Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# The Cold War divided Science

What can we learn about science from the divide during the Cold War?

I have one example in mind: America held that coal and oil were fossil fuels, the stored energy of the sun, while the Soviets held that they were the result of geologic forces applied to primordial methane.

At least one side is thoroughly wrong. This isn't a politically charged topic like sociology, or even biology, but a physical science where people are supposed to agree on the answers. This isn't a matter of research priorities, where one side doesn't care enough to figure things out, but a topic that both sides saw to be of great importance, and where they both claimed to apply their theories. On the other hand, Lysenkoism seems to have resulted from the practical importance of crop breeding.

First of all, this example supports the claim that there really was a divide, that science was disconnected into two poorly communicating camps. It suggests that when the two sides reached the same results on other topics, they did so independently. Even if we cannot learn from this example, it suggests that we may be able to learn from other consequences of dividing the scientific community.

My understanding is that although some Russian language research papers were available in America, they were completely ignored and the scientists failed to even acknowledge that there was a community with divergent opinions. I don't know about the other direction.

Some questions:

*   Are there other topics, ideally in physical science, on which such a substantial disagreement persisted for decades? not necessarily between these two parties?
*   Did the Soviet scientists know that their American counterpoints disagreed?
*   Did Warsaw Pact (eg, Polish) scientists generally agree with the Soviets about the origin of coal and oil? Were they aware of the American position? Did other Western countries agree with America? How about other countries, such as China and Japan?
*   What are the current Russian beliefs about coal and oil? I tried running Russian Wikipedia through google translate and it seemed to support the biogenic theory. (right?) Has there been a reversal among Russian scientists? When? Or does Wikipedia represent foreign opinion? If a divide remains, does it follow the Iron Curtain, or some new line?
*   Have I missed some detail that would make me not classify this as an honest disagreement between two scientific establishments?
*   Finally, the original question: what can we learn about the institution of science?
# Rationality Quotes April 2014 

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

*   Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
*   Do not quote yourself.
*   Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so [here](/r/discussion/lw/i6h/rationality_quotes_from_people_associated_with/).
*   No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

And one new rule:

*   Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
# Recommendations for donating to an anti-death cause

I've recently had the bad luck of having numerous people close to me die. Though I've wanted to contribute to anti-aging and anti-death research for a while, I'm only now in the position of being stable and materially well-off enough to throw around semi-serious cash.

Who should I donate to? I don't want to do anything with cryonics yet; I haven't given cryonics enough thought to be convinced it'd be worth the money. But I was considering the Methuselah foundation.

Suggestions?
# The effect of effectiveness information on charitable giving

A new working paper by economists Dean Karlan and Daniel Wood, [The Effect of Effectiveness: Donor Response to Aid Effectiveness in a Direct Mail Fundraising Experiment](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2421943).

The Abstract:

> We test how donors respond to new information about a charity’s effectiveness. Freedom from Hunger implemented a test of its direct marketing solicitations, varying letters by whether they include a discussion of their program’s impact as measured by scientific research. The base script, used for both treatment and control, included a standard qualitative story about an individual beneficiary. Adding scientific impact information has no effect on whether someone donates, or how much, in the full sample. However, we find that amongst recent prior donors (those we posit more likely to open the mail and thus notice the treatment), large prior donors increase the likelihood of giving in response to information on aid effectiveness, whereas small prior donors decrease their giving. We motivate the analysis and experiment with a theoretical model that highlights two predictions. First, larger gift amounts, holding education and income constant, is a proxy for altruism giving (as it is associated with giving more to fewer charities) versus warm glow giving (giving less to more charities). Second, those motivated by altruism will respond positively to appeals based on evidence, whereas those motivated by warm glow may respond negatively to appeals based on evidence as it turns off the emotional trigger for giving, or highlights uncertainty in aid effectiveness.

In the experimental condition (for one of the two waves of mailings), the donors received a mailing with this information about the charity's effectiveness:

> In order to know that our programs work for people like Rita, we look for more than anecdotal evidence. _That is why we have coordinated with independent researchers \[at Yale University\] to conduct scientifically rigorous impact studies of our programs._ In Peru they found that women who were offered our Credit with Education program had 16% higher profits in their businesses than those who were not, and they increased profits in bad months by 27%! This is particularly important because it means our program helped women generate more stable incomes throughout the year.
> 
> These independent researchers used a randomized evaluation, the methodology routinely used in medicine, to measure the impact of our programs on things like business growth, children's health, investment in education, and women's empowerment.

In the control condition, the mailing instead included this paragraph:

> Many people would have met Rita and decided she was too poor to repay a loan. Five hungry children and a small plot of mango trees don’t count as collateral. But Freedom from Hunger knows that women like Rita are ready to end hunger in their own families and in their communities.
# Bostrom versus Transcendence

Nick Bostrom takes on the facts, the fictions and the speculations in the movie _Transcendence_:

![](http://images.lesswrong.com/t3_k36_0.png?v=48592e3dc21947d420b8b2db1f1022f2)

[Could you upload Johnny Depp's brain? Oxford Professor on Transcendence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86st7_Lzs2s)

[How soon until machine intelligence? Oxford professor on Transcendence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aheywElK_U8)

[Would you have warning before artificial superintelligence? Oxford professor on Transcendence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9LaSfq64E8)

[Oxford professor on Transcendence: how could you get a machine intelligence?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkEF3FovtbY)
# Southern California FAI Workshop

This Saturday, April 26th, we will be holding a one day FAI workshop in southern California, modeled after MIRI's FAI workshops. We are a group of individuals who, aside from attending some past MIRI workshops, are in no way affiliated with the MIRI organization. More specifically, we are a subset of the existing Los Angeles Less Wrong meetup group that has decided to start working on FAI research together. 

The event will start at 10:00 AM, and the location will be:

USC Institute for Creative Technologies  
12015 Waterfront Drive  
Playa Vista, CA 90094-2536.

This first workshop will be open to anyone who would like to join us. If you are interested, please let us know in the comments or by private message. We plan to have more of these in the future, so if you are interested but unable to makethis event, please also let us know. You are welcome to decide to join at the last minute. If you do, still comment here, so we can give you necessary phone numbers.

Our hope is to produce results that will be helpful for MIRI, and so we are starting off by going through the MIRI workshop publications. If you will be joining us, it would be nice if you read the papers linked to [here](/lw/h1k/reflection_in_probabilistic_logic/), [here](/lw/hmt/tiling_agents_for_selfmodifying_ai_opfai_2/), [here](/lw/jed/results_from_miris_december_workshop/), [here](https://www.writelatex.com/read/pwgvblznkmmp), and [here](/lw/imz/notes_on_logical_priors_from_the_miri_workshop/) before Saturday. Reading all of these papers is not necessary, but it would be nice if you take a look at one or two of them to get an idea of what we will be doing.

Experience in artificial intelligence will not be at all necessary, but experience in mathematics probably is. If you can follow the MIRI publications, you should be fine. Even if you are under-qualified, there is very little risk of holding anyone back or otherwise having a negative impact on the workshop. If you think you would enjoy the experience, go ahead and join us.

This event will be in the spirit of collaboration with MIRI, and will attempt to respect their guidelines on doing research that will decrease, rather than increase, existential risk. As such, practical implementation questions related to making an approximate Bayesian reasoner fast enough to operate in the real world will not be on-topic. Rather, the focus will be on the abstract mathematical design of a system capable of having reflexively consistent goals, preforming naturalistic induction, et cetera. 

Food and refreshments will be provided for this event, courtesy of MIRI.
# Hawking/Russell/Tegmark/Wilczek on dangers of Superintelligent Machines [link]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-hawking/artificial-intelligence\_b\_5174265.html

Very surprised none has linked to this yet:

TL;DR: AI is a very underfunded existential risk.

Nothing new here, but it's the biggest endorsement the cause has gotten so far. I'm greatly pleased they got Stuart Russell, though not Peter Norvig, who seems to remain lukewarm to the cause. Also too bad this was Huffington vs something more respectable. With some thought I think we could've gotten the list to be more inclusive and found a better publication; still I think this is pretty huge.
# How do you approach the problem of social discovery?

As in, how do you find ways to meet the right people you talk to? Presumably, they would have personality fit with you, and be high on both intelligence and openness. Furthermore, they would be in the point of their life where they are willing to spend time with you (although sometimes you can learn a lot from people simply by friending them on Facebook and just observing their feeds from time to time).

Historically, [I've made myself extremely stalkable](http://qr.ae/rvC50) on the Internet. In retrospect, I believe that this "decision" is on [the order of one of the very best decisions I've ever made in my life](http://qr.ae/rvFhM), and has made me better at social discovery than most people I know, despite my dual social anxiety and Asperger's. In fact, if a more extroverted non-Aspie could do the same thing, I think they could do WONDERS with developing an online profile.

I've also realized more that social discovery is often more rewarding when done with teenagers. You can do so much to impact teenagers, and they often tend to be a lot more open to your ideas/musings (just as long as you're responsible).

But I've wondered - how else have you done it? Especially in real life? What are some other questions you ask with respect to social discovery? I tend to avoid real life for social discovery simply because it's extremely hit-and-miss, but I've discovered (from Richard Florida's books) that the Internet often strengthens real-life interaction because it makes it so much easier to discover other people in real life (and then it's in real life when you can really get to know people).
# Ergonomics Revisited

Continuation of: [Spend Money on Ergonomics](/lw/5r6/spend_money_on_ergonomics/), by Kevin

Three years have elapsed since Kevin wisely told us to spend money on treating our bodies well. It may be time to check for new gadgets, to verify what has worked and what has not etc... 

If you have purchased an item for this purpose, or intend to buy one and don't know which, tell here, ask here. 

Nick Bostrom uses a mouse that looks like a plane controller joystick. 

I've seen keyboards that bend sideways, that are concave, that are convex, and that look like a sphere. 

At FHI, dozens of books are used so that computer screens stay at eye level or above. 

But I am no expert and I have not looked myself, nor would know how to. So please share in the comments the best knowledge about:

Keyboards

Mice

Chairs

Balls to sit on

Pillows

Beds/Matresses etc.. 

Screens - Size, position, brightness etc... 

Other household office items - Stairs, Handles, Shower etc...
# LessWrongWiki User Pages Underutilized; Tag Proposal

I think the LessWrong user pages are underutilized. There isn't even a wiki pages describing them (or at least I can't find it, otherwise I would have linked it here).

The user pages are what is shown when you click on a user like you would do to see that users other contributions, his karma and to send a personal message. These user pages are maintained and editable in the wiki but embedded in the blog view. This link makes these pages highly visible in everyday LW browsing and could create an awareness of LWers preferences.

Example: [me in LW](/user/Gunnar_Zarncke/) vs. [me in LWWiki](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/User:Gunnar_Zarncke)

Currently only 3 of the top ten poster have one (including EY). And this despite it being so easy to create them via the LWWiki (switch to the Wiki via the link in the nav bar and then click on your name). I guess it's partly because the sync-feature is relatively new.

JoshuaFox recently proposed to indicate your interest in [business networking](/lw/jzp/business_networking_through_lesswrong/) on the user page. But that is only one bit of information you could put there. Another information I'd like to see are the tags proposed on the [LW Community Weekend Berlin](/r/discussion/lw/k27/european_community_weekend_in_berlin_impressions/) which could indicate

*   your openness to personal messages
*   your willingness to answer questions (to specific topics); one special sub-case might be willingness to proofread posts of non-native speakers (the welcome page mentions four persons explicitly three of whom have not posted recently). 
*   whether you operate under Crockers rules (a tag seen very often on the Berlin badges)
*   other information of this kind like offers of help, dating, ...

ADDED:

[ete](http://lesswrong.com/user/ete/) provided a Template:

> I've made a template for [UserInfo](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Template:UserInfo&action=edit). Very open to suggestions on parameters, default text, ordering, category names. It's a wiki, so you're welcome to improve it if you feel you have something to add, or let me know and I'll do the editing.
> 
> Try it out on your userpages by adding {{UserInfo |network= |questions= |proofread= |messages= |helpwith= |crocker= }} to your userpage, or see the [quick documentation](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Template:UserInfo) for more details.
# How Tim O'Brien gets around the logical fallacy of generalization from fictional evidence

It took me until I read _The Things They Carried_ for the third time until I realized that it contained something very valuable to rationalists. In ["The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence,"](/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generalization_from/) EY explains how using fiction as evidence is bad not only because it's deliberately wrong in particular ways to make it more interesting, but more importantly because it does not provide a probabilistic model of what happened, and gives at best a bit or two of evidence that looks like a hundred or more bits of evidence.

Some background: _The Things They Carried_ is a book by Tim O'Brien that reads as an autobiography where he recollects various stories from being a story in the Vietnam War. However, O'Brien often repeats himself, writing the same story over again, but with details or entire events that change. It is actually a fictional autobiography; O'Brien was in the Vietnam War, but all the stories are fictional.

In _The Things They Carried_, Tim O'Brien not only explains how generalization from fictional evidence is bad, but also has his own solution to the problem that actually works, i.e. gives the reader a useful probabilistic model of what happened in such a way that actually interests the reader. He does this by telling his stories many times, changing significant things about them. Literally; he contradicts himself, writing out the same story but with things changed. The best illustration of the principle in the book is the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story," found [here](http://files.meetup.com/423109/How%20to%20Tell%20A%20True%20War%20Story_Tim%20O'Brien.pdf) (PDF warning, and bad typesetting warning).

A reader is not inclined to read a list of probabilities, but they are inclined to read a bunch of short stories. He talks about this practice a lot in the book itself, writing, "All you can do is tell it one more time, patiently, adding and subtracting, making up a few things to get at the real truth. … You can tell a true war story if you just keep on telling it." He always says **war** story, but the principle generalizes. At one point, he has a character represent the forces that act on conventional writing, telling a storyteller that he cannot say that he doesn't know what happened, and that he cannot insert any analysis.

O'Brien also writes about a lot of other things I don't want to mention more than briefly here, such as the specific ways in which the model that conventional war stories give of war is wrong, and specific ways in which the audience misinterprets stories. I recommend the book very much, especially if you think writing "tell multiple short stories" fiction is a great idea and want to do it.

I apologize if this post has been made before.

EDIT: Tried to clarify the idea better. I added an example with an excerpt.

EDIT 2: Added a better excerpt.

EDIT 3: Added a paragraph about background.
# Skills and Antiskills

One useful little concept that a friend and I have is that of the _antiskill_. Like a normal skill, an antiskill gives you both the ability and the affordance to do things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. The difference between a skill and an antiskill is that a skill gives you the ability and affordance to do things that are positive on net, while an antiskill gives you the ability and affordance to do things that are negative on net.

For instance, my friend believes that dancing is often an antiskill, because it gives you an affordance to dance rather than have interesting conversations while at parties, and he considers having interesting conversations to be much more valuable than dancing-- therefore, knowing how to dance serves primarily to enable choices that are bad on net.

I disagree with the specific point in this case, but I nevertheless think it's a good example because it illustrates another key principle of skills and antiskills-- whether something is a skill or an antiskill is _context-dependent. _If dancing will largely prevent you from having interesting conversations, it may well be an antiskill-- but if you go to a lot of nightclubs where loud music makes conversation difficult, knowing how to dance seems very useful indeed!

Another example is the skill of knowing how to fix computers. In many respects this is very useful, and can indeed lead to a profitable career in IT. But-- as I'm sure many of you may have experienced-- having your friends and family know that you know how to fix computers can be very negative on net!

Overall, I find the skill/antiskill framework quite useful when it comes to navigating what sorts of skills, abilities, and knowledge I should acquire. Before choosing my next priority, I often pause to think:

*   What affordances will learning this give me?
*   In what contexts will those affordances be most relevant?
*   Will this be positive or negative on net?

Using this framework has enabled me to discern strengths and weaknesses that I had previously not considered, and in some cases those strengths and weaknesses have proven decisive to my planning.
# Why don't you attend your local LessWrong meetup? / General meetup feedback

It's fairly common for a LessWrong meetup group to get people attending for a week or two, and then never showing up again. Most of the time, there may not be a very interesting reason for that. But if someone did have a bad experience at a meetup, this would be valuable information that they'd be unlikely to volunteer to the organizers.

Thus, I've created a form to collect meetup feedback. The primary purpose is: **if you have a local LessWrong meetup that you don't currently attend, we'd like to know why**. However, any other feedback is also appreciated: good feedback, bad-but-not-dealbreaking feedback, and feedback from people who do currently attend. "Currently" is left up to your own interpretation.

Please [fill in the form now](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13I-1tCd0D_d9vCCDoMYhsZexVWy2v1UW6U_k6FKlafk/viewform). It should only take a couple of minutes. There are three short-answer questions and three longer ones, but all questions are optional. Better to give a quick response now than to indefinitely postpone writing a longer one.

I intend to publish the responses, both raw and with some appropriate-seeming amount of aggregation. But I'm going to strip out the "where is your meetup" field from the public data. This is so that you can give feedback to a group without worrying about embarrassing them publicly. I'll tell the organizers which responses applied to them, so that the feedback still reaches the right place. If you identify the meetup in a long-form response, I won't strip that out. I'll also strip out the "anonymous identifier" field, naturally.

If you do currently attend a meetup, but want to give feedback anyway, please do also fill in the form.

If you think your answer seems boring, don't let that stop you: for example, we'd like to know relative numbers of "came once, had a bad time" versus "came once, but it's usually not convenient", and we can't do that if the second group don't reply.

Once again: [please fill in the form now](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13I-1tCd0D_d9vCCDoMYhsZexVWy2v1UW6U_k6FKlafk/viewform)! If you comment that you have done so, I will reward you with an upvote.
# Request for concrete AI takeover mechanisms

Any scenario where advanced AI takes over the world requires some mechanism for an AI to leverage its position as ethereal resident of a computer somewhere into command over a lot of physical resources.

One classic story of how this could happen, from [Eliezer](http://intelligence.org/files/AIPosNegFactor.pdf):

1.  Crack the protein folding problem, to the extent of being able to generate DNA strings whose folded peptide sequences fill specific functional roles in a complex chemical interaction.
2.  Email sets of DNA strings to one or more online laboratories which oﬀer DNA synthesis, peptide sequencing, and FedEx delivery. (Many labs currently oﬀer this service, and some boast of 72-hour turnaround times.)
3.  Find at least one human connected to the Internet who can be paid, blackmailed, or fooled by the right background story, into receiving FedExed vials and mixing them in a specified environment.
4.  The synthesized proteins form a very primitive “wet” nanosystem which, ribosomelike, is capable of accepting external instructions; perhaps patterned acoustic vibrations delivered by a speaker attached to the beaker.
5.  Use the extremely primitive nanosystem to build more sophisticated systems, which construct still more sophisticated systems, bootstrapping to molecular nanotechnology—or beyond.

You can do a lot of reasoning about AI takeover without any particular picture of how the world gets taken over. Nonetheless it would be nice to have an understanding of these possible routes. For preparation purposes, and also because a concrete, plausible pictures of doom are probably more motivating grounds for concern than abstract arguments.

So [MIRI](/intelligence.org) is interested in making a better list of possible concrete routes to AI taking over the world. And for this, we ask your assistance.

**What are some other concrete AI takeover mechanisms?** If an AI did not have a solution to the protein folding problem, and a DNA synthesis lab to write off to, what else might it do? 

We would like suggestions that take an AI from being on an internet-connected computer to controlling substantial physical resources, or having substantial manufacturing ability.

We would especially like suggestions which are plausible given technology that normal scientists would expect in the next 15 years. So limited involvement of advanced nanotechnology and quantum computers would be appreciated. 

We welcome partial suggestions, e.g. 'you can take control of a self-driving car from the internet - probably that could be useful in some schemes'. 

Thank you!
# LessWrong as social catalyst

I'd like to ask everyone: Have LessWrong.com and related online rationalist/transhumanist/Singularitarian communities connected you to people for purposes beyond discussion?

*   [A new job, employee, business partner, cofounder, or professional mentor](/lw/jzp/business_networking_through_lesswrong/) 
*   [A romantic partner](/lw/jj0/2013_survey_results/aeia) 
*   A friend
*   A PhD adviser
*   An apartment-mate 
*   [A host](/lw/88v/less_wrong_couchsurfing_network/) when you're traveling 

Bonus points if an _online_ contact led to an important connection. We already know that face-to-face meetups are a great way to meet people, so I'm curious about connections triggered by online interaction.  

I have seen scattered mentions that each of the above has happened, but not enough to get a strong impression of what's going on.

Please answer in comments below. By doing so, you'll be providing social proof that LW and the like can accomplish these things, and so encourage more to happen, increasing happiness in the world.

I added one myself to start.
# MIRI Donation Collaboration Station

As you may know, on May 6, there will be a large one-day price-matching fundraiser for Bay Area Charities.

The relevant details are right here at [MIRI's official website.](http://intelligence.org/2014/04/25/may-6th-miri-participating-in-massive-24-hour-online-fundraiser/)

And this is the webpage to visit [to donate.](http://svgives.razoo.com/story/Machine-Intelligence-Research-Institute)

For those of you who didn't read the two links above, here's the important information.

> On May 6, MIRI is participating in Silicon Valley Gives...
> 
> Why is this exciting for supporters of MIRI? Many reasons, but here are a few.
> 
> *   **Over $250,000 of matching prizes and funds up for grabs, from sources that normally wouldn't contribute to MIRI:**
> *   Two-to-one dollar match up to $50,000 during the midnight hour.
> *   $2,000 dollar prize for the nonprofit that has the most individual gift in an hour, every hour, for 24 hours.
> *   $150 added to a random donation each hour, every hour for 24 hours.
> *   Dollar for Dollar match up to $35,000 during the 7AM hour, and $50,000 during the noon, 6 PM, and 7 PM hours.
> *   Local NBC stations, radio stations, businesses, and Bay Area foundations will be promoting the Silicon Valley Day of Giving on May 6th. So if MIRI is making a splash with our fundraising that day, it's possible we'll draw attention from media and by extension new donors.
> 
> Making the most of this opportunity will require some cleverness and a lot of coordination. We are going to need all the help we can get...
> 
> 1.  If you are interested in supporting MIRI with a large donation during the fundraiser... Get in touch with Malo at malo@intelligence.org
> 2.  All MIRI supporters have the potential to make a big impact if we can all work together in a coordinated manner. Sign up below (The sign up sheet is on the MIRI announcement page) to receive updates on our strategy leading up to the event, and updates throughout the fundraiser on the best times to give and promote the event.

A group coordination problem? We can do that easily, right?

So, in the comments, feel free to discuss donation strategy, coordinate groups of people, provide positive reinforcement for donors, etc.

  

With a preliminary scan through the [prize list](http://svgives.razoo.com/giving_events/svg14/prizes), a viable strategy seems to be to funnel most of the donations in during the first hour (midnight) for the two-to-one matching until the matching limit, and do the the rest of the donations during 6 and 7 PM. The small donors can all coordinate on a few hours where few people will be donating (inconvenient morning hours should work well for this) to secure a 2000 dollar prize or two, and since 1000 dollars will be given to the first 50 organizations to receive a gift in the 5 PM hour, getting a handful of people together to donate right at 5 also seems useful.

  

Mark your calendars!
# Discussion: How scientifically sound are MBAs?

I'm finishing up the first year of my distance-learning MBA, which has been a very confusing experience.

I went into the course partially as insurance against "unknown unknowns", i.e., lacking concepts important to building or running a business because I didn't know about them or underestimated their importance.

The first surprise within the course was the relative lack of explaining the utility of the particular models presented. Apart from the section on financial reporting, which did explain how you'd be able to solve practical problems by using particular budgeting tools or costing methods, concepts where generally presented as "This well-known management thinker came up with this, why don't you play around with it a little". 

Analysis and (subjective) discussion of course material was also the main focus of student assessment, which consisted of marked reports on a subject of the students' choice, usually a problem they'd be dealing with in their current position.

There were no quizzes, case studies with objectively correct answers (except for, again, financial reporting) or other problem-solving exercises.

Essentially, students are handed a lot of maps for whatever territory they're trying to analyze, but don't really receive any tool to judge the accuracy, let alone utility of said maps. For instance, I'd consider "Concept useful for describing why A does B well" and "Concept useful for helping A do B well" to be fundamentally different, but the course did not explicitly separate the two. (I've heard similar criticisms of Michael Porter's failed Monitor Group, so this may be a problem of business academics in general)

I fear that there will be a risk of training the stereotypically smug MBA, who has gained more confidence in their management skills even though they haven't proven their ability of making sound decisions.

I'm also starting to understand why so many entrepreneurs are dismissive of MBAs. [Manoj Bhargava](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gnZaEei8_g) has a whole talk on the issue and [Elon Musk isn't a fan](http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/11/20/1843208/elon-musk-talks-about-the-importance-of-physics-criticizes-the-mba), either. I'm not willing to argue that they're right, but on closer inspection, the field hasn't inspired much confidence in me. Even though I think that business administration should be taught in school, I can't help but feel that we're not quite there yet.

I still can't get the fog to clear completely and this post isn't as lucid as I want it to be, so I'd be happy to hear more arguments on the issue.
# May Monthly Bragging Thread

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to comment on this thread explaining **the most awesome thing you've done this month**. You may be as blatantly proud of yourself as you feel. You may unabashedly consider yourself _the coolest freaking person ever_ because of that awesome thing you're dying to tell everyone about. This is the place to do just that.

Remember, however, that this **isn't** any kind of progress thread. Nor is it any kind of proposal thread. _This thread is solely for people to talk about the awesome things they have done. Not "will do". Not "are working on"_. **Have already done.** This is to cultivate an environment of object level productivity rather than meta-productivity methods.

So, what's the coolest thing you've done this month?

(I think [this](/lw/jfw/january_monthly_bragging_thread/) is the most recent thread, so anything since January is fair game, assuming you haven't already mentioned it.)
# 2014 Survey of Effective Altruists

I'm pleased to announce the [first annual survey of effective altruists](http://bit.ly/1jjBWT9). This is a short survey of around 40 questions (generally multiple choice), which several collaborators and I have put a great deal of work into and would be very grateful if you took. I'll offer $250 of my own money to one participant.

_Take the survey at [http://survey.effectivealtruismhub.com/](http://bit.ly/1jjBWT9)_

The survey should yield some interesting results such as EAs' political and religious views, what actions they take, and the causes they favour and donate to. It will also enable useful applications which will be launched immediately afterwards, such as a map of EAs with contact details and a cause-neutral register of planned donations or pledges which can be verified each year. I'll also provide an open platform for followup surveys and other actions people can take. If you'd like to suggest questions, [email me](mailto:survey@effectivealtruismhub.com) or comment.

Anonymised results will be shared publicly and not belong to any individual or organisation. The most robust [privacy practices](http://effectivealtruismhub.com/survey/privacy) will be followed, with clear opt-ins and opt-outs.

I'd like to thank Jacy Anthis, Ben Landau-Taylor, David Moss and Peter Hurford for their help.

Other surveys' results, and predictions for this one
----------------------------------------------------

Other surveys have had intriguing results. For example, Joey Savoie and Xio Kikauka's interviewed 42 often highly active EAs over Skype, and found that they generally had left-leaning parents, donated on average 10%, and were altruistic before becoming EAs. The time they spent on EA activities was correlated with the percentage they donated (0.4), the time their parents spend volunteering (0.3), and the percentage of their friends who were EAs (0.3).

80,000 Hours also released a questionnaire and, while this was mainly focused on their impact, it yielded a list of which careers people plan to pursue: 16% for academia,  9% for both finance and software engineering, and 8% for both medicine and non-profits.  

I'd be curious to hear people's predictions as to what the results of this survey will be. You might enjoy [reading or sharing them here](http://bit.ly/1fwrush). For my part, I'd imagine we have few conservatives or even libertarians, are over 70% male, and have directed most of our donations to poverty charities.
# Strawman Yourself

One good way to ensure that your plans are robust is to strawman yourself. Look at your plan in the most critical, contemptuous light possible and come up with the obvious uncharitable insulting argument for why you will fail.

_In many cases, the obvious uncharitable insulting argument will still be fundamentally correct._

If it is, your plan probably needs work. This technique seems to work not because it taps into some secret vault of wisdom (after all, [making fun of things is easy](/lw/iql/making_fun_of_things_is_easy/)), but because it is an elegant way to shift yourself into a critical mindset.

For instance, I recently came up with a complex plan to achieve one of my goals. Then I strawmanned myself; the strawman version of why this plan would fail was simply "large and complicated plans don't work." I thought about that for a moment, concluded "yep, large and complicated plans don't work," and came up with a simple, elegant plan to achieve the same ends.

You may ask "why didn't you just come up with a simple, elegant plan in the first place?" The answer is that elegance is hard. It's easier to add on special case after special case, not realizing how much complexity debt you've added. Strawmanning yourself is one way to safeguard against this risk, as well as many others.
# [LINK] Scott Aaronson on Integrated Information Theory

Scott Aaronson, complexity theory researcher, disputes Tononi's theory of consciousness, that a physical system is conscious if and only if it has a high value of "integrated information". Quote:

> So, this is the post that I promised to Max \[Tegmark\] and all the others, about why I don’t believe IIT.  And yes, it will contain that quantitative calculation \[of the integrated information of a system that he claims is not conscious\].
> 
> ...
> 
> But let me end on a positive note.  In my opinion, the fact that Integrated Information Theory is wrong—demonstrably wrong, for reasons that go to its core—puts it in something like the top 2% of all mathematical theories of consciousness ever proposed.  Almost all competing theories of consciousness, it seems to me, have been so vague, fluffy, and malleable that they can only **aspire** to wrongness.

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799
# Organisations working on multiple Global Catastrophic risks

It is not uncommon to find organisations working, directly or indirectly, on a single Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR). For instance, the [World Health Organization](http://www.who.int/en/) does much work to prevent pandemics, as part of its remit.

It is rarer for organisations to focus on multiple GCRs - for a start, this involves them having the concept akin to GCR, which is not often the case. In a report I'm preparing with Dennis Pamlin of the [Global Challenges Foundation](http://globalchallenges.org/en/), here is a list of organisations focusing on multiple GCRs (note that it is not necessarily an endorsement of their quality). Let me know if there are any organisations missing, and I'll add them:

| Brookings | [http://www.brookings.edu/research#topics/](http://www.brookings.edu/research#topics/) |
| --- | --- |
| Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | [http://thebulletin.org/](http://thebulletin.org/) |
| CSER | [http://cser.org/emerging-risks-from-technology/](http://cser.org/emerging-risks-from-technology/) |
| Center for International Security and Cooperation | [http://cisac.stanford.edu/](http://cisac.stanford.edu/) |
| Club of Rome | [http://www.clubofrome.org/](http://www.clubofrome.org/) |
| Council on Foreign Relations | [http://www.cfr.org/issue/](http://www.cfr.org/issue/) |
| Federation of American Scientists | [http://www.fas.org/programs](http://www.fas.org/programs) |
| Future of Humanity Institute | [http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/research/research-areas/](http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/research/research-areas/) |
| Global Catastrophic Risk Institute | [http://gcrinstitute.org/research/](http://gcrinstitute.org/research/) |
| Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses | [http://www.idsa.in/topics](http://www.idsa.in/topics) |
| International Risk Governance Council | [http://www.irgc.org/issues/](http://www.irgc.org/issues/) |
| Lifeboat Foundation | [http://lifeboat.com/ex/programs](http://lifeboat.com/ex/programs) |
| Nuclear Threat Initiative | [http://www.nti.org/](http://www.nti.org/) |
| Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens | [http://shfhs.org/whatarexrisks.html](http://shfhs.org/whatarexrisks.html) |
| Skoll Global Threats Fund | [http://www.skollglobalthreats.org/](http://www.skollglobalthreats.org/) |
| Stimson Center | [http://www.stimson.org/programs/](http://www.stimson.org/programs/) |
| Risk Response Network | [http://forumblog.org/communities/risk-response-network/](http://forumblog.org/communities/risk-response-network/) |
| World Economic Forum | [http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2014-report](http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2014-report) |
| Tower Watson | [http://www.towerswatson.com/en/Insights/IC-Types/Survey-Research-Results/2013/10/Extreme-risks-2013](http://www.towerswatson.com/en/Insights/IC-Types/Survey-Research-Results/2013/10/Extreme-risks-2013) |

What kind of GCRs are being worked on? This can be seen in the following graph; AI is not as badly situated as I would initially have expected:

![](http://images.lesswrong.com/t3_k81_0.png?v=c372ed1b96a2d8d4a9940ced2a287f98)
# Brainstorming for post topics

I suggested  [recently](/r/discussion/lw/kah/against_open_threads/ay8j) that part of the problem with with LW was a lock of discussion posts which was caused by people not thinking of much to post about.

When I ask myself "what might be a good topic for a post?", my mind goes blank, but surely not everything that's worth saying that's related to rationality has been said.

So, is there something at the back of your mind which might be interesting? A topic which got some discussion in an open thread that could be worth pursuing?

If you've found anything which helps you generate useable ideas, please comment about it-- or possibly write a post on the subject.
# The Promoted Posts and the Metaethics sequence now available in audio

We are proud to announce audio versions of the [Less Wrong Promoted Posts](http://castify.co/channels/51-less-wrong) and the [Metaethics](http://castify.co/channels/50-metaethics) major sequence, both now available via a Castify Podcast.

The [Less Wrong Promoted Posts](http://castify.co/channels/51-less-wrong) feed will have every new promoted post which has been tagged with the Creative Commons Attribution License.  We'll aim to have them read and to you via the podcast within 48 hours.  We've found this to be a good way to keep up with Less Wrong, especially for longer articles like last month's interesting long-form post called "[A Dialouge on Doublethink](/lw/k7h/a_dialogue_on_doublethink/)" by [BrienneStrohl](/user/BrienneStrohl/).

The Metaethics Sequence is the next installment of the sequences we've produced into audio.  We now have 7 Less Wrong sequences in audio, with more on their way. 

As always we appreciate your support and your feedback: [support@castify.co](mailto:support@castify.co).

Links:

Promoted Posts Subscription: [http://castify.co/channels/51-less-wrong](http://castify.co/channels/51-less-wrong)

Metaethics sequence: [http://castify.co/channels/50-metaethics](http://castify.co/channels/50-metaethics)

Channels page: [http://castify.co/channels](http://castify.co/channels)
# All discussion post titles, points, and dates as an excel sheet

You can find it [here](https://free-ec2.scraperwiki.com/eijkvzg/qytkm3phlgndb6o/http/all_tables.xlsx).

Earlier today I wanted to quantify whether lesswrong has stopped being a well kept garden. So I wrote a scraper to produce the above dataset, so that anyone that wants to do the analysis, can.

All data is as of a few minutes ago.

For programmers: You can see the source [here](http://ideone.com/XYrthV), it's made to run on [scraperwiki](https://scraperwiki.com/), but it will time out after about 3000 articles. At that point you need to adjust the initial value of the uri variable to be the last uri printed. Repeating this process once more will allow you to reach the end. Have fun.
# [meta] Policy for dealing with users suspected/guilty of mass-downvote harassment?

Below is a message I just got from [jackk](/user/jackk/). Some specifics have been redacted 1) so that we can discuss general policy rather than the details of this specific case 2) because presumption of innocence, just in case there happens to be an innocuous explanation to this.

> Hi Kaj_Sotala,  
>   
> I'm Jack, one of the Trike devs. I'm messaging you because you're the moderator who commented most recently. A while back the user \[REDACTED 1\] asked if Trike could look into retributive downvoting against his account. I've done that, and it looks like \[REDACTED 2\] has downvoted at least \[over half of REDACTED 1's comments, amounting to hundreds of downvotes\] (\[REDACTED 1\]'s next-largest downvoter is \[REDACTED 3\] at -15).  
>   
> What action to take is a community problem, not a technical one, so we'd rather leave that up to the moderators. Some options:  
>   
> 1\. Ask \[REDACTED 2\] for the story behind these votes  
> 2\. Use the "admin" account (which exists for sending scripted messages, &c.) to apply an upvote to each downvoted post  
> 3\. Apply a karma award to \[REDACTED 1\]'s account. This would fix the karma damage but not the sorting of individual comments  
> 4\. Apply a negative karma award to \[REDACTED 2\]'s account. This makes him pay for false downvotes twice over. This isn't possible in the current code, but it's an easy fix  
> 5\. Ban \[REDACTED 2\]  
>   
> For future reference, it's very easy for Trike to look at who downvoted someone's account, so if you get questions about downvoting in the future I can run the same report.  
>   
> If you need to verify my identity before you take action, let me know and we'll work something out.  
>   
> \-\- Jack

So... thoughts? I have mod powers, but when I was granted them I was basically just told to use them to fight spam; there was never any discussion of any other policy, and I don't feel like I have the authority to decide on the suitable course of action without consulting the rest of the community.
# Examples of Rationality Techniques adopted by the Masses

Hi Everyone,

I was discussing LessWrong and rationality with a few people the other day, and I hit upon a common snag in the conversation.

My conversation partners **agreed** that rationality is a good idea in general, **agreed** that there are things you _personally_ can do to improve your decision-making. But their point of view was that, while this is a nice ideal to strive to for yourself, there's little progress that could be made in the general population, who will remain irrational. Since one of the missions of CFAR/LW is to raise the sanity waterline, this is of course a problem.

So here's my question, something I was unable to think of in the spur of the argument - what are good examples of rationality techniques that have **already** become commonly used in the general population? E.g., one could say "the scientific method", which is certainly a kind of rationality technique that's going semi-wide adoption (though nowhere near universal). Are there any other examples? If you send a random from today back in time, other than specific advances in science, will there be anything they could teach people from the old days in terms of general thinking?
# Bragging Thread, June 2014

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to comment on this thread explaining **the most awesome thing you've done this month**. You may be as blatantly proud of yourself as you feel. You may unabashedly consider yourself _the coolest freaking person ever_ because of that awesome thing you're dying to tell everyone about. This is the place to do just that.

Remember, however, that this **isn't** any kind of progress thread. Nor is it any kind of proposal thread. _This thread is solely for people to talk about the awesome things they have done. Not "will do". Not "are working on"_. **Have already done.** This is to cultivate an environment of object level productivity rather than meta-productivity methods.

So, what's the coolest thing you've done this month?

([Previous bragging thread](/r/discussion/lw/k6i/may_monthly_bragging_thread/).)