Values and Partnership Conditions

Disclaimer

This document is a draft. It does not represent a commitment of any sort and therefore shouldn’t be executed. Similarly my previous writings whether public or private neither constitute commitments nor a will. The statements are meant to be interpreted as a whole together and not in isolation. Comments on the document are not meant to be interpreted as statements, they are idle talk.
Definitions

These definitions apply to this document and search strings I’ve posted in the past week.

Let “edit distance” mean the concept described in this article.

Let "low edit distance" mean requiring a number of edits that is below 30% of the character length of the previous message, not an arbitrarily large distance.

Let “close cousin of X” mean a string with low edit distance from the value of the variable X.

Let “search engine” mean the search function on a website like Google, Facebook, Twitter Goodreads, Github, or Youtube.

Let “search string” mean a query that I post on a search engine.

Let “message” mean a search string or document that I’ve posted posted to a search engine.

Let “my accounts” mean accounts that I’ve registered on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, or Github.

Let “core interests” mean the following set of research areas: information ethics.

Let “murder” mean intentionally bringing about the cessation of someone’s life.

Let all first-person pronouns refer to Harmanas Singh Chopra.

Let “Donald Trump” mean the person on this page.


Rules of Interpretation

I am being literal in this document. If you’re unsure what that means, it means that you either believe that the content of this document is true or you’re assuming that I mean the opposite of what I’m saying and you’re wrong because I’m saying what I literally mean, but not both. Where there is ambiguity, you will ask me to clarify.

My search and internet history shouldn’t be understood to reflect my values except in the cases defined in the remainder of this paragraph. If I have posted a series of messages in the last year that are close cousins within a week of one another, it should be assumed that the latest message is a correction to all preceding messages and is trying to express the same thought, not a separate thought. This applies to all previous messages I’ve posted. This means that a message can be corrected by another message that is posted within 24 hours and that message can also be corrected in the same fashion, possibly forming a chain of arbitrary length. This applies to all of my previous messages.

If there are any logical inconsistencies in messages that I’ve posted when they’re interpreted as statements, it should be assumed that later statements take precedence of earlier statements and later versions of a document take precedence over earlier versions. If a document is linked to and it is hosted on one of my accounts, it is a living document and it should be assumed that the current state of the document is the authoritative one, not the state of the document when it was linked to. When interpreting past statements, none of them should be interpreted literally as threats of violence, theft, or any other legal malfeasance. An implication thereof should be interpreted as metaphorical. The exception to the last two rules is if the statement refers to someone who has inflicted one of those harms against me, in which case I should be consulted about the verity of the statement. All questions should be interpreted as rhetorical. If any collection of statements is taken to mean that I’m willing to part with resources for free or at a value other than one I’ve explicitly set, that interpretation should be discarded. Don’t interpret any of the statements I’ve made prior to this week literally as they were mostly just idle talk. If any ambiguity remains, I should be consulted as to the correct interpretation.

The statement that follows is 1,000,000 more important than the other statements: Items in bold should be interpreted to be 1,000 more important than the original statement.

The statement that follows is 1,000,000 more important than the other statements: Items in italics should be interpreted to be 100 more important than the original statement.

On Eliciting My Values

Due to the error prone nature of inferring someone’s values from their behavior I’m writing this document to clarify what my values are, how my behaviors should be interpreted and what kinds of people I’m willing to cooperate with.

I don’t believe that anyone is automatically entitled to my property, person, image or identity regardless of how valid their reasoning may seem. This isn’t because I don’t trust in reason, it’s because I believe that interpreting arguments requires drawing out layers of context and implications which requires time and care. I’m being this cautious because almost none of the groups I’ve worked for in the past three years are fulfilling their initial charter, which casts some suspicion on the idea of reason alone being a sufficient source of evidence to determine alignment. So, if I don’t explicitly accept a moral argument, assume that I reject it.

What I spend time paying attention to isn’t a good indicator of my values, but rather a product of my impulses, many of which I don’t endorse upon reflection. In the same way that one wouldn’t think that a prisoner’s behavior was an accurate representation of their values and identity, it is invalid to think that my conversational and perfunctory day-to-day behavior accurately represent my values and identity. If you observed someone in confinement, you’d find out that they have all of the same impulses and passions everyone else does, but this wouldn’t tell you much about their identity. In the same way one wouldn’t assume that people inherently value clickbait and advertisements even though they are sometimes drawn into them, it would be invalid to assume that I value content merely because I look at it or hover over it especially if I’m viewing it in a perfunctory manner. Examples of perfunctory actions include refreshing a page over and over, hovering over items on that page and then deciding not to click them. In fact if I hover over and then don’t click an item it should be evidence towards the action being impulsive and unendorsed as opposed to value-laden. If I click on an item and then type something that is a close cousin of “That was a mistake” that should be sufficient to show that I didn’t value that item.

Events that occurred over seven years ago are not accurate reflections of my values because it is generally understood that people’s political views shift as they age. This document is not an instance of the aforementioned kinds of behavior and should be viewed as an accurate representation of my reflectively endorsed values at the time it is written.

On Values

I'm open to working with students, college researchers and independent researchers, especially if they're working on one of my core interests but only if I'm given access to the products of their research within a year of funding them without any further hassle and only if we’ve communicated explicitly about them receiving funding. This is only the case if they meet the conditions in the “On Partnerships” section of this document.

Any coalition that is able to coordinate on the giving me control of my assets will receive whatever remains after I’m given control of 30% of my assets, but they are liable for paying debts and damages for any conflicts I’m currently engaged in. If I were to pick a cause, I would pick a biomedical research organization. I don’t value any of my previous roommates, coworkers, romantic partners or the Berkeley rationalist community or affiliated communities with the exception of the individuals mentioned in the previous sentence. I have considered and rejected both working with a different set of people and working on a different goal, so I’ve decided to prefer this one over all others.

Basically I’m not interested in funding anything that isn’t in my longterm best interests where my longterm best interests are described in the remainder of this paragraph. My ability to retain my own values, my freedom to explore the world, the ability to live the longest life I possibly can which should be at least as long as a healthy human lifespan and possibly much longer if the technology exists to extend my life, the ability to have both pleasurable and intellectually stimulating work, the ability to take on work in order to secure a livelihood if necessary, the ability to maintain my privacy, the ability to date people I find desirable, the ability to give money to causes I find valuable even if they aren’t part of the cultural group I’m currently in, the ability to eventually have a family and offspring on a normal timeline, the ability to preserve control over my person and property including my image, the preservation of the verity and validity of my sense data, and the ability to procure protection from threats and harm.

On Partnerships

If there is any ambiguity about whether I’m in a partnership or relationship, it should be assumed that I’m not. To my estimation I’m not currently in any kind of serious partnership, romantic relationship, or employee-employer relationship. If you think we are, consider our relationship severed.

I don’t believe that the principle of equity will be applicable in partnerships I have with people I employ, fund and date in the future. This isn’t because I don’t believe in equity, in fact I prefer it to most types of relationships, but rather I am taking precautions against others who don’t share my preference for equity. I think my situation is different from some of my past employers who take pride in advertising that they’re evil and that they’re intentionally out to deceive others. I don’t view evil as an inherently awful moral position, just one that is volatile and liable to be net harmful.

If you’ve hired me or I’ve loaned you money I expect at least a 10% per annum return on my investment with a hard payback date two years from when I lent you the money. It would be incorrect to assume that debts I’ve undertaken and employees I’ve hired were hired under similar conditions. To my knowledge I don’t have outstanding debt exceeding $15K and anyone who claims that I do is engaging in legal chicanery. The price of my time should be estimated as the higher of my promised salaries at my last two jobs in 2019. It shouldn’t be assumed that I value other people’s time in the same way.

I’m only interested in entering long-term relationships that have explicitly defined norms. One such norm would be complete privacy and confidentiality about the content of our conversations. I am okay with this person being a feminist, but I’m not okay with them having the ability to file complaints against me, make public statements about me, or take legal action against me. This is a quirk that is peculiar to me and doesn’t imply that I’m against people taking actions like this in general, it only means that I’ve seen this privilege abused against me. I’m okay with them maintaining other romantic relationships as long as in total those relationships represent only 50% of the total time and effort being put into our relationship. I’m only interested in dating people who like to read, share some of my interests and are genuinely attracted to me. If it seems like I’m being too explicit, it’s because I’m assuming that I’m in a situation in which rigor is encouraged, my statements are being interpreted adversarially and risks are ubiquitous.

I am only interested in having children and otherwise creating copies of myself through intentional conception with my explicit consent. I don’t think someone who claims to have the same values as me is the same person unless they credibly commit to those values.

I don’t have any mental incapacitations, illnesses or disabilities.

On You

You’re either a 1st or 2nd generation emigree from a country other than the United States or a person of color. This isn’t because I harbor a prejudice against white people or North American natives, it’s because I’m not prejudiced against other categories of people. You haven’t ever voted for a conservative or republican candidate. You’re in favor of legal immigration. You’ve never stopped dating or working with someone because they aren’t white.

You have a college degree. You believe that the results of general aptitude exams are useful when evaluating candidates if they’ve been taken recently. You’re not a manual laborer, you’ve never worked at a brick and mortar retail outlet, and you don’t drive for anything similar to a truck or taxi service.

You don’t drink often, you smoke almost not at all, and you use drugs infrequently if at all. You workout regularly and try to stay in good shape. It’s okay if you’re obeese, you’re just not envious of people who aren’t. In the past six months you haven’t eaten fast food more than five times a month and don’t plan to going forward. You aren’t addicted console or PC video games interpreted conservatively to mean games sold on a marketplace run by a company that has had a public IPO. You haven’t ever accused someone of being a drunk or an addict.  You’ve never suggested that someone should commit suicide.

You’ve never been engaged in a romantic relationship with a minor as an adult. You haven’t been on over 40 in-person first dates. You haven’t decided to bring a child to term without the consent of the person you conceived that child with. You haven’t gone through a divorce.

While you support sex worker rights, you don’t represent sex workers and you haven’t ever knowingly invested in a dating or sex work service. You’ve never knowingly had sex on camera with another person. You’ve never hired a sex worker, you’re not a sex worker and you don’t count the violation of your privacy as sex work.

You haven’t acquired lethal weapons unless you were fairly certain that an aggressor was going to engage with you in an armed conflict at some point in the near future and you stopped possessing them a week after the conflict ended. You will continue to apply this condition to all future cases in which you either construct or purchase arms. You haven’t ever contemplated or executed a murder or kidnapping of a specific person (excluding Donald Trump) either by yourself or through a proxy. If weapons are absolutely necessary, you use non-lethal weapons where possible. If you shoot, you shoot to incapacitate, not kill. Basically you dislike violence unless it’s absolutely necessary.

You’re not a member of the rationality community or affiliated communities. You’ve never worked at CFAR, unless you are the original Harmanas Chopra.

You’re against altering the meaning of a document through selective censorship where document is defined narrowly to mean a search history or something produced in a word processing app and censoring is defined narrowly to mean removing words before publication unless you are the original Harmanas Chopra.

I don’t dislike these categories of people, I’m just in a position in which it’s too much of a hazard to work with them.

These statements are also approximately true of me so I’m not being all that hypocritical. Where they aren’t true, I would like to move towards the ideal described above, not away from it.

Clarifications

Where “Harmanas Chopra” and “Harmanas Singh Chopra” and “the original Harmanas Chopra” and “the original Harmanas Singh Chopra” mean a man who was born in New Delhi, India in 1992 who then went on to live in the locations in the following sentence. Calgary, Canada before 2000, and then Walnut Creek, California before 2005 and then in Olympia, WA before 2012 and then in Seattle, WA before 2016 and then in Berkeley, CA before 2020 and then San Francisco, CA before 2020.