Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Cognito Mentoring: An advising service for intellectually curious students

My name is [Jonah Sinick](http://jonahsinick.com/), and I'm posting to announce a new advising service for intellectually curious students: [Cognito Mentoring](http://cognitomentoring.org/). I'm working on this in collaboration with [Vipul Naik](http://vipulnaik.com/).

We have very broad intellectual interests, cutting across topics such as rationality, economics, pure math, psychology, humanitarian issues and classical music. I have a PhD in pure math, have been an [active participant](/user/JonahSinick/submitted/) on Less Wrong, worked at [GiveWell](http://www.givewell.org) for a year, and have done research for Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) on [how effectively can we plan for future decades](http://intelligence.org/2013/09/04/how-effectively-can-we-plan-for-future-decades/) and on how [well policy-makers will handle AGI](http://intelligence.org/2013/09/12/how-well-will-policy-makers-handle-agi-initial-findings/). Vipul has a PhD in pure math, and started [Open Borders](http://openborders.info/), a website devoted to discussing immigration liberalization.

We both have experience working with intellectually curious young people. I worked for three summers at [MathPath](http://www.mathpath.org/) (a summer camp for middle school students who are interested in math), taught at [Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_High_School_for_Science_and_Technology) (an academic magnet high school), and currently teach for [Art of Problem Solving](http://artofproblemsolving.com/) (an online school for high performing math students). Vipul has trained students for mathematical olympiads, and taught calculus and linear algebra at University of Chicago for years.

We spent several months researching the educational resources that are available to high performing students, college selection and college admissions, psychological findings on intellectual giftedness, and the experiences of past and current members of the population that we're serving, and we’re ready to help. We're currently offering **free personalized advising** on these things by email, Skype, or phone. You can [connect with us here](http://cognitomentoring.org/connect/). If you're interested, we look forward to hearing from you.
# January 2014 Media Thread

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the [older threads](/r/discussion/tag/media_thread/).

Rules:

*   Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a [two-place word](/lw/ro/2place_and_1place_words/). If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
*   If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
*   Please use the comment trees for genres. There is a meta thread for comments about future threads.
*   If you think there should be a thread for a particular genre of media, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.
# [Link] Valproic acid, a drug for brain plasticity

NPR reports on a study [giving volprioc acid to adults and training them on pitch](http://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-you-could-pop-a-pill-for-that?sc=ipad&f=1001) (singing):

> Hensch is studying a drug which might allow adults to learn perfect pitch by recreating this critical period in brain development. Hensch says the drug, valprioc acid, allows the brain to absorb new information as easily as it did before age 7.
> 
> "It's a mood-stabilizing drug, but we found that it also restores the plasticity of the brain to a juvenile state," Hensch tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer.

Brain plasticity is useful for a whole lot more than learning pitch. As the article notes it would be invaluable for training one's ear to pick up sounds of foreign languages, but also it seems reasonable to this commentator that high levels of plasticity during rationality training or other forms of self-development would result in more transformative results.
# [LINK] Why I'm not on the Rationalist Masterlist

A long blog post explains why the author, a feminist, is not comfortable with the rationalist community despite thinking it is "super cool and interesting". It's directed specifically at Yvain, but it's probably general enough to be of some interest here.

[http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/](http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/)

I'm not sure if I can summarize this fairly but the main thrust seems to be that we are overly willing to entertain offensive/taboo/hurtful ideas and this drives off many types of people. Here's a quote:

> In other words, prizing discourse without limitations (I tried to find a convenient analogy for said limitations and failed. Fenders? Safety belts?) will result in an environment in which people are more comfortable speaking the more social privilege they hold.

The author perceives a link between LW type open discourse and danger to minority groups. I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Take race. Many LWers are willing to entertain ideas about the existence and possible importance of average group differences in psychological traits. So, maybe LWers are racists. But they're racists who continually obsess over optimizing their philanthropic contributions to African charities. So, maybe not racists in a dangerous way?

An overly rosy view, perhaps, and I don't want to deny the reality of the blogger's experience. Clearly, the person is intelligent and attracted to some aspects of LW discourse while turned off by other aspects.
# A big Singularity-themed Hollywood movie out in April offers many opportunities to talk about AI risk

There's a big Hollywood movie coming out with an apocalyptic Singularity-like story, called Transcendence. ([IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209764/), [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_%282014_film%29), [official site](http://www.transcendencemovie.com/tagged/video)) With an A-list cast and big budget, I contend this movie is the front-runner to be 2014's most significant influence on discussions of superintelligence outside specialist circles. Anyone hoping to influence those discussions should start preparing some talking points.

I don't see anybody here agree with me on this. The movie has been briefly [discussed on LW](/lw/h1b/link_transcendence_2014_a_movie_about/) when it was first announced in March 2013, but since then, only the trailer (out since December) has been [mentioned](/lw/jdt/open_thread_for_december_2431_2013/). MIRI hasn't published a word about it. This amazes me. We have three months till millions of people who never considered superintelligence are going to start thinking about it - is nobody bothering to craft a response to the movie yet? Shouldn't there be something that lazy journalists, given the job to write about this movie, can find?

Because if there isn't, they'll dismiss the danger of AI like Erik Sofge [already did](http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero-moment/her-smartest-movie-about-artificial-intelligence-years) in an early piece about the movie for Popular Science, and nudge their readers to do so too. And that'd be a shame, wouldn't it?
# [Link] Consciousness as a State of Matter (Max Tegmark)

Max Tegmark [publishes a preprint of a paper](http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219) arguing from physical principles that consciousness is “what information processing feels like from the inside,” a position I've [previously](/lw/qx/timeless_identity/9txe) [articulated](/lw/iya/singularity_or_bust_full_documentary/a0fw) on lesswrong. It's a very physics-rich paper, but here's the most accessable description I was able to find within it:

> If we understood consciousness as a physical phenomenon, we could in principle answer all of these questions \[about consciousness\] by studying the equations of physics: we could identify all conscious entities in any physical system, and calculate what they would perceive. However, this approach is typically not pursued by physicists, with the argument that we do not understand consciousness well enough.
> 
> In this paper, I argue that recent progress in neuroscience has fundamentally changed this situation, and that we physicists can no longer blame neuroscientists for our own lack of progress. I have long contended that consciousness is the way information feels when being processed in certain complex ways, i.e., that it corresponds to certain complex patterns in spacetime that obey the same laws of physics as other complex systems, with no "secret sauce" required.

The whole paper is very rich, and worth a read.
# Dr. Jubjub predicts a crisis

**Dr. Jubjub**: Sir, I have been running some calculations and I’m worried about the way our slithy toves are heading.

**Prof. Bandersnatch**: Huh? Why? The toves seem fine to me. Just look at them, gyring and gimbling in the wabe over there.

**Dr. Jubjub**: Yes, but there is a distinct negative trend in my data. The toves are gradually losing their slithiness.

**Prof. Bandersnatch**: Hmm, okay. That does sound serious. How long until it becomes a problem?

**Dr. Jubjub**: Well, I’d argue that it’s already having negative effects but I’d say we will reach a real crisis in around 120 years.

**Prof. Bandersnatch**: Phew, okay, you had me worried there for a moment. But it sounds like this is actually a non-problem. We can carry on working on the important stuff – technology will bail us out here in time.

**Dr. Jubjub**: Sir! We already have the technology to fix the toves. The most straightforward way would be to whiffle their tulgey wood but we could also...

**Prof. Bandersnatch**: What?? Whiffle their tulgey wood? Do you have any idea what that would cost? And besides, people won’t stand for it – slithy toves with unwhiffled tulgey wood are a part of our way of life.

**Dr. Jubjub**: So, when you say technology will bail us out you mean you expect a solution that will be cheap, socially acceptable and developed soon?

**Prof. Bandersnatch**: Of course! Prof. Jabberwock assures me the singularity will be here around tea-time on Tuesday. That is, if we roll up our sleeves and don’t waste time with trivialities like your tove issue.

Maybe it’s just me but I feel like I run into a lot of conversations like this around here. On any problem that won’t become an absolute crisis in the next few decades, someone will take the Bandersnatch view that it will be more easily solved later (with cheaper or more socially acceptable technology) so we shouldn’t work directly on it now. The way out is forward - let’s step on the gas and get to the finish line before any annoying problems catch up with us.

For all I know, Bandersnatch is absolutely right. But my natural inclination is to take the Jubjub view. I think the chances of a basically business-as-usual future for the next 200 or 300 years are not epsilon. They may not be very high but they seem like they need to be seriously taken into account. Problems may prove harder than they look. Apparently promising technology may not become practical. Maybe we'll have the capacity for AI in 50 years - but need another 500 years to make it friendly. I'd prefer humanity to plan in such a way that things will gradually improve rather than gradually deteriorate, even in a slow-technology scenario.
# AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything

**If you want people to ask you stuff reply to this post with a comment to that effect.**

More accurately, ask any participating LessWronger anything that is in the category of questions they indicate they would answer.

If you want to talk about this post you can reply to my comment below that says "Discussion of this post goes here.", or not.
# New (proposal for) monthly thread: Meetup Reports

If you had an interesting Less Wrong meetup recently, but don't have the time to write up a big report to post to Discussion, feel free to write a comment here.  Even if it's just a couple lines about what you did and how people felt about it, it might encourage some people to attend meetups or start meetups in their area.

If you have the time, you can also describe what types of exercises you did, what worked and what didn't.  This could help inspire meetups to try new things and improve themselves in various ways.

If you're inspired by what's posted below and want to organize a meetup, check out [this page](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong_meetup_group_resources) for some resources to get started!  You can also check FrankAdamek's weekly post on meetups for the week.

Tell us about your meetup!
# The non-Independence of superficially-Irrelevant Alternatives

A [new article in Biology Letters](http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/1/20130935.full) shows that under some conditions in which animals appear to behave "irrationally" (by apparently failing to conform to the [Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives) or even the [Transitivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis#The_von_Neumann-Morgenstern_axioms) axioms of decision theory), the animal behavior may in fact resemble utility-maximizing strategies which also appear to violate those axioms.  The optimal strategies' current preferences are altered in response to the information conveyed by the current presence or absence of various alternatives.

A press release about the article is available from [the lead author's university](http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2014/10064.html), U. Bristol. A news piece summarizing it is at [Nature's website](http://www.nature.com/news/why-irrational-choices-can-be-rational-1.14517).

These results probably shouldn't surprise the most careful rational thinkers. For instance, "I prefer A to B when I believe more B is likely to be available later, and B to C when I believe more B is likely to be available later" clearly does not necessarily entail "I prefer A to B under all circumstances, and B to C under all circumstances". But there is clearly a pitfall of tempting model oversimplification here. Although this new paper and most discussion of it is carefully putting scare quotes around "irrational", the papers being cited purport to show ["intransitive preferences"](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s002650100346), ["violations of rational choice"](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00265-001-0420-8), ["irrational decision-making"](http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.1045), and ["irrational choices"](http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2001.1925), without obvious irony.
# LessWrong Help Desk - free paper downloads and more (2014)

Over the last year, VincentYu, gwern and others have provided many papers for the LessWrong community (87% success rate in 2012) through [previous help desk threads](/r/discussion/tag/help_desk). 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, many RSS readers 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.
# Write down your basic realizations as a matter of habit. Share this file with the world.

Say you have just realized something that seems, in hindsight, pretty obvious - but that you were totally unaware of before now. You scratch your head, update your model of the world, and move on.

Hold on. Update your model of your model. _Why_ were you not aware of it before? If this insight, in retrospect, seems so basic, then why did you not realize it earlier? And how many other people do you think missed it as well?

There is a common situation in user interface development, where you've written a marvellous, clear, easy to use piece of software - after all, you have no problems with it at all! You've stuck to the practice of dogfooding ("eat your own dog food" - use your own tool in day to day life) like a good developer should and are now quite faster in it than in whatever you were using before. So find a random coworker who has never touched your software before and may only be passingly familiar with the subject matter. Put him in front of your shiny user interface and watch him waddle around, dumbstruck and befuddled, as he misses all the _obvious_ interface elements and tries nonworking things you'd never attempted in a hundred years. Resist your urge to correct him - pay attention to what he tries.

You cannot judge the obviousness of an idea from the inside - you have to find somebody without prior exposure and observe them attempt to come to terms with it, to understand. And it only works once - after he's become familiar with your idioms, he'll never be able to show this bright-eyed naiveté again.

If you're trying to write a FAQ for life, it'd be very much helpful to have such a coworker go over your life, re-learn all your lessons, all the insights you now consider obvious, and highlight them so you could add them to the help file. But of course, we cannot relive a life. We can only live it once.

So the obvious thing to do is when you realize that you've just had a novel realization - no matter how apparently trivial - is **write it down**. The brain is really good at caching - realizations become thought habits frighteningly fast. So write it down, so you don't forget that you once had no idea. And after you've written it down (probably on a file on your PC), why not share this file with the world? Might as well let others profit from your insights.

  
I think it would be useful to spread this habit. Imagine: somebody just did something really clever that raised your estimate of their competence, and oh hey, his user page has a link to a list of insights, maybe I can skip having to manually learn some of those myself? And look, the first piece of advice - "write down your insights", that sounds like a good idea!

It's not proven that this would be useful. But it costs little to start.

[So here's mine so far](http://feephome.no-ip.org/~feep/lop/thingsilearnt.cgi "Things I Learnt that I wish somebody had told me sooner").
# Dealing with a Major Personal Crisis

**[This](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Dealing_with_a_Major_Personal_Crisis)** is the [earlier](/r/discussion/lw/jf2/what_are_you_working_on_january_2014/a9s2) [promised](/lw/jfw/january_monthly_bragging_thread/aavq promised) post about **[Dealing with a Major Personal Crisis](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Dealing_with_a_Major_Personal_Crisis)**. Please continue reading there but comment here.

The reasons for posting it this way are explained at the end of the link. I hope this approach does what I want it to.
# Using vs. evaluating (or, Why I don't come around here no more)

\[Summary: Trying to use new ideas is more productive than trying to evaluate them.\]

I haven't posted to LessWrong in a long time. I have a fan-fiction [blog](http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Bad+Horse/blog) where I post theories about writing and literature. Topics don't overlap at all between the two websites (so far), but I prioritize posting there much higher than posting here, because responses seem more productive there.

The key difference, I think, is that people who read posts on LessWrong ask whether they're "true" or "false", while the writers who read my posts on writing want to _write_. If I say something that doesn't ring true to one of them, he's likely to say, "I don't think that's quite right; try changing X to Y," or, "When I'm in that situation, I find Z more helpful", or, "That doesn't cover all the cases, but if we expand your idea in this way..."

Whereas on LessWrong a more typical response would be, "Aha, I've found a case for which your step 7 fails! GOTCHA!"

It's always clear from the context of a writing blog why a piece of information might be useful. It often isn't clear how a LessWrong post might be useful. You could blame the author for not providing you with that context. Or, you could be pro-active and provide that context yourself, by thinking as you read a post about how it fits into the bigger framework of questions about rationality, utility, philosophy, ethics, and the future, and thinking about what questions and goals you have that it might be relevant to.
# Polling Thread

This is an experiment to use polls to tap into the crowd knowledge probably present on LW.

This is your chance to ask your multiple choice question you always wanted to throw in. Get qualified numeric feedback to your comments. Post fun polls.

There are some rules:

1.  Each poll goes into its own top level comment and may be commented there.
2.  You must at least vote all polls that were posted earlier than you own. This ensures participation in all polls and also limits the total number of polls. You may of course vote without posting a poll.
3.  Your poll should include a 'don't know' option (to avoid conflict with 2). I don't know whether we need to add a troll catch option here but we will see.

If you don't know how to make a poll in a comment look at the [Poll Markup Help](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Comment_formatting#Polls).

* * *

This being an experiment I do not announce it to be regular. If it is successful I may. Or you may. In that case I recommend the following to make this potentially more usable:

*   Use "Polling Thread" in the title.
*   Copy the rules.
*   Add the tag "poll".
*   Link to this Thread or a previous Thread.
*   Create a top-level comment saying 'Discussion of this thread goes here; all other to-level comments should be polls or similar'
*   Add a second top-level comment with an initial poll to start participation.

EDIT: Added recommendations from KnaveOfAllTrades.
# Plan while your ugh field is down

Here's an example of a mental manoeuvre I accidentally found, and thought might be generally useful ([typical](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy) [caveats](/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/) apply).

I've had a manageable-but-important [Problem](/lw/1ai/the_first_step_is_to_admit_that_you_have_a_problem/) for a few months now (financial in kind, details neither relevant nor interesting), of moderate complexity and relatively minor importance _unless I leave it unsolved just a little longer_.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the precise combination of things that triggers one of my [ugh fields](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Ugh_field), which manifests subjectively as a fuzzy blank inability to maintain focus. Several times last week, it occurred to me that I should really Solve The Problem, but I wasn't able to get myself to spend any time thinking about it. Like, at all.

On Saturday, the Problem found itself top of mind once again. How irritating that I couldn't solve the Problem because it was the weekend, and when it wasn't the weekend, maybe Tuesday when work wasn't busy and the Bureau was open, I should really email Dr. Somebody and call Mrs. Administrator for the ...

\*blink\*

I had a solution, and a plan. What the what?

My working theory is that when there's no chance of actually Doing Something, this particular ugh field deactivates. 

To me, this suggests a strategy (of uncertain generalizability): when an ugh field is preventing thought about something important, find a time when action is impossible and use it to generate a plan.

I would feel better about this advice if it had a [deep theoretical backer](/lw/d4/practical_advice_backed_by_deep_theories/). Anybody?
# Find a study partner

For reasons mentioned in [So8res article](/lw/j10/on_learning_difficult_things/) as well as for other reasons: studying with a partner can be very good. In November, Adele_L had posted an [article](/lw/j1b/miri_course_list_study_pairs/) for people wanting to find a study partner. It got 17 comments, but only 1 since November 16th. So I thought we (I) should make a monthly thread on this instead of constantly going back to an old article which people might (seem to) forget about. If people seem to agree with that, I will make a post about it every month.

So if you're looking for a study partner for an online course or reading a manual (whether it's in the [MIRI course list](http://intelligence.org/courses/) or not) tell others in the comment section.
# European Community Weekend in Berlin

The Berlin Meetup Group is organizing the first European community meetup. We are planning a fun weekend with a focus on bringing the LessWrong community closer together. As a treat, some participants offer rationality exercises and workshops.  
  
If you like your local meetup we hope you will like this too. It is similar, but bigger: You will get to meet and exchange ideas with a diverse set of awesome people from all across Europe. And if you don’t have a meetup nearby or didn’t get around to participating yet, this is a great opportunity to get in touch with the rest of the community.  
  
The community weekend will take place April 11-13, from Friday evening to Sunday early afternoon, in the [Odyssee Hostel](http://globetrotterhostel.de/) in Berlin. The cost is 70 € including accommodation and breakfast. A conference room with a projector and wifi will also be available during daytime.  
  
The event is participant driven so you (yes, you) are very welcome to help with the content. Please contact Tristan (wegnertristan - at - googlemail - dot - com) for planning and scheduling.  
  
Friday evening we will welcome everyone around 17:00 and proceed to have dinner together. Sleeping quarters (shared rooms) will already be available from 16:00. The evening can be used for getting to know each other better or exploring the city in small groups. We also made sure that there are plenty of cultural, party and sightseeing offers available throughout the city.  
  
Saturday after breakfast, there will be a semi-structured program in the conference room. Offers will include a workshop for habit implementation, a science based introduction to meditation along with a practice session, and clicker training. We also encourage everyone to take part in lightning talks, where you are invited to give a short 5min presentation on any topic you are passionate about.  
  
Saturday evening can be further used to nerd out, explore the nightlife or participate in an exercise in social comfort zone expansion.  
  
Sunday will have room for additional projects. We will say goodbye in the early afternoon to give us enough time to head home. Of course everyone is free to prolong the stay in the greatest capital of Germany.  
  
By the end of the event we hope that we will have made new friends, exchanged ideas, received valuable feedback and started a joint world optimization project or two.  
  
To sign up, email John (johncryptfrink - at - gmail - dot - com), preferably before the first of February. The number of participants is limited, so register early to make sure you can participate.  
  
Looking forward to seeing you  
John, Tristan, Alexander, Matthias, Christian… & everyone else from the Berlin LessWrong meetup

**UPDATE:** We're now at slightly over 40 participants and can't accept any more people. Please mail John anyway if you'd have wanted to come! Things may still work out if someone else can't make it after all - and it will help us have a better idea of how many people to plan for next time.
# How to become a PC?

"Cryonics has a 95% chance of failure, by my estimation; it would be downright /embarrassing/ to die on the day before real immortality is discovered. Thus, I want to improve my general health and longevity."

That thought has gotten me through three weeks of gradually increasing exercise and diet improvement (I'm eating an apple right now) - but my enthusiasm is starting to flag. So I'm looking for new thoughts that will help me keep going, and keep improving. A few possibilities that I've thought of:

Pride: "If I'm so smart, then I should be able to do /better/ than those other people who don't even know about Bayesian updates, let alone the existence of akrasia..."

Sloth: "If I stop now, it's going to be /so much/ harder and more painful to start up again, instead of just keeping on keeping on..."

Desire: "I already like hiking and camping - if I keep this up, I'll be able to carry enough weight to finally take that long trip I've occasionally considered..."

Curiosity: "I'm as geeky a nerd as you can find. I wonder how far I can hack my own body?"

Pride again: "I already keep a hiker's first-aid kit in my pocket, and make other preparations for events that happen rarely. How stupid do I have to be not to put at least that much effort into making my everyday life easier?"

Does anyone have any experience in such self-motivation? Does this set of mental tricks seem like a sufficiently viable approach? Are there any other approaches that seem worth a shot?
# Volunteering programmer hours / discussing how to improve LessWrong's software 

There's been some discussion of how to improve the structure of LessWrong at the site software level - for example [adding subreddits](https://code.google.com/p/lesswrong/issues/detail?id=389) or [modifying how main and discussion work](/lw/jer/what_is_the_maindiscussion_distinction_and_what/#comments). One roadblock to this that's been mentioned is a shortage of programmer hours. I'd like to volunteer mine.

I recently finished a course on web development in which, among other things, I build a Reddit clone using Ruby on Rails and Backbone.js. It's been several months since I've written any Python, and I'm somewhat wary of the time required to get familiar with the LessWrong codebase, but I think think the time would be worth it for me: it could potentially improve LessWrong a lot and would let me tick off my "have contributed to an open source project" box.

Of course, before any of that happens, there needs to be some agreement on what changes we think would be a good idea. So... discuss.  
  
EDIT: For context, it's been suggested that part of the benefit of subforums is it could defuse debates over "what topics are appropriate for LessWrong." We could even have an "off-topic" subforum, a common feature of online discussion forums - I think bringing the format of LessWrong more into line with what's standard on other websites could help newbies be less confused here.
# Google may be trying to take over the world

So I know we've already seen them buying a bunch of ML and robotics companies, but now they're purchasing [Shane Legg's AGI startup](http://recode.net/2014/01/26/exclusive-google-to-buy-artificial-intelligence-startup-deepmind-for-400m/).  This is after they've acquired Boston Dynamics, several smaller robotics and ML firms, and started their own life-extension firm.

Is it just me, or are they trying to make Accelerando or something closely related actually happen?  Given that they're buying up real experts and not just "AI is inevitable" prediction geeks (who shall remain politely unnamed out of respect for their real, original expertise in machine learning), has someone had a polite word with them about not killing all humans by sheer accident?
# Are you a virtue ethicist at heart?

Disclaimer: I am not a philosopher, so this post will likely seem amateurish to the subject matter experts. 

LW is big on consequentialism, utilitarianism and other quantifiable ethics one can potentially program into a computer to make it provably friendly. However, I posit that most of us intuitively use virtue ethics, and not deontology or consequentialism. In other words, when judging one's actions we intuitively value the person's motivations over the rules they follow or the consequences of said actions. We may reevaluate our judgment later, based on laws and/or actual or expected usefulness, but the initial impulse still remains, even if overridden. To quote [Casimir de Montrond](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir,_Comte_de_Montrond), "Mistrust first impulses; they are nearly always good" (the quote is usually misattributed to Talleyrand).

Some examples:

*   Eliezer in a facebook post linked the article [When Doing Good Means You’re Bad](http://science.time.com/2014/01/24/charity-doing-good-is-bad/), which points out that people taking commission to raise a lot of money for charity are commonly considered less moral than those who raise much less but are not paid to do so ("tainted altruism"). 
*   This was brought up at a meetup: a pregnant woman in a dire financial situation who decides to have an abortion because she does not want a burden of raising a baby is judged harsher than a woman in a similar situation whose motivation is to avoid inflicting harsh life on the prospective child.
*   In real-life trolley problems even the committed utilitarians (like commanders during war time) are likely to hesitate before sacrificing lives to save more.

I am not sure how to classify religious fanaticism (or other bigotry), but it seems to require a heavy dose of virtue ethics (feeling righteous), in addition to following the (deontological) tenets of whichever belief, with some consequentialism (for the greater good) mixed in.

When I try to introspect my own moral decisions (like whether to tell the truth, or to cheat on a test, or to drive over the speed limit), I can usually find a grain of virtue ethics inside. It might be followed or overridden, sometimes habitually, but it is always there. Can you?
# Self-Study Questions Thread

There are a lot of autodidacts on LessWrong and many of us hold [scholarship](/lw/3m3/the_neglected_virtue_of_scholarship/ "scholarship") to be a virtue.  Learning things on your own can be tricky for a number of reasons, but there is a lot of good material on LessWrong on how to do it [efficiently](/lw/5me/scholarship_how_to_do_it_efficiently/ "efficiently").  We know that it's usually best to [build small skills in the right order](/lw/58m/build_small_skills_in_the_right_order/ "build small skills in the right order"), but sometimes it's difficult to figure out just what that order is, especially across disciplines.  University programs have strict prerequisites that are supposed to ensure that you can handle a course before you take it, but taking a college course catalog's prerequisites to be absolute is an easy way to get demotivated before you learn anything you're actually interested in.

  

I've seen a lot of people run into trouble with self-study when they really _want_ _to_ study topic x, but know that they _have to_ study topic y first as a prerequisite.  (For example, I once [saw someone on LW](/r/discussion/lw/isj/rewiring_my_brain_gentle_help_appreciated/) who wanted to start learning programming, but thought he couldn't get started without learning a bunch of math first.)  For progress to be [by accumulation and not by random walk](/lw/1ul/for_progress_to_be_by_accumulation_and_not_by/), it is sometimes necessary to do this, but it can be hard to tell.

  

I wanted to create a thread where would-be autodidacts with limited knowledge of their target domain can ask these kinds of questions so that they can better plan their courses of study.  Whether it's questions about specific texts, recommended prerequisites, MOOCs, course overlap, whatever.  

  

Any general discussion about self-study is welcome too.
# Huffington Post article on DeepMind-requested AI ethics board, links back to LW [link]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/google-ai\_n\_4683343.html

Not going to summarize the article content, but I think this is the highest-level publication linking to LW so far.

Also, it's appears that Shane Legg, Jaan Tallin and others at Deep Mind leveraged the acquisition and moved the friendly AI conversation to a higher level, quite possibly highest level at Google. Interesting times, these are.
# Humans can drive cars

There's been a lot of fuss lately about Google's gadgets. Computers can drive cars - pretty amazing, eh? I guess. But what amazed me as a child was that _people_ can drive cars. I'd sit in the back seat while an adult controlled a machine taking us at insane speeds through a cluttered, seemingly quite unsafe environment. I distinctly remember thinking that something about this just doesn't add up.

It looked to me like there was just no adequate mechanism to keep the car on the road. At the speeds cars travel, a tiny deviation from the correct course would take us flying off the road in just a couple of seconds. Yet the adults seemed pretty nonchalant about it - the adult in the driver's seat could have relaxed conversations with other people in the car. But I knew that people were pretty clumsy. I was an ungainly kid but I knew even the adults would bump into stuff, drop things and generally fumble from time to time. Why didn't that seem to happen in the car? I felt I was missing something. Maybe there were magnets in the road?

Now that I am a driving adult I could more or less explain this to a 12-year-old me:

1\. Yes, the course needs to be controlled very exactly and you need to make constant tiny course corrections or you're off to a serious accident in no time.

2\. Fortunately, the steering wheel is a really good instrument for making small course corrections. The design is somewhat clumsiness-resistant.

3\. Nevertheless, you really are just one misstep away from death and you need to focus intently. You can't take your eyes off the road for even one second. Under good circumstances, you can have light conversations while driving but a big part of your mind is still tied up by the task.

4\. People can drive cars - but only just barely. You can't do it safely even while only mildly inebriated. That's not just an arbitrary law - the hit to your reflexes substantially increases the risks. You can do pretty much all other normal tasks after a couple of drinks, but not this.

So my 12-year-old self was not completely mistaken but still ultimately wrong. There are no magnets in the road. The explanation for why driving works out is mostly that people are just somewhat more capable than I'd thought. In my more sunny moments I hope that I'm making similar errors when thinking about artificial intelligence. Maybe creating a safe AGI isn't as impossible as it looks to me. Maybe it isn't beyond human capabilities. Maybe.

Edit: I intended no real analogy between AGI design and driving or car design - just the general observation that people are sometimes more competent than I expect. I find it interesting that multiple commenters note that they have also been puzzled by the relative safety of traffic. I'm not sure what lesson to draw.
# Best of Rationality Quotes, 2013 Edition

Here is the 2013 edition of the Best of Rationality Quotes collection. ([Here is last year's](/lw/ggp/best_of_rationality_quotes_2012_edition/).)

**[Best of Rationality Quotes 2013](http://people.mokk.bme.hu/~daniel/rationality_quotes_2013/rq_only2013.html) **(400kB page, 350 quotes)  
and **[Best of Rationality Quotes 2009-2013](http://people.mokk.bme.hu/~daniel/rationality_quotes_2013/rq.html)** (1600kB page, 1490 quotes)

The page was built by a short script ([source code here](http://people.mokk.bme.hu/~daniel/rationality_quotes_2013/)) from all the LW Rationality Quotes threads so far. (We had such a thread each month since April 2009.) The script collects all comments with karma score 10 or more, and sorts them by score. Replies are not collected, only top-level comments.

As is now usual, I provide various statistics and top-lists based on the data. (Source code for these is also at the above link, see the README.) I added these as comments to the post:

*   [Top quote contributors by total karma score collected](/r/lesswrong/lw/jlq/best_of_rationality_quotes_2013_edition/ah7b)
*   [Top quote contributors by karma score collected in 2013](/r/lesswrong/lw/jlq/best_of_rationality_quotes_2013_edition/ah7d)
*   [Top quote contributors of 2013 by statistical significance level](/r/lesswrong/lw/jlq/best_of_rationality_quotes_2013_edition/ah7e) (See [this comment](/lw/3cn/best_of_rationality_quotes_20092010/37ej) for a description of this metric.)
*   [Top original authors by number of quotes](/r/lesswrong/lw/jlq/best_of_rationality_quotes_2013_edition/ah7f)
*   [Top original authors by total karma score collected](/r/lesswrong/lw/jlq/best_of_rationality_quotes_2013_edition/ah7j)
*   [Best short quotes 2009-2013](/r/lesswrong/lw/jlq/best_of_rationality_quotes_2013_edition/ah7m)
# Arthur Chu: Jeopardy! champion through exemplary rationality

http://mentalfloss.com/article/54853/our-interview-jeopardy-champion-arthur-chu

I'm not sure I've ever seen such a compelling "rationality success story". There's so much that's right here.  
  
The part that really grabs me about this is that there's no indication that his success has depended on "natural" skill or talent. And none of the strategies he's using are from novel research. He just studied the "literature" and took the results seriously. He didn't arbitrarily deviate from the known best practice based on aesthetics or intuition. And he kept a simple, single-minded focus on his goal. No lost purposes here --- just win as much money as possible, bank the winnings, and use it to self-insure. It's rationality-as-winning, plain and simple.
# How can I spend money to improve my life?

On ChrisHallquist's [post extolling the virtues of money](/lw/jfq/things_i_wish_theyd_taught_me_when_i_was_younger/), the top comment is Eliezer pointing out the lack of concrete examples. Can anyone think of any? This is not just hypothetical: if I think your suggestion is good, I will try it (and report back on how it went)  
  
I care about health, improving personal skills (particularly: programming, writing, people skills), gaining respect (particularly at work), and entertainment (these days: primarily books and computer games). If you think I should care about something else, feel free to suggest it.  
  
I am early-twenties programmer living in San Francisco. In the interest of getting advice useful to more than one person, I'll omit further personal details.  
  
Budget: $50/day  
  
If your idea requires significant ongoing time commitment, that is a major negative.
# Rationality & Low-IQ People

This post is to raise a question about the demographics of rationality: Is rationality something that can appeal to low-IQ people as well?  
  
I don't mean in theory, I mean in practice. From what I've seen, people who are concerned about rationality (in the sense that it has on LW, OvercomingBias, etc.) are overwhelmingly high-IQ.  
  
Meanwhile, HPMOR and other stories in the "rationality genre" appeal to me, and to other people I know. However I wonder: Perhaps part of the reason they appeal to me is that I think of myself as a smart person, and this allows me to identify with the main characters, cheer when they think their way to victory, etc. If I thought of myself as a stupid person, then perhaps I would feel uncomfortable, insecure, and alienated while reading the same stories.

So, I have four questions:  
  
1.) Do we have reason to believe that the kind of rationality promoted on LW, OvercomingBias, CFAR, etc. appeals to a fairly normal distribution of people around the IQ mean? Or should we think, as I suggested, that people with lower IQ's are disposed to find the idea of being rational less attractive?  
  
2.) Ditto, except replace "being rational" with "celebrating rationality through stories like HPMOR." Perhaps people think that rationality is a good thing in much the same way that being wealthy is a good thing, but they don't think that it should be celebrated, or at least they don't find such celebrations appealing.  
  
3.) Supposing #1 and #2 have the answers I am suggesting, why?   
  
4.) Making the same supposition, what are the implications for the movement in general? 

  
Note: I chose to use IQ in this post instead of a more vague term like "intelligence," but I could easily have done the opposite. I'm happy to do whichever version is less problematic.
# Mind Hacks

I've been in the bay area for a week, and already I've heard so many tips and tricks for becoming smarter that I can barely keep track. I think this is a _very good thing_. If effective altruists and rationalists can become smarter, then it should improve the probability of favourable far-future outcomes. Note that:

1) cognitive enhancement fits with the ideas that you will achieve most of your impact [in your middle age](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/10/impatient-idealism.html), and that increasing your [career capital](http://80000hours.org/pages/career-capital) is integral to achieving impact.

2) it might be possible to reinvest returns from cognitive enhancement by doing further research into cognitive enhancement. This is not to say that an intelligence explosion could occur within a human substrate - our capacity to alter our neural structure and thinking speed is likely to run up against hard evolutionary constraints in a way that machine intelligence will not. Nonetheless, cognitively enhanced humans could have an advantage in the creation of a [friendly AI team](/lw/cv9/building_toward_a_friendly_ai_team/).

I suggest that we collate our mind hacks [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/rationality). Then we can vote them all up and down. This will generate a list of 'top rated posts of all time', which could give hints for curriculum design to organisations like CFAR. Here are a few suggestions:

*   The reversal test for status quo bias
*   Thinking for five minutes of plans that can be executed in five minutes
*   Mind maps
*   Asana
*   Anki
*   Speed reading
*   Goal factoring
*   Caffeine
*   Modafinil
*   Nicotine
*   Creatine
*   Transcranial magnetic stimulation
*   and so on

Of course, if something is less plausibly obtainable than transcranial magnetic stimulation, then it won't get any votes at all and doesn't meaningfully belong on this list (e.g. deep brain stimulation, brain-computer interfaces)