Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# San Francisco Meetup: Deep Questions

We’re trying a new format this week!

How Deep Questions works: We’ll break into pairs. Each pair will take turns answering one of a selected list of open-ended meaningful questions (e.g. “What in life gets you really excited?”, “What’s one thing you’ve never told someone before about yourself that you feel comfortable sharing with a stranger?”, “What do you hope they say in your obituary?”, “Who do you admire most, and why do you admire that person so much?”). Each pair gets 12 minutes for both people to answer the question; after 12 minutes, the pairs rotate to take on the next question with a new person.

This meetup is more structured than usual; at the recent meta-meetup, we got feedback that more structured interaction might help shy people integrate better into the group. Please let us know what you think of this meetup format.

For entry: go to the lobby doors, which are about halfway down the block on 8th street under the big read awning. Use the idalpad to dial 892, which will call my phone and allow me to let you in.
For help getting into the building, please call (or text, with a likely-somewhat-slower response rate): 301-458-0764.

**Format:**

We meet and start hanging out at 6:15, but don’t officially start doing the meetup topic until 6:45-7:00 to accommodate stragglers. Usually there is a food order that goes out before we start the meetup topic.

**About these meetups:**

The mission of the SF LessWrong meetup is to provide a fun, low-key social space with some structured interaction, where new and non-new community members can mingle and have interesting conversations. Everyone is welcome.

We explicitly encourage people to split off from the main conversation or diverge from the topic if that would be more fun for them (moving side conversations into a separate part of the space if appropriate). Meetup topics are here as a tool to facilitate fun interaction, and we certainly don’t want them to inhibit it.
# Disagreement with Paul: alignment induction

I had a discussion with [Paul Christiano](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/paulfchristiano), about his [Iterated Amplification and Distillation](https://ai-alignment.com/iterated-distillation-and-amplification-157debfd1616) scheme. We had a disagreement, a disagreement that I believe points to something interesting, so I'm posting this here.

It's a disagreement about the value of the concept of "preserving alignment". To vastly oversimplify Paul's idea, the AI A\[n\] will check that A\[n+1\] is still aligned with human preferences; meanwhile, A\[n-1\] will be checking that A\[n\] is still aligned with human preferences, all the way down to A\[0\] and an initial human H that checks on it.

Intuitively, this seems doable - A\[n\] is "nice", so it seems that it can reasonably check that A\[n+1\] is also nice, and so on.

But, as I pointed out [in this post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZyyMPXY27TTxKsR5X/problems-with-amplification-distillation), it's very possible that A\[n\] is "nice" only because it lacks power/can't do certain things/hasn't thought of certain policies. So niceness - in the sense of behaving sensibly as an autonomous agent - does not go through the inductive step in this argument.

Instead, Paul confirmed that "alignment" means "won't take unaligned actions, and will assess the decisions of a higher agent in a way that preserves alignment (and preserves the preservation of alignment, and so on)".

This concept does induct properly, but seems far less intuitive to me. It relies on humans, for example, being able to ensure that A\[0\] will be aligned, that any more powerful copies it assesses will be aligned, that any more powerful copies those copies assess are also aligned, and so on.

Intuitively, for any concept C of alignment for H and A\[0\], I expect one of four things will happen, with the first three being more likely:

*   The C does not induct.
*   The C already contains all of the friendly utility function; induction works, but does nothing.
*   The C does induct non-trivially, but is incomplete: it's very narrow, and doesn't define a good candidate for a friendly utility function.
*   The C does induct in a non-trivial way, the result is friendly, but only one or two steps of the induction are actually needed.

Hopefully, further research should clarify if my intuitions are correct.
# The Scent of Bad Psychology

Inspired by the [psychology replication quiz](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KsyD6GmFN2EtirX74/psychology-replication-quiz), I've come up with four rules to tell bullshit studies in psychology from real ones:

1\. The rule of antisignificance

2\. The rule of Taleb's grandma

3\. The rule of multiplicity

4\. The rule of silicone boobs

And finally, a reason why this could mean that there's a brighter future for good psychology research.
# Petrov corrigibility

After my [example](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T5ZyNq3fzN59aQG5y/the-limits-of-corrigibility) of problems with corrigibility, and Eliezer pointing out that sometimes corrigibility [may involve saying "there is no corrigible action"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nbhTzEosM9sqEvr6P/corrigibility-doesn-t-always-have-a-good-action-to-take), here's a scenario where saying that may not be the optimal choice.

[Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) is, as usual for heroes, tracking incoming missiles in his early warning command centre. The attack pattern seems unlikely, and he has decided not to inform his leaders about the possible attack.

His corrigible AI pipes up to check if he needs any advice. He decides he does, and asks the AI to provide him with documentation about computer detection malfunction. In the few minutes it has, the AI can start with one introductory text A, or with introductory text B. Predictably, if given A, Petrov will warn his superiors (and maybe set off a nuclear war), and, if given B, he will not.

If the corrigible AI says that it cannot answer, however, Petrov will decide to warn his superiors, as his thinking has been knocked off track by the conversation. Note that this is not what would have happened had the AI stayed silent.

What is the corrigible thing to do in this situation? Assume that the AI can predict Petrov's choice for whatever action it itself can take.
# HPS Reading Group, Session I

This first session will include a bit of an introduction, where we each state our background and interests in the history and philosophy of science, as well as our expectations and hopes for the reading group. Then we will discuss "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem" by Larry Laudan.  

Here is a Dropbox link for the paper. It is on page 111 of the book:

[https://bit.ly/2Pj7V9L](https://bit.ly/2Pj7V9L)
# (A -> B) -> A

This post is about following type signature, which I call the type of agency:  (A→B)→A. You can also think of it as consequentialism or doing things on purpose. This post will be a rant with a bunch of random thoughts related to this type signature, and it will likely not make sense. It will also be sloppy and will have type errors, but I think it is worth posting anyway.

First, interpret these arrows as causal arrows, but you can also think of them as function arrows. This is saying that the causal relationship from A to B causes A to happen. Think of A as an action and B as the goal. The reason that A happens is the fact that it has B as a consequence. There are not normally exponential objects like this in Bayes' nets, but I think you can modify so that it makes sense. (I'm not sure that this works, but you have a Cartesian closed category with nodes that are the nodes in your Bayes net, and add small number of morphisms from product nodes to individual nodes, corresponding to the functions in the Bayes' net. The acyclicness of the Bayes' net roughly corresponds to this category being thin. Then you can consider having other types of morphisms that can keep the category thin.)

If you have a game between two agents with action nodes A1 and A2, with utilities U1 and U2. The game implements a pair of functions A1×A2→U1 and A1×A2→U2. We can Curry these functions and think of them as A2→(A1→U1) and A1→(A2→U2). Bringing in the agency (Ai→Ui)→Ai of both players leads to cycle. This cycle does not make sense unless the agency arrows are lossy in some way, so as to not be able to create a contradiction.

Fortunately, there is another reason to think that these agency arrows will be lossy. Lawvere's Fixed Point Theorem says that in a Cartesian closed category, unless B has the fixed point property, you cannot have a surjective function A→(A→B), in Set this is saying that if B has more than one element, you cannot have an injection (A→B)→A. i.e. The agency arrows have to be lossy.

Also, notice that Argmax, takes in a function f from some set A to R, and returns an element of the domain, A, so Argmax has type (A→R)→A.

This one is a bit more of a stretch, but if you look at gradient descent, you have some space X, you have a function f:X→R. The gradient can be thought of as a function from infinitesimal changes in X to infinitesimal changes in f(X). Gradient descent works by converting this gradient into a change in X. i.e. Gradient descent looks kind of like (∂X→∂R)→∂X.
# Iterative Arguments: Alternative to Adversarial Collaboration

I've been toying with an idea of developing two competing theories in
parallel in an iterative manner:

1. $A$ writes an initial thesis
2. $B$ does the same
3. $A$ revises their thesis to address $B$'s thesis where it contradicts that of $A$'s
4. $B$ does the same
5. and so on until both parties feel they have nothing to add

This would be different from adversarial collaboration, as it's
commonly understood, in that both sides would work on their own
arguments instead of trying to agree on a common summary (which is
very hard!).

It's worth emphasising that the idea is not to correspond with the
opponent.  Instead, one would keep updating one's thesis to meet the
challenges presented by the competing thesis so that it remains
coherent and stands on its own after every iteration.

I wrote a little ClojureScript library to go with a [Pandoc
template][ia] to facilitate iterative argumentation of this kind.  The
library makes it easy to navigate between the sides of the argument
ensuring that following local links will switch context when
appropriate, etc.  Additionally, it provides bidirectional links by
way of highlighting bits on both sides of the argument.  Hot loading
is also supported to make writing the document more convenient.
Currently it's very much work in progress, of course.  I didn't want
to commit to too many features at this point not knowing if any of
this would be useful.

Would someone here be interested in trying out this sort of thing
either with their own "archnemesis" or with me?  For starters, I think
it would be best to pick a properly contentious topic but not one
inciting too much passion.

[ia]: https://github.com/mat5n/iterargs-pandoc/
# Moderation Reference

This is a repository of moderation decisions that we expect to make semi-frequently, where it's somewhat complicated to explain our reasoning but we don't want that explanation to end up dominating a thread. We'll be adding to this over time, and/or converting it into a more scalable format once it's grown larger.

Death by a Thousand Cuts
------------------------

There's a phenomenon wherein a commenter responds to a post with a reasonablish looking question or criticism. The poster responds, which doesn't satisfy the commenter's concerns. It turns into a sprawling debate.

Most of the time, this is fine – part of the point of LessWrong is to expose your ideas to criticism to make them stronger.

But criticism varies in quality. Three particular dimensions (in descending order of importance) that we think are important are:

*   **Steelmanning** – The best criticism engages with the strongest form of an idea. See [this post](https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/steelmanning/) for more detail on why you'd want to do that. Two subsets of this are:

*   **Does it address core points?** – Sometimes a critique is pointing at essential cruxes of a person's argument. Other times it pedantically focuses on minor examples.
*   **Does it put in interpretive effort?** – Sometimes, a critic puts in substantial effort to understand the poster's point (and, if the author worded something confusingly, help them clarify their own thinking). Other times critics generally expect authors to put in all interpretive effort of the conversation. (In some situations, the issue is that the author has in fact written something confusing or wrong. In other situations, it's the critic who isn't understanding the point).

*   **Is it kind?** –  While less crucial than steelmanning, LessWrong is generally a more fun to place to be if people aren't being blunt or rude to each other. All else being equal, being kind rather than blunt is better.

Any given one of the three spectrums above isn't necessarily bad. We don't want a world where all  criticism must  involve a lot of effort on the part of the critic. But over the years we've encountered a few users who frequently focus on criticism that is a) addressing noncentral points, or misunderstanding the author's core point, while b) being a bit blunt and/or not putting much interpretive effort into the conversation.

The results are comments where any _given_ comment seems basically reasonable, but the aggregate of them makes LessWrong feel like a hostile, nitpicky place. Several people have cited abundance of this type of comment as a reason they left LessWrong.

The phrase **"Death by a thousand cuts"**  hopefully gets across the sort of problem here.

This is somewhat challenging to moderate – if you're a new user, it might look very heavy-handed to see someone suspended or banned for what looks (in isolation) like a fairly innocuous comment.

But since this pattern of commenting is one of the strongest complaints we've gotten about LessWrong, it's necessary for us to take action on it from time to time. (Generally starting with 2 warnings, followed by a temporary suspension).
# How to use a microphone r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶  during public speaking

Microphones are common technology and yet few people understand how they work. For our purposes here, there are unidirectional microphones and omnidirectional microphones.

![](https://i.imgur.com/lx8qywo.png)

A unidirectional microphone only records the sound from one direction. If it's pointed at the mouth of the speaker it won't record noise from the audience which makes the resulting recording better.

If it's however pointed at the ceiling while it's in front of the mouth of the speaker it will do a poor job at recording the speaker. 

This leads to the first rule of microphone usage:  
**Hold the microphone pointing towards your mouth.**

Microphones react to sound waves and sound waves are movement of air. If you exhale into a microphone, the microphone will record the exhale. Given Newtons laws, the exhale isn't omnidirectional either but the air that comes out of your mouth from the exhale has a clear direction. If you hold the microphone in front of your mouth, it will get hit by the air. 

Our second rule of microphone usage is:

**Keep the microphone to the right side of your mouth if you hold it in your right hand and correspondingly on the left side of your mouth if you hold it with your left hand.**

Let combine the two rules into rule zero:

**Hold the microphone to the side of your mouth in a way that points towards your mouth.**
# Open AI co-founder on AGI

Here's a talk where Open AI co-founder Ilya Sutskever talks about the issue of AI progress and AGI. (Before the timestamp he was talking about Open AI's specific projects such as Dota 2 and their hand robot).

tl;dw: (_italics_ indicate my interpolations):

*   AGI in the near-medium term can't be ruled out based on current rates of progress.
*   AI progress is more constrained by hardware than by conceptual advances (_partly because it's hard to make conceptual advances if you don't have the hardware to test them with_).
*   Companies and researchers are willing to make increasingly large investments into compute hardware (_at rate greater than Moore's Law)_.
*   Open AI is also working on what we would consider Friendliness (_but seemingly not at the same level of rigour as MIRI_).
# HLAI 2018 Talks

The keynote and general interest talks from [HLAI 2018](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/axsizR4vEX8qtuLpR/hlai-2018-field-report) are available online, along with a few others. Sadly the panel I participated in was not fully recorded, but [there is a short video of an excerpt of it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5al8Mqmxmh0&list=PL9poXcROwgawU2xI_PgCOlvNRVKYOGcRi). If you want to watch just one video I think the most relevant one to folks here will be the [panel discussion on beneficial AI](https://slideslive.com/38910045/panel-discussion-on-beneficial-ai).
# Defining by opposites

In [Taboo your words](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/SGB7Y5WERh4skwtnb/p/WBdvyyHLdxZSAMmoz) Eliezer talks about how confusion occurs when people are using the same word to mean something different. Refusing to use the word in question can help with the discussion. He mainly focusses on philosophical debate but it’s a technique which works in everyday life too.

I came across an example of this. Alex claims that he makes decisions logically. Bob disagrees.

I’m fairly sure they were talking about two different things but I couldn’t think of a way of explaining this quickly enough. I realised afterwards I should have thought about defining their alternative perceptions of “logically” with their opposites.

I think for Alex the opposite would have been “haphazardly” and for Bob the opposite would have been “emotionally”.

“Logically” is loaded up with good karma and I think that this was the main cause of the argument. Alex feels Bob is unfairly robbing him of all the good karma. Bob thinks Alex is unfairly claiming all the good karma. In reality Bob is just trying to stop Alex claiming one bit of good karma (being able to make decisions unemotionally).

Now had Alex and Bob realised this I’m not sure it would have dissolved the disagreement but they would have been arguing about the same thing. If they had figured this out (or I had explained it to them) the argument may have got worse - use the technique with caution.

\*\*\*

Tabooing your words takes effort. I submit a sub-tool to help if you’re in a hurry – try to think of the opposite of what you mean.

This won’t always help. In the classic tree falling in the woods argument I can’t think of opposites for the concept of “sound” which would help. However, in more day-to-day experiences I suspect the richness of language would be more likely to bear fruit.

It is probably most helpful when you have to think fast in conversations where the participants are less likely to be willing to take the time to use the full taboo your words technique.
# LW Update 2018-09-18 – Email Subscriptions for Curated

**Subscribe to Curated via RSS or Email** – We added a system to subscribe to things via email. So far we've only implemented it for the curated feed, but we'll soon be implementing it for other things.

**Private Messages –** We overhauled the PM styling so that it didn't look so janky. Unfortunately, it still doesn't work properly on mobile (I think this was always the case but before it looked awkward enough that you weren't tempted to use it). We have a fix in the works to make mobile work but it's not quite ready yet.

**Styling Refactor Part I complete** – We completed the parts of our styling refactor that were necessary to cleanly restyle the AI Alignment Forum and EA Forum.
# Petrov Day - Los Angeles LW/SSC Meetup #76 (Wednesday, September 26th)

Location: Wine Bar next to the Landmark Theater in the Westside Pavilion (10850 W Pico Blvd #312, Los Angeles, CA 90064).  We will move **upstairs (to the 3rd floor hallway) as soon as we reach capacity**.

Time: 7 pm (September 26th)

Parking: Available in the parking lot for the entire complex.  **The first three (3) hours are free and do not require validation** (the website is unclear and poorly written, but it may be the case that if you validate your ticket and leave before three hours have passed, you will be charged $3)**.  After that, parking is $3 for up to the fifth (5) hour, with validation.**

Contact: The best way to contact me (or anybody else who is attending the meetup) is through our **Discord**.  Feel free to message me (T3t) directly.  Invitation link: [https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN](https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscord.gg%2FTaYjsvN&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGp_tNSuquq0qHTGPUXIO3mz0dTNw)

Topic: Our discussion this week will be about Stanislav Petrov.  Reading: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QtyKq4BDyuJ3tysoK/9-26-is-petrov-day
# Thoughts on tackling blindspots

I went to my first CFAR workshop the other week, and it was quite intense/a lot. The biggest change by far has that I came face to face with some huge blindspots and can see more clearly many of the ways I've been fooling myself, not allowing myself to care about things, and pushing people away. Since blindspots are a proto-typical, "How the fuck are you supposed to find a thing that you aren't capable of finding?" I wanted to share what I think are things that helped me spot some of mine.

This is rough draft mode, and I think I'm going to just settle for bullet points in this pass-through.

> To quote Draco from HPMOR:

> To figure out a strange plot, look at what happens, then ask who benefits

i.e. look at all of the first impression I make of people, and get suspicious that they all add up to "People aren't worth talking to" and be suspicious.

*   Combine that with some [cognitive trope therapy](http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/post/103192100330/cognitive-trope-therapy).
*   One of the first things I got into my head when journeying into rationality was "If it hurts to think about, or feels like a cherished belief that doesn't want to be touched, GO AFTER IT!" This had the effect of most of my problems disguising themselves as things I wasn't interested in. Instead of feeling scared of parties, I would just feel disinterested and bored by the idea of parties.
*   In Val's Design class, being reminded that most of your built/learned mental machinery came into being to try and protect you for something or get something for you. Also being reminded about how you can't just steamroll over your previous machinery. There is a need or want hiding there which unless you address it, the machinery in place that was trying to server that want will fight back.
*   A mental shift from, "Is this plausible/reasonable?" to "Is this true?" when asking examining my rejections of different ideas.
# New DeepMind AI Safety Research Blog

Very excited to announce the new DeepMind Safety Research blog! The [first post](https://medium.com/@deepmindsafetyresearch/building-safe-artificial-intelligence-52f5f75058f1) by Pedro [](https://www.facebook.com/peortega?fref=mentions&hc_location=group) Ortega and Vishal [](https://www.facebook.com/vishalmaini?fref=mentions&hc_location=group) Maini categorizes AI safety problems into specification, robustness and assurance:

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/0*zPLwqHUurc4URtpp)

"In this inaugural post, we discuss three areas of technical AI safety: specification, robustness, and assurance. Future posts will broadly fit within the framework outlined here. While our views will inevitably evolve over time, we feel these three areas cover a sufficiently wide spectrum to provide a useful categorisation for ongoing and future research."
# GreaterWrong—new theme and many enhancements

*(Previous posts: [[1]](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/66DXhQJyPEJNsXgfw/an-alternative-way-to-browse-lesswrong-2-0), [[2]](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/43a8x6g2nKkxHXG4v/greaterwrong-several-new-features-and-enhancements), [[3]](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Se5SybSfdS8owjmHw/greaterwrong-more-new-features-and-enhancements), [[4]](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iGnqqoJhuHasuYA8k/greaterwrong-even-more-new-features-and-enhancements))*

**[GreaterWrong.com](https://www.greaterwrong.com/)** has just added several new features and UI enhancements:

## Modern Less Wrong theme

There is now a **new theme** (bringing the total to **nine** themes to choose from), called “Less”. (This theme is inspired by the design of the new, i.e. current, Less Wrong site.)

Here’s how it looks on a desktop:

![[Screenshot of “Less” theme on a desktop]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/elebe9iuu95hb3a/Screenshot%202018-10-01%2016.41.15.png?dl=0)

And on a phone:

![Screenshot of “Less” theme on a smartphone](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/ga49tfs307nwj7s/Screenshot%202018-10-01%2016.57.49.png?dl=0)

(See the [About page](https://www.greaterwrong.com/about#themes) for how to switch themes.)

## Mobile theme tweaker

The **theme tweaker** feature (which lets you do things like invert colors—instantly creating a “dark mode” version of any theme—as well as adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue) is now **available on mobile devices**.

Open the theme selector (gear button in the lower-left of the screen), and then tap this button:

![Button that opens the theme tweaker](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/3r2lmkw4l0mta6r/Screenshot%202018-10-01%2016.41.58.png?dl=0)

And you’ll see the theme tweaker screen:

![Theme tweaker UI on a smartphone](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/rlfqa86ysw4cmtu/Screenshot%202018-10-01%2016.42.04.png?dl=0)

(See the [About page](https://www.greaterwrong.com/about#appearance-customization) for more on the theme tweaker.)

## Strong vote display

[Strong upvotes and downvotes](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7Sx3CJXA7JHxY2yDG/strong-votes-update-deployed) now display properly on GreaterWrong, in all themes.

![Strong vote styling in the various themes](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/hwzueovswiv7lm5/strong_vote.png?dl=0)

*(Themes, starting from top left and going across by row: default, grey, ultramodern, zero, brutalist, rts, classic, less.)*

## Alignment Forum view

Click the “AF” icon next to any [Alignment Forum](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JiMAMNAb55Qq24nES/announcing-alignmentforum-org-beta) post, and you’ll be taken to a [listing of *all* the Alignment Forum posts](https://www.greaterwrong.com/index?view=alignment-forum).

![Alignment Forum post icon](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/ij53p5hxoud4jw8/Screenshot%202018-10-01%2016.55.35.png?dl=0)
# LW Update 2018-10-01 – Private Messaging Works

Along with various performance updates to improve site-speed, we've finally got a private messaging system that looks reasonable (and now works properly on mobile)

Noteworthy updates:

*   When you send someone a private message (by navigating to their profile page and clicking "send a message") it automatically creates a new conversation with that user.
*   You can click "conversation options" to add new people to the conversation, or give it a custom title.

There are still some obvious improvements to make (such as making it easier to message a post author from a post rather than having to navigate to their profile), but the system should be basically usable now.
# Separate comments feeds for different post listings views?

*(Inspired by discussions like [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RS7jX7e8Bhbcr2dHM/what-the-haters-hate/comment/6e79kZqd7RZhsPQGk), but also a thing that I’ve thought for a while would be a good idea.)*

Currently, there’s a single “recent comments” feed, which includes comments posted to *any* post—frontpage, Meta, personal blogs, Alignment Forum… even drafts! (The last of which, I assume, is merely a bug.)

It would be cool if there were multiple comments feeds, one for each view, viz.:

1. Recent comments on all posts
2. Recent comments on frontpage posts only
3. Recent comments on Alignment Forum posts only
4. Recent comments on Meta posts

It’s probably a lot of work for you guys to implement a UI for this, so I can totally understand it not being priority, but would it be possible to implement this feature in the backend and expose it in the API?
# You're never wrong injecting complexity, but rarely you're right

_I just want to put this idea in the form of a post, to gather your impressions. I think it's my main rationalist failure mode._

Recently in a Facebook group, some poster has proposed this synthesis of Harari's book '21 lessons':

> In the 21st century, three narratives were used to explain the past and predict the future: the fascist, the communist and the liberal narrative. During the century, the latter has prevailed, although in recent times it has started to crack, due to events like the election of Trump, the Brexit, and so on.

Then, the same user asked: what could be a new narrative that would help us in the future?

I was tempted to reply as I always do: criticize the simplification. I was about to write that the concept of narrative itself is a narrative, that Harari is seeing the past with the eyes of the present, but not necessarily this lens will help with navigating the future, that also a better concept would be that of a memeplex, which is less internally coherent than a story, and thus more complex to pinpoint.

Then a reflection occured to me: I always end up doing this, in almost all discussions I partecipate. People simplify too much and come to the wrong conclusion, they consider only the extremes of a spectrum, they use words as rigid classifiers and debate endlessly about them, they do not have internally coherent point of views, etc. I almost invariable end up 'winning' (i.e. appear wise) by injecting some complexity: usually in the form of a new parameter that was buried in the presuppositions.

Then, I was struck by another insight: it is too easy to win this way. From a mathematical point of view, a system with a bigger state space is more flexible than a smaller system, and so an 'optimization' that increases the space state is always correct. Is that possible? How probable it is that I've discovered a universal optimization of every human debate? I reasoned that it's very low, and indeed I think I've always failed to consider the downside: a more complex system is more difficult to use. When I add a parameter to the problem space, I'm multiplying the costs to use said idea in practice.

A classic example: was Martin Luther King a criminal? Some argue from the letter of the law, some argue from a moral point of view. If I 'win' the debate by injecting the concept of 'moral inertia' (speed at which a legal system reacts to an evolving moral landscape), then I implicitly add a parameter to every closed case, that could be potentially re-examined.

So I've decided I will refrain to add complexity, to formally but sterilely win debates, unless I have also a good 'reduction', that forgets some complexity in favor of being more useful. Doing so however is not trivial, it adds real work: this is due to the fallacy of gray, the fact that there are shades of gray doesn't mean that perfect middle gray is the correct answer.
# Epistemic Spot Check: The Dorito Effect (Mark Schatzker)

[Epistemic Spot Checks](https://acesounderglass.com/tag/epistemicspotcheck/) is a series in which I fact check claims a book makes, to determine its trustworthiness. It is not a book review or a check on every claim the book makes, merely a spot check of what I find particularly interesting or important (or already know).

Today’s subject is [_The Dorito Effect_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476724237/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=acesoundergla-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1476724237&linkId=37a602a376797299df969730f5baac91), which claims that Americans are getting fat because food is simultaneously getting blander and less nutritious, and then more intensely flavored through artificial means. This is leaving people fat and yet malnourished.

Claims
======

_Claim: Humans did not get fatter over the last 100 years due to changes in genetics.  
_**True**. People are fatter than their ancestors, indicating it’s not a change in genetics (although genetics still plays a role in an individual’s weight).

_Claim: Casimir Funk discovered that an extract of brown rice could cure beriberi in chickens.  
_**[True](http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/vitaminB1/vitaminb1h.htm).**

_Claim: In 1932, the average farm produced 63 sacks of potatoes/acre. By the mid 1960s, it was 200 sacks/acre.  
_**True.**

![](https://acesounderglass.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/kcalgraph.png?w=350&h=196)  
([source](http://mathscinotes.com/2017/01/calorie-per-acre-improvements-in-staple-crops-over-time/)).

_Claim: Everything is getting blander and more seasoned.  
_[More seasoned](http://eot.us.archive.org/eot/20170216073312/https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/nutrient_content_of_the_us_food_supply/FoodSupply1909-2000.pdf).  
[Blander food](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168952512002077).  
Note that both sources were provided by the book itself.

_Claim_: “_We eat for one reason: because we love the way food tastes. Flavor is the original craving”.  
_This doesn’t jive with my personal experience. I definitely crave nutrients and am satisfied by them even without tasting them.

_Claim: “In 1946 and 1947, regional Chicken Of Tomorrow contests were held.”  
_**[True.](https://modernfarmer.com/2014/05/today-eating-winners-1948-chicken-tomorrow-contest/)**

_Claim_: _Over time the Chicken Of Tomorrow winners consistently weighed more, with less feed and less time to maturity.  
_[**True.**](https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/u-s-broiler-performance/)

_Claim: Produce is getting less nutritious over time.  
_**[True](https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00070709710181540) **(source provided by author).

Conclusions
===========

Extremely trustworthy, and therefore worrisome, given the implication that food is becoming inexorably worse. _Dorito Effect_ is unfortunately light on solutions, so you might just freak yourself out to no purpose. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a kick to start eating better, this could easily be it.
# Tabletop Game Night

This is a tabletop game night for the Vancouver rationality and effective altruism communities! Feel free to bring your own board, tile, or card games to play, but we'll have plenty here!  

Feel free to bring plus-ones/friends! They don't have to be part of the community, but please RSVP.  

Feel free to bring snacks to share, or money to go in on a pizza/sushi platter/whatever. BYOB, if you're so inclined.
# Moloch in whom I sit alone

I went to a party. Arriving guests got stickers: cats and pineapples. Pineapples would have to talk in a big group, cats would be pairs and trios. Everyone knew the cats had it better.

I got there before the game. When the fifth person came, I broke off and sat alone. He sat with me. More people wandered over, and soon we were six, seven, eight.

We talked about how small groups are better, and laughed at our big group. But what can you do? It’s hard to invite your preoccupied neighbor to more intimacy with an audience of seven.

I got up and stood alone on the other side of the room. A friend followed. Success. But normally I wouldn’t have walked. And normally he wouldn’t have followed. Our group grew. Three, four, five..

The game began. I was a cat. It was good. What is basically going on in the world? What are different people’s experiences like? What do I get out of knowing this? What is romance? What romantic advice does one give a radically inexperienced person? How good was my previous five year romance with my conversation partner? Is it better to love or to be loved, if you have to pick only one, forever? How does one escalate conversational intimacy? Should one do that, or just jump in?

The game ended. How would we decide which was best? Each of us only saw one side. Oh well. A show of hands. Repartee. Almost everybody likes small groups. Nobody’s mind was changed by tonight. Perhaps this large group wasn’t up to scratch.

For a magical moment, this largest group of all—a space of circles, paused and opened up, calling out to each other—was a kind of good that I hadn’t seen below.

We collapsed back into party. I talked to a friend next to me. What is fun like? She told me. That was surprising. What is love like? Our group grew out to block the doorway. I had some work to do, so I took a walk.

I came back to two giant circles. Exclamation. I sat alone. Eventually a friend sat down. What is fun like? The same as for the other friend. Interesting. Our group grew. Two, three, four. Six.

I crossed the room and sat alone. A friend joined me. The room joined us.

Was this really what nobody wanted?
# Upcoming API changes: Upgrading to Open-CRUD syntax

_This post will only really be relevant to people who are using our API, so the vast majority of people can skip this._

We are about to update our API to the closest what graphQL currently has to an industry standard. Starting tomorrow morning (PST), you will be able to find the new API at `lessestwrong.com/graphql` for a few days, until we upgrade the main site (probably either on Friday, or on Monday). There is also a documentation for the changes, written by the guy who maintains one of the frameworks we are using (Vulcan), that you can find [here](https://medium.com/@sachagreif/vulcan-js-1-12-a-better-graphql-api-for-crud-operations-fae82e03a7e9).

Sorry for the inconvenience, but it will definitely make the API a lot easier to use in the long-run.
# Anders Sandberg: "How to Shape the Future Sensibly"

Anders Sandberg will give a talk at Google's Campus Madrid on October 18 about far-future concerns and existential risks:

> The number of people alive today pales in comparison to the number who could exist in the future. It may therefore be extremely important to ensure that human civilization flourishes far into the future, enjoying fulfilling lives free of suffering.

> Join Anders Sandberg in exploring the grand futures that could await us, the risks that could derail our trajectory and what we can do to address those risks and shape the future sensibly.

> Anders’ research at the Future of Humanity Institute centres on management of low-probability high-impact risks, estimating the capabilities of future technologies, and very long-range futures.

**Registration is mandatory**, and there is limited seating. Please register [here](https://www.eventbrite.es/e/entradas-anders-sandberg-how-to-shape-the-future-sensibly-50902713386).

This event is organized by Altruismo Eficaz España (EA Spain).
# [link] "Paper strips" memory technique

I was skimming reddit and someone named Yakari posted in response to “what are your best studying techniques?” They described a studying method where they overlay strips of paper vertically on top of their notes as they study them, periodically adding more strips to obscure more and more of the notes.

I haven’t tried it but it seems pretty genius — I expect it would be effective and easy  
to implement, and I hadn’t heard of it before so figured you folks might not have either.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9lskg2/serious\_straight\_a\_students\_of\_reddit\_what_is/e799ia2/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9lskg2/serious_straight_a_students_of_reddit_what_is/e799ia2/)
# Thinking of the days that are no more

In [a previous post](http://thinkingcomplete.blogspot.co.nz/2017/11/book-review-happiness-by-design.html), I talked about some of the biases which skew the evaluations of our memories carried out by our "remembering selves". One domain in which these biases are particularly prevalent is romantic relationships. The most emotionally charged period of a relationship is usually the acrimony which accompanies its demise; the peak-end effect ensures that this negative affect is one of the main things we remember. Then there's duration neglect: our memories discount long periods of uneventful happiness compared with sudden changes. There's also a great deal of cognitive dissonance involved in reflecting on past relationships: we don't want to think that we were the reason a happy relationship failed, so it's easiest to conclude that it probably wasn't happy, and that this unhappiness was the other person's fault!  
  

Lastly, there's a comparison effect, where we constantly hold in our minds certain ideals to which past relationships haven't measured up - in particular, the ideal of a lifelong commitment. There are certainly many practical reasons to favour long-term romantic commitments, for example the ability to raise children in a more stable environment. However, I think it is a mistake to view relationships as successful if they last "until death do us part", and unsuccessful if they don't (a mistake whose prevalence is due in no small part to the biases I described above). Rather, relationships can be positive experiences in the same way that holidays are: fun while they last, and memorable afterwards, without any need for expectations of permanence.  
  
Of course there are many reasons to want a permanent relationship - to spend the rest of your life committed to another person. For a majority of people (probably including myself), those considerations will be overwhelming. But I'd be surprised if there were not plenty of people more suited to a series of medium-term relationships, each lasting perhaps half a dozen or a dozen years. Given the heights that divorce rates have soared to, it seems like many are already ending up in this scenario accidentally.  
  
You might object that almost everyone *could* manage long-term relationships - because almost everyone managed it "back in the good old days" - and it's just modern life which is giving people shorter attention spans. Perhaps that is true. But under the heading of "modern life" we must include a variety of genies which we can't and shouldn't put back in their bottles - women's empowerment, longer lifespans, no-fault divorce, increasing secularism, even the rise of film and TV. Besides, we're going to have to adapt eventually: if and when technology extends the typical healthy lifespan to two hundred years or more, I'm very confident that new forms of marriage will arise to replace the current expectation of lifelong commitment. So why not anticipate them now?  
  
  
(Note: since this post is based more on anecdotal data than hard evidence, I'd be very interested to know whether your experiences match my claims.)
# Open Source Issue Roundup

There are a few particular items in our Github issue tracker, that I thought would make for good first issues for people who haven't coded for LessWrong yet (or have only done so a bit).

(In general, you can find recommended issues by [filtering by the "good first issue" tag](https://github.com/LessWrong2/Lesswrong2/labels/00.%20Good%20First%20Issue))

*   [Sharing a draft with someone should cause that post to appear in their drafts](https://github.com/LessWrong2/Lesswrong2/issues/1028) (on their user profile)
*   [Downvoted posts should still appear on the author's Profile page](https://github.com/LessWrong2/Lesswrong2/issues/973)
*   [Messaging a person shouldn't create a new conversation if you already have an untitled conversation with that person](https://github.com/LessWrong2/Lesswrong2/issues/1043) (this may be slightly trickier as a first-issue but still pretty manageable)
# Differential Progress and a Personal Commitment

![](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/485048987598979074/498486590948245504/Screenshot_20181007-140526.png)  

Regarding the problem of differential progress in AI capability research vs AI Alignment research.  

I intend to work in Artificial Intelligence, but I would want to pursue capability research over alignment research, and due to the nature of incentives in the two fields so would most people. This means that safety research would lag behind capability research which is a lose lose situation for everyone as expecting the people who first develop Human Level Machine Intelligence (HLMI) to hold off on deployment until safety research catches up is optimistic at best and outright naive at worst.  

To do my own part in mitigating this problem, I've decided to commit to donate 10% of my income towards AI Safety, and if I decide to work full time in Safety I would reduce this to 5%, whereas if I instead choose to pursue capability research I would increase this to 20% (modulo acceptable standard of living and quality of life). This incentivises me to contribute to Safety research (or at least not worsen the problem), and if I do end up exacerbating the problem, I'll pay for it accordingly.  

This is my own personal solution, and I make no claim that others should do something similar (even though I would prefer that they do). I'm currently personally poor (I don't work and have an allowance of around $50+ a month (PayPal didn't let me donate cents, or at least I didn't see how to), but I'm dependent on my parents so I have an acceptable standard of living and quality of life). It is more important to me that I donate at all to AI Safety research, than that I donate to the most effective AI Safety research organisation, and to prevent myself from procastinating under the guise of finding the most effective organisation, I just decided to donate to MIRI. Making this commitment public is so that I'm less likely to weasel out of it, so I should be creating these posts around once a month, and if 60 days go by without me creating a post about my donation towards AI Safety, feel free to send me a friendly reminder. ;)
# On insecurity as a friend

There’s a common narrative about confidence that says that confidence is good, insecurity is bad. It’s better to develop your confidence than to be insecure. There’s an obvious truth to this.

But what that narrative does not acknowledge, and what both a person struggling with insecurity and their well-meaning friends might miss, is that that insecurity may be in place for a reason.

You might not notice it online, but I’ve usually been pretty timid and insecure in real life. But this wasn’t _always_ the case. There were occasions earlier in my life when I was less insecure, more confident in myself.

I was also pretty horrible at things like reading social nuance and figuring out when and why someone might be offended. So I was given, repeatedly, the feedback that my behavior was bad and inappropriate.

Eventually a part of me internalized that as “I’m very likely to accidentally offend the people around me, so I should be very cautious about what I say, ideally saying nothing at all”.

This was, I think, the _correct_ lesson to internalize at that point! It shifted me more into an observer mode, allowing me to just watch social situations and learn more about their dynamics that way. I still don’t think that I’m _great_ at reading social nuance, but I’m at least better at it than I used to be.

And there have been times since then when I’ve decided that I should act with more confidence, and just get rid of the part that generates the insecurity. I’ve been about to do something, felt a sense of insecurity, and walked over the feeling and done the thing anyway.

Sometimes this has had good results. But often it has also led to things blowing up in my face, with me inadvertently hurting someone and leaving me feeling guilty for months afterwards.

Turns out, that feeling of insecurity wasn’t a purely bad thing. It was throwing up important alarms which I chose to ignore, alarms which were sounding because it recognized my behavior as matching previous behavior which had had poor consequences.

Yes, on many occasions that part of me makes me way _too_ cautious. And it would be good to moderate that caution a little. But the same part which generates the feelings of insecurity is the same part which is constantly working to model other people and their experience, their reactions to me. The part that is doing its hardest to make other people feel safe and comfortable around me, to avoid doing things that would make them feel needlessly hurt or upset or unsafe, and to actively let them know that I’m doing this.

Just carving out that part would be a mistake. A moral wrong, even.

The answer is not to get rid of it. The answer is to integrate its cautions better, to keep it with me as a trusted friend and ally – one which feels safe enough about getting its warnings listened to, that it will not scream all the time just to be heard.