than the personal choice of each person. As there is no common pool of resources to desire, I suspect some of the factional fighting disappears and Peter never has to rob Paul to pay Patty as does happen in today's structure.

Comment by jmh on Open Thread Spring 2024 · 2024-03-17T19:43:01.299Z · LW · GW

I had prehaps a bit unjustly tossed the market maker role into that "not real bid/off" bucket. I also agree they do serve to limit the worst case matches. But such a role would simply be unnecessary so I still wonder about the cost in terms of the profits captured by the market makers. Is that a necessary cost in today's world? Not sure.

And I do say that as someone who is fairly active in the markets and have taken advantage of thin markets in the off market hours sessions where speads can widen up a lot.

Comment by jmh on Open Thread Spring 2024 · 2024-03-17T13:55:25.150Z · LW · GW

How efficient are equity markets? No, not in the EMH sense. 

My take is that market efficiency viewed from economics/finance is about total surplus maximization -- the area between the supply and demand curves. Clearly when S and D are order schedules and P and Q correspond to the S&D intersection one maximizes the area of the triangle defined in the graph.

But existing equity markets don't work off an ordered schedule but largely match trades in a somewhat random order -- people place orders (bids and offers) throughout the day and as they come in during market hours trades occur.

Given these are pure pecuniary markets the total surplus represents something of a total profit in the market for the day's activities (clearly something different than the total profits to the actual share owners who sold so calling it profit might be a bit confusing). One might think markets should be structured to maximize that area but clearly that is not the case. 

It would be a very unsual case for the daily order flow to perfectly match with the implied day demand and supply curves that would represent the bids and offers (lets call them the "real" bids and offers but I'm not entirely sure how to distinquish that from other bids and offers that will start evaporating as soon as they become the market bid or offer). So would a settlement structure line mutual funds produce a better outcome for equities? 

Maybe. In other words, rather than putting a market order in and having it executed right then or putting a limit order in and if the market moves to that price it executes, all orders get put in the order book and then at market close the clearing price is determed and those trades that actually make sense occur. What is prevented is the case of either buyers above the clearlin price from getting paired with sellers that are also above the clearling price, or the reverse, buyers biding below the clearing price pairing with sellers who are also willing to sell below the clearin price. Elimination of both inframarginal and extramarginal trades that represend low value exchange pairings.

One thing I wonder about here is what information might be lost/masked and if the informational value might outweigh the reduction in suplus captured. But I'm also not sure that whatever information might be seen in the current structure is not also present in the end of day S&D schedules and so fully reflected in the price outcomes.

Comment by jmh on Anxiety vs. Depression · 2024-03-17T13:19:20.093Z · LW · GW

I appreciated the distinction you make between anxiety and depression and can see that in myself, but had not previously made the distinction. I'm wondering now if that might help with addressing problems of procrastination -- that seems to be something of a symptom. Perhaps looking into why I am procrastinating to see if it fits more with a depression mood or anxious mood might help overcome the inertia.

Comment by jmh on Toward a Broader Conception of Adverse Selection · 2024-03-16T03:46:40.224Z · LW · GW

Equally obvious that it went right over my head. 

Still, seems like the aobe reference to marxist views on market trades seems to illustrate another way information asymmetry/advers selection plays out. I was just wondering if that was the intent when the first name was placed in the footnote rather than in the attribute for the quote.

But I have been accused of being humor challenged before ;-) -- or perhaps I should say demonstrated my humor disability?

Comment by jmh on Open Thread Spring 2024 · 2024-03-15T16:46:23.935Z · LW · GW

My sense, regarding the read the most active thread desire, is that the most active thread might well be amongst either the team working on some project under discussion or across teams that are envolved in or impacted by some project. In such a case I would think knowing where the real discussion is taking place regarding some "corporate discussions" might be helpful and wanted.

I suppose the big question there is what about all the other high volume exchanges, are they more personality driven rather than subject/substance driven. Does the comment count just be a really noisy signal to try keying off?

Comment by jmh on Toward a Broader Conception of Adverse Selection · 2024-03-15T16:36:28.047Z · LW · GW

Probably worth including that the winner's curse will also tend to be a feature when the object to be bought is a one time, one customer type setting.

Or would you agree that under your view, the market clearing price of a Walrasian auctioneer the price is also too high in some way? After all, it's pretty clear from the simple S & D graph that most of the buyers could have, in theory at least and likely in reality if they could directly communicate, bough whatever they bough at a price lower than the market clearing price; S slopes upwards and includes the producers required rate of return.

Comment by jmh on Toward a Broader Conception of Adverse Selection · 2024-03-15T16:27:35.548Z · LW · GW

I thought it an odd quote for Karl but didn't give much thought after that. However, with this information I have to wonder if the choice to obscure the actual person being quoted was not intnetional to make some type of point related to the post.

Comment by jmh on Open Thread Spring 2024 · 2024-03-12T20:00:07.188Z · LW · GW

I don't think this crosses the line regarding poltics on the board but note that as a warning header.

I was just struck by a though related to the upcoming elections in the USA. Age of both party's candidate have been noted and create both some concern and even risks for the country.

No age limits exist and I suspect trying to get get legislative action on that would be slow to impossible as it undoubtedly would be a new ammendment to the Constitution.

BUT, I don't think there is any law or other restriction on any political party imposing their own age limit for any candidate they will nomimate to Federal or State positions. If not, and if anyone knows please speak up:

  1. Would the existing incentive strucutures suggest it might be easier for a political party to do this than expecting Congress to address these concerns?
  2. Should any party enact such a rule, would that be a completitive advantage in the way of improved (at the margins at least) for that party in the competition for membership and voters?
  3. Would that in any way help to improve the performance of parties by mitigating both entrenched status quo leadership and perhaps reduce overall factionalism within the party?
Comment by jmh on Notes from a Prompt Factory · 2024-03-11T16:15:51.389Z · LW · GW

Perhaps but I think more likely that I'm not expressing the view correctly. I agree that some forms of punishment are both needed and appropriate for misbehvior/rule violations. But that was not the point. The story seems to be that of "beat them a little and if that doesn't work beat them more". The reference to the K-drama then pointed to carrying that view to the extreme of if more beatings don't "tame" the masses start killing some and that will both do the trick and is complete justified.

That type of mindset seems to be of the form "doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results".

Comment by jmh on Notes from a Prompt Factory · 2024-03-10T18:08:57.014Z · LW · GW

Reading this seemed a lot like some cyberpunk type version of a Korean Chosun era drama (The Rebel -- which was also something of a retalling of the old Hong Gil Dong story) I just watched. Basically all about the flawed thinking that somehow force, violence and fear is a good tool for maintaining social order.  I suppose some themes playout in many settings. 

I agree with datawitch's sentiment, the story is very horrifying. I honestly don't understand the mindset at all.

Comment by jmh on My Clients, The Liars · 2024-03-07T15:12:17.630Z · LW · GW

An unsurprising corollation there but I have to wonder if there is not also some causative relationship present as well.

Comment by jmh on Increasing IQ is trivial · 2024-03-02T16:32:41.893Z · LW · GW

Given your plans to expand the research/testing and the interest from a couple (at least two expressly stating the interest) of others here to try reproducing the results or trying the approach, can we anticipate an update in the near future?

Comment by jmh on The Parable Of The Fallen Pendulum - Part 1 · 2024-03-02T01:45:24.403Z · LW · GW

I think my response to the studen would be:

  1. Before concluding the theory is wrong was the expariment correct and consistent with the required considitons assumed by theory? In other words, is the pendulum apparatus supposed to fall over during the experiment?
  2. Yes, knowledge necessarily progresses by iteration and trial and error. If we don't update the theory based on what is learned in the testing we don't have a scientific theory but a simple statement of faith. The important point to keep in mind, is have we learned something new that was not accounted for previously or are we just making up some post hoc excuse to claim we don't need to update our theory.

I might also suggest to the professor that point 2 should be kept in mind.

Comment by jmh on Benito's Shortform Feed · 2024-02-27T03:19:52.365Z · LW · GW

In the plumbing context I generally say or think, "The repair/work has been completed and I'll see how it lasts." or sometimes something like, "We've addressed the immediate problem so lets see if that was a fix or a bandage."

Comment by jmh on Scientific Method · 2024-02-19T01:55:26.973Z · LW · GW

Voted down the post as I could not even get through more than maybe a third of it before deciding it was way to complicated for me to understand the ultimate point, much less just how to do anything with what was hoped to be communicated.

If the effort is to help those that are perhaps challenged in understanding and applying a scientific method to their questions and life another version might be more effective.

I do want to make an update on my comment. I think it might sound too harsh. I do think the intent of the post is both well meaning and of value. But perhaps rather than putting everything into a long and a bit complicated post a a small sequence/series of posts might be a better approach.

Comment by jmh on Examples of governments doing good in house (or contracted) technical research · 2024-02-15T02:01:00.040Z · LW · GW

Perhaps also NIST and BEA (less sure here) fit your target.

Comment by jmh on Technologies and Terminology: AI isn't Software, it's... Deepware? · 2024-02-13T22:16:45.982Z · LW · GW

Perhaps I'm missing some key things here. While I can see the point that calling ML/AI software is likely both something of a misclassification and a bit misleading for many purposes, I'm not really finding the approach helpful for me.

My, albeit naive and uninformed view, is that distinction is really between an algorithm and software. Before ML, my takes is, algorithms were very specialized elements of software, e.g., efficient sort functions. The big move seems to have been into the world of some generalized algorithms that lets software kind of do things on it's own rather than just what a programmer specifically "tells" the software to do.

Comment by jmh on story-based decision-making · 2024-02-08T20:31:40.065Z · LW · GW

Would the following be a reasonable recap?

What you want to start with is a narrative/story that gets someone's interest in hear how something might end. At that point they will ask about the details they are interested. Anticipating all the details fails from the start because you never got someone's attention or interest in what come later.

Comment by jmh on Brute Force Manufactured Consensus is Hiding the Crime of the Century · 2024-02-07T18:10:09.374Z · LW · GW

A bit late to the discussion on this point, and way out of my depths. Even so, I am wondering about one aspect here.

Rhetorically, you seem to cast the question of why not elsewhere in terms of only some other specific location. Is there a reason why one might not think that rather than some single (as apposed to major) point of origin that a zoonotic transmission might not have multiple points -- with "export" transmissions rates that differ based on local characteristics?

Appreciate the post and suspect this is not bad to have a solid debate around. For both the specific of what happened with regard to the pandemic and the whole manufactured consensus aspect -- but suspect the latter might be better explored on its own in terms of how best to prepare oneself to recognize the event and one's own susceptibilities to such events.

Comment by jmh on Noticing Panic · 2024-02-05T15:19:13.435Z · LW · GW

I wonder if there is not an element of trust (either in others or in one's own ability to assess others) is not part of the skill set/attitude for executive nature.

The most competent executive/managers I've worked with don't seem to think they have to solve every planning level themself even though the do take ownership of the results. I wonder if simply being will to say "the buck stop here" even when a lot of the work and planning (outside some strategic level planning -- which I think is what successful startups get right) is delegated to others.

Comment by jmh on Most experts believe COVID-19 was probably not a lab leak · 2024-02-04T00:08:50.621Z · LW · GW

I would be curious about how valuable people think knowing the origins would really move the dial on predicting or preventing some future event. 

I would think we have relatively good sample size for both zoonotic and lab-leak origins. Was there really something special about SARS-Cov-2 that getting the answer would really move our knowledge forward? If not, is it possible that the marginal step forward we might get is too little for all the political aspects that have existed?

Comment by jmh on Managing risks while trying to do good · 2024-02-02T17:17:52.026Z · LW · GW

Recently I was wondering if the old saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is in fact universally true. If not then perhaps that represents something of the flip side to the coin for good intentions and the road to hell.

What had me wondering about that was recalling a theory I heard about years ago in grad school, The Theory of Second Best. The linked wiki does seem to suggest additional reasons why good intentions many well produce harms.

As described in the wiki, there is no suggestion that rather than attempting to resolve a market failure in one area of the economy, seeing to move that sub market either further away from its optimal or at least to another non-optimal position might be welfare improving in general sense. But I don't think there was anything that suggests that could not be the case.

Leaving aside all the hard work to prevent a slide into some the ends justify the means type argument or conclusion, if there is scope for the idea that two wrongs, under certain conditions, can in fact make right (or "righter") then not taking that in to consideration might lead us to misassess the risks to be managed.

I did like the post, and am not sure if this comment is more about some second-order level aspect or not.

Comment by jmh on Surgery Works Well Without The FDA · 2024-01-28T15:18:31.153Z · LW · GW

One reason the company might not be allowed to comment on is that they lack the knowledge in that space so would only be marketing from a basis of ignorance.

However, the FDA does not prevent such guidance as a quick look at sited like WebMD or PDR will generally include information on off label use.

Comment by jmh on Surgery Works Well Without The FDA · 2024-01-27T15:19:26.483Z · LW · GW

I think you're making claims of facts that are based on counter-factuals. While I have some sympathy to the general idea that we're in an over regulated time. I do like the idea of government and its agencies being more about reducing information and organizational costs to allow private individuals and groups to pool their resources to solve their own problems over it being the active principle in all such efforts.

I also agree that incentive structures here matter. Perhaps that type or rule requiring a set aside to escrow would make regulators more diligent in their evaluations -- but could also just produce greater delays and be a bad unintended consequence. But clearly a place to spend mental efforts.

I also agree that the margins probably do need to shift some towards private (e.g., UL) rather then public mechanisms. However, I am also reminded of the critique Hal Varian made regarding the private solutions to supposed market failures documented in Tyler Cowan's The Theory of Market Failure: they all seemed to include some government actions. The implication of your comment seems to be that we can get rid of all these agencies. I'm not sure on that point, I suspect some role remains even if we change the names for optics.

Regarding sovereign immunity, not all acts are protected and some areas the government and its agents only enjoy qualified immunity. So in your example I'm not certain that some compensation would not be supported by law. But the other twisty bit there is the government is not separate from you or me. Yes, the share we have to pay is small but in the end it is all of us who are paying. I suspect some in the local community or tax payers who see some of their money redirected to off-set the builder's cost might question that as an unjust taking. Some might think the developer failed to perform sufficient due diligence before incurring all those costs. Just a counter hypothetical for consideration on this particular point. Largely just trying to point out that your approach is not clearly a parato improving move -- or at least you're not clearly identifying the side payments that would be made to accomplish that outcome.

Comment by jmh on Surgery Works Well Without The FDA · 2024-01-27T14:25:35.040Z · LW · GW

I had not heard of the Dunning-Kruger Curve, though had heard about human tendency to over estimate our own intelligence. It's really good to have the wiki graph image in mind (being something of a jack of many trades but master of nothing -- clearly something to take a personal interest in ;-)

At the same time, it's not like the AMA or FDA or even the complex of industry controls are getting things right all the time, or even consistently weeding out the bad actors. Rather than a status quo is working or we need to change because something is not working, a better approach might be to frame the discussions in something of a Type I and Type II error context. Then we can focus on which error space represents the greatest costs/risk or greatest benefit for various settings. I'm not certain your were actually claiming the status quo is what we should want, I think more likely offering a balance to the OP's claims.

Comment by jmh on RAND report finds no effect of current LLMs on viability of bioterrorism attacks · 2024-01-27T13:55:27.449Z · LW · GW

I agreed and upvoted the action here. However, I think I might have made an even stronger edit to be "A RAND report..." to better emphasize the report over the organization within which the report authors work.

Comment by jmh on Why have insurance markets succeeded where prediction markets have not? · 2024-01-21T20:27:35.506Z · LW · GW

I wonder what influence the ability to pool risk for insurance but not in predictions (that I can see at least) might have on your observation.

Comment by jmh on Notice When People Are Directionally Correct · 2024-01-16T13:41:15.788Z · LW · GW

Thanks. 

I would note that to my eye the charts do seem to imply an upward trend from the 1995 observations and while clearly declining from the 2010 highs still exceeds the numbers reported in 1995 and 1996 low points. So I'm not completely sure I buy the CNBC headline claim of decline in terms of trend. At least not is long term sense.

https://www.icc-ccs.org/ reports is kind of interesting as they start 2023 reporting the lowest level of Q1 priracy in 30 years but then their reports increasingly seem to show more and more concern about such activities, which were actually increasing over the prior year contra the Q1 observations.

Comment by jmh on Introduce a Speed Maximum · 2024-01-15T14:43:32.329Z · LW · GW

I wasn't but have seen those as well.

The signs I was thinking of were those that stated Minimum 45 MPH on US highways. I think that also went along with the general rule that if you were driving under 45 on the highway you should have your warning flasher lights active.

Comment by jmh on Notice When People Are Directionally Correct · 2024-01-15T14:41:03.225Z · LW · GW

This article might suggest an update on your priors about piracy in the modern world.

Not sure where you're posting from but if US I suspect in part the view you hold is something of a sample bias as US news really never reports much on the problem.

I also agree with your title, and wish more was said about it in the post, that recognizing the correct direction can be very helpful even when the current state change is small and perhaps not too consequential. It is generally better to have a plan before the bad state of things has occurred than hoping the Mr. Magoo route will work well for you ;-)

Comment by jmh on Introduce a Speed Maximum · 2024-01-13T12:27:38.128Z · LW · GW

I cannot recall having seen any recently but do recall seeing minimum speed limits posted on highways in the USA. That is sort of in line with your suggestion. 

I do think there are a number of aspect that matter with both setting speed limits, enforcing speed limits and driver's actually driving at some given speed. The two main aspects for me would be coordination among the drivers and congestion on the road. Both will have some connection to driver reaction time and vehicle capability (can the car physically change coarse, stop or accelerate assuming the driver has time to react).

Most of that is really situation dependent and even the speed range approach or some set max speed is a poor metric for defining some optimal rule. I sometimes wonder if fewer accidents might occur if outside certain areas (school/hospital zones, residential streets where lots of kids might be playing and the like) no speed was posted. Just have better liability assignment to those not driving at reasonable speeds. (Problematic from a practical perspective but not impossible given "blackbox" recorders and GPS data in cars and simple force analysis of the car(s) involved in any accidents.)  A concern here might be that even if we see a reduced frequency of events (seems to be somewhat supported by cases where towns/cities removed stop lights and people started viewing the intersections as if they were 4 way stops -- i.e., no one just assumed they had some right of way over the others.) A potential reasons this might not be a good idea would be if frequency declines but the when things go wrong they go very wrong -- never have fender benders but cars are totaled and people always crippled or killed would not be an improvement.

But I do think driving habits related to speed seem to be driven more by what would be a common law type process than the statutory "posted speed" law.

Comment by jmh on The likely first longevity drug is based on sketchy science. This is bad for science and bad for longevity. · 2024-01-13T11:34:29.850Z · LW · GW

Very late response but that was just saying, from my cursory knowledge, that everyone seems to agree that naked mole-rats do not seem to display the same aging related problems other species do.

Comment by jmh on Significantly Enhancing Adult Intelligence With Gene Editing May Be Possible · 2023-12-13T14:38:41.135Z · LW · GW

Maybe it's the lack of sleep for me but is "Brains are too slow." referring to something like growth/formation of structures that support some level of intelligence or to to human brain's just being slower than and AGI?

Comment by jmh on The likely first longevity drug is based on sketchy science. This is bad for science and bad for longevity. · 2023-12-12T19:13:56.139Z · LW · GW

Depending on what you meant by "we should start with" this comment might not apply.

I would think an interesting comparison to add to the argument's in the OP (And, I thought it a good call out. Thanks.) might be looking at IGF-1 in naked mole-rats. They seem to have a good track record with respect to aging processes. If they don't show the implied relation between IGF-1 and their good aging attribute then why expect that in dog, or cats, other pet animals (or farm animals) or humans?

Comment by jmh on Apocalypse insurance, and the hardline libertarian take on AI risk · 2023-12-01T18:02:34.815Z · LW · GW

Does any of this discussion (both branches from your first comment)change if one starts with the assuming that AIs are actually owned, and can be bought, by humans? Owned directly but some and indirectly by others via equity in AI companies.

Comment by jmh on Why not electric trains and excavators? · 2023-11-23T00:57:33.621Z · LW · GW

I'll try one more time and shutup as it sees to me people are focusing on semantics rather that the actual question.

If electro-diesel trains are transporting a ton about 450 mile on a gallon of diesel then just how much will it cost, in terms of carbon output to electrify a mile of rail in comparison to the average train loading? 

How much will it cost in terms of carbon output to maintain that electrification per year annually? 

How many years will it take to reach a carbon neutral position?

What are the expected costs of, assuming you agree there will be increased carbon output, the marginal increase in carbon output during the transition period compared to the current impact of electro-diesel transportation?

If you don't agree that the infrastructure build out will increase carbon output how is that accomplished?

Comment by jmh on How "Pinky Promise" diplomacy once stopped a war in the Middle East · 2023-11-23T00:27:33.081Z · LW · GW

While I don't know how one might operationalize the view, it does fit in to how I've begun to start framing the current world state. Basically we have a choice. We can all start looking for reason not to start/keep killing one another or keep on making reason that we need to kill others.

Comment by jmh on Why not electric trains and excavators? · 2023-11-22T01:56:35.359Z · LW · GW

Not my understanding. The diesel just drives the "generator" that then powers electric motors that drive the wheels. These trains are supposed to be able to move a ton about 450-500 miles on a gallon of fuel. I do agree that conversion would be fairly straightforward but you'll have a lot of polluting activities, and destruction of carbon consuming flora. So just how much of a gain are we getting for the conversion compared to the increased pollution during the infrastructure build out. There is also the ongoing maintenance on the routes to keep the trains powered. Seems to me that unless one makes the unrealistic assumption that all that activity is non-polluting it has to be considered in the argument.

 

With regard to the cars, EV and hybrid I was extrapolating on the fuel consumption for the trains. I using a small ICE to drive a generator for an electric vehicle would reduce the initial carbon output in making everything for the EV. That all comes down to battery life and that seems to come down to miles driven. Generally EVs get driven fewer miles than ICE cars but as more people drive the EVs that might change. Tesla gives an 8 year warranty on the batteries. Looking around a bit seems that existing hybrids are just crappy design so from that perspective was a poor suggestion. But a car modeled off the diesel-electric train that is even a quarter as efficient (just 100 mpg) then the carbon curve shifts way down on the those gas-electric cars and the cross over point for EVs shifts much farther out -- perhaps to the point of battery replacement. Perhaps there as some scale factors, I'm not a power engineer, so maybe that 100 mpg is never possible. 

Comment by jmh on Why not electric trains and excavators? · 2023-11-21T04:03:06.684Z · LW · GW

I am pretty sure that most trains in the USA are diesel-electric not just diesel. So the real question is would converting those trains to pure electric actually reduce the total carbon footprint of rail? I suspect not given some have argued that EV car have a higher carbon footprint that cars they replace, and those cars use gas, run at variable speeds and so are much less efficient that the train diesel engine's use of diesel fuel.

Are the very least you'd need to start calculating the conversion timeline for recouping the pollution from building out all the electric infrastructure and the additional maintenance of that infrastructure. Given the goal now is to reduce carbon output you might be adding at the margin when marginal increases are most damaging.

I think if you want to think about power innovations for trains things like hydrogen are probably a better way forward.

Heavy earth-moving equipment mist be a better target, and perhaps should be the target before cars. Cars should probably go to hybrid systems as they will be better. Side observation, a few years ago I read something that claimed the these days the bigger source of pollution (probably in suburban, and metro but not pure urban) was lawn mowers. Getting rid of the gas mowers and converting to electric might be both an easy target and good bang for the buck.

Comment by jmh on “Why can’t you just turn it off?” · 2023-11-19T21:25:59.118Z · LW · GW

My comment is a bit tangent and I'll be the first to admit I'm far from well informed in the area my question touches on. Maybe should have put this as it's own comment but honestly was not going to voice the thought until I read quetzal_rainbow's comment (and noted the karma and agreement).

A while back the EA community seemed to be really shocked by the FTX and Bankman-Fried fiasco (my word clearly). In the news story I saw related to the OpenAI situtation seems to be closely related to EA.

With two pretty big events fairly close temporally to one another should one update a bit regarding just how effective one might expect an EA approach to work, or perhaps at what scale it can work? Of should both be somewhat viewed as just one off events that really don't touch the core?

Comment by jmh on Who is Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) really, and how could he have done what he did? - three theories and a lot of evidence · 2023-11-17T02:47:01.852Z · LW · GW

Thanks.

Comment by jmh on Who is Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) really, and how could he have done what he did? - three theories and a lot of evidence · 2023-11-11T13:18:26.579Z · LW · GW

Is DAE a terms that is often uses withing some community or is that something you made to formulate your thinking here?

If it's a unique term of your for this analysis I'm curious as to why you chose that approach rather than using an existing term, like sociopath/sociopathic which seems to be both more broadly known and applied. (Not just how sure Healthline is in terms of definitional rigor here but https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/sociopath#signs) They seem to cover what you include as well as some other aspect. 

Comment by jmh on The other side of the tidal wave · 2023-11-03T20:46:51.466Z · LW · GW

I kind of understand where that sentiment comes from but I do think it is "wrong". Wrong in the sense that it is neither a necessary position to hold nor a healthy one. There are plenty of things I do today in which I get a lot of satisfaction even though existing machines, or just other people, can do them much better than I can. The satisfaction comes from the challenge to my own ability level rather than some comparison to something outside me -- be it machine, environment or another person.

Comment by jmh on Techno-humanism is techno-optimism for the 21st century · 2023-10-28T11:31:33.734Z · LW · GW

When the next weapon with planetary-scale destructive capabilities is developed, as it inevitably will be, we need far more robust mechanisms preventing it from being deployed.

Just a small clarification for me. When you day "deployed" is that saying not used or not actually produced? Using atomic weapons as the example, would the theory to build a bomb be known but somehow we prevent anyone from building one or the bomb gets built but somehow we can prevent it from ever being used?