Superrational(skunkledger.substack.com)
skunkledger.substack.com
Superrational
https://skunkledger.substack.com/p/superrational
94 comments
Source for the image
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5dTcc1eS4w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5dTcc1eS4w
> Feel free also to help yourselves to the Modelos in the cooler.
Great line. Modelo is the most popular beer in America, but I doubt most people would realize that. It’s like… a Normie inside joke. Is that possible?
Great line. Modelo is the most popular beer in America, but I doubt most people would realize that. It’s like… a Normie inside joke. Is that possible?
Reading this I'm definitely feeling underquirked.
Amusing bit also alienating to those from other subcultures and I do think the memes we have to share are important enough that we shouldn't be putting people off.
I've gone back and forth on this a bit. Currently I don't think they're that important. I've seen quite a lot of good thinking get done without those concepts. Rationality certainly has the potential to be enjoyable to some people, but I think of it now as more of an optional side quest than some sort of gospel that needs to be spread to everyone.
Interesting perspective.
I've found the techniques and concepts most useful at work, where they've been amazingly helpful.
I've found the techniques and concepts most useful at work, where they've been amazingly helpful.
> If we model individuals in a shared sociocultural milieu as adapting to similar selection pressures, many stable strategies incorporate altruistic cooperation
I have always formulated this for myself as follows: Any sufficiently strategic self-interest is indistinguishable from altruism. Empathy is just evolution's way of encoding millions of years of this observation into our emotional response system.
I have always formulated this for myself as follows: Any sufficiently strategic self-interest is indistinguishable from altruism. Empathy is just evolution's way of encoding millions of years of this observation into our emotional response system.
I’ve heard it stated as “there’s no unselfish good deed”, a quote attributed to the famed ethicist [checks notes]… Joey Tribbiani.
https://youtu.be/jgr-CpLNCYo
https://youtu.be/jgr-CpLNCYo
>I have always formulated this for myself as follows: Any sufficiently strategic self-interest is indistinguishable from altruism.
This "sufficiently strategic self-interest" is the same kind of non-existing unicorn as the "sufficiently smart compiler".
>Empathy is just evolution's way of encoding millions of years of this observation into our emotional response system.
Evolution (if we abstract it as a thing with intentions) is satisfied with the survival of the species. If the individual perishes, it's fine as long as they either protected their offspring or helped the others in their species survive, there will be more of them (because this actions help the species survive more and make more copies of itself, so species with members who will sacrifices themselves for the species get an advantage). Individual ants and bees for example will sacrifice themselves for the collective.
So, empathy that drives altruistic acts is not the same as "strategic self-interest". If we are to see it in a reductionary way, let's do it properly: usually it's the interest of the species (or the offspring) driving it.
This "sufficiently strategic self-interest" is the same kind of non-existing unicorn as the "sufficiently smart compiler".
>Empathy is just evolution's way of encoding millions of years of this observation into our emotional response system.
Evolution (if we abstract it as a thing with intentions) is satisfied with the survival of the species. If the individual perishes, it's fine as long as they either protected their offspring or helped the others in their species survive, there will be more of them (because this actions help the species survive more and make more copies of itself, so species with members who will sacrifices themselves for the species get an advantage). Individual ants and bees for example will sacrifice themselves for the collective.
So, empathy that drives altruistic acts is not the same as "strategic self-interest". If we are to see it in a reductionary way, let's do it properly: usually it's the interest of the species (or the offspring) driving it.
> So, empathy that drives altruistic acts is not the same as "strategic self-interest". If we are to see it in a reductionary way, let's do it properly: usually it's the interest of the species (or the offspring) driving it.
I'm sorry for that bug in the system, sir; we were short of time while designing this whole shebang. The happiness of the individual and a bunch of other things were not really a goal but, as you have cleverly noted, a biochemical feedback to get them to play. But now you have outgrown natural evolution--our sloppy design strategy--and you can fix this bug on your own. Off the top of my head, you could add a magic mushroom that makes people immortal and infertile. But surely you can come up with something better. Now back to enjoying my retirement. God.
I'm sorry for that bug in the system, sir; we were short of time while designing this whole shebang. The happiness of the individual and a bunch of other things were not really a goal but, as you have cleverly noted, a biochemical feedback to get them to play. But now you have outgrown natural evolution--our sloppy design strategy--and you can fix this bug on your own. Off the top of my head, you could add a magic mushroom that makes people immortal and infertile. But surely you can come up with something better. Now back to enjoying my retirement. God.
I have come to that conclusion myself over the years too.
But "bad people" or aholes also have usefulness. You sometimes need people to challenge things that only an unreasonable person would challenge. And you need the occasional Steve Jobs too.
But unlike altruistic people, we generally don't give the aholes as much credit. So, ironically, perhaps altruism is the better self serving strategy.
But "bad people" or aholes also have usefulness. You sometimes need people to challenge things that only an unreasonable person would challenge. And you need the occasional Steve Jobs too.
But unlike altruistic people, we generally don't give the aholes as much credit. So, ironically, perhaps altruism is the better self serving strategy.
You can't have too many altruistic people. You can however have too many assholes and the number of assholes where this effect starts to dominate is not all that high. The fact that our societies reward asshole behavior as much as they do is a huge problem.
Not sure that's true. You're assuming altruism has no failure modes or pathologies. I know plenty of people whose altruism is driven by various anxieties and neuroses, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation, at the very least. A whole society of altruists could easily be very fragile and thus vulnerable to the slightest defector or adversary (cf. Galaxy Quest).
Some degree of assholes and psychopaths make for robust systems that protect against abuse, intentional or accidental.
Some degree of assholes and psychopaths make for robust systems that protect against abuse, intentional or accidental.
Interesting viewpoint. I'm sure some assholes and psychopaths would love to have a figleaf to explain their behavior. But in my experience: you can have 90% nice people and 10% assholes and it will wreck your life. Even 1:30 is probably still too many.
And the failure modes and pathologies you describe are external: an exploiter is by definition not part of the group of altruists and that makes them a perfect example of how few assholes it takes to ruin things.
And the failure modes and pathologies you describe are external: an exploiter is by definition not part of the group of altruists and that makes them a perfect example of how few assholes it takes to ruin things.
Suggesting we benefit from and should tolerate some degree of assholes is not some kind of justification for asshole behaviour. It's a similar effect where we wouldn't care about computer security if criminals and black hats didn't exist, which would leave us incredibly vulnerable. This doesn't entail that we should proactively hire or encourage criminals and black hats to attack us.
The fact that the problems I pointed out are external is because those were just the most obvious failure modes, do not take it as an exhaustive list.
The fact that the problems I pointed out are external is because those were just the most obvious failure modes, do not take it as an exhaustive list.
Interestingly enough, it's the a-holes that seem to be getting the most credit and rewards in recent years. Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, all the populist elected heads of state, etc. The kind people seem to be the losers in recent history. Wish it were the opposite.
>The kind people seem to be the losers in recent history.
You mean like back when it was kind people and not warlords, and rich scum, and Genghis Khan being the winers?
You mean like back when it was kind people and not warlords, and rich scum, and Genghis Khan being the winers?
Recent history, so maybe Jimmy Carter.
My much older examples are on purpose.
Meaning "this is the case only on recent history? What about those examples from thousands of years ago".
Meaning "this is the case only on recent history? What about those examples from thousands of years ago".
Ah, I misread. I doubt there was such an extent of political and corporate corruption or anything analogous. Maybe that isn't fair for me to say as I'm a product of recent history.
Those people weren't assholes and successful at the same time, it happened in different phases of their lives.
(I think it's notable Steve Jobs's largest business successes happened after he got married.)
(I think it's notable Steve Jobs's largest business successes happened after he got married.)
Because they are more visible due to their flamboyant personalities. I think this was always the case historically.
In other words, societies that consist only of members who are highly strategic in their self-interest (i.e. altruistic) may be overly stable and lack the sort of disruptions or "mutations" that short-term thinkers introduce. Such societies are likely to stagnate. Consider, as very rough approximations, twentieth century America vs. ancient China.
While acknowledging the social utility of disruption, I see no reason to conclude that altruism is either incompatible or inversely correlated with the ability to disrupt.
There's a caveat though, the challenger needs to be a world beater nowadays since so many things are intertwined, a mediocore ahole just adds noise.
If you liked this, you'll probably like Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
https://hpmor.com/
https://hpmor.com/
If you like a satire, will you probably like that which is being satirized?
I mean, sure. I like Harry Potter and I also liked HPMOR. Although imo it goes off the rails in the second half or so and kinda fails to live up to its promise.
Satire / parody doesn't necessarily have to be a merciless polemic against the target - and as a matter of fact, it would be pretty hard to read HPMOR and not come away with the feeling that the author was a pretty big Harry Potter fan.
Another thing that comes to mind is the horror movie Cabin in the Woods, which sends up lots of horror tropes but is still fun and enjoyable for fans of the genre.
Satire / parody doesn't necessarily have to be a merciless polemic against the target - and as a matter of fact, it would be pretty hard to read HPMOR and not come away with the feeling that the author was a pretty big Harry Potter fan.
Another thing that comes to mind is the horror movie Cabin in the Woods, which sends up lots of horror tropes but is still fun and enjoyable for fans of the genre.
The parent was saying "Superrational" is a satire of HPMOR, not that HPMOR is a satire of Harry Potter.
I understood, I was just using one less level of meta parody to make my point. I thought TFA was funny, if not hilarious. I also enjoyed HPMOR. So I'll make my point again, which is that you can like a thing and also like its parody.
Word. "Hot Fuzz" is such a great parody of buddy cop movies because it was written by someone who loves buddy cop movies.
Thank you for getting it.
If you don't already know the original, then yeah, chances are that you will like it, it has the same theme and genre as the satire.
I've spent years with a child and wife in love with the Harry Potter books, I read them (in Spanish, to improve my understanding; very rational), I've seen the movies, and I must say: the start is certainly good.
I thought about that, but I don't think it's actually that similar. HPMOR is at least supposed to be educational (though I think that's somewhat dubious [0]). This is basically an in-joke for people who read Thinking Fast and Slow or similar. The character should have talked to someone who was in the military about the importance of high-quality footwear.
[0]: Though carrying 4 combat application tourniquets in your clothing at all times is probably a good idea. The part about time pressure and disregarding time-wasting social activities in emergency situations is also reasonable[1], but the characters should have come up with contingency plans and gone over checklists and emergency conditions with the authority figures beforehand to prevent them getting in the way.
[1]: i.e. if you got stabbed and are bleeding out, don't tell someone "it's fine" (it's not fine at all) and let them go first because it's "polite".
[0]: Though carrying 4 combat application tourniquets in your clothing at all times is probably a good idea. The part about time pressure and disregarding time-wasting social activities in emergency situations is also reasonable[1], but the characters should have come up with contingency plans and gone over checklists and emergency conditions with the authority figures beforehand to prevent them getting in the way.
[1]: i.e. if you got stabbed and are bleeding out, don't tell someone "it's fine" (it's not fine at all) and let them go first because it's "polite".
I think it's more like this is intended for people who thought hpmor was ridiculous self-insert fan fiction.
I liked this story and think HPMoR is the worst thing I've ever read in its entirety.
The first few chapters of HPMoR are fine, I suppose. It's pretty lighthearted. But it rapidly devolves into unhinged ranting at extreme length. The last five hundred thousand pages are a vehicle for the "wisdom" of one of the most insufferable, unjustifiably arrogant, and misinformed people to ever draw breath.
Just go read Elon Musk's Twitter feed. Same experience, whole lot shorter.
The first few chapters of HPMoR are fine, I suppose. It's pretty lighthearted. But it rapidly devolves into unhinged ranting at extreme length. The last five hundred thousand pages are a vehicle for the "wisdom" of one of the most insufferable, unjustifiably arrogant, and misinformed people to ever draw breath.
Just go read Elon Musk's Twitter feed. Same experience, whole lot shorter.
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the fist few chapters are interesting, but then! it's meh.
https://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor
tl;dr the science is bad, the writing is bad, the pedagogy/didactics is atrocious.
(interesting tangent https://shatterzone.substack.com/p/rationalist-harry-potter-... )
https://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor
tl;dr the science is bad, the writing is bad, the pedagogy/didactics is atrocious.
(interesting tangent https://shatterzone.substack.com/p/rationalist-harry-potter-... )
Wait ... it's not a stab at rationality? It had me LOLing at the ridiculousness. I thought it was in the same vain as the OP.
That's mostly just an advert for the cryogenic preservation/upload industry from my reading. AKA the nerds version of the rapture.
It's been years since I read it. How does it hype up cryogenic preservation? I don't recall it being a major theme and it doesn't seem to fit into the HP context.
You are right that it doesn't fit in. You are wrong that it isn't a major theme. Probably the last third of the book is about cryogenically preserving someone while looking for a way to revive them.
See comment below regarding dementors. When I read those passages it suddenly clicked for me what the whole thing was about. Easy to miss though, it's not as if they are advertising it.
This is a story where our hero is the heir to an ancient tradition of seeking immortality, where the most vile creatures in the universe are afraid of him because he thinks death sucks, and who spends the entire ending trying to heal a cryogenically frozen person and bring immortality to the masses.
It's not "easy to miss". The author beats you 'bout the head with his ideology. It's heavy-handed even for something explicitly didactic.
It's not "easy to miss". The author beats you 'bout the head with his ideology. It's heavy-handed even for something explicitly didactic.
Ok. It's possible I read it before that part of the book was released, but it's equally possible I forgot about the plot.
No, the thing it was most supposed to be an advert for is AI alignment (at the time, particularly MIRI).
"A True Patronus can destroy them, because it is fueled by the thought that Death does exist and that we must face it, but that we will one day defeat it."
https://hpmor.fandom.com/wiki/Dementor
https://hpmor.fandom.com/wiki/Dementor
Review: For those who found themselves too intellectual to enjoy the teen romance magic school vampire genre perfectly embodied by the fanfic My Immortal (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6829556/1/My-Immortal), Superrational presents a more sophisticated rationalist re-imagining of the magic school universe. May it make the great Yudkowsky proud.
> "An average blue whale weighs two hundred thousand pounds. How much do you think I weigh?"
Would that actually work on someone in that situation in real life though? I know the author is going for "anchoring" from Kahneman 1974, but the incentive to not insult someone you want to be cooperative in the future in that scenario is so strong, and the person would probably think longer to avoid an infoleak.
Would that actually work on someone in that situation in real life though? I know the author is going for "anchoring" from Kahneman 1974, but the incentive to not insult someone you want to be cooperative in the future in that scenario is so strong, and the person would probably think longer to avoid an infoleak.
It wouldn't, that's the joke.
I could maybe see saying the weight of some celebrity or other mutually-known person could actually cause anchoring, but yeah, that was a joke.
A new fiction sub-genre is born: Efficient-Market Theory Teen Romance.
Unfortunately, every such book is rather short: "Nobody is dating you now, so obviously you're undatable. Goodbye."
/awaits sounds of departure
/hears none
/looks up
“Oh. You are still here and obviously don’t agree.”
/listens to a hint of an argument
“Fine. Prove me wrong. You’d like to use a sophisticated data model to prove your dateability? By all means.”
—- “And that friends, is how the Data Science disciple came to be. It naturally evolved from this simple state of social study to include other quality of life enhancing topics like optimizing ad delivery networks, SharePoint page utilization estimates, and developing ML prompts for generative adult genre fiction.”
(Hugs to my brilliantly nerdy data science friends)
/hears none
/looks up
“Oh. You are still here and obviously don’t agree.”
/listens to a hint of an argument
“Fine. Prove me wrong. You’d like to use a sophisticated data model to prove your dateability? By all means.”
—- “And that friends, is how the Data Science disciple came to be. It naturally evolved from this simple state of social study to include other quality of life enhancing topics like optimizing ad delivery networks, SharePoint page utilization estimates, and developing ML prompts for generative adult genre fiction.”
(Hugs to my brilliantly nerdy data science friends)
:) looks familiar.
Atlas Shrugged meets Twilight. It offers its consumers more for the same price and number of words than either of those works, so it must be a hit.
Ayn Rand was there a while ago.
I absolutely adore how this is written. It’s such a hilarious fusion of styles. Thank you for submitting it!
That's interesting - I found that same fusion super-jarring, to the point that a part of me actually started feeling embarrassed for the author. Even though I know it's a satire, and done in that way purposefully - it was visceral, I just couldn't help it.
As a TOTREP, Victoria would have know that people think at the margin and so she would never have asked whats-her-face for her shoes at that moment. The writer fell into a classic trap of creating a contrived situation just to get the main to meet her love interest. Good effort overall, but reads like a first draft.
/s
/s
>I gazed into his breathtakingly dark eyes. There was something deep and familiar about them, glimmering in his eye sockets like two spherical cows.
Marvelous.
Marvelous.
I'm amazed at the replies, the writing is atrocious to me. I'm hardly breaking the first few paragraphs without wanting to gag.
Yes, that's kind of the point. It's written in what I assume is the style of a unintentionally or intentionally[0] bad Twilight fanfic.
[0]: see My Immortal if you want to witness Harry Potter and Twilight get butchered at the same time.
[0]: see My Immortal if you want to witness Harry Potter and Twilight get butchered at the same time.
If you had allocated one second to rational thought you would have realised you are not the intended audience because you don’t understand it and thus won’t find it funny.
Before reacting to what might seem like flame bait, I tried to stay in style to the article and would like to point out that the ‘gag worthiness’ is intended and part of the joke.
Before reacting to what might seem like flame bait, I tried to stay in style to the article and would like to point out that the ‘gag worthiness’ is intended and part of the joke.
Thanks, now that I understand, it is in fact clever
[deleted]
There's a fine line between being a parody of a style and just being bad. I'm not certain where this one falls, but it's not really working for me either.
Perhaps a subset of HN is just excited to take the "rationalist" movement down a peg, which I suppose is a positive development.
Perhaps a subset of HN is just excited to take the "rationalist" movement down a peg, which I suppose is a positive development.
I'm not convinced it's positive, though I definitely understand the impulse. (And specifically wanting to take down LessWrong, which has turned very weird and navel gaze-y).
But it's a lot like the vitriol I see towards effective altruism. There's a good idea there (i.e. wanting to train oneself to think rationally, or wanting to do charity in a way that achieves the most good for the amount of money given). It's a bit sad to me that because the representatives of these ideas are flawed (rationality, LessWrong, Eliezer), or because they've been used as cover for shitty behavior (effective altruism, Sam Bankman-Fried) that the consensus becomes "there's nothing good here and it's all bullshit".
This pattern of throwing out the baby with the bathwater seems absolutely pervasive in modern discourse, you can see variations of it in people's thinking on vaccines, racism, democracy, journalism, freedom of speech, and global warming, to think of just a few examples.
Sorry, this became kind of a rant, but I really wish our internet discourse could do a better job of filtering babies from bathwater than it currently does.
But it's a lot like the vitriol I see towards effective altruism. There's a good idea there (i.e. wanting to train oneself to think rationally, or wanting to do charity in a way that achieves the most good for the amount of money given). It's a bit sad to me that because the representatives of these ideas are flawed (rationality, LessWrong, Eliezer), or because they've been used as cover for shitty behavior (effective altruism, Sam Bankman-Fried) that the consensus becomes "there's nothing good here and it's all bullshit".
This pattern of throwing out the baby with the bathwater seems absolutely pervasive in modern discourse, you can see variations of it in people's thinking on vaccines, racism, democracy, journalism, freedom of speech, and global warming, to think of just a few examples.
Sorry, this became kind of a rant, but I really wish our internet discourse could do a better job of filtering babies from bathwater than it currently does.
I think rationalism as an idea is pretty good, and I found the article funny. It's mostly a parody of a type of rationalism that does not exist though, i.e. idealized economic agents, not the type of rationalism that people actually want, where you achieve whatever your existing goals are and minimize the chance of catastrophic error/failure.
The "two marshmallows from the food court" joke was brilliantly understated
I didn’t really get that joke, could you explain it?
It's a reference to the famous Stanford Marshmallow Experiment: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experim...
> Nashwell smiled rationally.
There’s something about that line that captures the essence of the whole story for me.
There’s something about that line that captures the essence of the whole story for me.
Hilarious! If you have ever read about Game Theory, a book by Kahnemann or Taleb this should be funny.
Here's one (Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases; PDF):
https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/Psyc590Readings/TverskyK...
https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/Psyc590Readings/TverskyK...
Online games often have various particle effects that fire off when using an ability, which alone is a nice way to clearly and quickly indicate that something has occurred. However, what often ends up happening is when you get multiple people firing off dozens of these effects non-stop, you end up with an incomprehensible rainbow puke filling the screen.
This beautiful story has made me realize the same thing happens when using "intellectual" jargon.
This beautiful story has made me realize the same thing happens when using "intellectual" jargon.
I love the "principal agent problem"!
"I almost spilled my consumer surplus all over the floor."
Does this writer know my deepest thoughts while I'm at the mall!
Does this writer know my deepest thoughts while I'm at the mall!
Nashwell Maxington. Hilarious!
> I gazed into his breathtakingly dark eyes. There was something deep and familiar about them, glimmering in his eye sockets like two spherical cows.
…I’ll be in my bunk.
…I’ll be in my bunk.
Reminds me of William Gibson's short story, The Gernsback Continuum.
> "...Here, we’d gone on and on, in a dream logic that knew nothing of pollution, the finite bounds of fossil fuel, or foreign wars it was possible to lose. They were smug, happy, and utterly content with themselves and their world. And in the Dream, it was their world. Behind me, the illuminated city: Searchlights swept the sky for the sheer joy of it. I imagined them thronging the plazas of white marble, orderly and alert, their bright eyes shining with enthusiasm for their floodlit avenues and silver cars. It had all the sinister fruitiness of Hitler Youth propaganda."
> "...Here, we’d gone on and on, in a dream logic that knew nothing of pollution, the finite bounds of fossil fuel, or foreign wars it was possible to lose. They were smug, happy, and utterly content with themselves and their world. And in the Dream, it was their world. Behind me, the illuminated city: Searchlights swept the sky for the sheer joy of it. I imagined them thronging the plazas of white marble, orderly and alert, their bright eyes shining with enthusiasm for their floodlit avenues and silver cars. It had all the sinister fruitiness of Hitler Youth propaganda."
This is great (for people who want to signal they're in the know).
This is hilarious -- I hope the author writes more like it!
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This was strangely hilarious.
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[1]: https://skunkledger.substack.com/p/my-opening-speech-at-the-...