Posts

Toxic Truth 2009-04-11T11:25:16.530Z
Recommended Rationalist Resources 2009-03-05T20:23:09.098Z

Comments

Comment by MichaelHoward on Security Mindset and the Logistic Success Curve · 2017-11-28T12:34:21.540Z · LW · GW

These posts finally made me get Something Important:

Akrasia is a security problem, and not just against external adversaries like advertising.

Is there anything good written yet about solving this domain of problems from a security mindset perspective?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Security Mindset and Ordinary Paranoia · 2017-11-26T22:29:39.802Z · LW · GW

"manage your working memory carefully" <--- This sounds like a potentially important skill that I wasn't aware of. Please could you elaborate?

Comment by MichaelHoward on JFK was not assassinated: prior probability zero events · 2016-05-01T11:45:53.198Z · LW · GW

https://arbital.com/p/nearest_unblocked/

Comment by MichaelHoward on [LINK] Steven Hawking warns of the dangers of AI · 2014-12-02T19:18:02.544Z · LW · GW

It was also on the BBC TV main evening news today, and BBC News 24.

Edit: more from them here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30293863

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes March 2014 · 2014-03-15T02:13:44.577Z · LW · GW

How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.

-- Napoleon Bonaparte.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Singularity Institute now accepts donations via Bitcoin · 2013-11-21T13:24:20.727Z · LW · GW

Apparently that's old. The address currently on their website is https://blockchain.info/address/1BszW45pwXx7d7g4x9Xxbs9MGJEQcJsd3v although that hasn't received any coins yet.

Maybe the old one is fine too, but unless someone can shed light on why they changed from the old address, it's probably best not to send coins to it, although I'd hope if it had become unsafe they would have announced it loudly.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Singularity Institute now accepts donations via Bitcoin · 2013-05-25T10:51:20.560Z · LW · GW

They're now accepting it again, and even spoke at the last conference.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Singularity Institute now accepts donations via Bitcoin · 2013-03-27T03:36:35.232Z · LW · GW

I hope SI/MIRI has been holding on to those donated bitcoins!

Comment by MichaelHoward on [LINK] Transcendence (2014) -- A movie about "technological singularity" · 2013-03-22T13:14:52.171Z · LW · GW

Be gur svefg rcvfbqr bs Znk Urnqebbz...

Comment by MichaelHoward on Open thread, March 17-31, 2013 · 2013-03-21T01:31:58.373Z · LW · GW

As it's been queried how many physicists, mathematicians, etc. currently believe what about QM, I thought this paper (no paywall, Yay!) might interest a few of you: A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics

For example, question 12: Copenhagen 42% Information 24% Everett 18%

Here, we present the results of a poll carried out among 33 participants of a conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics. The participants completed a questionnaire containing 16 multiple-choice questions probing opinions on quantum-foundational issues. Participants included physicists, philosophers, and mathematicians. We describe our findings, identify commonly held views, and determine strong, medium, and weak correlations between the answers. Our study provides a unique snapshot of current views in the field of quantum foundations, as well as an analysis of the relationships between these views.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Bookshelves · 2013-03-19T00:30:56.152Z · LW · GW

That is the second most Ravenclaw thing I have ever heard.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Recent updates to gwern.net (2012-2013) · 2013-03-18T15:53:19.005Z · LW · GW

For the overwhelmed, here's a summary snippet to encourage further investigation... (in rot13 for those who'd consider it spoilers, or just think Down With This Sort Of Thing).

From the Dual N-Back FAQ:

Gb gubfr jubfr gvzr vf yvzvgrq: lbh znl jvfu gb fgbc ernqvat urer. Vs lbh frrx gb vzcebir lbhe yvsr, naq jnag gur terngrfg "onat sbe gur ohpx", lbh ner jryy-nqivfrq gb ybbx ryfrjurer.

Zrqvgngvba, sbe rknzcyr, vf rnfvre, snfgre, naq hygen-cbegnoyr. Glcvat genvavat jvyy qverpgyl vzcebir lbhe snpvyvgl jvgu n pbzchgre, n inyhnoyr fxvyy sbe guvf zbqrea jbeyq. Fcnprq ercrgvgvba zrzbevmngvba grpuavdhrf bssre hacnenyyryrq nqinagntrf gb fghqragf. Abbgebcvpf ner gur rcvgbzr bs rnfr (whfg fjnyybj!), naq gurve rssrpgf ner zhpu zber rnfvyl nffrffrq - bar pna rira eha qbhoyr-oyvaq rkcrevzragf ba barfrys, vzcbffvoyr jvgu qhny A-onpx. Bgure fhccyrzragf yvxr zryngbava pna qryvire orarsvgf vapbzzrafhenoyr jvgu QAO - jung vf gur pbtavgvir inyhr bs nabgure ahzore va jbexvat zrzbel gunaxf gb QAO pbzcnerq gb n tbbq avtug’f fyrrc gunaxf gb zryngbava? Zbqrfg punatrf gb bar’f qvrg naq raivebaf pna shaqnzragnyyl vzcebir bar’f jryy-orvat. Rira onfvp genvavat va ernqvat, jvgu gur pehqrfg gnpuvfgbfpbcr grpuavdhrf, pna cnl ynetr qvivqraqf vs bar vf orybj n onfvp yriry bs ernqvat yvxr 200JCZ & fgvyy fhoibpnyvmvat. Naq nyy bs gurfr pna fgneg cnlvat bss vzzrqvngryl.

...and his favorite nootropics are:

  1. Zbqnsvavy/nezbqnsvavy
  2. Zryngbava
  3. Pnssrvar+gurnavar
  4. Cvenprgnz+pubyvar
  5. Ivgnzva Q
  6. Fhyohgvnzvar
  7. Svfu bvy
Comment by MichaelHoward on Imposing conditions that would have been evidence about optimal behaviour in the EEA · 2013-03-17T14:32:58.243Z · LW · GW

See also that post.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Risks of downloading alien AI via SETI search · 2013-03-15T17:07:16.268Z · LW · GW

Fixed link.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Imposing conditions that would have been evidence about optimal behaviour in the EEA · 2013-03-15T03:52:32.326Z · LW · GW

See also this post.

You learn most quickly immediately after ending a long fast. Your brain thinks you just learned something that saved it from starvation.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Exercise in dissolving · 2013-03-14T22:03:34.889Z · LW · GW

Ner lbh ernyyl mreb creprag fher gung'f pbeerpg? Pbhyq lbh fcraq rgreavgl tvivat nafjref jvgu gur fnzr zrgn-pbagenqvpgbel pbasvqrapr naq abg or evtug rira bapr?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Exercise in dissolving · 2013-03-14T16:51:46.068Z · LW · GW

For extra loopiness, (C) should say 33-and-1/3%.

Comment by MichaelHoward on You only need faith in two things · 2013-03-12T20:36:57.611Z · LW · GW

You only need faith in two things: ...that some single large ordinal is well-ordered.

I'm confused. What do you mean by faith in... well, properties of abstract formal systems? That some single large ordinal must exist in at least one of your models for it to usefully model reality (or other models)?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Habits I Learned at the CFAR Workshop · 2013-03-12T16:22:37.122Z · LW · GW

What is Turbocharging Training?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Habits I Learned at the CFAR Workshop · 2013-03-12T16:18:38.838Z · LW · GW

What is the Planning Kata?

Comment by MichaelHoward on MetaMed: Evidence-Based Healthcare · 2013-03-05T02:30:25.524Z · LW · GW

For the sake of humanity, cute kittens, whatever it takes to get past your qualms about this being advertising...

Please promote this immediately to the front page so it can get as much attention as possible.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Meetup : London Meetup, 10th Feb · 2013-02-08T11:28:48.237Z · LW · GW

WHEN: 11 February 2013 02:00:16PM (+0000)

This date is wrong. It's on Sunday the 10th (as shown in the post title).

Also, the time format is confusing. Couldn't we just say 2pm?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Akrasia survey data analysis · 2012-12-09T07:41:16.940Z · LW · GW

It's been used successfully before, if you're not making a separate thing that you need a separate term for.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Akrasia survey data analysis · 2012-12-09T06:40:55.753Z · LW · GW

p(hack akrasia|heard of hack and thought it was worth trying) What are the odds of you succumbing to "hack akrasia", never trying or not consistently applying a hack, given that you'd heard of it and thought it was worth trying?

I suggest we think twice about making the term "hack akrasia" a thing. Once it's in comments without definition, does a newcomer read it as having akrasia about hacking, or trying to hack akrasia?

It's fine to have terms people won't understand if they'll realize that and look it up, but this one invites oblivious misinterpretation.

Comment by MichaelHoward on What does the world look like, the day before FAI efforts succeed? · 2012-11-17T14:50:44.457Z · LW · GW

Enter 3d10 here, click roll, then get your results here.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Why is Mencius Moldbug so popular on Less Wrong? [Answer: He's not.] · 2012-11-17T14:15:48.459Z · LW · GW

I'd generally suggest saying why you rot13 something (if it's not obvious) before the text rather than after. I tend to ha-ebg guvatf nf V ernq gurz if I can't think of a reason not to, and suspect I'm not the only one.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Less Wrong Polls in Comments · 2012-09-19T22:33:34.102Z · LW · GW

Vote up for YES.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Less Wrong Polls in Comments · 2012-09-19T22:33:24.369Z · LW · GW

Vote up for NO.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Less Wrong Polls in Comments · 2012-09-19T22:33:15.646Z · LW · GW

Karma balance.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Less Wrong Polls in Comments · 2012-09-19T22:31:08.068Z · LW · GW

Do you ever have feelings of irrational nostalgia for hopelessly obsolete technology?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Less Wrong Polls in Comments · 2012-09-19T21:16:47.904Z · LW · GW

Red is a nice [pollid:18]

Comment by MichaelHoward on Less Wrong Polls in Comments · 2012-09-19T21:09:45.080Z · LW · GW

What is your favorite color? [pollid:17]

Comment by MichaelHoward on Less Wrong Polls in Comments · 2012-09-19T20:25:05.458Z · LW · GW

Most voters so far have probably voted False to this question: [pollid:16]

Comment by MichaelHoward on Debugging the Quantum Physics Sequence · 2012-09-05T22:05:02.907Z · LW · GW

Did you read the post I linked?

That later edit wasn't in the comment when I read it. Thanks for adding.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Debugging the Quantum Physics Sequence · 2012-09-05T21:32:25.590Z · LW · GW

Which ones are not actual properties of the collapse interpretation?

I don't think Eliezer has suggested they were properties of all possible non-Everett interpretations.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Debugging the Quantum Physics Sequence · 2012-09-05T19:29:26.916Z · LW · GW

I'm curious about the following...

Would John Cramer's transactional interpretation require more complexity (at the level of the fundamental laws, rather than the amount of stuff in the universe) than the many worlds interpretation?

Roughly what proportion of the physics community backs it?

Is it a non-differentiable (or even discontinuous) phenomenon?

Is it non-local in the configuration space?

Does it violate CPT symmetry?

Does it violate Liouville's Theorem (has a many-to-one mapping from initial conditions to outcomes)?

Is it acausal / non-deterministic / inherently random?

Is it non-local in spacetime?

Could it propagate an influence faster than light?

Can it represent a non-linear or non-unitary evolution?

No God-damned puppies were harmed in the making of this comment.

Edit: As pointed out, one of those things is not like the others, so to carve at the joints, let's call the questions after #2 "the antimagic questions", and the idea that we should reject the suggested interpretation if we get "yes" answers to them the cuddly collapsing canine conjecture.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes September 2012 · 2012-09-04T23:23:35.640Z · LW · GW

No sleep, or anything that would interrupt thinking about it, for a year, might lead to an interesting wish.

Comment by MichaelHoward on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? · 2012-08-27T21:17:21.902Z · LW · GW

I have started to think that ev-psych is way overconfident.

As in about the likelihood of certain kinds of explanations?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes August 2012 · 2012-08-21T20:21:18.947Z · LW · GW

I notice that I am meta-confused...

Supposing that all possible universes 'exist' with some weighting by simplicity or requirement of uniformity, does not make me feel less fundamentally confused about all this;

Shouldn't we strongly expect this weighting, by Solomonoff induction?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes August 2012 · 2012-08-18T00:31:42.779Z · LW · GW

"She heard Harry sigh, and after that they walked in silence for a while, passing through an archway of some reddish metal like copper, into a corridor that was just like the one they'd left except that it was tiled in pentagons instead of squares."

"she was trying to count the number of things in the room for the third time and still not getting the same answer, even though her memory insisted that nothing had been added or removed"

I'm curious though, is there anything in there that would even count as this level of logically impossible? Can anyone remember one?

Comment by MichaelHoward on AI timeline predictions: are we getting better? · 2012-08-15T00:10:21.819Z · LW · GW

we've managed to put together a databases listing all AI predictions that we could find...

Have you looked separately at the predictions made about milestones that have now happened (e.g. beat Grand Master/respectable amateur at Jeopardy!/chess/driving/backgammon/checkers/tic-tac-toe/WWII) for comparison with the future/AGI predictions?

I'm especially curious about the data for people who have made both kinds of prediction, what correlations are there, and how the predictions of things-still-to-come look when weighted by accuracy of predictions of things-that-happened-by-now.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Natural Laws Are Descriptions, not Rules · 2012-08-07T21:18:41.001Z · LW · GW

I hereby nominate this for the 2012 Understatement Award.

How was it an understatement?

I acknowledge that it feels like one when you read it, but defining that way lies madness! Just ask the words "ironic" and "literally".

Comment by MichaelHoward on A question about Singularity Summit 2012 · 2012-08-07T13:06:41.557Z · LW · GW

Could I suggest a more descriptive title? "Singularity Summit 2012" sounds like it's an announcement from the organizers, or for discussion about the summit in general.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Why did the internet stop working just now? · 2012-08-04T01:27:20.309Z · LW · GW

Does anyone know what happened?

Mystery solved!

Comment by MichaelHoward on Why did the internet stop working just now? · 2012-08-04T01:26:12.208Z · LW · GW

Why did the internet stop working

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes August 2012 · 2012-08-03T21:10:19.762Z · LW · GW

suppose E.Y. were to post, for whatever reason (cat jumping on keyboard?)...

This happened once (F12 was mapped to that set of keystrokes at the time).

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes August 2012 · 2012-08-03T19:48:35.737Z · LW · GW

Thanks, I already plugged them :)

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes August 2012 · 2012-08-03T11:41:24.798Z · LW · GW

Should we add a point to these quote posts, that before posting a quote you should check there is a reference to it's original source or context? Not necessarily to add to the quote, but you should be able to find it if challenged.

wikiquote.org seems fairly diligent at sourcing quotes, but Google doesn't rank it highly in search results compared to all the misattributed, misquoted or just plain made up on the spot nuggets of disinformation that have gone viral and colonized Googlespace lying in wait to catch the unwary (such as apparently myself).

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes August 2012 · 2012-08-03T11:17:13.020Z · LW · GW

Hmm. There are hundreds of thousands of pages asserting that he said it but for some reason I can't find a single reference to it's context.

Thanks. Have edited the quote.

Comment by MichaelHoward on Rationality Quotes August 2012 · 2012-08-03T00:33:29.919Z · LW · GW

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

-- [Edit: Probably not] Albert Einstein