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Meetup : Rationality Nairobi mini-Meetup #1: Double Crux 2016-04-05T12:40:17.639Z

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Comment by negamuhia on Double Crux — A Strategy for Mutual Understanding · 2016-12-10T22:20:19.305Z · LW · GW

This seems useful and simple enough to try. I'll set up an implementation intention to do this next time I find myself in a long conversation. It also reminds me of the reversal test, a heuristic for eliminating status-quo bias.

Bostrom, Ord (2006)

Comment by negamuhia on Double Crux — A Strategy for Mutual Understanding · 2016-12-03T14:12:32.581Z · LW · GW

Does anyone else, other than me, have a problem with noticing when the discussion they're having is getting more abstract? I'm often reminded of this fact when debating some topic. This is relating to the point on "Narrowing the scope", and how to notice the need to do this.

Comment by negamuhia on Several free CFAR summer programs on rationality and AI safety · 2016-04-11T14:33:39.474Z · LW · GW

I signed up for a CFAR workshop, and got a scholarship, but couldn't travel for financial reasons. Is there a way to get travel assistance for either WAISS or the MIRI Fellowship program? I'll just apply for both.

Comment by negamuhia on Rationality Quotes April 2016 · 2016-04-11T14:31:10.470Z · LW · GW

What reaches your attention when you see is not ‘reality’ but a mix of light measurements with cryptotheories that were useful for making snap judgments in the environment of ancestral adaptation.

Eric S. Raymond here: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7076

Comment by negamuhia on Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015 · 2015-08-15T13:04:49.986Z · LW · GW

Ethereum does this

Comment by negamuhia on Leaving LessWrong for a more rational life · 2015-08-14T11:55:54.516Z · LW · GW

See my above point about how reasoning by analogy at its best is reasoning from a weak reference class. (Do people think this is worth a toplevel post?)

Yes, I do. Intuitively, this seems correct. But I'd still like to see you expound on the idea.

Comment by negamuhia on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 · 2015-04-24T11:56:46.964Z · LW · GW

If you practice mindfulness meditation, you'll realize that your sense of self is an illusion. It's probably true that most people believe that their "self" is located in their head, but if you investigate it yourself, you'll find that there's actually no "self" at all.

Comment by negamuhia on Wisdom for Smart Teens - my talk at SPARC 2014 · 2015-02-15T21:54:30.118Z · LW · GW

The core ideas in LW come from the Major Sequences. You can start there, reading posts in each sequence sequentially.

Comment by negamuhia on Superintelligence Reading Group - Section 1: Past Developments and Present Capabilities · 2014-09-16T12:28:28.789Z · LW · GW

Sergey Levine's research on guided policy search (using techniques such as hidden markov models to animate, in real-time, the movement of a bipedal or quadripedal character). An example:

Sergey Levine, Jovan Popović. Physically Plausible Simulation for Character Animation. SCA 2012: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~svlevine/papers/quasiphysical.pdf

Comment by negamuhia on Superintelligence Reading Group - Section 1: Past Developments and Present Capabilities · 2014-09-16T12:17:35.748Z · LW · GW

The text of [the parts I've read so far of] Superintelligence is really insightful, but I'll quote Nick in saying that

"Many points in this book are probably wrong".

He gives many references (84 in Chapter 1 alone), some of which refer to papers and others that resemble continuations of the specific idea in question that don't fit in directly with the narrative in the book. My suggestion would be to go through each reference as it comes up in the book, analyze and discuss it, then continue. Maybe even forming little discussion groups around each reference in a section (if it's a paper). It could even happen right here in comment threads.

That way, we can get as close to Bostrom's original world of information as possible, maybe drawing different conclusions. I think that would be a more consilient understanding of the book.

Comment by negamuhia on Rationality Quotes September 2014 · 2014-09-14T22:10:35.243Z · LW · GW

It’s tempting to think of technical audiences and general audiences as completely different, but I think that no matter who you’re talking to, the principles of explaining things clearly are the same. The only real difference is which things you can assume they already know, and in that sense, the difference between physicists and the general public isn’t necessarily more significant than the difference between physicists and biologists, or biologists and geologists.

Reminds me of Expecting Short Inferential Distances.

Comment by negamuhia on Botworld: a cellular automaton for studying self-modifying agents embedded in their environment · 2014-04-11T07:10:56.081Z · LW · GW

Thanks! Wow, that was simple :)

Comment by negamuhia on Botworld: a cellular automaton for studying self-modifying agents embedded in their environment · 2014-04-11T06:16:53.408Z · LW · GW

I'm hand-typing the code from the pdf. I know it would be easier if I used the .lhs file from github, but I'd like to make sure I read and understand the code first. Reading the .lhs file hurts my eyes due to formatting issues in Emacs.

Comment by negamuhia on Open Thread, February 1-14, 2013 · 2013-02-02T14:27:33.166Z · LW · GW

This is great, thanks. I'll implement a rudimentary spam filter with this sometime next week.

Comment by negamuhia on Open Thread, February 1-14, 2013 · 2013-02-02T14:17:47.644Z · LW · GW

I'm not sure about "day-to-day life", but this application of general abstract nonsense certainly did make my day better when I read it: link

Comment by negamuhia on February 2013 Media Thread · 2013-02-02T12:48:05.559Z · LW · GW

Language in Thought and Action, by S. I. Hayakawa. It goes without saying that this book is highly recommended. To those who've read the sequences, and have therefore had just a bite of the hearty meal, you should really get it. An anecdote about how I came to find this gem: My grandfather is a retired linguist, and in his library, in a house I grew up in, he keeps, and still has, a gigantic collection of books. A member of that distinguished class of "books older than me", this book is a part of his linguistics collection, and I didn't even know he had it until a few weeks ago when I was having a conversation with my uncle in said library. The title jumped out at me, and I haven't been this happy about finding a book in that room since I found my mother reading Kahneman.

Comment by negamuhia on February 2013 Media Thread · 2013-02-02T12:18:58.318Z · LW · GW

Chillstep : I've found this online collection to be quite relaxing, as the genre name suggests.

The Art Of Noise - The Seduction of Claude Debussy : I hadn't listened to any music by this super-group before this year, and now they're one of my favourite groups...I'm either fickle or these guys are awesome, and I'm not fickle. There's one song I liked in particular, Metaforce, and its remixes. It'll show you just how versatile this group is, with the rest of the album as a backdrop.

Comment by negamuhia on Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013 · 2013-01-03T09:31:21.730Z · LW · GW

Likewise, thank you for your suggestion.

Comment by negamuhia on Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013 · 2013-01-03T09:30:08.146Z · LW · GW

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Comment by negamuhia on Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013 · 2013-01-03T09:26:38.848Z · LW · GW

dbaupp, ParagonProtege, thank you both for the links and suggestions. I'm going with the laptop. Anything else I could do (naturally, there's a lot i want to do) will be kickstarted by the modest, but easy(ish) money I'll get by doing ~$100 websites, as I upgrade my code-fu for Other Stuff. ;)

I also haven't cycled actively for years & I'm afraid my unfit body might conk out on me, making me unable to Do The Job once I commit. Cliff scaling is much harder than hill climbing.

From Alicorn's post , I can easily tell that after I get the laptop, the correct thing to have would be a bike, since I can ease myself back into cycling regularly. It's also weird how I saw the Other Option (buy bike, work, afford laptop, buy laptop, cut down on bike work as I increase study & laptop work hours) as just as good, even though I know I will feel like a flake if I stop riding after it gets tougher and more tiring, which is more likely than giving up on wordpress. Wordpress isn't even the only option for devastatingly easy Internet work.

Comment by negamuhia on Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013 · 2013-01-01T14:15:04.832Z · LW · GW

Happy New Year, LWers, I'm on a 5 month vacation from uni, and don't have a job. Also, my computer was stolen in October, cutting short my progress in self-education.

Given all this free time I have now, which of these 2 options is better?

  • Buy a road bicycle & start a possibly physically risky job as a freelance bike-messenger within my city ( I'm that one guy from Nairobi )in order to get out of the house more, then buy a laptop and continue my self-education in programming, computer science, philosophy, etc.

or

  • buy a laptop, do quick and easy wordpress websites for local businesses, then buy the bike and use it for leisurely riding under no pressure? I only have money for either one or the other for now, and for some reason I'm hesitating. Maybe it's because I want to do both. This is important to me, and I'll appreciate any discussion on this. Thanks.
Comment by negamuhia on Do I really not believe in God? Do you? · 2012-12-11T15:29:24.466Z · LW · GW

This happens to me sometimes, and I sort of bring myself back to normality by reminding myself of the fact that the things my meat-brain chooses to bring to my attention are out of my control (for a short time) when I'm in panic mode. Other facts I recall: I have a reflectively-inconsistent meat brain, I was raised in a Christian home (I'm atheist now), and just about everything relevant that I can remember from Kahneman (correspondence bias etc.) and other psychology texts. Also, the Sequences.

Annoying aliefs are annoying.

A thing to do would be to condense all that gratitude into the word "awesome". Best said with a wide grin.

Comment by negamuhia on Responses to questions on donating to 80k, GWWC, EAA and LYCS · 2012-11-26T12:28:02.493Z · LW · GW

I know it's days later....but I'm interested.

Comment by negamuhia on How can I reduce existential risk from AI? · 2012-11-13T08:59:54.454Z · LW · GW

I realize (and I'm probably not alone in this) that I've been implicitly using this {meta-work, strategy-work, direct-work} process to try and figure out where/how to contribute. Thanks for this guide/analysis.

Comment by negamuhia on November 2012 Media Thread · 2012-11-04T15:04:27.210Z · LW · GW

I'd love to get these as audio files. I'd even volunteer to transcribe them if that were to happen.

Comment by negamuhia on Desired articles on AI risk? · 2012-11-04T14:57:46.855Z · LW · GW

"AI Will Be Maleficent By Default"

seems like an a priori predetermined conclusion (bad science, of the "I want this to be true" kind), rather than a research result (good problem statement for AGI risk research). A better title would be rephrased as a research question:

"Will AI Be Maleficent By Default?"

Comment by negamuhia on How To Have Things Correctly · 2012-10-31T13:13:32.732Z · LW · GW

famous dinner parties at which the Illuminati congregate.

Upvoted. Your sense of humor is just awesome. Unless this is one humongous Fnord.

Comment by negamuhia on Singularity Summit 2012, discuss it here · 2012-10-30T13:33:05.651Z · LW · GW

I've downloaded most Summit talks from archive.org as [ogg] audio files, and I'm kinda partial to listening to them podcast-style i.e. while i do other stuff... So, will there be audio versions of the talks? Or is there a way I can download the videos from fora.tv, do a quick audio rip, then upload the resulting .OGGs to the archive?

Comment by negamuhia on October 2012 Media Thread · 2012-10-02T14:35:06.327Z · LW · GW

Rudy Rucker's Ware Tetralogy. I'm thisclose to starting Freeware. I'm about to finish book 2 (The Golden Apple) of the Illuminatus! Trilogy...in fact that's what I'm currently reading... :) I just got Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross...haven't got around to reading it yet though... And I have about 39 fiction+nonfiction books on my current reading list, so...phew....

Comment by negamuhia on October 2012 Media Thread · 2012-10-02T14:27:22.103Z · LW · GW

I've been listening to Sphongle a lot lately... the two albums Nothing Lasts and Are You Sphogled? have some pretty gnarfy Muzaks... Also, though this has been a constant in my life since about 4 years ago, Juno Reactor's Gods and Monsters... Beethoven's 9th (my favourite), via Gunter Wand. The Social Network's OST is also quite nice.... Question: Who loves chiptune?

Comment by negamuhia on [LINK] Interfluidity on "Rational Astrologies" · 2012-09-12T09:40:04.959Z · LW · GW

This reminds me of something i read in Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" about the "Zeitgeist" of the particular age you find yourself born into...however, i think the "sane" thing to do here would be to conform, since non-conformism doesn't even carry with it the benefit of having the technology -- or even the knowledge -- to save your wife which, in this century, certainly is the case. I see what evand below says about:

[the behaviour] is also done to gain the societal safe harbor protection

but this is only valid in a world where you absolutely can not get any better. i certainly get the sense of "existential despair" this brings.

Comment by negamuhia on Random LW-parodying Statement Generator · 2012-09-12T09:01:36.922Z · LW · GW

In the new version of Newcomb's problem, you have to choose between a box containing Robin Hanson and a box containing an upload of a cult

Comment by negamuhia on Random LW-parodying Statement Generator · 2012-09-12T08:52:30.868Z · LW · GW

Less Wrong is not a cult so long as our meetups don't include Unfriendly God.

Wow.

Edit: and this counterexample, immediately after.

politics is isomorpic to physics

Edit #2: Aargh.

In the new version of Newcomb's problem, you have to choose between a box containing timeless torture and a box containing torture

The thirty eigthth virtue of rationality is "always obey the guiding inluence of Robin Hanson"

Comment by negamuhia on Suggest alternate names for the "Singularity Institute" · 2012-08-28T16:33:03.509Z · LW · GW

I agree. You should change the name iff your current name-brand is irreparably damaged. Isn't that an important decision procedure for org rebrands? I forget.

EDIT: Unless, of course, the brand is already irreparably damaged...in which case this "advice" would be redundant!

Comment by negamuhia on Glenn Beck discusses the Singularity, cites SI researchers · 2012-08-28T16:16:42.956Z · LW · GW

You seem to be suggesting a Not-Glenn-Beck Turing-like Test.

Comment by negamuhia on LessWrong could grow a lot, but we're doing it wrong. · 2012-08-27T12:20:24.302Z · LW · GW

This being my first comment, I found LW through Google Plus, and my first reading was So You Want To Save The World, which took me a couple of weeks due to the prerequisite papers, plus a ton of other stuff i was reading at the time. One might say, that that might have been an unnecessarily daunting introduction to a community - any community - but I'm glad of the way it happened because I'd never have gotten as interested in cogsci and "A-grade+ rationality" as i have been ever since. That was just before Christmas last year. Now, I've read most of the sequences, and even used some of the tools recommended here, but constantly struggle to find a good place to start making contributions to discussions. So it's taken me roughly 8 months of lurking to do this post. Does everyone do this, or am I a unique point in newb-space?