Valerio Lomanto

Sporadically hopeful humanist.

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@ThinkingBone @djmicrobeads (of course the "you" here is impersonal, i don't believe you are part of that category)

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@ThinkingBone @djmicrobeads And this is the "lots of people think it's not fine to want novelty" that is Wrong, because no, you don't get to restrict how other people find happiness this way.

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@ThinkingBone @djmicrobeads I mean you can see this from both the purity-obsessed incels lamenting bodycounts and the ones that treat jealousy and total devotion as highly desirable virtues in a partner without which something is wrong.
Their being wrong is self evident to the enlightened mind (i mean cmon)

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@MomaBera Happy to let people pursue what they want for themselves and sculpt their bodies to the satisfaction of their own self-image but I find it super difficult to understand people who find the type of beauty on the right more attractive than the one on the left.

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@BetaEstradiol (This is not contradicting Decker's point in principle, you could have a good picture of whether finding out what you don't know within the scope of your research could lead to improvements for the world or not.)

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@djmicrobeads @ThinkingBone I mean that's what a large fraction of people already thinks but They Are Wrong.

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

ok but i see these images and the only thing i can think of is haalaland

[not so hourly haaland 𐙚 @hourlyerling]

the fact they’re using haaland to explain menstrual cycle phases to men is sending me

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

Ngl if an outcome of gambling on prediction market is setting fire to these blood-sucking parasites of an industry it may be worth it

[Finn Hulse @finn_hulse]

this is exactly the type of shit i absolutely hate about casinos

a guy did his research and broke his bet into smaller bets to avoid getting banned or having his wins withheld (predatory casino practices)

the casino then argues that BECAUSE he did that stuff, what HE must be doing is wrong

in other words, they punished him for solving a problem that THEY created. and the worst part is the regulators siding with them

this is what happens when you lend institutions too much power/legitimacy.

only the most corrupt possible system will side with the abuser. yet it happens time and time again, especially in this industry

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@Shockwave_App @AdamHoltererer add slits so you get free air cooling by the wind

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@rossivision @CodingSwede Then give them UBI! But don't ask private corporations who need to actually turn a profit in order to exist to pay people more than the value they produce and then be surprised if they end up employing fewer people

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@walespolecon @CharlotteCymru Then it seems clearer to lead with that complaint instead of pointing out the time the email was sent?

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@freed_dfilan @nabla_theta Paul Christiano's post relies on not just unbounded utility but utilities which are actually infinite (the infinite lottery constructed as example has infinite utility, and a finite but unbounded utility function doesn't have anything like that in its domain).

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@9chabard @maebichka I meant a meal* ingredient

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@9chabard @maebichka Carrots are "sweet" but go in the savoury basket bc that's how you'd eat it 99% of the time. Carrot cake is mid af (only the frosting can save it) because it's using a savoury ingredient in a desserty place and it just doesn't work.

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@deathbian That's very cool! Would it be ridiculous to have this kind of insulation between brick layers (or in concrete etc) if one wanted to build sturdy solid walls?

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@mayaofspring Yeah that's definitely been my experience too

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@freed_dfilan @nabla_theta The point is that the converse is not true, you can have negative second derivative without reaching an asymptote (and log(x) is an example)

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@freed_dfilan @nabla_theta What? If your utility in X (eg money) is something like log(log(X+1))) then you're much less risk seeking than log utility but it's still unbounded. Heck you could use the iterated logarithm log* and have an unbounded utility function that basically cannot get above like 6

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@freed_dfilan @nabla_theta ...since 0 nominal net worth is not the end of the world because of stuff like the potential for future earnings that you highlight, and so i do think log utility is way too conservative at the low end (wrt some scale depending on people's earning ability)

[Valerio Lomanto @verglasz]

@freed_dfilan @nabla_theta It's not at all incoherent to have unbounded utility functions, why would it be? And anyway, any real life scenario has a bounded domain so log utility is bounded above. The fact that it's unbounded below (in general its behaviour at low values) is what makes it weird: ...