people really dont worry enough about the existential threats involved with ai. there are things that will be possible in the future that we cant imagine today, including being kept alive for millions of years and enduring deliberate torture for every second of it. people dont appreciate that life today is incredibly safe because there is no way for any entity, no matter how motivated or powerful, to intrude into your mind, control your mind, keep you alive or plant you into simulated realities. you are guaranteed relatively short and benign torture at the very worst. its an intrinsic part of the world. when this is no longer true, life will be very different. it may be a massive net loss, unlike advances in technology more recently. despite what people say, there is no natural law that says a technology has to cut equally in both directions. remember that.
Readit Newsrpiguyshy commented on Lena qntm.org/mmacevedo... · Posted by u/burkaman
rpiguyshy commented on When Bitcoin miners take over a town (2018) politico.eu/article/this-... · Posted by u/edward
He commented a bit more here: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1362600676174557186?s=19
wow thank you.
rpiguyshy commented on Activists who embrace nuclear power newyorker.com/tech/annals... · Posted by u/pseudolus
The problem is that you see it as one or the other as opposed to investing in BOTH solutions and trying to adopt both technologies for the better.
It seems like we should put all our eggs into one basket but why? If people realised how 'anti-nuclear' they actually were, things would move along faster.
well for the record i am not saying we should have zero nuclear. i think we need nuclear waste products to power rovers, do certain medical diagnostics and we need nuclear subs to keep the chinese at bay.
rpiguyshy commented on Activists who embrace nuclear power newyorker.com/tech/annals... · Posted by u/pseudolus
> ok well lets settle it. how much waste would be produced if the whole country ran on nuclear?
That waste goes into Yucca mountain, and it's behind / underneath 100s of meters of neutron heavy metals. If we were exclusively powered by nuclear power for a century without recycling, it'd be something like 100 football fields. Absolutely, completely, utterly inconsequential.
1 inch of neutron-heavy lead is enough to dispel the radioactivity from full blast of a thermonuclear weapon and be safe for a human. Saying that the Yucca mountain waste facility had potential for harm is the most unscientific, embarrassing thing that a certain unnamed political party has ever claimed on nuclear waste.
ok but i just have doubts. you say that buried nuclear waste is safe but i need more detail. what if it leaks into ground water? can it leak? what kind of containment is necessary? and does it need to be guarded? do people want the stuff for bombs or something? i just have a bunch of doubts and i think they are reasonable.
and meanwhile solar is simple and there are no doubts about it. probably much easier to do cleanly. nuclear people want us to hold out for this miracle reactor that cant melt down, but they are too impatient for a panel that doesnt have heavy metals?
and its not embarrassing, i just think solar edges out nuclear. im not dogmatically against nuclear.
rpiguyshy commented on Activists who embrace nuclear power newyorker.com/tech/annals... · Posted by u/pseudolus
Talk to the PhDs at Princeton and their collaborators:
* https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/experts
I'm just copying and pasting the December 2020 report.
Off the top of my head, renewables (in the US) only produce electricity about 30% of the time, so you have to 'over build':
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor
They have energy storage experts, so I'm sure batteries and such are taken into account.
total power requirement of the united states / amount of average power including weather and TOD produced by a square meter of land + amount of land to store necessary batteries = a corner notched out of nevada. not multiple states. i dont think you need a phd to see this, and elon musk also agrees with this and i think he is knowledgeable enough about solar and batteries. plus, there are lots of efficiency gains still in the pipes that will reduce our power consumption. when all houses are properly insulated, heated with a heat pump, have efficient appliances, thermal loops and have solar on their roofs then all of this becomes even more feasible. and thats not even including wind, hydro or thermal.
each problem is different. computational chemistry has stagnated therefore AI isnt a concern? its nonsense. first of all, it may be that computational chemistry is much more tractable than we realize because we are too stupid to find the necessary footholds. but regardless, some tasks are actually mathematically intractable. there is no way to draw a connection between AI and any other problem, certainly not a connection definitive enough to write off the risk of AI...
that is the key. its all speculation. as long as there is some possibility of creating AI, we have to account for it in our collective decision-making. like many people before them, most people seem happy to write off the possibility of anything that hasnt happened already. fools.
rpiguyshy commented on How my school gamed the stats greaterwrong.com/posts/Yv... · Posted by u/optimalsolver
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I think you're the one whose talking nonsense. Isolating children from the outside world to "protect them" (or for any reason for that matter) should not be celebrated.
I've been the target of relentless, viscous bullying in school, and it was at a time where kids openly bullied in front of teachers (and camp counselors) and it was just considered normal. Nobody ever tried to stop it because at the time that was not considered something to really correct, just part of normal childhood. The main reasons I was bullied was because I was a runt (physically) and I was not taught any social skills by my parents.
HOWEVER, my parents were severely abusive and were much worse bullies than anyone in school. If I were taken out of school because of "bullying" I would just be much, much worse off and I can't see how I'd ever be able to recover from that without exposure to the outside world. How else would I ever learn better, learn social skills, or learn to make friends (eventually)?
>there is no comparison whatsoever to bullying in school and in the workplace
In an office full of college graduates, probably not, but I've experienced very similar bullying at a dysfunctional blue collar job
Beyond that bullying growing up was just as bad at non-school organizations - summer camp, after school programs, and dance/gymnastics classes so I don't see how homeschooling (if my parents weren't abusive) is going to stop bullying without also isolating children from the outside world completely, which would be severely damaging. So you're basically advocating not letting children to socialize in any capacity because their feelings might get hurt by other kids. This is cruel.
My point is, homeschooling doesn't prevent bullying unless completely isolate your children. I'm not accusing all (or even most) homeschoolers of isolating their children, however, all the ones I personally know did isolate their children.
People are actually trying to stop bullying in school nowadays, so my experience would be different nowadays.
>childhood bullying damages the developing brain and creates lasting emotional damage
Oh, please, the severe emotional damage caused by isolating children from the outside world is so much worse. Also the severe emotional damage that parents can inflict on their children are so much worse than anything a peer at school can inflict, like 1000% worse. I was barely phased by the relentless bullying at school because home was just so much worse. (Plus my parents had already taught me that I was worthless, so it wasn't exactly surprising)
I've known a few people (different families) who grew up entirely isolated from the outside world to "protect" them from any person, place, or (especially) idea that wasn't pre-approved by their parents. They are all extremely dysfunctional. My husband was a boss to one of these guys and he literally couldn't function in the workplace and would have emotional breakdowns regularly. He's dead now, he killed himself. The rest I know are perpetual children who literally have no ability to function without a caretaker (usually their parents, one her arranged marriage husband). I have no idea what's going to happen to these people if they outlive their caretaker, I don't want to think about it, it's incredibly sad.
>im so sick of people offering this idiotic perspective because they never experienced being the target for more than a year. your opinion hurts people.
If you want to turn childhood trauma into a competition, I will "win."
this is utter drivel.
nobody is saying children should be isolated. they should be isolated from things and people who will damage them regardless of what they do. a stove can harm a child, but a child can choose not to touch a stove. a viscous bully will target and track a child, and in modern schools there is no option to fight back. the child has to simply sit there and endure it. so for example, if you put a child into a good private school this would meet my criteria. almost invariably, bullies behave the way they do because they are abused at home. if you separate your kids from the wife-beating riff-raff then you have done your kids a huge favor without "isolating" them.
i would almost not care about this issue if we still had a sane culture that let kids behave naturally and fight each other from time to time. maybe you are a little older than me, but the way it works now is that kids are raised to believe that without school, their life will be over. worse, they will bring disgrace to themselves and their whole family if they dont do well in school. if you fight, you will jeopardize everything by getting in trouble, getting expelled. we are putting boys between and anvil and a hammer with no way out. if my kid has no way to overcome it, and it causes him intense psychological pain for years, then there is no use in subjecting him to it. i cant understand how anyone can not understand this blindingly simple fact.
the key to raising kids is to let them confront danger, adversity and challenges and to make sure they have some kind of agency to overcome what they are facing. school bullying is unambiguously outside of this category of things because fighting is not allowed. its basically no different than strapping the child down and torturing him. it will build just as much character.
there was never any bullying or heroin overdoses anywhere in my life except for my public school. there are all kinds of people, groups and activities. saying that all outside world interactions are the same is utter drooling nonsense.
palmer luckey and Billie Eilish are both homeschooled and they are doing a lot better than you are. not all homeschooling is the same. i could keep my kid in a cage and call it homeschooling.
i see that you endured intense trauma as a child and you enjoyed it. you would not do it any differently. a pamplet of your story should be given to victims of childhood trauma who have schizophrenia and other trauma-induced diseases. clearly they have an attitude problem. it is not the trauma that hurt them, it was their sour attitude about it. what a revolution you have brought.
rpiguyshy commented on How my school gamed the stats greaterwrong.com/posts/Yv... · Posted by u/optimalsolver
A lot of school problems don’t do away in the real world. Cheating, bullying, boredom are regular parts of daily life for many workers. There are life skills that are learned in school that aren’t just textbook educational items
this is nonsense. almost nothing is carried over. it seems like you have never been the target of viscous bullying. there is no comparison whatsoever to bullying in school and in the workplace. the differences are innumerable. the most important difference is that childhood bullying damages the developing brain and creates lasting emotional damage. you are simply more vulnerable at those ages. you will be much, much better equipped to deal with bullying later in life if you are not carrying the emotional scars of being systematically targeted when you were a child. some adversity is necessary but this is a different discussion.
im so sick of people offering this idiotic perspective because they never experienced being the target for more than a year. your opinion hurts people.
rpiguyshy commented on How my school gamed the stats greaterwrong.com/posts/Yv... · Posted by u/optimalsolver
Focusing on the bullying aspects of the article for a moment, homeschooling goes a long way towards making that a non-issue.
Both our homeschooled boys played hockey for a local school and both our homeschooled girls are in Air Cadets, so they get plenty of socialising, and we've never had to deal with bullying.
I understand that homeschooling's not for everyone, but if you can then you should give it serious thought. Homeschooling's been around for decades, and with the advent of the Internet, there are now plenty of resources available - pretty much regardless of what country you're in.
let me just say how much i appreciate and admire you. people love to look down their noses at homeschooling and homeschooling has been the subject of terrible and dismissive ridicule. a terrible stigma has been created for home-schoolers. its all nonsense. god bless you for putting up with all of that. its such a shame that the vapid masses impose this emotional tax on smart people like you who are just doing what they think is in the best interest of their children. i think youve done an excellent job.
rpiguyshy commented on How my school gamed the stats greaterwrong.com/posts/Yv... · Posted by u/optimalsolver
i went to one of the best public schools in the states. even then the environment was toxic. heroin was dealt in the hallways, many kids even died of heroin overdoses. kids were viciously bullied and physically assaulted while the drooling, slack-jawed staff looked onward. i never put it together until now that this was probably because formally acknowledging what was going on would negatively impact the schools numbers/ratings.
the school system as a whole wore away at the physical and psychological health of a massive number of kids because of the insane schedule that deprives them of sleep. this was scientifically proven a while ago.
american public schools are a disgrace. i would never enroll my kids into a public school. they are glorified daycare centers where the inmates run the asylum. and all you have to do is reflect on your interactions with average americans to understand the fact that these schools are more likely to damage a person intellectually than advance them.
the only thing that separates people who had a good experience vs people who didnt is their personality. if you are not on the spectrum then its just one big pleasant vacation. but if you are unhealthy, on the spectrum, have a troubled childhood or for whatever reason fall behind emotionally or socially, then public schools are worse than a death sentence. everyone involved should be ashamed.