There seems to be nothing more fundamental than belief. Here's a thought. What do u think?

https://x.com/10_zin_/status/1850253960612860296

Hey I'm new to this but,

I was wondering if a precommitment is broken and then again maintained is it still precommitment? (In decision/game theory)

Or precommitment is a one time thing? That once broken cannot be fixed?

Also, Can a ACAUSAL TRADE happen between an agent who CANNOT reliably precommit (like a human) and an another agent who CAN reliably precommit?

Or does it fall apart if one agent does not/Or able to precommit?

Also can humans EVEN precommit in game theory way Or decision theory way (like ironclad) Or not? (Please answer this one especially)

I've been a lurker for a little while, but always struggle with the meta-task of deciding what to read. Any reccs?

I've been planning on reading the sequences, and saw that the first two books were published as print versions some time ago (https://rationalitybook.com).

Map and Territory and How to Actually Change Your Mind are the first of six books in the Rationality: From AI to Zombies series. As of December 2018, these volumes are available as physical books for the first time, and are substantially revised, updated, and polished. The next four volumes will be coming out over the coming months.

Seems like nothing happened since then. Was that project cancelled? I was looking forward to reading it all in print, because I'm staring at screens long enough on a daily basis to enjoy reading on paper much more.

Hey everyone,

I recently finished reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and loved it! Since then, I've been hearing a lot about Rationality: From AI to Zombies. I know it's a pretty lengthy book, which I'm okay with, but I came across a post saying it's just a collection of blog posts and lacks coherence.

Is this true? If so, has anyone tried to organize it into a more traditional book format?

I recently read "Rationality: From AI To Zombies" by Eliezer Yudkowsky. The love for Bayesian methodologies really shines through.

I was wondering if anyone has ever used a simulation to simulate different outcomes before making a decision? I recently used a Monte Carlo Simulation before buying an apartment, and it worked quite well.

Even though it is hard to capture the complexity of reality in one simulation, it at least gave me a baseline.

I wrote a post about it here: From Monte Carlo to Stockholm.

Would you consider using simulations in your everyday life?

Where should I start reading? I read hpmor, nothing else by Eliezer or anything on LW because it seems to me very intimidating and fomo attacks when I start reading something on there.

I am thinking of starting a new custom website that focuses on allowing people with unconventional or contrarian beliefs to discuss anything they like. I am hoping that people from across political divides will be able to discuss anything without the discourse becoming polemical or poisoned.

Are there any "original" features you think this forum should include? I am open to any and all ideas.

(For an example of the kind/quality of forum design ideas I am talking about--whether or not you can abide Mencius Moldbug, I'm not here to push his agenda in general--see this essay. Inspired by that, I was thinking that perhaps there could be a choice of different types of karma that you can apply to a post, rather than just mass upvoting and downvoting. Like you choose your alignment/karma flavour, and your upvotes or downvotes are cast according to that faction...)

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There's a class of thought experiments, including quantum immortality that have been bothering me, and I'm writing to this subreddit because it's the Less Wrong site where I've found the most insightful articles in this topic.

I've noticed that some people have different philosophical intuitions about the subjective future from mine, and the point of this post is to hopefully get some responses that either confirm my intuitions or offer a different approach.

This thought experiment will involve magically sudden and complete annihilations of your body, and magically sudden and exact duplications of your body. And the question will be if it matters for you in advance whether one version of the process will happen, or another.

First, 1001 exact copies of you come into being, and your original body is annihilated. Each of 1000 of those copies immediately appear in one of 1000 identical rooms, where you will live for the next one minute. The remaining 1 copy will immediately appear in a room that looks different from the inside, and you will live there for the next one minute.

As a default version of the thought experiment, let's assume that exactly the same happens in each of the identical 1000 rooms, deterministically remaining identical up to the end of the one minute period.

Once the one minute is up, a single exact copy of the still identical 1000 instances of you is created and is given a preferable future. At the same time, the 1000 copies in the 1000 rooms are annihilated. The same happens with your version in the single different room, but it's given a less preferable future.

The main question is if it would matter for you in advance whether it's the version that was in the 1000 identical rooms that's given the preferable future, or it's the single copy, the one that spent time in the single, different room that's given the preferable future. In the end, there's only a single instance of each version of you. Does the temporary multiplication make one of the possible subjective futures ultimately more probable for you, subjectively?

(The second question is if it matters or not whether the events in the 1000 identical rooms are exactly the same, or only subjectively indistinguishable from the perspective of your subjevtive experience. What if normal quantum randomness does apply, but the time period is only a few seconds, so that your subjective experience is basically the same in each of the 1000 rooms, and then a random room is selected as the basis for your surviving copy? Would that make a difference in terms of the probablitiy of the subjective futures?)

I vaguely remember that in one of the posts Yudkowsky mentioned that there was some mathematically proven unhackable software that was hacked by exploiting the mechanics of the circuitry of the chips. I can’t seem to find the source on this, can anyone help please.

Always thought them and Yudowsky were quite similar on a fundamental level.

Hello all! This will be a typical story. I discovered this in 2018 and had a major mental breakdown where I didn’t eat or sleep for two weeks. I got on medication realized I had ocd and things were perfect after that.

This year I am having a flare up of OCD and it is cycling through so many different themes, and unfortunately this theme has come up again.

So I understand that “pre committing to never accepting blackmail” seems to be the best strategy to not worry about this. However when I was not in a period of anxiety I would make jokes to myself like “oh the basilisk will like that I’m using chat gpt right now” and things like that. When I’m not in an anxious period I am able to see the silliness of this. I am also nice to the AIs in case they become real, not even for my safety but because I think it would suck to become sentient and have everyone be rude to me, so it’s more of a “treat others how you’d like to be treated” lol. I keep seeing movies where everyone’s mean to the AIs and it makes me sad lol. Anyways, that makes me feel I broke the commitment not to give into blackmail. Also as an artist, I avoid AI art (I’m sorry if that’s offensive to anyone who uses it, I’m sorry) and now I’m worried that is me “betraying the AI”. Like I am an AI infidel.

I have told my therapists about this and I have told my friends (who bullied me lovingly for it lol) but now I also think that was breaking the commitment not to accept blackmail because it is “attempting to spread the word”. Should I donate money? I remember seeing one thing that said buy a lottery ticket with the commitment of donating it to AI. Because “you will win it in one of the multiverses” but I don’t trust the version of me to win to not be like “okay well there are real humans I can help with this money and I want to donate it to hunger instead”.

I would also like to say I simply do not understand any of the concepts on LessWrong, I don’t understand any of the acausal whatever or the timeless decision whatever. My eyes glaze over when I try lol. To my understanding if you don’t fully understand and live by these topics it shouldn’t work on you?

Additionally I am a little religious, or religious-curious. And I understand that all this goes out the window when we start talking immortal souls. That the basilisk wouldn’t bother to torture people who believe in souls as there is no point. But I have gone back and forth from atheist to religious as I explore things so I am worried that makes me vulnerable.

Logically I know the best ocd treatment is to allow myself to sit in the anxiety, not engage in research with these things and the anxiety will go away. However I feel I need a little reassurance before I can let go and work on the ocd.

Should I continue to commit to no blackmail even though I feel I haven’t done this perfectly? Or should I donate a bit? What scares me is the whole “dedicate your life to it” thing. That isn’t possible for me, I would just go full mentally ill and non functional at that point.

I understand you all get these posts so much and they must be annoying. Would any of you have a little mercy on me? I would really appreciate some help from my fellow human today. I hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

I'm 26M and I'm thinking about getting vasectomy and I would love to hear your thoughts.

My main reason is that I don't want any kids. My main doubt is whether or not I would change in 20 years.

I believe that kids change your life for the worse. There are so many things to do, to experience, so many destinations to travel, so many blog posts to read, so many interesting discussions with intellectually amazing people to have. I want to do exciting stuff with my partner, travel, learn to surf, learn how to horse ride. I already have too few hours in my day, and I don't want to lose them to taking care of a crotch goblin. Kids are annoying, loud, dirty and are an everlasting source of chores.

Normally I would've said: "just go ahead and try". However, this is a lifetime commitment, with no way to change your mind. Moreover, once you already have kids, your instincts will brainwash you into wanting to nurture them, just as a drug brainwashes a drug addict's brain. I know it's a one-way street, similar to an addiction. You can quit an addictive drugs, you can't quit kids.

My main doubt is that I may change. I'm still young and I've seen myself change in many unexpected ways. I've seen myself start to crave love, I've heard about 50-year-olds getting crazy to get kids. To be frank, I'm afraid that my animal instincts might brainwash me into deeply wanting to sacrifice my life to having kids.

If vasectomy was reversible (and after 10+ years the success ratio goes down), I wouldn't even hesitate. But in this case: do you have any relevant experiences?

I'm looking for creative ways to cheat my brain, which is an abuse cycle. I'm in the 10 years marriage, which recently turned to be abusive with a domestic violence.

According to statistics, abuse victims returns to their abusers about 7 times, before they finally leave.

I have no reasons to believe, that my brain even better is here, that I'm superior, and can break this cycle without trying to cheat my brain. So, I'm looking for help in this sub, to creative ways, how to cheat my brain, to do it in one time.

Just tl;dr about my situation:

First of all, I'm 39 y.old medically transitioned(about 20 years ago) transsexual woman (M >> F), I live in the stealth (in real life pretend, I'm just a female). Not sure if it somehow changes a situation or an abuse cycle, how it works itself. But maybe you don't like people like me, and you can close this thread, and not spend your valuable time. Otherwise, please help me with your creativity and knowledge about cognitive biases, how to cheat my brain.

Don't open what is under spoiler, if you're not sure. There you can find shocking details about domestic violence.

First 7 years everything was perfect, we immigrated in Canada together, and started to build our future, but 3 years ago, my husband radicalized. Initially he was liberal, now he is far right. His behavior dramatically changed. He was a normal person, but now >!he time to time beats me, !<when I not agree with him in terms of his new political views. Now he supports MAGA, Xi, Putin, watches Andrew Tate, etc. He never said anything bad about fact, that I'm not a biological girl(probably because if he does it, it makes him gay in his own eyes? What is not good for far-right people?), but he did other terrible things,>! like broke my rib, like used my own pepper spray against me, like cut my arm with a knife, or just beat me without noticeable consequences.!<

We had an agreement (since the time his political values changed) that we don't discuss politics. But he never follows this rule, and always “punish” me if I do break it myself (yes, it were cases) or if he pretend, I break it, not him.

Like other abusers, he is time to time very neat and kind. He also isolated me from my friends.>! I used heavy make up to hide bruises on my face, etc!<. He also did things (I believe intentional) to make me feel shame when we met together with friends. My friends started to ask me questions, what is going on. I started to ghosting them, because I worried if they report him in police. So, I have no real life friends anymore, only online (some of them are former real life friends).

Each time, when I seek for help, a lot of ppl usually suggest reporting him to police. And usually it leads my brain to stop a "rescue attempt" pipeline. I don't want to harm my husband, I want to be alive, but want to see him happy. It's difficult for me to harm somebody, especially him, my an entire life I try to help other people, I volunteered a lot.

I contacted with crisis lines multiple time, but it's not clear how they can help me. With shelter? But what is the difference between shelter and Airbnb? When I volunteered, I was in a shelter for homeless people, and it had a very bad smell. Well, If I have no dollar, probably I'll go to shelter. But how it can help me now? Probably, with a bad smell in shelter, and possible violence, etc I more likely to return to abuser. And he will kill me one day.

I think, my main problem - is my own brain, which is in abuse cycle. I'm looking for creative ways to cheat my brain.

I have one idea, maybe it's really stupid. I think, I can try to date with another guy, my brain will switch "preloaded biological program" to "love story mode", and I can easily escape. But I'm 39 y.old transsexual woman, and despite I'm passing as female, it means nothing: half of mankind passing as female, and still a lot of them are alone. Not sure if any of intellectual masuline guy(which my brain prefers) ever choose me. Most likely, it's mirage. And understanding it, also keeps me in my marriage (like why I need to leave, who I have to care for?). I have an idea, probably adopt a cat or bird, if I manage to leave, maybe it can help my brain to find a purpose of an existence. Or maybe focus on hobbies, like writing my sci-fi novels with love story.

In terms of increasing probability to date with somebody, I think, maybe I can write a python + selenium script, attach it to large language model, in order to find somebody, in dating subreddits, more like-minded. Possibly parse okcupid for this goal? Sorry, I think, these ideas just crazy and stupid. And can't work in real life.

I hope, somebody can imagine something better and creative idea how to cheat my brain, because probably it's possible to use knowledge of cognitive biases, and power of technology, to not do same mistakes: return to abuser multiple times. Especially, because he can be angry, and kill me after even the first attempt.