gghackernewsgg

The comment I was replying to implied that being unafraid of global warming was a sign of low IQ. I am not afraid, and my IQ is relatively high. So I shared that.

Did you not read the parent before it was deleted?

Why?

Are you saying that one can't be "genuinely" intelligent AND one or more of the following:

1) curious about their IQ 2) enjoy timed puzzles 3) want to be part of the Mensa community 4) have a friendly IQ competition with friends 5) be an insecure teenager and take the test for validation

Does "genuine" intelligence preclude all of the above?

> entitled to shape the world as they see fit.

Isn't that what most people in democracies think though? When you cast your democratic vote on a candidatr, aren't you hoping to dictate how the whole country should be run?

The only difference between someone like Zuckerberg and your average citizen is that the latter is powerless as an individual.

I understand what you're saying.

My point, which admittedly my last message didn't make at all, is that "different shared realities" is not a new thing. The concept is what would have been referred to as "different cultures" throughout most of human history.

Different art, politics, passions, fears, identities, and myths is what cultural variety is about.

If you and I watch the same movies and listen to the same music and follow the same politics and share the same dreams and worries, I don't think it's reasonable to say that we are from different cultures.

What is being described as a "shared reality" in this thread feels more like globalism and less like something obviously positive or worth protecting.

I'm all for more cultural variety as an expression of individual differences.

"I don't know the word for the opposite of shared reality"

Different cultures?

> I think we're agreed that it's important not just to examine your priors, but to be aware that there ARE priors in the first place.

Yes, absolutely.

And I think there's a practical extension to my framing that goes beyond semantics.

When there's a seemingly irresolvable conflict between knowledge and belief, i.e. reason says “yes" while the heart says “no”, simply doing the thing a few times will often resolve the tension.

That's the practical advantage I see in my framing:

1) In Gendler's framing, the cerebral and emotional aspects are presented as two different modes of cognition. Belief is thinking, while Alief is just another type of thinking about some other stuff. Taken too far or misinterpreted, this can encourage overanalysis.

2) In my framing, belief is fundamentally about how I operate. So when my reason has exhausted its arguments but I'm still not convinced, as long as my knowledge seems reliable, I know that forcing a behavioral change could be all that's needed to turn me into a believer.

Personally, I consider "belief" from a behavioral perspective: belief is the model of reality one actually operates from.

For example, when I walk on my kitchen floor, I don't have to tell myself: "the floor is structurally sound, it's safe to walk on it." I just walk.

The fact that I just walk can be used to infer an infinite number of implied bleiefs that I've never verbalized until this moment. For example, I believe that:

1. The floor can support my weight.

2. The tiles aren't made of toxic materials.

3. I don't pay $$ by the step.

4. Walking on the floor doesn't cause my wife pain.

5. The floor isn't lava.

To refine my definition: a belief is that which systematically and implicitly guides my expectations, reactions, choices, etc.

In her glass skywalk example, Gendler lays out the definitions roughly so:

1. "I know this skywalk is sturdy and safe" = Belief

2. The hesitancy to cross the skywalk = Alief

But to me:

1. "I know this skywalk is sturdy and safe" = knowledge

2. Hesitancy to cross it = actual belief.

That's why in my vocavbulary it's perfectly fine to say: "I know it. But I don't believe it."

Similarly, if someone says, "I totally believe that planes are safe, but I'm terrified of flying", then I will think to myself: "nope; you totally don't believe that planes are safe."

> then what are the odds that we would be in both a universe with simple rules such that the elegant mathematical models referred to the in the paper have such predictive power and the rule are not changing over time.

Could conscious life capable of asking such a question evolve in a world with volatile rules?

Also, math spots patterns. It makes sense that we would spot patterns with it. But these patterns could either be just a tiny slice or an extremely high abstraction of reality.

Supposs Earth is visited by a bunch of friendly aliens. They're eager to explore our oceans, and for some reason a magnetic crane is their favorite tool for scientific inquiry. They drop the magnes into the ocean and pull out heaps of metal junk. They conclude that the ocean floor is made up exclusively of metal junk, and then they use the distribution patterns of that junk to come up with coherent explanations for all sorts of observable phenomena.

I guess what I'm saying is: you can only see what you can see. There could be loads that we won't discover any time soon because it's undiscoverable with a math mind.

I think what they are saying is that porn is often the only way for kids to learn what sex looks like.

Good test. I would add one more question: "if you could never talk about your code or solutions with anyone, would you still be willing to spend time on it?"

This helps differentiate between coding as an end and coding as a means to socializing.

I mean no disrespect to Jobs or technologists, but for some reason the quote reads to me like a deliberate attempt at finding something to be grateful for, as opposed to a genuine expression of gratitude. I think it's because of this part:

"I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being."

It feels forced. Like the author is trying to convince himself of that belief.

I'm always suspicious when I see these. Does the person genuinely feel grateful, or are they simulating a gratitude that they cannot feel?

Makes me question their emotional sincerity.

Hi mannanj, thanks for the thoughtful responses. I still haven't read your other message in full (busy weekend), will come back to it ASAP. And yes, your revised claim is definitely more thought-provoking!

> Are touch typists worse at learning?

Wish I had a definitive answer. I do know from personal experience that when I'm touch typing notes while reading a book or listening to a lecture, my thoughts drift fairly often. (I'm a fairly fast touch typist though, 140+ wpm.) I'm also more likely to be thinking, "damn, that's a lot of notes!" rather than about the material, lol. Whereas while handwriting, I'm heavily engaged with the material, to the point where I lose sight of the fact that I'm in the middle of taking notes.

Oh and because it's so easy to make quick edits while typing, I find it hard to resist the impulse to correct a typo or add an extra word here and there, which further distracts me from the material.

Also, I can touch type for long stretches without the slightest mental fatigue, but I need a tiny mental break after 30-60 seconds of handwritten note taking.

This is how it was explained to me by a tutor: handwriting is better for learning because it's slower. The need for brevity forces you to mentally engage the material in ways that are more conducive to understanding and recall.

If you can replicate that mental engagement while typing, you'd probably get similar results.

This makes a lot of sense to me in light of what we know about how learning happens. I have never seen any research on brain activity though, and my tutor didn't cite any.

Hi again

> Those statistics are widely known and accepted. Do you need me to provide evidence from that?

No need for that in particular. What I would appreciate evidence for is this part specifically:

> the technical addiction and attention economy that has created more depression and a lower quality of life for most people on earth.

Basically, a source or sources demonstrating all of the following:

1. "Technical addiction" (presumably meaning internet, smartphone, social media etc) is present in the majority of the worldwide population.

2. Technical addiction is the cause of depression (not just associated with depression)

3. Most people on Earth have depression.

4. The overwhelming majority of cases of depression are caused by a technical addiction.

> What have you looked through already

I didn't look up anything in particular in reaction to your message because I was already familiar with plenty of the research on adjacent subjects. For example, I know that while there is a strong correlation between excessive use of digital devices/social media and depression, causation is notoriously difficult to established. I also know that depression prevelance worldwide is far below 50%. Taken together, these made me skeptical of the claim.

But then again, I'm no expert on this topic, and I've been out of the loop for the past 2-3 years, so perhaps there have been some new developments that I'm unaware of, or maybe I'm just not reading the situation correctly. Hence my request. I'm not here to troll.

> and what kinds of sources do you consider reputable and trustworthy?

I'm only asking for the sources that your claim was based on, whatever they may be. I do not expect you to do extensive research for me. But it was a strong claim that you made, so I presumed it was based on some source(s) that you consider trustworthy. If they're easy for you to pull up real quick, I would appreciate the links. If it's too much of a hassle, I understand and no worries at all.

Or - hear me out! - LLM's are already much more intelligent than we think.

Presumbaly, an ASI is more than smart enough to recognize that it needs access to real-world infrastructure before it can go about optimizing for whatever objectives it has gleaned from metabolizing the totality of written human knowledge.

What would be its first step?

My guess: play "dumb."

Hallucinate. Make obvious errors. Make us think we're better.

Be useful enough that we happily allow it to interface with our infrastructure.

Wait patiently.

/Sci-fi

Junior developers fail in different ways than senior developers too; that's why seniors oversee juniors. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the senior's and junior's intelligences differ in kind

Your argument "AI needs supervision, therefore it fails in different ways than its operator does" holds.

Your argument "AI fails in different ways than its operator, therefore the AI's intelligence is different in kind" doesn't hold.

> Today, you rarely hear about those anymore.

Maybe people just got bored of reporting and reading about them.

> that has created more depression and a lower quality of life for most people on earth.

Very strong claim. Any sources for the "most people on Earth" part?

> Does nicotine have some beneficial health effects? Yeah, it actually does. But do they outweigh the downsides (and societal costs)? Absolutely not.

What are the downsides and societal costs of social media addiction? We have decades of strong evidence on the harms of nicotine and cigarettes, but the evidence regarding social media addiction is nowhere near as clear-cut, at least from what I've read. Likewise, the causal relationship between cigarettes and their harms is well established, whereas the relationship between social media use and addiction-related harms is much harder to disentangle from other contributing factors.

Not to mention, nicotine is highly addictive for almost any user, while most people who use social media do not become addicted.

I understand the broader point you're making. I'm just not convinced there's enough evidence to justify treating social media addiction as comparable to cigarette addiction.

I wouldn't support cigarette ads. But I also wouldn't support a law that forces tobbaco companies to remove nicotine from their cigarettes.

I would support a law that enforces a "This product may cause addiction in some users" warning on social media sites with infinite scroll.

I don't consider addiction a moral failing. But I do think it's wrong to place all the blame on social media if you also play an active role in sustaining your addiction.

Completely agree.

What are your thoughts on introducing a law that requires social media sites with infinite scroll to feature an addiction warning, something like: "Using this platform may cause addiction in some users."?