Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# The Darwin Game - Rounds 10 to 20

MeasureBot maintains its lead.

# Rounds 10-20

![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.lsusr.com/lesswrong/darwin-game/write-up-4/line-bar-9-20.png)

# Everything so far

![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.lsusr.com/lesswrong/darwin-game/write-up-4/line-0-20.png)

# Today's Obituary

| Bot                         | Team       | Summary                                                                                                                                    | Round |
| ---                         | ---        | ---                                                                                                                                        |   --- |
| Silly Random Invert Bot 2-3 | NPCs       | Returns `2` or `4` on the first round. Returns `5 - <opponents_last_move>` on subsequent rounds.                                           |    10 |
| Silly 3 Bot                 | NPCs       | Always returns `3`.                                                                                                                        |    10 |
| CooperateBot [Larks]        | Chaos Army | "For the first 10 turns: return 3. For all subsequent turns: return the greater of 3 and (5 - the maximum value they have ever submitted)" |    10 |
| Silly Cement Bot 2          | NPCs       | Returns `2` on the first turn. Otherwise, returns `5 - opponent_first_move`.                                                               |    12 |
| Silly Counter Invert Bot    | NPCs       | Starts by randomly playing `2` or `3`. Then always returns `5 -opponent_previous_move`.                                                    |    12 |
| Silly Invert Bot 5          | NPCs       | Returns `5` on the first round. Returns `5 - <opponents_last_move>` on subsequent rounds.                                                  |    12 |
| Silly Cement Bot 3          | NPCs       | Returns `3` on the first turn. Otherwise, returns `5 - opponent_first_move`.                                                               |    14 |
| Silly Cement Bot 2-3        | NPCs       | Returns `2` or `3` on the first turn. Otherwise, returns `5 - opponent_first_move`.                                                        |    14 |
| Silly Invert Bot 3          | NPCs       | Returns `3` on the first round. Returns `5 - <opponents_last_move>` on subsequent rounds.                                                  |    15 |
| Silly Invert Bot 4          | NPCs       | Returns `4` on the first round. Returns `5 - <opponents_last_move>` on subsequent rounds.                                                  |    17 |
| Random-start-turn-taking    | Chaos Army | Selects `3` or `2` randomly until symmetry is broken. Then oscillates between `2` and `3`.                                                 |    17 |

---

This alternate timeline will conclude on November 20, at 5 pm Pacific Time.
# How the Moderna vaccine works, and a note about mRNA vaccines

Epistemic status: Not an expert. Pretty confident I have it right. Incorporated feedback from commenters, and asking for more. List of edits at the end.

What the Moderna vaccine does is it contains a piece of code (RNA) which asks your body to create a protein that is very similar to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (which it uses to attach to your cells), but modified in such a way that it is more stable, and doesn't change shape. Otherwise, the easiest place for the antibody to identify and attach to the protein gets hidden by the rest of the structure. Your body then says, "Hey, that's something new! Let's attack it!" and tries out a bunch of different things.

A difference with the mRNA vaccines is that there are no viral particles. The only thing it contains are the code (plus other code that doesn't get used to generate things, but are useful in keeping the rest of the code stable). The amount of RNA you get in your two shots would be all that's needed, and your body doesn't make extra strands of RNA that would ask for more spike proteins. In other words, you only get a protein that exists on the shell of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and not there virus itself, so there is zero risk of infection.

Side effects are minimal. Less than 2% of the people get a fever, and most don't even have a headache. Just some muscle pain etc near the injection site. However, according to a commenter (see precog's comment below), there are some disadvantages, including the possibility that, while it might prevent disease, it might not prevent infection and transmission. Also, the lipids that hold the RNA might generate an immune response as well.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine works slightly differently, but it's a similar idea. Have RNA code to produce the antigen to get an antibody response. It uses the same stabilization modification, which was discovered by Jason McLellan's lab in collaboration with the NIH.

These two are the first ever mRNA vaccines. mRNA vaccines are very modular, as well as easy to change and modify; most labs would be able to make their own vaccines with machines they already have. I've been following Moderna for a few years, and they were working on a MERS vaccine in the past. 4 days after the SARS-COV-2 genome was uploaded, they'd decided which sections they want to use, and which edits needed to be made, and they started manufacturing it (not mass production) literally the next day, and that was still in January.

edits: Incorporated information from precog (see his comment). Removed the self-propagating claim. Added a bit more information about Pfizer's vaccine. Changed wording regarding viral particles. Removed mention of a better immune response. Added disadvantages. Added clarification that there is zero risk of infection. Temporarily added a link to [the Guild of the ROSE](https://guildoftherose.org/).
# Sunzi's《Methods of War》- Introduction

This is a translation of the Chapter 1 of *The Art of War* by Sunzi. No English sources were used. The original text and many of the interpretations herein come from [古诗文网](https://so.gushiwen.org/guwen/book_46653FD803893E4F5B7146187204196D.aspx).

---

> 孙子曰：兵者，国之大事，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也。

War determines life and death of troops, existence and destruction of a country. It cannot be ignored.

> 故经之以五事，校之以计，而索其情：一曰道，二曰天，三曰地，四曰将、五曰法。

Five aspects are of paramount important:

1. Dao
2. Heaven
3. Earth
4. Generalship
5. Method

> 道者，令民与上同意也，故可以与之死，可以与之生，而不畏危。

"Dao" concerns alignment. Your side must be unified. By dying together, living together, you shall be unafraid.

> 天者，阴阳，寒暑、时制也。

"Heaven" concerns timing, yin and yang, winter and summer.

> 地者，远近、险易、广狭、死生也。

"Earth" concerns the near and far, impassable and passable, open fields and choke points, death and life.

> 将者，智、信、仁、勇、严也。

"Generalship" is a matter of wisdom, fidelity, benevolence, bravery and severity.

> 法者，曲制、官道、主用也。

"Method" concerns tactics, doctrine and organization.

> 凡此五者，将莫不闻，知之者胜，不知者不胜。

A commander must not ignore these five aspects. Understanding them brings victory. Lack of understanding does not bring victory.

> 故校之以计，而索其情，曰：主孰有道？将孰有能？天地孰得？法令孰行？兵众孰强？士卒孰练？赏罚孰明？

Ask yourself: Are ruler and subjects aligned? Is the general capable? Heaven (climate) and Earth (geography) in your favor? Methods effective? Troops strong? Trained? Enlightenedly punished?

> 吾以此知胜负矣。将听吾计，用之必胜，留之；将不听吾计，用之必败，去之。计利以听，乃为之势，以佐其外。势者，因利而制权也。

These things determine victory and defeat.

> 兵者，诡道也。故能而示之不能，用而示之不用，近而示之远，远而示之近；利而诱之，乱而取之，实而备之，强而避之，怒而挠之，卑而骄之，佚而劳之，亲而离之。攻其无备，出其不意。此兵家之胜，不可先传也。

The art of war depends on local conditions. The near informs you about the far. The far informs you about the near.

- If the enemy is clever then tempt.
- If the enemy is disordered then raid.
- If the enemy is capable then prepare.
- If the enemy is mighty then run.
- If the enemy is angry then provoke.
- If the enemy is inferior then threaten.
- If the enemy is dissolute then persevere.

Attack where the enemy is unprepared. Do what is least expected. But do not forget the five aspects. They are of primary importance.

> 夫未战而庙算胜者，得算多也；未战而庙算不胜者，得算少也。多算胜，少算不胜，而况于无算乎？吾以此观之，胜负见矣。

A war cannot be won without lots of equipment. This facet of war too must be examined.
# The ethics of AI for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I've been tasked by the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy to write their entry on the ethics of AI.

I'll be starting the literature reviews and similar in the coming weeks. Could you draw my attention to any aspect of AI ethics (including the history of AI ethics) that you think is important and deserves to be covered?

Cheers!
# Sunzi's《Methods of War》- War

This is a translation of Chapter 2 of *The Art of War* by Sunzi. No English sources were used.

---

> 孙子曰：凡用兵之法，驰车千驷，革车千乘，带甲十万，千里馈粮，内外之费，宾客之用，胶漆之材，车甲之奉，日费千金，然后十万之师举矣。

The ordinary methods of war demand:
- 1,000 teams of 4 horses each,
- 1,000 wagons,
- 100,000 shields,
- provisions to march 1,000 miles,
- domestic and foreign expenses,
- hospitality for guests,
- construction materials for siege weapons,
- armored vehicles,
- salaries

…and an army of 100,000 soldiers.

> 其用战也胜，久则钝兵挫锐，攻城则力屈，久暴师则国用不足。

A long war is an expensive war.

> 夫钝兵挫锐，屈力殚货，则诸侯乘其弊而起，虽有智者，不能善其后矣。

An expensive war will cause your vassals to rebel against you.

> 故兵闻拙速，未睹巧之久也。夫兵久而国利者，未之有也。

There is no such thing as a beneficial protracted war.

> 故不尽知用兵之害者，则不能尽知用兵之利也。

If you do not understand the costs of war then you do not know which wars are worthwhile to fight.

> 善用兵者，役不再籍，粮不三载，取用于国，因粮于敌，故军食可足也。

Do not conscript troops more than once. Do not resupply your army with grain more than twice. Take what you need from the enemy. The enemy has ample grain and an army of troops.

> 国之贫于师者远输，远输则百姓贫；

Resupplying an army over long distances impoverishes a country.

> 近师者贵卖，贵卖则百姓财竭，财竭则急于丘役。

Prices soar in wartime. Levying the peasantry under such circumstances will impoverish them while extracting only forced labor.

> 力屈财殚，中原内虚于家，百姓之费，十去其七；

The central plains will go unfarmed. Seven tenths of the peasantry's labor will be wasted. 

> 公家之费，破军罢马，甲胄矢弩，戟楯蔽橹，丘牛大车，十去其六。

Supplying an army out of the public purse slows the army down. Horses sicken. Shields split. Oxen tire. Six tenths is wasted.

> 故智将务食于敌，食敌一钟，当吾二十钟；萁秆一石，当吾二十石。

The wise general eats the enemy's food. A captured bowl of enemy food is worth twenty bowls of your own. A captured ton of enemy grain is worth twenty tons of your own.

> 故杀敌者，怒也；取敌之利者，货也。车战得车十乘以上，赏其先得者，而更其旌旗，车杂而乘之，卒善而养之，是谓胜敌而益强。

Let your troops kill the enemy in anger, plunder the enemy in greed. A captured enemy combat vehicle is worth no fewer than ten of your own. Reward your first soldier to capture one. Replace its flag. Mix it in among your own.

A good soldier steals victory from the enemy.

> 故兵贵胜，不贵久。故知兵之将，生民之司命，国家安危之主也。

A valuable victory is a quick victory. A general who, understanding this, issues orders to the people—thereupon is the fate of a state determined.
# How do you evaluate whether a $500 donation to a project that you know well is a good idea?

At [habryka](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/habryka4)'s recent office hours he made the point that it's really hard for a big grand-giving organization like the Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF) to fund certain projects. While good rationalist culture for example is valuable, funding culture by committee in a top-down way is problematic. The people with local knowledge of a cultural project are in a better position to judge whether or not a given rationalist culture project is valuable enough that it should be funded then a grant committee like that of the LTFF.

Given that LTFF and OpenPhil have access to a lot of financial captial these days for very rich individuals, the scare resources these days isn't primarily money but local knowledge about which projects are worthwhile. This suggests that individuals who have a small donation budget and access to a lot of local knowledge of individual projects are more effective when they make use of their scarce resources of local knowledge instead of donating to money to big grant making organizations. 

While giving money to big grant makers is straightforward, giving money to small projects is harder. How should an individual who has a yearly donation budget of <$10,000 go about evaluating local projects for donating an amount like $500 to them?
# Sunday 22nd: The Coordination Frontier

For this Sunday's LessWrong meetup, I'll be giving a short presentation on some moral/game-theoretic/coordination problems and solutions I've been thinking about, which I would like feedback on.

Three related puzzles:

*   Sometimes, people disagree on coordination protocols, or on moral frameworks. What do we do about that in the general case?
*   Many rationalists explore novel coordination principles. This can result in us learning about "new and exciting ways that everyone is defecting on each other all the time". If a principle is novel, it's hard to coordinate around. How do we handle disagreements about that?
*   Sometimes, Alice and Bob disagree on how to coordinate, but Bob thinks Alice has overall demonstrated better judgment, and it's (relatively) easy for Bob to defer to Alice. But other times, Alice and Bob don't trust each other, and each of them thinks the other is somewhat less sophisticated (despite having overall similar worldviews). How should they handle that situation?

"The Coordination Frontier" is my (placeholder) term for "the parts of morality/game-theory/coordination that aren't obvious, especially new principles that are novel advances on the current state-of-the-art." I think it's a useful concept for us to collectively have as [we navigate complex new domains in the coming years](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/robust-agents). 

I have some existing thoughts that I'd like feedback on, and I'd generally like to spark discussion about this topic.

Approximate format will be:

1.  I give a short(ish) presentation
2.  General Q&A and public discussion
3.  Brainstorming in a google doc, and then splitting into smaller groups to discuss particular subtopics.
4.  Return to a centralized conversation and share insights.

This will take place in the Walled Garden, in the Manor (to the north of the central map)

[http://garden.lesswrong.com?code=MNlp&event=the-coordination-frontier](http://garden.lesswrong.com?code=Xt9L&event=the-coordination-frontier)
# Rationalists from the UK -- what are your thoughts on Dominic Cummings?

Dominic Cummings would I believe be considered at least rationalist-adjacent, and has recently been quite a prominent figure in the news. I'm curious to hear your thoughts both on the situation with him in general and also on how this has affected public perceptions of rationality/LessWrong in your area. Has this been positive? Negative? Not something people have much linked to the community?
# Why are young, healthy people eager to take the Covid-19 vaccine?

Clearly a lot of people on LW want to take it ASAP. I strongly don't want that - to the point where I will most likely emigrate if it becomes obligatory in my country. Please help me understand what I'm missing. Here is my understanding:

*   As a young, healthy person, SARS-Cov-2 poses extremely low risk to me:
    *    There is no significant risk of lasting negative health consequences after infection
        *   There is no strong proof for such effect. Such proof would greatly increase acceptance of governments' policies, so there is a strong incentive to publish any such proof. There has also been enough time and cases to identify a pattern of negative consequences lasting 6+ months. Therefore I'm treating absence of a proof despite strong incentives and opportunity as a strong proof of absence. 
    *    A pessimistic infection fatality rate is probably around 0.01% 
        *   Case fatality rate for young people is below 0.5% 
        *   Halve that, since half of the infections do not result in the disease. 
        *   Divide that by 25 and stockpile large quantities of vitamin D in case you get the disease ([https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/finally-confirmed-vitamin-d-nearly-abolishes-icu-risk-in-covid-19](https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/finally-confirmed-vitamin-d-nearly-abolishes-icu-risk-in-covid-19)) 
    *   Reinfection is extremely rare, if at all possible. 
        *   Again, there is a strong incentive to make people fear a reinfection. 
        *   Yet all we hear is rare individual reports that might be test failures or long-lasting lingering infections. 
    *   The risk of infection is getting smaller and smaller, as more people in the population become immune - either by infection or by vaccination
*   Conversely, there is a non-negligible risk associated with a vaccine that has been developed so quickly. 
    *   The trials have lasted only months, so we don't know whether there are some side-effects that surface only after some significant time
    *   The trials have only been conducted on tens of thousands of subjects so far, so very severe but rare negative consequences might have gone under the radar
    *   Pfizer's vaccine requires extremely low temperatures, so there is a danger that in some locations it will be transported or stored incorrectly, causing greater risk than that suggested by the trials so far
    *   Both the governments and the vaccine manufacturers have twisted incentives, meaning there is a serious danger of too optimistic reports of the vaccines' efficacy and safety

I can only think of two reasons why young, knowledgeable people are so excited about taking the vaccine:

*   they have contact with someone at risk that they deeply care about, and want to minimise the chance of infecting them, even at the cost of personal safety;
*   they value safety of strangers higher than their own safety, and want to take the vaccine for the sake of all the people at risk in the society.
# Mark Manson and Evidence-Based Personal Development

Most personal development is notoriously unreliable.

Mark Manson, a popular personal development author, is making an effort to make his advice more scientific. To this end, he has started labelling his blog posts based on their evidence base. He writes that he has: "put together a team of Psychologists with MSc’s and PhD’s to help me research, outline and fact-check the content here on the site". He divides his blog posts into four categories:

*   Evidence-based: for posts that recommend actions based on academic research, where it has been checked that studies have replicated and have decent sample sizes, ect.
*   Fact-checked: for posts that have been fact checked and are descriptive (he only uses evidence-based to describe posts that recommend actions)
*   Theory: Rooted in academic theories that might be highly theoretical or not yet confirmed
*   Opinion: Articles based purely off his own personal opinion

Anyway, just thought that I'd mention this here, because it's great to see an example of a popular author shifting more this direction and adopting their own (less nerdy) version of epistemic statuses.
# Critiques of the Agent Foundations agenda?

What are some substantial critiques of the agent foundations research agenda?

Where by agent foundations I am referrring the area of research referred to by Critch in [this post](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/hvGoYXi2kgnS3vxqb/some-ai-research-areas-and-their-relevance-to-existential-1#Agent_foundations__AF_), which I understand as developing concepts and theoretical solutions for idealized problems related to AI safety such as logical induction.
# Transparent Technologies

I cook my own meals because restaurant food is expensive. But there are many activities I would prefer to cheap versions independent of price.

| I Like           | I Don't Like               |
|------------------|----------------------------|
| bicycles         | cars                       |
| entrepreneurship | jobs                       |
| solo adventure   | guides                     |
| barbells         | exercise machines          |
| meditation       | psychoactive drugs         |
| Linux, LineageOS | Windows, Mac, iPhone       |
| i3, CLI          | GUI, IDE, desktop metaphor |
| autodidacting    | school, tutors             |

From the perspective of someone with unusually high intelligence, activities involving skill tend to be cheap because our civilization has adequate material capital, The limiting factor of our industrial economy is intelligence.

I have to manually override my instinctual feeling that civilization is materially limited. It is true there aren't enough spaceships and private airplanes to go around. Otherwise, we have plenty of material goods. Many people own [too much stuff](http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html).

Since the limiting factor on wealth is humans' inadequate cognitive ability to utilize our stuff, companies often create value by making things easier to use.

If the process ended here then we would live in utopia. But when a company provides the service of making something easier to use, it takes effective control of the distribution channel. Centralized control of distribution channels inhibits competition. Weaker competition gives companies leverage over consumers. The Invisible Hand compels companies to extract maximum profit from whatever leverage they have.

A prepackaged commercial product designed to make things easier for consumers tends to contain anti-features. Vehicles require special tools to interface with their computers. Apple employs pentalobe security screws. Universities charge fees for services you don't use and require you to take classes you're not interested in. Android distributors often won't let you root your phone.

Expending effort to worsen a product is productively inefficient. An efficient market is a market that does not do inefficient things. Anti-features are market inefficiencies because anti-features deliberately make a product worse. Anti-features are negative sum.

Rational negative sum activities are often coercive. When coercive behavior goes one direction it indicates an exploitative relationship. Anti-features are the most flagrant signal that an organization is exploiting you.

Even touching a product with anti-features makes me feel unclean. Like many moral principles, this one has tremendous long-term advantages. My life is cheaper. I am exposed to less advertising. I have gears-level models of all sorts of things.
# The Exploitability/Explainability Frontier

*Epistemic status*: quick insight that seems true in many cases

Your ability to notice that something is wrong trades off against your ability to convince others that said thing is, in fact, wrong. Suppose you discover a way in which the mainstream narrative is wrong in whatever field - maybe a famous math paper has an embarrassing typo, making the conclusion false. It would be very easy to convince others of this, if you knew. However, it's very difficult to discover such mistakes, because they're very rare. The flip side also seems true - if it's fairly easy to discover that the mainstream narrative on something is wrong, then it's likely to be extremely difficult to convince others of this. Politics is a great example of this; convincing others that your views are correct is nearly intractable, and often far more difficult than figuring out the correct view on specific issues. 

To the extent something is easy to convince everyone of, once discovered, it's likely to have already been discovered and therefore become mainstream. Society is hard to exploit in that sense - if it's easy to discover and easy to spread, it would have already happened. 

If you want to change society, you can move along the Exploitability/Explainability Frontier, either spending your time and energy looking for exploits that are relatively easy to explain, or spend it trying to explain exploits that were relatively easy to find. These are two distinct sets of research problems, and it seems worth distinguishing between the two.
# Sunday November 29th, 12:00PM (PT) — Andreas Stuhlmüller on Combining GPT-3 and Forecasting

This Sunday Andreas Stuhlmüller from Ought will show some of their recent work on combining GPT-3 text prediction with judgemental forecasting, resulting in an (according to me) impressive set of tools for helping you think through complicated forecasting-related questions.

We will be meeting in Zoom, where Andreas will do a screencast for something like half an hour, followed by a Q&A, and afterwards we will have time to more casually hang out in our Gather.town space.

Here is a video of a similar screenscast Andreas made a few days ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea1nrjXQ2SI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea1nrjXQ2SI)

The Zoom room for the event will be: [https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82412283098](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82412283098)

If you just want to attend for the casually-hanging out section, you can join here: [http://garden.lesswrong.com?code=zoip&event=gpt3-forecasting-screencast](http://garden.lesswrong.com?code=zoip&event=gpt3-forecasting-screencast)
# The Mutant Game - Rounds 31 to 90

Rounds 31-50
============

*   Silly 2 Bot dies in round 31.
*   AbstractSpyTreeBot dies in round 37.
*   "Winner against low constant bots" dies in round 46.

The NPCs are dead. Chaos Army is dead. It's a clone world now.

![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.lsusr.com/lesswrong/darwin-game/write-up-3/30-50.png)

Rounds 51-90
============

Two CloneBots die in their game of rock, paper scissors.

*   Karmabot dies on round 56, before deploying its payload.
*   CloneBot dies on round 79, before deploying its payload.

![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.lsusr.com/lesswrong/darwin-game/write-up-3/50-90.png)

This CloneBot's change in population growth around round 75 is suspicious.

![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.lsusr.com/lesswrong/darwin-game/write-up-3/avsb-50-90.png)

It could be emergent behavior from the competition between the clones or it could be indicative of something deeper going on. I glanced through the source code in this particular CloneBot's payload. One comment jumped out at me.

            # Neo: I know Kung Fu.

I will take a closer look at A Very Social Bot's source code next week.

Everything so far
=================

![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.lsusr.com/lesswrong/darwin-game/write-up-3/0-90.png)

![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.lsusr.com/lesswrong/darwin-game/write-up-3/pie-90.png)

Today's Obituary
================

| Bot | Team | Summary | Round |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Silly 2 Bot | NPCs | Always returns `2`. | 31  |
| AbstractSpyTreeBot | Chaos Army | Open source simulator. | 37  |
| Winner against low constant bots | Chaos Army | Starts with `2`. Then always returns `5 - opponent_previous_move`. | 46  |
| Karma Bot | Clone Army | `bot genus: CloneBot ¶ bot species: KarmaBot ¶ Karmabot plays a forgiving style of "tit-for-tat", but tracks the opponent's Karma level ¶ each defect move (opponent plays something that triggers a 0 payout) costs them a Karma point ¶ (we only start counting karma after symmetry has been broken between the 2 players) ¶ karmabot retaliates immediately against defection, but will relent a few turns later to break defect-defect cycles ¶ however, this forgiving attitude is only maintained if the opponent's karma score is above zero ¶ if the opponent has defected too many times, and its karma is negative, KarmaBot simply plays tit-for-tat ¶ this puts a fairly small bound on the amount by which the opposing bot can do better than KarmaBot` | 56  |
| CloneBot | Clone Army | CloneBot's payload contains a hand-coded decision tree with 11 terminal nodes. | 79  |

* * *

The next installment of this series will be posted on November 30, 2020.
# Is this a good way to bet on short timelines?

I was mildly disappointed in the responses to [my last question](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4FhiSuNv4QbtKDzL8/how-can-i-bet-on-short-timelines), so I did a bit of thinking and came up with some answers myself. I'm not super happy with them either, and would love feedback on them + variations, new suggestions, etc. The ideas are:

1\. I approach someone who has longer timelines than me, and I say: I'll give you $X now if you promise to publicly admit I was right later and give me a platform, assuming you later come to update significantly in my direction.

2\. I approach someone who has longer timelines than me, and I say: I'll give you $X now if you agree to talk with me about timelines for 2 hours. I'd like to hear your reasons, and to hear your responses to mine. The talk will be recorded. Then I get one coupon which I can redeem for another 2-hour conversation with you.

3\. I approach someone who has longer timelines than me, and I say: For the next 5 years, you agree to put x% of your work-hours into projects of my choosing (perhaps with some constraints, like personal fit). Then, for the rest of my life, I'll put x% of my work-hours into projects of your choosing (constraints, etc.).

The problem with no. 3 is that it's probably too big an ask. Maybe it would work with someone who I already get along well with and can collaborate on projects, whose work I respect and who respects my work.

The point of no. 2 is to get them to update towards my position faster than they otherwise would have. This might happen in the first two-hour conversation, even. (They get the same benefits from me, plus cash, so it should be pretty appealing for sufficiently large X. Plus, I also benefit from the extra information which might help me update towards longer timelines after our talk!) The problem is that maybe forced 2-hour conversations don't actually succeed in that goal, depending on psychology/personality.

A variant of no 2 would simply be to challenge people to a public debate on the topic. Then the goal would be to get the audience to update.

The point of no. 1 is to get them to give me some of their status/credibility/platform, in the event that I turn out to be probably right. The problem, of course, is that it's up to them to decide whether I'm probably right, and it gives them an incentive to decide that I'm not!
# A short talk on SB and friends

Hi there.  First post; be kind please.

I'm looking to present a short talk on the Sleeping Beauty problem in our maths/computing group at work.  So far, I've just sketched an incomplete outline:

*   Start by describing SB and the halfer, thirder & double-halfer arguments.  Note that there seem to be two types of uncertainty here: (1) the coin outcome and (2) the day of the week.  These types "feel" different, and it should not be a foregone conclusion that you can treat each the same.
*   Describe the Absent-Minded Driver and how his choice of mixed strategy appears consistent only with certainty that he is approaching the first junction, *i.e.* the planning-optimal decision.  At first glance, this looks like bad news for type-2 day-of-the-week / position-on-the-road uncertainty.
*   ...?

By this point, the audience (maths/computing folk, remember) will be starting to conclude that type-2 uncertainty is just a load of old touchy-feely nonsense and that all the world needs is cold hard classical probability.  I would like to counter that on two fronts:

1.  Though we didn't achieve it when scratching the surface of the SB & AMD problems, consistent theories of rational decision making that include type-2 uncertainties *do* exist, such as **XXX**.
2.  There is a philosophical need for such theories (you *cannot* just rely on cold hard classical probability), as shown for example by **YYY**.

I'm stuck for what to say on **XXX** and **YYY**.  Can you help?

Comments also welcome on appropriate terminology (not "type-2"!) and anything else that strikes you as being egregiously wrong.  Please do not assume any prior knowledge.  Thank you.
# Why did the Ming treasure voyages end in 1433?

When I read sources like Wikipedia on the [Ming treasure voyages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages) there doesn't seem to be a clear conclusion about why they ended. Did anybody on LessWrong do deeper research and came to a conclusion?
# [Linkpost] AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology

To my eyes, this looks like the sort of useful advance in applying AI that doesn't really improve capabilities, and thus is just net positive, even judged by a safety mindset. But I'm curious to know if other people think differently.

(Note that it might be easier to discuss this after the paper is posted online)
# Giving Tuesday 2020

As they did in [2018](https://www.jefftk.com/p/facebook-donation-match) and [2019](https://www.jefftk.com/p/getting-ready-for-the-fb-donation-match), Facebook is running donation matching for Giving Tuesday. The match is "real" in that you can choose which charity receives the money, but not "real" in that the money will go to some charity whether or not you donate. Because I think some charities are much higher priority than other, however, from my perspective the match is real.

As in previous years, they have a limit of $20k/person and $2,499/donation. More details and instructions at [EA Giving Tuesday](https://www.eagivingtuesday.org/).

I am planning to (nearly) max out all of my credit cards, and donate over $20k:

*   We are not sure exactly when the matching clock actually starts, so I'm planning to start several seconds early.
    
*   Some of my donations may get declined.
    
*   You can donate with a credit card, and Facebook is covering the processing fees:
    

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/fb-covering-fees-2020.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/fb-covering-fees-2020-big.png)

This means that you can get [cash back on donations](https://www.jefftk.com/p/credit-cards-for-giving), which is 1-2% of potentially quite a lot of money.

I made some practice donations today to refamiliarize myself with the interface. While these donations are not eligible for the match, they still have credit card processing fees waived, so they are still a good deal. I donated the $2,499 maximum for each test, in the vague hope that this might make my credit card processors think that $2,499 charges from Facebook are normal.

I've set an alarm for tomorrow morning, half an hour before the timer begins. The main thing I want to check tomorrow is that Facebook has not reinstated "confirm your donation" dialog box from previous years.

This is a mad scramble for free money, but with practice and preparation you have a good chance of directing some of it. I managed the full $20k in 2018, but only $12.5k in 2019 due to increasing competition. If I even get one donation matched this year, however, an extra $2,499 to a charity I think is doing really good work is still worth the hassle.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100195305937172)*
# My Fear Heuristic

My friends and family call me "risk tolerant". I wasn't always this way. It is the result of a 3-year-long scientific experiment.

> You must do everything that frightens you…Everything. I’m not talking about risking your life, but everything else. Think about fear, decide right now how you’re doing to deal with fear, because fear is going to be the great issue of your life, I promise you. Fear will be the fuel for all your success, and the root cause of all your failures, and the underlying dilemma in every story you tell yourself about yourself. And the only chance you’ll have against fear? Follow it. Steer by it. Don’t think of fear as the villain. Think of fear as your guide, your pathfinder.
>
> ―*The Tender Bar* by J.R. Moehringer

When I was 18 I discovered a useful heuristic. Whenever I didn't know what to do I would pick whatever not-obviously-stupid[^1] option frightened me the most.

[^1]: "Stupid" includes anything that risks death or permanent injury.

My indecisions always centered around choosing between a scary unpredictable option and a comfortable predictable option. Since the comfortable option was always predictable, I always knew what the counterfactual would have been whenever I chose the scary option. If I chose the scary option then I could weigh the value of both timelines after the fact.

As an experiment, I resolved to choose the scarier option whenever I was undecided about what to do. I observed the results. Then I recorded whether the decision was big or little and whether doing what scared me more was the right choice in retrospect. I repeated the procedure 30-ish times for small decisions and 6-ish times for big decisions. If I were properly calibrated then picking the scary option would result in the correct choice 50% of the time.

Results:

:::spoiler
- For my 30-ish small decisions, picking the scary option was correct 90% of the time.
- For my 6-ish big decisions, picking the scary option was correct 100% of the time.
:::

The above results underestimate the utility of my fear heuristic. My conundrums were overwhelming social. The upsides earned me substantial value. The downsides cost me trivial embarrassments.

I terminated the experiment when my fear evaporated. The only things I still feared were obviously stupid activities like jumping off of buildings and unimportant activities like handling large arthropods. I had deconditioned myself out of fear.

I didn't lose the signal. I had just recalibrated myself.
# In a multipolar scenario, how do people expect systems to be trained to interact with systems developed by other labs?  

I haven't seen much discussion of this, but it seems like an important factor in how well AI systems deployed by actors with different goals manage to avoid conflict (cf. my discussion of equilibrium and prior selection problems [here](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/Tdu3tGT4i24qcLESh/equilibrium-and-prior-selection-problems-in-multipolar-1)).

For instance, would systems be trained
- Against copies of agents developed by other labs (possibly with measures to mask private information)?
- Simultaneously with other agents in a simulator that each developer has access to? 
- Against copies of themselves? 
- Against distributions of counterpart policies engineered to have certain properties? What would those properties be?
# Poll: Any interest in an editing buddy system?

There was a [popular post](https://mtlynch.io/editor/) today linked from [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25262272) on the benefits of hiring a freelance editor. Looking into it, I think that what's described is really "Developmental editing" and "structural" editing as described [here](https://blog.reedsy.com/types-of-editing/).

Maybe there's no replacement for a professional editor. But for a community like this with (I think) such a high ratio of contributors, I wondered if it might be valuable to try to arrange a kind of "buddy system" where we give feedback to each other to improve our writing.

For now, please don't worry about how that might work. At the moment I'd just like to gauge if there is enough interest that this is something that might be worth trying to organize.

Would you be interested in participating in this? If so, could you leave a short comment with answers to two questions?

Question 1: Would you participate in this ?
* Answer A: No
* Answer B: I'd volunteer to edit but wouldn't submit.
* Answer C: I'd edit and submit.


Question 2: How good do you think you would be at editing? Take the average front-page post at Lesswrong. If you took 30 minutes to give comments, and the author used your feedback, how much better would that post get? Measure quality via upvotes if you want.
* Answer A: Less than 1.5x
* Answer B: 1.5x-2x
* Answer C: 2x-4x
* Answer D: 4x or more

(Apologies if "real" polls are possible / better. The documentation for those seems to be really out of date.)
# Should I take glucosamine?

This paper came up on my news feed today: https://www.jabfm.org/content/jabfp/33/6/842.full.pdf

According to the research, daily intake of glucosamine/chondroitin supplements for at least a year is associated with a 39% reduction in all-cause mortality.

This is a cohort study, not a randomized trial, so the evidence is not conclusive. Individuals taking supplements were self-selected. Perhaps there is another factor not controlled for in the paper. The researchers are calling for a more thorough study.

However a 39% reduction appears to be a pretty large effect. And glucosamine/condroitin supplements are fairly inexpensive and available over-the-counter, and *seem* likely to be relatively harmless even if the effect is illusory. Maybe the kind of person who takes this kind of bet comes out ahead, even if they're wrong sometimes.

I'm not looking for mere social permission or a gut-feel answer here. I want to understand your reasoning. How should a rationalist reason about this? Do we plug numbers into a Bayesian net? Should I take the bet and start supplementing daily? Is the effect too small to bother with? Should I wait for more evidence?
# Are index funds still a good investment?

I don't really follow the investment scene, but from people who do, I had gotten the impression that index funds are generally the best bet for a lazy investor. So late last year I started regularly putting some money in them. Now some of my more finance-savvy friends are saying that index funds might be in a bubble, with so much money going into them that their stocks are likely to be overvalued.

[This page](https://bestinterest.blog/index-fund-bubble/) seemed to have a reasonable overview of the debate; one of the counterarguments that sounded the most plausible to me was that active traders are still making the majority of trades, so if index funds *were* overvalued, the active traders should make a killing on that inefficiency. But I don't think I really understand this domain well enough to evaluate that, and at least one of my friends who's better informed than me seems to think that the bubble *is* an issue.

(Additional question: if index funds *aren't* a good investment anymore, what *is*?)
# In Addition to Ragebait and Doomscrolling

(Sorry for the coy title--I want to give the reader a chance to guess what the addition is.)

One day I opened up the front page of reddit. I was not signed in and I was using my browser's incognito mode.

The following list composed about 25% of what I saw as I scrolled. See if you notice any themes. (As hinted by the title, I think there is something other than outrage here.)

r/MurderedByWords

r/PublicFreakout

r/insanepeoplefacebook

r/JusticeServed

r/nottheonion

r/facepalm

r/mildlyinfuriating

r/Cringetopia

r/TikTokCringe

r/LeopardsAteMyFace

r/FuckYouKaren

r/iamverybadass

r/IdiotsInCars

r/cringe

(At least another 25% was made up of r/news, r/worldnews, r/politics, r/PoliticalHumor, and so on.)

Like many people, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the [psychotoxic](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/psychotoxic?s=t) effects of concentrated outrage, political polarization, [doomscrolling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomscrolling), misinformation, and filter bubbles. So I was a little surprised by my own interpretation of the above list:

I submit that the most salient theme is *contempt*.

Here's a sentence that has been at the back of my mind since I came across it:

> Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return.

\-\- Jonathan Haidt, *The Happiness Hypothesis*

Let me first admit that contemptuously bonding over the misbehavior of others probably can have real benefits. But I claim that in the case of the reddit front page, these benefits are clearly outweighed by the costs to one’s personality (not to mention epistemics). 

So, Haidt says contempt feels good, reddit appears to be a prime example, and I'm now asserting that it's psychotoxic (and possibly addictive, at least when taken via ~~intravenous drip~~ bottomless scrolling). Presuming all of that is correct...is it actionable? I think so.

If you're ambitious, you could [quit social media for a month](https://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/) and pay attention to how your thoughts and attitudes change.

More coordinationally, perhaps a social stigma can develop around this kind of overindulgence, similar to the increasing stigmas toward ragebait and doomscrolling.

But at the very least, you can simply *notice* that something you're reading is triggering contempt, as opposed to outrage or doomfeelz. I think this awareness by itself restores a decent chunk of mental autonomy. Personally, I like to also take the proactive step of rehearsing questions like, "*why* did they end up so stupid/scandalous/cringeworthy?" and “what led *me* to avoid such faults so well?” I find that the answer (whatever it is) often feels strangely liberating--it diminishes the tasty allure of the contempt, and makes it easier to refocus my attention on something better.

EDIT: Thanks Daniel Kokotajlo for offering the term *scornporn* in the comments!
# LW Sundays: All Things "Evaluation" –  December 6th, 12:00PM (PT)

This Sunday, two or three speakers from the newly formed Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute (focused on epistemics and forecasting) will present on the general topic of "evaluations" and seek feedback on their work from attendees.

An "evaluation" here means any assessment of some thing for some property. We're talking scientific review of articles, product ratings, or even measurements like temperature.

Event Location & Format
-----------------------

First part of the meetup will be in **Zoom (**[**link**](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84972640735)**)** where speakers will talk and take an initial Q&A. Following that, there will be freeform discussion and socialization in the **LessWrong Walled Garden (**[**link**](http://garden.lesswrong.com?code=t6Yy&event=sunday-talk-evaluate-all-the-things)**)**. The first segment usually goes for an hour, and the second goes on for as long as people feel like staying (usually another hour or two).

The Talks
---------

**Ozzie Gooen: Evaluate All The Things!**

Ozzie Gooen will discuss how future technologies might enable cheap and scalable "evaluations" such as scientific reviews and product ratings.

Blurb from Ozzie:

> New forecasting and AI technologies might make systematized evaluations really cheap and scalable. This could be great if we come up with pragmatic and effective evaluations, and terrible if we implement poor ones. Think of article or scientific reviews, product ratings, or more creative things like independent evaluations of the reputability of every sentence in an argument. A few of us have started early investigation and experimentation in the area, starting with EA research and project evaluations. Ozzie will present on progress and is curious to get thoughts.

**Elizabeth: Case Studies in Why Evaluating Things Is Hard**

> Elizabeth tries to look for some simple examples of successful evaluations and finds it harder than expected.

**"Nuño: Evaluating the Value of Small Research Projects**

> Nuño will talk about evaluating the value of small research projects, and about combining evaluations and forecasts to choose which projects to carry out. Some challenges are finding informative proxies of impact, comparing the value of projects in different areas, and finding useful base rates.