Posts with Comments by Rafal Smigrodzki
Emotional reaction to moral issues happens in the brain
You should check out the work by Tetlock on taboo-tradeoffs, forbidden base rates and heretical counterfactuals (http://content.hks.harvard.edu/lernerlab/papers/files/Tetlock_2000_JPSP_Paper.pdf and many more available in full-text on line). In one of his papers he does describe an unusual group of experimental subjects he refers to as "Bayesian libertarians" who apparently are able to suppress or perhaps fail to develop usual emotional responses while reasoning. Bryan Caplan is one of them, Tyler Cowen just wrote a book about a related cognitive style, looks like the GMU dept of economics is overrun with them
And yes, I think of myself as a Bayesian libertarian too.
And yes, I think of myself as a Bayesian libertarian too.
IQ & heart disease
There is another explanation: an underlying physiological difference that simultaneously improves IQ and cardiovascular health. I suggest mitochondrial activity as this ubiquitously active factor.
When I was a moron
Anybody understands what "mnuez" is trying to express?
BTW, scoring 153 on the test comes in my case from the realization that a segmented network is enormously more stable than a fully unified one. A segmented network is one that has multiple, largely independent parts, capable of partially substituting for each other, and only indirectly influencing each other. Examples are genetic networks, especially mammalian ones, where almost everything that matters is duplicated, and markets. Less segmented networks include communist economies and most armies. It does take some emotional detachment to be able to apply to your society the kind of thinking normally reserved to looking at mutated yeast strains. If you can suspend the normal human affiliative mechanisms long enough to think your way through to long-term outcomes, you are in danger of becoming an anarchocapitalist, or some other kind of non-mainstream thinker.
BTW, scoring 153 on the test comes in my case from the realization that a segmented network is enormously more stable than a fully unified one. A segmented network is one that has multiple, largely independent parts, capable of partially substituting for each other, and only indirectly influencing each other. Examples are genetic networks, especially mammalian ones, where almost everything that matters is duplicated, and markets. Less segmented networks include communist economies and most armies. It does take some emotional detachment to be able to apply to your society the kind of thinking normally reserved to looking at mutated yeast strains. If you can suspend the normal human affiliative mechanisms long enough to think your way through to long-term outcomes, you are in danger of becoming an anarchocapitalist, or some other kind of non-mainstream thinker.
I scored 153. Is this the highest score of all who commented here? (I do hope so).
I know from perusing archives of the ExI list that I wasn't an anarcho-capitalist until maybe 2002, although I did have very strong leanings towards it even in the mid 90's. I am now 43, and I clearly remember being different emotionally in my mid-thirties. The myelinization of the prefrontal cortex continues into the late forties, so all you young'uns can still look forward to a lot of internal rewiring. Hopefully, once you do some autopsychosurgery a la Mencius, ridding your brains of envy, tribal feelings, automatic respect for authority, and perhaps other traits, you will be finally ready to re-take Bryan's test.
As for the Iraq war, I am sorry I was only lukewarm against it (based on my ExI posts), rather than hardcore.
Rafal
I know from perusing archives of the ExI list that I wasn't an anarcho-capitalist until maybe 2002, although I did have very strong leanings towards it even in the mid 90's. I am now 43, and I clearly remember being different emotionally in my mid-thirties. The myelinization of the prefrontal cortex continues into the late forties, so all you young'uns can still look forward to a lot of internal rewiring. Hopefully, once you do some autopsychosurgery a la Mencius, ridding your brains of envy, tribal feelings, automatic respect for authority, and perhaps other traits, you will be finally ready to re-take Bryan's test.
As for the Iraq war, I am sorry I was only lukewarm against it (based on my ExI posts), rather than hardcore.
Rafal
Who-whom?
Anders wrote:
humanity will go posthuman not because most people want it, but because every step will be seen as practical and fun.
### As usual, Anders (and BTW, what a small world!) I largely agree with you - our world will end not because most people want it but because those who cause TEOTWAWKI would see each step as the right thing to do. But I am so much less sanguine about what it means for us - whether anyone wants it or not, our world and our position in it will end, as soon as somebody somewhere implements a human-level self-modifying AI. I am convinced that somebody will do it, somewhere, no matter how we, individually or collectively , try to prevent it. This implies most likely swift death to all of us, nerd and jock alike. The Singularity is not "nerd rapture", it's the end of all nerds.
I wish I could share your optimism. And grats on publishing the WBE roadmap. This is our only (slim) chance of making it to the next level in this game of life.
humanity will go posthuman not because most people want it, but because every step will be seen as practical and fun.
### As usual, Anders (and BTW, what a small world!) I largely agree with you - our world will end not because most people want it but because those who cause TEOTWAWKI would see each step as the right thing to do. But I am so much less sanguine about what it means for us - whether anyone wants it or not, our world and our position in it will end, as soon as somebody somewhere implements a human-level self-modifying AI. I am convinced that somebody will do it, somewhere, no matter how we, individually or collectively , try to prevent it. This implies most likely swift death to all of us, nerd and jock alike. The Singularity is not "nerd rapture", it's the end of all nerds.
I wish I could share your optimism. And grats on publishing the WBE roadmap. This is our only (slim) chance of making it to the next level in this game of life.
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