NunoSempere
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User ID: 1101
NunoSempere
1yr ago
How would one go about using this?
NunoSempere
2d ago
Augur had a seemingly solid system
This is not what I recall. Invalid markets resolved to 50/50, so you had users, chiefly someone who went by the moniker of Poyo, create markets that appeared to be legit but e.g., had the wrong date, so that people would bet & he'd win money when they resolved 50/50
NunoSempere
6d ago
The last one is: I agree that sometimes predictions influence what happens. A few cases people have studied is alarmist Ebola predictions making Ebola spread less because people invested more early on, and optimistic predictions about Hillary Clinton leading to lower turnout.
You can solve these problems in various ways. For the Ebola one, instead of giving one probability, you could give a probability for every "level of effort" to prevent it early on. For the Hillary Clinton one, you could find the fixed point, the probability which takes into account that it lowers turnout a little bit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_(mathematics)).
NunoSempere
9mo ago
A. There is a heap of inertia B. Enthusiastic people with a grand plan are working in fields which already have inertia C. Therefore enthusiastic people which have a grand plan will be bogged down in that previously existing inertia.
I mean, sure. But then the answer would seem to not work inside fields which already have huge amounts of negative inertia: to try to explore new fields, or to in fact try to create a greenfield site. To give a small example, the Motte does happen to be its own effort, and thus seems less bogged down. Or, many open source projects were started pretty much from scratch.
Any thoughts on why people don't avoid fields with huge amounts of inertia? Otherwise the inertia hypothesis doesn't sound that explanatory to me.
NunoSempere
11mo ago
Breezewiki is good. And in general, OP might want to look into https://github.com/libredirect/browser_extension
NunoSempere
1yr ago
This could be solved by offering bets. In particular, Insight Prediction has a bunch of liquid markets: https://insightprediction.com/c/5/russia-ukraine
NunoSempere
21hr ago
Cheers, backed it up here: https://git.nunosempere.com/NunoSempere/fussy-suitor/src/branch/master/code.R
I'm not sure if there is a way to publish pseudonymously on Github. You could create a separate account (e.g., on Codeberg or on Gitlab) though
NunoSempere
2d ago
Thanks a lot for this. Do you have a pointer to your code, or could you put it up on Github/Codeberg?
NunoSempere
4mo ago
NunoSempere
5mo ago
Just Look At the Germans. The way these minds are shackled by man-made categories was really obvious to me, as a foreigner from Spain:
- In a charity I was volunteering, they made emphasis in having processes, structures, sub-groups responsible for categories of work. Sadly, despite this, not much got done.
- Their morality is base on some concept of what is MORALLY CORRECT that doesn't leave much place for uncertainty. Sure, let's shut down nuclear plants and crippling the economy and industrial base, because it is MORALLY CORRECT. Let's vote for the Greens, because they are the MORALLY CORRECT party.
- You wouldn't cross an empty street when the traffic light is red, even if you can see that there aren't any cars coming, because it wouldn't be MORALLY CORRECT
- Look at the way Switzerland's nuclear weapons programme went: they established a subcomittee to study the possibility, and when that didn't work, they established a second subcomittee, which produced a report, which... you get the idea.
- The way you learn math is by understanding a finite list of concepts and methods, going subject by subject
- Rather than by having a problem and looking for an algorithm/tooling/approach which solves it.
- To understand language and communication, you differentiate between sense and meaning; you seek to understand language by presenting categories for it.
- Consider Javert from Les Miserables. He is hunting the sympathetic protagonist because he is A CRIMINAL, and criminals are DANGEROUS TO SOCIETY and must be BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.
In a stylized way, there is a common way of being amongst Germans which is something like, implicit Aristotelianism? There are categories, which are so robust that they need not be questioned, and which can be a source of comfort and security in this uncertain world. This is why we should choose a subcomittee to address the subcategory of Strategic Dialogue, which is different from Cooperative Dialogue (of which a different committe is responsible).
To be clear, though, I admire some parts of it, like the work ethic, the strong economy (particularly compared to my more chill Spain), the part of their moral structure that ends up helping other people. Also, do note that this is just one subculture in the geographical Germany.
So, throughout, what alternatives could my stylized German be missing?
- Deep understanding (vs shallow understanding based on classification)
- Employing categories as shortcuts (vs as pillars, as fundaments)
- Rules as constraints that can sometimes be bent (vs as MORALLY CORRECT commandments)
- Finding approximate solutions through brute force and simulations (vs analytic solutions through applying a finite list of manipulations)
- Moral relativism (as opposed to moral realism)
- The Israeli nuclear weapons programme (as opposed to the Swiss)
- Not having a stick up your own ass (as opposed to having a stick up your own ass)
Now, there is a question, which part of this is language, and which part of this is culture? Yeah, I mean, you can definitely have a chill German, but the tradition, the language games, the way language is used in practice by the richer social strata, the utterances that people make in practice and that they grow up with, do contain and transmit these blindspots.
NunoSempere
9mo ago
Nice post, thanks for writting it
NunoSempere
9mo ago
I mean, we don't have a small number of clearly achievable goals, but if you pick N major human drives, the question then becomes why aren't we better at attaining all the major human drives, and formidability would just be a shorthand for becoming better across all these dimensions. But I'd in fact think that excellency in various domains does correlate.
On top of this, being formidable for long enough, in an impressive enough position for people to take note, requires huge amounts of luck over a long period
Sure, but we don't see that many people taking their shot at greatness come what may rather than wasting away in their cubicle jobs.
NunoSempere
9mo ago
Why are we not better, harder, faster, stronger
Now here: https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/07/19/better-harder-faster-stronger/ (on the motte here: https://www.themotte.org/post/593/why-are-we-not-harder-better). I'm curious to get your perspective.
My consulting rates are now here: https://nunosempere.com/consulting/. I'll put up a list of bounties in a while; if you are particularly interested, I have an RSS endpoint here: https://nunosempere.com/blog/index.rss (or you could sign up per email, if you are a wimp: https://nunosempere.com/.subscribe/)
NunoSempere
1yr ago
Thanks for your long and thoughtful comment, /u/magic9mushroom. I appreciate it, and you bring up some good points.
That said, I'm kind of miffled that you don't quite mention why you believe the things that you believe. The obvious answer to why is that you cover a lot of points, and you are already covering a wide range of topics, so going into the whys would take too much time. But at the same time, I've also observed that pattern in other discussions (e.g. here and here), and it sort of makes me think that we could do better.
NunoSempere
1yr ago
I don't necessarily disagree. In particular, I think that from the considerations I mention, we can conclude that the specifics of how the x-risk would develop are still up in the air, and that his is somewhat valuable info.
NunoSempere
1yr ago
Log in
Heads up that I couldn't log in with my normal username and password.
NunoSempere
1yr ago
which means few have any idea
...which means that questions were selected for being uncertaint
I have yet to see anyone who can do it well
maybe you're not hanging out in the right places
NunoSempere
5mo ago
German grammar
I am not talking about grammar, I am talking about speech as practiced.
almost entirely negative German stereotypes
based on experience about a specific caste/subgroup of Germans. I contend this is valid, in the same way that, e.g., talking about Puritan ethics or values or attributes is valid. I could go on about the positive aspects, but the negatives are more salient, since we are talking about the limitations of language, rather than, e.g., the benefits of discipline.
and the example of a fictional Frenchman from a 19th century novel
also a 1892 book, in case you find that more persuasive. You might find the Google translation of the title a bit interesting. But I think that the Javert example captures the core intuition. If you are a Javert kid, surrounded by Javert parents and Javert peers which utter Javert phrases, it's pretty intuitive to me how you will grow to mimick those utterances.
NunoSempere
9mo ago
I think military greatness is a red-herring here: I don't think that it's a realistic shot at greatness for readers here. Starting a religion, or a billion-dollar startup, or a social/political movement seems much easier.
Maybe I'm just rehashing 'good times breed weak men, weak men make harsh times'.
Maybe so, but it's a useful handle nonetheless.
Elon Musk and Dominic Cummings are the closest we have to the great men 'type' today, aiming for performance above all else. Elon Musk is widely hated and disliked by the usual suspects in government and acceptable society
I'm not sure about them two. I prefer Peter Thiel as an example. He was:
- able to shut down Gawker
- able to create several scalable companies: Paypal, Palantir, Founders Fund
- able to spread his worldview around, through books, the Thiel Fellowship, etc.
- able to make multi-year political plans (endorse Trump, give very high salaries to people who could later run for office, to get around spending limits), even if these didn't work out (Trump doesn't seem to have consulted him for much, his candidates didn't win the elections)
and like, these aren't world-changing, but he's still got time, and he isn't constrained by fickle political winds.
NunoSempere
9mo ago
Respectfully disagree. Though it's hard to say whether we do disagree in substance. Maybe you think that trying to be maximally ambitious is always misguided, and I'd agree that being misguided + maximally ambitious is not something to be admired? idk.
NunoSempere
1yr ago
would pay for some of them if not for my desire to be anonymous
Happy to be paid in monero. You can reach out to me at nuno.semperelh@protonmail.com with a burner account.
NunoSempere
1yr ago
Neat piece, thanks for writing it.
Yeah. To reply to the first part, my answer to that is to realize that knowledge is valuable insofar as it changes decisions, and to try to generate knowledge that changes decisions that are important. YMMV.
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