Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Alcohol, health, and the ruthless logic of the Asian flush

Say you're an evil scientist. One day at work you discover a protein that crosses the blood-brain barrier and causes crippling migraine headaches if someone's attention drifts while driving. Despite being evil, you're a loving parent with a kid learning to drive. Like everyone else, your kid is completely addicted to their phone, and keep refreshing their feeds while driving. Your suggestions that the latest squirrel memes be enjoyed *later at home* are repeatedly rejected.

Then you realize: You could just sneak into your kid's room at night, anesthetize them, and bring them to your lair! One of your goons could then extract their bone marrow and use CRISPR to recode the stem-cells for an enzyme to make the migraine protein. Sure, the headache itself might distract them, but they'll probably just stop using their phone while driving. Wouldn't you be at least tempted?

This is an analogy for something about alcoholism, East Asians, Odysseus, evolution, tension between different kinds of freedoms, and an idea I thought was good but apparently isn't.
# Hypothesis: lab mice have more active transposons then wild mice

As johnswentworth recounts in [Core Pathways of Aging](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ui6mDLdqXkaXiDMJ5/core-pathways-of-aging), as an organism ages active transposons within it's stem cells duplicate and that mechanism might lead to increased average transposons count in stem cells. Those transposons then produce DNA damage which in turn leads to cell senescence.

If that hypothesis is true, there's evolutionary pressure to keep the count of active transposons low. That evolutionary pressure is greater in organism that reproduce at a later age then for organisms that reproduce at an earlier age.

As [Bret Weinstein](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11909679/) describes, breeding protocols for lab mice have lab mice reproducing at an earlier age then mice that live in the wild because it's economical to make the mice reproduce at a young age. Weinstein made the hypothesis that this leads to laboratory mice having elongated telomeres.

I hereby make the hypothesis that if we investigate the average amount of active transposons in laboratory mice and lab mice, we will find that the wild mice have less active transposons then the wild mice, because there's less evolutionary pressure in the laboratory mice to remove mutations that lead to increased active transposon count.

If investigation finds this hypothesis to be true, approaches to reduce transposon count should get more attention by antiaging researchers.
# Restoration of energy homeostasis by SIRT6 extends healthy lifespan

This is just a link post for an article that came out in Nature on May 28th. Open access.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23545-7

“ SIRT6 overexpression in C57BL mice led to a 27% and 15% extension in median lifespan, in males and females, respectively (p = 7.1 × 10−6 and 1.1 × 10−6). Likewise, in comparison to their WT littermates, SIRT6 overexpression induced a 11% and 15% extension in maximal lifespan in males and females, respectively (p = 0.007 and 0.001). Similarly, SIRT1 + 6-tg mice exhibited a 25% and 20% extension in median lifespan (p = 1.1 × 10−6 and 1.2 × 10−8), and 13% and 15% extension in maximal lifespan (p = 0.01 and 0.001), in males and females, respectively. Relative to WT littermates, overexpression of SIRT1 alone did not affect median or maximal lifespan, in accordance with previous data.”

“ Here, we show that male and female C57BL/6JOlaHsd mice overexpressing SIRT6, but not SIRT1, live significantly longer than WT littermates. SIRT6-tg mice maintain young-like physical activity and metabolic flexibility, along with reduced aging-related pathologies. Moreover, further analyses showed that old SIRT6-tg mice show a young-like liver metabolite profile. Notably, SIRT6 enables energy production under limited energy conditions, such as fasting and aging. To mediate this function, SIRT6 promotes hepatic β-oxidation, lactate and glycerol shuttling and hepatic utilization, NAD+/NADH ratio in the liver, and glycerol release from adipose tissue. These SIRT6-regulated metabolic pathways coordinate to maintain young-like TCA cycle and GNG activities in old age (Fig. 7e). Thus, the positive effect of SIRT6 on healthy lifespan is strain and sex independent and requires SIRT6 regulation of energy production in at least two sites, liver and adipose tissues. Together, this emphasizes the potential of SIRT6-based therapeutic approaches in addressing age-related frailty and other diseases.”
# Open and Welcome Thread – June 2021

If it’s worth saying, but not worth its own post, here's a place to put it.

If you are new to LessWrong, here's the place to introduce yourself. Personal stories, anecdotes, or just general comments on how you found us and what you hope to get from the site and community are invited. This is also the place to discuss feature requests and other ideas you have for the site, if you don't want to write a full top-level post.

If you want to explore the community more, I recommend [reading the Library,](https://www.lesswrong.com/library) [checking recent Curated posts](https://www.lesswrong.com/?view=curated), [seeing if there are any meetups in your area](https://www.lesswrong.com/community), and checking out the [Getting Started](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2rWKkWuPrgTMpLRbp/lesswrong-faq-1#Getting_Started) section of the [LessWrong FAQ](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2rWKkWuPrgTMpLRbp/lesswrong-faq-1). If you want to orient to the content on the site, you can also check out the new [Concepts section](https://www.lesswrong.com/tags/all).

The Open Thread tag is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/open-threads?sortedBy=new). The Open Thread sequence is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/yai5mppkuCHPQmzpN).
# The dumbest kid in the world (joke)

**"The dumbest kid in the world"**

> A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.”
> 
> The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?”
>
> The boy takes the quarters and leaves.
> 
> “What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!” Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store.
>
> “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?”
>
> The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game is over!”
# What to optimize for in life?

I listened to an interview with Patrick Collison were he claimed that when coding one should always optimize for speed - even when speed is not an issue. (Presumably because it leads to good coding practices, clean code, less build up of unnecessary functionality etc.)  
  
Assuming that is correct - and I think there is something to it - it makes me wonder: is there something similar that one could optimize for in life? Life is such a multivariate thing that it can at times be hard to know what to prioritize.  
  
What parameter is a candidate for having most positive side effects on your life when optimized?
# What are good resources for gears models of joint health?

Painscience.com and Hargrove's "A Guide To Better Movement" are pretty good for a model of predictive processing and the roll of the nervous system in chronic pain and movement. I still don't feel like I have a good model of bone and joint health in general, however. Eg, I'm currently nursing a flare up of patelo-femoral pain in my left knee. I've done a number of things over the past few months to deal with it, with some success, including buying and reading Painscience's book length patelo-femoral tutorial. Recently I've had a bit of pain in my foot, possibly in the tibiocalcaneal or tibionavicular tendons. I find that even though I now know a fair amount about PFS and the way the nervous system processes pain, these models don't generalize well to sporadic, idiopathic pain in another joint. 

Possibly the answer is: "lol that model doesn't exist", or "lol wanna get a phd?" but if there are good resources, I'd be an eager consumer. 

A sub-question that I'm particularly interested in is: what, if anything, is know about the relationship between base line muscle tone and joint issues? I have good reason to think my baseline muscle tone is higher than average.
# Holidaying and purpose

I’m on holiday. A basic issue with holidays is that it feels more satisfying and meaningful to do purposeful things, but for a thing to actually serve a purpose, it often needs to pass a higher bar than a less purposeful thing does. In particular, you often have to finish a thing and do it well in order for it to achieve its purpose. And finishing things well is generally harder and less fun than starting them, and so in other ways contrary to holidaying.

This isn’t a perfect relationship though, so a natural way to mitigate the trade-off is to just look harder until you find things that serve a worthy purpose while being non-committal and consistently non-arduous. For instance, you can exercise or learn about history or practice guitar or write half-assed blog posts without real conclusions or narrative consistency.

There is also probably good holidaying to be done that doesn’t seem obviously purposeful, and maybe that is more in the spirit of holidaying. Perhaps one should avoid too much purpose, lest one end up not holidaying?

Today I travelled by rowing boat across a lake and back, with my boyfriend and some of his family.

[![PXL_20210606_133843306](https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/i/katjasgrace/PXL_20210606_133843306.jpg?width=180&height=180&fit=bounds)](https://app.photobucket.com/u/katjasgrace/p/3fffa8a1-4e0c-48cf-823e-7aa01f7406d1)

Now we are going to the zoo.
# Five Whys

*This post appeared first on the* [*EA Coaching blog*](https://lynette-bye-6pd4.squarespace.com/blog/2021/5/24/five-whys?p)*.*

Five Whys is a technique I borrowed from [Lean methodology](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10127019-the-lean-startup) for getting to the root cause of a problem. As shown in the example below, I use the method to identify many possible solutions to a particular productivity problem. 

The simple steps:

1.  Ask “Why do I have this problem? / What is causing this problem?”
2.  Make the answer as concrete as possible.
3.  Ask yourself “Why do I have this answer?/  What is causing this problem?”
4.  Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you run out of more ideas. (Aim for at least five times.)
5.  Brainstorm solutions to each answer. What specific action might resolve that problem?
6.  Choose 2-3 solutions to test. If these aren’t sufficient, you can go back to test others.

Many problems have more than one root cause, so you may need to repeat the above for different starting questions. 

Example 
--------

1.  Why aren’t you exercising?
    *   Because it’s difficult to stop mindlessly browsing the web in the evening to start exercising.
        *   Possible solution: reduce friction to exercise, such as by having an exercise plan.
2.  Why is it difficult to stop browsing?
    *   Because I feel guilty about not getting enough done, so I don’t want to leave and hence admit that I’m not going to do more tonight.
        *   Possible solution: Accept that the guilt is a counterproductive [cycle](https://effectivealtruismcoaching.com/blog/2020/8/27/measuring-progress).
        *   Possible solution: Learn to recognize clues that you’re caught in a bad cycle.
        *   Possible solution: Find better ways to relax, so that you aren’t out of steam so much and have something that feels good to switch to.
3.  Why are you feeling guilty?
    *   Because I care about what I’m working on, but I don’t prioritize well. So I never get everything done and always feel bad about being behind and not having done enough.
        *   Possible solution: Rank tasks by priority and do the most important first.
        *   Possible solution: Try aiming for a number of hours instead of tasks.
        *   Possible solution: Read [Rest in Motion](http://mindingourway.com/rest-in-motion/).
4.  Why don’t you prioritize well?
    *   Because I’m constantly in reactive mode to what other people want me to do.
        *   Possible solution: Let people know when you will get back to them instead of feeling guilty you haven’t responded for a week.
        *   Possible solution: Block off time for your deep work and don’t accept meetings during that time.
        *   Possible solution: Delegate or say no if you’re not the best person for a job, instead of accepting everything that people ask you to do.
5.  Why are you in reactive mode?
    *   Because I don’t have a system for managing tasks.
        *   Possible solution: read [Getting Things Done](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1633.Getting_Things_Done), try out a system.

*Many thanks to Jonathan Mustin for transcribing my rambling cursive, and to Nora Ammann for feedback.*
# How hard is it to disguise my gait?

Gait recognition technology ( = identifying a person by the way they walk) is getting good, and I find this trend unnerving. 

**Current context:** It's already deployed in China by a company called Watrix, [which claims](http://www.watrix.ai/en/gait-recognition/) 94% accuracy up to 50 meters away from any angle. Japan, the US, and the UK [have also](https://apnews.com/article/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a) been working on gait recognition, though I doubt it's being seriously deployed in the same way as in China. 

And it will only get better. [Here](https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.14421) is a recent paper out of Zhejiang University in which they generate synthetic data for training gait recognition systems (import AI 252 summary [here](https://jack-clark.net/2021/06/07/import-ai-252-gait-surveillance-a-billion-danish-words-deepmind-makes-phone-using-agents/)). 

What makes me uneasy is the supposed robustness of gait recognition technology: 

> “You don’t need people’s cooperation for us to be able to recognize their identity,” Huang said in an interview in his Beijing office. “Gait analysis can’t be fooled by simply limping, walking with splayed feet or hunching over, because we’re analyzing all the features of an entire body.” ~ [AP News article](https://apnews.com/article/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a) \[Note Huang is the CEO of Watrix\]

**Main question:** In the future, if my local grocery store installs cameras and uses facial recognition technology to track my purchases and show me targeted ads, I can probably prevent this by wearing a face covering. What's the analogy here for gait recognition—how do I make myself confusing and/or undetectable to such systems? 

Some random ideas I had: 

*   Wear ankle weights, and vary the amount of wait on each leg
*   Wear strange shoes (e.g. high heels)
*   Wear a fat suit 
*   Wear a very heavy backpack
*   Walk in silly ways (limping is said to not work, but what about side stepping, etc) 
*   Physical therapy to be able to switch walking styles deliberately 

I'm thinking about mostly with the "lazy surveillance" use case in mind, which is what I consider to be the most likely outcome in the western world. For example, I am subjected to "lazy surveillance" by Facebook/Google/other tech companies, but I can circumvent this by using a VPN, incognito window, different accounts / locations, etc. Hence the motivating example of the grocery store—a low stakes but realistic future scenario.
# 
The reverse Goodhart problem

There are two aspects to the [Goodhart problem](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EbFABnst8LsidYs5Y/goodhart-taxonomy) which are often conflated. One is trivially true for all proxy-true utility pairs; but the other is not.

Following [this terminology](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EbFABnst8LsidYs5Y/goodhart-taxonomy), we'll say that $V$ is the true goal, and $U$ is the proxy. In the range of circumstances we're used to, $U \approx V$ - that's what's makes $U$ a good proxy. Then the Goodhart problem has two aspects to it:

1. Maximising $U$ does not increase $V$ as much as maximising $V$ would.
2. When strongly maximising $U$, $V$ starts to increase at a slower rate, and ultimately starts decreasing.

Aspect 1. is a tautology: the best way to maximise $V$ is to... maximise $V$. Hence maximising $U$ is almost certainly less effective at increasing $V$ than maximising $V$ directly.

But aspect 2. is not a tautology, and need not be true for generic proxy-true utility pairs $(U,V)$. For instance, some pairs have the *reverse Goodhart problem*:

3. When strongly maximising $U$, $V$ starts to increase at a faster rate, and ultimately starts increasing more than twice as fast as $U$.

Are there utility functions that have anti-Goodhart problems? Yes, many. If $(U,V)$ have a Goodhart problem, then $(U,V')$ has an anti-Goodhart problem if $V'=2U-V$.

Then in the range of circumstances we're used to, $U = 2U-U \approx 2U-V = V'$. And, as $V$ starts growing slower than $U$, $V'$ starts growing faster; when $V$ starts decreasing, $V'$ starts growing more than twice as fast as $U$:

![](https://www.dropbox.com/s/djt6ki7mqz3wrc3/reverse_goodhart.png?raw=1)

Are there more natural utility functions that have anti-Goodhart problems? Yes. If for instance you're a total or average utilitarian, and you maximise the proxy "[do the best for the worst off](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice)". In general, if $V$ is your true utility and $U$ is a prioritarian/conservative version of $V$ (eg $U=-e^{-V}$ or $U=\log(V)$ or other concave, increasing functions) then we have reverse Goodhart behaviour[^scale].

[^scale]: We also need to scale the proxy so that $V\approx U$ on the typical range of circumstances; thus the conservatism of $U$ is only visible away from the typical range.

So saying that we expect Goodhart problems (in the second sense) means that we know something special about $V$ (and $U$). It's not a generic problem for all utility functions, but for the ones we expect to correspond to human preferences.
# Will outlets like the NYT be captured by Chinese influence and if so, when?

John Cena apology for suggesting that Taiwan is a country by saying “Taiwan is the first country that can watch F9” illustrates how China has immense power over Hollywood. As China's influence growth in the world they will try to exert influence on more Western institutions. Should we expect outlets like the NYT to change in a way where calling China a country is a bad career move? If not, what will stop China from expanding it's influence in such a way that it has similar influence over the NYT as it currently has over Hollywood? It it does happen, how long will it take?
# What are the gears of gluten sensitivity?

I've been having some weird health issues somehow triggered after eating. I've been working with a nutritionist. They recommend, among other things, trying to eliminate gluten some of the time on the idea that gluten puts stress on the digestive system and can expose other issues that the body would normally handle. This is something like a load-bearing model: the body bears the load of bad stuff coming in without issue up until it is overloaded and then you start to get weird symptoms as various systems strain to keep up with the load of bad stuff. The proposal is that gluten is one such bad stuff.

It's hard to find anything useful on Google that might give me a good model of how gluten sensitivity would work or why gluten might matter in such a load-bearing model (or, stepping back, that such a load-bearing model is even reasonable).

On LW I only found [this old post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/g4pi2jfQHFF6mPdjw/wheat-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know), which is useful but not enough detail.

So, does anyone have a gears-level model of gluten sensitivity? Links or explanations would be helpful as I try to evaluate what interventions might and might not be worth trying.
# Should we vaccinate against PGBD5 which codes for a transposase?

[Core Pathways of Aging](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ui6mDLdqXkaXiDMJ5/core-pathways-of-aging) is background reading that explains why transposons are an issue.

There are two types of transposons. Class I TEs or [retrotransposons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrotransposon) generally function via [reverse transcription](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcription), while Class II TEs or [DNA transposons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_transposon) encode the protein [transposase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposase). I can't think of a good way of attacking retrotransposons which don't produce any proteins.

On the other hand, DNA transposons can be attacked because they need express transposase to copy themselves. When we vaccinate against a particular type of transposase our immune system will start to attack all cells that express the transposase, because cells present fragments of the transposon on their cell wall.

PGBD5 is expressed in the majority of [pediatric solid tumors](https://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/8/1/OF17). While a tumor can mutate in a way that shuts off antigen presentation it's possible that PGBD5 gets expressed in the beginning of the lifecycle of pediatric cancer. While we are at it

Given that we don't know whether some cells have valid reasons for expressing PGBD5 it makes sense to not self-vaccinate and wait for clinical trials, but the potential of a cheap way to increase longevity and reduce cancer risk seem to me worth the effort.
# How do you establish a comfort zone in your studies?

Learning a new topic takes you outside your intellectual comfort zone. Extrapolating from the [spacing effect](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399982/#:~:text=The%20spacing%20effect%20refers%20to,study%20on%20the%20spacing%20effect).), the practice of [overlearning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlearning#:~:text=Overlearning%20refers%20to%20practicing%20newly,automaticity%20or%20other%20beneficial%20consequences.) a chunk of new material is an inefficient way to build memory. I notice, however, that overlearning feels comforting. It seems to establish a comfort zone in the new material. It makes me feel more confident that I've learned something new, like the material is becoming a part of me. And when I review the earlier material, I can approach the new material that builds on it with greater ease.

If you approach study with the idea that it's all about efficiently building a memory for the material, you might neglect the motivational aspects of study. What do you do to establish a comfort zone in your studies? Do you find that sense of a "comfort zone" motivating? What else do you do to enhance your motivation and engagement with your studies, even if it's not strictly optimal in the short term for building new memories?
# ML is now automating parts of chip R&D. 
How big a deal is this?

[Article](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01515-9); [paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03544-w)

> ...the authors’ floorplan solutions have been incorporated into the chip designs for Google’s next-generation artificial-intelligence processors. This means that the solutions are good enough for millions of copies to be printed on expensive, cutting-edge silicon wafers. We can therefore expect the semiconductor industry to redouble its interest in replicating the authors’ work, and to pursue a host of similar applications throughout the chip-design process.

My current guess is that this is _not_ a big deal. Surely these AI-optimizations will result in something like 10% improvement in AI-training-FLOPS-per-dollar, not 100%+, so they won't really change timelines or anything else strategically important. And it won't even be 10% improvement every year from now on, but more like 10% this year, a further 5% next year, a further 2.5% the year after that, etc. as the low-hanging fruit from floorplan optimization is picked. OTOH, this plausibly will reduce the time it takes to design new chips by a lot... but I'd be surprised if that was the main bottleneck anyway. I would have thought ramping up production was the main bottleneck.

I know very little about the chip industry though. Anyone care to correct me?
# What are the best ways to improve resiliency?

What are things you can do to make you more robust to "life shit" that happens? What have you tried and found to be pretty helpful?  
  
To kick things off, here are a few things I've tried, which have helped to varying degrees:

*   working fewer hours
*   exercising
*   focusing on improving my sleep (with mixed success)
*   journaling
*   therapy, especially ACT, CBT, and EMDR
# Would you like me to debug your math?

At AI safety camp I noticed that people are bad at math and when I look over their shoulder as they code I notice nested for loops that could have been one matrix multiplication.

Therefore I'll try offering this service to the public: You screenshare as you do your daily tinkering, I watch for algorithmic or theoretical squiggles that cost you compute or accuracy or maintainability.

Maybe some people are less effective pair programming than alone. You choose whether we pretend I'm not there, whether you think out loud, or whether we talk theory instead.

We might learn engineering from each other. I have shown multiple people IDE features such as debuggers, and I still don't know a way as elegant as I feel it should be to, say, spin up a minimal transformer implementation for tinkering in a few minutes.

If your workflow is embarassing, that's fine: You are particularly likely to benefit, and I expect this is actually quite common. Edit: For every person so far, I would prefer one like them scheduling a session to not.

I did Java years ago, Haskell less years ago and Python the last few months. Of course, pseudocode is the real language. Here's examples of me rewriting other people's Haskell code: [https://codereview.stackexchange.com/users/84131/gurkenglas](https://codereview.stackexchange.com/users/84131/gurkenglas)

Edit: I got 5 meetings from this post out of ~280 views. I'd like that percentage to be higher! My current criteria for accepting people are: If you've found this post, I'm accepting you.

Schedule here: [https://calendly.com/gurkenglas/consultation](https://calendly.com/gurkenglas/consultation)
# Oh No My AI (Filk)

*To the tune of "Because I Got High" with apologies to Afroman.*

I was gonna save the world  
when I built AI  
I was gonna make everyone's life great  
with my new AI  
But I built it unaligned, I don't know why (hey hey)  
oh no my AI  
oh no my AI  
oh no my AI

I made a really nice box  
for my AI  
I gave it a really good lock  
to hold my AI  
But it talked its way outside, I'm gonna cry (yeah yeah)  
oh no my AI  
oh no my AI  
oh no my AI

I made my AI smart   
smarter than I  
So we could do really cool stuff  
all thanks to AI  
But it outsmarted me, and now we'll die (oh no)  
oh no my AI  
oh no my AI  
oh no my AI

I wish I'd made it better  
a Friendly AI  
I shoulda listened to Yudkowsky  
when I built AI  
But instead we're paperclips, and I know why (say why)  
because my AI  
is unaligned  
oh no my AI

* * *

This song is very much amenable to additional verses, so I hope folks have fun writing additional ones in the comments!
# Alarms Are Better Than Chivvying

Lily recently told me that she wanted to be a big kid, and we talked about what that could mean. She decided she wanted to be fully responsible for getting ready and going to school in the morning. The biggest challenge was going to be timing: normally I walk her through the process, reminding her to do various things, getting her out and ready for school in time. Lots of "if you don't finish up soon you're going to be late" sorts of reminders. This didn't work especially well, and neither of us liked it.

We thought together of how this could work, and the standard approach of glancing over at the clock every so often to see how much time you have left didn't seem like something she would be able to do yet. We decided to use alarms. I set up three on her tablet: start getting ready (7:15), leaving in five minutes (7:55), and time to leave (8:00). I don't give her any additional timing reminders; everything is up to her now.

This has worked well: we started with this on Wednesday morning, and the last three days she's accomplished everything on her list and left for school on time. Today was a bit rushed, where she lost track of time listening to a [podcast](https://www.lilywise.com/podcasts) while getting ready, and hadn't yet packed her lunch at the "leaving in five minutes" alarm. Still, she left with enough time to get to school before her class went in.

If this started being more of an issue, I could see setting an alarm at some thing like 7:45 for "time to make lunch"?

This is the same approach we used for her school calls when the kids were [watching themselves](https://www.jefftk.com/p/watching-themselves); previously whoever was watching her with keep track of time. It was a good improvement there too.

Both of those are cases where there is some external schedule we need to follow. When there isn't one, my preference is generally to just let the kids go on at whatever pace they prefer; that is what Anna does in the mornings now.
# Self-study ideas for micro-projects in "abstract" subjects?

Music and the arts, programming, and cooking have a wonderful property in common. They are all extremely compatible with micro-projects. By this, I mean that it's pretty easy for an artist, coder, or cook of any skill level to find a real-world, interesting project that's targeted to any given new skill that they're trying to build. Trying to learn sixth position or expand into the third register on the trombone? Working on callbacks in Javascript? Learning to cook vegan food? The passionate community surrounding these activities will have songs, coding projects, and recipes galore for you to build those micro-skills on micro-projects. Even if you're studying sociology, you can often explore the theories by sitting in a cafe and observing the behavior of people around you.

I think one property people point to when they refer to subjects as "abstract" or "hard" is that they aren't very amenable to such micro-projects. Some examples of subjects like this include math, chemistry, and microbiology. There might be *lots* of applications you can pursue once you've developed a sophisticated understanding of the subject. If you're able to get an entry-level job in the field, you might be able to get lots of exercise on a small subset of the skills that go into the subject. If you're willing to spend a lot of money, you can sometimes buy the equipment to do at least some practice with these subjects at home, though you might also face regulatory and legal barriers. Perhaps you can find tractable, fun projects that are thematically related to the subject, but they're unlikely to precisely and comprehensively target the material on, say, the level of chapter sub-sub-headings.

Usually, curriculum designers and teachers tackle this challenge with homework problems, exams, labs, debates, and classroom discussion. But there are two problems. First, a self-studier might not have access to all those resources. Second, those tasks often lack the juicy, real-world applied interest that creates a genuine enthusiasm in the student.

If you've had some success with this challenge, or know of useful resources for exploring it further, I'd love to hear about it!

*Note: All subjects and experiences are welcome. It's OK if answers stray slightly off-topic or lead off in different directions.*
# Does anyone have any Data Sidequests?

I’ve spent the past few years thinking about how to create legible ML models, and the past few months applying those ideas. I now have [a library of public-domain scripts](https://github.com/H-B-P/DURKON) that let me feature-select, constrain, and fit a model which can then be described using simple graphs while maintaining similar performance to XGBoost and other ‘standard’ ML algorithms. I want to try my approach in the real world, and finding non-toy Data Science problems that people want help with has been surprisingly hard thus far.

I’d describe my approach and motivation in more detail, but [akur8](https://akur8-tech.com/) has me covered: I do [what they do](https://akur8-tech.com/solution), except less professionally, less expensively, more flexibly, without proprietary code, and without the exclusive focus on insurance pricing (though my approach is optimized for that, since it’s where I started). Also, I have a truly marvellous method for modelling interactions between features which this margin is too small to contain (tl;dr fit multiple models in parallel).

I’d also be (less) interested in any kind of Analysis work. If anyone wants to hand me a dataset and some vague instructions, then get back a report that looks kind of like [this](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wqga4xNCgtLdMPq7o/excessive-eda-effortposting) (but better, since I have the benefit of three years’ extra experience), I’d be up for that.

I’m willing to work for free on EA tasks, and would ask for only a nominal fee to work on anything else; I may end up raising my prices later, but right now I just want to apply my skills to something meaningful ASAP. If your organisation is such that recruiting a random stranger you met on an internet forum to do Data Science/Data Analysis seems both tempting and viable, I want to talk to you.

Any takers? Or any helpful opinions on what I’m doing?

*ETA: This post somehow led to me getting a full-time job; I'm no longer actively seeking out Data work at time of writing; I have updated significantly in the direction of "asking for things on LessWrong is a good idea".*

*ETA^2: I'm now actively looking for work again.*
# Why do patients in mental institutions get so little attention in the public discourse?

Scott writes in [My IRB nightmare](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/) about how his colleague took people freedom away and justified it with tests that aren't validated for the purpose of diagnosis and that have a warning THIS IS JUST A SCREENING TEST IT IS NOT INTENDED FOR DIAGNOSIS. 

This can only happen because there's very little public accountability and suggests that a lot of abuse of power is going on. While the US has a lower psychiatric hospitals bed count then many other [OECD countries](https://data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hospital-beds.htm), there are still ~80,000 people in those institutions. A lot of them effective have very little rights and have to endure medical procedures without them consenting such as taking various drugs. 

Mental health people seem to me like they should be classified as a marginalized group by the ideals of modern left. On the other hand the modern left put very little attention on fighting for the their rights as evidenced by Scott's colleague getting away with major abuse of power. 

Why is the state of affairs like it is? Why don't they get more attention?
# The Moon is Down; I have not heard the clock

I wanted to share a quick post about something that's made me significantly happier over the past year: knowing what the phase of the moon is on any given day.  Importantly, I don't do this with any kind of computer tool.  It's a proxy for "am I spending enough time outside", but because I don't let myself cheat and rely on actually seeing the moon at least every few days, I've succeeded in not Goodharting myself, at least so far.

One of the things that helped me do this successfully was figuring out what time of day I could expect to see the moon during the different phases.  I know, I know, it's a trivial exercise in orbital mechanics, so maybe all of you do this instinctively, but it wasn't something anyone ever explained to me explicitly.  It actually took two disparate works of fiction to make the connection for me.

The first literary clue comes from my favorite Shakespeare play, *Macbeth*.  Scene II, Act I starts with Banquo and Fleance in the court of Macbeth's castle:

> Banquo: How goes the night, boy?
> 
> Fleance: The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
> 
> Banquo: And she goes down at twelve.
> 
> Fleance: I take't, 'tis later, sir

The second clue (here's where the penny really dropped) is from Cormac McCarthy's *All the Pretty Horses*, where the main character says "First quarter moon sets at midnight where I come from." 

Of course, the true first-quarter moon sets at midnight *regardless of where you are* because at (solar) midnight, the place you're standing is facing as far from the sun as it can be, and the first quarter moon means that the sun-moon-earth angle is a 90-degree angle.  (This is also true at the third-quarter moon, but at that phase, the moon *comes up* at midnight).

To be more explicit, at the new moon, the moon is almost between the sun and the earth (if it's *exactly* between, you get a solar eclipse!) so the moon rises and sets near when the sun does, but it's tough to see.  A waxing crescent moon comes up gradually later in the morning but is easiest to see shortly after sunset, just as it's going down.  The first-quarter moon comes up at noon and, as we've already covered, goes down at midnight.  Waxing gibbous moons come up in the afternoon and set in the early morning, before sunrise.  At the full moon, the earth is almost between the sun and the moon so the moon comes up around sunset and sets near sunrise.  The waning gibbous moon comes up gradually later after sunset and sets gradually later in the morning.  The third quarter moon rises at midnight and sets at noon.  Finally, the waning crescent moon comes up gradually later after midnight and sets in the afternoon. 

All of this is just to say: get outside, preferably with people you care about!  I look forward to being unwilling to shut up to the whippersnappers about how when I was young, the moon didn't have all those dots of light from the settlements.
# What other problems would a successful AI safety algorithm solve?

Corporations and governments are in some ways like superintelligences, and [in others ways not](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pUA3LsEaw&ab_channel=RobertMilesRobertMiles). Much of economics, political science, and sociology seem to tackle the problem of why institutions fail to align with human interests. Yet the difference in architecture and capabilities between brains and computer programs suggests to me that aligning collective bio-superintelligence is a quite different problem from aligning AI superintelligence. It might be that because we can see and control the building blocks of AI, and have no hard ethical limits on shaping it as we please, aligning AI with human values is an easier problem to solve than aligning human institutions with human values. A technical solution to AI safety might even be a necessary precursor to understanding the brain and human relationships well enough to provide a technical solution to aligning human institutions.

 If we had a solid technical solution to AI safety, would it also give us technical solutions to the problem of human collective organization and governance? Would it give us solutions to other age-old problems? If so, is that reason to doubt that a technical solution to AI safety is feasible? If not, is that reason for some optimism? Finally, is our lack of a technical account of what human value *is* a hindrance to developing safe AI?
# Shall we count the living or the dead?

This is a linkpost for an entry in my Substack newsletter at [https://countheliving.substack.com/p/shall-we-count-the-living-or-the](https://countheliving.substack.com/p/shall-we-count-the-living-or-the) . In this entry, we announce a new arXiv preprint, "Shall we count the living or the dead".  This preprint builds on my earlier work that has [previously been discussed on Less Wrong](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wwbrvumMWhDfeo652/effect-heterogeneity-and-external-validity-in-medicine), and which led to a response [first on Less Wrong](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pbuDzeqHSXkkAdWY7/generalizing-experimental-results-by-leveraging-knowledge-of) and later in the [European Journal of Epidemiology](https://carloscinelli.com/files/Cinelli%20and%20Pearl%20(2020)%20-%20Generalizing%20Experimental%20Results.pdf) by Carlos Cinelli and Judea Pearl.

The Substack entry contains a link to an [animated video on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS1tSeXO_Kk), which explains a simplified version of the argument
# Five Suggestions For Rationality Research and Development


1. Make field work the bulk of what you do. For every hour you spend engaging with other people's thoughts or reflecting on your own thoughts, spend at least two hours, and ideally two days, trying to directly observe whatever it is you're studying.

2. Add other people to your sensorium. Make conversation with others a big part of your work, and approach those interactions with the intent to study the experience of others. 

3. Corollary: If you're developing a technique or method, then by all means teach it to people. That's crucial. But don't teach them so they will know your technique, or even so you'll be better at teaching it. Instead, teach them so you can find out what happens for them when they try to use it.

4. Focus on topics in the intersection of "things you're personally interested in", "things you think might actually matter to someone in particular", and "places where the existing art seems deficient".

5. If it seems worthwhile to you, go after it. This is not a field with people in the position to tell you what you're allowed to study, or when, or how. This is a frontier. No bus will ever arrive, so you'll have to use your feet. Stop waiting for permission. Just get to work.
# Which rationalists faced significant side-effects from COVID-19 vaccination?

While I want to believe the vaccines to be safe, Gendlin's litany tells me that it's more important that whether they actually are and the ability to change one's mind is a key feature of a rationalist. Another [thread](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7NoRcK6j2cfxjwFcr/covid-vaccine-safety-how-correct-are-these-allegations)  links to a discussion on the [Dark Horse Podcast](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7NoRcK6j2cfxjwFcr/covid-vaccine-safety-how-correct-are-these-allegations) between Steve Kirsch, Robert Malone and Bret Weinstein about issues with vaccine safety. My prior for Steve Kirsch before that video was that he was one of the people in the world who thought most effectively about how to deal with COVID-19 in 2020. I hold that belief because of his project, the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund.

The Fund describes it's [guiding principles](https://www.treatearly.org/guiding-principles)  as:

> The world has to take a multipronged approach to tackling COVID-19. We should work to identify effective repurposed drugs, validate experimental drugs, develop new drugs, test early treatments, test late treatments, try convalescent serums and invest in vaccines. We must do all of this in parallel to end the pandemic. 

The guiding principles document goes into more detail about their principles and is well worth reading. When I first read it I thought, this is actually a sensible plan compared to what governments are doing. It seemed to me also better than what various EA groups managed to come up with. When someone who run a non-profit that tells the world that it's important to invest in vaccines in its guiding principles tells you about vaccine side-effects and who managed to put their money into a sane COVID-19 response, that's to be taken a lot more seriously than most other possible people who might say something about vaccine side-effects. 

If the thesis is true, it's very important to know as soon as possible, because the thesis is about issues that are particular to the spike protein. If the thesis is true a step that's as simple as putting domains of the spike protein seperately into a vaccine or targeting a different protein for the third vaccination shoot might completely mitigate the side-effects.

Given that many rationalists are vaccinated and the thesis of Kirsch is that adverse effects to the vaccine are common, we would expect that if the thesis is true there are rationalists who face significant side-effects. While that still isn't a full proof of the thesis, it would increase our knowledge to know whether that's the case.

For a definition of significant side-effects where significant side-effects means effects that don't disappear after 3 days, who here thinks they faced significant side-effects? If you feel uncomfortable about attaching your identity publically to your report, you can message me about it and I will post answers anonymously.
# Walking to School

Last week Lily (7y) decided she wanted to start walking to school by herself. It's not very far, she knows the way, and if anything happens she has pretty good common sense. The main problem is cars: while we've been practicing crossing the street, she's not good enough at it do it completely on her own. We realized, though, that if she went a slightly longer way she would only need to cross two streets: one right by our house and another that has a crossing guard.

We went out and practiced: she walked the route with me staying well behind. When she got to the second crossing I pretended to be the crossing guard. She seemed ready to do it on her own.

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/walking-to-school.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/walking-to-school-big.jpg)

The next morning, after [getting herself ready](https://www.jefftk.com/p/alarms-are-better-than-chivvying), I walked her across the first street and then she set off on her own. I stayed, watching, in case she ran into issues. When she got to where the crossing guard should be, she turned around and came running back crying: "the crossing guard isn't there!" It turns out that the crossing guard was just around the corner, leaning on their car. Once Lily saw this, I turned around, and Lily took it from there.

The remaining mornings that week I continued hanging out and watching until I could see the crossing guard helping her across the street. She didn't have any more problems, and this week I'm no longer waiting.

She is quite proud of herself, and I'm glad she's able to be a bit more [independent](https://www.jefftk.com/p/growing-independence).

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100220291740422)*
# Are there any existing open source human evolution models?

It's famously said that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". This suggest that evolutionary models provide a good way to gather knowledge about biology. If you expand the model to include memes that hunter gatheres pass around we might also gather valuable insights about human memetics. 

If we would have such an open source model, whenever someone makes a evolutionary psychology argument you could ask them whether they can specify their argument in terms of the open source model and then run an experiment to validate it. 

I don't find any existing open source project for this and don't know whether that's because googling for the term evolution is hard or whether it's due to such a project not existing. Does anybody have any pointers to projects?