Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# LiveJournal Memes

On blogging websites just as LiveJournal, memes are often in the form of a question or set of questions which a blogger answers in their own blog, then challenges their readers to answer in the readers' blogs (thus spreading).  It doesn't have to be the sort of question to which there is a 'correct' answer.  More usually the meme spreads if the questions are interesting and the answers reveal something about the personality or interests of the blogger.

Here's a recent example:

> A ticket for a flight into space (an orbit and a visit to the International Space Station) arrives through the post. Assume that you meet the relevant physical requirements. You can use it, transfer it, or sell it. What do you do and why?

It occurs to me that this sort of thing might be a very accessible way to introduce people to thinking about rationality.   With the example I gave, you get people who would use the ticket because they know that if they didn't they'd always regret not having gone.  However, if the question had been phrased as them receiving money, and a space flight ticket was only one of the things listed as purchasable for that sum, they wouldn't make the same decision.

Suppose LessWrong were to compose a LiveJournal meme.   It would want to be made up of somewhere between 5 and 10 short (paragraph or less) and simple (easy reading comprehension, no obscure terms or prior reading required) questions designed to elicit answers interesting for blog readers to read, intended to introduce bloggers to the concept of a 'cognitive bias' and to thinking about what rationality actually is.

Do you have any suggestions for questions that would work well in such a meme?
# The Best Comments Ever

Of the title of this discussion post, we already have an approximation in the most voted-for lists for [Main](/topcomments/) and [Discussion](/r/discussion/topcomments/). There are many problems with this metric, however, a subset of which are:

*   Both sections are cluttered. The top comments for Main are full of rationality quotes (which are better accessed elsewhere), and the top comments for Discussion are full of polls. (Can we please have a non-stupid way of putting polls in comments?)
*   Both sections are biased by exposure. A comment that a lot of people see generally gets more karma than comments which not many people see. As Less Wrong's growth rate increases, and as time goes by, this will increasingly bias these sections toward newer comments. Also, comments made by well-known LWers will be seen more often and correspondingly upvoted more.
*   Joke comments oftentimes get a lot more comments than insightful comments.
*   Entire threads can have weird voting patterns that don't match quality.
*   These sections list number of upvotes, so extremely controversial comments appear in between unanimously good ones. (May not actually be a problem at all.)
*   People use karma as behavior reinforcers, so comments like "I'll transcribe this" get lots of votes.
*   Dozens more little things I won't try to list

So instead of lists of comments that made a lot of Less Wrong accounts go "eh, have a karma", let's have a list of Less Wrong comments that are _so good you'll never forget them, and you wish you could do more than merely upvote._

This list will have its own problems, like being biased toward memorable comments, but I hope the two lists will complement each other and whatever's missing isn't terribly important.

I got the idea from a note about how "Discussion is better than Main, comments are better than Discussion" because social norms prevent certain types of Main post from being made.

Anyway, here are some proposed rules, of which all but the first two are mere suggestions:

*   Don't post your own comments.
*   Don't post more than one comment in this thread. If you find more other-person comments you want to add, edit yours to include them.
*   Say why you think the comment is good, even if it's only a line.
*   Bonus points for finding  _very old_  comments, or those from threads that got very little exposure.
*   No joke comments or comments that solely quote people.
*   Don't retrieve your comment from the list of top comments.

I like my idea. Let's see how well it works.
# Posts I repent of

*   ["Taking Ideas Seriously"](/lw/2l6/taking_ideas_seriously/): Stylistically contemptible, skimpy on any useful details, contributes to norm of pressuring people into double binds that ultimately do more harm than good. I would prefer it if no one linked to or promoted "Taking Ideas Seriously"; superior alternatives include Anna Salamon's ["Compartmentalization in epistemic and instrumental rationality"](/lw/2q6/compartmentalization_in_epistemic_and/), though I don't necessarily endorse that post either.
*   **["Virtue Ethics for Consequentialists"](/lw/2aa/virtue_ethics_for_consequentialists/)**: Stylistically contemptible, written in ignorance of much of the relevant philosophy and psychology literature, contributes to norm of rewarding people who confidently proselytize on subjects of which they do not possess a deep understanding. Thankfully nobody links to this post.

All of my other posts also sucked but not to the extent that they're worth going out of my way to disavow.
# A model of UDT without proof limits

This post requires some knowledge of decision theory math. Part of the credit goes to Vladimir Nesov.

Let the universe be a computer program U that returns a utility value, and the agent is a subprogram A within U that knows the source code of both A and U. (The same setting was used in the [reduction of "could"](/lw/2l2/what_a_reduction_of_could_could_look_like/) post.) Here's a very simple decision problem:

`def U():  
  if A() == 1:  
    return 5  
  else:  
    return 10`

The algorithm for A will be as follows:

1.  Search for proofs of statements of the form "A()=a implies U()=u". Upon finding at least one proof for each possible a, go to step 2.
2.  Let L be the maximum length of proofs found on step 1, and let f(L) be some suitably fast-growing function like 10^L. Search for proofs shorter than f(L) of the form "A()≠a". If such a proof is found, return a.
3.  If we're still here, return the best a found on step 1.

The usual problem with such proof-searching agents is that they might stumble upon "spurious" proofs, e.g. a proof that A()==2 implies U()==0. If A finds such a proof and returns 1 as a result, the statement A()==2 becomes false, and thus provably false under any formal system; and a false statement implies anything, making the original "spurious" proof correct. The reason for constructing A this particular way is to have a shot at proving that A won't stumble on a "spurious" proof before finding the "intended" ones. The proof goes as follows:

Assume that A finds a "spurious" proof on step 1, e.g. that A()=2 implies U()=0. We have a lower bound on L, the length of that proof: it's likely larger than the length of U's source code, because a proof needs to at least state what's being proved. Then in this simple case 10^L steps is clearly enough to also find the "intended" proof that A()=2 implies U()=10, which combined with the previous proof leads to a similarly short proof that A()≠2, so the agent returns 2. But that can't happen if A's proof system is sound, therefore A will find only "intended" proofs rather than "spurious" ones in the first place.

Quote from Nesov that explains what's going on:

> With this algorithm, you're not just passively gauging the proof length, instead you take the first moral argument you come across, and then actively defend it against any close competition

By analogy we can see that A coded with f(L)=10^L will correctly solve all our simple problems like Newcomb's Problem, the symmetric Prisoner's Dilemma, etc. The proof of correctness will rely on the syntactic form of each problem, so the proof may break when you replace U with a logically equivalent program. But that's okay, because "logically equivalent" for programs simply means "returns the same value", and we don't want all world programs that return the same value to be _decision-theoretically_ equivalent.

A will fail on problems where "spurious" proofs are exponentially shorter than "intended" proofs (or even shorter, if f(L) is chosen to grow faster). We can probably construct malicious examples of decision-determined problems that would make A fail, but I haven't found any yet.
# Simple but important ideas

Important ideas don't always require long explanations. Here's a famous example:

> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind… Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.

This is a single paragraph on the third page of a [50 page report](https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/Speculations%20Concerning%20the%20First%20Ultraintelligent%20Machine%20.htm?w=a55740a2). Maybe someone who's good at parsing 60s era academic English can tell us if the rest is any good.

It seems like anyone who has an idea they want people to take seriously has to write a bunch about it. This is most apparent in popular nonfiction books, which are often bloated far beyond what it takes to communicate the core ideas.

To correct this "presentation length bias", we can fight it from both ends:

*   Remember that important ideas don't have to be in an important place, be said by an important person, or be an important length.
*   Alert readers to important ideas that don't look important (e.g. "This is a simple idea, but it seems important:"). Do this especially if it's someone else's idea, since people are going to be reluctant to label their own ideas as important.

If we get rid of this bias, the biggest win may be that people work harder to present important ideas concisely, since it won't cost them prestige anymore.

  

See also: [Why do we write too much?](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/06/why_do_we_write.html)
# Daily Low-Dose Aspirin, Round 2

(For Round 1, see [this comment](/lw/5qm/living_forever_is_hard_or_the_gompertz_curve/477u) from last year.)

NYT: **[Studies Link Daily Doses of Aspirin to Reduced Risk of Cancer](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/health/research/studies-link-aspirin-daily-use-to-reduced-cancer-risk.html?_r=1&hp)**

> One of the new studies examined patient data from dozens of large, long-term randomized controlled trials involving tens of thousands of men and women. Researchers at the University of Oxford found that after three years of daily aspirin use, the risk of developing cancer was reduced by almost 25 percent when compared with a control group not taking aspirin. After five years, the risk of dying of cancer was reduced by 37 percent among those taking aspirin.
> 
> A second paper that analyzed five large randomized controlled studies in Britain found that over six and a half years on average, daily aspirin use reduced the risk of metastatic cancer by 36 percent and the risk of adenocarcinomas — common solid cancers including colon, lung and prostate cancer — by 46 percent.

The article is worth reading in its entirety, but here's an especially interesting paragraph:

> The new studies, however, also found that the risk of bleeding in aspirin users diminished over time, and that the risk of death from brain bleeds was actually lower in the aspirin users than in the comparison group.

The evidence still isn't perfect, but the purpose of rationality is making good decisions with limited information. I am a healthy 28-year-old and these studies make me even more confident that taking daily low-dose aspirin is the right thing for me to do.

On a related note, if society were more rational, I wouldn't have to be sad reading paragraphs like this one:

> Some cancer doctors commended the new research, saying said that despite the limitations of the analyses, no other long-term clinical trials of aspirin and cancer are likely to be done because of the enormous expense involved and the fact that aspirin is a cheap generic drug.

Or these ones from [A Cheap Drug Is Found to Save Bleeding Victims](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/health/tranexamic-acid-cheap-drug-is-found-to-staunch-bleeding.html?ref=health), published on the same day:

> For months, a simple generic drug has been saving lives on America’s battlefields by slowing the bleeding of even gravely wounded soldiers.
> 
> Even better, it is cheap. But its very inexpensiveness has slowed its entry into American emergency rooms, where it might save the lives of bleeding victims of car crashes, shootings and stabbings — up to 4,000 Americans a year, according to a recent study.
> 
> Because there is so little profit in it, the companies that make it do not champion it.
# A Problem About Bargaining and Logical Uncertainty

Suppose you wake up as a paperclip maximizer. Omega says "I calculated the millionth digit of pi, and it's odd. If it had been even, I would have made the universe capable of producing either 10^20^ paperclips or 10^10^ staples, and given control of it to a staples maximizer. But since it was odd, I made the universe capable of producing 10^10^ paperclips or 10^20^ staples, and gave you control." You double check Omega's pi computation and your internal calculator gives the same answer.

Then a staples maximizer comes to you and says, "You should give me control of the universe, because before you knew the millionth digit of pi, you would have wanted to pre-commit to a deal where each of us would give the other control of the universe, since that gives you 1/2 probability of 10^20^ paperclips instead of 1/2 probability of 10^10^ paperclips."

Is the staples maximizer right? If so, the general principle seems to be that we should act as if we had precommited to a deal we would have made in ignorance of logical facts we actually possess. But how far are we supposed to push this? What deal would you have made if you didn't know that the first digit of pi was odd, or if you didn't know that 1+1=2?

On the other hand, suppose the staples maximizer is wrong. Does that mean you also shouldn't agree to exchange control of the universe before you knew the millionth digit of pi?

To make this more relevant to real life, consider two humans negotiating over the goal system of an AI they're jointly building. They have a lot of ignorance about the relevant logical facts, like how smart/powerful the AI will turn out to be and how efficient it will be in implementing each of their goals. They could negotiate a solution now in the form of a weighted average of their utility functions, but the weights they choose now will likely turn out to be "wrong" in full view of the relevant logical facts (e.g., the actual shape of the utility-possibility frontier). Or they could program their utility functions into the AI separately, and let the AI determine the weights later using some formal [bargaining solution](/lw/2x8/lets_split_the_cake_lengthwise_upwise_and/) when it has more knowledge about the relevant logical facts. Which is the right thing to do? Or should they follow the staples maximizer's reasoning and bargain under the pretense that they know even less than they actually do?

**Other Related Posts:** [Counterfactual Mugging and Logical Uncertainty](/lw/179/counterfactual_mugging_and_logical_uncertainty/), [If you don't know the name of the game, just tell me what I mean to you](/lw/2xb/if_you_dont_know_the_name_of_the_game_just_tell/)
# Modest Superintelligences

I'm skeptical about trying to build FAI, but not about trying to influence the Singularity in a positive direction. Some people may be skeptical even of the latter because they don't think the possibility of an intelligence explosion is a very likely one. I suggest that even if intelligence explosion turns out to be impossible, we can still reach a positive Singularity by building what I'll call "modest superintelligences", that is, superintelligent entities, capable of taking over the universe and preventing existential risks and Malthusian outcomes, whose construction does not require fast recursive self-improvement or other questionable assumptions about the nature of intelligence. This helps to establish a lower bound on the benefits of an organization that aims to strategically influence the outcome of the Singularity.

*   MSI-1: 10^5^ biologically cloned humans of von Neumann-level intelligence, highly educated and indoctrinated from birth to work collaboratively towards some goal, such as building MSI-2 (or equivalent)
*   MSI-2: 10^10^ whole brain emulations of von Neumann, each running at ten times human speed, with WBE-enabled institutional controls that increase group coherence/rationality (or equivalent)
*   MSI-3: 10^20^ copies of von Neumann WBE, each running at a thousand times human speed, with more advanced (to be invented) institutional controls and collaboration tools (or equivalent)

(To recall what the actual von Neumann, who we might call MSI-0, accomplished, open his [Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann) and scroll through the "known for" sidebar.)

Building a MSI-1 seems to require a total cost on the order of $100 billion (assuming $10 million for each clone), which is comparable to the Apollo project, and about 0.25% of the annual Gross World Product. (For further comparison, note that Apple has a market capitalization of $561 billion, and annual profit of $25 billion.) In exchange for that cost, any nation that undertakes the project has a reasonable chance of obtaining an insurmountable lead in whatever technologies end up driving the Singularity, and with that a large measure of control over its outcome. If no better strategic options come along, lobbying a government to build MSI-1 and/or influencing its design and aims seems to be the least that a Singularitarian organization could do.
# Nonmindkilling open questions

When I explain to people how beliefs should be expressed in probabilities, I would like to use an example like "Consider X. Lots of intelligent people believe X, but lots of equally intelligent people believe not-X. It would be ridiculous to say you are 100% sure either way, so even if you have a strong opinion about X, you should express your belief as a probability."  
  
Trouble is, I'm having a hard time thinking of an example to plug into X. For an example to work, it would need the following properties:  
  
**Factual question.** So no value-laden questions like "Is abortion morally acceptable?" or counterfactual questions like "Would the US have won a war with the Soviet Union in 1960?"  
  
**Popular and important question.** The average person should be aware it's an issue and care about the answer. So no "My aunt's middle name is Gladys" or "P = NP."  
  
**High uncertainty.** Reasonable people should be reluctant to give a probability >90% or <10%  
  
**No opportunity to gain status by signaling overwhelming support for one side.** So cryonics is out, because it's too easy to say "That's stupid, I'm 100% sure cryonics won't work and no intelligent person could believe it." I'm assuming in any debate where you can gain free status by assigning crazy high probabilities to the "responsible" position, people will do just that - so no psi effects, Kennedy assassination, or anything in that cluster. I need a question with no well-accepted "responsible" position.  
  
**Minimal mindkilling effect.** My previous go-to example has been global warming, but I keep encountering people who say that global warming 100% for sure exists and the only people who could possibly doubt it are oil company shills. Or if I were to try the existence of God, I predict half the population would say it's 100% certain God exists, and the other half would say the opposite.  
  
So what are the important questions that average (or somewhat-above-average) people will likely agree are complicated open questions where both sides have good points? And if there aren't many such questions, what does that say about us?
# Less Wrong Sequences+Website feed app for Android

I use my Android phone much more than my computer, and reading the Sequences on a mobile device is a pain. I needed an easy way to access the Sequences, but since there are no apps for this website I had to create one myself. Since I'm no app developer, I used the IBuildApp.com(trustworthy according to my research) website to make the application.

Features:

\* Read ALL of the main Sequences and most of the minor ones

\* RSS feed to LessWrong.com for latest articles

\* No ads!

  
Drawbacks:

*Requires an Internet connection: I individually copy-pasted each Sequence(from the compilations of posts that many people have made) to the app. Unfortunately, the app development website did not save these on the app itself, but on its server. So to access a Sequence, you require an Internet connection.

*Home screen doesn't look good, because I couldn't get an appropriately sized logo that the website would accept. The Index(where you access the Sequences) looks pretty neat though.

  
If there are any mobile app developers here, please try to make a better version of it(hopefully one where data is saved offline). I made this for personal use so it's functional but could be done much better by a professional. I'm posting it here for other Android-using people(especially newbies like me) who might find this useful.

Pictures:

![](http://i.imgur.com/KmlRA.png)         ![](http://i.imgur.com/QAXA2.png)   

  ![](http://i.imgur.com/E3Tu3.png)

![](http://i.imgur.com/53AvH.png)

Download Link: http://174.142.192.87/builds/00101/101077/apps/LessWrongSequences.apk
# [LINK] Poem: There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.

[The poem](http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3569 "emotions around reductionism, in poetry") is from someone whose online pseudonym is atiguhya padma.  I'll quote the first verse, the refrain, and the beginning of the second verse to give you enough flavor to decide if you want to follow the link.  There are about 9 verses total.

> Someone looked out of their window  
> And said to me: the world looks  
> So beautiful, that I praise God  
> Each day for this wonderful life,  
> This landscape of happy creatures  
> And rolling fields of growth and form.  
> He obviously had not read Tennyson  
> And he wasn’t an ecologist,  
> For he had no firm idea of how  
> Ecosystems sustain themselves.  
>   
> There are no beautiful surfaces  
> Without a terrible depth.  
>   
> You said you loved me.  
> And I wondered what that could mean...

Reductionist thinking can connect emotions triggered by the surfaces encountered in daily life to a larger set of concepts and predictions, and this seems to have consequences for both the thinking and the emotions that isn't often discussed and is even less often discussed well. I liked the poem because it addressed the issues pretty well and _in an emotional mode_, which is doubly rare.

The "no beautiful surfaces" refrain is a quote from Nietzsche which has little easily accessed online scholarship.  Nothing in the first few pages of google results mentions a source for the quote so I was suspicious at first that it was even a quote by him, but references available via [google books](https://www.google.com/#tbm=bks&q="beautiful+surfaces"+"terrible+depth" "Google Books Search for Nietzsche Quote") indicate that it comes from one of his notebooks.  I haven't tracked down the notebook (it doesn't seem to be in gutenberg), so I'm not sure if the original source carries the specific connotations the poem attributes to the phrase, or if it is just a cool line put to good use in a new context.
# Does anyone know any kid geniuses?

I'm friends with an incredibly smart kid. He's 14, but has been put up three grades in school at one point. He does all the obvious enrichment things which are available in the relatively small Australian city he lives in.

His life experience has been pretty unusual. He doesn't really know what it's like to be challenged in school. All his friends are way older than he is. (Once, I asked him how being constantly around people older than him made him feel. He replied, "Concerned for my future.")

He doesn't know anyone like him, which I think is a shame: he'd probably get along very well with them.

Does anyone know any similar kid geniuses? If so, can I give them my friend's details?

Thanks.
# George Orwell's Prelude on Politics Is The Mind Killer

I have found this most wonderful (if fairly lengthy) article, [and thought you would enjoy having it brought to your attention.](http://www.george-orwell.org/Notes_on_Nationalism/0.html)

It is so good, I think we should include it among the references in the "Politics is the Mind Killer" wiki page.  But, before that, I submit it to you, and ask you: is there anything in this article that would warrant its exclusion from this site? I mean, besides the fact that it is about politics, and written by a notorious Social-democrat (And is that in itself grounds for exclusion?).
# [Draft] How to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup

[How to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/mediawiki/images/c/ca/How_to_Run_a_Successful_Less_Wrong_Meetup_Group.pdf) is a guide that I've been working on, based on lukeprog's instructions, for the last week and a half. As it says in the beginning:

> This document is written for anyone who wants to organize a Less Wrong meetup. We expect that this document will help you regardless of whether you want to start a new group or improve an existing one. We have tried to write each section so that it applies in either case.

Here's the table of contents:

*   Why organize a meetup?
*   How to build your team of heroes
    *   The organizer
    *   The welcomer
    *   The learning coach
    *   The content provider
    *   The visionary
    *   The networker
*   How to announce and organize your meetups
    *   Choosing a venue
    *   Making the announcement
    *   The first meetup
*   Long-term meetup group maintenance
    *   Retain members by being a social group
    *   Conflicts within the group
        *   Learn to recognize status conflicts
    *   Group norms and epistemic hygiene
*   Meetup content
    *   Discussions and Presentations
        *   Presentations
        *   Topical Discussions
        *   Meta Discussion
    *   Games and Exercises
        *   Aumann’s Thunderdome
        *   Biased Co-operation
        *   Behavioral Analysis
        *   Bluffing Games
        *   Bust-a-Distortion
        *   Calibration Game
        *   Cause and Belief
        *   Five-Minute Debiasing
        *   Hypothetical Apostasies
        *   Paranoid Debating
        *   Precommit to Updates
        *   Rationalization Game
        *   Rejection Therapy
        *   Repetition Game
        *   Status Exercises
        *   Zendo
    *   General Bacchanalia
    *   Example activities at real meetup groups
*   Projects

This is a draft version, so feedback would be most welcome, particularly on things like:

*   Is this useful?
*   Is there something that should be covered isn't covered at all yet?
*   Do you have new games & exercises to suggest?
*   Do you have any other content to suggest to any other section?
*   Do you disagree with some of the advice given?
*   Do you disagree on way something has been worded?
*   Etc.

The link above will take you to a Google Docs copy of the document, with the ability to add comments to the draft. Feel free to comment on the guide either as traditional LW comments or by attaching comments to the document itself: both are fine.

**EDIT: Here's the most recent version, though without the commenting ability.**

**EDIT2: The most recent version as of April 11th, with commenting enabled.**

**EDIT3: First [non-draft version](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/mediawiki/images/c/ca/How_to_Run_a_Successful_Less_Wrong_Meetup_Group.pdf); see also [this thread](/lw/crs/how_to_run_a_successful_less_wrong_meetup/).  
**
# Doing "Nothing"

It might be a useful habit to remember, whenever you're making a choice about some situation, that "doing nothing" is never actually an available option. Even if you avoid doing the task you're considering, you're still making some kind of choice about how you spend your time, and you're still doing something relative to that task. For example, if the task is "paint the barn" the alternative is "leave the bare barn exposed to the elements", not "store the barn in some impermeable stasis field and return to paint it later". Being able to clearly articulate what that "nothing" slot entails, its consequences and rewards, might be a helpful way to motivate yourself to make better choices.

I am working on internalising this, because if I don't think about it, a part of me tends to just think that I'm doing the equivalent of sticking the task in an atemporal stasis field instead of leaving it unattended. If I don't exercise, I don't stay "the same amount fit". I get _weaker_ (or, as **[aelephant](/user/aelephant)** points out, I could be getting stronger, during a recovery period - in which case "doing nothing" (as far as exercise) is the _better_ option, after evaluation) . If I don't study, I don't stay "the same amount knowledgeable". _I forget_. Sure, there are things which remain effectively "in stasis" - Olympus Mons will probably stay about the same whether I climb it in ten years (somehow) or a hundred years - but I won't be the same by then. Or things that are so transient and commonplace that they might as well be in stasis - If I'm thinking of going somewhere, I might think, "I might miss catching this taxi cab, but I miss cabs all the time, there are always more cabs, and I can catch another one". But subjectively static opportunities are rare.
# Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown talks about global democracy, X-risk, and immortality

[It's interesting to see someone with actual political power (with balance of power in the Senate and being part of the Lower House coalition) talking about the Great Filter.](http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/bob-brown-delivers-3rd-annual-green-oration)

> However, recent astronomy tells us that there are trillions of other planets circling Sunlike stars in the immensity of the Universe, millions of them friendly to life. So why has no one from elsewhere in the Cosmos contacted us?
> 
> Surely some people-like animals have evolved elsewhere. Surely we are not, in this crowded reality of countless other similar planets, the only thinking beings to have turned up. Most unlikely! So why isn't life out there contacting us? Why aren't the intergalactic phones ringing?
> 
> Here is one sobering possibility for our isolation: maybe life has often evolved to intelligence on other planets with biospheres and every time that intelligence, when it became able to alter its environment, did so with catastrophic consequences. Maybe we have had many predecessors in the Cosmos but all have brought about their own downfall.
> 
> That's why they are not communicating with Earth. They have extincted themselves. They have come and gone. And now it's our turn.

> An Earth parliament for all. But what would be its commission? Here are four goals:
> 
> Economy.
> 
> Equality.
> 
> Ecology.
> 
> Eternity.
> 
> ... Eternity is for as long as we could be. It means beyond our own experience. It also means 'forever', if there is no inevitable end to life. Let's take the idea of eternity and make it our own business.
> 
> ...The pursuit of eternity is no longer the prerogative of the gods: it is the business of us all, here and now.
# Examine your assumptions

There's a story you've probably heard:

During World War II, the British RAF's Bomber Command wanted a survey done on the effectiveness of their aircraft armouring.  This was carried out by inspected all bombers returning from bombing raids over Germany over a particular period. All damage inflicted by German air defences was noted and the recommendation was given that armour be added in the most heavily damaged areas.

![](http://digitalroam.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/walds_planes.jpg)

However a new group, run by Patrick Blackett, the Operational Research Section, analysed the survey report, and came to a different conclusion.   Blackett suggested that, instead, the armour be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers which returned.   He reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The untouched areas of returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft.

It is a useful fable, but in the context presented it seemed unlikely, given the attitudes of Bomber Harris.  So I went looking for further information, and found the story of BC-ORS written by Freeman Dyson:

"A Failure of Intelligence" ([Part 1](http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17724)) ([Part 2](http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17847))

which is a great read, but fails to mention any such incident.

What I did find, however, on further searching, was the work of Abraham Wald.   Wald was a Jewish mathematician from Romania who in 1943 published a series of 8 memoranda via the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University while working for the National Defense Research Committee in America.  These were republished collectively in 1980 as "'A Method of Estimating Plane Vulnerability Based on Damage of Survivors." by the Center for Naval Analyses, and are still in use today.

In 1984 Mangel and Samaniego published a fairly accessible summary of Wald's work in the Journal of the American Statistical Association (Vol 79, Issue 286, June)

"[Abraham Wald's Work on Aircraft Survivability](http://people.ucsc.edu/~msmangel/Wald.pdf)"

So it seems that Wald is the one who should get the credit for being the first to try to compensate for the evidential problem.  Tragically he himself died in an airplane crash, just a few years later (in 1950, aged 48).

The 'bible' on this topic, Robert Ball's "The Fundamentals of Aircraft Combat Survivability Analysis and Design" confirms the problem is a real one, and mentioned the F-4 as an example.  When they looked at the F-4s which survived combat, there were no holes in the narrowest part of the tail, just forward of the horizontal stabilizers. They figured out that all of the hydraulic lines for the elevators and rudder were tightly clustered in there, so that a single hit could damage all of them at once, leaving the plane uncontrollable. The solution in that case was, rather than increasing the armour, to spread the redundant lines out to reduce the chances of losing all of them to a single hit.
# April Fools - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Joke Chapter

**This was an april fools joke.**

This is a new thread to discuss <del>Eliezer Yudkowsky’s</del> my chapter of _[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality](http://www.freefanfic.net/s/5782108/82/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality/)_ and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing the fake April Fools chapter, which is now published. I suggest refraining from reading comments here **until you [read chapter 82](http://www.freefanfic.net/s/5782108/82/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality/).** After you've read chapter 82, I suggest all discussion of this chapter to be kept here, with links to comments in the previous thread.
# Generic Modafinil sales begin? 

Due to [agreements with the patent holder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil#Patent_protection_and_antitrust_litigation), Cephalon, that were made in 2005-2006 several generics manufacturers are now allowed to sell generic [Modafinil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil). I have found [confirmation](http://www.thepharmaletter.com/file/112273/teva-debuts-generic-of-provigil-avapro-and-avalide-ranbaxy-crestor-copy-oked-in-canada.html) that the manufacturer Teva has begun selling generic Modafinil, though I haven't seen news about other manufacturers. However, the article also, says that Cephalon is a subsidiary of Teva, so perhaps this won't have an effect? The Modafinil patent is set to expire in April 2015.
# LessWrong downtime 2012-03-26, and site speed

Our investigation into last week's LW downtime is complete: [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IXYAjoQQgzDx6xAyefIYCRgKrDlsldzfT-TORTt1JiQ/view?pli=1) (Google Docs).

**Executive summary:**

We failed to update our [AWS](http://aws.amazon.com/) configuration after changes at Amazon, which caused a cycle of servers being spawned then killed before they could properly boot. Our automated testing should have notified us of this failure immediately, but included a predictable failure mode (identified by us last year but not fixed). We became aware of the downtime when I checked my email and worked on it until it was resolved.

I personally feel very bad about our multiple failures leading to this incident.

ref. the last time I did this to you: http://lesswrong.com/lw/29v/lesswrong\_downtime\_20100511\_and\_other_recent/

**Actions:**

1.  We have reconfigured AWS and the tools we use to communicate with it to avoid this failure in the future.
2.  Improvements to our automated site testing system (Nagios) are underway (expected to be live before 2012-04-13 - these tests will detect greater-than-X-failures-from-Y-trials, rather than the current detect zero-successes-from-Z-trials).
3.  We have changed our staffing in part in recognition that some systems (including this one) had been allowed to fall out of date, and allocated a developer to review our system administration project planning.

**Further actions - site speed:**

We're unhappy with the site's speed. We plan on spending some time next week doing what we can to improve it.

(If you upvote this post, please downvote my "Karma sink" comment below - I would prefer not to earn karma from an event like this.)
# Advice for an isolated Rationalist?

Hello fellow readers.  
  
I've been enjoying LW for a while now, and I can confidently say that many of the ideas on in this community have done much to better my life.

However, I live in some isolation from like-minded individuals. I lack social groups that aspire to the same values of rationality that I have come to treasure. My nearest meet-up is Melbourne, but that takes approximately a hour and a half to get to, and would require more time and money than I can reasonably afford at the moment.  
I find it difficult to immerse myself and live out many of these ideas when I do not have the social support to back me.  
  
Anyone have any tips for managing rationalist isolation?
# Evidence for the orthogonality thesis

One of the most annoying arguments when discussing AI is the perennial "But if the AI is so smart, why won't it figure out the right thing to do anyway?" It's often the ultimate curiosity stopper.

Nick Bostrom has defined the "Orthogonality thesis" as the principle that motivation and intelligence are essentially unrelated: superintelligences can have nearly any type of motivation (at least, nearly any utility function-bases motivation). We're trying to get some rigorous papers out so that when that question comes up, we can point people to standard, and published, arguments. Nick has had a [paper](http://www.nickbostrom.com/superintelligentwill.pdf) accepted that points out the orthogonality thesis is _compatible_ with a lot of philosophical positions that would seem to contradict it.

I'm hoping to complement this with a paper laying out the positive arguments in favour of the thesis. So I'm asking you for your strongest arguments for (or against) the orthogonality thesis. Think of trying to convince a conservative philosopher who's caught a bad case of moral realism - what would you say to them?

Many thanks! Karma and acknowledgements will shower on the best suggestions, and many puppies will be [happy](http://images.dogsandpuppies.co.uk/papillon-puppies-for-sale-breed-tips.jpg).
# Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 14, chapter 82

**The new discussion thread (part 15) is [here](/r/discussion/lw/bmx/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/). **

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s _[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/)_ and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing [chapter](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/82/) [82](http://hpmor.com/chapter/82). [The previous thread](/r/discussion/lw/b7s/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/) passed 1000 comments as of the time of this writing, and so has long passed 500. C**omment in [the 13th thread](/r/discussion/lw/b7s/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/) until you read chapter 82.** 

There is now a site dedicated to the story at [hpmor.com](http://hpmor.com/), which is now the place to go to find the [authors notes](http://hpmor.com/notes/) and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an [archive of Author’s Notes](http://www.evernote.com/pub/adelenedawner/Eliezer). (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.) 

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the [harry_potter tag](/tag/harry_potter/).  Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the [discussion section](/r/discussion/tag/harry_potter/) using its separate tag system.  Also: [1](/lw/2ab/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality), [2](/lw/2ie/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality), [3](/lw/2nm/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality), [4](/lw/2tr/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality), [5](/lw/30g/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality), [6](/r/discussion/lw/364/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/), [7](/r/discussion/lw/3rb/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/), [8](/lw/797/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/), [9](/lw/7jd/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality), [10](/lw/ams/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality), [11](/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/), [12](/r/discussion/lw/b5s/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/), [13](/r/discussion/lw/b7s/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/).

As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

**Spoiler Warning**: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. [More specifically](/lw/2tr/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/2v1l):

> You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).
> 
> If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.
# [LINK] Making Big Decisions about Money

Seth Godin has an article about how to translate monetary values into something intuitively commensurable with the thing you're buying:

[Making Big Decisions about Money](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/03/making-big-decisions-about-money.html)

The conclusion:

If you go to the free school, you can drive there in a brand new Mini convertible, and every summer you can spend $25,000 on a top-of-the-line internship/experience, and you can create a jazz series and pay your favorite musicians to come to campus to play for you and your fifty coolest friends, and you can have Herbie Hancock give you piano lessons and you can still have enough money left over to live without debt for a year after you graduate while you look for the perfect gig...

Suddenly, you're not comparing "this is my dream," with a number that means very little. You're comparing one version of your dream with another version.
# Logic of Paradox: a (too) simple paraconsistent logic

The logic of paradox (LP) is the simplest, and one of the oldest, of the [paraconsistent logics](/r/discussion/lw/bfs/paraconsistency_and_relevance_avoid_logical/). Instead of assigning truths to statements A, it instead uses relationships binary relationships v(A,1) and v(A,0). "A is true" is encoded by v(A,1); "A is false" is similarly encoded by v(A,0). Each statement A is required to be true or false, but it can be both (in which case we could say that "A is undetermined"). "A is strictly true" means v(A,1) but not v(A,0); strict falsity is the converse.

The usual symbols →, ∨, ∧ and ¬, retain their standard meanings, and a compound statement takes all possible values it could take, seeing all the possible values its components could take. So, for instance if A is (strictly) true, then ¬A is (strictly) false. If A is undetermined, then ¬A is undetermined. If A is undetermined and B is strictly false, then A ∨ B is undetermined and A ∧ B is strictly false - though if B were strictly true, then A ∨ B would be strictly true and A ∧ B undetermined.

These properties make LP quite easy to work with, and one can determine the truths of many statements using truth tables. In fact, it can be seen that every tautology of classical logic is a tautology of LP. This derives from the fact that tautologies are true regardless of the truth values of their components; hence they remain true in LP whether we take undertermined statements to be true or false. Consequently, all of the following are true in LP:

1.  A  → (B → A)
2.  (A ∧ ¬A)  → B
3.  ((A ∨ B)  ∧ ¬A) → B
4.  A ∧ (A → B)  → B

But wait a second. Isn't the second line a statement of the [principle of explosion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion) \- the fact that we can derive anything from a contradiction? Indeed it is. LP can state the principle of explosion as a (true) theorem - but it can't actually use it as a rule of deduction. Similarly, the third line is a statement of the disjunctive syllogism - a true theorem, but not a valid rule of deduction. That is easy to see: let A be undetermined, and B strictly false. Then A ∨ B is true, and so is ¬A - and yet we cannot deduce that B is true from this information.

So LP can accept contradictions without blowing up, has all the tautologies of classical logic, but lacks some of the rules of inference. "Some" of the rules of inference? LP even lacks modus ponens! As before, let A be undetermined and B strictly false; then A and (A → B) are both true, but B is not.

So while LP is a pleasant logic to play with, it isn't particularly useful. Another weakness is that is still defines the material conditional (A → B) as (¬A ∨ B): false statements still imply anything, and we haven't solved the Löbian problem for UDT. In the next post, I'll look at relevance logics, which have a more restricted use of →, and do allow modus ponens.