The Crapto Thread

https://twitter.com/compound248/status/1605773481689374720

I read a little of it after posting that and it wasn’t as bad as I expected, but I did expect it to be pretty mind-shatteringly bad. It seems like more or less explaining concepts from science and philosophy using Harry Potter as the vehicle which, whatever. Being heavy into this sort of thing in your mid to late twenties seems pretty embarrassing though.

That’s just like, your opinion.

I was once criticized for making fun of fanfiction because the authors are disproportionately female, so my mocking was deemed misogynistic by some. Shockingly, I did not stop.

Now that would be awesome

Do we know anyone else obsessed with applying Bayes’ theorem?

While Eliezer’s Harry Potter is obsessed with rationalist thought experiments and Bayes’s Theorem, he very rarely solves any problems via logic and intelligence. Instead he gets a time-turner (Harry Potter time machine) right away and then uses time travel to solve nearly all of his problems.

Also from Gawker:

WorldOptimization maintained an active Goodreads account, where she evidently read Matt Yglesias’ book (whom SBF wanted to recruit for a Substack competitor) and Pete Buttigieg’s old campaign manager’s memoir, Any Given Tuesday

So, more ammo for people who want to make fun of Matty or Mayor Pete.

ah yes big “we got them” vibes here

Eliezer is perhaps the most “well-known.” Sean Carroll mentions Bayes too often, but somewhat flippantly, and many people in the so-called “rationalist” community are into it. It’s big in silicon valley. I have little problem with the idea that one should update one’s beliefs based on evidence, but any appeal to Bayes has always stuck me as a shallow conception of reasoning that doesn’t ever serve as the basis for a particular conclusion in actual “reasoning” (other than perhaps in certain models in AI programming).

Everyone knows the government can’t force members of a polycule to testify against one another.

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Totally not who I was going for…

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Didn’t know it was a rhetorical question. Has Elon spouted lukewarm bayes stuff?

https://twitter.com/nuns_on_film/status/1600559176576475136?s=20&t=lQMSD3G1ZU243ovHC0AUww

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Sklansky…

Yudkowsky is truly the perfect role model for what Sklansky aspires to be - he’s the endboss of people deluded by the sense of superiority of their own hyper rationality into reaching highly illogical and immoral conclusions.

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I mean, this is an SEC claim in a random civil complaint, it’s not exactly settled law, so not really got them vibes of any kind.

Few get under my skin worse than the “I alone can solve all of humanity’s problems through first principles and the fact that I am very good at [poker/crypto/etc] and therefore 100x smarter than anyone else in the room” crowd.

Somehow their pure reason always seems to lead to the nut low conclusions.

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The way to argue with those people is to deny their first principles.

You can stop them cold just by asking what those first principles are. I’ve done this on 2p2 back in the day and never got an answer.

Yes, exactly. Doug Polk, exhibit A.