Posts

A silly question 2021-02-04T10:22:46.540Z
The tech left behind 2019-03-12T14:47:16.217Z

Comments

Comment by Leafcraft on [deleted post] 2021-10-05T19:40:56.155Z

Skilled players catching on to you is irrelevant. That was exactly my problem after I got a bit of experience: I could easily catch evil but no one would believe me. On the other hand if you can "capture" an enemy player you can pretty much brute force the result regardless of other people's actions (unless there are other good manipulators). Also consider that you'll often have to pocket an allied player just to get them to play "correctly", it's not something you necessarily have to do to an enemy. 

Assessing players becomes relatively easy after some practice, they basically fall into a handful of categories: 

  • Blanks are troll/AFKers, nothing you can do about them
  • Noobs either will do nothing or play randomly, ignore them early in the game if you're evil (and don't kill them), if you're Town tell them what to do ONCE then ignore them if they won't follow you (if they ignore you the first time you will never convince them anyway)
  • Logicals are good at understanding what's going on, if they are on your team they will easily cooperate, if you're an enemy they will believe any lie you tell them as long as the lie is compatible with the info they have (and they will act accordingly).
  • Socials are good at controlling the stage, they are "loud" and successfully demand attention/action, though they are usually bad at deduction. If they are aligned with you talk to them in whispers only and let them control the public (they are usually "arrogant" and won't share control of the public stage); if they aren't on your team it gets diffcult: try pointing a finger at someone and see if they take the bait, bussing can also work in these cases
  • Quiets are people that lie low, basically pretending to be Blanks/Noobs. They are the most difficult to control, some of them are really really good. When picking someone to control these should be your last choice.
Comment by Leafcraft on [deleted post] 2021-10-05T17:10:56.118Z

Never played mafiascum, is it active? Does it have a lot of players? 

Never played Mafia myself but I was one of the strongest players a few seasons back in Town of Salem. The best skill is the ability to quickly assess which are the players that can be easily manipulated. That is the most OP skill but it is conditional with playing with people of variable level, if you play with skilled people only, then strategic killing/hanging becomes vital and you can easily smell the fakes as Town 'cos their actions are poorly aligned with their words. 

As a Mafia the most useful tactic is to waste time or push really hard for some random Townie, since Town usually has a small margin of 1/2 days so an early advantage can snowball very easily.

Comment by Leafcraft on We Live in an Era of Unprecedented World Peace · 2021-08-31T14:02:54.480Z · LW · GW

The Eskimos live in the Arctic tundra. The !Kung live in the Kalahari desert. They have so little violence because there is so little to fight over.

Debatable. Other primitive societies that lived in deserted areas where extremely violent.

The original article doesn't really addresses the differences of state vs non-state societies, yet this binary characterization dominates the entire reading. Some interesting examples seems to have been conviniently left out. The entire article is mostly derived from a single essay (sources look good, though).

Still, I would generally agree that violence has decreased with the advent of modernity.

Comment by Leafcraft on ELI12: how do libertarians want wages to work? · 2021-06-26T15:19:12.936Z · LW · GW

I didn't mention any country because you didn't ask for any. Anyway, it seems we aren't having a very productive conversation so I'm gonna stop here.

have a good day

Comment by Leafcraft on ELI12: how do libertarians want wages to work? · 2021-06-25T08:31:42.383Z · LW · GW

Mind if I ask you why are you so interested in arguments? I already provided empirical evidence of the opposite of what you suggest, doesn't that beat any opposing argument?

I can easily flip your argument around: In a free market workers can ask for whatever pay they want, since they want to be paid as much as possible for as little work as possible, eventually the owners will be left with very little profit, just enough to survive. 

What makes this argument wrong and yours correct is not evident to me; both are disproved by empirical evidence.

Comment by Leafcraft on ELI12: how do libertarians want wages to work? · 2021-06-24T21:36:49.589Z · LW · GW

Probably: private unions for a category of jobs would do collective bargaining agreements with employers (if necessary). In all other cases, people would just negotiate their work value.

Comment by Leafcraft on ELI12: how do libertarians want wages to work? · 2021-06-24T21:28:39.278Z · LW · GW

"if a country has minimum wage laws, removing those laws will in fact tend to reduce wages."

You say so, but you don't justify that statement in any way. When the poster wrote: "Without the minimum wage law, lots of people would probably be paid significantly less."

I assumed they meant that the lack of MWL would push to sweatshop like conditions, my observation proves that it is not ture. The reverse (MWL pushes away from sweatshop like conditions) can also be proven false, as there are plenty of countries with bad economies and MWL where people live in miserable conditions. 

Comment by Leafcraft on ELI12: how do libertarians want wages to work? · 2021-06-24T21:15:17.543Z · LW · GW

Libertarians see government intervention as bad because, to them, it is a self-interested third party, and as such, will make decisions that benefit itself mostly.

Many Libertarians believe in self ownership and therefore think government power is illegitimate and that they can't make decisions for others.

Comment by Leafcraft on ELI12: how do libertarians want wages to work? · 2021-06-24T07:28:57.886Z · LW · GW

There's a few countries without minimum wage laws that have way better average wages than the US and many others, I believe this fact already invalidates some of your observations. 

For libertarians workers unions would be ok, as long as they're not government sponsored (they're a type of private government), while government intervention is pretty much always seen as bad since they are not considered a legitimate way to solve market issues (wages are a market issue)

Comment by Leafcraft on What is the best chemistry textbook? · 2021-05-11T13:21:28.395Z · LW · GW

Chemistry & Chemical Reactivity (Kotz, Treichel, Townsend)

Comment by Leafcraft on Less Realistic Tales of Doom · 2021-05-07T13:53:07.645Z · LW · GW

Ah, good point! I have a feeling this is a central issue that is hardly discussed here (or anywhere)

Comment by Leafcraft on Less Realistic Tales of Doom · 2021-05-07T09:35:01.155Z · LW · GW

Isn't that the same as the last one?

Just call it a "Status Quo Lock-In" or "Arbitrary Lock-In"

Comment by Leafcraft on [ACX Linkpost] Prospectus on Próspera · 2021-04-16T10:47:43.778Z · LW · GW

I'd bet a decent amount of money into this project not working out (depending on the metric of "not working out")

Comment by Leafcraft on What weird beliefs do you have? · 2021-04-14T21:44:32.687Z · LW · GW

Not sure if it counts as a "weird belief" but I am an anarchist for relatively "usual" reasons.

I believe Plants, Fungi and even inanimate objects experience consciousness (to some extent). Consciousness is, probably, an intrinsic property of matter and it exists throughout the physical universe in some form.

Comment by Leafcraft on A silly question · 2021-02-04T11:13:17.474Z · LW · GW

Thanks

Comment by Leafcraft on Recommendation for a good international event betting site like predictit.org · 2020-12-07T10:08:33.399Z · LW · GW

As far as reliability goes, consider that PM are a very new thing, so I recommend you use precaution with all of them for the time being.

Augur is working but last time I checked transaction fees were pretty high, so volume/liquidity was very small, it should improve in the near future especially if Ethereum transition to PoS (I also plan to start trading on Augur). 

I heard you can sometimes trade events on sites like BetFair.

Other current/upcoming Predicion Markets not limited to the U.S. are:

Gnosis

poly.market

Omen

FTX 

Guesser

Comment by Leafcraft on The tech left behind · 2020-11-17T13:23:41.068Z · LW · GW

Could you cite any? Or at least point me at some research/source on the subject?

Comment by Leafcraft on Shittests are actually good · 2020-09-25T08:26:16.069Z · LW · GW

What do you think about "Mate"?

Comment by Leafcraft on Why haven't we celebrated any major achievements lately? · 2020-08-18T07:11:31.357Z · LW · GW

I think very few people celebrate scientific/technical achievements. Those people weren't celebrating the achievement per se, but their country/nation or perhaps the individual(s) who did that. Feelings of national (and sometimes even individual) pride are becoming more and more politically incorrect; so as the sense of belonging fades away people also celebrate less and less

Comment by Leafcraft on The Basic Double Crux pattern · 2020-07-23T12:35:58.996Z · LW · GW

Is there any online community where people can practice DC that you would recommend?

Comment by Leafcraft on [deleted post] 2020-07-15T10:23:29.495Z

I see. With regard to your post and the origin of the black hole "pic", do you believe that applying the same pipeline to random images or even noise would generate a similar result?

Comment by Leafcraft on [deleted post] 2020-07-14T11:33:30.421Z

Thanks for the interesting read. I absolutely lack the background to comment on your conclusions, but your post made me remember some questions I had on Black Holes that no physicist I talked to could answer, I never would have guessed the field had detractors.

If you don't mind me asking, are you also a climate change skeptic?

Comment by Leafcraft on Studies On Slack · 2020-05-13T08:06:21.587Z · LW · GW

You mention evolution being proven wrong a long time ago. Care to elaborate?

Comment by Leafcraft on Studies On Slack · 2020-05-13T07:57:27.036Z · LW · GW

I believe you used the therm "genetic code" incorrectly in [II.] when you were talking about cancer, the correct word is genome.

Comment by Leafcraft on Ubiquitous Far-Ultraviolet Light Could Control the Spread of Covid-19 and Other Pandemics · 2020-03-19T14:25:31.785Z · LW · GW

Some bacterial species have impressive level of radiation resistance, so it's a quality that can certainly be evolved much like antibiotic resistance. The most extreme radiation-resistance strategies involve the presence of multiple genomes within a cell as "backups", this is coupled with various metabolic activities which have the goal to replace/repair the "main one" when it is damaged by radiation. Viruses, on the other hand, completely lack a metabolism and therefore will have serious trouble developing this kind of resistance.

Comment by Leafcraft on Why are people so bad at dating? · 2020-01-03T11:39:33.947Z · LW · GW

As a general thing, I believe dating falls into one of those category of things that are better improved by simply practicing it; I wouldn't really recommend any books on dating per se.

I can, however, recommend certain books that better explain the nature of social interaction in general that I personally found very helpful and have had a positive impact on my dating life:

Games People Play

Influence: Science and Practice

The Laws of Human Nature

I might have better suggestions for more specific topics...

Comment by Leafcraft on Why are people so bad at dating? · 2019-10-29T10:48:53.420Z · LW · GW

Generally bad advice. I found the book to be very well written, my only complaint is with the content. The beginning was good with some good introduction and very well written definition of some of the core problems/concepts. The rest of the book was just bad; bad advice and very vague in general. I've read many books on the subject, most have flaws in the sense that are heavily in ideology and/or somewhat poorly written, but they manage to at least get the basic facts right; this one left like the complete opposite.

Sorry, I'm bad at reviews.

Comment by Leafcraft on Why are people so bad at dating? · 2019-10-29T08:58:14.920Z · LW · GW

I think one of the reason so many people are bad at it is that there is a lot of misinformation about the subject. Consider it is also kind of a taboo so it's hard for people to take it seriously. I also wanted to say that I think "Mate" is probably the worst book I've read on the subject.

Comment by Leafcraft on Who lacks the qualia of consciousness? · 2019-10-07T13:38:15.500Z · LW · GW
it's a rather more confused experience than for those who have always been sighted.

I suppose they just need to develop the spatial skill to process the information? As I said there is no reason to believe these people lack qualias, as color-blind people with synesthesia experience so-called "Moon Colors"

I have never heard of people who acquired sight later in life experience long-term issues with the sense; unlike say people who haven't been exposed to language at an early age.

Comment by Leafcraft on Who lacks the qualia of consciousness? · 2019-10-07T07:58:47.733Z · LW · GW
Some people are color-blind. This deficiency can be objectively demonstrated by tasks such as the Ishihara patterns.

This does not mean that color-blind people are missing qualia. In fact we know for sure that at least some color-blind individuals still possess the qualia of the "missing" color.

As a general rule people that cannot smell/touch ect. simply lack the receptors for these kind of experiences; this doesn't mean they lack the qualia.

Comment by Leafcraft on Who lacks the qualia of consciousness? · 2019-10-07T07:54:14.245Z · LW · GW
Highly debatable

I would say that the only fair thing to say here, is that we simply do not have any way to know that as of today.

Comment by Leafcraft on Contest: $1,000 for good questions to ask to an Oracle AI · 2019-07-02T12:54:57.854Z · LW · GW

Submission: Low-bandwidth Oracle

What is the most likely solution to the Fermi Paradox?

Answer can be picked from a small number of options (Rare Earth, Aestivation, Great Filter, Planetarium etc.). There are a number of observation that we can make based on the question alone. However, in the end the LBO can only do one of 2 things: lie or be honest. If it lies, the prediction will have a harder and harder time matching the reality that we observe as time goes on. Alternatively we confirm the prediction and learn some interesting things about the universe we live in.

Submission: Low-bandwidth Oracle

What was the first self-replicating molecule on Earth?

Short answer(can also be limited to a list), easy to verify in the lab, which means we can use it to assess the predictive power of the machine, while at the same time provides very useful information.

Similar questions that are hard to answer but can be answered in a few bits, which let us test the power of the LBO and provide massive returns at the same time:

What is the easiest to develop type of fusion power that ensure the best economic return in the short/medium term?

What is the cheapest way of access to space?

What forms of FTL are possible?

What are the ligands of orphan receptors?

...

Comment by Leafcraft on What are some "Communities and Cultures Different From Our Own?" · 2019-05-14T07:53:42.483Z · LW · GW

Very interesting work. I am not an expert by any means, but a quick search in the chapter on Jewish Law does not mention the Kibbutz. While admittedly the most interesting aspects of the Kibbutz are the anthropological ones rather than the ones concerning the legal system I suppose they could be an example of a "very different system". Unfortunately I cannot recommend any source in particular. Similarly in the Iranian government the Legal and Political systems are heavily interweaved with the religious authority.

Comment by Leafcraft on Crypto quant trading: Intro · 2019-04-18T07:35:53.305Z · LW · GW

I've been a trader for 2 years, it's just a hobby for me. I've mostly done Sentiment and Fundamental but wanted to try Technical and others.

If you were a hobbist like me, what would you say is the best way to host a bot? Should I get my own server? Do I rent one? Or do I use an exchange?

Thanks, great post and I love your logo.

Comment by Leafcraft on Scrying for outcomes where the problem of deepfakes has been solved · 2019-04-15T13:09:16.675Z · LW · GW

A Blockchain cannot validate information received if the hardware is not secure, so it cannot replace the Fail-Deadly Key.

A Blockchain, on the other hand, could timestamp the hash as soon as it is generated to ensure it was created before a certain point in time.

Comment by Leafcraft on Is there an assurance-contract website in work? · 2019-02-22T09:07:49.321Z · LW · GW

I guess you could do that in a variety of ways. PM in general can be used to create rewards for events to happen. Take the following: "I agree to leave facebook if ten million other people agree to leave with me." could be implemented as "I bet $$ that 10M people will not leave FB within a month", people can then stake against it and leave FB to promote the event (and share the contract). PM are very flexible, the real limitation IMO is to create a community to bring liquidity to the market and then create a standard contract for people to follow for a specific type of market

Comment by Leafcraft on Is there an assurance-contract website in work? · 2019-02-21T10:15:06.236Z · LW · GW

Looks like something of this sort could be easily implemented in an already existing platform like Augur, I actually wouldn't mind putting some effort in it if someone is interested

Comment by Leafcraft on "AlphaStar: Mastering the Real-Time Strategy Game StarCraft II", DeepMind [won 10 of 11 games against human pros] · 2019-01-25T10:25:30.187Z · LW · GW

Interesting. The article didn't mention that.

Comment by Leafcraft on "AlphaStar: Mastering the Real-Time Strategy Game StarCraft II", DeepMind [won 10 of 11 games against human pros] · 2019-01-25T09:12:56.300Z · LW · GW

At 277, AlphaStar APM was, on average, lower than both MaNa and TLO's.

Comment by Leafcraft on Introducing the Longevity Research Institute · 2018-12-17T14:09:59.917Z · LW · GW

Do you happen to accept proposal for research that you can fund?

Comment by Leafcraft on Book Review - Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness · 2018-12-05T14:03:04.832Z · LW · GW

You are correct. There is no known experiment that can conclusively prove the existence of qualia in other minds (as far as I know). All this prove is that the fish can feel pain (which we already know from neurophysiological research) not that it can experience it.

Although the experience of pain is almost inevitable in every large enough evoluture (from a theoretical point of view).

Comment by Leafcraft on Genetically Modified Humans Born (Allegedly) · 2018-11-29T08:51:37.015Z · LW · GW

As someone who works in the field, I am very skeptical about these kind of statements from scientist in eastern countries (China in particular), and while events described are certainly within the realm of possibility, I'd rather wait until more evidence is available before taking the new seriously.

Comment by Leafcraft on “She Wanted It” · 2018-11-12T10:08:40.890Z · LW · GW

This post was very well written, though it seems to me to be dominated by views that are perfectly aligned to a certain political opinion, which actually kind of disencourage me from commenting.

For instance, your first point about unwanted sex seems rather strawmanish to me; obviously "antifeminists" do not use the word rape in the literal sense of "unwanted sex". No one wants something that is unwanted, rather it is generally intended as something like "Women enjoy sex in ways they are unwilling to admit publicly, and to a lesser extent also privately".

There is another point that stuck to me:

“How could I have wronged her? She had five boyfriends before me who did the same thing I did!”

Well, no. You’re implicitly working on revealed preference theory here, when it isn’t warranted. “She must have wanted it, because it happened to her repeatedly” is just untrue. It could be bad luck, with no agency on her part at all.

Indeed, it could be bad luck, but if it is, based on my personal experience, women must have an unusual, almost magical amount of bad luck. Growing up, I witness the virtual totality of my female friends ending up in relationships with men that scored among the top of the distribution in traits like extrovertedness and aggressiveness, they were also considerably older and a lot more experienced, which easily put them in a position of relative advantage with respect of their partner.

Did you observe a similar pattern growing up?

Comment by Leafcraft on Update the best textbooks on every subject list · 2018-11-09T09:44:47.208Z · LW · GW

Any suggestions for Sociology/Social Psychology?

Comment by Leafcraft on Birth order effect found in Nobel Laureates in Physics · 2018-09-19T12:29:26.011Z · LW · GW

The suggestion about Fortune 500 CEO seems good; "self-made" millionaires are a category far enough from STEM, and, due to their status, they are more likely to have reliable biographical information. If you want to go in a completely different direction, how about something like the Darwin Awards?

Comment by Leafcraft on Advances in Baby Formula · 2018-09-16T10:22:03.303Z · LW · GW

Correct. I guess I'd rather have an appropriate quantification of the "encouragment" though; but I could be wrong, I will read the study design...

Comment by Leafcraft on What To Do If Nuclear War Seems Imminent · 2018-09-14T07:45:38.674Z · LW · GW

Interestingly, I had a similar "plan" set up myself, with Iceland as destination (way closer to where I live)

Comment by Leafcraft on Advances in Baby Formula · 2018-09-11T07:27:11.395Z · LW · GW

I think the point here is that there are many circumstances that can influence the choice to use formula, and these might have a stronger effect than the choice itself.

Comment by Leafcraft on Zetetic explanation · 2018-09-04T09:56:34.749Z · LW · GW

Thanks for the great reading, I wonder if someone would be interested in writing a zetetic description of a very complex subject, as an exercise of course, to see if such a thing is even possible for very complex subjects or how effective it is. I'm new to the site so sorry if such a request is off topic.