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Comment by JPW on Adult Neurogenesis – A Pointed Review · 2018-04-30T16:54:51.889Z · LW · GW

Interesting. But not the question I'd like to see you take your best swing at. Why are we only able to utilize so little of our brain? That would be like successful nuclear fusion power. Actually engaging 100% of the human brain and controlling it would be a revolution on par with developing agriculture or industrialization. Who studies this, and how are they going about it?

Comment by JPW on A voting theory primer for rationalists · 2018-04-23T14:08:29.260Z · LW · GW

>>>> Borda: "My method is made for honest men!"

This is why it would miserably fail. We live in a fallen world. We would like to live in a rational one. We do not. We will not until irrational behavior is punished in some horrible fashion. Preferably punished by the Darwin Gods w/o any human intervention that irrational monkeys with car keys can blame.

Comment by JPW on Internal Diet Crux · 2018-04-04T18:47:10.073Z · LW · GW

Just figure out the difference between wrong and fun. That's the key to so many things in life.

Comment by JPW on [deleted post] 2018-04-02T19:47:28.762Z

Yes, but was he wearing Doc Martins?

Comment by JPW on Can corrigibility be learned safely? · 2018-04-02T19:45:46.975Z · LW · GW

It may have to be learned through repeated failure. "Here's how not to do it." gets repeated a few times before you can avoid the worst professional practices.

Comment by JPW on The Pyramid And The Garden · 2018-03-29T14:20:49.097Z · LW · GW

Pseudo-Science can be useful if you lack the time or the tools to do the real science correctly. Anyone who's ever studied the Navier Stokes Equation (NSE) knows you can more or less describe a nice, warm summer breeze in mathematical terms without solving all the way down tot he 4th order terms. The Coriolus Force term in the NSE will not be large enough to bear any relevance to how strong or pleasant a breeze you experience. Some would say you are pseudo-scientific if you just shorthand your calculation and only take temperature and pressure differences into account, but in reality, you are solving in about twenty seconds of computational time what could take all day if you really wanted to know how much every term of the equation mattered.

Comment by JPW on Does Age Bring Wisdom? · 2018-03-29T14:13:18.955Z · LW · GW

I don't think old age brings wisdom. It reinforces continued behaviors that have brought a person whatever they define as success. In a real sense, until you get knocked on your butt, you aren't changing. An awful lot of people just think, it's getting me paid, it's getting me laid. I'll just keep on being me. Once someone demonstrates that some aspect of an individual's behavior is giving them butt cancer, then they might knock that particular habit or behavior off or reduce it assuming they have the requisite will power. But no. Just having the odometer click doesn't make you smarter or wiser.