scrape_r_rational/data/cache/5pp889.md

[D] Monday General Rationality Thread

Post:

Welcome to the Monday thread on general rationality topics! Do you really want to talk about something non-fictional, related to the real world? Have you:

• Seen something interesting on /r/science?
• Found a new way to get your shit even-more together?
• Figured out how to become immortal?
• Constructed artificial general intelligence?
• Read a neat nonfiction book?
• Munchkined your way into total control of your D&D campaign?

Comments:

• u/None:

  Just a quick reminder that [LessWrong](http://lesswrong.com/lw/o5z/on_the_importance_of_less_wrong_or_another_single/) is trying to become more of a central place for rationalists.
  
  I've been posting more things there, and it's been pretty good so far. If you're interested, we're always happy to have more voices joining in.
  

  • u/Xenograteful:

    Thanks, that's good to know because I basically abandoned the place a long time ago and at some point it felt like everyone gave up on the "rationalist hub" idea after it was suggested. It it works out, I'd be kinda proud of the rationalists at beating incentives related to group dynamics.
    
    But I'd still like to know why that solution is better than people gathering at /r/slatestarcodex for example.
    

    • u/Xenograteful:

      Okay, once I wrote that, I started seriously thinking about this. Here are some of my thoughts:
      
      - Less Wrong is a really old site that hasn't been maintained a lot. Reddit is also old, but it's actively maintained and new features are added once in a while. People like things that are new and fresh. We may believe we as rationalists don't care about things such as these, but I believe people actually care - I hate to admit it, but at least I do.
      
      - When I still used Less Wrong to some extent, there were some trolls and mass-downvoters. Whereas in /r/slatestarcodex there are active mods and even Scott frequently goes there and aforementioned phenomena either don't exist on the subreddit or they don't bother me me so much that I would have paid attention to them. Also, because of reddit's voting algorithms, it's not possible to downvote with multiple accounts on reddit and you can't just make new accounts and troll on /r/slatestarcodex because you have to gather some karma first. There have been some stunts on Less Wrong where one person has upvoted his own thread 20+ times with multiple accounts.
      
      - I really really doubt any of the big writers like Scott, Luke, Alicorn, Yudkowsky etc. are going back there.
      
      - There's a lot of historical baggage that goes with Less Wrong. Some negative things that come to my mind are: some amount of drama, Roko's Basilisk and all those other thought experiments about torture and the trolls and mass downvoters I mentioned earlier. It also centers heavily around CFAR, MIRI and Yudkowsky+Sequences in particular and there are lots of people in the rationalist community that aren't particularly obsessed with those. My personal opinion? I admire Yudkowsky tremendously for kickstarting the rationalist movement with them, but I don't think the Sequences are up to the kind of scholarly and scientific standards the community deserves nowadays - which doesn't mean they aren't and haven't been ridiculously useful.
      

      • u/None:

        I'm not on /r/slatestarcodex, so I can't really comment about the differences in hubs.
        
        I think they're at least trying to update some of the things you mentioned, if that helps a little.
        
        - Updating the code base
        - Removed downvotes in the interim
        - I've seen increased activity from CFAR in writing things (e.g. Anna Salamon), and it at least looks like they'll continue to churn out content in the near future.
        
        I agree that LW has lots of historical baggage and all your concerns are valid. Just thought you'd like to know that some effort has been in place to try and update things.
        

      • u/gbear605:

        I'm not involved with the process, but it sound like they're completely recoding the site using new technologies.
        

  • u/blazinghand:

    LW has a lot of tech debt and doesn't have good features. I hope the LW renaissance happens, but I hope more it happens on a better platform. LW would be fine as an archive for works like Yudkoyski's, Yvain's, Luke's writing etc. 
    
    A renewed central hub for the community would be best put somewhere than LW. Still, better LW than nowhere at all...
    

  • u/None:

    Oh, and after I'd deleted my username on there because it died down.  Any preference for real-names or usernames?
    

    • u/traverseda:

      Your new flair is advocating political violence against your outgroup? I'm not entirely certain I'm comfortable with you being the head moderator of this subreddit.
      

      • u/None:

        Fascists are not merely "the outgroup".  They are advocating and acting for my personal extermination.  You'll have to forgive that I've got no tolerance for them.  Mind, on this subreddit, I don't expect the subject to come up: fictional characters might be fascists, but subreddits don't exactly have the means to exterminate anyone.
        
        Also, /u/PeridexisErrant is closer to a "head" mod than me.  We don't really have a *leader* as such.
        

        • u/cjet79:

          I don't agree with your political viewpoints, and I'm pretty pacifist. BUT I also hate witch hunts. 
          
          Would you ban/sanction someone in this subreddit for their behavior or comments in another subreddit? Or would you ban/sanction someone in this subreddit for politely expressing viewpoints you find abhorrent but the rest of the mod team finds unobjectionable?
          
          If yes, then I don't like your modding policies and would prefer someone else without those policies. If no, then I don't see any reason for you to step aside.
          

          • u/None:

            > Would you ban/sanction someone in this subreddit for their behavior or comments in another subreddit?
            
            Without calling on him when he doesn't want to be called upon, there's at least one user on this sub whose username indicates either a liking for antisemitic humor or, alongside his flair, possible white-nationalist views.
            
            I've never done anything to ban him, because he hasn't broken the rules of the subreddit.  That's not to say I *wouldn't* penalize him if he deliberately broke the political detente on this sub and tried to use it as a propaganda platform, but he has yet to do any such thing.
            
            So the guy whose views I deeply disagree with, stays.
            
            >Or would you ban/sanction someone in this subreddit for politely expressing viewpoints you find abhorrent but the rest of the mod team finds unobjectionable?
            
            Absolutely not.  The mods work as a team.
            
            >If yes, then I don't like your modding policies and would prefer someone else without those policies. If no, then I don't see any reason for you to step aside.
            
            Given how I don't handle the mod queue as well or as often as I should, I'm fine with stepping to junior mod, actually.
            

        • u/Empiricist_or_not:

          How do you reconcile a Flair advocating the initiation of violence, with civilization? 
          
          Serious question as the growing trend towards legitimizing the use of physical violence against people who speak or express **thoughtcrime** is disturbing, more-so disturbing to see from a respected peer.
          
          Note: please do not misunderstand me, neo-nazi's or the like are about as hateful and pitiably wrong as they can be, they are a great example of what everyone should dislike, but to put it politely, that does not excuse initiating violence in anything short of clearly preemptive self-defense.
          

          • u/None:

            You seem to have missed a bit:
            
            > They are advocating and acting for my personal extermination.
            
            It's easy to take no moral stand when it's not your ass on the line.  To talk of "initiating violence" by punching a neo-Nazi while fascists *hold state power* and [antifascists *get shot by fascists*](http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2017/01/shooting-of-anti-fascist-at-uw-biggest-scar-on-seattles-peaceful-weekend-of-protest/) is nonsense.
            
            Congratulations: you're not a Hermione.
            
            Invoke basic consequentialism here: tell me what you *expect to happen* if we do fight Nazis, and what you expect to happen if we *don't* fight Nazis, instead standing by on the *presumption*, in the *absence* of evidence, that they will obey democratic norms and protect human rights.
            

            • u/Jiro_T:

              What I expect to happen if we fight Nazis is that everyone will call their opponents Nazis so they can fight them.  And that's already happening.
              

        • u/traverseda:

          Whoever is at the top of the queue (has the most seniority) is the head mod. They ultimately control the subreddit, and if they're in any way unstable they can block all the other mods, or otherwise damage the subreddit.
          
          I would recommend that if /u/PeridexisErrant is already filling that role, you step down and then step back up, putting him at the top of the queue. I don't feel uncomfortable with you being *a* mod, just with you having ultimate control over the subreddit.
          
          We have had a lot of trouble with that in /r/halifax in the past, and it did significant damage to the community.
          
          Most of the people I've been seeing called fascist aren't, unless we're doing the motte and bailey thing, or you're the only person who's using the term right. I don't think it would be hard to extend that definition to cover my grandfather, or just people who aren't in favour of affirmative action.
          
          I don't really want to discuss that anymore though. Regardless your recent advocations for political violence have made me very uncomfortable.
          

          • u/None:

            > I don't think it would be hard to extend that definition to cover my grandfather, or just people who aren't in favour of affirmative action.
            
            No, as far as I can tell, people who don't like affirmative action are not fascist.  Period.  Fascism is a fairly specific thing, in which society's problems are uniformly cast in terms of a war or conflict between racial, ethnic, or national groups (roughly).  If you don't conceive of most issues in terms of race war, you're very likely not a fascist.  If I disagree with you about politics, you're very likely still not a fascist.  There are vast, vast domains of views that aren't going to get any talk of violence from me, because they don't involve literally murdering me.
            
            >I would recommend that if /u/PeridexisErrant is already filling that role, you step down and then step back up, putting him at the top of the queue. I don't feel uncomfortable with you being a mod, just with you having ultimate control over the subreddit.
            
            This can probably be arranged.  Care to file a mod-message so we can set up the process?  I trust /u/PeridexisErrant for this.
            

            • u/traverseda:

              > This can probably be arranged. Care to file a mod-message so we can set up the process? I trust /u/PeridexisErrant for this.
              
              Thank you for being reasonable about that. Ironically that makes me trust you for that position a fair bit more, but it still seems like a good thing to do. And I appreciate your allaying my fears.
              
              I don't feel like a lot of people who say things like "bash the fash" have that clear of a definition of fascism, but it's good to know that you're so unambiguous on it.
              

              • u/None:

                As soon as /u/PeridexisErrant confirms on mod-mail that we're going through with this, we're going through with it.
                

                • u/PeridexisErrant:

                  I'm currently camping on a terrible connection, so how about next weekend when I have a desktop again. I'll message you all then.
                  

                  • u/None:

                    If that's acceptable to everyone else.
                    

• u/Dwood15:

  Weekly Monday Update
  ---
  
  *Pokemon Story - Perspectives*
  ---
  
  For my Pokemon story, I've had some great input from people online on structuring my story. /u/InfernoVulpix, /u/DaystarEld, and /u/AlexanderWales, and a few others whom I don't know their reddit names, have been invaluable to me. Anyway, here's some rambling on the story.
  
  I realized that up to now, I've written the story entirely in 3rd-person limited. It seems easier to write, and it allows me to take a modestly dispassionate voice in the story. My target audience for the writing is going to be the YA when it comes to plotline and diction. Throughout the story, occasionally sections of it will be from the 3rd-person perspective of individuals not my MC, and once in a while, a chapter or section may be First person. The trick will be to handle the perspective changes without being jarring to the readers.
  
  As of this post there are ~6 pages of prose, ~4k words, ~15 pages of worldbuilding, and a LOT in my head I write down as I remember.
  
  *Machine Learning//AI*
  ---
  Let's talk MarI/O a bit, and Neural Networks. This is my claim which I am not backing up with any evidence whatsoever: Creation of GAI will be from some advance form of the Artificial Neural Network. What is a Neural Network, and how do they work? This is a high-level overview intended to help you understand one facet of them and how they work. If I miss any key terms, feel free to comment and let me know.
  
  One thing which is really cool, is how Neural Networks are able to be run on GPU's. Have you ever wondered why GPU's are better than Processors at running them? This is because GPU's have two advantages in particular: floating point calculation and Matrix math. GPU's can calculate floating point numbers in matrices very, very fast, and so running and training a NN is much faster on the GPU, because ANN's use Matrices and floating points. 
  
  Neurons are either active, or inactive. Firing or not firing. This is influenced by something I call its Activation Level- what internal value (usually a float) must the Neuron be in order to fire. An empty ANN may fill in all neurons with .5's, and set the activation level to .75. 
  
  At its base form, a Neuron has two ways of interfacing with the network as a whole: Inputs, and Outputs. Let's say we have 3 neurons, A, B, and C. Connected like so: A->B->C. If A is firing, then it sends that signal to B. Often, there is also a "Bias" which B has on A's connection, which can dampen or amplify the power of A, so if B doesn't care about A's input, it won't fire because of it. If B fires, then it sends it to C, which C then biases B's input similarly.
  
  Any neuron can connect with any other neuron, and sometimes they're even divided into " Discreet Layers" That's what Deep Neural Networks means- they have different types of Layers, given various biases a researcher believes will help with making the Neural Network better for their purposes. Additionally, Recurrent means that a neural Network can also loop back onto itself, so using our A-B-C example, you might get something like: B->B.
  
  Anyway, have fun. This is a semi-continuation (from last week)[https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5ob9ox/d_monday_general_rationality_thread/dcj4eo4/]
  

• u/ToaKraka:

  [A screenshot of some fun ideas I had a while ago](http://i.imgur.com/gER1vXg.png)
  

  • u/zarraha:

    I agree with the part about good English, with the caveat that some forgiveness is appropriate for speakers/writers for whom English is not their native tongue.  Learning a foreign language is an admirable endeavor, but a difficult one as well.  Those who choose to undertake it should be encouraged and forgiven for grammar mistakes that native speakers have no business making, to some degree.  Most of the reasoning in your arguments doesn't apply to them anyway because presumably they are competent with their native tongue and have perfectly coherent thoughts using it, but fail to translating them properly to English.
    
    That said, it can still be annoying to communicate with someone who can't properly convey their message, regardless of the reason for it.  People practicing a foreign language by interacting with native speakers on the internet should try to avoid complicated topics that require extensive vocabulary, and should also try to avoid arguments and debates, since their position will be severely weakened by their less coherent framing of it, and both parties are more likely to end up angry at each other due to the lack of proper communication.
    
    The best approach would be to, as 4chan would put it, "lurk moar".  Read conversations between other native speakers to see how they write, but try not to interfere too much and annoy people until your skills grow high enough.  Or maybe it's just a better approach to not do your learning in online forums because many of the posts you read are going to use bad English and you will learn bad habits from them.
    

    • u/sir_pirriplin:

      A bad English speaker who speaks another language well will still give people the inconvenience of having to translate bad English into good English. 
      
      However the misrepresentation and disgust components don't apply. A Spanglish or Engrish speaker really does think in Spanglish or Engrish (if they are serious about learning the language then that language will start to appear in their stream of consciousness little by little), but that doesn't have to be disgusting to their interlocutors, just disconcerting.
      

• u/MagicWeasel:

  Not my vampire yaoi story but in the same universe. We have a vampire hunting duo (two young independent women kicking butt!), one is a police officer, the other is a kindergarten teacher with magic powers. 
  
  They find a vampire. And.... they proceed to start being vampire hunters.
  
  Can someone help us justify *why* the hell they don't do what *any sane person* would do, which is to report this to the police, the press, the world at large? We can't say they don't trust the police because *one of them is a police officer*. I don't really feel great about there being a vampire conspiracy in the police department, in the media, etc because that's just as hard to suspend disbelief from as them just deciding not to tell, and I'd rather not have to incorporate a worldwide conspiracy into our worldbuilding, *thanks*.
  
  tl;dr is there any Rational reason that protagonists might not go to the police/media?
  

  • u/IomKg:

    Because they are insane(literally) and the story as presented is the subjective view of the only one of them which is real.
    
    But actually later on it is revealed that the crazies are a result of a vampiric hypnosis thus finishing the story by breaking free and heading to the police immediately.
    

    • u/MagicWeasel:

      If they are literally insane then in-universe my vampire yaoi masterpiece (/s) is not real. I CANNOT LET THAT BE SO :( :( :(
      

      • u/IomKg:

        One of them is actually a vampire and has been making the protag not do things like going to the police?
        Could be implemented like the [Bioshock](#s "would you kindly") twist.
        

  • u/RatemirTheRed:

    Can it be that your universe has several popular conspiracy theories about vampires that drown proofs of the supernatural in the sea of disinformation? I picked the idea from [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2ca43f/bst_maintaining_the_masquerade/).
    

  • u/Kylinger:

    Perhaps there could be some sort of advantage to being ignorant? For example, in Wildbows *Pact*, people who were unaware of the magical world were generally left alone by spirits and had pretty strict protections. 
    
    Vampires already have plenty of rules that govern them (Can't enter houses without permission, repelled by crucifixes and garlic, ect.), maybe you could add one about harming/breaking the masquerade to people who don't already know about the existence of vampires? This would motivate both of them not to tell their loved ones for example, because while it's too late for the protagonists, their family may be safer living in ignorance.
    

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