12 KiB
[D] Inexploitability
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Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*
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Score: 28
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Created: 2014-12-02T20:47:55
Post:
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+15] Time flies like an arrow (52 minutes later)
I think this gets at a lot of what I was thinking about when talking about Star Trek yesterday. If you see a replicator, and ask "Why doesn't the Federation replicate people?", or see a transporter and ask "Why doesn't the Federation just use transporter spoofing to make a second person?" the answer has to be something like:
- It can't, because the Federation would have tried to do that as soon as the technology was in prototype stage.
- It can, but it's so strongly taboo that no one does it.
- It can, but the technology is tightly controlled by some entity.
- It can, but there are technological problems that prevent it from being worthwhile (like single-bit errors).
The answer cannot be "No one thought of it," at least, not if you want people to read and enjoy your fanfic. And in the Trekverse, where there are trillions of people with access to near infinite knowledge and resources, along with dozens of other cultures with divergent values, any munchkin attempt immediately raises the question of why it wasn't done before.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (a day later)
It seems very likely to become a taboo for any society with the capability. Because if it isn't taboo, things go to shit really quickly, and after the first couple of copyist wars, well.. Heck, for the star trek universe, which does have "Inscrutable elder races" all over the place even if they are often far to scrutable, "no Xeroxing people" might well simply be leaving off the unstated "Because having the people involved in doing so mysteriously drop dead is a waste of manpower".
u/E-o_o-3 [+1] (2 days later)
Didn't Riker get replicated in one of the episodes?
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (2 days later)
Yes, he did. Also Kirk got split into good and evil versions of himself in another episode in the original series. See this thread for more discussion.
u/scruiser [+14] CYOA (3 hours later)
Here's a blog post about how reality would be seen as unrealistic if judged to the same standard some people hold sci-fi to. Seemed relevant.
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
Also, check out this related thread in /r/worldbuilding about the "unrealistic" parts of Earth.
u/FeepingCreature [+14] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (3 hours later)
Every time Eliezer goes on about how obvious the Dementors=Death thing is, I want to grab him and shake him and yell "They suck the joy out of things you idiot how much more literal can Rowling get--"
^they ^can't ^even ^kill ^you
u/fljared [+6] United Federation of Planets (3 hours later)
They can Kiss you, rendering you braindead and therefore dead for all important purposes.
u/FeepingCreature [+5] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (3 hours later)
There is that. Though it's mechanically different enough from death that I don't think it could credibly be taken as an analogy for it either.
u/Bobertus [+4] (22 hours later)
I think of the dementors as representing loss-of-value, of which death and depression would both be instances. Depression because you stop caring and because of anhedonia. Death, well, because without sentient beings to enjoy the world, the world doesn't have much value. Also, most humans value life very much.
When HPMOR!Harry became demented, he didn't fall dead, he became a being with a utility function that assigns zero or less utility to everything.
Oh. And you can heal from contact with dementors through chocolate. That's another point for depression.
u/thakil [+3] (2 days later)
Yeah, I think Eliezer is just dead wrong about this one, and seems to get more caught up on their appearance than what they actually do. Why do happy thoughts fight off death? Why does death make your worse memories play out again and again? Why are there more of them when everything is gloomy and sad? Why does chocolate make you feel better?
[Also, my own head canon is that they absolutely can be destroyed by a concerted patronus charm, I know word of god is that they cannot be destroyed, but that's absolutely silly: in story its not actually clear if they can be destroyed or not]
EDIT: it's worth noting that I have no real problem of them being death in hpmor, just in Eliezer claiming that they are obviously death.
u/daydev [+1] (16 hours later)
Death is known to have greatly depressing effect on people, is it not? Either death of those close to them or apprehension of their own death.
I think Eliezer is right, Dementors are so obviously Rowling's version of Our Grim Reapers Are Different.
u/FeepingCreature [+7] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (16 hours later)
Death is known to have greatly depressing effect on people
By that logic, everything sad or boring is an analogy for death.
u/daydev [+3] (16 hours later)
If it has many other stylistic characteristics commonly associated with Death, maybe it is.
It would be crazy to think "Dementors spread depression, ergo they're Death incarnations", but it's equally crazy to think "Dementros are undead creatures in dark cloaks that spread depression, ergo they couldn't possibly be Death incarnations".
u/FeepingCreature [+4] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (16 hours later)
I just don't see how that beats "Dementors spread depression, ergo they symbolize .... depression?"
u/daydev [+1] (17 hours later)
The point is, Dementors spreading depression, does not contradict them being Death incarnations.
And this assumption, that they really represend Death and depression is just superficial effect, fits their stylistics very well.
u/FeepingCreature [+3] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (17 hours later)
Okay, fair enough on the stylistics.
u/None [+0] (a day later)
I think Eliezer is right, Dementors are so obviously Rowling's version of Our Grim Reapers Are Different.
You realize she gave an interview in which she outright stated as Word of God that Dementors are depression, right? This is a real illness that people actually suffer from, and yes, many of them would prefer to be dead over being clinically depressed.
u/alexanderwales [+6] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
Just to clarify here, but she didn't say that Dementors are depression, she said that they were inspired by depression, specifically her bouts of clinical depression. When people say that Dementors don't make a lot of sense as depression, that's because they're not depression. But I think that people around here get it confused with HPMOR, where Dementors are much more literally death. Rowling's Dementors were just an analogy.
u/MugaSofer [+1] (2 days later)
I think she clarified on Pottermore that she meant Dementors literally personify depression, actually. Just like she said Peeves was a personification of chaos rather than a kind of ghost.
u/daydev [+1] (a day later)
Yeah, I know that by the Word of God, they're depression and nothing more. But there's also such concept as Death of the Author. So I think, that if only clarification is the World of God (not inside the work itself), it's fair to argue, that author's presentation could be interpreted a certain way, even if the author didn't mean it that way.
u/None [+3] (2 hours later)
scribbles notes on Naruto
That is a pretty neat explanation of what rational fiction is all about I do have to say. And apparently writing it is the closest you can get to simulating the actual practice of science. One day rational fanfiction will be assigned by professors in place of term papers.
u/None [+5] (6 hours later)
One day rational fanfiction will be assigned by professors in place of term papers.
That literally cannot happen soon enough
u/scruiser [+2] CYOA (7 hours later)
It would stop being fun then. As it is now, I am almost to the point of diminishing returns on the amount of fanfiction I read. Imagine having to do reports and essays on the cultural implications of My Immortal and 30Hs.
u/MadScientist14159 [+1] WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe. (a day later)
To be fair, I got a kick out of 30Hs.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
One day rational fanfiction will be assigned by professors in place of term papers.
Nah, professors should just instruct students to go off and rediscover some thingamajig from first principles.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (a minute later)
Also posted today, Explaining Other Universes.
u/None [+2] (21 hours later)
Since I haven’t yet seen an official term for this generalization of the idea of ‘efficient markets’, I have decided to use the term inexploitability.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+2] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
EMH is about markets; priced securities. We're generalizing here to whether the European Central Bank is going to be sane and what kind of magic someone chooses to use in a fictional universe, and we probably need a new term for that.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
I would argue that there's a long tradition of using economic terms to describe social structures. Opportunity cost, specialization and demand are all economic terms, but there's no better terms to describe those things when they occur outside of economics. Maybe I just spend too much time with libertarians.
u/None [+5] (a day later)
Maybe I just spend too much time with libertarians.
sudden coughing fit
u/RMcD94 [+1] (an hour later)
I think the point comparing to governments messing up would be more salient in response to people who respond to things that they wouldn't do, or they don't find acceptable with "That would never happen" if people in real life didn't have that exact response to things that are in real life.
It's the old joke about people having taken 101 classes and then looking at the world with that knowledge and just being completely exasperated, before you follow the (often quite long) chain of hows and whys things are the way they are (which are often misleading or potentially unknowable for that person), the initial reaction is to do that, and since people usually just react in reviews that seems fine to me. Especially when you consider that none of that information is known, people have deduced that the population of Harry Potter is small, but reading the books you have no indication to jump from: seeing apparent flaw in universe, to long list of rationalism for it, instead of assuming it wasn't important enough for the author to spend time making sense on it, which was again a lot of peoples reaction to the student number of Hogwarts too, especially when if they do you have to assume that the author then researched this information to compose this, but then spent that effort doing that but didn't bother adding a throw in line to make it clear.
u/Anderkent [+1] (16 hours later)
Mostly offtopic, but is there a good description of Eliezer's beliefs re: monetary policy, etc? (This is apropos the quote "On the other hand, right now (2014) the European Central Bank is making textbook economics errors causing trillions of euros of pointless damage to the European area"). I've seen NGPD Targeting be mentioned, but never explained or advocated for clearly.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+4] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
u/Anderkent [+2] (a day later)
Thank you! The basic introduction posts on the right sidebar there are very well written.