astrolabia
3yr ago
Hmmm, I'm not sure I understand your point. To be uncharitable, this looks like exactly the sort of creative misdirection I was talking about. The NYT dismisses the possibility of different amounts of tax fraud between races for any reason. Whether or not it's genetic, or whether other factors might be more important, are separate questions, and are secondary to the question of whether the fraud detection algorithms are biased. Again, I'm saying that even acknowledging group average differences in behavior as a possible explanation for group average differences in outcome is already less mind-killed than most of my interlocutors.
Since I have you here, what do you mean when you say that a group-level difference could "outweigh" individual level variation? They're just two levels of variation, and nothing changes if one is bigger than the other - they're both still there.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I wouldn't even call it "mind-killing", because of the impressive mental gymnastics required to avoid ever even considering the idea that there could be meaningful group differences. The bizarre hypotheses, type errors, or misdirections that my friends and colleagues come up with when I ask if there is even in principle a possible difference in group averages is constant source of surprising creativity in my life.
The fact that the NYT article even mentions the possibility (to immediately dismiss it) already puts it in the top tier of clear thinking on the issue in my experience.
astrolabia
3yr ago
Regarding fusion in particular, I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure that the prospects for fusion being much of an improvement on fission are very low with most current designs (because they'll still have similarly high capex costs), but this is almost never mentioned in articles about fusion power.
astrolabia
3yr ago
Nitpick: Did you mean to say "flout" instead of "flaunt"?
astrolabia
3yr ago
I would like to think it'll only be tolerated so far, but my guess is that indigenous crime rates will simply be obfuscated or the rise blamed on other factors. After all, the judge pointed to the "missing and murdered indigenous women" report, which fails to mention that more indigenous men are missing and murdered than indigenous women, and seems to be a surprising fact to the Canadians I know.
I think IGI would say: What exactly is wrong with being "made obsolete and reduced to praying for generosity of your superhuman overlords", other than us not liking it?
For what it's worth, I agree with you that this is the likely consequence of avoiding transhumanism, but I think IGI is saying that both sides of the argument are simply pointing to consequences and pointing out how undesirable they are.
I agree, but having lots of capital will still give one room to maneuver as the walls close in. E.g. moving to the Bahamas before your country of residence starts seriously taxing wealth.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I agree it's likely we're in some kind of simulation, but I'm not sure if that changes anything in terms of expected future observations. We are still early and alone in our universe, whatever level of simulation it happens to be.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I agree with your points 1 and 2, but not 3. Knowing the distribution of all civilizations tells us the probability of other aliens, given that we are born early and don't see others. I agree it's surprising that we weren't born later, but given that we weren't, it's likely that there are others being born around the same time as us.
I do think your point 5 has merit, It's pretty similar to the simulation hypothesis. But in that case, it doesn't really matter what we do anyways.
I agree with your framing of the difficulty of measuring progress on AI risk, and I think most EAs would as well. They would say that we should still try to measure such progress, or at least recognize that most of our efforts will probably go to waste because we can't, as you point out.
I think most EAs would say that even though we know we're going to waste most of the time, money, and energy we put into AI risk (because it's so hard to measure) it's still worthwhile. So I don't think this is an instance of hypocrisy, just an instance where plan A doesn't work.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I mean, huge amounts of talent and capital are being poured into building AGI, and we know it's physically possible (because human brains exist). So to be sure that it'll never happen seems like a stretch.
astrolabia
3yr ago
FWIW, I think AI x-risk is real, and this doesn't match my psychology. I am unhappy about this, and wish I could just go back to thinking about purely technical problems. I dislike the flavor of AI risk work (qualitative research, politics, and activism) and also dislike being seen as a self-important, deluded ninny (which others are right to suspect of me).
astrolabia
3yr ago
I largely agree with your criticisms, but my impression is that most mainstream charities maintain a cultivated ignorance about their actual impact. I don't think much of our ability to define or measure the things we care about achieving, but at least EAs are pushing for a norm of trying to do so.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting. If Sequoia and others are willing to invest hundreds of millions of their own money into FTX, why should someone receiving charity expect to be able to do better due diligence? Why should they try? "Existential Risk" specifically refers to humanity's existence, not any particular replaceable entity that might go under.
astrolabia
3yr ago
Heh, could be. I have fights with my wife that go: Me: Just tell me what you want! Her: I can't, because you don't want to listen!
astrolabia
3yr ago
"If you don't know what's wrong then I am certainly not going to tell you!"
I view this as the girlfriend trying to force the boyfriend to maintain a detailed model of her emotional state, and to proactively make sure he knows what he needs to do keep her happy. Simply telling him when and what she's unhappy about is much less work for him, but more work for her, and there will inevitably be opportunities to make her happy that neither will notice unless he's paying attention.
That phrasing might sound retarded, and sometimes girlfriends massively overestimate how easy it is to guess their emotional states, but sometimes I think it's a reasonable bid for more consideration.
astrolabia
3yr ago
Yes, I meant Disney's Moana, thanks for the correction. Good point about the "the radicals are the real traditionalists" interpretation. The movie could certainly have been more unambiguously pro-modernity, i.e. if Moana had taught the tribe to accept electrification or homosexuality.
I guess I'd still say that the important thing is that outsiders are writing a story in which the current way of life of the tribe is presented as wrong and in need of change (even if it's back to the past). However, maybe Polynesians tell similar stories about the dangers of stagnation and giving up seafaring. So, you made me realize that the story could plausibly not be very subversive, depending on the details of Polynesian's self-conception, which I know nothing about. But it just seems to hit the favorite beats of Western progressivism in such a cliched and recognizable way that I doubt that that's the case.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I think Vikings are a bit of a counter-example to your thesis. It's well-known how destructive they were (in some time periods). Maybe it's because they're white, so no one feels the need to sanitize their history. And, the Icelandic sagas also let them speak in their own words, to some extent. Those stories are pretty much all about blood feuds and legal drama.
astrolabia
3yr ago
Have you seen Muana? The producers went to great lengths to involve the relevant ethnicity in the production. But the story is about a young woman who feels compelled to shirk her duties to her tribe, then questions authority, and goes on a mostly solo adventure to save the environment. The main character is basically Greta Thunberg.
To the extent that these different people actually have a different worldview, this must seem really subversive. Imagine a high-budget movie full of American celebrity actors, shot in America, with pitch-perfect cultural references, about how fulfilling it was to serve the state, written by the Chinese government.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I totally agree about the abuse of power. I loathed the lockdowns and everyone's unthinking compliance, and got yelled at by strangers for taking my kids to the park during those first few weeks.
I still think the province didn't exactly "back down" in this instance. And following your point, to the extent that they further normalized the use of the notwithstanding clause, they gained power.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I think the simplest counter-argument is that, however hard it is to define, race is clearly a useful and relatively unambiguous word in many contexts. If your professor is comfortable saying anything at all about people of any race, e.g. "black people are stopped more often by police", it's not clear why it matters whether it can be defined biologically.
It's a strange bit of sophistry that people who spend all day making claims about disparate outcomes between races consider it unscientific, or somehow ontologically lacking, to make analogous claims in other contexts.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I see your point. I guess it's still not clear to me that the province is worse off than before they used the clause.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I saw this as the province getting their way - they threatened to use the big stick, but didn't have to, and now schools are open again. But I don't know that much about the situation, nor if the province had to agree to anything else on top of not using the clause.
astrolabia
3yr ago
I think the conventional wisdom is that having only one big mass firing is much better for morale and productivity than more smaller ones, provided you can convince people that there isn't another mass layoff on the horizon. The idea being that if you have rolling layoffs, everyone stays in short-term, back-stabbing, cover-your-ass mode permanently, because they never know if they're being eyed for layoff.
I'm sorry, I never raised the issue of genetics, I was only talking about group differences in behavior in general. I also heartily agree that the IRS could easily be following perverse incentives. I have no idea what you mean about Hegelian dynamics here, nor how individual character + agency precludes discussions of average differences in behavior between groups, which the article raised as a possibility.
I would really love it if you'd read my first reply again - I wasn't claiming that group differences explain anything here. I was saying that it's astounding the variety of behaviours people will display if prompted to acknowledge, in principle, the possible existence of average group differences (genetic or otherwise). Do you think such differences are possible?
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