Posts

Some concepts are like Newton's Gravity, others are like... Luminiferous Aether? 2015-08-09T15:10:17.895Z
How do I back-up myself? 2013-10-15T17:16:10.993Z
Is humanity a superhuman AI? 2013-09-16T15:35:33.553Z
Newbomb's parabox 2013-07-01T13:51:58.089Z

Comments

Comment by Locaha on On the Galactic Zoo hypothesis · 2015-07-17T07:01:07.219Z · LW · GW

Taboo 'consciousness', and attempt to make that assumption still work.

Taboo 'intelligence' as well.

Comment by Locaha on Crazy Ideas Thread · 2015-07-10T17:57:28.609Z · LW · GW

I assume that inside the simulation spaces of Cthulhu, you are going to be on some level aware of all the deaths that you have already experienced, and the ones that await you. Otherwise you are clearly not suffering enough. :-)

Comment by Locaha on Crazy Ideas Thread · 2015-07-08T19:27:29.448Z · LW · GW

"There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.''

Comment by Locaha on March 2015 Media Thread · 2015-03-08T11:09:50.361Z · LW · GW

Do you have a link to the translation? In amazon maybe?

Comment by Locaha on March 2015 Media Thread · 2015-03-08T10:24:07.658Z · LW · GW

I second this one, I read the original, it is great.

The first book was written before author's 8 years bout in GULAG, and the second after. How this influenced the difference between the books is left as an exercise for the reader. :-)

Comment by Locaha on Andrew Ng dismisses UFAI concerns · 2015-03-08T10:00:17.555Z · LW · GW

However, UFFire does not uncontrollably exponentially reproduce or improve its functioning. Certainly a conflagration on a planet covered entirely by dry forest would be an unmitigatable problem rather quickly.

Do you realize this is a totally hypothetical scenario?

Comment by Locaha on xkcd on the AI box experiment · 2014-11-22T11:03:27.014Z · LW · GW

We can save money by re-coloring the plush Cthulhu. It's basically the same, right? :-)

Comment by Locaha on xkcd on the AI box experiment · 2014-11-21T20:48:58.242Z · LW · GW

I'm guessing Eliezer has one of those, probably locked away behind a triply-locked vault in the basement of MIRI.

See, it's comments like these that are one of the reasons people think LW is a cult.

Does MIRI actually has a basement?

Comment by Locaha on xkcd on the AI box experiment · 2014-11-21T20:39:18.104Z · LW · GW

As long as some people keep mysteriously hinting that there is something in the Basilisk idea that is dangerous, there will be other people who are going to mock it in all the corners of the internet.

Comment by Locaha on What steep learning curve do you wish you'd climbed sooner? · 2014-09-05T17:46:40.298Z · LW · GW

Somatics

30 seconds of research leads me to believe it's quackery. Should I investigate further?

Comment by Locaha on Is there a way to stop liking sugar? · 2014-06-12T12:59:20.216Z · LW · GW

Sucralose works for me as a replacement of actual sugar.

Comment by Locaha on Group Rationality Diary, April 1-15 · 2014-04-02T08:57:10.223Z · LW · GW

I'm still continuing with the use of Anki to learn Python programming language. The method seems useful so far. My Python deck reached >200 cards recently. You can try it here:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/51975584

Comment by Locaha on Open thread, 18-24 March 2014 · 2014-03-20T07:23:46.374Z · LW · GW

Russian LiveJournal. With the whole Crimea business going on, the shitstorm there is really powerful as of now...

Comment by Locaha on Innovation's low-hanging fruits: on the demand or supply sides? · 2014-02-26T19:10:55.796Z · LW · GW

What's a low-hanging fruit in a world where ladders grow on trees?

Comment by Locaha on Rationality Quotes February 2014 · 2014-02-21T20:20:58.364Z · LW · GW

Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

--source unknown

Comment by Locaha on [Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17) · 2014-02-19T06:56:43.022Z · LW · GW

We can call it Hipster Fallacy, maybe?

Comment by Locaha on Open Thread for February 11 - 17 · 2014-02-12T07:52:04.500Z · LW · GW

Thoughts?

Taboo humanity.

Comment by Locaha on L-zombies! (L-zombies?) · 2014-02-08T14:44:16.492Z · LW · GW

Angels. Pins. Sigh...

Comment by Locaha on Open Thread for February 3 - 10 · 2014-02-04T07:49:11.902Z · LW · GW

Depends on the utility function the altruist uses.

Comment by Locaha on Humans can drive cars · 2014-01-30T12:37:55.680Z · LW · GW

Maybe creating a safe AGI isn't as impossible as it looks to me. Maybe it isn't beyond human capabilities. Maybe.

Maybe humans are not safe AGI. Maybe both the idea of "safety" and the idea of "general intelligence" are ill-defined.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-30T06:44:21.031Z · LW · GW

Neither is telling me to leave.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-29T12:15:31.469Z · LW · GW

Something may be 'disgusting' you, and that's a useful datapoint, but to say that something is 'disgusting' as if it's an inherent characteristic of the thing pretty much puts a stopper to the conversation. What could be the response "No, it's not"?

OK, I see your point. Agree, phrasing my original post as "using children as means for an end disgusts me equally" would have been better.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-29T07:17:16.736Z · LW · GW

As Yvain pointed out in his post on a similar topic, far more women than men go to church across all denominations, including ones that don't even let women in leadership positions.

People who go to church are unlikely to visit this forum to begin with.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-29T07:14:25.447Z · LW · GW

If you have problems with doing things as a means to an end, might I recommend a forum where consequentialism isn't the default moral theory.

Oh dear me! Was I supposed to sign any papers before posting on this forum, proclaming my adherence to consequentialism? Will I get arrested now???

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T19:24:35.876Z · LW · GW

My thoughts on "horrifying" are pretty much the same, but that word hasn't stuck out to me as much before.

So you argue against mentioning emotions in general?

And your comments struck me as more likely to be downvoted for tone

It is kinda funny how a forum which prides itself on not discussing politics is based on a political system (the anonymous democracy of karma). Every time a poster stops to consider whether his post will be upvoted or downvoted, he is engaging in politics.

Comment by Locaha on Flashes of Nondecisionmaking · 2014-01-27T19:13:23.148Z · LW · GW

Heh. This is the old discussion about freedom of will.

The correct answer to the question of freedom of will is "shut up!" :-)

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T14:10:08.651Z · LW · GW

Explicitly, if you ask people in this site how the burden of raising children should be divided between partners, most people of both genders will say it should be divided equally. But when musing about grand strategies, I think the males are still more likely to propose bullshit like "we the smart people totally should out-breed the stupid people" without giving it a second thought.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T10:12:05.136Z · LW · GW

Yes, but I woudn't expect that sentiment to really be all that gender-biased, though.

Historically at least, I would expect that sentiment to be gender-biased. It's easier to think of children as objects when you aren't the one who spends your whole day with them.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T10:05:34.482Z · LW · GW

Is a word I almost never see outside of a mindkilled context, though at least it's in a sentence, here. (People who use "Disgusting" as the entirety of a sentence are basically wearing a giant "I AM MINDKILLED" flag as a coat, in my experience.)

baiter used the word "horrified" in his original post.

What do you think about horror?

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T09:40:43.714Z · LW · GW

If you don't agree with the best of your understanding, that's itself worrying. ;-)

Only if you think of yourself as a singleton.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T09:37:03.655Z · LW · GW

And pregnancy itself is a personal existential risk.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T09:16:55.088Z · LW · GW

Hmm. Why does a comment like that lead to a preference to males?

A comment like that comes from a person who isn't even trying to imagine himself in a place of someone who is actually going to conceive and carry to term all those as many as they can children. A woman who reads this will correctly conclude that this isn't a place where she is considered a person.

It goes beyond that. The idea that children should be made as means for a cause is equally disgusting.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-27T07:13:10.936Z · LW · GW

Not everybody see their lives as a big genetic experiment where their goal is to out-breed the opponents.

Everyone who doesn't want to have kids (as many as they can, within reason) is both missing a major point of life and complicit in creating a dysgenic society -- which, btw, should be included on the list of existential risks.

^ See this? This is one of the reasons this forum is 90% male.

Comment by Locaha on How to become a PC? · 2014-01-26T22:42:10.546Z · LW · GW

After a few weeks I started to enjoy the process of exercising itself. At that point it became it's own reward, no motivation required.

So here's a new motivation for you - keep doing it and you'll start to like it. :-)

Comment by Locaha on The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You · 2014-01-26T16:05:10.410Z · LW · GW

"Boo!"

Comment by Locaha on Open thread, January 25- February 1 · 2014-01-26T15:34:59.938Z · LW · GW

I'd recommend set theory in general for getting an understanding of how math works and how to talk and read precisely in mathematics.

Can you recommend a place to start learning about set theory?

Comment by Locaha on Open thread, January 25- February 1 · 2014-01-26T13:22:14.196Z · LW · GW

desiredata

I think this is a most awesome mistype of desiderata.

Comment by Locaha on Open thread, January 25- February 1 · 2014-01-25T20:36:09.923Z · LW · GW

Actually, I started reading that one and found it too hard.

Comment by Locaha on Open thread, January 25- February 1 · 2014-01-25T15:14:59.987Z · LW · GW

Repeating my post from the last open thread, for better visibility:

I want to study probability and statistics in a deeper way than the Probability and Statistics course I had to take in the university. The problem is, my mathematical education isn't very good (on the level of Calculus 101). I'm not afraid of math, but so far all the books I could find are either about pure application, with barely any explanations, or they start with a lot of assumptions about my knowledge and introduce reams of unfamiliar notation.

I want a deeper understanding of the basic concepts. Like, mean is an indicator of the central tendency of a sample. Intuitively, it makes sense. But why this particular formula of sum/n? You can apply all kinds of mathematical stuff to the sample. And it's even worse with variance...

Any ideas how to proceed?

Comment by Locaha on Polling Thread · 2014-01-25T10:52:54.236Z · LW · GW

Thus learning their beliefs would be informative about pixies.

Learning their beliefs would be informative about something.

Do a mental experiment, replace pixies with Jesus.

Comment by Locaha on Polling Thread · 2014-01-24T21:04:54.715Z · LW · GW

Well, people are more likely to believe in pixies in worlds with pixies than in worlds without pixies.

This is a kind of information that comes from comparing worlds with pixies to worlds without pixies. If you have a mean to observe worlds with pixies, please tell. :-)

Comment by Locaha on Open Thread for January 17 - 23 2014 · 2014-01-24T14:02:58.047Z · LW · GW

Do you want to learn to do statistical analysis with a tool like R and interpret data? Do you want to learn mathematical axioms and theorems about probability and statistics and how to prove them.

Ideally, I'd like to learn both.

Depending on who you ask it's not. sum/n is the arithmetic mean. There are also other mean's like the geometric mean and the harmonic mean. Depending on the context different mean's can be used.

I know about different means. And I know that sometimes mean isn't appropriate at all (bimodal...) The context is one of the things I'd like to understand.

When it comes to learning notation. Anki is quite good.

Just used it to learn the Greek alphabet. :-)

Comment by Locaha on Polling Thread · 2014-01-24T08:33:42.638Z · LW · GW

If I polled people about something which they knew well

How do you know they know it well?

Comment by Locaha on Polling Thread · 2014-01-24T08:17:32.676Z · LW · GW

If you poll people about the likelihood of pixies, I guess you can learn something about their beliefs. You will learn nothing about pixies, though.

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-24T08:15:30.556Z · LW · GW

Even if generation ships or cryopreservation are easier to achieve than 1g over intragalactic distances, it still doesn't seem likely that it's possible to make them work over the 100,000 lightyears minimum between galaxies.

To me it seems likely that if if you can cryopreserve someone for a 1000 years, you can cryopreserve someone more or less indefinitely.

This discussion is pointless. What seems likely to me or you now has no connection to actual likelihood of the technology.

Comment by Locaha on Polling Thread · 2014-01-23T20:40:59.524Z · LW · GW

You may have missed the word almost. :-)

Comment by Locaha on 2013 Survey Results · 2014-01-23T13:16:47.231Z · LW · GW

You assumption holds if constant acceleration/deceleration at 1g is vastly easier to achieve than generation ships or cryopreservation. If you assume the opposite, then you suddenly can colonize the entire universe, only very-very slowly. :-)

Comment by Locaha on Polling Thread · 2014-01-23T09:28:42.441Z · LW · GW

Polls are almost useless for researching anything but the opinions of the population that takes the poll.

[pollid:591]

Comment by Locaha on Open Thread for January 17 - 23 2014 · 2014-01-23T09:24:52.640Z · LW · GW

I want to study probability and statistics in a deeper way than the Probability and Statistics course I had to take in the university. The problem is, my mathematical education isn't very good (on the level of Calculus 101). I'm not afraid of math, but so far all the books I could find are either about pure application, with barely any explanations, or they start with a lot of assumptions about my knowledge and introduce reams of unfamiliar notation.

I want a deeper understanding of the basic concepts. Like, mean is an indicator of the central tendency of a sample. Intuitively, it makes sense. But why this particular formula of sum/n? You can apply all kinds of mathematical stuff to the sample. And it's even worse with variance...

Any ideas how to proceed?

Comment by Locaha on Why are we not starting to map human values? · 2014-01-22T21:54:16.000Z · LW · GW

Legal systems are maps of human values.