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[silverspawn]

I'm also not sure

[silverspawn]

Yeah YYyyyyuuuuuuuuuuuuyyyyuuuuyy can feel nostalgic for stuff in your adult life; that probably kills the theory.

My phone suggested the second word when I tried to swipe you so I'm leaving it in

[silverspawn]

Live Poker so far

+160
+150
+70
+306

There was definitely luck involved, but yeah it's going well! I think if I stick to 150€ buy-ins, I'm not going to go broke. My initial "bankroll" was 300€.

[silverspawn]

If and when I get to 1500€ (10 buy-ins), I'll go up to 200€ buy-in, and then when I get to 2000€, I'll go to 250€, and so on. At least that's the plan.

[silverspawn]

Recent Poll of LessWrong users: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WRaq4SzxhunLoFKCs/2023-survey-results

Specifically relevant:



So yeah, if Roko is a Trump guy, he's the exception

[faust]

There are a lot of self-proclaimed Libertarians that support Trump. But yeah, even if you add all those it's still the minority.

[silverspawn]

Alright withdrew all money from online poker rooms. Offline is where it's at from now on.

[silverspawn]

[silverspawn]

Live Poker so far

+160
+150
+70
+306

There was definitely luck involved, but yeah it's going well! I think if I stick to 150€ buy-ins, I'm not going to go broke. My initial "bankroll" was 300€.

And as soon as I say that I get my -300

Not complaining yet as long as it doesn't happen immediately again

[Awaclus]

There are a lot of self-proclaimed Libertarians that support Trump. But yeah, even if you add all those it's still the minority.

I would imagine that the self-proclaimed libertarians on LessWrong are mostly not those people.

[Awaclus]

Somewhat related, Manifold's position on the political compass:


(someone made a poll for each individual question on a political compass test)

[silverspawn]

Unique way to frame figuring out the world: view the key question in every discipline as "is there a social skill curve"?

Some people think there is a social skill curve everywhere, but that's not true. Some people behave as if the skill curve isn't real anywhere, but that's obviously not true.

For example in language proficiency, there is a social skill curve. (Trying to pick the maximally clear-cut example to make the point.) People who spend more time studying (or just speaking) a language genuinely get better; the skill is real, and people will generally climb it similarly. It also has the property of being obvious from the outside, which is why it's uncontroversial.

Conversely in philosophy, there is no social skill curve. That doesn't mean there isn't talent (there is) and no way to get better (there might not be, but that's not the point), it just means that it doesn't track social roles. You don't improve at philosophy by studying philosophy in an objective way. People who have spent their whole live studying philosophy can write academic papers that are of inferior argument quality to shower thoughts of an 18yo.

More obvious example is Roulette strategy -- not meaning actual roulette strategy that includes properties of the mechanical wheel, but strategy that assumes the output is random. There is no such thing (at least not as far as EV is concerned), but there have absolutely been people who thought there was such a thing.

Hence the framing as, find the answer to this question in every field. It doesn't tell you everything about the world, but it's a really important component, and one that's under-discussed because often claiming there's no skill curve is against the vibe people want to signal.

[silverspawn]

Going through a bunch of examples now

- Correctness of policy views --- absolutely not, as has been proven by studies. (Again, this doesn't mean you can't get better views by studying; it just means there isn't a set of right answers that everyone who studies the field converges to. Maybe this should be called convergent skill curve or something; I'm figuring this out as I go.)
- Meditation/Spirituality --- absolutely yes, although I do think there are massive differences between the skills of teachers, and there are probably some outliers, i.e., people who don't have much skill and still teach
- Poker --- absolutely yes although it's famously easy to misjudge your position on it
- Chess --- yes
- Sports Betting --- I don't know. Maybe a curve that only a small part of the player base is on? Maybe similar to poker?
- Political strategy --- I don't know
- Fiction writing --- hard no, and I think that's a major one where people are delusional. As in, a lot of people would think that, of course there's this set of knowledge you acquire, the set of facts you learn about how to write properly. And then you listen to Charlie Kaufman who makes it abundantly clear that he doesn't buy into any of it.
- Basically all hard sciences --- yes.
- Math --- yes.

[silverspawn]

Stock trading --- definitely yes since there's lots of people making genuine money, but probably also a poker effect
Creating advertisements --- I don't know
Conduct in debates --- I don't know
Pedagogy --- hard no

With most "I don't know"s, my default assumption is that there is one. Certainly what I'd bet on.

[silverspawn]

Maybe a better phrasing than "social skill curve" is "genuine body of academic knowledge" or something. I think all of these except Roullette strategy have a very real actual skill curve

[silverspawn]

Although that's not the right term either since it's not always in acaedmia

[silverspawn]

It's also not a binary question -- not even a 1d spectrum question -- since there could e.g. be five different schools of thought, one of which is acquiring genuine knowledge and the other four aren't.

I think something like this may be true in self-defense-fighting disciplines, where lots of places/small cultures have come up with their own supposed body of knowledge, but some are largely deluding themselves about effectiveness whereas others are absolutely crushing it. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seems to be the central one on the latter camp. Although even the camps who're delusional probably will have some significant amount of real skill.

[silverspawn]

Game design is another fun one. My guess here is no, and it's more like, every person figures out principles for themselves. But maybe that's not true.

[Awaclus]

Game design is another fun one. My guess here is no, and it's more like, every person figures out principles for themselves. But maybe that's not true.

There is at least an existing body of knowledge about common ways to be an idiot that you should avoid, and a lot of that is pretty solid.

[silverspawn]

Alright +320 we're back

[silverspawn]

Ugh I have a chess game in two days so I can't go to the casino

Also I play against I think the strongest player in the club and probably the city, so I'll presumably get swamped

For inscrutable reasons I didn't go today, either. Imagine only going to the casino every other day 

[Awaclus]

Ugh I have a chess game in two days so I can't go to the casino

That's why it isn't called a casiyes.

[silverspawn]

Ugh I have a chess game in two days so I can't go to the casino

That's why it isn't called a casiyes.

[silverspawn]

Truth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxPsXPCR5MU

[silverspawn]

Alright so ETH has gone from 4k to 6k. Should I withdraw now?