131–140 of 309 posts
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I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that even being less wrong is NP-hard.
The saving grace of being able to survive in the universe is that it's possible to climb up NP hard problems far enough to get real results with hard work.
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Don't get me wrong, gorging yourself on a variety of foods from around the world can be pleasurable. It also gives you zero insight into how people in that country are different than elsewhere. You could understand more about a country by studying it from home than by visiting it for a week. I don't like that it's presented as a lifestyle that people should strive to pursue. I know certain people here will vehemently…
It goes both ways. No you really can’t understand a culture from a week of study the same way you can from being there for a week. The issue is the millions of unknown unknowns that you never really consider. How large is people’s personal space, where do they stand and look in an elevator, what’s traffic like, how loud are people, etc etc. Of course a week or three isn’t that long, but there are real diminishing ret…
I suspect you have to live and work in a place to really understand it. If you are wealthy and visiting a poor country there is virtually zero chance, you will always be too insulated from the reality.
I maintain that it isn't just hard, it is computationally impossible. We should all know that given a belief about the world, and evidence, Bayes' Theorem describes how to update our beliefs. But what if we have a network of interrelated beliefs? That's called a Bayesian net, and it turns out that Bayes' Theorem also prescribes a unique answer. However, unfortunately, it turns out that working out that answer is NP-h…
Ironically, some of the most irrational people I know are the ones who profess to hew to rationality, to the point where, in certain circles, "rationality" has become a sort of cult. This is particularly evident in militant anti-theism (whose adherents insist that the only possible explanation for someone believing in God is that they are idiots or otherwise mentally deficient), hard-core libertarians (who, ironicall…
Even when SA himself eventually started questioning his response/allegations, few of the mob (there really is no other word for it) would not have it. All absolutist and conspiracy laden.
PG said keep your identity small. I’ve found few rationalist or libertarians of any bent who meet that criteria.
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> the goal is to do better Why is that "the" goal? Who sets "the" goal?
Yudkowsky and other prominent contributors set "the" goal as a sort of revealed wisdom regarding their speculations about what a super powerful AI will do. Pragmatically, the goals themselves appeal to individuals who want to maintain conventional (liberal) morality yet also position themselves as superior, typically as a form of compensation.
This is why we can't have nice things. Any time someone tries to find more effective ways of making good decisions or accomplishing their goals, someone has to bring out the most tortured cynical interpretation to tear them down.
I read somewhere (truly forgot where, sorry) that we humans are mostly just lazy, that we avoid thinking as best as we can and rather gravitate towards that (people, circle, or news) which confirms what we already believe so that we do not have to think. "Confirmation Bias" does not quite capture it. Really just laziness. :) The other part, being decisive... I can definitely relate to that. I noticed that I often hav…
I would argue we've largely been anesthetized due to successful Gish Galloping. I have great admiration for people who put the effort in to sort out the issues, academics and journalists. But just now everyone eye-rolled when I said those two terms.
I maintain that it isn't just hard, it is computationally impossible. We should all know that given a belief about the world, and evidence, Bayes' Theorem describes how to update our beliefs. But what if we have a network of interrelated beliefs? That's called a Bayesian net, and it turns out that Bayes' Theorem also prescribes a unique answer. However, unfortunately, it turns out that working out that answer is NP-h…
NP hard problems get abused for justifying things they cannot. An NP hard problem, even if it cannot be approximated does not mean the average input cannot be solved efficiently. Examples: - An NP hard problem is not sufficient for building crypto. - Type solving for many programming languages is EXP TIME complete, yet those languages prosper and compile just fine. Beware the idea of taking a mathematical concept and…
I think using chaos theory / Bayesian concepts is a significantly better metaphor for "life as we experience it" than it is for the examples you gave.
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There was no new evidence. I'm not sure we have even learned anything regarding the efficacy of masks trough the pandemic. All what we know was already known prior of it.
First, there is active research and we demonstrably have learned something. See https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1375... , https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72798-7 , and https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 for several examples. Second, your simplistic analysis demonstrated that you, personally, are ignorant of the real tradeoffs involved in whether masks work. Wearing a mas…
Very little new knowledge was added.
>So the result is that masks work. Even crappy cloth masks work.
I would agree if you change "results" to expert conjecture and "work" to probably do something.
But again, this was always known.
I maintain that it isn't just hard, it is computationally impossible. We should all know that given a belief about the world, and evidence, Bayes' Theorem describes how to update our beliefs. But what if we have a network of interrelated beliefs? That's called a Bayesian net, and it turns out that Bayes' Theorem also prescribes a unique answer. However, unfortunately, it turns out that working out that answer is NP-h…
I would still like to see some studies which delve into whether sugar and caffeine are catalysts for biasing us towards system 1 and how they affect system 2, mindfulness, patience, etc...
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Humans operate by doing, then rationalizing, and much of the attempts at rational thought here demonstrate how easy it is to fool ourselves into thinking we are being rational, when really we are acting on feelings and delusions and then constructing what feels like a rational argument that we originally had - but falls apart upon analysis. In the past, it is a rational concern to be worried about being jumped by a p…
> In the past, it is a rational concern to be worried about being jumped by a predator from behind a bush, and if you don’t know if or if not there is a predator, it is perfectly rational to be worried about such a concern! I think we agree, but I also think you are using "rational" here in the colloquial sense to mean the "smartest" thing to do. The article, and my comment in response, uses the traditional definitio…
If you don’t know what is behind x thing, and every y times someone walks by a thing like x thing they get jumped by a leopard, then only walk by x thing when the risk is worth it. Which it rarely is.
If you’re referring to formal logic, then sure - but almost no one in that thread seems to be using that definition either. Formal logic is incredibly expensive (mentally), and only a few percent of folks even now can afford to use it with any regularity.