dglukhov

Karma: 49

dglukhov 14 Sep 2017 11:37 UTC
2 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Open thread, September 11 - September 17, 2017
A lot of the sequences contain social constructs, or at least can have social impact for readers. The entirety of the book’s subsections titled ’Fake Beliefs”, “Mysterious Answers” or “Politics and Rationality” falls under social construct commentary.

If it helps, I’d define social constructs as topics relating to how humans communicate, and what is considered socially acceptable knowledge by certain demographics . What passes as knowledge according to rational traditions will lead one to accept or reject what is considered socially acceptable by others, and social construct commentary would be the act of commenting on such acceptance or rejection, defining what should be accepted or rejected. Rational study MUST include social commentary simply because we’re stuck with human communication as the only form of transmission of ideas between others. Why is this relevant? Because how one communicates rational concepts can be considered socially unacceptable. And also because what is considered socially accepted in certain demographic areas can directly reject rational pursuits.

Unless of course you’re ready to call the “Fake Beliefs” section low quality, I’d say social commentary is unavoidable when it comes to the study of AI or rational improvement of the mind. After all having vastly different ideas of what passes as reality for yourself can have lasting impacts on social cohesion with others if their maps differ from yours (unless you were a fantastic liar).

dglukhov 14 Sep 2017 2:55 UTC
1 point
on: Open thread, September 11 - September 17, 2017
Any discussions on phenomena related to initial gut aversion to site content by casual readers? Almost every attempt at showing site content has been met with VEHEMENT resistance, I’m curious if this has been observed and noted here.

In fact, my initial experiences with sequences and site content in general began with aversion. Personal experience shows aversion to the obviousness of discussed topics yet incompatibility with topics related to obvious points (i.e science explaining away social constructs or concepts unrelated to pursuit of knowledge through research means.)

Typical aversions from other folk fall along these lines, where most would claim that studying social constructs in such a slow, bit-and-pieces way seems altogether pointless, and not at all in pace with the requirements of said social situation.

More discussion required.

dglukhov 12 Sep 2017 19:10 UTC
0 points
on: Open thread, September 11 - September 17, 2017
Is there a copy of Eliezer’s book in russian? I’m having a hard time finding translations for this text.

dglukhov 31 Mar 2017 19:37 UTC
0 points
on: The Hidden Monopolies That Raise Drug Prices

Independent pharmacies don’t have the luxury of using mergers to offset the PBM power imbalance. In fact, when states proposed letting independents form their own pharmacy networks, the FTC argued against it, warning that it would “impair the ability of prescription drug plans to negotiate the best prices with pharmacies.”

When I read this it makes me question the legitimacy of the regulatory organization. It makes me couple this with the instance of ‘bill mills’ alleged to exist currently in both state and federal legislature.

EDIT: I say alleged because getting concrete documentation on the subject is suppressed.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 18:10 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017
Just out of curiosity, what is your stance on the impact of cars on climate change? And cars are too narrow, then what is your stance on fossil fuel consumptions and its impact on climate change?

You linked to parts of the debate I’ve never been exposed to, so I’m curious if there’s more to know.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 17:46 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017
That is fair, so why was the claim that cars are a net positive not nearly as thoroughly scrutinized as my counterargument? I can’t help but notice some favoritism here...

Was such an analysis done? Recently? Is this such common knowledge that nobody bothered to refute it?

Edit: my imagination only stretches so far as to see climate change being the only heavy counterargument to the virtue of cars. Anything else seems relatively minor, i.e deaths from motor accidents, etc.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 16:48 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017
Well, at this point I’d concede its not easy to make a claim with standards fit for such an example.

I’ll see what I can do.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 16:42 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

there is a counter-argument to it, too

What was his counter-argument? I can’t read German.

Like the remarkable hurricane drought in the North America? Or are you going to actually argue that weather is climate?

Well clearly we need to establish a time range. Most sources for weather and temperature records I’ve seen span a couple of centuries. Is that not a range large enough to talk about climate instead of weather?

Sure, but it’s a different debate.

Its a related debate, especially relevant if conclusions in the debate a metalevel lower are unenlightened.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 16:20 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

LOL. Are you quite sure this is how humans work? :-)

They don’t, that’s something you train to do.

I want you to quantify the claim, not the evidence for the claim.

Why? Are you asking me to write out the interpretation of the evidence I see as a mathematical model instead of a sentence in English?

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 16:05 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

Turns out you don’t know. The word means expressing your claims in numbers and, by itself, does not imply support by data.

Usually “quantifying” is tightly coupled to being precise about your claims.

I’m confused. You wouldn’t have claims to make before seeing the numbers in the first place. You communicate this claim to another, they ask you why, you show them the numbers. That’s the typical process of events I’m used to, how is it wrong?

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 15:42 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

You did use the word “quantify”, did you not? Do you know what it means?

Putting data on the table to back up claims. Back up your idea of what is going on in the world with observations, notably observations you can put a number on.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 15:41 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

You are confused between showing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and developing climate models of the planet Earth.

What other inferential steps does a person need to be shown to tell them that because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and because there’s a lot more of it around than there used to be, that CO2 cascades into a warming event?

There are people who say that this will become (note: future tense) true, but these people are making a forecast.

The recent weather anomalies hitting earth imply the future is here.

At which point we are talking about the whole energy infrastructure of the society and not about the costs of cars.

Indeed, so why not debate at the metalevel of the infrastructure, and see where the results of that debate lead in terms of their impacts on the automotive industry? It is a massive industry, worth trillions of dollars globally, any impacts on energy infrastructure will have lasting impacts on the automotive industry.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 15:19 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

This is not true.

According to what sources, and how did they verify? Do you distrust the sampling techniques used to gather data on carbon dioxide levels before recorded history?

Demonstrate, please.

What more could you possibly need? I just showed you evidence pointing to unnatural amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Disturb that balance, you cause warming. This cascades into heavier rainfall, higher levels of water vapor and other greenhouse gases, and you get a sort of runaway reaction.

dglukhov 28 Mar 2017 13:05 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Elo’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

Clarification—it’s hard to quantify the direct relationship of cars to global warming

It is easy to illustrate that carbon dioxide, the major byproduct of internal combustion found in most car models today, causes global warming directly. If you look at this graph, you’ll notice that solar radiation spans a large range of wavelengths of light. Most of these wavelengths of light get absorbed by our upper atmosphere according to chemical composition of said atmosphere, except for certain wavelengths in the UV region of the spectrum (that’s the part of the spectrum most commercial sunscreens are designed to block). Different chemicals have different ranges over which wavelengths of light can excite their stable forms. Carbon dioxide, as it turns out, can be irradiated over a portion of the spectrum in the IR range, in the region around wavenumber 2351. When light is absorbed by carbon dioxide, it causes vibration in the molecule, which gets dissipated as heat, since this is technically an excitation of the molecule. This is why carbon dioxide is considered a greenhouse gas, because it absorbs solar energy in the form of light as an input, then dissipates that energy after vibrational excitation as output.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today far exceeds natural levels ever before seen on earth. There are, of course, natural fluctuations of these levels going up and down (according to natural carbon fixing processes), but the overall trend is very distinct, obvious, and significant. We are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through our combustion processes than the earth can fix out of the atmosphere.

The relationship has been quantified already. Please understand, there is absolutely no need to obscure this debate with claims that the relationship is hard to quantify. It is not, it has been done, the body of research surrounding this topic is quite robust, similarly to how robust the body of research around CFCs is. I will not stand idly by while people continue to misunderstand the situation. Your urge to ignore this factor indicates either misunderstanding of the situation, or it indicates an aversion to a highly politicized topic. In either case, it does not excuse the claim you made. The less obscurity on the topic exists, the better.

dglukhov 27 Mar 2017 22:07 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

I was not aware that analytical chemists make climate models and causal models, too...

They can. Though the people who came up with the infrared spectroscopy technique may not have been analytical chemists by trade. Mostly physicists, I believe. Why is this relevant? Because the same reason why infrared spectroscopy works also gives a reason for why emission cause warming.

You are confused about tenses. Coastal flooding, etc. is (note the present tense) is not a major cost. Coastal flooding might become a cost in the future, but that is a forecast. Forecasts are different from facts.

Coastal flooding damages infrastructure built on said coasts (unless said infrastructure was designed to mitigate said damage). That is a fact. I don’t see what the problem is here.

Electric batteries do not produce energy, they merely store energy. If the energy to charge these batteries comes from fossil fuels, nothing changes.

Agreed. So let me rephrase. Solar energy comes to mind. Given enough time, solar panels that were built up using tools and manpower powered by fossil fuels will eventually outproduce the energy spent to build it. This does change things if that energy can then be stored, transferred, and used for transportation purposes, since our current infrastructure still relies on such transportation technology.

This is what I mean by augmentation. Change the current infrastructure to support and accept renewable energy source over fossil fuels. We cannot do this yet globally, though some regions have managed to beat those odds.

dglukhov 27 Mar 2017 20:35 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017
If you’d filter out one-man firm as a source not worth reading, you’d filter out any attempt of an analysis on my part as well.

I am concerned about quality here, not so much who sources come from. This, necessarily, requires more than just a glance at material.

dglukhov 27 Mar 2017 19:53 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017
Ironic, since you just asked me to do my own analysis on the subject, yet you are unwilling to read the “one-guy organization” and what it has to say on the subject.

The merits (or lack thereof) of said organization has nothing to do with how true or false the source is. This is ad hominem.

dglukhov 27 Mar 2017 19:41 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

Cost is an economics question. Analytical chemistry is remarkably ill-equipped to answer such questions.

Analytical chemistry is well equipped to handle and acquire the data to show, definitively, that global warming is caused by emissions. To go further to say that we cannot use these facts to decide whether or not the automotive infrastructure isn’t worth augmenting because its too hard to make a cost-benefit analysis in light of the potential costs associated with global warming and air pollution is careless. Coastal flooding is a major cost (with rising oceans), as are extreme weather patterns (the recent flooding in Peru comes to mind), as well as the inevitable mass migrations (or deaths) resulting from these phenomena. I’m not aware of such figures, but this is a start.

keep in mind, for example, that humans do need transportation so in your alternate history where internal-combustion-engine motor vehicles don’t exist or are illegal, what replaces them?

Though I’m not asking for a replacement of motor vehicles (although electric cars come to mind), I am asking for augmentation. Why take the risk?

dglukhov 27 Mar 2017 19:15 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017
Noted, edited.

The description of the link is entirely unfair. It provides a (relatively) short summary of the language of the debate, as well as a slew of data points to overview. To frame the source as you describe it is entirely an exercise in poisoning the well.

dglukhov 27 Mar 2017 18:46 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017
Okay, consider this an IOU for a future post on an analysis. I’m assuming you’d want an analysis of emissions relative to automobile use, correct? Wouldn’t an emissions based on fossil fuel consumption in general be more comprehensive?

Edit: In the meantime, reading this analysis that’s already been done may help establish a better understanding on the subject of quantifying emissions costs.

Also please understand that what you’re asking for is something whole analytical chemical organizations spend vast amounts of their funding on doing this analysis. To say that I alone will try to provide something anywhere close to the quality provided by these organizations is to exercise quite a bit of hubris on my part.

That said, my true rejection to Elo’s comment wasn’t that global warming isn’t hard to quantify. My true rejection is that it seems entirely careless to discard global warming from the discussion of the virtue (or lack thereof) of motor vehicles and other forms of transportation.