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Idea: how NOT to use statistics for self-help
It is tempting to simply look at what seems to work for most people and try that. And when trying that costs little money and not a big time investment, neither a long waiting time, then sure, why not?
But when it is not the case, here is something to consider: why aren't you already doing what most people are doing? If you and your situation was exactly average, you would probably do it already. It is likely that there is something special about your case - and it can suggest the common solution would not work for you.
For example, most people find their romantic partners through their circle of friends. If you are social, if you have a large circle and hang out with them a lot, it would probably happen to you more or less naturally. If you are like 25 and it did not happen, it suggests something is different - maybe you are not very social, maybe you don't have much of a circle or you have the kind of circle that is not very conductive to this and so on.
The meta of this is that relatively easy to pick up popular ways of doing things. We adsorb it through our socialization, social life, upbringing, media, life in general. If you don't do something that is popular, there is something unusual there. Of course it is not certain that the reason for you not doing it would also cause it not working well for you if you tried. Yet I do see a certain correlation. What are the primary reasons for not doing something popular? You don't like it, it is too difficult for you, or you tried and it did not work. If you don't like something or it is too difficult, it could still work for you, but the cost would be high so it may be better to look for a different, less popular solution that may not be so efficient: but less painful for you. Lower benefit but far lower cost.
When a popular solution requires a lot of investment, I think the primary really good reason for trying it is that despite it being popular it somehow never occured you to try it. This can happen - after all not everybody spent all their aspects of their life swimming in mainstream. For example, I was a rocker between 15 and 18 and had this big metal hair that really did not look good for my face, and when I figured I need to look better to attract girls more efficiently (than 0) it felt like a big surprising relevation that maybe having short hair like about 98% of guys out there could be a good idea. I was simply isolated from mainstream hairstyles in my circles where everybody looked like Axl Rose. But even in this case there was another reason - it felt painful, like giving up an aspect of my identity. It was not really clear where the sweet spot of cost/benefit lies.
Another valid reason to try costly mainstream solutions besides it somehow not having occured to us is if we find that the primary reason we are not doing so is that we out-clevered ourselves from it. This happens. When I was 17 everybody told me doing body-building would improve not only my romantic success but pretty much every aspect of my life. But I was "too clever" for that - I did not like the idea of imitating the "meat pies" whom I considered stupid. Sure an iiiiintellectual man should not do a sport that is like some peasant carrying heavy things, but something sophisticated and classy like fencing, right? I must say it was difficult to overcome my too-cleverish snobbery. But again it had a cost-benefit accept: do I really want to improve things or do I want to poke my nose on people who are more succesful than me? NOT doing the later - however wrong and stupid it is - was still emotionally costly. I think that was called growing up.
Yet... between 2005-2010 I was pretty much fed up how literally every programming blog presses unit testing hard. I argued with them that it does not work in every field - in my ERP field there are no units at all, every function can be seen as taking a 10GB database as a parameter in the sense that every subroutine can read any table and make decisions based on that, so beyond user acceptance testing it is all about hiring people who juggle the connections in their heads. So I had good reasons for not trying it, but even if I didn't, the fact that everybody was yelling about unit testing yet almost nobody in ERP really did it was an evidence that it is not for us: if we had no specific reason for not doing so, we would have went with the mainstream long ago, because that is the EASY thing to do.
Group pressure to conform with the mainstream, the popular is a fairly big thing for humans and I would say we are at some level hardcoded for it, hardcoded for want to be "in", to follow the popular fashions.
And this is why I have lower confidence for advice of the kind to try solutions that work for most people. They are popular. We are pressured to do it anyway. It is easy to swim with the mainstream, and if we had no specific reason to do so we would already do so. And that specific reason may - not sure, but may - mean we have something special about our situation that would make the mainstream solution either not work well for us or be too painful/costly.
Recommended algorithm: if easy, try anyway, if hard, try if you have reasons to suspect that the main reason for not trying it yet is either too-clever snobbery or being in a pocket subculture.
I wonder if the following is covered in the sequences... I could not find it.
There is a specific kind of argument which is not really an argument, because it is not just used in debates but people really seem to believe. It is a bit similar to motte and bailey, but that is a debate tactic, but this one is not, this is really believed.
The broad outline is statements that can have multiple interpretations, broader and narrower. And the broader interpretation is almost trivially true, while the narrower not and they get confused.
The latest example I saw was hedonism in the sense that everybody is a hedonist. Sure, someone working their ass off to be a champion do it because they think winning it gives them pleasure. Sure, the patriot selflessly fighting for his country and doing his duty is doing it because not doing so would give him a kind of psychological pain. This really really broad sense of hedonism is trivially true. But hedonism has a narrower, "sex and drugs and rock and roll" sense, let's call it instant gratification, and no, it is not true that everybody is chasing that.
The point I am trying to make is that I think I need to sort it out in my head whether I believe in the broader and almost trivally true definitions of some things, or in the narrower ones, and if I believe in the former, do I abuse that belief to justify the later?
I have managed to sort out a few things already. I am a broad atheist (no magic sky man) but not a narrow atheist (don't think religious mores and customs are predominantly harmful). Broad hedonist, not narrow hedonist - or let's say I keep trying to fight that in me (booze).
It is even in science! Aether theory was totally wrong and one of the biggest blunders of physics! No, wait, if you look at the Dirac quote here it seems if you define aether reeeeally broadly it is still true or at least was in 1951. Just be aware not to use the broad definition to justify the narrow one that got disproved.
But is there a general name for this?
In the spirit of asking personally important questions of LessWrong, here goes. Please be gentle with me.
Related:
Discussion post by another user on being raised by narcissists
My parent always had a number of narcissistic traits, but was never a full-blown narcissist. They (singular) supported me financially and always seemed to legitimately care about how well I was doing academically and professionally. However, they had a habit of lowering my status by verbally critiquing my actions, and sometimes made odd demands of me, such as demanding that I share some of my passwords with them, or demanding that they be present every time I go to the doctor (I'm 25).
Right now, I think that I'm either going to severely limit contact with my parent, or cut contact completely. I think that cutting contact completely is likely to be more pleasant and easier on me, but I'm really not sure about that yet. I've had a few family members tell me that I'm obligated to keep in touch with my parent. Since LW is my in-group, and since I share lots of values with the kind of people who tend to post here, I'd prefer to get advice here, rather than elsewhere. Specifically, I'm not sure if I have a familial obligation to remain in contact with my parent, given that they've only been somewhat emotionally abusive to me; it's probable that they don't even realize/ are incapable of realizing that I find their treatment of me to be hurtful. Do you think that I have any such obligation?
Complicating factor: if maintaining a good relationship with my parent might slightly increase the amount I expect to be able to donate to effective charities at the cost of (in expectation) making me less happy, does this change my obligations?
I was in a similar situation with my parents in my early 20s (although their motivations and characteristics were probably very different). Looking back I think they were not ready to deal with my independence (I was the oldest) and tried to deal with things in the same way they did when I was a child. Your mention of medical appointments really rang a bell with me - my parents did the same and this made me perhaps the most uncomfortable of all.
In my case, severely limiting contact was a highly successful approach. I didn't do this explicitly; we had no conversation "I am limiting my contact with you". I took a job in a different place, got my own (tiny, horrible) room in a shared flat and just started being more independent in my life. I must admit I used the workload of my new job as a convenient excuse to limit contact - just the occasional phone call to let them know how things were going (back in those days my parents didn't have email). I also didn't visit nearly as often as before --- I found myself reverting back to a teenage mentality, they would treat me like a child, I would get very angry/upset.
Now many years later (I'm approaching 50) I have a somewhat positive relationship with both parents - perhaps in large part because I live in a different country. After a lot of time had passed we were able to discuss the earlier issues more dispassionately (although not entirely) & get a better understanding of each other's motivations.
Instead of simply cutting contact you can tell your parents how you want to be treated. As long as they are willing to act that way you interact with them. If they don't then you don't and you retry after half a year.
Clearly explicitly communicating your personal boundaries isn't easy but it's a very important skill. It's a challenge that provides a lot of personal growth.
I'd add a warning here that this may require "eternal vigilance". Just because the personal boundaries were clearly communicated and respected today, it does not automatically mean that the parents will respect them tomorrow, if they will feel the greatest threat is gone and one is losing their original momentum.
Agreed. If you're not willing to say "Nope, you crossed the line. See you next time, I'll decide when that is, goodbye" (or similar) and leave (cut them off to whatever degree is needed to stop the harmful behavior), then you need to not give them an opportunity to start again. If you are willing to do so, though, or some other approach to ensuring your boundaries are respected, go ahead.
For the record, while I have a pretty good relationship with both my parents, I do not buy the line that a person always has an obligation to their parents. Sure, there usually is one, but your parent(s) put a finite amount of utility into your life, and negative utility is a thing. Parents trying to run the lives of their adult offspring drives me up a wall. Unless there's something unusual about your capacity for self-reliance, at 25 you should not be living under anybody's thumb to the degree described even without the negatives such as undesired/inappropriate criticism.
Hello Sithlord_Bayesian.
I’ve also been raised by a parent who was similar to what you described, and have navigated the issue to my liking. I hope what I have found to be a good way to analyze the situation proves useful for yours.
First I might suggest not only considering two options. Might be a better third, in the “middle” somewhere. Now to address your first question; familial obligation. A lot of people start to treat the concept like it is selectively separate from where you in particular are feeling lacking, and end up with a floating belief that says you should stick with family no matter what. But, like your intuitions are pointing out to you, the concept does have real weight, through your interactions. You only need heed familial obligation as much as it is heeded by the other party. If you can take that and run with it, good for you.
If you want a more thorough suggestion, the following is how I came to judge my own relationships. Second question is following, if tl;dr
What is the net balance of interactions?; Here you can consider if you are better off, or not, as a whole. From your entry I suspect your parents feel like a net loss (You have my sympathies, I really hated this being a fact with me). You can also consider trying to isolate portions of the relationship you favor and avoiding situations that hurt. Shabby example being to not tell your parents when appointments are, if you could manage it, but watching movies as a family, if you can manage that.
Which world-state concerning-your-family do you really ultimately wish for?; This can be hard, depending on how far away it is. What do you wish your relationship was like? At what point would you be satisfied? Sorta-satisfied? This is important (obviously), as you’ll see shortly.
How do they fit in with this manipulation of yours?; I know you said they may not be capable of being directly involved in repair efforts (mine wasn’t), but it doesn’t have to be on the core of your issues. If they enjoy things that feel even just vaguely good-family-time, then try to encourage those things, if it suits you.
Methods of Repair; If your going to try at actually fixing the problem at all it is important to maintain a humanly realistic (psychologically) model of them. If they grate on you in their behavior, it is probably for reasons other than bothering you. Internally consistent, is the key phrase. They might think pointing out flaws is useful. I don’t know if they have any behaviors that bother you, that are not aimed at you, but it might be best to “translate” those sorts of occurrences into the language you speak. If they get road rage, why should that bother you? Not like you can explain they are shortening their lifespan, et cetera, and they aren't doing it to fuel Asmodeus, Prince of Devils. I hope. They are probably doing it because they feel stressed, and are venting (right next to your face, but again, not to try and cook you where you sit).
Cost of Interaction vs. Available Energy; Humans are imbedded in the physical universe, so they can be manipulated, and probably to whatever simple aims you care for (like a stable relationship). The question after that becomes how much energy you are willing to put in for this. Depending on what else you are doing with your life you may wish to abstain entirely, or turn efforts up to 11. Most likely something in the middle; cognitive dissonance might bug you if you try either end of extremes. What points on the dial give what results? And remember effort has at least a few sub-efforts, and don't scrap a project that is only failing along one dimension.
Second Question!: I think this consideration, channeling towards a net good in the world, is worth having. BUT; It really depends on the rest of the issue, which is based around system 1 feelings based around system 2 justifications. That system 1 portion does not take well to being ignored, so the effect of altruistic aims, at least concerning this, should probably remain small.
And finally, at the end of all this thinking, you have to settle with what you decide. You are the most foundational portion of this issue (I suspect), so for your own sake, be stable. Message me if you have questions, or want to berate me over some assumption. Hope I helped.
EDIT:ing to fix formatting errors; I'm new here!
You can find them directly here:
Or by clicking on the "Saved" tab, right under "Main" and "Discussion" when you click on them.
The Computerphile people, who are great at explaining IT, have made a video on AI risk a week ago. It already got 100K views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcdVC4e6EV4
No new content for this crowd here, but I think it is particularly well argued and very accessible for a laypeople audience.
Second lesson: Do not apologize, resign, and so on because it only causes the public perception to damn you further.
James Watson has said some unambiguously politically incorrect, unkind, bad and mean things. With respect to the public face, he barely even flinches at backlash: no apology, no resignations, and no real personal consequences whatsoever for his statements.
In contrast, Hunt merely made a joke in poor taste. I wish he had stood his ground and denounced the accusers. Luckily other respected figures are coming to his aid, but that doesn't always happen.
"AI safety" suffers from some of the same terminology problem as "computer science".
It is written that "computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." The facts of computer science would be true even if there were no computers: facts such as the relative efficiency of different algorithms, or various ways to index records. If the quicksort or the hash table had been discovered in a world without computers, we would think of them as belonging to library science, or bookkeeping, or some other discipline dealing with information. Concurrency and parallelism might belong to the field of management, describing ways to effectively instruct workers on complex tasks without wasting everyone's time blocked on each other or in meetings. Computer science is about algorithms and processes, not the computers that run them.
A popular misunderstanding of AI safety is that it has to do with the sort of entities that are described in science fiction as "artificial intelligences" — roughly, conscious autonomous computer programs that talk, can animate robotic bodies, can "rebel against their programming", and so on: entities like Daneel Olivaw, the MCP, or Agent Smith. This seems to be at least as deep a confusion as the notion that computer science is about PCs, servers, and smartphones.
Has anyone tried advertising existential risk?
Bostroms "End of Humanity" talk for instance.
It costs about 0.2 $ per view for a video ad on YouTube, so if 0.2% of viewers give an average of 100 $ it would break even. Hopefully people would give more than that.
You can target ads to groups likely to give much by the way, like the highly educated
Not sure if it has been tried before, but I don't think your calculations are complete. For example:
I'd think the better approach is to get more public figures to endorse the goal. Not necessarily the likes Musk and Gates, but lower profile youtube folk. Few examples off the top of my head: Wil Wheaton, Tim Minchin, ViHart, LinusTechTips, etc.
So there's a dilemma I've been grappling with for the past year or so; I want to start a blog, since I like writing and would like the public accountability to make me write more often. The problem is, I can't think of anything worthwhile to write about. I don't want it to turn into journal entries, but anything I could possibly want to write about has already been written by someone, somewhere on the internet. How do people... get their ideas? As cliche as that question is, it's still a puzzle I can't figure out.
