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Comment by RichardHughes on The cup-holder paradox · 2013-03-26T14:28:48.739Z · LW · GW

Can you find that article about cupholder man-years?

Comment by RichardHughes on Eliezer's YU lecture on FAI and MOR [link] · 2013-03-07T22:10:00.072Z · LW · GW

Same thing as 'multiple competing goals', where those goals are 'do not be part of a causal chain that leads to the death of others' and 'reduce the death of others'.

Comment by RichardHughes on The value of Now. · 2013-02-01T15:47:39.368Z · LW · GW

I fear bees way less than I fear super-torment. Let's go with the bees.

Comment by RichardHughes on Isolated AI with no chat whatsoever · 2013-01-28T20:57:56.504Z · LW · GW

What does it have by way of input?

Comment by RichardHughes on Cryo and Social Obligations · 2013-01-28T20:46:55.034Z · LW · GW

Have you read Transmetropolitan? This is actually a major sub-plot. There is a significant quantity of people who had cryonics, were thawed, were released under their own recognizance in to an unrecognizably bizarre future, and promptly became homeless, desperate vagrants.

edit: ignore this comment, redundant with discussion from DataPacRat

Comment by RichardHughes on How confident are you in the Atomic Theory of Matter? · 2013-01-23T16:59:05.587Z · LW · GW

I can't. But that sounds like a more useful question!

Comment by RichardHughes on How confident are you in the Atomic Theory of Matter? · 2013-01-22T19:36:43.916Z · LW · GW

"Not all data is productively quantifiable to arbitrary precision." Hoard that, and grow wiser for it.

Comment by RichardHughes on How confident are you in the Atomic Theory of Matter? · 2013-01-22T17:24:30.441Z · LW · GW

Why is it important to quantify that value?

Comment by RichardHughes on How confident are you in the Atomic Theory of Matter? · 2013-01-22T17:18:45.663Z · LW · GW

I live my life under the assumption that it is correct, and I do not make allowances in my strategic thinking that it may be false. As for how hard it would be to convince me I was wrong, I am currently sufficiently invested in the atomic theory of matter that I can't think, off-hand, what such evidence would look like. But I presume (hope) that a well-stated falsifiable experiment which showed matter as a continuum would convince me to become curious.

Comment by RichardHughes on Group rationality diary, 1/9/13 · 2013-01-10T20:10:42.378Z · LW · GW

Are you sure that you really want to have done Y? Maybe you just think you do.

Comment by RichardHughes on Mini advent calendar of Xrisks: nuclear war · 2012-12-04T20:58:08.159Z · LW · GW

It is admittedly not an existential risk for our species, but it is an existential risk for our civilization.

Comment by RichardHughes on Prediction Sources · 2012-12-04T15:19:11.634Z · LW · GW

I'm not competent to comment on the 'revealed incompetence of the Bitcoin community', but for the benefit of those who aren't aware of those issues, it would useful if you could either summarize that revelation or post a link to such a summary.

Comment by RichardHughes on Mini advent calendar of Xrisks: nuclear war · 2012-12-04T15:16:29.742Z · LW · GW

Don't forget the threat of high-atmospheric detonations creating electromagnetic pulses big enough to destroy every un-shielded microchip in Europe, a.k.a., every microchip in Europe. Even a rogue state can manage that.

Comment by RichardHughes on Cryonic resurrection - an ethical hypothetical · 2012-11-26T17:44:49.551Z · LW · GW

1: Obviously I would PREFER 1.0, but if it appears likely that it will never happen, I'd be okay with 0.900. I won't be a clever motherfucker anymore, but I'll still be a motherfucker. As long as I have the capacity to love and be loved, I'll find a way to be happy. It might not be the way I use now, but I have confidence I'll find one.

2: Anyone who has themselves frozen without considering this angle is being very silly; ideally we just look in their will. If they didn't specify conditions for their revivification, we should revive them whenever the value seems morally justifiable to the unfreezer due to improving conditions or just economic necessity.

3: I'll volunteer to be the trial for 0.500 function. Sure, it'll suck, and I'll probably die again in the near future, confused and unhappy, but whatever, yo. Science ain't easy. Plus right now I'm resigned to my eventual death regardless, so what the fuck ever.

Comment by RichardHughes on Teaching English in Shanghai · 2012-11-03T23:58:25.567Z · LW · GW

How are the worst-case-scenario recovery tools? I.E., if you're injured, do you risk bankruptcy from medical care? How's the crime risk? Long term health risks?

Comment by RichardHughes on Prediction market sequence requested · 2012-10-26T19:38:24.480Z · LW · GW

Speaking as a man who is dubious enough about the "invisible hand of the free market" that I universally refer to it in sarcasm-quotes, I would be very interested in such a sequence.

Comment by RichardHughes on Problem of Optimal False Information · 2012-10-17T19:41:23.953Z · LW · GW

The parallels with Newcomb's Paradox are obvious, and the moral is the same. If you aren't prepared to sacrifice a convenient axiom for greater utility, you're not really rational. In the case of Newcomb's Paradox, that axiom is Dominance. In this case, that axiom is True Knowledge Is Better Than False Knowledge.

In this instance, go for falsehood.

Comment by RichardHughes on [Link] Inside the Cold, Calculating Mind of LessWrong? · 2012-10-09T20:21:08.411Z · LW · GW

Decision paralysis is a cruel binding that falls only on the unfettered.

Comment by RichardHughes on Taking "correlation does not imply causation" back from the internet · 2012-10-04T17:41:33.170Z · LW · GW

The specific fake argument used is flawed because of that. When people make the correlation-causation error, how often are they doing it based off of a variable that's constant across the population? Do people ever really develop 'drinking water causes x' beliefs?

It's a valid point and very true, but I suspect that it isn't applicable to the issue at hand.

Comment by RichardHughes on Taking "correlation does not imply causation" back from the internet · 2012-10-03T15:18:15.381Z · LW · GW

Disagree. Our target audience - humans - rarely if ever thinks of 'correlation' in terms of its mathematical definition and I suspect would be put off by an attempt to do so.

Comment by RichardHughes on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? · 2012-09-27T21:57:23.068Z · LW · GW

I voted 'other' and downvoted the question. Lordy, what the heck are you doin' bringing this in here? D:

Comment by RichardHughes on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? · 2012-09-27T21:56:36.659Z · LW · GW

I felt this was a confused question for the reasons you've defined and so I've voted other.

Comment by RichardHughes on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? · 2012-09-27T21:54:37.371Z · LW · GW

I voted 'other' to the original question. I would vote 'accept platonism' to this question.

Comment by RichardHughes on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? · 2012-09-27T21:52:28.424Z · LW · GW

Presuming I value the lives of all the people involved equally, I turn on to the side track. If I have a strong reason not to let the person on the side track die - they're a relative, I know them well, they owe me money, I'm in love with them, whatever - I let it go straight.

This is a really easy problem if you accept that you're only a marginally good person at best.

Comment by RichardHughes on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? · 2012-09-27T21:45:09.993Z · LW · GW

I'm not sure how anyone could argue that aesthetic value is objective when humans regularly disagree about the aesthetic value of things. It's a pretty stern counterexample.

Comment by RichardHughes on New study on choice blindness in moral positions · 2012-09-20T19:13:13.650Z · LW · GW

Can you provide more info about the event?

Comment by RichardHughes on New study on choice blindness in moral positions · 2012-09-20T14:48:30.443Z · LW · GW

It strikes me that performing this experiment on people, then revealing what has occurred, may be a potentially useful method of enlightening people to the flaws of their cognition. How might we design a 'kit' to reproduce this sleight of hand in the field, so as to confront people with it usefully?

Comment by RichardHughes on The utility-maximizing complexity of conscious beings · 2012-09-19T19:51:34.259Z · LW · GW

I don't see a point or thesis in your statement for me to react to beyond the situation itself. What are you getting at? What argument are you seeking to make?

Comment by RichardHughes on Meetup : Cambridge (MA) Meetup · 2012-07-31T20:21:15.863Z · LW · GW

I'm planning to be there. I'm going to try to bring my shy boyfriend, but I dunno how that'll go.

Comment by RichardHughes on Suggest alternate names for the "Singularity Institute" · 2012-06-25T19:04:49.638Z · LW · GW

I have no ability to do any actual random selection, but you raise a good point - some focus group testing on laymen would be a good precaution to take before settling on a name.

Comment by RichardHughes on How confident is your atheism? · 2012-06-19T21:54:48.954Z · LW · GW

I was literally just about to post a thread asking about the fixation on putting numerical values on our confidences all the time, then I saw this. So, thanks for that. Wrapped that little dilemma right up.

Comment by RichardHughes on Suggest alternate names for the "Singularity Institute" · 2012-06-19T20:45:54.488Z · LW · GW

Agreed that people are very likely to misunderstand it - however, even the obvious, naive reading still creates a useful approximation of what it is you guys actually do. I would consider that misreading to be a feature, not a flaw, because the layman's reading produces a useful layman's understanding.