LessWrong

A community blog devoted to rationality. Founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

What does that mean? A lot of things to a lot of people. A good place to start would be the article on belief in belief.

This thread serves as a general discussion forum for all things Less Wrong. Anything pertaining to Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality should be taken here.

edited 28th Oct '12 4:01:50 PM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

On the toppic of rationalist fiction, I recommend Luminosity by notable Less-Wrong memeber Alicorn, and, speaking of alicorns, Myou've Gotta Be Kidding Me is a brilliant fic set in the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic verse, the Chess Game Of The Gods fanon continuity to be specific. The former has its own thread. The latter doesn't have as much following, though...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Do I have read anything introductory to that continuity to enjoy this one you are recommending?

Well, the first doesn't require previous knowledge of the Twilight Verse, since it takes everything over from the start. The second, however, assumes that the reader is a brony and has watched at least a few episodes of the TV Show.

If you mean the Gods Play Chess continutiy, no, you don't need to know it in advance. You will simply be ignorant of the same stuff the POV character is, and will find out about anything relevant at the same time as her. The fic actually introduced me to the rest of that continuity... which I honestly thought wasn't as good at the fic itself, so no loss there.

There is also this amazing article on Death Note and information theory, and a Naruto fanfic with Shikamaru as a protagonist.

edited 28th Oct '12 5:44:16 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

thanks

I already commented on that article on Death Note a while back, but I'll say it again. Death Note is less a study in how, given a perfect murder weapon, you can screw up anyway, than it is a case of some allegedly genius detectives beating out a guy with a perfect murder weapon by authorial fiat. A person who's really good at inference is not just one who can extract large amounts of data from casual observations, but one who knows just how much they can't rationally infer. In multiple steps, L narrows the hypothesis space far more than the data he's gather allows, because the authors themselves already know the right conclusions for him to draw, like skipping all the way to the conclusion that the killer must know the victim's real name based on data that really doesn't even warrant raising the hypothesis to attention.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

GAH, you're RIGHT!

Well, if a rationalist (or a team of them, for that matter) were writing Death Note... would it be impossible to catch Kira? And would Kira be able to improve everyone's welfare through killing? And I don't mean "make a new world", but "make everyone's lives better", which has among its win conditions "not to trigger a reign of terror".

Oh, and Friendship is Optimal is the shit. I'm really loving what it did with the Singularity emerging from a Pony MMORPG!

edited 29th Oct '12 10:33:58 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

"Myou've Gotta Be Kidding Me" >> not my kind of fic.

To be fair, no fic is my kind of fic, and I tolerated HPMOR reading it as a parody. I'll try Luminosity.

edited 29th Oct '12 11:11:08 AM by osias

Before that, try Friendship is Optimal. It is much shorter. It is also very good. And it averts all problems with fics by not actually taking place in Equestria or involving any actual ponies, as such. And Princess Celestia is a Friendly AI,

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

ok, thanks

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Your values will be satisfied through friendship and ponies. Also, you will live forever.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

I wasn't talking to you.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

/me is a little lost

Oslas, I was talking to you, making a joke on the contents of the story, but I got ninja'd by some person who seems to have come to this thread specifically to show hostility to lesswrongers. *shrugs* It may be that, before they post, they don't pay attention to the square box that says "Everybody: The wiki is only interested in hosting a friendly, civil forum. Check out the rules. We do enforce them."

I take the opportunity to quote that, to remind everyone on this thread to be on their best behaviour. No belittling other people, and no forcing of our beliefs on them. Let's keep this civil and friendly.

On the other hand, this being TVT, casual conversation is encouraged, as is wearing one's clown suit.

edited 29th Oct '12 12:26:59 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

thanks, I'm yet to reach the point I can understand it, I think.

So I was mistaken by a lesswronger? #confusedface

You mean you were mistaken for a lesswronger? Anyway, you'll reach that part soon enough.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

... I just don't how did that "by" came from. Thanks.

There must be a thread about this fic here somewhere, I'll look by for one.

Let's get back on topic:

I found amusing that most commenters on Eliezer Y's posts try to define or even discuss the definition of "post utopian" and "colonial alienation"

edited 29th Oct '12 12:53:53 PM by osias

Well, Eliezer would definitely be post-utopian, with all his talk of weirdtopia in the Fun Theory sequence. As for colonial alienation, it probably refers to the cultural drift between colonies and their motherland, and the resulting inf/superiority complexes. Either that, or what happens to colonized people who cozy up to the colonists and end up alienated from their own compatriots and strangers to their own culture. Given a few generations, an entire country can thus become alienated to its own culture. See Vietnam for an example.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

"Friendship is Optimal" —> I'm at chapter 2 and I WMG that Loki is Loki, and also Princess Celestia is Loki

Nah, she's like a googleplex times more interesting. Literally, too.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

than Loki the god or Loki the AI ?

Also, lots of Artistic Licence:Computer Science

edited 30th Oct '12 12:44:07 PM by osias

Both. And I wouldn't know about the latter bit. I'm just an engineer.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

civil, electrical or...?