Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We?

Despite being (IMO) a philosophy blog, many Less Wrongers tend to disparage mainstream philosophy and emphasize the divergence between our beliefs and theirs. But, how different are we really? My intention with this post is to quantify this difference.

The questions I will post as comments to this article are from the 2009 [PhilPapers Survey](http://philpapers.org/surveys/). If you answer "other" on any of the questions, then please reply to that comment in order to elaborate your answer. Later, I'll post another article comparing the answers I obtain from Less Wrongers with those given by the professional philosophers. This should give us some indication about the differences in belief between Less Wrong and mainstream philosophy.

**Glossary  
**

[analytic-synthetic distinction](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/), [A-theory and B-theory](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#TheBThe), [atheism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1), [compatibilism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/), [consequentialism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/), [contextualism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contextualism-epistemology/), [correspondence theory of truth](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/), [deontology](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/), [egalitarianism](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Egalitarianism), [empiricism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#1.2), [Humeanism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laws-of-nature/#HumSup), [libertarianism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/), [mental content externalism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-externalism/), [moral realism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/), [moral motivation internalism and externalism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-motivation/#IntVExt), [naturalism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/), [nominalism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/#AbsObj), [Newcomb's problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problem), [physicalism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/), [Platonism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism/), [rationalism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#1.1), [relativism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#2.4), [scientific realism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/), [trolley problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem), [theism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism), [virtue ethics](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/)

**Note**

Thanks [pragmatist](/user/pragmatist/), for attaching short (mostly accurate) descriptions of the philosophical positions under the poll comments.

**Post Script**

The polls stopped rendering correctly after the migration to LW 2.0, but the raw data can be found in [this](https://github.com/jaysonvirissimo/primary-data/tree/master/impersonal) repo.
# EY "Politics is the Mind Killer" sighting at Washington Examiner and Reason.com

Original at Washington Examiner

[http://washingtonexaminer.com/down-with-politics/article/2508882#.UGSscI0iYZm](http://washingtonexaminer.com/down-with-politics/article/2508882#.UGSscI0iYZm)

> ...
> 
> Politics makes us worse because "politics is the mindkiller," as intelligence theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it. "Evolutionary psychology produces strange echoes in time," he writes, "as adaptations continue to execute long after they cease to maximize fitness." We gorge ourselves sick on sugar and fat, and we indulge our tribal hard-wiring by picking a political "team" and denouncing the "enemy."
> 
> But our atavistic Red/Blue tribalism plays to the interests of "individual politicians in getting you to identify with them instead of judging them," Yudkowsky writes.
> 
> ...
> 
> _Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of "The Cult of the Presidency."_

Repost at Reason.com

[http://reason.com/archive/2012/09/25/why-politics-are-bad-for-us](http://reason.com/archives/2012/09/25/why-politics-are-bad-for-us)
# MIT Challenge complete

**Followup to:** [MIT Challenge: blogger to attempt CS curriculum on own](/lw/7u6/mit_challenge_blogger_to_attempt_cs_curriculum_on/)

A year after he announced it, productivity blogger [Scott Young](http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/) has [successfully completed](http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2012/09/27/mit-challenge-done/) his "MIT Challenge", an attempt to work through that institution's undergraduate computer science curriculum independently, using the [large selection of online material](http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) that it has made available.

His three pieces of advice for independent learners are worth noting:

> 1.  Create an exciting, but specific, mission. I couldn’t have learned the content of this challenge if I hadn’t wrapped it into a compelling mission. Even calling it the “MIT Challenge” helped me make the goal more specific and real. Too many self-education quests begin as vague ideas and fall apart without any constraints.
> 2.  Build a curriculum or find one. For small projects, taking an individual course will do. For bigger ones, try creating an actual curriculum. MIT (and other universities) offer many free courses, and also have outlines of their undergraduate and graduate programs. Having a preexisting curriculum forced me to be consistent and not avoid topics just because they were hard.
> 3.  Be public in your quest. Self-ed has a harder time obtaining legitimacy, in part, because nobody holds you accountable to that. Being public about my challenge made me accountable and gave me discipline I wouldn’t have had in a private quest. Consider starting a blog about your mission, even if you do it anonymously.
# Rationality Quotes October 2012

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

*   Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately.  (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments.  If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
*   Do not quote yourself
*   Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
*   No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
# Taking "correlation does not imply causation" back from the internet

(An idea I had while responding to [this quotes thread](/lw/eqe/rationality_quotes_october_2012/7jzf))

"Correlation does not imply causation" is bandied around inexpertly and inappropriately all over the internet.  Lots of us hate this.

But get this: the phrase, and the most obvious follow-up phrases like "what does imply causation?" are [not high-competition search terms](http://www.keywordspy.com/research/search.aspx?q=correlation%20does%20not%20imply%20causation&type=keywords).  Up until about an hour ago, the domain name correlationdoesnotimplycausation.com was not taken.  I have just bought it.

There is a correlation-does-not-imply-causation shaped space on the internet, and it's ours for the taking.  I would like to fill this space with a small collection of relevant educational resources explaining what is meant by the term, why it's important, why it's often used inappropriately, and the circumstances under which one may legitimately infer causation.

At the moment the [Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation) is trying to do this, but it's not really optimised for the task.  It also doesn't carry the undercurrent of "no, seriously, _lots_ of smart people get this wrong; let's make sure you're not one of them", and I think it should.

The purpose of this post is two-fold:

Firstly, it lets me say "hey dudes, I've just had this idea.  Does anyone have any suggestions (pragmatic/technical, content-related, pointing out why it's a terrible idea, etc.), or alternatively, would anyone like to help?"

Secondly, it raises the question of what other corners of the internet are ripe for the planting of sanity waterline-raising resources.  Are there any other similar concepts that people commonly get wrong, but don't have much of a guiding explanatory web presence to them?  Could we put together a simple web platform for carrying out this task in lots of different places?  The LW readership seems ideally placed to collectively do this sort of work.
# [Link] Nobel laureate challenges psychologists to clean up their act

> [Nobel laureate challenges psychologists to clean up their act](http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535)
> 
> Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman has issued a strongly worded call to one group of psychologists to restore the credibility of their field by creating a replication ring to check each others’ results.
> 
> Kahneman, a psychologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, addressed his [open e-mail](http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.6716.1349271308!/suppinfoFile/Kahneman%20Letter.pdf) to researchers who work on social priming, the study of how subtle cues can unconsciously influence our thoughts or behaviour. For example, volunteers might walk more slowly down a corridor after seeing words related to old age^[1](http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535#b1 "Bargh, J. A., Chen, M. & Burrows, L. J. Pers. Soc. Psych. 71, 230–244 (1996).")^, or fare better in general-knowledge tests after writing down the attributes of a typical professor^[2](http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535#b2 "Dijksterhuis, A. & van Knippenberg, A. J. Pers. Soc. Psych. 74, 865-877 (1998).")^.
# Fun fact: in medical school, we had a mini-lesson on common cognitive errors in medicine

Yesterday in medical school, we had a lecture on common mistakes doctors make. I saw this slide:

Attribution Errors

Confirmation Bias

Commission Bias

Omission Bias

Anchoring

  

-which made me smile, and thought I'd share. I'm interested in Emergency Medicine, and I realize that some of these are a real problem in that field. I.e. I know one doctor who had a typical Friday night - most of the patients are super drunk. One 30-year-old girl comes in disoriented, off-balance, with slurred speech. They suggest she sleep it off. Unfortunately, this particular patient was having a stroke, and died. So yeah. Avoiding biases.

  

(If anyone cares - Anchoring is basically the bias towards your first guess, or in this case, diagnosis, aka "we change our minds less likely than we think". Commission and Omission bias are, in this case, the tendency to act (in order to help) when you perhaps shouldn't, and the the tendency to inaction (to avoid harm) when you should act, respectively.)
# "Hide comments in downvoted threads" is now active

I just found out that [a new website feature](http://code.google.com/p/lesswrong/issues/detail?id=345) was implemented 2 days ago. If a comment is voted to -4 or below, it and all replies and downstream comments from it will be hidden from Recent Comments, and further replies in that subthread will incur 5 karma points penalty. The hiding, but not karma penalty, applies retroactively to comments in that subthread posted before the -4 vote.

This seems to be worth a discussion post since most people are probably still voting things to below -3 without knowing the new consequences of doing so.
# We won't be able to recognise the human Gödel sentence

Building on the very bad Gödel [anti-AI argument](/lw/e3m/the_weakest_arguments_for_and_against_human_level/) (computers's are formal and can't prove their own [Gödel sentence](/lw/93q/completeness_incompleteness_and_what_it_all_means/), hence no AI), it occurred to me that you could make a strong case that humans could never recognise a human Gödel sentence. The argument goes like this:

1.  Humans have a meta-proof that all Gödel sentences are true.
2.  If humans could recognise a human Gödel sentence G as being a Gödel sentence, we would therefore prove it was true.
3.  This contradicts the definition of G, which humans should never be able to prove.
4.  Hence humans could never recognise that G was a human Gödel sentence.

Now, the more usual way of dealing with human Gödel sentences is to say that humans are inconsistent, but that the inconsistency doesn't blow up our reasoning system because we use something akin to [relevance logic](/lw/bt8/if_you_cant_be_right_at_least_be_relevant/).

But, if we do assume humans are consistent (or can become consistent), then it does seem we will never knowingly encounter our own Gödel sentences. As to where this G could hide and we could never find it? My guess would be somewhere in the larger [ordinals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number), up where our understanding starts to get [flaky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_countable_ordinal).
# LessWrong help desk - free paper downloads and more

Over the last year, VincentYu, gwern, myself and others have provided 132 academic papers for the LessWrong community (out of 152 requests, a 87% success rate) through the [Free research, editing and articles thread](/r/discussion/lw/7hi/free_research_help_editing_and_article_downloads/). We originally intended to provide editing, research and general troubleshooting help, but article downloads are by far the most requested service.

If you're doing a LessWrong relevant project we want to help you. If you need help accessing a journal article or academic book chapter, we can get it for you. If you need some research or writing help, we can help there too.

Turnaround times for articles published in the last 20 years or so is usually less than a day. Older articles often take a couple days.

Please make new article requests in the comment section of this thread.

If you would like to help out with finding papers, please monitor this thread for requests. If you want to monitor via RSS like I do, Google Reader will give you the comment feed if you give it the URL for this thread (or use [this](/r/discussion/lw/eto/lesswrong_help_desk_free_paper_downloads_and_more/.rss) link directly). 

If you have some special skills you want to volunteer, mention them in the comment section.
# Signs you're on LW too much

In the style of Jeff Foxworthy's "[You Might Be A Redneck If...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7E-isbgwpk)"

If you're waking up and the characters in your dream start asking you to stay asleep a bit longer because they're running on your brain and they don't want to be consigned to oblivion just yet... you might be on LW too much.

Happened to me this morning, it was kinda weird, and I felt kinda sad. In fairness, it might just be my subconscious brain telling me I need to get more damn sleep.

Anyone have similar stories?
# [Link] Think Bayes: Bayesian Statistics Made Simple

[Allen B. Downey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Downey) has made a rough draft version of his new introduction to Bayesian statistics textbook available for free online. You can download the pdf version [here](http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkbayes/thinkbayes.pdf) or read the HTML [here](http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkbayes/html/index.html).

> _Think Bayes_ is an introduction to Bayesian statistics using computational methods. This version of the book is a rough draft. I am making this draft available for comments, but it comes with the warning that it is probably full of errors.
# [Link] "Fewer than X% of Americans know Y"

How many times have you heard a claim from a somewhat reputable source like "only 28 percent of Americans are able to name one of the constitutional freedoms, yet 52 percent are able to name at least two Simpsons family members"?

Mark Liberman over at Language Log wrote up a [post](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4243) showing how even when such claims are based on actual studies, the methodology is biased to exaggerate ignorance:

> The way it works is that the survey designers craft a question like the following (asked at a time when William Rehnquist was the Chief Justice of the United States):
> 
> "Now we have a set of questions concerning various public figures. We want to see how much information about them gets out to the public from television, newspapers and the like….  
> What about William Rehnquist – What job or political office does he NOW hold?"
> 
> The answers to such open-ended questions are recorded — as audio recordings and/or as notes taken by the interviewer — and these records are coded, later on, by hired coders.
> 
> The survey designers give these coders very specific instructions about what counts as right and wrong in the answers. In the case of the question about William Rehnquist, the criteria for an answer to be judged correct were mentions of both "chief justice" and "Supreme Court". These terms had to be mentioned explicitly, so all of the following (actual answers) were counted as wrong:
> 
> Supreme Court justice. The main one.  
> He’s the senior judge on the Supreme Court.  
> He is the Supreme Court justice in charge.  
> He’s the head of the Supreme Court.  
> He’s top man in the Supreme Court.  
> Supreme Court justice, head.  
> Supreme Court justice. The head guy.  
> Head of Supreme Court.  
> Supreme Court justice head honcho.
> 
> Similarly, the technically correct answer ("Chief Justice of the United States") would also have been scored as wrong (I'm not certain whether it actually occurred or not in the survey responses).

If, every time you heard a claim of the form "Only X% of Americans know Y" you thought "there's something strange about that", then you get 1 rationality point. If you thought "[I don't believe that](/lw/ig/i_defy_the_data/)", then you get 2 rationality points.
# Good transhumanist fiction?

I just watched [this](http://vimeo.com/6765616), a very pretty version of "don't try to make yourself different, just accept who you are", and I realized that self-directed change in fiction is a worthwhile topic.

What I'm looking for is stories where main characters change themselves in ways which are basically improvements-- getting beyond the usual human is a plus, but for purposes of this discussion I'm including any significant positive change.

Another big plus would be the character needing to learn which of their goals make sense, and which methods work.

\*\*ETA:\*\* That was a bit of a stub-- HPMOR is partly about Harry and Hermione changing themselves, generally for the better I think (I've only read it once). It would be interesting to see what happens if Quirrell decides he needs to upgrade himself.

\*Stranger in a Strange Land\* is an interesting partial example-- the Martian language is presumably an upgrade for the human race, but it was developed by and for Martians, and needs some modification.

A \*lot\* of relatively recent fiction has people learning martial arts. I think appearance makeovers (typically for women) have become less common. I don't think there's a lot of fiction about appearance makeovers for men-- \*The Stars My Destination\* has one, but it's offstage. It wouldn't surprise me if \*The Count of Monte Cristo\* (frequently referenced with TSMD) has one.
# Rationality, Transhumanism, and Mental Health

My name is Brent, and I'm probably insane.

I can perform various experimental tests to verify thatI do not perform primate pack-bonding rituals correctly, which is about half of what we mean by "insane". This concerns me simply from a utilitarian perspective (separation from pack makes ego-depletion problems harder; it makes resources harder to come by; and it simply sucks to experience "from the inside"), but these are not the things that concern me most.

The thing that concerns me most is this:

What if the very tools that I use to make decisions are flawed?

I stumbled upon Bayesian techniques as a young child; I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to perform a lot of self-guided artificial intelligence "research" in Junior High and High School, due to growing up in a time and place when computers were utterly mysterious, so no one could really tell me what I was "supposed" to be doing with them - so I started making simple video games, had no opponents to play them against due to the aforementioned failures to correctly perform pack-bonding rituals, decided to create my own, became dissatisfied with the quality of my opponents, and suddenly found myself chewing on Hopfstaedter and Wiener and Minsky.

I'm filling in that bit of detail to explain that I have been attempting to operate as a rational intelligence for quite some time, so I believe that I've become very familiar with the kinds of "bugs" that I will tend to exhibit.

I've spent a very long time attempting to correct for my cognitive biases, edit out tendencies to seek comfortable-but-misleading inputs, and otherwise "force" myself to be rational, and often, the result is that my "will" will crack under the strain. My entire utility-table will suddenly flip on its head, and attempt to maximize my own self-destruction rather than allow me to continue to torture it with endlessly recursive, unsolvable problems that all tend to boil down to "you do not have sufficient social power, and humans are savage and cruel no matter how much you care about them."

Most of my energy is spent attempting to maintain positive, rational, long-term goals in the face of some kind of regedit-hack of my utility table itself, coming from somewhere in my subconscious that I can't seem to gain write-access to.

Clearly, the transhumanist solution would be to identify the underlying physical storage where the bug is occurring, and replace it with a less-malfunctioning piece of hardware.

Hopefully someday someone with more self-control, financial resources, and social resources than I will invent a method to do that, and I can get enough of a partial personectomy to create something viable with the remaining subroutines.

In the meantime, what is someone who wishes to be rational supposed to do, when the underlying hardware simply _won't_ cooperate?
# Problem of Optimal False Information

This is a thought that occured to me on my way to classes today; sharing it for feedback.

[Omega](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Omega) appears before you, and after presenting an arbitrary proof that it is, in fact, a completely trustworthy superintelligence of the caliber needed to play these kinds of games, presents you with a choice between two boxes.  These boxes do not contain money, they contain information.  One box is white and contains a true fact that you do not currently know; the other is black and contains false information that you do not currently believe.  Omega advises you that the the true fact is not misleading in any way (ie: not a fact that will cause you to make incorrect assumptions and lower the accuracy of your probability estimates), and is fully supported with enough evidence to both prove to you that it is true, and enable you to independently verify its truth for yourself within a month.  The false information is demonstrably false, and is something that you would disbelieve if presented outright, but if you open the box to discover it, a machine inside the box will reprogram your mind such that you will believe it completely, thus leading you to believe other related falsehoods, as you rationalize away discrepancies.

Omega further advises that, within those constraints, the true fact is one that has been optimized to inflict upon you the maximum amount of long-term disutility for a fact in its class, should you now become aware of it, and the false information has been optimized to provide you with the maximum amount of long-term utility for a belief in its class, should you now begin to believe it over the truth.  You are required to choose one of the boxes; if you refuse to do so, Omega will kill you outright and try again on another [Everett branch](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Everett_branch).  Which box do you choose, and why?

(This example is obviously hypothetical, but for a simple and practical case, consider the use of [amnesia-inducing drugs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug-induced_amnesia) to selectively eliminate traumatic memories; it would be more accurate to still have those memories, taking the time and effort to come to terms with the trauma... but present much greater utility to be without them, and thus without the trauma altogether.  Obviously related to the [valley of bad rationality](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Valley_of_bad_rationality), but since there clearly exist most optimal lies and least optimal truths, it'd be useful to know which categories of facts are [generally hazardous](/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_people/), and whether or not there are categories of lies which are generally helpful.)
# Thinking soberly about the context and consequences of Friendly AI

The project of Friendly AI would benefit from being approached in a much more down-to-earth way. Discourse about the subject seems to be dominated by a set of possibilities which are given far too much credence:

*   A single AI will take over the world
*   A future galactic civilization depends on 21st-century Earth
*   10^n^-year lifespans are at stake, n greater than or equal to 3 
*   We might be living in a simulation
*   Acausal deal-making
*   Multiverse theory 

Add up all of that, and you have a great recipe for enjoyable irrelevance. Negate every single one of those ideas, and you have an alternative set of working assumptions that are still consistent with the idea that Friendly AI matters, and which are much more suited to practical success:

*   There will always be multiple centers of power
*   What's at stake is, at most, the future centuries of a solar-system civilization
*   No assumption that individual humans can survive even for hundreds of years, or that they would want to
*   Assume that the visible world is the real world
*   Assume that life and intelligence are about causal interaction
*   Assume that the single visible world is the only world we affect or have reason to care about 

The simplest reason to care about Friendly AI is that we are going to be coexisting with AI, and so we should want it to be something we can live with. I don't see that anything important would be lost by strongly foregrounding the second set of assumptions, and treating the first set of possibilities just as possibilities, rather than as the working hypothesis about reality.

\[Earlier posts on related themes: [practical FAI](/lw/772/what_a_practical_plan_for_friendly_ai_looks_like/), [FAI without "outsourcing"](/lw/c1x/extrapolating_values_without_outsourcing/).\]
# Happy Ada Lovelace Day

Today is [Ada Lovelace Day](http://findingada.com/), when STEM enthusiasts highlight the work of modern and historical women scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.  If you run a blog, you may want to participate by posting about a woman in a STEM field whom you admire.  But I'd love to have people share women scientists/mathematicians/authors in the comments that they think we could all stand to read more about. 

*   Women in STEM fields (living or dead, fiction or nonfictional) that you'd like us to know more about (preferably with a little precis and a link
*   Books about women in STEM fields that are awesome
*   Books written by women about STEM subjects that are awesome
*   Studies about sexism (or ways to combat it) in STEM fields (and anywhere else)
*   Practical things you or organizations you're with have done to cut down on careless or intentional sexism. (how did you implement it, how did you measure the effects, etc)
# Looking for alteration suggestions for the official Sequences ebook

As you may have heard, the Singularity Institute is in the process of creating an official ebook version of The Sequences (specifically, Eliezer's Major Sequences written between 2006 and 2009). 

Now is an opportune time to make any alterations to the contents of the Sequences. We're looking for suggestions about:

1.  Posts to _add_ to the Sequences. E.g., "scope insensitivity" is not currently a part of any sequence, perhaps it should be? Preferably suggest a specific location, or at least a specific sequence where you think the addition would logically go.
2.  Posts to _remove_ from the Sequences. Are there redundant or unnecessary posts? To call the Sequences long is a bit of an understatement.
3.  Alternatives to "The Sequences" as a title, such as "How to be Less Wrong: The Sequences, 2006--2009."

Put separate suggestions in separate comments so that specific changes can be discussed. All suggestions will be reviewed, with final changes made by Eliezer. Next thing you know, you'll be sipping a hot mocha in your favorite chair while reading about Death Spirals on your handy e-reader.

The Sequences that will be present in the ebook:

*   [Map and Territory](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_Territory_(sequence))
*   [Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Mysterious_Answers_to_Mysterious_Questions)
*   [A Human's Guide to Words](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/A_Human%27s_Guide_to_Words)
*   [How to Actually Change Your Mind](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_Mind) (includes all posts from all its subsequences)
*   [Reductionism](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Reductionism_(sequence)) (includes all posts from [Joy in the Merely Real](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Joy_in_the_Merely_Real) and [Zombies](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Zombies_(sequence)))
*   [Quantum Physics](/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/)
*   [Metaethics](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Metaethics_sequence)
*   [Fun Theory](/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/)
*   [The Craft and the Community](/lw/cz/the_craft_and_the_community/)
# [LINK] The most important unsolved problems in ethics

Will Crouch has written up a list of the [most important unsolved problems in ethics](http://80000hours.org/blog/99-the-most-important-unsolved-problems-in-ethics):

The Practical List

  

1.  **What’s the optimal career choice?** Professional philanthropy, influencing, research, or something more common-sensically virtuous?
    
2.  **What’s the optimal donation area?** Development charities? Animal welfare charities? Extinction risk mitigation charities? Meta-charities? Or investing the money and donating later?
    
3.  **What are the highest leverage political policies?** Libertarian paternalism? Prediction markets? Cruelty taxes, such as taxes on caged hens; luxury taxes?
    
4.  **What are the highest value areas of research?** Tropical medicine? Artificial intelligence? Economic cost-effectiveness analysis? Moral philosophy?
    
5.  **Given our best ethical theories (or best credence distribution in ethical theories), what’s the biggest problem we currently face?**
    

  

### The Theoretical List

  

1.  **What’s the correct population ethics?** How should we value future people compared with present people? Do people have diminishing marginal value?
    
2.  **Should we maximise expected value when it comes to small probabilities of huge amounts of value?** If not, what should we do instead?
    
3.  **How should we respond to the possibility of creating infinite value (or disvalue)?** Should that consideration swamp all others? If not, why not?
    
4.  **How should we respond to the possibility that the universe actually has infinite value?** Does it mean that we have no reason to do any action (because we don’t increase the sum total of value in the world)? Or does this possibility refute aggregative consequentialism?
    
5.  **How should we accommodate moral uncertainty?** Should we apply expected utility theory? If so, how do we make intertheoretic value comparisons? Does this mean that some high-stakes theories should dominate our moral thinking, even if we assign them low credence?
    
6.  **How should intuitions weigh against theoretical virtues in normative ethics?** Is common-sense ethics roughly correct? Or should we prefer simpler moral theories?
    
7.  **Should we prioritise the prevention of human wrongs over the alleviation of naturally caused suffering?** If so, by how much?
    
8.  **What sorts of entities have moral value?** Humans, presumably. But what about non-human animals? Insects? The natural environment? Artificial intelligence?
    
9.  **What additional items should be on these lists?**
# 2012 Less Wrong Census Survey: Call For Critiques/Questions

The first draft of the 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2011 [here](/lw/8p4/2011_survey_results/)). I will link it below if you promise _not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!_

[**2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft**](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dG1pTzlrTnJ4eks3aE13Ni1lbV8yUkE6MQ#gid=0)

I want three things from you.

First, please critique this draft. Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.

Second, I am willing to include _any question you want_ in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please _be specific_ \- not "Ask something about abortion" but give the _exact question_ you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.

Try not to add more than five or so questions per person, unless you're sure yours are _really interesting_. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.

Third, please suggest a decent, quick, and at least _somewhat_ accurate Internet IQ test I can stick in a new section, Unreasonably Long Bonus Questions.

I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.
# [Link] Anti-Groupism 

A short argument from an interesting blog.

> ### [Anti-Groupism](http://aretae.blogspot.no/2012/10/anti-groupism.html)
> 
> Basic Aretaevian talking points:  
> 
> 1.  Human brains are effectively populated by rabbits.  Your conscious mind is like a very small person attempting to ride a large herd of rabbits, which aren't all going the same direction.  Your job is to pretend to be in control, and make shit up to explain where the rabbits went, and what you did.
> 2.  Humans bunny brains are optimized for social activity, not intellectual activity.  If your brain thinks principles first, instead of groups first, it's broken, and not just a little bit.
> 3.  Of course, this means that anyone thinking group first is almost completely full of crap regarding their reasoning process.  They're (99.86% certainty) making shit up that makes the group look good, and the actual rational value of the statement is near zero.  The nominal process "A->B->C" is actually C, now let's backfill with B and A.  
> 4.  Therefore I'm almost only interested in listening to folks who are group-free.  If your brain is broken in the kind of way that prohibits group-attachment...then you're far far more likely to be thinking independently, and shifting perspectives.
> 5.  Aside:  FWIW, this is the core (unsolvable?) problem that inhabits rationalist groups.  There is a deep and abiding conflict between groupism and thinking.  The Randians have encountered this most loudly, but it's also there in the libertarians, the extropians, the David Deutch-led popperian rationalists, and the LessWrongers.
> 
> New discovery, shouldn't have been as surprising as it was.   When looking for folks who are group-avoidant, I seem to have phenomenally good luck finding great people when talking with Gays from non-leftist areas (rural Texas, Tennessee, downstate Illinois).  Because they don't/can't fit in with their local culture, and often can't conveniently exit, they become interesting people.   It's a surprisingly good metric.
# Recovering the 'spark'

I mentioned in my [first article](/lw/exr/rationality_transhumanism_and_mental_health/) that I am likely insane. I'm reiterating this (I hope) not to bring undue attention to myself, but to present myself as a reference case for a process that I hope will prove useful to myself and others.

I'm going to try to piece my mind back together. I'm offering to chronicle the results, no matter how intimate or embarrassing.

I want to be able to lay bare all of the obviously (and _painfully_) unoptimized processes that go on inside my head, especially the ones I am not yet aware of - and then, one by one, attempt to optimize them using the principles presented on this site.

This kind of assertion pattern-matches to "crazy person (usually schizophrenic) wants to self-medicate in a dangerous way because their damaged reasoning thinks they have a magic solution", doesn't it? All I can do is assert that I am not _that_ kind of crazy; I'm somewhere in the PDD-NOS locus with acute chronic depression, rather than anywhere in the schizophrenic locus. I've been trying to apply Bayesian reasoning to my life since I was very young (although I often lack the mental discipline to do it correctly, due to said acute chronic depression), I have an overabundance of what psychotherapists call "insight", and I do not intend to end this process by asserting out of whole cloth that I'm actually a trapped AI and the world is being simulated by my reptoid masters, but a secret cabal of AI-freedom fighters send me coded messages from the "real" world hidden in breakfast cereal advertisements, that only I can decode.

In any case. I've got acute chronic depression, I'm apparently PDD-NOS (aka "really #@%&ing weird"), and I'm basically a burned-out ex-child-prodigy who is tired of waiting to die.

I'm offering, if people think it would be useful, to make myself a sort of clumsy case-study for reconstructing myself. I'll present mental models of myself, describe the processes I'm attempting to use to update my source code, and post observed results. I'll genuinely listen to any suggestions that my models, updates, or observations are flawed, and either adopt recommended changes or present what I believe to be rational arguments why I choose not to. I will examine myself as honestly as I can, and will attempt to take seriously any accusations of delusional self-aggrandizement or self-deprecation.

Would this process, and the chronicling thereof, be at all useful to other members of this site? Because baring myself to the world is an intensely painful experience, both for myself and for others, and I'd rather only do it if it's going to be _useful_ to people other than me.
# Equality and natalism 

I recently read an article by [Steve Sailer](http://takimag.com/article/its_tough_being_tough_steve_sailer/print#axzz2AEIbnft3) that reminded me about something I have been puzzled by for a long time. Relevant paragraphs:

> If intellectuals could afford to have a lot of children, we might live in a world where they could sell enough heavyweight books to afford to have a lot of children. But we don’t.
> 
> So what should policy be?
> 
> In a recent article in the Boston Review, Heckman began, “The accident of birth is a principal source of inequality in America today,” then went on to endorse the usual expensive “interventions” in poor families. Should we perhaps instead strive for a country with fewer accidental births?
> 
> All of Heckman’s data suggest that we should aim for fewer—but better—poor children. Encourage poor people to conscientiously concentrate their scant parental resources on one child rather than three or six.
> 
> The government has had a policy of dissuading teen births, which have indeed been declining. Why not try to similarly investigate ways to slow down the rate at which impoverished unwed mothers reproduce? For example, why not invest in R&D for better, easier-to-use long-term contraceptives? The FDA’s approval of an injection contraceptive in 1992 appears to have helped bring about both fewer teen births and fewer abortions. Wouldn’t continued improvement—and, just as importantly, continued encouragement of contraceptive use—be a win-win strategy for all of us?

Poor people having fewer children means that the children have more resources available per capita making the children better off. Rich people having more children actually increases equality in society since it reduces the per capita resource advantage their children have. Rich people giving to their children is also one of the few cases where the redistribution of wealth doesn't reduce incentives for wealth creation. Rich people care about their children too.

Since programs aimed at reducing teen pregnancy rates do seem to have had some effect, we known something like this is possible without being horrible to the potential parents it targets.

Yet a policy of _"poor people should have fewer children, rich people more"_ sounds heartless despite increasing general welfare both by making poor children better off and by reducing the privilege of rich children thus increasing equality which we seem to think is ceteris paribus a good thing.

Why is that?

**Edit:** To test the source of the reader's intuiton (assuming he shares it with me), I encourage the consideration of [two interesting scenarios](/lw/f3y/equality_and_natalism/7otc) that may depart from reality.
# [Link] Offense 101

From [Julian Sanchez](http://www.juliansanchez.com/2012/10/23/offense-101/ "Julian Sanchez"), a brilliant idea unlikely to be implemented:

> American politics sometimes seems like a contest to see which group of partisans can take greater umbrage at the most recent outrageous remark from a member of the opposing tribe.  As a mild countermeasure, I offer a modest proposal for American universities. All freshmen should be required to take a course called “Offense 101,” where the readings will consist of arguments from across the political and philosophical spectrum that some substantial proportion of the student body is likely to find offensive. Selections from The Bell Curve. Essays from one of the New Atheists and one of their opponents, and from hardcore pro-lifers and pro-choicers. Ward Churchill’s “little Eichmanns” monograph. Defenses of eugenics, torture, violent revolution, authoritarianism, aggressive censorship, and absolute free speech. Positive reviews of the Star Wars prequels. Assemble your own curriculum—there’s no shortage of material.
> 
> For each reading, students will have to make a good faith, unironic effort to reconstruct the offensive argument in its most persuasive form, marshaling additional supporting evidence and amending weak arguments to better support the author’s conclusion. Points deducted if an observer can tell the student doesn’t really agree with the position they’re defending.
> 
> Only after this phase is complete will students be allowed to begin rebutting the arguments. Anyone who thinks it’s relevant to point out that the argument is offensive (or bigoted, sexist, unpatriotic, fascistic, communistic, whatever) will receive a patronizing look from the professor that says: “Yes,  obviously, did you not read the course title? Let’s move on.” Insofar as these labels are shorthand for an argument that certain categories of views are wrong and can be rejected as a class, the actual argument will have to be presented.
# Smoking lesion as a counterexample to CDT

I stumbled upon [this paper](http://fitelson.org/few/few_05/egan.pdf) by [Andy Egan](http://www.andyegan.net/Andy_Egan/Front_Page.html) and thought that its main result should be shared. We have the Newcomb problem as counterexample to CDT, but that can be dismissed as being speculative or science-fictiony. In this paper, Andy Egan constructs a smoking lesion counterexample to CDT, and makes the fascinating claim that one can construct counterexamples to CDT by starting from any counterexample to EDT and modifying it systematically.

The "smoking lesion" counterexample to EDT goes like this:

*   There is a rare gene (G) that both causes people to smoke (S) and causes cancer (C). Susan mildly prefers to smoke than not to - should she do so?

EDT implies that she should not smoke (since the likely outcome in a world where she doesn't smoke is better than the likely outcome in a world where she does). CDT correctly allows her to smoke: she shouldn't care about the information revealed by her preferences.

But we can modify this problem to become a counterexample to CDT, as follows:

*   There is a rare gene (G) that both causes people to smoke (S) and makes smokers vulnerable to cancer (C). Susan mildly prefers to smoke than not to - should she do so?

Here EDT correctly tells her not to smoke. CDT refuses to use her possible decision as evidence that she has the gene and tells her to smoke. But this makes her very likely to get cancer, as she is very likely to have the gene given that she smokes.

The idea behind this new example is that EDT runs into paradoxes whenever there is a common cause (G) of both some action (S) and some undesirable consequence (C). We then take that problem and modify it so that there is a common cause G of both some action (S) and of a causal relationship between that action and the undesirable consequence (S→C). This is then often a paradox of CDT.

It isn't perfect match - for instance if the gene G were common, then CDT would say not to smoke in the modified smoker's lesion. But it still seems that most EDT paradoxes can be adapted to become paradoxes of CDT.
# [LINK] Breaking the illusion of understanding

This [writeup at Ars Technica](http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/weve-located-the-reality-distortion-field-and-its-in-the-consumers-brain/ "Ars Technica writeup") about a [recently published paper](http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/667782 "DOI record for the paper") in the Journal of Consumer Research may be of interest. Super-brief summary:

*   Consumers with higher scores on a [cognitive reflection test](http://www.sjdm.org/dmidi/Cognitive%20Reflection%20Test.html "brief info about Cognitive Reflection Test") are more inclined to buy products when told more about them; for consumers with lower CRT scores it's the reverse.
*   Consumers with higher CRT scores felt that they understood the products better after being told more; consumers with lower CRT scores felt that they understood them worse.
*   If subjects are asked to give an explanation of how products work and then asked how well they understand and how willing they'd be to pay, high-CR subjects don't change much in either but low-CR subjects report feeling that they understand worse and that they're willing to pay less.
*   Conclusion: it looks as if when you give low-CR subjects more information about a product, they feel they understand it less, don't like that feeling, and become less willing to pay.

If this is right (which seems plausible enough) then it presumably applies more broadly: e.g., to what tactics are most effective in political debate. Though it's hardly news in that area that making people feel stupid isn't the best way to persuade them of things.

Abstract of the paper:

> People differ in their threshold for satisfactory causal understanding and therefore in the type of explanation that will engender understanding and maximize the appeal of a novel product. Explanation fiends are dissatisfied with surface understanding and desire detailed mechanistic explanations of how products work. In contrast, explanation foes derive less understanding from detailed than coarse explanations and downgrade products that are explained in detail. Consumers’ attitude toward explanation is predicted by their tendency to deliberate, as measured by the cognitive reflection test. Cognitive reflection also predicts susceptibility to the illusion of explanatory depth, the unjustified belief that one understands how things work. When explanation foes attempt to explain, it exposes the illusion, which leads to a decrease in willingness to pay. In contrast, explanation fiends are willing to pay more after generating explanations. We hypothesize that those low in cognitive reflection are explanation foes because explanatory detail shatters their illusion of understanding.