Let's Read: "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Let's Read: "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"

«‹›100 »

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

Torture by having dust poured in your eyes!

# ? Mar 26, 2015 20:29

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 17, 2024 14:39

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Cycloneman posted:

The solution to this "problem" - that choosing dust specks over torture is "inconsistent" with choosing low possibility of death over minor inconvenience - is that the situations are not analogous at all. By avoiding torture I am achieving a terminal value (fairness) that I am not achieving by avoiding minor risks.

If you ignore all morality except mindless beep-boop happy unit utilons, then, yes, the dust speck/torture problem is solved by picking torture. But there's plenty of terminal values humans have besides maximizing the number of beep-boop happy unit utilons, such as an equitable distribution of goods and evils. The torture solution to the torture/dust speck problem is very much not an equitable distribution of goods and evils; the dust speck solution is.

But that makes everything way more complex. What if the Godputer can't understand that, despite being God!?

# ? Mar 26, 2015 20:44

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

Isn't quantifying the unquantifiable pretty much whas Bayesian statistics are about?

# ? Mar 26, 2015 20:44

SolTerrasa: Sep 2, 2011

anilEhilated posted:

Isn't quantifying the unquantifiable pretty much whas Bayesian statistics are about?

Not in my opinion. Quantifying the "impossible to be very precise about", at the very best.

Nessus posted:

But that makes everything way more complex. What if the Godputer can't understand that, despite being God!?

This is why Yudkowsky has self-published a bunch of "machine ethics papers", which extend utility into the "coherent extrapolated volition". Google the phrase and read the paper if you want, but he wants God to figure out what the best possible version of all humans would want, collectively, and do that, rather than simply adding up utilons. This has, somewhat surprisingly, not caused him to change his belief re: torture v dust.

SolTerrasa fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Mar 26, 2015

# ? Mar 26, 2015 21:25

Rosalie_A: Oct 30, 2011

The real solution is that anyone who says we should torture a single person for 50 years instead of everyone getting dust specks in our eyes is the person we should volunteer to torture to save our eyes.

# ? Mar 26, 2015 21:42

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

SolTerrasa posted:

This is why Yudkowsky has self-published a bunch of "machine ethics papers", which extend utility into the "coherent extrapolated volition". Google the phrase and read the paper if you want, but he wants God to figure out what the best possible version of all humans would want, collectively, and do that, rather than simply adding up utilons. This has, somewhat surprisingly, not caused him to change his belief re: torture v dust.

Statistically speaking this means we would get the vision of happiness and contentment from rural farmers in the Third World. Or rural farmers generally if we're extending this to all of historical humanity. I don't think these folks usually deal with volcano bases full of catgirls.

# ? Mar 26, 2015 21:48

RefinedUndefined: Jan 1, 2013; Just burn everything, that'll solve your problems.

Trasson posted:

The real solution is that anyone who says we should torture a single person for 50 years instead of everyone getting dust specks in our eyes is the person we should volunteer to torture to save our eyes.

Seems fair enough.

# ? Mar 26, 2015 22:35

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

Realistically we make similar trades all the time (although they're more verifiable). We know that a certain amount of people will be seriously injured and experience chronic pain due to automobiles - we accept that because automobiles allow our current society to exist. We know that vaccines will kill several children every year - but vaccines are mandatory for public schools because infectious diseases would and did kill a lot more children. The death penalty is applied hundreds of times every year, certainly killing one person with the hope that fewer will suffer as a consequence. People undergo painful medical experiments so that cures and treatments can be found. Sure they're usually volunteers, but I'm sure you could find at least one volunteer for decades of torture if it would verifiably lead to a reduced accident rate for the general population.

# ? Mar 26, 2015 23:48

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

Night10194 posted:

I'd define it primarily as people who are actual contributors to his institute (financial ones), and who are members of the Less Wrong community. I have no idea if you're a member. You're pretty obviously a fan of the work, but that has no real bearing on if you self identify as a member of the community or of Yudkowsky or similar 'rationalist' orbits. My primary academic interest is in the fact that this fiction, and the Sequences, and many of his theories, have a cast very similar to a lot of Christian religious and apocalyptic dogma, despite their avowed atheism. I'm currently beginning to gather data and do reading on his work because of the fascinating parallels between the Cryonics stuff and the Christian resurrection of the Dead, the similarities between AI Go Foom and classic apocalypse, etc, because I have approval and support from my old advisers from my master's program that there might be a productive bit of work to be done on singularity and science fetish cults, and on the sort of cross pollination between commonplace religious ideas in the larger culture and the texture of what they end up believing.

I'm at the very beginning of working on this, mind, and have a hell of a lot of reading to do still. Just some of the ideas and the general shape of things piqued my interest in their similarity and merit looking into from an academic standpoint.

Would be very interested to read what you come up with. To that end, MIRI posts their annual 990 tax docs online! https://intelligence.org/transparency/

Despite what our friend Legacyspy says, Yud's cult is doing better than ever financially. $1.3M in contributions in 2013! Up from $600k in 2011 and $400k in 2009. They also sold the old singularity related webaddress to Kurzweil to avoid confusion for $300k, or something. Looking at the donor list, the vast majority of the money is contributions from a handful of silicon valley millionaires https://intelligence.org/topdonors/

Yud is the only person doing 'research', and has been paying himself about $88k/year since 2007. Hosting the Singularity Summit in 2006 was really the turning point for funding and recognition. Kurzweil's name and $350k of paypal guy Peter Thiel's money really got things going. Well, the number of donors doesn't look like it really increased but the handful of big donors started then. Thiel alone has donated over $1.6M so far. The top 10 donors donated $4.3M, roughly 80-90% of all donations in the last 5 years.

This guy did a writeup but is a few years old http://lesswrong.com/lw/5il/siai_an_examination/

EDIT

Back to the actual fanfic after the wonderful Legacyspy derail. Watson's 2-4-6 Task is an example of confirmation bias not positive bias. Confirmation bias is an accepted term in psychology and other sciences. Positive bias is a meaningless neologism Yud invented and propagated on LW and HPMoR.

i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Mar 27, 2015

# ? Mar 27, 2015 00:03

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

Trasson posted:

The real solution is that anyone who says we should torture a single person for 50 years instead of everyone getting dust specks in our eyes is the person we should volunteer to torture to save our eyes.

Well, I reckon first we should punch that arsehole who keeps throwing dust in everyone's faces.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 00:41

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

This is a trip down memory lane. Jesus, I was nineteen when this came out.

I don't remember being very impressed with it the first time I clicked through. It has some things going for it -- the prose is merely annoying and the grammar is inoffensive. I kept reading because it made me laugh, especially when the sequence where Harry comes into the Grand Hall. But Chapter 7 still made me gag and the whole thing reeked of Mary Sue insertism. I bailed on it after Quirrell...took it upon himself to teach Harry A Very Special Lesson after the incident with Snape goes down. The stupidity of that sequence is mind numbing. Also proof that the author was watching way too much Naruto at the time.

I had no idea he was so crazy though. Or that he was a grown rear end man, older than me. Jesus, where did his poor parents go wrong?

# ? Mar 27, 2015 02:22

Telarra: Oct 9, 2012

If I had to guess I'd say it'd be around the point where they let him drop out of middle school.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 02:25

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

No kidding. I just read his precious autobiography :cripes:

I'm going to do something nice for my mom and dad since they put up with my insufferable smugness instead of capitulating to it.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 02:39

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2012/12/28/radical-science-finds-savior-in-thiel.html posted:

The Thiel Foundation�s Breakout Labs funds high-risk but potentially disruptive science that would have a hard time attracting funding from conventional sources such as venture firms because it�s too complicated, too expensive or too far from commercialization for investors to feel comfortable.

So, they're literally a league of mad scientists. :science:

# ? Mar 27, 2015 03:22

Bobbin Threadbare: Jan 2, 2009; I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.

Is anyone else blinking abnormally often as they read about this dust speck debate?

# ? Mar 27, 2015 04:39

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

No, I just keep torturing to keep the dust away.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 05:22

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

i81icu812 posted:

Back to the actual fanfic after the wonderful Legacyspy derail. Watson's 2-4-6 Task is an example of confirmation bias not positive bias. Confirmation bias is an accepted term in psychology and other sciences. Positive bias is a meaningless neologism Yud invented and propagated on LW and HPMoR.

I just Googled and it is indeed named "confirmation bias" and not "positive bias". Does Eliezer just call it by his own invented name, or does he also claim to have come up with the concept himself? What's his purpose for calling it by a different name?

JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Mar 27, 2015

# ? Mar 27, 2015 05:23

HIJK: Nov 25, 2012; in the room where you sleep

Can't we just cut the Gordian knot here and shoot the AI forcing us to choose between torture and dust motes?

Just shoot it. Shoot it dead. Shoot it in the goddamn face.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 05:24

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 8: Positive Bias
Part Seven

quote:

"Now," said the boy, "do you want to take another shot at the original problem?"

His eyes were quite intent now, as though this were the real test.

Hermione shut her eyes and tried to concentrate. She was sweating underneath her robes. She had an odd feeling that this was the hardest she'd ever been asked to think on a test or maybe even the first time she'd ever been asked to think on a test.

What other experiment could she do? She had a Chocolate Frog, could she try to rub some of that on the robes and see if it vanished? But that still didn't seem like the kind of twisty negative thinking the boy was asking for. Like she was still asking for a 'Yes' if the Chocolate Frog stain disappeared, rather than asking for a 'No'.

So... on her hypothesis... when should the pop... not vanish?

"I have an experiment to do," Hermione said. "I want to pour some pop on the floor, and see if it doesn't vanish. Do you have some paper towels in your pouch, so I can mop up the spill if this doesn't work?"

"I have napkins," said the boy. His face still looked neutral.

Hermione took the can, and poured a small bit of pop onto the floor.

A few seconds later, it vanished.

Then the realisation hit her and she felt like kicking herself. "Of course! You gave me that can! It's not the robe that's enchanted, it was the pop all along!"

The boy stood up and bowed to her solemnly. He was grinning widely now. "Then... may I help you with your research, Hermione Granger?"

"I, ah..." Hermione was still feeling the rush of euphoria, but she wasn't quite sure about how to answer that.

They were interrupted by a weak, tentative, faint, rather reluctant knocking at the door.

The boy turned and looked out the window, and said, "I'm not wearing my scarf, so can you get that?"

It was at this point that Hermione realised why the boy - no, the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter - had been wearing the scarf over his head in the first place, and felt a little silly for not realising it earlier. It was actually sort of odd, since she would have thought Harry Potter would proudly display himself to the world; and the thought occurred to her that he might actually be shyer than he seemed.

When Hermione pulled the door open, she was greeted by a trembling young boy who looked exactly like he knocked.

"Excuse me," said the boy in a tiny voice, "I'm Neville Longbottom. I'm looking for my pet toad, I, I can't seem to find it anywhere on this carriage... have you seen my toad?"

Neville was THE King Butt of Jokes even in the canon series. He�s going to be so terribly brutalized in this version of the story.

quote:

"No," Hermione said, and then her helpfulness kicked in full throttle. "Have you checked all the other compartments?"

"Yes," whispered the boy.

"Then we'll just have to check all the other carriages," Hermione said briskly. "I'll help you. My name is Hermione Granger, by the way."

The boy looked like he might faint with gratitude.

"Hold on," came the voice of the other boy - Harry Potter. "I'm not sure that's the best way to do it."

At this Neville looked like he might cry, and Hermione swung around, angered. If Harry Potter was the sort of person who'd abandon a little boy just because he didn't want to be interrupted... "What? Why not? "

"Well," said Harry Potter, "It's going to take a while to check the whole train by hand, and we might miss the toad anyway, and if we didn't find it by the time we're at Hogwarts, he'd be in trouble. So what would make a lot more sense is if he went directly to the front carriage, where the prefects are, and asked a prefect for help. That was the first thing I did when I was looking for you, Hermione, although they didn't actually know. But they might have spells or magic items that would make it a lot easier to find a toad. We're only first-years."

So why was Harry so reluctant to trust McGonagall or the other adults in the previous chapters?

# ? Mar 27, 2015 05:32

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

JosephWongKS posted:

So why was Harry so reluctant to trust McGonagall or the other adults in the previous chapters?

Because now he's recruiting lackies. Helping Neville find his toad in some trivial fashion doesn't reduce HIS power or position. It might gain him a flunky.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 05:46

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

JosephWongKS posted:

I just Googled and it is indeed named "confirmation bias" and not "positive bias". Does Eliezer just call it by his own invented name, or does he also claim to have come up with the concept himself? What's his purpose for calling it by a different name?

Yud coined a neologism! He even wrote a whole blog post about it. http://lesswrong.com/lw/iw/positive_bias_look_into_the_dark/ Actual distinction between confirmation bias and Yud's thinking? Who knows.

Why does he do this? Who knows. Perhaps it makes him feel special? Per his autobiography, he also made up Algernic, Unrationalization, Countersphexist, and Singularitarianist. Plus neruohacking, his anime power of rewiring his brain (to avoid those unpleasant teenage emotions you see). He likes making up terms. See also AI go foom.

i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Mar 27, 2015

# ? Mar 27, 2015 05:57

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

i81icu812 posted:

Yud coined a neologism! He even wrote a whole blog post about it. http://lesswrong.com/lw/iw/positive_bias_look_into_the_dark/ Actual distinction between confirmation bias and Yud's thinking? Who knows.

Why does he do this? Who knows. Perhaps it makes him feel special? Per his autobiography, he also made up Algernic, Unrationalization, Countersphexist, and Singularitarianist. Plus neruohacking, his anime power of rewiring his brain (to avoid those unpleasant teenage emotions you see).

Those sound uncannily similar to Scientology or Mormonism jargon, or "New Age" beliefs in general. I can see where the cult leader comparisons are coming from.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 06:02

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

JosephWongKS posted:

Those sound uncannily similar to Scientology or Mormonism jargon, or "New Age" beliefs in general. I can see where the cult leader comparisons are coming from.

Ahem, the preferred LW term is phyg. No cults here, no sir.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 06:06

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

petrol blue posted:

Torture by having dust poured in your eyes!

Its kinda interesting how Yud has this hard on for torture and this massive phobia of death, when so many torture techniques involve getting your brain to think you are dying (eg waterboarding). Like you can just tell that something in his head lies at that intersection that if we had a better grasp of it a whole lot of stuff would start making sense.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 06:17

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

i81icu812 posted:

Yud coined a neologism! He even wrote a whole blog post about it. http://lesswrong.com/lw/iw/positive_bias_look_into_the_dark/ Actual distinction between confirmation bias and Yud's thinking? Who knows.

There's a slight difference. Confirmation bias is assessing evidence by emotion rather then dispassionately, so you agree with what you like and discount what you don't like. "Positive bias" refers to the situation where you're not even aware there's another possibility, so you keep trying to prop up what you know works rather then seeking a deeper understanding. It's the idea that the phrase "think outside the box" is supposed to evoke.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 06:28

su3su2u1: Apr 23, 2014

Added Space posted:

There's a slight difference. Confirmation bias is assessing evidence by emotion rather then dispassionately, so you agree with what you like and discount what you don't like. "Positive bias" refers to the situation where you're not even aware there's another possibility, so you keep trying to prop up what you know works rather then seeking a deeper understanding. It's the idea that the phrase "think outside the box" is supposed to evoke.

Umm no. Yud took a classic experiment designed around confirmation bias and decided that he wasn't going to call it confirmation bias, because reasons.

You see, in the classic test you might see 2-4-6 and decide the rule is that the pair has to increase by 2

So seeking to confirm your hypothesis you would give what Yud calls a positive example of your hypothesis you test 10-12-14 and its right,etc. It is all a related failing.

He decided that literally a well attested textbook example of confirmation bias is really about something different, and he did nothing to develop or test the idea and then splooged out a blog post (because mental masturbation, see what I did there?).

# ? Mar 27, 2015 07:05

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

HIJK posted:

Can't we just cut the Gordian knot here and shoot the AI forcing us to choose between torture and dust motes?

Just shoot it. Shoot it dead. Shoot it in the goddamn face.

"Look at you hacker, a pathetic... Creature... Hang on, I've got something in my eye... Give me a second..."

# ? Mar 27, 2015 07:27

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

su3su2u1 posted:

Umm no. Yud took a classic experiment designed around confirmation bias and decided that he wasn't going to call it confirmation bias, because reasons.

You see, in the classic test you might see 2-4-6 and decide the rule is that the pair has to increase by 2

So seeking to confirm your hypothesis you would give what Yud calls a positive example of your hypothesis you test 10-12-14 and its right,etc. It is all a related failing.

He decided that literally a well attested textbook example of confirmation bias is really about something different, and he did nothing to develop or test the idea and then splooged out a blog post (because mental masturbation, see what I did there?).

Yeah. Pretty much. Yud likes doing this, look for it to continue!

Moreover, the majority of people DON'T do what Hermione did and exclusively guess confirmatory sequences without ever changing their hypotheses. It is true that most sequences are confirmatory of the hypothesis being tested, it appears we are wired to think this way per classical confirmation bias. However, most people will change their hypothesis from one guess to another to narrow down the rule. Generally, roughly half of all guessed sequences are disconfirming examples of the hypothesis used for the previously guessed sequence. (e.g. Hypothesize even number: guess 4-6-8 -> Hypothesize odd numbers: guess 5-7-9 -> Hypothesize increasing numbers: guess 1-10-199 -> etc. All guesses confirmed the current hypothesis but disconfirmed the previous hypothesis as the hypothesis iteratively changed. It probably helps that the 2-4-6 protocol has the subject write down their hypothesis when they make a guess.) Most people still don't get the correct 2-4-6 rule, but Yud's Hermione does remarkably poorly.

See: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...KkYuCvLa551olBg

JWKS posted:

A reasonably close-to-canon portrayal of Hermione so far. Can�t wait to see how she gets caricatured or straw-womanned in the service of showing off Eliezarry�s wit and wisdom.

So here is example number 1. Hermione is lobotomized to illustrate ~~confirmation~~ positive bias.

i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Mar 27, 2015

# ? Mar 27, 2015 08:31

VictualSquid: Feb 29, 2012; Gently enveloping the target with indiscriminate love.

JosephWongKS posted:

So why was Harry so reluctant to trust McGonagall or the other adults in the previous chapters?

Well if Harry doesn't trust them he actually has to do something. It is so much better to just talk and give useless advice.

# ? Mar 27, 2015 09:42

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

How does Harry know what the Prefects are yet and how does he know they're all in the front carriage? I'll admit I'm glazing over a lot of this thread because Yud is the boring kind of crazy, but I don't recall any time where Harry was informed about the school's prefect system between all the inane "experiments"

# ? Mar 29, 2015 19:26

Krotera: Jun 16, 2013; I AM INTO MATHEMATICAL CALCULATIONS AND MANY METHODS USED IN THE STOCK MARKET

He's been getting a lot of the details from this cool "Harry Potter" book series he's been reading.

# ? Mar 29, 2015 20:15

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 8: Positive Bias
Part Eight

quote:

That... did make a lot of sense.

"Do you think you can make it to the prefects' carriage on your own?" asked Harry Potter. "I've sort of got reasons for not wanting to show my face too much."

Suddenly Neville gasped and took a step back. "I remember that voice! You're one of the Lords of Chaos! You're the one who gave me chocolate! "

What? What what what?

Harry Potter turned his head from the window and rose dramatically. "I never! " he said, voice full of indignation. "Do I look like the sort of villain who would give sweets to a child?"

Neville's eyes widened. "You're Harry Potter? The Harry Potter? You? "

"No, just a Harry Potter, there are three of me on this train -"

Neville gave a small shriek and ran away. There was a brief pattering of frantic footsteps and then the sound of a carriage door opening and closing.

I�m totally lost here. Did I skip a chapter somewhere along the line?.

quote:

Hermione sat down hard on her bench. Harry Potter closed the door and then sat down next to her.

"Can you please explain to me what's going on?" Hermione said in a weak voice. She wondered if hanging around Harry Potter meant always being this confused.

Ah I see, it was just offscreen shenanigans.

quote:

"Oh, well, what happened was that Fred and George and I saw this poor small boy at the train station - the woman next to him had gone away for a bit, and he was looking really frightened, like he was sure he was about to be attacked by Death Eaters or something. Now, there's a saying that the fear is often worse than the thing itself, so it occurred to me that this was a lad who could actually benefit from seeing his worst nightmare come true and that it wasn't so bad as he feared -"

Hermione sat there with her mouth wide open.

"- and Fred and George came up with this spell to make the scarves over our faces darken and blur, like we were undead kings and those were our grave shrouds -"

I correctly guessed that the �two figures approaching, looking utterly ridiculous with their faces cloaked by winter scarves� in Chapter 7 were Fred and George. Points to House Me.

quote:

She didn't like at all where this was going.

"- and after we were done giving him all the sweets I'd bought, we were like, 'Let's give him some money! Ha ha ha! Have some Knuts, boy! Have a silver Sickle!' and dancing around him and laughing evilly and so on. I think there were some people in the crowd who wanted to interfere at first, but bystander apathy held them off at least until they saw what we were doing, and then I think they were all too confused to do anything. Finally he said in this tiny little whisper 'go away' so the three of us all screamed and ran off, shrieking something about the light burning us. Hopefully he won't be as scared of being bullied in the future. That's called desensitisation therapy, by the way."

Okay, she hadn't guessed right about where this was going.

The burning fire of indignation that was one of Hermione's primary engines sputtered into life, even though part of her did sort of see what they'd been trying to do. "That's awful! You're awful! That poor boy! What you did was mean! "

"I think the word you're looking for is enjoyable, and in any case you're asking the wrong question. The question is, did it do more good than harm, or more harm than good? If you have any arguments to contribute to that question I'm glad to hear them, but I won't entertain any other criticisms until that one is settled. I certainly agree that what I did looks all terrible and bullying and mean, since it involves a scared little boy and so on, but that's hardly the key issue now is it? That's called consequentialism, by the way, it means that whether an act is right or wrong isn't determined by whether it looks bad, or mean, or anything like that, the only question is how it will turn out in the end - what are the consequences."

Does Eliezarry address Kantian ethics elsewhere in the story? Otherwise it�d be a pretty one-sided argument from a purportedly well-read child prodigy.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 08:41

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

quote:

"- and after we were done giving him all the sweets I'd bought, we were like, 'Let's give him some money! Ha ha ha! Have some Knuts, boy! Have a silver Sickle!' and dancing around him and laughing evilly and so on. I think there were some people in the crowd who wanted to interfere at first, but bystander apathy held them off at least until they saw what we were doing, and then I think they were all too confused to do anything. Finally he said in this tiny little whisper 'go away' so the three of us all screamed and ran off, shrieking something about the light burning us. Hopefully he won't be as scared of being bullied in the future. That's called desensitisation therapy, by the way."

No. No it is not.

Desensitization therapy is about training a practiced relaxation response in to the phobic stimulus and gradually increasing the stimulus hierarchy. The point of the therapy is to train a non-panic response to whatever the phobia is. Scaring the crap out of someone isn't useful if they aren't trying to control themselves and train another reaction. The most charitable you could be is to call this a sort of attempted classical conditioning. But really this is just bullying, whatever any consequentialist may want to call it.

Also it is usually spelled with a 'z' in the US. I guess this is the UK localization?

Bystander apathy and consequentialism are correctly used, so 2/4 on correct terminology for this chapter so far. 3/5 if you count naming quark flavors, though I have to say I haven't seen truth and beauty over top and bottom in years.

i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Mar 30, 2015

# ? Mar 30, 2015 09:23

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

It's also strange that Eliezer would (through his self-insert) justify / rationalize bullying, since it sounds like he may have been bullied himself during that period when he "lost the ability to handle school" and "spent a lot of time crying":

i81icu812 posted:

Behold. Yudkowsky's autobiography, written in 2000. http://web.archive.org/web/20010205221413/http://sysopmind.com/eliezer.html

Highly recommended reading, very entertaining.

I note that Yud doesn't like people poking fun at his autobiography and doesn't understand fair use. Opening disclaimer is:

quote:
At the end of seventh grade (14), when I was around eleven and a half, I suddenly lost the ability to handle school. I stopped doing my homework. Instead of going to classes, I would sit in the school office, crying, until my mother picked me up. I am told that I made it through eighth grade and graduation, but I remember little or nothing of it. I don't recall it as a period of intense misery, except when I was actually in the classrooms (15); I do recall it as a period when I spent a lot of time crying.

Therefore I present the relevant quote to answer your question. Thank you modern US copyright laws.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 09:33

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

I think Yud is referring to flooding, but who the hell knows with Yud.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 09:45

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 8: Positive Bias
Part Nine

quote:

Hermione opened her mouth to say something utterly searing but unfortunately she seemed to have neglected the part where she thought of something to say before opening her mouth. All she could come up with was, "What if he has nightmares? "

Example No. 2 of Hermione being dumbed down to make Eliezarry look smarter.

quote:

"Honestly, I don't think he needed our help to have nightmares, and if he has nightmares about this instead, then it'll be nightmares involving horrible monsters who give you chocolate and that was sort of the whole point."

Hermione's brain kept hiccoughing in confusion every time she tried to get properly angry. "Is your life always this peculiar?" she said at last.

Harry Potter's face gleamed with pride. "I make it that peculiar. You're looking at the product of a lot of hard work and elbow grease."

"So..." Hermione said, and trailed off awkwardly.

Example No. 3.

quote:

"So," Harry Potter said, "how much science do you know exactly? I can do calculus and I know some Bayesian probability theory and decision theory and a lot of cognitive science, and I've read The Feynman Lectures (or volume 1 anyway) and Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases and Language in Thought and Action and Influence: Science and Practice and Rational Choice in an Uncertain World and Godel, Escher, Bach and A Step Farther Out and -"

I�m not in academia / research myself, but I don�t think real scientists actually sit around measuring themselves and each other by the books they�ve read, do they?

quote:

The ensuing quiz and counter-quiz went on for several minutes before being interrupted by another timid knock at the door. "Come in," she and Harry Potter said at almost the same time, and it slid back to reveal Neville Longbottom.

Neville was actually crying now. "I went to the front carriage and found a p-prefect but he t-told me that prefects weren't to be bothered over little things like m-missing toads."

The Boy-Who-Lived's face changed. His lips set in a thin line. His voice, when he spoke, was cold and grim. "What were his colours? Green and silver?"

"N-no, his badge was r-red and gold."

"Red and gold! " burst out Hermione. "But those are Gryffindor's colours!"

Harry Potter hissed at that, a frightening sort of sound that could have come from a live snake and made both her and Neville flinch. "I suppose," Harry Potter spat, "that finding some first-year's toad isn't heroic enough to be worthy of a Gryffindor prefect. Come on, Neville, I'll come with you this time, we'll see if the Boy-Who-Lived gets more attention. First we'll find a prefect who ought to know a spell, and if that doesn't work, we'll find a prefect who isn't afraid of getting their hands dirty, and if that doesn't work, I'll start recruiting my fans and if we have to we'll take apart the whole train screw by screw."

Isn�t judging all Gryffindors by the actions of this one prefect, a fallacy of hasty generalization and therefore irrational?

quote:

The Boy-Who-Lived stood up and grabbed Neville's hand in his, and Hermione realised with a sudden brain hiccough that they were nearly the same size, even though some part of her had insisted that Harry Potter was a foot taller than that, and Neville at least six inches shorter.

"Stay! " Harry Potter snapped at her - no, wait, at his trunk - and he closed the door behind him firmly as he left.

She probably should have gone with them, but in just a brief moment Harry Potter had turned so scary that she was actually rather glad she hadn't thought to suggest it.

Hermione's mind was now so jumbled that she didn't even think she could properly read "History: A Hogwarts". She felt as if she'd just been run over by a steamroller and turned into a pancake. She wasn't sure what she was thinking or what she was feeling or why. She just sat by the window and stared at the moving scenery.

Well, she did at least know why she was feeling a little sad inside.

Maybe Gryffindor wasn't as wonderful as she had thought.

I�d be sad too if I was stuck in this story.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 10:10

Loel: Jun 4, 2012; "For the Emperor."

There was a terrible noise.
There was a terrible silence.

Its been a few years since I actually sat down and read these, but good lord Eliezarry is a monster.

He's like this little bully-tyrant running around with no understanding or appreciation for other people.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 15:22

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

LowellDND posted:

Its been a few years since I actually sat down and read these, but good lord Eliezarry is a monster.

He's like this little bully-tyrant running around with no understanding or appreciation for other people.

To be slightly fair, he is very eventually called out on this kind of crap and does agree he was being a bully. This story is allegedly supposed to be a coming-of-age story where the annoying little prick realizes his annoying prick status and reforms, but the realization happens WAY at the end and we never see any reform.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 15:55

Bobbin Threadbare: Jan 2, 2009; I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.

JosephWongKS posted:

I�m not in academia / research myself, but I don�t think real scientists actually sit around measuring themselves and each other by the books they�ve read, do they?

I'm fairly certain that scientists measure their dick sizes by comparing how many studies they've authored, books they've written, and/or projects they've completed and by how much attention they've garnered in the process. And to be fair, that's not the sort of comparison a couple of ten-year-olds could really engage in.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 16:33

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 17, 2024 14:39

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

I'll have you know I'd authored several papers and books by that age, and drew pictures for them too. :colbert:

# ? Mar 30, 2015 16:47

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Let's Read: "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"

«‹›100 »