Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Facing the Intelligence Explosion discussion page

I've created a new website for my ebook _[Facing the Intelligence Explosion](http://intelligenceexplosion.com/)_:

> Sometime this century, machines will surpass human levels of intelligence and ability, and the human era will be over. This will be the most important event in Earth’s history, and navigating it wisely may be the most important thing we can ever do.
> 
> Luminaries from [Alan Turing](http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Turing-Intelligent-Machinery-a-heretical-theory.pdf) and [Jack Good](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity#Intelligence_explosion) to [Bill Joy](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html) and [Stephen Hawking](http://www.zdnet.com/news/stephen-hawking-humans-will-fall-behind-ai/116616) have warned us about this. Why do I think they’re right, and what can we do about it?
> 
> _Facing the Intelligence Explosion_ is my attempt to answer those questions.

This page is the dedicated discussion page for _Facing the Intelligence Explosion_.

If you'd like to comment on a particular chapter, please give the chapter name at top of your comment so that others can more easily understand your comment. For example:

> Re: [From Skepticism to Technical Rationality](http://intelligenceexplosion.com/2011/from-skepticism-to-technical-rationality/)
> 
> Here, Luke neglects to mention that...
# Welcome to LessWrong (For highschoolers)

As a continuation of the original [Welcome thread](/lw/2ku/welcome_to_less_wrong_2010/) (if you haven't gone there, go there fist) I think we need a separate introduction thread for highschoolers. 

**Who:** As a demographic, I think that we can probably be characterized by:

1\. Our newness to LW.  
2\. Our uncertainty about which college or career to choose.  
3\. (if we are in a public school) Looking for ways to game the system (because we're not learning much in it).  
4\. Our potential to make a huge impact (the best advantage is an early start).  
5\. An lack of face to face interaction with intellectual people.   
  
**Why:** I can think of several things this could help highschoolers with.   
  
1\. See where you stack up compared to others your age (We're probably all big fish in small ponds. At least I am. Let's get an idea of what the big pond is like).   
2\. Make friends with people like you.   
3\. Consider college and career ideas you hadn't considered before.   
4\. Perhaps find people to apply with for the [Thiel Fellowship](http://thielfoundation.org).  
5\. Find a [chavruta](/lw/6j1/find_yourself_a_worthy_opponent_a_chavruta/) to go through the sequences with you.

**What:** Tell us the following:

1\. How old/what year are you?  
2\. How have you tried to enhance your education beyond what's normally offered at schools?  
3\. How many rationalist/philosophical people are at your school/family?   
4\. What careers/schools are you considering?  
5\. Are you going to apply for a Thiel Fellowship?  
6\. EDIT: link to your old "introduce yourself" post.   
  
If you're not in highschool, tell us what you would have told your old highschool self.
# [LINK] Scientists create mammalian H5N1

I'm woefully underinformed on this topic, but [this](http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/11/scientists-brace-for-media-storm.html) doesn't seem good at all:

> **ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS**—Locked up in the bowels of the medical faculty building here and accessible to only a handful of scientists lies a man-made flu virus that could change world history if it were ever set free.
> 
> The virus is an H5N1 avian influenza strain that has been genetically altered and is now easily transmissible between ferrets, the animals that most closely mimic the human response to flu. Scientists believe it's likely that the pathogen, if it emerged in nature or were released, would trigger an influenza pandemic, quite possibly with many millions of deaths.
> 
> In a 17th floor office in the same building, virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center calmly explains why his team created what he says is "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make"—and why he wants to publish a paper describing how they did it. Fouchier is also bracing for a media storm. After he talked to_Science_Insider yesterday, he had an appointment with an institutional press officer to chart a communication strategy.
> 
> Fouchier's paper is one of two studies that have triggered an intense debate about the limits of scientific freedom and that could portend changes in the way U.S. researchers handle so-called dual-use research: studies that have a potential public health benefit but could also be useful for nefarious purposes like biowarfare or bioterrorism.
> 
> The other study—also on H5N1, and with comparable results—was done by a team led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of Tokyo, several scientists told_Science_Insider. (Kawaoka did not respond to interview requests.) Both studies have been submitted for publication, and both are currently under review by the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which on a few previous occasions has been asked by scientists or journals to review papers that caused worries.
> 
> NSABB chair Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist, says he cannot discuss specific studies but confirms that the board has "worked very hard and very intensely for several weeks on studies about H5N1 transmissibility in mammals." The group plans to issue a public statement soon, says Keim, and is likely to issue additional recommendations about this type of research. "We'll have a lot to say," he says

I feel as though I ought provide more commentary instead of just an article dump, but I feel more strongly than that that what I have to say would be obvious or stupid or both, so.
# Meta-reading recommendations

Despite a glut of reading recommendation engines, I still find that I rely on personal recommendations for 90% of the books that I read. Given that, I thought it might be useful to try to compile a list of prolific recommenders - people who provide a large number of reliable book recommendations.

I'll start off with the two obvious ones, [Tyler Cowen](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/category/books) and [Cosma Shalizi](http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notabene/). The LW/OB group of Eliezer, Robin Hanson, and Michael Vassar also provide useful recommendations (though much less frequently).

Who else can reliably recommend a good book?
# Log-odds (or logits)

(I wrote this post for my own blog, and given the warm reception, I figured it would also be suitable for the LW audience. It contains some nicely formatted equations/tables in LaTeX, hence I've left it as a dropbox download.)

Logarithmic probabilities have appeared previously on LW [here](/lw/mp/0_and_1_are_not_probabilities/), [here](/lw/jn/how_much_evidence_does_it_take/), and sporadically in the comments. The first is a link to a Eliezer post which covers essentially the same material. I believe this is a better introduction/description/guide to logarithmic probabilities than anything else that's appeared on LW thus far.

Introduction:

Our conventional way of expressing probabilities has always frustrated me. For example, it is very easy to say nonsensical statements like, “110% chance of working”. Or, it is not obvious that the difference between 50% and 50.01% is trivial compared to the difference between 99.98% and 99.99%. It also fails to accommodate the math correctly when we want to say things like, “five times more likely”, because 50% * 5 overflows 100%.  
Jacob and I have (re)discovered a mapping from probabilities to log- odds which addresses all of these issues. To boot, it accommodates Bayes’ theorem beautifully. For something so simple and fundamental, it certainly took a great deal of google searching/wikipedia surfing to discover that they are actually called “log-odds”, and that they were “discovered” in 1944, instead of the 1600s. Also, nobody seems to use log-odds, even though they are conceptually powerful. Thus, this primer serves to explain why we need log-odds, what they are, how to use them, and when to use them.

[Article is here (Updated 11/30 to use base 10)  
](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34547557/log-probability.pdf)
# Large scale problems, cognitive biases, and existential risk

There's [a recent paper](http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-ofp-shepherd.pdf)(PDF) which finds that people who don't know much about a problem are more inclined to not find out more about that problem. Moreover, the larger scale and more complex a problem looked like, the more likely people were to try to avoid learning more about it, and the more likely they were to trust that pre-existing institutions such as the government could handle the problem. This looks like a potentially interesting form of cognitive bias. It may also explain why people are so unwilling to look at existential risk. There's essentially no issue that occurs on a larger scale than existential risk. This suggests that in trying to get people to understand existential risk, it may make sense to first address the easier to understand existential risks like large asteroids.
# [POLL] LessWrong group on YourMorals.org

Here's the news article on this: [http://www.yourmorals.org/blog/2011/11/how-to-use-groups-at-yourmorals-org/](http://www.yourmorals.org/blog/2011/11/how-to-use-groups-at-yourmorals-org/)

And here's the group that the LW community just created: [http://www.yourmorals.org/setgraphgroup.php?grp=623d5410f705f6a1f92c83565a3cfffc](http://www.yourmorals.org/setgraphgroup.php?grp=623d5410f705f6a1f92c83565a3cfffc)

I think it will be very interesting to see what we can all get on this.
# [Link]: GiveWell is aiming to have a new #1 charity by December 

GiveWell, LessWrong's most cited organization for optimal philanthropy, is currently re-evaluating its charity rankings with the goal of naming a new #1 charity by December 2011. Essentially, VillageReach (the current top charity) has met all of its short-term funding needs, to the point where it no longer has the greatest marginal return.

> Our current top-rated charity is [VillageReach.](http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/villagereach) In 2010, we [directed](http://www.givewell.org/about/impact) over $1.1 million to it, which met its short-term funding needs (i.e., its needs for the next year or so).

> VillageReach still has longer-term needs, and in the absence of other giving opportunities that we consider comparable, we’ve continued to feature it as #1 on our website. However, we’ve also [been focusing most of our effort this year](http://blog.givewell.org/2011/02/14/givewells-plan-for-2011-top-level-priorities/) on identifying and investigating other potential top-rated charities, with the hope that we can refocus attention on an organization with shorter-term needs this December. (In general, [the vast bulk of our impact on donations comes in December](http://www.givewell.org/about/impact).) We believe that we will be able to do so. **We don’t believe we’ll be able to recommend a giving opportunity as good as giving to VillageReach was last year, but given VillageReach’s lack of short-term (1-year) room for more funding, we do expect to have a different top recommendation by this December**.

EDIT: The [new charities](http://blog.givewell.org/2011/11/29/top-charities-for-holiday-season-2011-against-malaria-foundation-and-schistosomiasis-control-initiative/) are up! They are the Against Malaria Foundation and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative.
# All free Stanford classes, continually updated

\[The Stanford-class.org scheme seems to be adding new courses every few days. Instead of a new post each time a new class is added, I commit to keeping this post stocked with links to all current course offerings until at least January 2012.\]

_Complex Systems_

[Model Thinking](http://www.modelthinker-class.org/)

_Electrical Engineering_

[Information Theory](http://www.infotheory-class.org/)

_Civil Engineering_

[Making Green Buildings](http://www.greenbuilding-class.org/)

_Medicine_

[Anatomy](http://www.anatomy-class.org/)

\[Cancelled\] _<del>Entrepreneurship</del>_

<del>The Lean Launchpad</del>

<del>Technology Entrepreneurship</del>

_Computer Science_

[Computer Science 101](http://www.cs101-class.org/)

[Software as a Service](http://www.saas-class.org/)

[Human-Computer Interfaces](http://www.hci-class.org/)

[Natural Language Processing](http://www.nlp-class.org/)

[Game Theory](http://www.game-theory-class.org/)

[Probabilistic Graphical Models](http://www.pgm-class.org/)

[Machine Learning](http://jan2012.ml-class.org/)

[Cryptography](http://www.crypto-class.org/)

[Design and Analysis of Algorithms](http://www.algo-class.org/)

[Computer Security](http://www.security-class.org/)

\[Ran Sept-Dec\] [Machine Learning](http://www.ml-class.org)

\[Ran Sept-Dec\] [Introduction to Artificial Intelligence](https://www.ai-class.com/)

\[Ran Sept-Dec\] [Introduction to Databases](http://www.db-class.org/)
# [LINKS] New GiveWell Top Charities

As of [today](http://blog.givewell.org/2011/11/29/top-charities-for-holiday-season-2011-against-malaria-foundation-and-schistosomiasis-control-initiative/), GiveWell has two new [top charities](http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities):

1\. [Against Malaria Foundation](http://givewell.org/international/top-charities/AMF)

2\. [Schistosomiastis Control Initiative](http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/schistosomiasis-control-initiative)

Their previous top charity, [Village Reach](http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/villagereach), no longer has much [room for more funding](http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/criteria/scalability).  Which is a good thing: partly through givewell's influence they now have as much money as they can put to good use.
# What I think about you

> So, having heard Mike Li compare Jaynes to a thousand-year-old vampire, one question immediately popped into my mind:
> 
> "Do you get the same sense off me?" I asked.
> 
> \-\- Eliezer Yudkowsky, [The Level Above Mine](/lw/ua/the_level_above_mine/)

Most people need feedback in many areas. Most people can give feedback in many areas. But for some reason I don't see a lot of actual honest feedback happening, neither in my personal life, nor at work, nor here on LW. This looks like some sort of market failure, or perhaps a bug in society.

Would we benefit from a norm that encouraged asking for feedback or critique in any area, perhaps using open threads set up specially for that? I think we would. What do you think?
# Anti-Akrasia Tactics Discussion

You should probably read the [Anti-Akrasia Tactics Review](/lw/1sm/akrasia_tactics_review), if you haven't already. There's lots of useful stuff there, and if it works for you but you haven't read it...

You should totally go read it, implement it, and not come back to this thread until you've internalized your favorite tricks.

Feel free to discuss outcomes here.

Did anything work for you?

Is there anything that should be added?

Note: this is basically a "bump", but I suspect that it's a worthwhile reminder. Downvote me if I'm wrong.

P.S. I'd actually really enjoy feedback on this.
# Life Extension versus Replacement

Has anyone here ever addressed the question of why we should prefer

(1) Life Extension: Extend the life of an existing person 100 years  
to  
(2) Replacement: Create a new person who will live for 100 years?

  
I've seen some discussion of how the utility of potential people fits into a utilitarian calculus. Eliezer [has raised the Repugnant Conclusion](/lw/17h/the_lifespan_dilemma/), in which 1,000,000 people who each have 1 util is preferable to 1,000 people who each have 100 utils. He rejected it, he said, because he's an average utilitarian.

Fine. But in my thought experiment, average utility remains unchanged. So an average utilitarian should be indifferent between Life Extension and Replacement, right? Or is the harm done by depriving an existing person of life greater in magnitude than the benefit of creating a new life of equivalent utility? If so, why?

Or is the transhumanist indifferent between Life Extension and Replacement, but feels that his efforts towards radical life extension have a much greater expected value than trying to increase the birth rate?

_(EDITED to make the thought experiment cleaner. Originally the options were: (1) Life Extension: Extend the life of an existing person for 800 years, and (2) Replacement: Create 10 new people who will each live for 80 years. But that version didn't maintain equal average utility.)_

  
*Optional addendum: Gustaf Arrhenius is a philosopher who has written a lot about this subject; I found him via [this comment](/lw/17h/the_lifespan_dilemma/4jm6) by utilitymonster. Here's his 2008 paper, "[Life Extension versus Replacement](http://people.su.se/~guarr/Texter/Life%20Extension%20versus%20Replacement%20in%20JAP.pdf)," which explores an amendment to utilitarianism that would allow us to prefer Life Extension. Essentially, we begin by comparing potential outcomes according to overall utility, as usual, but we then penalize outcomes if they make any existing people worse off.

So even though the overall utility of Life Extension is the same as Replacement, the latter is worse, because the existing person is worse off than he would have been in Life Extension. By contrast, the potential new person is not worse off in Life Extension, because in that scenario he doesn't exist, and non-existent people can't be harmed. Arrhenius goes through a whole list of problems with this moral theory, however, and by the end of the paper we aren't left with anything workable that would prioritize Life Extension over Replacement.
# The Sword of Good: I need some help to translate it

I am currently translating Eliezer's ["The Sword of Good"](http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/the-sword-of-good) in French, and hit a rather thorny problem:

How do I translate the words _Equilibrium_ and _Balance_, given that both words are present in this fiction?

Those two words are rather synonymous, and I can find but one French translation: _équilibre_. I need a second one, which would convey about the same ideas and sound as solemn as "equilibrium". Or some trick…

For the majority of you who don't speak French, other English words that could have replaced either "equilibrium" and "balance" may also give me valuable cues.

(By the way, translation work is way harder that I anticipated. It strains my mastery of _both_ English and French way beyond what I'm used to.)

Second question, of less importance: which translation do you think suits _The Lord of Dark_ best? "Le Seigneur de la Noirceur" ? Or "Le Seigneur des Ténèbres"? Or even something else?
# [LINK] Extra Credits: The Singularity 

The show _Extra Credits_ released a video today about the singularity. The show's audience is video gamers. Some of these gamers may not know about the singularity, but may become interested upon hearing about it.

The video itself is a very basic, non-technical introduction to the concept of intelligence explosion. It discusses it in the context of video games. At the end, they plug the SIAI as a place to go for more info.

I thought the video and the plug were pretty awesome, and wanted to share. If you think they're awesome, too, then take a second to give the video a view. Let's positively reinforce this kind of behavior. Here's the link:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-singularity
# Announcing the Quantified Health Prize

We are giving away a $5000 prize for well-researched, well-reasoned presentations that answer the **following question**:

**What are the best recommendations for what quantities adults (ages 20-60) should take the important dietary minerals in, and what are the costs and benefits of various amounts**? 

Part of the question is figuring out which ones are important. You may exclude any minerals for which an otherwise reasonable diet will always fall into the right range, or any minerals whose effects are relatively trivial. 

If you have an excellent entry, even if you don’t win the grand prize, you can still win one of four additional cash prizes, you’ll be under consideration for a job as a researcher with our company Personalized Medicine, and you’ll get a leg up in the larger contest we plan to run after this one. You also get to help people get better nutrition and stay healthier. 

Proposal:

Most of us spend a good portion of our time and money trying to figure out what would be best for our health, and then trying to implement those findings. We ask ourselves how to eat, how to exercise, what drugs and supplements to take and what treatments to seek, but everywhere we turn we find different opinions. Even if one reads the primary research, one finds studies riddled with problems. Most studies have an agenda to sell a product or prove a pet theory. They are then filtered by publication bias.  When results are presented, many authors use framing to steer us to the conclusions they want us to draw.

We can and must do better.

We hereby challenge this community to do better.  We're always saying how great and effective rationality is. This is our chance to prove it, and  [put those skills to the test](/lw/2s/3_levels_of_rationality_verification/). These problems badly need proper application of Less Wrong's favorite techniques, from Bayes' Theorem itself to the correction of a whole host of cognitive biases.

This contest is also a pilot for a larger contest; before we go and put a lot more money on the line and ask more questions, we want a chance to work the kinks out. 

Entries are due by the end of day on January 15, 2012. This is a change of the original deadline, but it will not change again and it will be strictly enforced.

Final judgment will be made by Personalized Medicine’s Chief Science Officer, based on finalists chosen by our expert reviewers. If necessary, Peer Review will first be used to reduce the number of entries to a manageable size. 

The contest page can be found  [here](http://www.medicineispersonal.com/contest/home "Contest Main Page"), and the FAQ can be found  [here](http://www.medicineispersonal.com/contest/faq "Contest FAQ").
# Scooby Doo and Secular Humanism [link]

[A great column by Chris Sims at the Comics Alliance](http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/11/25/ask-chris-81-scooby-doo-and-secular-humanism).

Excerpt:

> Because that's the thing about Scooby-Doo: **The bad guys in every episode aren't monsters, they're _liars_**.  
>   
> I can't imagine how scandalized those critics who were relieved to have something that was mild enough to not excite their kids would've been if they'd stopped for a second and realized what was actually going on. The very first rule of _Scooby-Doo_, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of grown-ups who lie to kids, and that it's up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being. And the way that you win isn't through supernatural powers, or even through fighting. The way that you win is by doing the most dangerous thing that any person being lied to by someone in power can do: You _think_.

Tim Minchin fans may recall him mentioning Scooby Doo in a similar light in his beat poem Storm, and it's been [brought up](/lw/3m/rationalist_fiction/2mb) on Less Wrong before.

When viewed in this light, Scooby Doo really is like an elementary version of Methods of Rationality.
# K-complexity of everyday things

What can we say about the K-complexity of a non-random string from our universe, e.g. the text of Finnegans Wake? It contains lots of patterns making it easy to compress using a regular archiver, but can we do much better than that?

On one hand, the laws of physics in our universe seem to be simple, and generating the text is just a matter of generating our universe then pointing to the text. On the other hand, our evolution involved a lot of quantum randomness, so pointing to humans within the universe could require a whole lot of additional bits above and beyond the laws of physics. So does anyone have good arguments whether the K-complexity of Finnegans Wake is closer to 10% or 0.1% of its length?
# [LINK] How a Computer Game is Reinventing the Science of Expertise 

[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/01/how-a-computer-game-is-reinventing-the-science-of-expertise-video/](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/01/how-a-computer-game-is-reinventing-the-science-of-expertise-video/)

> For decades, a different game, chess, has held the exalted position of “the drosophila of cognitive science”—the model organism that scientists could poke and prod to learn what makes experts better than the rest of us. **StarCraft 2, however, might be emerging as the rhesus macaque: its added complexity may confound researchers initially, but the answers could ultimately be more telling.**

  

> **“I can’t think of a cognitive process that’s not involved in StarCraft,” says Mark Blair, a cognitive scientist at Simon Fraser University. “It’s working memory. It’s decision making. It involves very precise motor skills. Everything is important and everything needs to work together.”**

  

> Blair, the Simon Fraser University scientist running the SkillCraft project, asked gamers at all ability levels to submit their replay files. He and his colleagues collected more than 4500 files, of which at least 3500 turned out to usable. “**What we’ve got is a satellite view of expertise that no one was able to get before,” he says. “We have hundreds of players at the basic levels, then hundreds more at level slightly better, and so on, in 8 different categories of players.” By comparing the techniques and attributes of low-level players with other gamers up the chain of ability, they can start to discern how skills develop—and perhaps, over the long run, identify the most efficient training regimen.**

  

> Both Blair and Lewis see parallels between the game and emergency management systems. In a high-stress crisis situation, the people in charge of coordinating a response may find themselves facing competing demands. Alarms might be alerting them to a fire burning in one part of town, a riot breaking out a few streets over, and the contamination of drinking water elsewhere. The mental task of keeping cool and distributing attention among equally urgent activities might closely resemble the core challenge of Starcraft 2. “For emergencies, you don’t get to train eight hours a day. You get two emergencies in your life but you better be good because lives are at stake,” Blair says. “Training in something like Starcraft could be really useful.”
# How is your mind different from everyone else's?

Partially to help reduce [the typical mind fallacy](/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/) and partially because I'm curious, I'm thinking about writing either an essay or a book with plenty of examples about ways by which human minds differ. From commonly known and ordinary, like differences in sexual orientation, to the rare and seemingly impossible, like motion blindness.  
  
To do this, I need to start collecting examples. In what ways does your mind differ from what you think is the norm for most people?  
  
I'm particularly interested in differences - small or large - that you didn't realize for a long time, automatically assuming that everyone was like you in that regard. It can even be something as trivial as always having conceptualized the passing of years as a visual timeline, and then finding out that not everyone does so. I'm also interested in links to blog posts where people talk about their own mental peculiarities, even if you didn't write them yourself. Also books and academic articles that you might think could be relevant.  
  
Some of the content that I'm thinking about including are cultural differences in various things as recounted in [the WEIRD article](http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/WeirdPeople.pdf), differences in sexual and romantic orientation (such as mono/poly), differences in the ability to recover from setbacks, extroversion vs. introversion in terms of gaining/losing energy from social activity, differences in visualization ability, various cognitive differences ranging from autism to synesthesia to an inability to hear music in particular, differences in moral intuitions, differences in the way people think (visual vs. verbal vs. conceptual vs. something that I'm not aware of yet), differences in thinking styles (social/rational, reflectivity vs. impulsiveness) and various odd brain damage cases.

If you find this project interesting, consider spreading the link to this post or resharing my [Google Plus update](https://plus.google.com/106597887376283858570/posts/h5B8e4CQjYa) about it. Also, if you don't want to reply in public, feel free to send me a private message.
# Seeking Collaborator for a Singularity Comic Book

I’m currently writing a book called Singularity Rising:  Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer and More Dangerous World.  The book will be published in about a year by [BenBella Books](http://www.benbellabooks.com/).  This will be my third [published](http://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-Work-Outmaneuver-Competition/dp/0071400206/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323101912&sr=1-1) [book](http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Microeconomics-James-Miller/dp/0073402834/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323101930&sr=1-1).

I’m thinking about also making a singularity comic book.  My agent thinks the idea might work.  Unfortunately my artistic abilities are well in the bottom half of mankind so I'm looking for a collaborator who would do the art.  If you are interested please send samples or links to art you have created here:

[EconomicProf@Gmail.com](mailto:EconomicProf@Gmail.com)

If you know of someone who might be appropriate please email me (or leave below) his name, email address and if possible links to his artwork.

You can find out more about me here:

 [www.JamesDMiller.org](http://sophia.smith.edu/~jdmiller/resume.pdf)
# [Link] How doctors die

I'm reposting [this](http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die/read/nexus/) from HN's front page, because it brought up a non-cached thought on cryonics:

> The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this occurs in the Intensive Care Unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, “Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.” \[...\] I’ve had hundreds of people brought to me in the emergency room after getting CPR. Exactly one, a healthy man who’d had no heart troubles (for those who want specifics, he had a “tension pneumothorax”), walked out of the hospital.

In short, end-of-life medical care is often pointless, painful and costly; doctors and ER personnel know this so well that they go to great lengths to ensure it doesn't happen to them.

It seems as if our systems and conventions around end of life are designed to not let people have a say in how they spend their final moments, even when letting them have their way would result in significant savings (note the dollar figures quoted above). I've already [speculated](/lw/5id/ethics_and_rationality_of_suicide/42pt) on why that might be, but I keep seeing that turn up in unexpected ways.

I suspect that this is the bigger obstacle to cryonics, not so much e.g. the lack of scientific proof. "Freeze me cheaply instead of spending insane amounts of money on brutal attempts at keeping me alive" sounds like a sensible thing to tattoo on your chest, but the evidence suggests that it wouldn't be honored any more than "DNR" tattoos.
# Mapping Fun Theory onto the challenges of ethical foie gras

_Foie gras,_ the delicacy made from the liver of a very fat goose (or sometimes duck), is believed to be unethical and is therefore frequently banned.  For a long time, it was believed that the only way to properly fatten a goose is to continually force-feed it through a tube over several weeks, which is probably a highly unpleasant experience, [although it's difficult to tell](http://www.avma.org/reference/backgrounders/foie_gras_bgnd.asp).  Recently, Spanish farmer Eduardo Sousa revealed that under highly specific conditions, you can get geese to fatten themselves voluntarily.

Geese will instinctively gorge themselves when winter is coming on.  Eat a goose right after it's fattened itself up for the winter, and you get a delicious treat that died happy.  The problem is that geese will only do this if they believe food may become scarce during the winter (or their instinct to gorge only kicks in when the environment is such that that would be a reasonable inference; it's not clear whether it's the goose or evolution doing the analysis).  If they realize that food will remain available during the winter, they eat normally.  And there are quite a few possible clues--farmers trying to replicate Sousa's setup have discovered that cheating on any part leads to unfatted livers.

*   Even as chicks, geese cannot be handled by a human, or encounter other geese who have been.
*   There can be no visible fences.
*   Geese cannot be "fed," rather a variety of food must be distributed randomly throughout a large space, with the placement constantly changing, so that the geese happen to come across it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, these constraints are similar to those we imagine a superior intelligence would operate under, if trying to get us to voluntarily gorge ourselves on utility.  A central challenge is to satisfy drives that were designed for scarcity, while actually maintaining an environment of abundance.
# [German] Wo wohnt ihr?

**Disclaimer:** Since this article is directed at LessWrongers living in Germany, Austria or Switzerland it is written in German. It just asks where people live via asking them for their ZIP code, so it is only interesting for people there.

Der letzte Zensus von Yvain wurde etwas mehr als tausend mal ausgefüllt. Leider wurde nicht gefragt aus welchem Land die Leute kommen aber ich vermute dass auch einige aus deutschsprachigen Ländern dabei sind. Ein Treffen in München wurde bereits organisiert aber ich denke es ist sehr nützlich zu wissen wo in Deutschland Leser von LessWrong wohnen um zu wissen wo es sich lohnen würde ein Meetup zu organisieren. Damit die Daten an einem Platz sind habe ich bei Google Docs eine Umfrage erstellt und bitte euch dieses auszufüllen falls ihr aus Deutschland, Österreich oder der Schweiz kommt und an Meetups interessiert wärt. Falls ihr aus einem der angrenzenden Länder kommt und bereit wärt zu einem Meetup zu fahren, tragt euch in den nächstgelegenen Ort hinter der Grenze ein.

In der Umfrage wird nur nach Herkunftsland und Postleitzahl gefragt. Keine der Daten kann auf euch persönlich zurückgeführt werden. Das Ergebnis wird veröffentlicht werden so dass jeder der bereit ist ein Meetup zu organisieren auf diese Daten zurückgreifen kann.

Hier ist der Link zur Umfrage:  
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFBoN0ppTnlxUU5EUUJwMlJteHRvQUE6MQ](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFBoN0ppTnlxUU5EUUJwMlJteHRvQUE6MQ)

Viel Spaß bei der Umfrage und schreibt in den Kommentaren was ihr davon haltet.
# Brain-Brain communication

A pair of conjoined twins, sharing a direct neural connection. There is evidence that the girls can sense what the other twin is sensing:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html?pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html?pagewanted=all)

This suggests two things:

\* High bandwidth Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) ought to be possible (no surprise, but it's good to have strong evidence)

\* The brain is a general purpose machine. It doesn't have specific modules for 'Left Hand', 'Right Hand', etc. Rather, it takes in information and makes sense out of it. It does this even when the setup is haphazard (as the connection between the twins' brains must be). On the other hand, we know the brain \*does\* have specific modules (such as the visual cortex among many others), which makes an interesting dichotomy.

I predict that the main hindrance to high functioning BCI is getting sufficient bandwidth, not figuring out how to decode/encode signals properly.
# Why I write about the basics

In a thread on [A Rationalist's Tale](/lw/7dy/a_rationalists_tale/), lessdazed [wrote](/lw/7dy/a_rationalists_tale/4t1r):

> Being levels above in \[rationality\] means doing rationalist practice 101 much better than others, \[just like\] being a few levels above in fighting means executing a basic front-kick much better than others.

Eliezer replied:

> I regret that I only have one upvote to give this comment.

You may have noticed I write mostly about [the basics of rationality](/lw/3mm/back_to_the_basics_of_rationality/), and lessdazed's comment explains why. There's something like the [80-20 rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle) going on here: 80% of the benefits come from 20% of the rationality skills. We aspiring rationalists don't usually fail because we failed to account for [the optimizer's curse](/lw/76k/the_optimizers_curse_and_how_to_beat_it/), but because we fail at a more basic level: we [fail to say "oops"](/lw/8ir/where_do_i_most_obviously_still_need_to_say_oops/), or we decide we have an incurable disease called "akrasia" instead of [doing that which is known to fix akrasia](/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/).

More writing on the basics of rationality is needed, especially if it involves _exercises_ and _training_ in addition to reading. Less Wrong could use more work on [teachable rationality skills](/lw/5x8/teachable_rationality_skills/), like the skill of [connecting your beliefs](/lw/8ib/connecting_your_beliefs_a_call_for_help/).
# Just the facts, ma'am!

“There’s something odd about the experience of talking to \[Singularity Institute researcher\] [Carl Shulman](/lw/7ob/timeline_of_carl_shulman_publications/),” I said.

“He never blinks?” said my friend.

“No. I mean: Yes, but that’s not what I was thinking of.”

“He speaks only facts.”

I paused.

“Yes,” I said. “_That_ is what I meant.”

Normally, when I ask someone “Do you think human-level AI will arrive in the next 30 years?” or “Should we encourage faster development of whole brain emulation?” I get answers like “Yes” or “No, I don’t think so.”

When I ask _Carl_ a question like “Do you think human-level AI will arrive in the next 30 years?” he instead begins to state known facts relevant to answering the question, such as facts about the history of Moore’s law, progress in algorithms, trends in scientific progress, past examples of self-improving systems, and so on.

Maybe this is a bit rude. Carl didn’t answer my question about his opinion. He answered a different question instead, about facts.

But I never _feel_ like it’s rude. Carl went out of his way to make his answer more useful to me. His testimony alone would have been helpful, but [argument screens off authority](/lw/lx/argument_screens_off_authority/), so Carl’s “flood of facts” way of answering questions gives me more evidence about what’s true than his mere opinion could.

Why isn’t this more common? For one thing, most people don’t know many facts. I’ve _read_ a lot of facts, but do I remember most of them? Hell no. If I forced myself to respond to questions only by stating facts, I’d be worried that I have fewer facts available to me than I’d like to admit. I often have to tell people: “I can’t remember the details in that paper but I remember thinking his evidence was weak.”

But it's worth a try. I _think_ I've noticed that when I try to answer with facts more often, my brain is primed to remember them better, as if it's thinking: "Oh, I might actually _use_ this fact in conversation, so I should remember it." But I haven't measured this, so I could be fooling myself.

Also see: [Share likelihood ratios, not posterior beliefs](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/02/share-likelihood-ratios-not-posterior-beliefs.html)
# Why we need better science, example #6,281

[Avorn (2004)](http://www.amazon.com/Powerful-Medicines-Benefits-Risks-Prescription/dp/1400030781/) reports:

> In a former British colony, most healers believed the conventional wisdom that a distillation of fluids extracted from the urine of horses, if dried to a powder and fed to aging women, could act as a general tonic, preserve youth, and ward of a variety of diseases. The preparation became enormously popular throughout the culture, and was widely used by older women in all strata of society. Many years later modern scientific studies revealed that long-term ingestion of the horse-urine extract was useless for most of its intended purposes, and that it causes tumors, blood clots, heart disease, and perhaps brain damage.
> 
> The former colony is the United States; the time is now; the drug is the family of hormone replacement products that include Prempro and Premarin (manufactured from pregnant mares' urine, hence its name). For decades, estrogen replacement in postmenopausal women was widely believed to have "cardio-protective" properties; other papers in respected medical journals reported that the drugs could treat depression and incontinence, as well as prevent Alzheimer's disease. The first large, well-conducted, controlled clinical trial of this treatment in women was not published until 1998: it found that estrogen replacement actually increased the rate of heart attacks in the patients studied. Another clinical trial published in 2002 presented further evidence that these products increased the risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Further reports a year later found that rather than preventing Alzheimer's disease, the drugs appeared to double the risk of becoming senile. 

[Armstrong (2006)](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.84.1684&rep=rep1&type=pdf) adds:

> The treatment seemed to work because those who used the drug tended to be healthier than those who did not. This was because it was used by people who were more interested in taking care of their health.
# A Brief Summary of Recent Happenings at the Singularity Institute

Posted at [http://singinst.org/blog/2011/12/11/a-brief-summary-of-recent-happenings-at-the-singularity-institute/](http://intelligence.org/blog/2011/12/11/a-brief-summary-of-recent-happenings-at-the-singularity-institute/)

The Singularity Summit was a huge success. We raised over $300,000, one-third of that a donation from Jaan Tallinn, another third from a variety of generous donors who gave during or immediately after the Summit, and a third from ticket sales. We have roughly $500,000 in the bank, while annual payroll expenses are about $350,000. We almost have enough money to make it through the next year without adding any research staff, though we definitely would like to add additional researchers. In the meantime, our (unpaid) [Research Associates](http://intelligence.org/aboutus/researchassociates) team has been growing, and is tackling a variety of projects.

Since the Singularity Summit in October, our President Michael Vassar moved on to help found [Personalized Medicine](http://www.medicineispersonal.com/), a company we are all excited about, and Luke Muehlhauser was appointed Executive Director. Luke answered questions about these changes and our future plans in a recent [video Q&A](/r/discussion/lw/8s6/video_qa_with_singularity_institute_executive/). I encourage you to watch it, and submit additional questions you may have about the Singularity Institute.

We have seven staff at this time: Luke, Michael Anissimov, Anna Salamon, Carl Shulman, Amy Willey, Louie Helm, and Eliezer Yudkowsky. Our internal collaboration has increased, we're keeping work logs, and we regularly eat dinner together. It's becoming more of a family.

What are we all doing? Luke and Michael are working on a new website for the Singularity Institute. Amy and Luke are working hard to expand the Singularity Summit brand and bring the Summit to "the next level." Anna and Eliezer are building a curriculum for the new Rationality Org, which we hope to spin off as a separate organization from Singularity Institute sometime next year. Luke, Anna, and Carl have been working on a variety of research papers, and Carl has also been working with the fast-growing "optimal philanthropy" movement, which is now poised to direct substantial funds over the next few years to reducing existential risks. Louie is working on donor relations, fundraising, recruiting, operations, and has also contributed to some of our forthcoming research articles.

In the coming year, we look forward to improving communication and transparency with our supporters, and to increasing the rate of our published research output.
# Where do you live? Meetup planners want to know

**Disclaimer:** English is not my mother's tongue so I am prone to make mistakes. Please correct and forgive me if I do.

In the recent LessWrong survey 1090 people responded. Sadly, information about the place of residence was not asked for but could have been very useful to people willing to plan a meetup. Since a similar questionaire in German was quite successful with 24 respondents I now translated the form to english and ask you to provide the information.

I ask you only to provide your country and general area of residence via postal code. The form is hosted at Google Docs and the spreadsheet will be published in a few days to ensure anonymity for the first few respondents. The data can not be traced back to specific individuals and would be useless in most cases.

*   [Link to the form](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dHJSSEV4Zy0zcXZBeVJyeGtKd0ZncHc6MQ#gid=0)
*   [Link to the responses](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArVL5H0yXwKFdHJSSEV4Zy0zcXZBeVJyeGtKd0ZncHc)

Have fun and please provide feedback in the comments.
# khan Academy - Rationality series?

Does the LW community think it might be a good idea to approach Khan Academy about including a series on Rationality, based on some of the LW sequences?

Khan Academy already has a great reputation as a centre for learning, and has large amounts of traffic going through it. Perhaps we could take advantage of that?

What would be the pros and cons?

How would we go about doing it?

Has anyone made a video series of any of our sequences that we could offer?

13.12.11 update:  
  
It sounds like this is a really good idea that just hasn't seen action yet. I'd actually really be interested in helping make this happen, and whilst I probably personally lack the skills to do it all, I'm sure that between the contributors here we have enough contacts/expertise to put something forward.  
  
If you'd be interested in being a part of this please message me your email address, and I will look into making a team who can put some resources into making this happen.  
  
And keep the comments/suggestions coming. They're providing me with great direction in terms of how to go about this.