Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Really Fresh Baking

Many baked goods are much better when they still have their cooking warmth. Some foods, like pizza, are nearly always served this way, but others are only done this way occasionally. Several companies have used this to offer a much tastier product than you'd normally get:

*   Midwest Airlines [chocolate chip cookies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwest_Airlines#Cookies), which they would bake fresh on-board. Good for a cookie, let alone an airline cookie.
    
*   [Bertucci's rolls](http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2018/06/18/learning-how-make-bertucci-beloved-rolls/46wpNGPFLayQl2JPTsf2xL/story.html), a somewhat typical roll that is famously delicious because it's served just out of the oven.
    
*   Krispy Kreme doughnuts, with a ["hot now" light](https://www.rd.com/food/fun/fresh-krispy-kreme-doughnuts/) so people know when they can get them right out of the fryer.
    

Some of this is that in cases where it's not that hard to serve it fresh it's unexceptional to serve it that way. You wouldn't normally eat waffles, pancakes, crepes, popovers, or pasta except completely fresh. Thinking about why we do these this way, I think it's that they're operationally simple: short cooking times and small minimum batch sizes. Bertucci's and Midwest handle this by serving the same product to everyone, which really only works if you make it a central aspect of your identity.

If we could sort out the operational aspects of timing and preparation, it seems like we could be generally eating a lot tastier food. Burgers on fresh-baked buns, etc. Improvements here could be well-received!
# Do nasal decongestants increase risk associated with cardiovascular (and respiratory via second-order effects) symptoms from COVID-19?

Currently trying to think my way through this one given that I use a topical oxymetazoline spray nightly (else I'm substantially unable to sleep due to being unable to breathe through my nose.) My understanding is that oxymetazoline (and other decongestants) cause vasoconstriction (and are cautioned against for patients with high blood pressure) - further, there appear to be connection between decongestants and stroke, though I'm primarily able to find this only for oral (as opposed to topical) applications, presumably due to greater systemic absorption from oral route of administration. Given that COVID-19 appears to substantially increase clotting tendency (with corresponding risk increase for arterial blockage and stroke), and that respiratory symptoms may also be caused in some part by clotting blocking capillaries required for blood to absorb oxygen from the lungs, I suspect that decongestants in general may increase symptoms from COVID-19 (likely with some impact on mortality rate), with oral decongestants increasing the risk by a significantly greater extant compared to topical ones.

Since oxymetazoline does appear to result in some systemic absorption even when used as a nasal spray, I plan to discontinue use if I do display COVID-19 symptoms (and accept the risk associated with the amount already in my bloodstream from already-administered doses.) Would love to hear any thoughts on this as well as the potential for risk increase associated with decongestants more generally (of potential larger-scale importance for symptom management on a population-level especially as I haven't seen warnings against use of these - even oral decongestants - in people infected with COVID-19.)
# What would flourishing look like in Conway's Game of Life?

I'm thinking of designing a reinforcement learning environment based on [Conway's Game of Life](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Game_of_Life) (GoL). In it, at every timestep, an agent can change the state of some cells.

As is the case with most interesting RL problems, agent behaviour would be determined by the reward function.

In this scenario, I see some issues with simple reward functions:

1) Total life:

![](http://www.scholarpedia.org/w/images/4/43/Game-of-life_Glider-gun.gif)

Something like this glider gun would represent a technically correct unbounded score, with a stream of lonely travellers in an interstaller abyss. Say we want to stick to a finite memory.

  

2) Highest density:

![](https://conwaylife.com/w/images/6/68/Max_gen50.png)

This is generation 50 of the [Max spacefiller](https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Max). The agent might find some way of maintaining the striped pattern from the middle. Uninspiring, to say the least; like  
\*\*\*spoiler alert\*\*\* being batteries in The Matrix.

Other reward functions might consider variation over time.

  

3) Some function with a penalty for static life:

Consider Karel's p177:

![](https://www.conwaylife.com/w/images/c/c7/P177_anim.gif)

This oscillator has a period of 177 time steps. There's another one with p312, but I couldn't find a good-enough gif of it. Such patterns would likely game this reward specification too.

I've thought of a few other simple functions, which all look flawed in some obvious ways.

That's not to say there is some ungameable reward function. But I wonder, if each cell symbolically represented some small unit of sentience (say a single person, or a family, or a planet) what would flourishing look like?
# How to avoid Schelling points?

After reading an introductory post on game theory, specifically regarding Schelling Points, I noticed a paradox and I wonder if anyone here can shed some light on the subject.

The scenario I will use to illustrate this is the inverse of a frequently used example to describe popular Schelling points.

**The Scenario**

Suppose, in a dystopian future, you are on a game show with a partner. A list of numbers is presented to you:

\[2, 5, 9, 25, 69, 73, 82, 96, 100, 126, 150\]

You and your partner have to pick one number from the list each, without communicating with each other. You both know that if you pick the same number, a terrible fate looms. If you pick different numbers, you are both set free and live long and happy lives.

Assume that you are both human and computer unaided and therefore cannot choose truly random positions on the list.

Naturally, you would want to avoid Schelling points (special numbers or numbers in special positions in the list) to minimise the chance of picking matching numbers. In this case, the Schelling points are numbers which you would think your partner would be more likely to pick, for whatever reason. However, if you both rule out Schelling points, you make the list of numbers to choose from smaller, thus increasing the chance of you both picking the same number significantly. Therefore, if you both actively pick numbers which you think your partner is least likely to pick, assuming you both think rationally, you inadvertently increase the chance of picking the same number. Thus the notion of the Schelling point has become the numbers that are _especially insignificant_, and the cycle continues. This is the paradox.

**A real life example:**

Which bar do i choose to drink at on a Friday night if I want to avoid my ex (assuming she's actively avoiding me too)?

**The point of this post:**

Using game theory, what logical strategy would you employ in two-player avoidance games similar to the one above?

**The apology in advance:**

I'm new to the site and if any of this is convoluted or has been covered before, I apologise in advance.
# Adding a Housemate Under Covid

In mid-March when we [decided to isolate](https://www.jefftk.com/p/stepping-up-isolation), one of our housemates was interested in having her partner move in for the duration. The house talked about it and was ok with that, but he ended up deciding to stay where he was. Two months later, with this lasting longer than we were expecting at the time, he decided he did want to switch houses. Here's how we decided to handle it:

*   Before moving in, he made an appointment for a test. Starting in [late April](https://www.somervillema.gov/covid19testing) it's been possible to get a test here even if you don't have symptoms.
    
*   We divided the unit in two with plastic sheeting. They would have two rooms, one bathroom, and the back exit.
    
    [![](https://www.jefftk.com/isolation-divided-unit-2.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/isolation-divided-unit-2-big.png)
    
*   They had a microwave, cooler, and shelf stable food.
    
*   We would bring them a hot meal at dinner time, and other things as needed. Things that came back out either sat in the basement for three days or got washed with soap and water.
    
*   If the test came back negative, and no one in his former house had started having symptoms, we would end the isolation. If not, we'd deal with it then.
    

He moved in on Saturday, had his testing appointment on Monday, and the test came back negative this morning. We had a celebratory removal of the sheeting:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/removing-isolation-sheeting.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/removing-isolation-sheeting-big.jpg)

Since there can be false negatives the risk isn't zero, but it's a level we feel comfortable with, and that we think is responsible.

It will be nice having another [housemate](https://www.jefftk.com/p/shared-house-setup)!

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100162659201492)*
# Distinguishing logistic curves: visual

I [wrote a post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fRSf65CxthNMaLnCP/estimating-logistic-curves) about distinguishing between [logistic curves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function), specifically for finding their turning points.

That post was highly mathematical; but here is a visual "proof" of the "theorem":

* Figuring out the turning point of a logistic curve before hitting that turning point is bloody hard, mate.

"Proof": The following is a plot two curves:

1. The logistic curve $1/(1+e^{-x})$ up to its turning point at $x=0$.
2. The exponential curve $0.51e^{0.69 x}$, *which never has any turning points*.

![](https://www.dropbox.com/s/9gqvuktppzxb7ia/turning_curves.png?raw=1)

So, if the data was noisy, could you distinguish between the curve that's reached its turning point, and the one that will never have one?

Things get even worse if we stop before the turning point; here's the plot of the logistic curve up to $x=-\log(3)\approx -0.48$, with the $y=0.25$ being half of the value at the turning point. This is plotted against the exponential $0.64e^{0.85x}$:

![](https://www.dropbox.com/s/u9an29sz49jhhnk/turning_curves_short.png?raw=1)
# Subspace optima

The term "global optimum" and "local optimum" have come from mathematical terminology and entered daily language. They are useful ways of thinking in every day life. Another useful concept, which I don't hear people talk about much is "**subspace optimum**": A point maximizes a function not in the whole space, but in a subspace. You have to move along a different dimension than those of the subspace in order to improve. A subspace optimum doesn't have to be a local optimum either, because even a small change along the new dimension might yield improvements. If you're in a subspace optimum, this requires a different attitude to get to a global optimum, than if you're in a local optimum, which makes me think it's good for the term to be part of every day language.

*   **When you're in a local optimum**, you have to do something quite different from what you're doing to improve.
*   **When you're in a subspace optimum**, you have to notice **dimensions along which you could** be doing things differently that you didn't even notice before, but small changes along those new dimensions might already help. You're applying constraints to yourself that you could let go.

Regarding how it looks subjectively:

*   The phrase: "**am I in a local optimum?**" generates curiosity about whether you maybe should undertake a quite different plan from the one you're taking now. (Should I do a different project, rather than make local changes to the project I'm taking?)
*   The phrase: "**am I in a subspace optimum?**" generates curiosity about whether you maybe are not noticing (possibly small) changes you could be making across dimensions you haven't been considering. (Should I optimize/adjust the way I'm doing my project across different dimensions/variables than the ones I've been optimizing over so far?)

My impression is that somewhat often when people informally use the term local optimum, they are in fact talking about a subspace optimum.

**Bonus for the theoretically inclined**: A local subspace optimum is one where you can improve by temporarily doing things differently along dimension X, moving around in a bigger space, while eventually ending up on a different, better, point in the same subspace.
# How to choose a PhD with AI Safety in mind

I'm about to begin doctoral studies in multiagent RL as applied to crowd simulation, but somewhere on the horizon, I see myself working on AI Safety-related topics. (I find the Value Alignment problem to be of particular interest)

Now, I'm asking myself the question - if my PhD is in a roughly related area of AI, but not really closely compatible with AI Safety, does that make anything more difficult further down the line? Or is it still perfectly fine?
# What are your greatest one-shot life improvements?

Sometimes, people have life problems that can be entirely solved by doing one thing. (doing X made my life 0.1% better, PERMANENTLY!) These are not things like "This TAP made me exercise more frequently", but rather like "moving my scale into my doorway made me weigh myself more, causing me to exercise more frequently" - a one-shot solution that makes a reasonable amount of progress in solving a problem.

I've found that I've had a couple of life problems that I couldn't solve because I didn't know what the solution was, not because it was hard to solve - once I _thought_ of the solution, implementation was not that difficult. I'm looking to collect various one-shot solutions to problems to expand my solution space, as well as potentially find solutions to problems that I didn't realize I had.

Please only put one problem-solution pair per answer.
# Why you should minimax in two-player zero-sum games

_Disclaimer: I'm surely reinventing the wheel here._

Last week I [wrote](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qRKyZGcoio9JhdmvX/book-report-theory-of-games-and-economic-behavior-von) that I was dissatisfied with von Neumann and Morgenstern's argument for playing the minimax strategy in a two-player zero-sum game. Here's an argument I like:

We have two players $A, B$ who play strategies $a, b$. $A$ is trying to maximize $V(a, b)$. Since it's a zero-sum game, $B$ is trying to minimize $V$.

- $A$'s minimax strategy is $a^* := \operatorname{argmax}_a \min_b V(a, b)$
- $B$'s minimax strategy is $b^* := \operatorname{argmin}_b \max_a V(a, b)$
- The minimax theorem gives us $v^* := \max_a \min_b V(a, b) = \min_b \max_a V(a, b)$

We assume that $A$ believes that no matter what $A$ does, $B$ will be epistemically and instrumentally rational. _Epistemic rationality_ means that $B$'s factual beliefs are accurate — i.e., $B$'s beliefs conditional on playing $b$ are accurate if $b$ is the strategy that $B$ actually plays; but $B$'s beliefs conditional on playing other strategies (his properly counterfactual beliefs) are unconstrained. _Instrumental rationality_ means that if $B$ believes an action is better than all other actions, then $B$ will take that action.

I claim that given the above assumption, it's instrumentally rational for $A$ to play minimax. Here's why:

- $B$ believes that if he plays minimax, $V(a, b) \leq v^*$. This follows from the definitions of $b^*$ and $v^*$.
- If $B$ is epistemically rational, he knows the value of $V(a, b)$. If $V(a, b) > v^*$, then $B$ would be instrumentally irrational (because he knows he would be better off playing $b^*$). So if $B$ has both kinds of rationality, $V(a, b) \leq v^*$.
- Since $A$ believes $B$ is epistemically and instrumentally rational, $A$ believes that $V(a, b) \leq v^*$, no matter what strategy $A$ plays.
- Also, $A$ believes that if she plays minimax, $V(a, b) \geq  v^*$. This follows from the definitions of $a^*$ and $v^*$.
- Thus $A$ believes that minimax is at least as good as any other strategy.

Note that $A$ can still play something other than minimax, as long as she's sure that $V(a, b) = v^*$.

This argument does _not_ justify playing minimax in non-zero-sum games or games with more than 2 players. In those games it's not generally true that one player is trying to minimize another player's reward.

If you squint, this is basically the argument that von Neumann and Morgenstern use, with all the steps and assumptions written out. And if you formalize this argument, I guess you'd get [Kripke semantics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kripke_semantics) for games.
# The Mechanistic and Normative Structure of Agency

Winning, Jason (2019). _The Mechanistic and Normative Structure of Agency_. Dissertation, University of California San Diego.

> **Abstract**:

> I develop an interdisciplinary framework for understanding the nature of agents and agency that is compatible with recent developments in the metaphysics of science and that also does justice to the mechanistic and normative characteristics of agents and agency as they are understood in moral philosophy, social psychology, neuroscience, robotics, and economics. The framework I develop is internal perspectivalist. That is to say, it counts agents as real in a perspective-dependent way, but not in a way that depends on an external perspective. Whether or not something counts as an agent depends on whether it is able to have a certain kind of perspective. My approach differs from many others by treating possession of a perspective as more basic than the possession of agency, representational content/vehicles, cognition, intentions, goals, concepts, or mental or psychological states; these latter capabilities require the former, not the other way around. I explain what it means for a system to be able to have a perspective at all, beginning with simple cases in biology, and show how self-contained normative perspectives about proper function and control can emerge from mechanisms with relatively simple dynamics. I then describe how increasingly complex control architectures can become organized that allow for more complex perspectives that approach agency. Next, I provide my own account of the kind of perspective that is necessary for agency itself, the goal being to provide a reference against which other accounts can be compared. Finally, I introduce a crucial distinction that is necessary for understanding human agency: that between inclinational and committal agency, and venture a hypothesis about how the normative perspective underlying committal agency might be mechanistically realized.

I have not had a chance to read this, and my time is rather constrained at the moment so it's unlikely I will, but I stumbled across this, and it piqued my interest. Better understanding of agency appears important to the success of many research programs in AI safety, and this abstract matches enough of the pattern of what LW/AF has figured out matters about agency that it seems well worth sharing.

[Full text of the dissertation here.](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6th8p6cw)
# Bag-Drying Clips

With the amount of [buying from the commercial supply chain](https://www.jefftk.com/p/organizing-a-group-buy-of-flour) that we've been doing, I've been needing to divide up a lot of large containers. We typically use ziplock bags, and they're sturdy enough that they could be washed and reused. We mostly haven't been reusing them, though, because while I don't mind washing them they're a pain to dry. They're too flimsy to stay open by themselves, and if they get bumped shut they tend to stay shut.

I decided to attach some clothespins to the underside of the shelf above our sink to hang drying bags from. It was pretty quick. First I separated some clothespins, and drilled a small hole in the center of the half that still had the metal spring attached:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/clothespin-with-hole-in-the-middle.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/clothespin-with-hole-in-the-middle-big.jpg)

Then I screwed through it into the shelf above, making sure to use a screw short enough that it wouldn't poke through:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/screwing-clothesping-to-shelf-above.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/screwing-clothesping-to-shelf-above-big.jpg)

Once it was snug, I slid the other half of the clothespin back on:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/sliding-clothespin-half-back-on.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/sliding-clothespin-half-back-on-big.jpg)

Here are some bags drying:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/hanging-drying-ziplock-bags.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/hanging-drying-ziplock-bags-big.jpg)

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100163571193852)*
# Announcing Progress Studies for Young Scholars, an online summer program in the history of technology

I’m thrilled to announce a new online learning program in progress studies for high school students: [Progress Studies for Young Scholars](http://progressstudies.school/).

Progress Studies for Young Scholars launches in June as a summer program, with daily online learning activities for 6 weeks. We’ll be covering the history of technology and invention: the challenges of life and work and how we solved them, leading to the amazing increase in living standards over the last few centuries. Topics will include the advances in materials; automation of manufacturing and agriculture; the progression of energy from steam to oil to electricity; how railroads, cars and airplanes shrank the world; the conquest of infectious disease through sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics; and the rise of computers and the Internet. The course will also prompt students to consider the future of progress, and what part they want to play in it.

The program will be guided self-study, with daily reading, podcasts or video. Students can go through the material entirely on their own for free, or pay to join a study group with an instructor for daily discussion and Q&A. Pricing to be announced soon, but scholarships will be available!

In conjunction, we’re launching a speaker series of talks and interviews with experts in the history of progress, and those at the frontier pushing it forward. Speakers will include Tyler Cowen, Patrick Collison, Max Roser, Joel Mokyr, Deirdre McCloskey, Anton Howes, and many more.

This is a joint project between The Roots of Progress and Higher Ground Education, the largest operator of Montessori and Montessori-inspired schools in the US. I’ve known the leadership team at Higher Ground for many years and have deep respect for them—especially the way they treat learning as a process of self-creation on the part of the student.

Sign up to get announcements about the program, including the speaker series:

[progressstudies.school](https://progressstudies.school/)

And please spread the word, especially to intellectually curious teenagers and their parents!
# How to learn from a stronger rationalist in daily life?

As mentioned in [my previous post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aPEfdgzukPcJCui9D/my-experience-with-the-rationalist-uncanny-valley), I currently estimate that I am about as strong in applied rationality as the average CS undergrad. But I know [Mark Xu](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/mark-xu), who has gone to CFAR, and is certainly stronger than me, enough to occasionally find interventions that can fix my problems. I don't want my friendship to become a formal mentorship, and the gains from taking advice or copying someone else's interventions into one's own life run out quickly. There's even the risk that I stop thinking for myself when my best judgment is on average more wrong than base rates + someone else's opinion.

Personal details aside, are there exercises/drills in applied rationality where one participant is much stronger than the other, but doesn't have CFAR instructor-level skills? I'm especially interested in examples that work in situations similar to mine, both for selfish reasons and because I suspect this situation is fairly common. Even more valuable would be a general framework.
# Source code size vs learned model size in ML and in humans?

To [build intuition](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bDwQddhqaTiMhbpPF/what-are-some-exercises-for-building-generating-intuitions) about content vs architecture in AI (which comes up a lot in discussions about AI takeoff that involve Robin Hanson), I've been wondering about content vs architecture _size_ (where size is measured in number of bits).

Here's how I'm operationalizing content and architecture size for ML systems:

- content size: The number of bits required to store the learned model of the ML system (e.g. all the floating point numbers in a neural network).
- architecture size: The number of bits of source code. I'm not sure if it makes sense to include the source code of supporting software (e.g. standard machine learning libraries).

I tried looking at the [AlphaGo paper](http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Silver2016a.pdf) to see if I could find this kind of information, but after trying for about 30 minutes was unable to find what I wanted. I can't tell if this is because I'm not acquainted enough with the ML field to locate this information or if that information just isn't in the paper.

Is this information easily available for various ML systems? What is the fastest way to gather this information?

I'm also wondering about this same content vs architecture size split in humans. For humans one way I'm thinking of it is as "amount of information encoded in inheritance mechanisms" vs "amount of information encoded in a typical adult human brain". I know that Eliezer Yudkowsky has cited [750 megabytes](https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17yLL7B7yRrhV3J9NuiVuac3hNmjeKTVHnqiEa6UQpJk) as the amount of information in the human DNA, and also emphasizes that most of this information is junk. This was in 2011 and I don't know if there's a new consensus or how to factor in epigenetic information. There is also [content stored in genes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adapted_Mind), and I'm not sure how to separate out the content and architecture in genes.

I'm pretty uncertain about whether this is even a good way to think about this topic, so I would also appreciate any feedback on this question itself. For example, if this isn't an interesting question to ask, I would like to know why.
# How does publishing a paper work?

While I’ve never published a research paper and have no plans to do so, I realized I don’t even know how the process works. These are the bits and pieces I think I know (probably wrong about some):

* Papers are annoying 2-column pdfs
* Getting a paper published takes a lot of work beyond the research itself
* When a paper has multiple collaborators or a student/professor relationship, there’s an awkward political negotiation about whose name is included and whose name goes first, last, or in the middle of the list
* There are multiple journals you can submit to and maybe none will accept you, or maybe you’ll get multiple offers and then I don’t know if you have to pick one at most
* When you submit a paper to a journal, the journal sends it out to your peers who submit anonymous feedback before publishing, which seems like more trouble than it’s worth these days because the peers might be slow or unfair, or be playing a zero-sum game competing with you
* Many academic conferences have their own associated journals which you can submit papers to and in some cases getting accepted to that conference-journal means you get to give a talk at that conference
* Paid-access journals currently have a monopoly on high-status research publication, and academia is stuck in this local maximum that's hard to dislodge without a coordinated effort to agree on how to publish in a high-status place that isn't a paid journal, and in the meantime the journals get to rent-seek in a way that tragically/comically undermines the ideal of academic research not being a capitalist enterprise
* arXiv is a place where you can upload papers for free and people can download them for free, thereby bypassing the journals to some degree
* Sci-hub lets anyone illegally download pirated papers that normally require access to a paid journal
* Publishing papers is a valuable thing to do because it gives the content of the paper and its author(s) a certain social legitimacy, and allows future research to frictionlessly cite your findings

Can someone confirm or correct my impressions, and elaborate on any other interesting parts?
# What are objects that have made your life better?

If I wanted to buy things to make my life better, what objects would I buy? What objects do you own that [spark joy](https://smile.amazon.com/Spark-Joy-Illustrated-Organizing-Changing/dp/1607749726 ) every time you use them?

I'm looking for statements like "X are the best wireless, noise-canceling headphones" or "Y is the best shirt" with appropriate reasons, if they can be provided.

You can think of buying this object as a weak version of [one shot life improvements](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PX7AdEkpuChKqrNoj/what-are-your-greatest-one-shot-life-improvements).
# Reflective Complaints

Frequently, I'll be having an argument with someone. And I'll think "Grr! They are doing Obnoxious Behavior X!" or "Arg, they aren't doing Obviously Good Behavior Y!". 

Then I complain at them. 

And... sometimes, they make the exact same complaint about me. 

And then I think about it, and it turns out to be true.

Another portion of the time, they *don't* complain back at me, but the argument goes into circles and doesn't resolve, and we both feel frustrated for awhile. And later, independently, I realize "Oh, I was *also* failing to do Good Thing X, or doing Bad Thing Y."

Often, "Good Thing X" and "Bad Thing Y" amount to some kind of "not listening", or "not doing enough interpretive labor." It seems to *me* that I'm explaining something reasonable, and they're not understanding it because of some obvious bias, which should be apparent to them. 

But, in order for them to notice that, from inside the situation, they'd have to run the check of:

1.  TRIGGER: Notice that the other person isn't convinced by my argument
2.  ACTION: Hmm, check if *I* might be mistaken in some way. If I were deeply confused about this, how would I know?

And, typically, I *haven't* actually been making that same check, for myself. Or, I've done, it but in a kinda superficial way. 

Often, adversarial conversational moves beget more adversarial conversational moves. If someone is talking over me, I'm likely to respond by talking over them. If someone seems to be ignoring my arguments, I'm more likely to ignore their arguments. This means, by the time a complaint arises to my conscious thought, there's a decent chance there's been some kind of escalation cycle where I started doing the same thing, even if they started it. (And, maybe, I started it?)

This has led me to a general habit:

1.  TRIGGER: Notice that I'm about to complain to someone about a thing they're doing
2.  ACTION: Check if I'm doing that thing too.

I've [mentioned this concept before](https://www.lessestwrong.com/posts/gxbJfvb5eejrGkA9w/you-can-t-possibly-succeed-without-my-pet-issue) in passing, but it seemed important enough to warrant it's own top-level post.
# Get It Done Now

Epistemic Status: Reference

A while ago, I read the book [Getting Things Done](https://smile.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity-ebook/dp/B00KWG9M2E/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3L33GXH5LQLSA&dchild=1&keywords=getting+things+done&qid=1590148818&sprefix=getting+t%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-1). Like most productivity books and systems, it includes detailed advice that approximately no one will follow. Unlike most productivity books and systems, it has two highly valuable key concepts. The second alone justified the time cost of reading the book. That principles are these:

**Keep a record of tasks you’ve decided to do.**

**If you decide to eventually do a task that requires less than two minutes to do, that can efficiently be done right now, do it right now. **

This wording is a refinement of the original concept of applying the two-minute rule _during ‘processing time’ _only. I think it’s much better to use it any time doing the new task can be done efficiently – it’s not waiting on anything, you have the necessary tools, it wouldn’t interfere _too much_ with your state, with a key short-term deadline, or the need to protect a large or important block of time, etc etc.

Having this simple concept in your head – it’s better, once you notice something that you need to do, to just do it now rather than add it to your stack of things to do – has saved me far more trouble than one might expect.

Two minutes is a placeholder. Some people should use a lower or more often higher time threshold. The threshold should be adjusted based on the situation.

The book also contains a detailed method of how to create and maintain the list of tasks. It seemed annoying and overly complex and not suited to the way I think, and I never gave it a real try. The basic principle of ‘have a system that ensures such tasks are not forgotten’ still seems very strong.

The principle remains, and can be usefully extended further, which I plan to do in additional posts. But better to, by its own principles, write and get this posted now, so I can refer back to it.
# What is your internet search methodology ?

I feel like the heuristics we use to search random tat on the internet are an incredibly larger part of our lives.

I wouldn't make a claim as extended as "googling skills are on the largest determinants of success in life", but I wouldn't look very suspiciously at someone that tried to make it either.

So I'm rather curios what the "search methodology" of people here is.

Let me try to give an example by detailing mine, it's non-ideal since I apply it mainly subconsciously, but that's why I'm looking to improve it, also I'm probably missing some things ,but again, this is just an example not a claim that it's in any way "good.

> a) Find a phrasing that is < 5-6 word long and type it into google

> b) If a certain key word isn't showing up quote it

> c) If am looking for a specific type of discussing type the name of a form together with it (e.g. LessWrong: Fobar falacy, SSC: edgy political thing, Reddit: Corporate sponsored product review, StackOverflow: copy paste of a tiny part of the debug log which I hope is unique enough for my problem)

> d) If what I'm looking for seem high-falutin to be considered "scientific" consider google scholar instead

> \+ ublock origin with strict settings, disable 3rd party cookies, container addons for e.g. google and fb in order to somewhat limit amount of ads

> \+ sci-hub now for quicker paper reading (basically you just click it, it tires to find the doi of the abstract you are looking at and opens it in a scihub tag)

For me, at least, thinking of this requires trying to observe myself and query my subconscious, rather than thinking about it the same way I think about explicit actions/choices.

I'd wager it's the same for many people and thus a lot of critical components might be missing... but, there's not much that can be done about that.
# LessWrong v2.0 Anti-Kibitzer (hides comment authors and vote counts)

About 10 years ago, I wrote the original [LessWrong 1.0 anti-kibitzer](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XbfdLQrAWTRfpggRM/lesswrong-anti-kibitzer-hides-comment-authors-and-vote). The original rationale for creating it was as a de-biasing tool to aid in judging ideas by their contents, rather than their author or popularity. The original post goes into the rationale for its creation in more depth so I won't repeat myself here.

As such, I went back and updated it for the modern site. Follow the link to find [the UserScript, some screenshots of it in action, and installation instructions](https://github.com/mherreshoff/lw-antikibitzer). I have also added an additional feature which replaces the usernames with colorful bars of different lengths and colors. This makes threaded conversations easier to follow, as it enables one to tell when two comments are written by the same individual.

Let me know in the comments if you find any bugs or have any feature requests.
# Plague in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Spoiler Alert: Contains minor spoilers for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has become my quaratine game. A gorgeous tour of ancient Greece is a great antidote to never going outside.

One noteworthy thing in the game is how it deals with plague. You encounter it twice.

On the game’s introductory island of Kefalonia, you can run into a side quest called The Blood Fevor. There is a plague, and priests are attempting to contain it… by killing off the families of the infected.

You can either allow this, or you can forcibly prevent it, in which case you have to kill the priests.

If you do not prevent the excutions, you are called a muderer. You try to ‘reassure’ your friend that this was necessary. Later in the game, the Oracle of Delphi tells you that you’re a bad person, because you let yourself be bossed around by an unknown plague.

If you prevent the executions, you are called a hero. Later in the game, you are informed a plauge has spread throughout Kefalonia. No one makes the connection or blames you.

If you also let them keep their money, you are told the plauge has spread throughout Greece. So being superficially generous makes things much, much worse.

This all feels right and seems to explain a lot. It is clear what must be done, but the incentives are all wrong. Even when you are right you still get punished for allowing others to take action. If you prevent others from taking action, even with disasterous consequences, you are considered a hero.

Later, you are given a quest to warn about The Plague of Athens. The plauge is historical, so it can’t be prevented. Warning about it has no effect. Again, this feels right.

When the Plague of Athens does hit, you are given the task to burn some of the bodies to prevent further spread, as Hippokrates (yes, that one, these games are like that) has figured out this will help prevent further infection. The Followers of Ares try to stop you for religious reasons, and you have to kill them. Once again, society primarily moves to violently prevent action.

Then Pericles breaks quarantine and goes outside when everyone tells him not to, and gets himself killed for it. That part is not historical. It felt right in context.

Experiencing the game helped me process why we’ve reacted to today’s plauge the way we did.
# [Meta] Finding free energy in karma

As I've been posting here on LessWrong for a few months now, I wanted to share two things I've noticed about the karma system. These are ad-hoc observations, not rigorous empirical results, and while they might feel like ways to "cheat" the system, I hope by making them public and known, it serves to make the "market" for karma more efficient instead.

1\. _\[Fairly confident\]_ Posts appear on the front page unevenly throughout the week. As best I can tell there's a lull on Sunday and a spike on Monday/Tuesday. I'm not sure if this is due to unevenness in when people write, or unevenness in when mods promote posts to the front page. Regardless, since your post's karma depends in part on how long it remains on the front page (which provides more eyeballs), and that depends in part on what other posts it's competing against, there is opportunity here. Consider delaying publishing your post to a less busy time of the week.

2\. _\[Less confident\]_ Automatic cross-posting is a self-fulfilling karma signal. Having automatic cross-posting set up requires both sufficient author interest and sufficient moderator trust, since it's still a fairly manual process. This means that auto-x-posting is a fairly significant indicator of status/karma in the community, and such posts tend to do better in part as a self-fulfilling prophecy (of course they often do better because they're unusually good too - the karma system isn't broken, just slightly unbalanced). There's no way to replicate the automatic-x-post indicator in a manual post, but even just putting "_\[Cross-posted from MyBlog\]_" at the top of the text seems to provide a small boost.
# What are the best tools for recording predictions?

Preferably, follow rules from "Best Textbooks in any Subject." I'm interested in people who have tried 2-3 prediction-recording tools, and can argue why one is better than the others.

I've decided I finally want to get gud at calibration. 

I'm personally just interested in tracking my own predictions, often about private things. I'd prefer something very low-friction where I can record my own predictions, mark them as true/false later on using my own judgment, and automatically see a graph of how calibrated I am.
# What is a decision theory as a mathematical object?

If we want a space of all decision theories, what mathematical objects does it contain? For example, if a decision theory is a function, what are its domain and codomain?

The only approach I'm familiar with is to view expected utility maximizing decision theories as ways of building counterfactuals (section 5 in [the FDT paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.05060.pdf)). A decision theory could then be described as a function that takes in a state $s$ and an action $a$ and spits out a distribution over world states that result from counterfactually taking action $a$ in state $s$.

But EDT, CDT and FDT require different amounts and kinds of structure in the description of the state $s$ they take as input (pure probability distributions, causal models and logical models respectively), so this approach only works if there is some kind of structure that is sufficient for all decision theories we might come up with at some point.
# A Taijitu symbol for Moloch and Slack

There is a balance between [Moloch](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditations-on-moloch) (which I think of as the forces of _exploitation_) and [Slack](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yLLkWMDbC9ZNKbjDG/slack) (which I think of as the forces of _exploration_).

Scott Alexander [writes](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GZSzMqr8hAB2dR8pk/studies-on-slack):

> Think of slack as a paradox – the Taoist art of winning competitions by not trying too hard at them. Moloch and Slack are opposites and complements, like yin and yang. Neither is stronger than the other, but their interplay creates the ten thousand things.

LW is [mostly](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DAFuuqpDcMztQGt7P/12-virtues-of-rationality-posters-icons) not a design website, but Scott's post inspired me to make a symbol for this concept. It's a [Taijitu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taijitu) of Moloch and Slack as created by the inadequate equilibria and the hillock:

  

![](https://bobjacobssite.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/curve-exploration-exploitation.jpg?w=768)

  

* * *

  

You can find a higher resolution image and a svg-file of this symbol [here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1X8yCBhhATIWKQgRBXyRiSC9awlQyorCy)
# Why aren’t we testing general intelligence distribution?

IQ supposedly measures general intelligence. Assuming the g-factor exists, why are we using IQ to measure it? IQ tests get tweaked so the end result will always form a normal distribution. I checked wikipedia to figure out why, but while it said some people claim that LCT is a good reason to believe the g-factor will have a normal distribution, it didn’t seem terribly confident (and it also didn’t give a source). Even “[The Bell Curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Criticisms)” used an intelligence test that didn’t return a bell curve at all. They said they had to turn it into a bell curve to prevent 'skew':

  

![](https://i.postimg.cc/MH12yKXR/Schermafbeelding-2020-05-26-om-17-34-02.png)

  

But isn’t this putting the cart before the horse? Surely it would be interesting to see what distributions we would get if we did intelligence testing without a result in mind? I get that it is really difficult to measure, but if a test consistently gave us a different distribution, we could learn valuable insights into how human minds work. So is there a reason why we aren’t testing the hypothesis that general intelligence will follow a normal distribution?
# Obsidian: A Mind Mapping Markdown Editor

I just saw this app today. It's made by the same people behind [Dynalist](https://dynalist.io/), which is similar to [Workflowy](https://workflowy.com/). I know other people on here have been on a big Roam kick, and I think Obsidian allows importing for Roam tags (or something, I haven't used Roam before.)

I think Eli previously asked for some mind-mapping software. This seems relevant to people who want a new way to do their note organization in a mind-mapping way.

The screenshot looks pretty clean:

![obsidian screenshot](https://obsidian.md/images/screenshot.png)

I'm also trying this out, and I'll try to post my personal thoughts later. They have a [public roadmap](https://trello.com/b/Psqfqp7I/obsidian-roadmap) you can follow. I've been using [Typora](https://typora.io/) as my editor of choice for a while now because it supports inline LaTEX and a nice markdown styler, but it looks like adding support for these two things is on the way.
# Should we stop using the term 'Rationalist'?

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really dislike the term 'rationalist' for four reasons:

1) It makes you sound self-aggrandizing. The term gives the impression that you think you are already rational and therefore smarter-than-thou.

2) It's already a term used to describe a [different group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism). In fact, that way of using the term is not only way older, but also way more common.

3) The people it describes are not only interested in 'rationality', but also talk at length about things like AI, Bayes-theorem, Utilitarianism, etc.

4) We don't even agree on what it [means](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2Ee5DPBxowTTXZ6zf/rationalists-post-rationalists-and-rationalist-adjacents?commentId=ihXR2nMCfCTQpMbvf) anymore. I'm not sure we ever did, but post-rationality has put the nail in the coffin.

I've toyed with introducing the term _'Aspirationalist'_, but maybe we should just split it into 'Lesswrongers', 'SSCers', 'Effective Altruist' etc?
# Overcorrecting As Deliberate Practice

Something that I've gotten a lot of value out of when learning many different things is to deliberately overcorrect when I notice I'm doing something the wrong way. For example, if I'm trying to hit the ball straight on a golf club, and I'm always hitting to the left, I make a deliberate effort to hit it to the right, rather than just trying to hit straight. Or if I'm speaking my lines too fast, I will slow down and try to speak them at 0.75x speed instead of just 1.0x speed.

In these situations, what often ends up happening is that, instead of actually overcorrecting in the opposite direction, it turns out that the amount of effort I'm putting in to intentionally try and do the opposite thing is actually just about what's needed to make me hit the happy medium. If I had instead strove for just trying to reach the medium, I would likely still be biased in the same direction, but just less so.

The other benefit is getting a feel for the entire range of motion / the entire action space. By default, I think I feel cautions to try and overcorrect or overextend. There's some part of me that thinks, "Well, I'm already obviously biased towards X, why try and become biased towards not-X?" There's some sort of fear there of "Is trying to be extra wrong in the other direction even allowed?" and some internal disdain, like "I shouldn't try and intentionally do something *wrong*!"

But I think the right thing to do is to flip that gut feeling around–"If I'm already biased towards X, then I already have a propensity for it. In that case, it makes really good sense to try and understand the things I'm not good at, which in this case is not-X!" This is really good experiential knowledge from a purely exploratory standpoint, as well as from a skill gain perspective.