Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Less Wrong used to like Bitcoin before it was cool. Time for a revisit?

Less Wrong used to like Bitcoin before it was cool. [Monthly threads](/lw/65e/general_bitcoin_discussion_thread_june_2011/) popped up around the same time a pricing bubble brought mainstream attention last year. When the bubble popped, and price continued to deflate, discussion on this site stopped entirely. Was there a change of sign in the social status of the topic, is the topic fully explored, or has there simply happened nothing of interest over the last year?

If you are not familiar with Bitcoin, [here](http://www.milkeninstitute.org/publications/review/2012_1/22-31MR53.pdf) is one intro I happen to like.

[Kaj Sotala](/lw/5se/general_bitcoin_discussion_thread_may_2011/) lists a number of previous threads on the topic:

> There seems to be quite a bit of a Bitcoin interest around here, with several articles about it already: \[[1](/lw/4mc/singularity_institute_now_accepts_donations_via/) [2](/lw/4cs/making_money_with_bitcoin/) [3](/lw/4w9/google_lends_further_legitimacy_to_bitcoin/) [4](/) [5](/r/discussion/lw/5ru/links_bitcoin_hits_mainstream_intelligent/) [6](/r/discussion/lw/5rg/homomorphic_encryption_and_bitcoin/) [7](/r/discussion/lw/5pz/link_two_articles_on_bitcoin/)\]

Less Wrong seems like a good place to discuss recent developments, if one does not want to suffer the inanity of the officially unofficial [forum](https://bitcointalk.org/). If you are not longer interested in Bitcoin, perhaps [send](http://intelligence.org/donate/?a=100) your remaining balance to the Singularity Institute?
# Plastination is maturing and needs funding, says Hanson

> Though cryonics has been practiced for forty years, its techniques have improved only slowly; its few customers can only induce a tiny research effort. The much larger brain research community, in contrast, has been rapidly improving their ways to do fast cheap detailed 3D brain scans, and to prepare samples for such scans. You see, brain researchers need ways to stop brain samples from changing, and to be strong against scanning disruptions, just so they can study brain samples at their leisure.

> These brain research techniques have now reached two key milestones:
> 
> 1.  They’ve found new ways to “fix” brain samples by filling them with plastic, ways that seem impressively reliable, resilient, and long lasting, and which work on large brain volumes (e.g., [here](http://homes.mpimf-heidelberg.mpg.de/~smikula/MIV.html?path=blockface/sm1329/&width=97335&height=152116&notilegroups=1)). Such [plastination](http://www.gwern.net/plastination) techniques seem close to being able to save enough info in entire brains for centuries, without needing continual care. Just dumping a plastic brain in a box in a closet might work fine.
> 2.  Today, for a few tens of thousands of dollars, less than the price charged for one cryonics customer, it is feasible to have independent lab(s) take random samples from whole mouse or human brains preserved via either cryonics or plastination, and do high (5nm) resolution 3D scans to map out thousands of neighboring cells, their connections, and connection strengths, to test if either of these approaches clearly preserve such key brain info.
> 
> An anonymous donor has actually funded a $100K [Brain Preservation Prize](http://brainpreservation.org/content/technology-prize), paid to the first team(s) to pass this test on a human brain, with a quarter of the prize going to those that first pass the test on a mouse brain. Cryonics and plastination teams have already submitted whole mouse brains to be tested. The only hitch is that the prize organization needs money (~25-50K$) to actually do the tests!

Comments?  If superior brain preservation can be demonstrated under a 5nm-resolution 3D scan, plastination wins over vitrification hands-down.  Is Robin missing anything here, or is this indeed as important as he says?
# Help me make SI's arguments clear

One of the biggest problems with evaluating the plausibility of SI's arguments is that the arguments involve a large number of premises (as any complex argument will) and often these arguments are either not written down or are written down in disparate locations, making it very hard to piece together these claims. SI is aware of this and one of their major aims is to state their argument very clearly. I'm hoping to help with this aim.

My specific plan is as follows: I want to map out the broad structure of SI's arguments in "standard form" - that is, as a list of premises that support a conclusion. I then want to write this up into a more readable summary and discussion of SI's views.

The first step to achieving this is making sure that I understand what SI is arguing. Obviously, SI is arguing for a number of different things but I take their principle argument to be the following:

P1. Superintelligent AI (SAI) is highly likely to be developed in the near future (say, next 100 years and probably sooner)  
P2. Without explicit FAI research, superintelligent AI is likely to pose a global catastrophic risk for humanity.  
P3. FAI research has a reasonable chance of making it so that superintelligent AI will not pose a global catastrophic risk for humanity.  
Therefore  
C1. FAI research has a high expected value for humanity.  
P4. We currently fund FAI research at a level below that supported by its expected value.  
Therefore  
C2. Humanity should expend more effort on FAI research.

Note that P1 in this argument can be weakened to simply say that SAI is a non-trivial possibility but, in response, a stronger version of P2 and P3 are required if the conclusion is still to be viable (that is, if SAI is less likely, it needs to be more dangerous or FAI research needs to be more effective in order for FAI research to have the same expected value). However, if P2 and P3 already seem strong to you, then the argument can be made more forceful by weakening P1. One further note, however, doing so might also make the move from C1 and P4 to C2 more open to criticism - that is, some people think that we shouldn't make decisions based on expected value calculations when we are talking about low probability/high value events.

So I'm asking for a few things from anyone willing to comment:

1.) A sense of whether this is a useful project (I'm very busy and would like to know whether this is a suitable use of my scarce spare time) - I will take upvotes/downvotes as representing votes for or against the idea (so feel free to downvote me if you think this idea isn't worth pursuing even if you wouldn't normally downvote this post).  
2.) A sense of whether I have the broad structure of SI's basic argument right.

In terms of my commitment to this project: as I said before, I'm very busy so I don't promise to finish this project. However, I will commit to notifying Less Wrong if I give in on it and engaging in handover discussions with anyone that wants to take the project over.
# Draft of Edwin Jaynes' "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science" online, with lost chapter 30

[http://thiqaruni.org/mathpdf9/(86).pdf](http://thiqaruni.org/mathpdf9/(86).pdf)

The book didn't include Chapter 30 - "MAXIMUM ENTROPY: MATRIX FORMULATION"

Opening in adobe seems to work out better for me.
# Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as having a bad reputation

I'm not too sure who is familiar with [Web of Trust](http://www.mywot.com/), so I'll start with a brief description. It's basically a browser app that inserts a circle next to text links in websites. The color of the circle indicates whether or not it's average rating by users rates it as having a "good reputation" (green) or a "bad reputation" (red). There are four criteria: Trustworthiness, Vendor Reliability, Privacy, and Child Safety.

Singularity.org's printout is [here](http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/singularity.org/comment?utm_source=addon&utm_content=rw-viewsc). As you may have guessed from the title, Web of Trust lists Singularity.org as "poor" in trustworthiness, vendor reliability, and privacy. There's a comment that, when translated (via Google translate) says "Mass mailing of non-thematic Forums". It's also commented under the category "malicious content/viruses".

I'm not entirely sure how these ratings are generated, ([How Ratings Work](http://www.mywot.com/en/faq/website/rating-websites), related) but I've used it for several years, and this is only the second time I've disagreed with a rating. I've always found WOT to be very reliable, and a decent way of warning me if a site is unsafe so I don't have to think about it. So I was fairly alarmed when I saw the red circle there, since I'd imagine it's turning away people that don't know any better. If LW had a red circle, I never would have come here. I'm not sure what SI or LW can do about it, but there's a "click here if you are the owner of this site" button, although I don't know what that does. I've left my own rating on there, but it didn't seem to change the overall rankings.

Edit: When I made this post, the scorecard read Trustworthiness 30, Vendor Reliability 31, Privacy 31, Child Safety 100.
# Introduction to Game Theory: Sequence Guide

This sequence of posts is a primer on game theory intended at an introductory level. Because it is introductory, Less Wrong veterans may find some parts boring, obvious, or simplistic - although hopefully nothing is so simplistic as to be outright wrong.  
  
Parts of this sequence draw heavily upon material from _[The Art of Strategy](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Strategy-Theorists-Business/dp/0393062430)_ by Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff, and it may in part be considered a (very favorable) review of the book accompanied by an exploration of its content. I have tried to include enough material to be useful, but not so much material that it becomes a plagiarism rather than a review (it's probably a bad idea to pick a legal fight with people who write books called _The Art of Strategy_.) Therefore, for the most complete and engaging presentation of this material, I highly recommend the original book.  
  
All posts will be linked from here as they go up:  
  
1\. [Introduction to Game Theory: Sequence Guide](/lw/dbe/introduction_to_game_theory_sequence_guide/)  
2\. [Backward Reasoning Over Decision Trees](/lw/dbj/backward_reasoning_over_decision_trees/)  
3\. [Nash Equilibria and Schelling Points](/lw/dc7/nash_equilibria_and_schelling_points/)  
4\. [Introduction to Prisoners' Dilemma](/lw/dd3/introduction_to_prisoners_dilemma/)  
5\. [Real World Solutions to Prisoners' Dilemmas](/lw/del/real_world_solutions_to_prisoners_dilemmas/)  
6\. [Interlude for Behavioral Economics](/lw/dgc/interlude_for_behavioral_economics/)  
7\. [What Is Signaling, Really?](/lw/did/what_is_signaling_really/)  
8\. [Bargaining and Auctions](/lw/dm8/bargaining_and_auctions/)  
9\. [Imperfect Voting Systems](/lw/dp6/imperfect_voting_systems/)  
10\. [Game Theory As A Dark Art](/lw/dr9/game_theory_as_a_dark_art/)

Special thanks to Luke for his book recommendation and his strong encouragement to write this.
# Call for volunteers: Publishing the Sequences

![](http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/The-Sequences-cover.png)The Singularity Institute is in the process of publishing Eliezer Yudkowsky’s [Sequences](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences) of rationality posts as an electronic book. The Sequences are made up of multiple hundreds of posts. These are being downloaded and converted to LaTeX for publishing programmatically and that’s where the human tasks begin. These will entail:

*   Verifying that all the content has all been transferred, including all text, equations and images.
*   Proofreading for any typographical errors that may have escaped attention thus far.
*   Verifying that all external links are still alive (and replacing any that are not).
*   Creating a bibliography for all material referenced in the chapters (posts).

The recent [document](http://intelligence.org/research/) [publishing](/lw/crs/how_to_run_a_successful_less_wrong_meetup/) efforts at SIAI would not have been possible without the assistance of dedicated volunteers. This new project is the perfect opportunity to [help out](/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/) lesswrong while giving you an excuse to catch up on (or revisit) your reading of some foundational rational thinking material. As an added bonus every post reviewed will save the world with 3.5*epsilon probability.

We need volunteers who are willing to read some sequence posts and have an eye for detail. Anyone interested in contributing should contact me at cameron.taylor \[at\] singinst \[dot\] org.

For those more interested in academic papers we also have regular publications (and re-publications) that need proofreading and editing before they are released.
# Scholarship: how to tell good advice from bad advice?

Lukeprog has done some great posts talking about [how scholarship has benefited him personally](/lw/9fy/leveling_up_in_rationality_a_personal_journey/) and [how to do it.](/lw/5me/scholarship_how_to_do_it_efficiently/) However, he hasn't talked much about how to tell the good from the bad, and I think this is an especially big problem with it comes to "how to"s, rather than standard academic subjects.

The thing is this: writing on academic subjects tends to be dominated by academics seeking to gain status from their work. [Not](/lw/4ba/some_heuristics_for_evaluating_the_soundness_of/) [all](/lw/4zs/philosophy_a_diseased_discipline/) [fields](/lw/9sv/diseased_disciplines_the_strange_case_of_the/) have a strong correlation between status and making actual discoveries, but many (perhaps most) do. So for academic subjects, the big challenge when it comes to making sure you're not reading nonsense is to try to evaluate the soundness of the field in question.

When it comes to seeking out "how to" advice, though, writing on the subjects seems to be dominated by people looking to make money selling advice. That means that if bad advice will sell better than good advice, they'll give the bad advice. Even if their writing includes legitimate advice, they have incentives to give a distorted picture of the subject they're writing on if it will sell better (for example, making whatever they're talking about sound easier than it really is). In some cases, advice books end up trying to nudge you towards buying some more expensive thing the author is selling.

So: when you're researching a "how to" topic, how do you tell the good advice from the bad advice?
# Aubrey de Grey has responded to his IAMA - Now with Transcript!

Watch the video response here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tsI_28O3Ws](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tsI_28O3Ws)

This was posted here on lesswrong a while ago, but they recently uploaded a new version of the video and I took the liberty of typing up a transcript.

The video is fairly long, about 25 minutes. But it's incredibly engaging and I highly recommend watching it. For those who prefer text (because it's faster or because you are a computer), you can read the transcript in [this google doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RKiR7r6h0fmEaEb7d-50RcXVkD_kkdBnQRebYWSiRqc/edit), or [below in the comments](/r/discussion/lw/ddh/aubrey_de_grey_has_responded_to_his_iama_now_with/6xee). Enjoy!
# Summary of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

In the very back of Kaj's excellent [How to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup Group](/lw/crs/how_to_run_a_successful_less_wrong_meetup/) booklet, he has a recommended reading section, including the classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People.

It just so happens that not only have I read the book myself, but I have [written up a concise summary of the core advice here](http://effectivenessforgeeks.com/summary-of-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/). Kaj suggested that I post this on the discussion section because others might find it useful, so here you go!

I suspect that more people are willing to read a summary of a book from the 1930s than an actual book from the 1930s. What I will say about reading the long-form text is that it can be more useful for _internalizing_ these concepts and giving examples of them. It is far too easy to abstractly know what you need to do, much harder to actually take action on those beliefs...
# Hope Function

Yesterday I finished transcribing [**"The Ups and Downs of the Hope Function In a Fruitless Search**](http://www.gwern.net/docs/1994-falk)**"**. This is a statistics & psychology paper describing a simple probabilistic search problem and the sheer difficulty subjects have in producing the correct Bayesian answer. Besides providing a great but simple illustration of the mind projection fallacy in action, the simple search problem maps onto a number of forecasting problems: the problem may be looking in a desk for a letter that may not be there, but we could also look at a problem in which we check every year for the creation of AI and ask [how our beliefs change over time](/lw/5hq/an_inflection_point_for_probability_estimates_of/428t#body_t1_428t) \- which turns out to defuse a common scoffing criticism of past technological forecasting. (This last problem was why I went back and used it, after I first read of it.)

The math is all simple - arithmetic and one application of Bayes's law - so I think all LWers can enjoy it, and it has amusing examples to analyze. I have also taken the trouble to annotate it with Wikipedia links, relevant materials, and many PDF links (some jailbroken just for this transcript). I hope everyone finds it as interesting as I did.

I thank John Salvatier [for doing the ILL request](/lw/7hi/free_research_help_editing_and_article_downloads/) which got me a scan of this book chapter.
# E.T. Jaynes and Hugh Everett - includes a previously unpublished review by Jaynes of a published short version of Everett's dissertation

E.T. Jaynes had a brief exchange of correspondence with Hugh Everett in 1957. The exchange was initiated by Everett, who commented on recently published works by Jaynes. Jaynes responded to Everett's comments, and finally sent Everett a letter reviewing a short version of Everett's thesis published that year. 

Jaynes reaction was extremely positive at first: "It seems fair to say that your theory is the logical completion of quantum theory, in exactly the same sense that relativity was the logical completion of classical theory." High praise. But Jaynes swiftly follows up the praise with fundamental objections: "This is just the fundamental cause of Einstein's most serious objections to quantum theory, and it seems to me that the things that worried Einstein still cause trouble in your theory, but in an entirely new way." His letter goes on to detail his concerns, and insist, wtih Bohm,  that "Einstein's objections to quantum theory have never been satisfactorily answered.

The Collected Works of Everett has some narrative about their interaction:

http://books.google.com/books?id=dowpli7i6TgC&lpg=PA261&dq=jaynes%20everett&pg=PA261#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hugh Everett marginal notes on page from E. T. Jaynes' "Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics"

http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1140

Hugh Everett handwritten draft letter to E.T. Jaynes, 15-May-1957

http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1186

Hugh Everett letter to E. T. Jaynes, 11-June-1957

http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1124

E.T. Jaynes letter to Hugh Everett, 15-October-1957 - **Never before published**

https://sites.google.com/site/etjaynesstudy/jaynes-documents/Jaynes-Everett_19571015.pdf?

Directory at Google site with all the links and docs above. Also links to Washington University at St. Louis copyright form for this doc, Everett's thesis, long and short forms, and Jaynes' paper (the papers they were discussing in their correspondence). I hope to be adding the final letter in this exchange, Jaynes to Hewitt 17-June-1957, within a couple of weeks. , and maybe some documents from the Yahoo Group ETJaynesStudy as well.

[https://sites.google.com/site/etjaynesstudy/jaynes-documents](https://sites.google.com/site/etjaynesstudy/jaynes-documents)

For perspective on Jaynes more recent thoughts on quantum theory:

Jaynes paper on EPR and Bell's Theorem: http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/cmystery.pdf

Jaynes speculations on quantum theory: http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/scattering.by.free.pdf
# New "Best" comment sorting system

Way back in October 2009 Reddit introduced their "Best" comment sorting system. We've just pulled those changes into Less Wrong. The changes affect only comments, not stories.

It's good. It should significantly improve the visibility of good comments posted later in the life of an article. You (yes you) should adopt it. It's the default for new users.

See [http://blog.reddit.com/2009/10/reddits-new-comment-sorting-system.html](http://blog.reddit.com/2009/10/reddits-new-comment-sorting-system.html) for the details.

![Location of "Best" comment sorting option](https://img.skitch.com/20120702-gw2sk1irwa5dxq7gun8rxnrwgf.png)
# Less Wrong Product & Service Recommendations

I have often benefited from recommendations for Things I Didn't Know I Wanted.

Given that Less Wrong is a community of unusually intelligent, critical, and self-improvement-focused people, I suspect we can generate a pretty helpful thread of product recommendations — perhaps even a _monthly_ thread of product recommendations.

Rules:

*   Post one product your recommend per comment, so they can be discussed and voted on independently.
*   Provide a link for purchasing the product.
*   No books, movies, TV, games, or music. (These should go in other threads, like [this one](/lw/ddt/july_2012_media_thread/) or [this one](/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/).)

I'll post my own recommendations to the comments section, too.
# Learn Power Searching with Google 

> Google Search makes it amazingly easy to find information. Come learn about the powerful advanced tools we provide to help you find just the right information when the stakes are high.

Daniel Russell is doing a free [Google class on how to search the web](http://www.google.com/insidesearch/landing/powersearching.html). Besides six 50-minute classes it will include interactive activities to practice new skills. Upon passing the post-course assessment you get a Certificate of Completion.

Advanced search skills are not only a useful everyday skill but [vital to doing scholarship](/lw/3m3/the_neglected_virtue_of_scholarship/). Searching the web is a superpower that would make thinkers of previous centuries green with envy. Learn to use it well. I recommend checking out [Inside Search](http://www.google.com/insidesearch/), [Russel's Blog](http://searchresearch1.blogspot.com/) or perhaps reading the article "**[How to solve impossible problems](http://www.johntedesco.net/blog/2012/06/21/how-to-solve-impossible-problems-daniel-russells-awesome-google-search-techniques/)**" to get a feeling about what you can expect to gain from it.

I think for most the value of information is high enough to be worth the investment. Also I suspect it will be plain fun. I am doing the class and strongly recommend it to fellow LessWrong users. Anyone else who has registered please say so publicly in the comments as well. :)

[Registration](http://www.google.com/insidesearch/landing/powersearching.html) is open from _June 26, 2012 to July 16, 2012_.
# What have you recently tried, and failed at?

Kaj Sotala [said](/lw/cu2/the_power_of_reinforcement/6vj5):

> \[I\]f you punish yourself for trying and failing, you stop wanting to try in the first place, as it becomes associated with the negative emotions. Also, accepting and being okay with the occasional failure makes you treat it as a genuine _choice_ where you have agency, not something that you're forced to do against your will.

So maybe we should celebrate failed attempts more often ... I for one can't think of anything I've failed at recently, which is probably a sign that I'm not trying enough new things.

So, what specific things have you failed at recently?
# Should you try to do good work on LW?

I used to advocate trying to do good work on LW. Now I'm not sure, let me explain why.

It's certainly true that good work stays valuable no matter where you're doing it. Unfortunately, the standards of "good work" are largely defined by where you're doing it. If you're in academia, your work is good or bad by scientific standards. If you're on LW, your work is good or bad compared to other LW posts. Internalizing that standard may harm you if you're capable of more.

When you come to a place like [Project Euler](http://projecteuler.net/) and solve some problems, or come to [OpenStreetMap](http://www.openstreetmap.org/) and upload some GPS tracks, or come to academia and publish a paper, that makes you a participant and you know exactly where you stand, relative to others. But LW is not a task-focused community and is unlikely to ever become one. LW evolved from the basic activity "let's comment on something Eliezer wrote". We inherited our standard of quality from that. As a result, when someone posts their work here, that doesn't necessarily help them improve.

For example, Yvain is a great contributor to LW and has the potential to be a star writer, but it seems to me that writing on LW doesn't test his limits, compared to trying new audiences. Likewise, my own work on decision theory math would've been held to a higher standard if the primary audience were mathematicians (though I hope to remedy that). Of course there have been many examples of seemingly good work posted to LW. Homestuck fandom also has a lot of nice-looking art, but it doesn't get fandoms of its own.

In conclusion, if you want to do important work, cross-post it if you must, but don't do it for LW exclusively. Big fish in a small pond always looks kinda sad.
# How Bayes' theorem is consistent with Solomonoff induction

You've read the [introduction to Bayes' theorem](http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes/). You've read the [introduction to Solomonoff induction](/lw/dhg/an_intuitive_explanation_of_solomonoff_induction/). Both describe fundamental theories of epistemic rationality. But how do they fit together?

It turns out that it’s pretty simple. Let’s take a look at Bayes’ theorem.

![](http://www.codecogs.com/png.latex?P(H|E)=\frac{P(E|H)P(H)}{\sum_{i}P(E|H_i)P(H_i)})

For a review:

*   H is the particular hypothesis in question.
*   E is the evidence, or data that we have observed.
*   P(H) is the “prior” probability of the hypothesis alone.
*   P(E|H) is the probability of seeing the evidence given that the hypothesis is true.
*   P(H|E) is the probability that the hypothesis is true, given that you’ve seen the evidence.
*   H~i~ is an arbitrary element in the set of all hypotheses. 

In terms of Solomonoff induction:

*   H is the set of all binary sequences which we input to the universal Turing machine.
*   E is the binary sequence of data that we are given to match.
*   P(H) is ![](http://www.codecogs.com/png.latex?2^{-l(H)}) where l(H) is the length of the binary sequence H. This is a basic premise of Solomonoff induction.
*   P(E|H) is the probability that we will see data sequence E, given that we run program H on the universal Turing machine. Because this is deterministic it is either 1, if H outputs E, or 0, if H does not output E.
*   P(H|E) is still what we’re looking for. Of course, if H does not output E, then P(E|H) = 0, which means P(H|E) = 0. This makes sense; if a program does not output the data you have, it cannot be the true program which output the data you have.
*   H~i~ is an arbitrary binary sequence.

The denominator is the same meaning as the numerator, except as a sum for every possible hypothesis. This essentially normalizes the probability in the numerators. Any hypotheses that do not match the data E exactly will cause P(E|H~i~) = 0, and therefore that term will contribute nothing to the sum. If the hypothesis does output E exactly, then P(E|H~i~) = 1, and the matching hypothesis contributes its weight to the renormalizing sum in the denominator.

Let's see an example with these things substituted. Here, the set of H~i~ is the set of hypotheses that match.

![](http://www.codecogs.com/png.latex?P(H|E)=\frac{2^{-l(H)}}{\sum_{i}2^{-l(H_i)}})

In summary; Bayes’ theorem says that once we find all matching hypotheses, we can find their individual probability by dividing their individual weight of ![](http://www.codecogs.com/png.latex?2^{-l(H)}) by the weights of all the matching hypotheses.

This is intuitive, and matches Bayes’ theorem both mathematically and philosophically. Updating will occur when you get more bits of evidence E. This will eliminate some of the hypotheses H~i~, which will cause the renormalization in the denominator to get smaller.
# Low hanging fruit: Websites that significantly improve your life?

It suddenly occurred to me that not everyone uses a website I love.  Of all the websites I browse if you asked me which one improves my standard of living in the largest, most concrete way, it would be slickdeals.

What it is: a community driven "hot deals" website with voting.  By itself this is already useful, but the best feature is deal alerts.  you never have to actually browse slickdeals.  Just create an account, set up deal alerts for whatever strings interest you (I for example have a deal alert for "whey" to get alerted to deals on whey protein powder).

More than 50% of my belongings come from sales I've been alerted to via slickdeals.  Any big ticket items I need, but don't need immediately I just set alerts and wait.  My laptop, desktop, tablet, smartphone, clothes, toiletries, books, games, even some food are all slightly better for the price I paid than they otherwise would have been.

So what other sites am I missing out on that would make my life a lot better?

A website I just discovered for habit building chains.cc seems cool, but I haven't had time to evaluate its usefulness yet.
# Steam Greenlight

I know there is interest among this community in building rationality oriented games as teaching tools. Today we announced Steam Greenlight. We're essentially turning the game approval process over to the community. It may be possible for quality rationality games produced by the Less Wrong community to create enough gamer-community interest to get placed on Steam for distribution. 

[http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight](http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight)

I feel that this creates a better opportunity for rationality games as teaching tools to find broad distribution than if it had to go through the Steam product review team. Ultimately, it shifts the responsibility onto the games' creators and their community to create and drive interest for the product and it removes our limited decision making from the system.

I'm posting this here for awareness of this possible avenue toward reaching a broader audience.
# Rationality and Cancer

Today, my dentist found a possible oral cancer.  
  
I'm 31, a non-smoker, in good health. I know the research showing that doctors ignore base rates and overestimate your chances of cancer. (I asked the doctor the base rate, he didn't know.) I know that we grossly overprescribe biopsies and surgeries, when it would be better to just wait and see. But I'm having it removed and biopsied on Friday, even though I don't have dental insurance and it's costing me $1,000 of my own money.  
  
Why?  
  
I thought this would be an interesting case study: Introspectively, what's going on to make me ignore my rationalist training, ignore the external data, and choose what I know is probably the less optimal path?  
  
My first thought is embarrassment: If I do nothing, and it turns out I have cancer, will my support network roll their eyes and blame me for not being more aggressive? My feeling is yes, that even though they wouldn't do it to my face, they would secretly blame me, and become less available.  
  
My second thought is fear of the unknown: I roughly know what the biopsy will entail. It's a light anesthesia, a few stitches, and 1-2 days of recovery. No big deal. And $1,000 isn't tiny, but it's not a big deal for me, either. In contrast, what happens if I don't do the biopsy? Huge, scary unknown. And, even if I know that I only have a 0.01% chance of having cancer (to guess a number), I also know my emotional mind is bad at math, and I'll have great difficulty controlling its worry. And so, it's rational to buy some level of anti-worry insurance -- I don't know what the rational value of that anti-worry insurance is, and I don't know if that value exceeds $1,000, but clearly, anti-worry insurance has some positive value, and probably a fairly high value.  
  
There are other considerations. I need some wisdom teeth removed, and we're doing them at the same time, so adding the biopsy doesn't affect the recovery time. And I have a 6-week trip to Australia coming up, and I'd hate to have problems while I'm traveling. But mostly, I think it's embarrassment and worry.

By the way, this is a personal matter than I'm choosing to share with you. Honest advice about how to handle it, particularly from people who've faced similar decisions, is welcome and appreciated. Flames about how I'm ignoring research are not. Thanks for understanding.

Update: I talked with a friend who does research in medical decision making. She explained that, for the specific population a doctor serves, he's usually fairly accurate in his estimates of how prevalent a disease is. She also encouraged me that I'm right to get the biopsy. I feel much more relaxed, and I realized that I was feeling guilty about being irrational. I'm sure there's some meta-lesson in there that I'll figure out someday.
# Useful maxims

In a New York shop, I once got pressure-sold something expensive I didn't really want; when I said it cost too much, I was asked what I might be prepared to pay, and we ended up haggling.  Since then, I've had a rule:

*   If it's a non trivial price, never decide to buy while you're in the shop

and I have been very glad of it on many occasions.  I can go for a short walk to decide, and if I don't want it, I simply don't return to the shop.  This means I'm deciding in calm surroundings, based on what I want rather than on embarrassment.

Are there other maxims I could adopt that would serve me equally well?

(Personal note: I'm in the Bay Area for a week after minicamp, Sunday July 29th to Sunday August 5th. Let's hang out, go to things together, help make my visit cooler! Mail me: paul at ciphergoth.org. Thanks!)
# Why could you be optimistic that the Singularity is Near?

A while ago I [wrote briefly](http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#near-singularity) on why the Singularity might not be near and my estimates badly off. I saw it linked the other day, and realized that pessimism seemed to be trendy lately, which meant I ought to work on why one might be optimistic instead: [http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#counter-point](http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#counter-point)

(Summary: long-sought AI goals have been recently achieved, global economic growth & political stability continues, and some resource crunches have turned into surpluses - all contrary to long-standing pessimistic forecasts.)
# Exploiting the Typical Mind Fallacy for more accurate questioning?

I was reading Yvain's [Generalizing from One Example](/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/), which talks about the typical mind fallacy.  Basically, it describes how humans assume that all other humans are like them.  If a person doesn't cheat on tests, they are more likely to assume others won't cheat on tests either.  If a person sees mental images, they'll be more likely to assume that everyone else sees mental images.

As I'm wont to do, I was thinking about how to [make that theory pay rent](/lw/i3/making_beliefs_pay_rent_in_anticipated_experiences/).  It occurred to me that this could definitely be exploitable.  If the typical mind fallacy is correct, we should be able to have it go the other way; we can derive information about a person's proclivities based on what they think about other people.

Eg, most employers ask "have you ever stolen from a job before," and have to deal with misreporting because nobody in their right mind will say yes.  However, imagine if the typical mind fallacy was correct.  The employers could instead ask "what do you think the percentage of employees who have stolen from their job is?" and know that the applicants who responded higher than average were correspondingly more likely to steal, and the applicants who responded lower than average were less likely to cheat.  It could cut through all sorts of social desirability distortion effects.  You couldn't get the exact likelihood, but it would give more useful information than you would get with a direct question. 

In hindsight, which is always 20/20, it seems incredibly obvious.  I'd be surprised if professional personality tests and sociologists _aren't_ using these types of questions.  My google-fu shows no hits, but it's possible I'm just not using the correct term that sociologists use.  I'm was wondering if anyone had heard of this questioning method before, and if there's any good research data out there showing just how much you can infer from someone's deviance from the median response.
# Take Part in CFAR Rationality Surveys

Posted By: Dan Keys, CFAR Survey Coordinator  
  
The [Center for Applied Rationality](http://appliedrationality.org/) is trying to develop better methods for measuring and studying the benefits of rationality.  We want to be able to test if this rationality stuff actually works.  
  
One way that the Less Wrong community can help us with this process is by taking part in online surveys, which we can use for a variety of purposes including:

*   seeing what rationality techniques people actually use in their day-to-day lives 
*   developing & testing measures of how rational people are, and seeing if potential rationality measures correlate with the other variables that you'd expect them to 
*   comparing people who attend a minicamp with others in the LW community, so that we can learn what value-added the minicamps provide beyond what you get elsewhere 
*   trying out some of the rationality techniques that we are trying to teach, so we can see how they work 

We have a couple of surveys ready to go now which cover some of these bullet points, and will be developing other surveys over the coming months.  
  
If you're interested in taking part in online surveys for CFAR, please go [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEp2V0ZXZUpuVmdWaWoyVFhqclRxZVE6MQ) to fill out a brief form with your contact info; then we will contact you about participating in specific surveys.

If you have previously filled out a form like this one to participate in CFAR surveys, then we already have your information so you don't need to sign up again.  
  
Questions/Issues can be posted in the comments here, PMed to me, or emailed to us at CFARsurveys@gmail.com.
# HP:MOR and the Radio Fallacy

No plot spoilers here, just wanted to flag a bit of poor reasoning that shows up in [Chapter 39](http://hpmor.com/chapter/39):

> I shouldn't have believed it even for all of thirty seconds! Because if people had souls there wouldn't be any such thing as brain damage, if your soul could go on speaking after your whole brain was gone, how could damage to the left cerebral hemisphere take away your ability to talk?

This is a surprisingly common fallacy.  Just because X depends on Y, it doesn't follow that X depends on _nothing but_ Y.  A phenomenon may involve more than just its most obvious failure point.

To illustrate: Suppose I'm trapped in a box, and my only way to communicate with the outside world is via radio communication.  Someone on the other end argues that I don't really exist -- "There's no person beyond the radio receiver, for if there was then there wouldn't be any such thing as damaged radios!"  Pretty silly, huh?  But people say this kind of thing in defense of physicalism [all the time](http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/07/brain-damage-and-physicalism.html).

(N.B. This is not to defend the existence of souls. It's just to point out that this particular argument against them is invalid.)
# [Paper] Simulation of a complete cell

["A Whole-Cell Computational Model Predicts Phenotype from Genotype"](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2012.05.044) by Jonathan Karr et al.

This paper appeared a few days ago in Cell, and describes a computational simulation of the bacterium _Mycoplasma genitalium_, conducted at [this lab](http://covertlab.stanford.edu/subpages/research.php). The paper is behind a paywall, but is blogged about [here](http://egtheory.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/whole-cell-model/). The simulation software is freely available from the [project web site.](https://simtk.org/home/wholecell/)

From the abstract: "Here, we present a ‘‘whole-cell’’ model of the bacterium _Mycoplasma genitalium_, a human urogenital parasite whose genome contains 525 genes. Our model attempts to: (1) describe the life cycle of a single cell from the level of individual molecules and their interactions; (2) account for the specific function of every annotated gene product; and (3) accurately predict a wide range of observable cellular behaviors."

According to an [editorial commentary](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2012.07.001) in the same issue, this is the first simulation of a complete free-living microbe.
# Article about LW: Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set

[Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set](http://betabeat.com/2012/07/singularity-institute-less-wrong-peter-thiel-eliezer-yudkowsky-ray-kurzweil-harry-potter-methods-of-rationality/?show=all "Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set")

To my knowledge LessWrong hasn't received a great deal of media coverage. So, I was surprised when I came across an article via a Facebook friend which also appeared on the cover of the New York Observer today. However, I was disappointed upon reading it, as I don't think it is an accurate reflection of the community. It certainly doesn't reflect my experience with the LW communities in Toronto and Waterloo. 

I thought it would be interesting to see what the broader LessWrong community thought about this article. I think it would make for a good discussion.

Possible conversation topics:

*   This article will likely reach many people that have never heard of LessWrong before. Is this a good introduction to LessWrong for those people?
*   Does this article give an accurate characterization of the LessWrong community?

  

Edit 1: Added some clarification about my view on the article.

Edit 2: Re-added link using “nofollow” attribute.
# Is Politics the Mindkiller? An Inconclusive Test

Or is the convention against discussing politics here silly?

I propose a test.  I'm going to try to lay down some rules on voting on comments for the test here (not that I can force anybody to abide by them):

1.) Top-level comments should introduce arguments (or ridicule me and/or this test); responses should be responses to those arguments.

2.) Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised.  This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it.  If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both.  If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.

3.) Try not to downvote particular comments excessively, if they're legitimate lines of argument.  A faulty line of argument provides opportunity for rebuttal, and so for our test has value even then; that is, I want some faulty lines of argument here.  If you disagree, please downvote me, instead of the faulty comments, because this post is what you want less of, not those comments.  This necessarily implies, for balance, that we not excessively upvote comments.  I'd suggest fairly arbitrary limits of 3/-3?

**Edit**: 4.) A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out [here](/r/discussion/lw/dsv/is_politics_the_mindkiller_an_inconclusive_test/73yp), it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.  (My apologies about missing this, folks.)

I'm going to try really hard not to get personally involved, except to lay down a leading comment posing an argument against abortion, a position I don't hold, for the record.  The core of the argument isn't disingenuous, and I hold that this argument is true, it just doesn't lead to my opposing abortion.  I do not hold the moral axiom by which I extend the basic argument to argue against abortion, however; I'm playing the devil's advocate to try to help me from getting sucked into the argument while providing an initial point of discussion.

Which leads me to the next point: If you see a hole in an argument, even if it's an argument for a perspective you agree with, poke through it.  The goal is to see whether we can have a constructive political argument here.

The fact that this is a test, and known to be a test, means this isn't a blind study.  Uh, try to act as if you're not being tested?

After it's gone on a little while, if this post hasn't been hopelessly downvoted and ridiculed (and thus the premise and test discarded as undesirable to begin with), we can put up a poll to see whether people found the political debates helpful, not helpful, and so on.
# Why space stopped captivating minds ?

This article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kessler/why-you-should-be-more-interested-in-mars-than-the-olympics\_b\_1712462.html -- ok, I admit, I read Slashdot sometimes, no one is perfect ;) -- made me wonder why the awesomeness of space conquest stopped motivating people.

I remember the tales of my parents at the time of the Apollo landing, it was indeed instilling awe and wonder in the minds of people. It was followed by people like the Olympics or the football competitions are. And nowadays, NASA about to send a nuclear-powered rover to Mars, in a very delicate mission requiring the best of human engineering and scientific skills, and not in line in most media, most people not even aware of it? How did we fall that low?

Sure there was the Cold War. It definitely played a role, in the amount of resources invested by both sides in space conquest, and in the way the media broadcasted the news.

But here in France, a country that was mostly neutral during the Cold War (slightly west-aligned, but not part of NATO for most of the Cold War), the interest of people for space was not really partisan. People who were pro-USSR were amazed and cheering for the Appolo mission, people who were pro-USA were amazed and cheering for Gagarin. My brother and I played with (USSR) Sputnik as much as with (USA) space shuttles. We praised equally Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin. I don't think the lack of Cold War explains it all.

So what happened to the space conquest spirit? How did it disappear? I notice a blank spot on my map (well, not totally blank, but still very fuzzy) of reality, do some of you have clues for how to fill it?