Let’s build a tower of nonsense on top of numbers we vibe with and pulled out of our ass

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    15·
    11 months ago

    Lol, it took me single digit minutes to figure out the tweet is in fact unironic admiration of the video. What really sold me was his tweets are 90% rat shit and 10% willful consumption of IDF propaganda

  • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systemsEnglish
    14·
    11 months ago

    So let me get this straight.

    I’m unreasonable because I think there’s a less than a 1% chance of a machine god torture-simulating and/or grey-gooing everyone. But if some enlightened gentleman thought there was a 3% chance and was like “wait hold on guys let’s consider building the machine god anyway it sounds kind of neat” then that would be completely rational.

    Edit: this video is a lot more fun to watch if you mentally replace AI with a pack of adorable (and very well trained) puppy dogs.

  • curiousgene@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    12·
    11 months ago

    I just realized that some if these guys are cosplaying as mentats. They’re wanna-be Muad’Dibs. (Or maybe Muads’Dib.) They’ve got Herbertian brain worms in addition to their Heinleinian worms.

    • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systemsEnglish
      15·
      11 months ago

      I came to the same realisation about longtermists a couple months ago. They absolutely think they’re Leto II taking the hard decisions to implement the Golden Path. They are so fucking dunepilled.

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    12·
    11 months ago

    There are some follow up tweets.

    To the commenters shocked that Zvi’s probability numbers don’t come from an “objective calculation”:

    Not shocked. At this point I am numb to it though.

    1. Approximating numerical probabilities is required if you want to make coherent decisions.

    Average bayesist when they need to pee:

    “Hmm, I suspect I need to pee. The decision I now must make is whether or not I should use my toilet or my sink.”

    half an hour of examining priors, searching LW for urination sequences and setting up a prediction market later

    “Hmm, it appears I have peed my pants.”

    1. Probability is subjective (a property of our belief-state) for us Bayesians.

    Oh my god, he admit it!

    • sue_me_please@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      Approximating numerical probabilities is required if you want to make coherent decisions.

      I hate everything about this sentence within its context.

  • blakestacey@awful.systemsMEnglish
    12·
    11 months ago

    It’s not even “GIGO” with these people. “Garbage In, Garbage Out” implies that the process between input and output is legitimate at least. They’re not trying to make justifiable decisions in the face of incomplete information, or detect inconsistencies among their own beliefs, or anything of the sort. They’re just emitting math-shaped noises to bolster their own egos and further insulate their cult. They use language nominally about changing one’s beliefs in order to keep their own beliefs locked in place.

  • acausal_masochist@awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    11 months ago

    I am even more worried if you think that reducing things to single dimensions is a necessary prerequisite for making decisions about them!

    This is just the standard accepted way to make decisions. There being only one future to hypothesize about implies a one-dimensional quantity in the analysis.

    Never let me work with this person

  • YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systemsEnglish
    7·
    11 months ago

    “…trying to head off an argument by bringing their estimates down as low as possible” - you’ve got it. We’re done. You can stop now.

  • sc_griffith@awful.systemsEnglish
    7·
    11 months ago

    as someone who was pretty involved in mtg as a youth it’s been disappointing to see people I admired (or in some cases - not this one - knew) drift rightward or into cults. but it feels absolutely bizarre to see one of them get niche famous for culting

    • sue_me_please@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      9·
      11 months ago

      The last decade has like this for me on so many levels. It leaves me wondering how much of the old world died and how much of it we were just blind to, or chose to ignore, in the past.

      I have a friend who stopped taking his medication and went full on schizophrenic, and that’s how it feels when yet another person gets brain worms, except they’re not suffering from mental illness, just ego, resentment and dumb ideas.

      Watching them some of them become grifters who actively infect people with their own disease is a trip on top of all of that.

      • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systemsEnglish
        7·
        11 months ago

        I think about this a lot. The way the far-right and other grifters have embraced the weaponisation of mental illness is truly disgusting.

        • Charlie Stross@wandering.shop
          6·
          11 months ago

          @Amoeba_Girl The far right are all about beating up on the Other, and those with acute mental illness are in continuous supply. (Latest twist: if you’re a grifter and antipsychotic meds have crimped your supply of Others to demonize, you can gaslight your followers on social media and convince them that everybody *else* is crazy. See also Q, Trump …)

      • carlitoscohones@awful.systemsEnglish
        11·
        11 months ago

        In this case, yes. Today I learned that there is a Magic The Gathering Hall of Fame, and this guy Zvi is in it. Another weird coincidence is that the first big crypto exchange (MTGOX) was built on a Magic The Gathering website.

        I used to read this guy Liron on Twitter and interacted with him a little bit. He would sometimes seem logical, like when tearing apart crypto nonsense, but sometimes make dumb or disingenuous arguments like he does in this twitter thread.