αlpha-Minus

So you clicked on my profile and would like to read more? for your convenience, a thread containing my best twitter threads so far: x.com/AlphaMinus2/st…

After sol months testing I talk can about finally stroke

@MayankGoel28 @chrislakin What's the synthesis of the two arguments? something something middle road, you can hate yourself a bit for not being productive as a treat

@chrislakin If more people thought this way maybe my p(doom) wouldn't be .9

“I don’t want to feel good unless I’ve been productive” “I don’t want to love my children unless they’ve produced useful AI alignment progress”

Fable spawned 4 opuses Each opus spawned 4 sonnets Each sonnet spawned 4 haikus and each haiku said "Perfect — I'll spawn a haiku" is this agi?

AI music App concept

@danielweberdlc @JMGreerWriter List of notable jews who oppose mass immigration Éric Zemmour, Stephen Miller, Laura Loomer, Gad Saad, Melanie Phillips, Ezra Levant I would assume you're right wing, there's a bunch of free market supporting economists that are jews. Isn't that good for nations?

@JMGreerWriter It shouldn't baffle you. Look at an issue that appears to destroy countries, say immigration. Then look at the groups that support it. Throw a rock. It hits 50-800 Jews. Look at an issue that strengthens a country. Look at a group that supports it. Throw a rock. Hit zero Jews.

It’s always baffled me that so many people choose the Jews to blame for everything. That goes way back — long before the coming of Christianity, Egyptians used to insist that the Jewish god was actually Set, the slayer of Osiris, and persecuted them on that basis. In the West, it surfaces reliably whenever standards of living take a dive, and (as happened in central Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) Jews are overrepresented in the professions and the managerial class, and thus become an easy target for class hatred from the laboring classes.

@nosilverv Another use: Arbitrage against these who are not in the know of things vs insiders, e.g. autists or people from lower social classes.

@nosilverv The dark side of this mechanism is that this is the basis for Anarcho-Tyranny, you create a bunch of illegible rules and then enforce them only against your enemies Same mechanism can be used for both somewhat benevolent and malevolent uses, It's not all good

This is why girls can't just tell you what they want directly btw

@mathyouf FWIW I think the insanity around sex in the rationalist community is downstream of the general insanity around sex within 'normal' society (and Americans in general are worse than most)

It's pretty intersting how many smart successful people I meet around SF who are persona non grata in the rationalist community because of allegations related to sex. People with successful startups, communities, many adoring friends. Feels like the whole community politics are oriented around underground management of the sex part, which is ironic given how unsexy it is by normal standards. I do admire a community that can hold itself together, and think that is hard and important work, and maybe this is just how it has to be done. But at what point does that logic lead to the iron law of beaurocracy? That the organization is led by those whose main objective is to preserve itself and their administration of it, rather than for the goals the organization was founded on? I'm not a community expert, I'm guessing this is the best that can be done, but it seems to reveal something sad about the constraints of community building, even with good intentions.

@LeRoyDesCimes this tweet is obviously catnip for nerds and this fact is a bit sad

Starting to think I can't date a man who hasn't spent his formative years on lesswrong

@Plinz The Straussian reading of your position is that you actually want doom? I just don't see any other possibility that you would otherwise use such bad arguments

Every technological revolution created as many jobs as it destroyed, because we find that there is always more work to do. Things that were expensive or impossible become cheap, and we are allowed to work on things we could not afford doing before. In the future, personal transportation, architecture, legal support, medicine, education, public administration can become much cheaper and better for everyone. We may have more time to raise our children well. Don't fuck it up.

@BigBrainPhiloso "everything is subjective expect the notion that everything is subjective which is objective" Here, fixed the issue. Really dumb argument by Nagel.

Thomas Nagel dismantles relativism in one paragraph. In a 1995 talk on reason, the philosopher exposes a fatal flaw at the heart of the relativist position: "Claims to the effect that a type of judgment expresses a local point of view are inherently objective in intent. They suggest a picture of the true sources of those judgments which places them in an unconditional context." In other words, the moment you say "all truth is relative," you've already made an absolute claim. Nagel sharpens this into a precise logical trap: "The judgment of relativity or conditionality cannot be applied to the judgment of relativity itself." The relativist wants to stand outside all perspectives and declare that no perspective is universal. But that declaration is itself a universal perspective. He then drives it home: "To put it schematically, 'everything is subjective' must be nonsense, for it would itself have to be either subjective or objective. But it can't be objective, since in that case it would be false if true. And it can't be subjective, because then it would not rule out any objective claim including the claim that it is objectively false." The argument is elegant in its completeness. If "everything is subjective" is an objective truth, it defeats itself immediately because it would mean at least one thing is objective. But if it's merely a subjective opinion, it has no power to challenge objectivity at all. Either way, relativism collapses under its own weight. What's striking is how often this self-refuting structure goes unnoticed in everyday debates about truth, culture, and morality. The person who says "that's just your perspective" is quietly assuming their own perspective is the correct one. Nagel's point isn't that objectivity is easy to achieve, only that abandoning it entirely is incoherent.

Left wing people are evil but pretend to be virtuous Right wing people are evil but don't try to hide it I'm not really sure what's worse, the gut hates leftists more - but I'm not sure I should trust it

Friendly reminder that most people had no issue with slavery, and don't have currently any problem with Factory farming. The massess are evil and the elite is generally less evil on average.

@MarkusQ @robinhanson Humans are not blank slates

@AlphaMinus2 @robinhanson So why didn't he say it in English? Of course, that'd be silly. How would he learn it, surrounded by people who aren't speaking English? Kids aren't born uncorrupted and pure, they're born incohate and muddled. They're literally forming themselves as we watch, by watching us.

On average, which age people have more reliable views on what is moral? Not who actually acts more morally, but who can more clearly see morality.

@MarkusQ @robinhanson Children can be corrupted, and this child was perhaps corrupted later as well. But this is an initial response pre-corruption, so there's a good a chance he would say he doesn't want to eat humans in the same way he didn't want to eat animals when discovering the sources of food

@AlphaMinus2 @robinhanson That same kid, raised by cannibals, would be just as cute explaining why he wanted to eat his family's enemies and gain their strength for the glory of his clan.

@MarkusQ @robinhanson I answered, "middle aged", but some kids are truly angels: youtube.com/watch?v=tQIMJ6…

@robinhanson Anyone answering "Children" has obviously not spent much time around children, or perhaps only around children they have taught (cue fable about the mirror being beautiful). Children are wonderful, I love them dearly, but "clarity" isn't their strong suit.

@RichardMCNgo Original sin is one way. Basically attributing faults to cross generational structures and not letting them of the hook until the debt was paid for their crimes.

Two examples which I’m less confident in: - East Asians being more conformist due to selection by collectivist govts. - African-Americans being more violent due to selection by slave-owners. What’s the principled way for society to account for this? I don’t think anyone knows.

The left often points to disparities in outcomes as evidence of oppression. The right replies: no, it’s genetic differences. But they’re both correct in cases where genes were shaped by oppression. E.g. women are more conformist partly as an adaptation to male violence.

@robinhanson @mj_jacobi Also due to log(Money) = utility consideration, Growth doesn't necessarily beats donations from a utilitarian perspective.

@robinhanson @mj_jacobi That's a different question though, My claim is more limited, and that sum(donations) correlates better than sum(wealth) per individual to contribution to positive contribution to the world. People who donate also have large amounts they invest. e.g. Bill gates vs Oil Oligarch

Creating wealth is one of our key signals that you have given value to others. What other signals do you suggest that we use instead?

@robinhanson @mj_jacobi The total amount of donations by a person is probably a better KPI than total wealth as rent-seeking/thieving assholes probably don't donate as well.

@AlphaMinus2 @mj_jacobi Even if that were true, I again ask: x.com/robinhanson/st…