Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Rationality and Climate Change

My master thesis was on the subject of climate change and mass media attitude toward it. Working on it, I've read over 300 newspaper articles on the subject and studied a large number of papers regarding its consequences, its solutions, and the attempts to frame the debate over them, so I consider myself to be well informed on it. 

In the months I've been on this site though, I've been greatly surprised by the apparent unconcerned attitude many of the users have toward this theme. 

Given that 

1.  to the best of my knowledge, I think that we should instead be very concerned
2.  the subject is certainly of a great relevance since a lot of investments and global consequences in the future years will revolve around it
3.  we can't just agree to disagree

I plan to write a post that would cover this subject and hopefully resolve the disagreement.

Before doing that, though, I'd find extremely useful if people would write me what they believe, feel and anticipate about climate change, its future consequences and the processes that would be required to stop it, and why they think they believe, feel and anticipate that way. 

I'm greatly interested in receiving replies both from people feeling alarmed and from people not feeling alarmed. 

If, while reading this question or writing me your reply, you realised you'd like to document yourself more on the subject and update your beliefs, that's perfectly fine, but I'd ask that you write me your thoughts about it before doing so. If you, instead, already documented about it before reading this question, that's perfectly fine and I'd like to read your thoughts anyway.

What I'm trying to understand are the beliefs of the users of this site at the current moment.

You can be as synthetic or detailed as you'd like, and can write me either a reply under this post or a private message. 

I'd like to thank in advance everyone who'll send me their thoughts and who'll dedicate this question a bit of their time.
# Universal Eudaimonia

The AI is here. And it's Friendly. But due to moral uncertainty, its value function prohibits any major intervention in existing human societies.

The AI's nanobots get to work. They replace the South Pacific garbage patch with a new continent--Eudaimonia, a [rat park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx2sbhby_Cw) for humans. All basic needs are met, but if you want more money, you can gamble at a positive-expected-value casino or run through a bonus area where $100 bills flutter down from the sky. Immortality drugs are under development. The AI nanoprints RollerCoaster Tycoon save files on demand. Cherries are bred to be free of pits. Spaceships full of tourists depart regularly for a new floating city on Venus. And many ignore all this in favor of immersive virtual environments which are far more wondrous.

The AI is concerned. Eudaimonia seems to satisfy many human terminal values. But other terminal values appear to be in conflict. Indeed, some people have a terminal value that others should not be allowed to achieve their terminal values! That doesn't sound like a rat park! It's impossible to please everyone, and although the AI could modify peoples' preferences to change this, it is far too corrigible for that nonsense.

The AI comes up with a compromise. Once a month, you're given the opportunity to video call someone you have a deep disagreement with. At the end of the call, each of you gets to make a choice regarding whether the other should be allowed in Eudaimonia. But there's a twist: Whatever choice you made for the other person is the choice the AI makes for you.

The plan seems to be working splendidly at first. Legions of forgiving and agreeable people flood into the new continent and enjoy a life of constant bliss. The average resident makes three new deep friendships per month while tripping on psychedelic drugs. What used to be existential conflicts are now ironic sports team rivalries.

But a problem emerges: As the forgiving and agreeable people leave, it is the unforgiving and disagreeable people who are left behind--people who are especially difficult to forgive. The world outside Eudaimonia keeps getting uglier and uglier.

The AI decides it isn't fair to hold later applicants to a higher standard. Instead of doing a call with another person outside Eudaimonia, the AI sets you up with a Eudaimonia resident who disagreed with you in a past life. The AI offers them loyalty points at their favorite positive-expected-value casino if they're able to get you to forgive them.

The new program works much better. Eventually, all of humanity has moved to Eudaimonia except a small number of people for whom immiserating their enemies really seems to be their most important terminal value. Those people destroy each other. Everyone lives happily ever after.
# Fermi Challenge: Trains and Air Cargo

Jacob ([Jacob](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/jacobjacob)) and I are giving each other Fermi estimates to complete.

1.  *From Ben:* How many miles of train tracks exist in the world?
2.  *From Jacob:* How many metric tons of air freight cargo shipped globally in 2009, and in 2019 (either by commercial airlines or specialized freight companies)? (Final score will be average of those scores.

Whoever is the furthest from the truth (in log space) loses. 

The deadline is Monday 12th October. You are welcome to participate.

If you submit a Fermi estimate as an answer (not comment) to this post, it will be scored. If you submit for both and would like them both to be scored, your scores will be averaged.

This thread has the following rules which you must obey or else your answers/comments will be edited/deleted.

**Rules for this thread**

1.  All analysis of the question must be in spoiler tags ([how do I do that?](https://www.lesswrong.com/faq#How_do_I_insert_spoiler_protections_))
2.  You're only allowed to use numbers you don't need to Google.
3.  No object level analysis is allowed outside spoilered text.
4.  If your comment contains the answer, or if you know the true answer, make sure to mention this outside the spoilered text.

If you'd like an example of what that looks like in practise, see [this](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4KATQFzniqDpHo6ck/puzzle-games) and [this](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/svE3S6NKdPYoGepzq/topological-fixed-point-exercises) thread. The first thread is especially good, where only whitelisted things are allowed outside of the spoiler text.

This is what spoilered text looks like! Your comment should mostly look like this, except for some metadata at the start so people can make an informed choice about whether to read your comment.

  
**Why do this?**

Last week Jacob ran the [babble challenge](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pDkZitYsJAwf8mHKJ/babble-challenge-50-ways-of-sending-something-to-the-moon). More than 20 users joined to practice their creativity by coming up with 50 ways of sending something to the moon. 

This challenge continues in the same spirit. We want to build a culture of practice on LessWrong. A place where you users can come together, push the limits of their abilities, and grow stronger as rationalists. This is an experiment in that direction.
# Brainstorming positive visions of AI 

Context
-------

This is a place to explore visions of how AI can go really well. Conversations about AI (both in this community and disseminated by mainstream media) focus on dystopian scenarios and failure modes. Even communities that lean technoutopian (Silicon Valley) are having an AI hangover. More broadly, many people in my life think the future will be worse than the present and this makes me sad. 

So I think it's time to revisit the science fiction books of our teenage years and imagine what amazing applications of AI or AGI in society looks like. AI that doesn’t destroy us is great. AI that unlocks human flourishing is even better. I've personally found it much easier to think of negative scenarios than positive scenarios, so this is me enlisting your help. 

Discussion norms
----------------

I’d like this to be a [yes-and](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...), generative, bursty, collective brainstorming thread. Ideas that make no sense, that you might not endorse later, that you can't even explain or defend are all welcome. The person that starts the idea might not be the person that finishes it so don't censor too early.

I hope this discussion style shows us a different way to get to better reasoning: as opposed to one person contributing a well-developed position and others pointing out inconsistencies, we can build ideas collectively, with everyone contributing different parts. I also hope it encourages people who don’t normally participate on LessWrong to contribute their thoughts.

Prompts for idea generation 
----------------------------

(Feel free to ignore and share whatever comes to mind) 

1.  What does AI going well look like?
2.  If you feel pessimistic about the future, what vision of AI would make you feel more optimistic?
3.  What are problems we don't know how to solve that you'd be excited to solve with AI?
4.  What great companies could be built in the next decade, where the product is built primarily around modern Machine Learning? (If you find this prompt overly large, can you think of any companies that could be built around GPT-3?)  
     

I’ll seed some of my ideas below :) Thanks [Amanda](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/amandango), [Ben](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/benito), [Andreas](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/stuhlmueller) for discussing these ideas with me.
# How worried are the relevant experts about a magnetic pole reversal?

[This article](https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-north-south-poles-flip-magnetic-field-2018-4) and many others like it describe a phenomenon where the Earth's magnetic poles occasionally switch directions. The key ideas seem to be:

1.  Earth's magnetic poles occasionally switch places.
2.  This probably happens on a semi-regular basis, and according to our best guess at the schedule, we're long overdue for a switch right now.
3.  The magnetic north pole has been moving South much faster than normal recently (25 mi/year).
4.  We don't know exactly what happens during a switch, but it's probably not great.

The main concern seems to be that the Earth's magnetic field is what's responsible for deflecting/weakening a lot of incoming radiation, but the magnetic field gets a lot weaker during a switching event. Then again, the article linked above suggests that the period is about 300,000 years, which is far shorter than the length of our evolutionary history. That puts a bound on how bad it can be.

Nonetheless, this all somewhat concerning to me. Who are the relevant authority figures on the subject? How worried are they that we might be on the brink of some kind of extinction event? How worried are they about the interaction of such an event with everyday electronics? Do they make any recommendations for how individual people can prepare themselves for a potential switch? How about for society?
# Open Communication in the Days of Malicious Online Actors

This article uses a thought experiment to probe at dangers of public online communication, then describes an ontology around “malicious supporters” and possible remedies.

It's arguably a more obvious fit for LW than the EA Forum, but I posted it there for reasons explained in the comments. I think people here might also find it interesting though.
# Inaccessible finely tuned RNG in humans?

It was my impression that humans are bad at random (number) generation. Tell a person to arrange stars on a black canvas randomly, and they'll space them out more or less equidistantly and uniformly. If asked to generate a sequence of coin flips, we would avoid longer runs of the same coin face, which do happen with real coins.

The scientific consensus agrees. [Here's a study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402418/) where participants are asked to generate a sequence of 300 digits from 1 to 9. The researches successfully predict the next digit with a 27% chance (a truly random sequence would indicate an 11% chance). Scott Aaronson designed a [simple program](https://roadtolarissa.com/oracle/) that predicts which of two keys the user will press next with a 70% chance on average.

On the other hand, I've seen a number of informal online polls (e.g. on reddit and twitter) where the respondents demonstrate an ability to randomly sort themselves into two groups with a very high degree of accuracy. See [here](https://i.redd.it/zgqcn3nppnr51.jpg) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SampleSize/comments/8yodll/casual_80_of_you_select_1_the_other_20_select_2/), though I've seen a *ton* of these with various ratios. I've never seen it **not** work. It does break down for 1-99, but that seems reasonable to me.

The question is, **do you know of any research into this phenomenon or do you have a good explanation for it?**

Note that the ability is there in some contexts but not in others. An RNG exists within us, but our access to it is sometimes blocked. I've seen other examples of this in psychology so it doesn't weird me out as much as it used to, but I still wanna point it out. 

If this seems like a queer phenomenon to fixate on, know that an RNG is useful in many contexts. It's necessary for strong/optimal strategies in certain games (poker, rock paper scissors) and game theoretic scenarios. It's useful for coordination without communication. The best known algorithms for some problems are probabilistic.

And while I have your attention: [https://www.strawpoll.me/21064106](https://www.strawpoll.me/21064106)
# Review and Summary of 'Moral Uncertainty'

I just read the recently published '[Moral Uncertainty](https://www.moraluncertainty.com/)' by Will MacAskill, Krister Bykvist, and Toby Ord. It's an excellent book with significant practical implications. As such, I originally intended to write a brief review — which ballooned into this monstrosity. In any case, I hope such a summary is useful for anyone curious about the book's main arguments, and the subject of moral uncertainty more generally. I would also be very grateful for feedback on this — [anonymous](https://forms.gle/WRCkRi6s6ask8rGF8) is fine.
# Sunday October 11th, 12:00PM (PT) — talks by Alex Zhu, Martin Sustrik and Steve Byrnes

This Sunday at 12pm (PT), we're running another session of "lightning talks" by curated LessWrong authors (see [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/lesswrong-events) for previous weeks' transcripts). This time fully in Gather Town!

*   For the first hour, we will have a series of lightning talks each lasting about 5 minutes followed by discussion. The talks will be short and focus on presenting one core idea well, rather than rushing through a lot of content.
*   From 1PM to 2PM, we'll just be casually hanging out in Gather Town. If you are not interested in the talks, feel free to just show up for this part (or the other way around).
*   We want to give top LessWrong writers an interesting space to discuss their ideas, and have more fruitful collaboration between users. Think of it like a cross between an academic colloquium and some friends chatting by a whiteboard.

*If you're a curated author and interested in giving a 5-min talk at a future event, which will then be transcribed and edited, sign up* [*here*](https://forms.gle/iwFatbhys9muPmQA7)*.*

Speakers
--------

*   Alex Zhu: *The Internet Oasis of Sanity*
*   Martin Sustrik: *The Swiss Political System*
*   Steve Byrnes: *"Little glimpses of empathy" as the foundation for social emotions*

Details
-------

**When?** Sunday October 11th, 12:00PM (PT)

**Where?** [https://gather.town/app/Dgohwk4BUg5HjGZE/lesswrong-clubhouse](https://gather.town/app/Dgohwk4BUg5HjGZE/lesswrong-clubhouse)
# Political Lottery in Switzerland

[Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition), that is selection of political officials by lottery, was famously used in ancient Athenian democracy. It was also used, since XIV. century, in couple of city states in northern Italy.

A less well known fact is that it was also used in the Old Swiss Confederacy.

In canton Glarus, offices were originally filled by voting by show of hand at a public gathering (Landesgemeinde). However, buying of votes was widespread and the people have, over time, tried different measures to remedy the problem.

* In 1623, taxes were introduced. Those who were elected to an office had to pay certain amount. The measure haven't had the desired effect. In fact, it has strengthened the aristocratization of politics.
* In 1640, selecting the officials by lottery was introduced in the protestant part of the canton. It was done in two stages. First, eight candidates were selected by show of hands. Then, an underage boy gave each candidate a ball rimmed in black. Seven of them were silver, one was gold. Whoever got the golden ball got the office.
* In 1764, a resolution passed by Landesgemeinde warns the candidates that they should "no longer exchange the balls, but rather everyone should keep the ball that he gets". That suggests that the candidates were no longer buying the votes of the entire community, but rather the votes of their counter-candidates.
* In 1791, the Landesgemeinde adopted a new procedure for some offices. It removed the pre-selection phase and drew the lots directly from all citizens. However, it sometimes happened that people were selected who didn't want or weren't able to exercise the office (e.g. because they were illiterate). In many cases they auctioned the office to the highest bidder.

One can thus think of sortition in canton Glarus not as of a democratization measure, but rather as a way to make buying of votes more cost effective. After all, election bribery led to an increasingly costly arms race between powerful individuals and it was threatening to ruin entire families.

Taken from a great article by Lukas Leuzinger. The article (in German) contains much more interesting detail and can be found [here](https://napoleonsnightmare.ch/2020/07/09/das-losverfahren-brachte-in-der-schweizer-geschichte-vor-allem-aristokraten-gluck/).
# Why isn't JS a popular language for deep learning?

I've just read this book, which introduces TensorFlow.js: [https://www.manning.com/books/deep-learning-with-javascript](https://www.manning.com/books/deep-learning-with-javascript)

Now I'm wondering why JS is so unpopular for deep learning, especially compared to Python. For deep learning there all the usual benefits of using JS, e.g.:

*   easy to learn
*   huge community
*   flexible about paradigms
*   write code once, run anywhere (especially useful for training/deploying models as well as cool applications like federated learning on client devices).

Plus, compared to Python there's the huge added benefit of proper static types and the rich tooling of TypeScript. I know Python3 has type hints, but it's a really horrible experience compared to any proper typed language. Playing around with TensorFlow.js I've found it catches plenty of mistakes that would require me to read and understand a bunch of code in Python. But with VSCode plugins, I just hover over a variable and it tells me what I'm doing wrong immediately.

So why is no-one really using this? Is it just the momentum of the Python deep learning community? Have I missed some huge downside? Is there a thriving underground JS deep learning community I've not been initiated into?
# Shouldn't there be a Chinese translation of Human Compatible?

Considering that China [seems pretty serious about investing heavily in AI in the near future](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/21/china-ai-world-leader-by-2030.html), it may be *kind of important* that Stuart Russel's work of AI alignment advocacy *Human Compatible* is made as accessible as possible to a Chinese audience, but there don't seem to be any Chinese translations.  
  
Is it not necessary, perhaps? Is it possible that the most influential people in the field over there are all necessarily fluent in english, so that they can engage with the research literature and use the tools?  
Otherwise, what's getting in the way of producing this? What should be done?
# If GPT-6 is human-level AGI but costs $200 per page of output, what would happen?

I'm imagining a scenario in which OpenAI etc. continue to scale up their language models, and eventually we get GPT-6, which has the following properties:

--It can predict random internet text better than the best humans

--It can answer correctly questions which seem to require long chains of reasoning to answer

--With appropriate prompts it can write novel arguments, proofs, code, etc. of quality about equal to the stuff it has read on the internet. (The best stuff, if the prompt is designed correctly)

--With appropriate prompts it can give advice about arbitrary situations, including advice about strategies and plans. Again, the advice is about as good as the stuff it read on the internet, or the best stuff, if prompted correctly.

--It costs $200 per page of output, because just running the model requires a giant computing cluster.

My question is, how does this transform the world? I have the feeling that the world would be transformed pretty quickly. At the very least, the price of running the model would drop by orders of magnitude over the next few years due to algorithmic and hardware improvements, and then we'd see lots of jobs getting automated. But I'm pretty sure stuff would go crazy even before then. How?

(CONTEXT: I'm trying to decide whether "Expensive AGI" is meaningfully different from the usual AGI scenarios. If we get AGI but it costs $200 per page instead of $2, and thus isn't economically viable for most jobs, does that matter? EDIT: What if it costs $2,000 or $20,000 per page? Do things go FOOM soon even in that case?)
# Dancing With Covid

The [Society of Stranders](http://www.shagdance.com/) puts on a [Shag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_shag) (a regional Swing dance) [festival](http://www.shagdance.com/migration.htm) every fall in North Myrtle Beach SC. This year, with the pandemic, the organization made the hard but necessary decision to cancel ( [pdf](http://shagdance.com/Bulletins/SOSNews-Aug3-2020.pdf), [fb](https://www.facebook.com/groups/41293702070/permalink/10158500278307071/)). Unfortunately, [one of the venues](https://www.facebook.com/DucksNightLifeNMB/posts/3282635505155565) decided to go ahead with their part of the festival:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/shagging-on-main-2020.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/shagging-on-main-2020-big.jpg)

The [precautions they took](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10219309130621201&set=a.1024972626751) were essentially [hygiene theater](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/), focused on surfaces while the primary risk by far is people breathing in each others faces:

> Routinely cleaning and disinfecting thru out the opening hours and a complete cleaning and disinfection after closing. Hand sanitizing stations have been positioned thru out the club and cafe. Masks are available free of charge for anyone that requests one. A person will be designated as a "floater" that will have the responsibility of observing crowds for anyone that may appear sick and handling related issues including taking temperatures. Capacity levels will be maintained as specified by the Fire Marshall. Security is present during all hours of the event. Large crowds around the bar and other areas of the club will be dispersed.

On [masks](https://www.facebook.com/DanSummitt.O.D.Mafia/posts/10219309208743154?comment_id=10219316081714974&reply_comment_id=10219320135256310):

> Some people wore them, some didn't. I think the regs require all establishments have a notice stating masks are required but only a few of the establishments enforce it nor are they required to do so.

[Looking](http://odmafia.com/2020-09-26-entertainers-ducks-night-life-mj/) [at](http://odmafia.com/2020-09-26-holiday-band-ducks-night-life/) [pictures](http://odmafia.com/2020-09-26-jay-the-footlights-deckerz-mj/) [posted by](http://odmafia.com/2020-09-24-gary-lowder-smokin-hot-ducks-night-life/) [a DJ](http://odmafia.com/2020-09-23-odmafia-dj-dan-summitt-ducks-night-life/) I saw two people wearing masks after skimming ~100+ thumbnails.

Several hundred people attended (the most common estimate I've seen is "500+") and [now](https://www.facebook.com/groups/SWCSD/permalink/10157705030863527/):

> More than 60 Dancers with COVID-19. Some are in hospital. It is life threatening. ... Dancers came from all over because they couldn't get out of hotel contracts etc. and wanted to party & dance with everyone.

I know people miss dancing and want to get back to it, but this event illustrates how easily covid can propagate between dancers. We need to be patient and find other ways to stay in touch with each other while we wait.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100187933257082)*
# How to reach 80% of your goals. Exactly 80%.

I use a simple but effective system to reach my goals. At the beginning of every day, week, and quarter I formulate my goals such that I believe I will have an 80% probability of achieving them. I note them down in an Excel sheet and track how many of them I reach before the deadline. If I reach more than 80% of them,  I recalibrate and set more ambitious goals for the next period. Do I reach less than 80% of them, then I set easier or fewer goals for the next period. This system has multiple advantages:

*   It helps to set clear and measurable goals because at the end of the period you will have to indicate whether you reached them or not.
*   It helps to set ambitious goals. I have had periods where I could keep upping the amount and difficulty of my goals, achieving more and more each day.
*   it helps to prevent ruts. Even when you only slept for 2 hours, feel depressed or ill, or it just isn't your day, you can still set goals of which you are 80% sure you can realistically achieve them. Personally, I feel that by still achieving small goals I get some positive rewards which help me to feel better sooner.
*   And maybe most importantly: it helps to get accurate beliefs about what you can and cannot do. This might be the area in life where people have the most biases: [Planning Fallacy](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CPm5LTwHrvBJCa9h5/planning-fallacy), [Self-deception](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/self-deception?showPostCount=true&useTagName=true), [Imposter Syndrome or Dunning-Kruger](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qS2dnpeQyppetgXqv/double-dipping-in-dunning-kruger), etc. You might be able to achieve a lot more than you think, or a lot less. In either way, it would be helpful to have more accurate beliefs about this.

If you want to try the system I have a few practical tips:

*   Separate goals over different time periods (I use daily, weekly, and quarterly goals), and try to hit exactly 80% in every type of goal. In the beginning, I underestimated what I could achieve in a day, but overestimated what I could achieve in a week. I learned I should let some daily tasks slip sometimes in order to reach my longer-term goals.
*   Use meta-goals. The biggest failure mode of any system is that you use it enthusiastically in the beginning, but stop using it after a while. One of my recurring weekly goals is: "Set my daily goals at least 4 days this week". Of course, I achieve this goal about 80% of the time.

That's all. Now go reach your goals! Well, exactly 80% of them.
# Rule of Equal and Opposite Advice & Slack

References:
===========

Slack:  [https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/](https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/)

TL;DR Having a 20% buffer in your schedule to rest and handle anything urgent that pops up is the difference between a good life with time to experiment and being in a situation where one emergency breaks you and everything is on fire all the time.

Rule of Equal and Opposite Advice:  [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/24/should-you-reverse-any-advice-you-hear/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/24/should-you-reverse-any-advice-you-hear/)

TL;DR The person who needs the advice to love their body is probably the person to end up on diet forums.  The person who needs the advice to care about their health is probably going to end up on HAES forums.  Each person needs to reverse the advice they naturally seek to get the advice that brings them to the healthy middle way rather than a self destructive extreme.

Main Post:
==========

Calm > Anxiety; Slack > Distress:
---------------------------------

The advice to seek out slack seemed to be the advice lesswrong needs.  This forum is filled with people who worry about if they should be working 24/7 and donating all of their income.  I think if your problem is on the anxiety spectrum it’s really important that you step back from trying to find ways to get everything done and try the opposite advice of seeking slack.

Joy > Depression; Eustress > Slack:
-----------------------------------

I think I’ve gone too far down the slack hole and need to reverse the advice again.  This forum is also filled with smart people who need a challenge to feel fulfilled.  As more slack has found its way into my life\[1\] I’ve been having trouble motivating myself to do the miniscule workload asked of me; whereas in the past I’ve handled herculean schedules and loved it.

As a result, I’ve been seeking more and more slack thinking “I can barely do this, I clearly need to try even less”.  I need to reverse that.  Of course, I don’t want to go back to not have a single unscheduled second in my day.  The goal is to settle the pendulum at a nice healthy medium where I have an engaging number of balls to juggle but if I drop one I’ll still have time to pick it up before the next ball falls.  

Conclusion:
-----------

If you’re feeling anxious, ask yourself where you can find more slack.  If you’re feeling depressed, ask yourself where you can find things that excite you without making you anxious.  Slack doesn’t necessarily mean having a lot of time where you do nothing.  As long as your schedule has things you can push back without issue that gives you the freedom that slack is meant to give you even if you have relatively few unscheduled blocks on your calendar.

\[1\] Partially due to covid eliminating the hobbies I was putting most of my effort into
# All Lesswrong Posts by Yudkowsky in one .epub

This .epub has been generated using [webpages-to-ebook](https://github.com/georgjaehnig/webpages-to-ebook). Thanks to [j0rges](https://www.reddit.com/user/j0rges) user from Reddit for compiling the urls. The book contains all Eliezer Yudkowsky's posts from Lesswrong since the beginning. HPMOR posts have not been included. 

An index with all the URLs included in the ebook can be found [HERE](https://pastebin.com/tvDHiFaA).

[>>DOWNLOAD EPUB](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DsghKGqWQG5b2W293MAUCo_Pzfk6zgjv/view?usp=drivesdk)

I have used the Lesswrong “corporative” map image for the cover. Let me know if I should change that.

Tools used: webpages-to-ebook, Greaterwrong, Calibre & Sigil.
# Everything I Know About Elite America I Learned From ‘Fresh Prince’ and ‘West Wing’

Rob Henderson is one of a few writers outside of the rationalist community that I follow obsessively, for his consistently high insight-to-length ratio, and his general writing style which appeals to me in some hard to articulate way. Here in a recent NY Times Opinion piece, he writes about social class, social mobility, and how (some) people form their values. 

Whether upwards social mobility is a real value for many people (as it *seems* to be), and how to achieve it if it is, I think is an important topic that I seldomly see discussed around here, so this could be a good time to do that. Personally I seem to have little desire or motivation to join the "elite" or "upper class", and would even prefer my kids to *not* go to an elite university, which would foreclose much of the opportunity for them to do that as well. Is that wrong? If "[it all adds up to normality](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Egan's_law)", what might explain that "joining or staying in the elite class" is a real value? Or conversely, how can we be pretty sure that it's not? (To be clear, these are not rhetorical questions, and I'm expressing genuine moral/axiological uncertainty.)
# Msg Len

I'll be brief, omit needless words.  
Intelligence is prediction is compression _because_  
Compression is finding a code that makes the data shorter  
And codeword lengths are probabilities  
So codes are probability distributions  
But probability distributions are prediction strategies.
# How much to worry about the US election unrest?

Political tensions in the US are high. There have been a lot of mass protests in recent months, some of which have turned violent (often after police provocation). Donald Trump and Mike Pence have not to promise to respect the election result if they lose. Many on the left accuse them of plotting to steal the election and/or promote violence against their political opponents.

Frankly, I don't consider myself sufficiently well-calibrated on politics to know how much of this is bluster and how much is true cause for alarm. How worried should I be about the US plunging into dictatorship or widespread political violence?

Can people who understand this stuff better than I do please comment?
# The Sun Room

I'm walking to work with a large coffee in hand. It is cold, and I am happy.

Because I am in the sun room.

I bring a task onto my mental desk. Considerations, insights, possibilities start spilling from it immediately with no effort required.

I seem to have micro thoughts within larger ones. Little jokes I make to myself, flashes of pleasant memories, ideas for tangential projects while the larger loops churn away.

I love to code here, though one must keep an eye for refactoring hubris when sitting in the sun room.

In this room I have the idea to start naming familiar states of consciousness like rooms of a house. The sun room, the doorless room, the infinity cupboard, the hole.

Sadly I've only found coffee for opening this door but daily use quickly builds tolerance in me.

So I'd very much like to know, has anyone else has found a key to the sun room?
# Have the lockdowns been worth it?

There’s been a lot of discussion about whether the pandemic lockdowns have been worth it. However, much of the reasoning that we’ve seen has been very motivated and un-nuanced in a way that for us has distorted a lot of the information.

So this is not a thread for taking a position on that. This is a thread for raising *individual* *considerations* that are relevant for thinking about the question “Have the pandemic lockdowns, in general, been worth it?”

**Every answer to this thread should analyze a single belief** that is relevant to whether pandemic lockdowns have been worth it, such as 

*   "No lockdown would have led to 300,000 additional loss of QALYs in the UK"
*   "GDP $1b lower than the counterfactual in Germany"
*   "The West will develop a vaccine in 6 months"
*   “A year in lockdown is worth 70% of a normal year and 85% of a covid year without lockdown”
*   “The impetus to try remote work has led to changes in workplace norms worth $1 trillion over the next decade”

and provide relevant facts, data and information available about that factor.

Answers in this thread should not attempt to take a position on the overall question. **Answers that take a position on the overall question will be deleted.** This thread will live up to the virtue of [holding off on proposing solutions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uHYYA32CKgKT3FagE/hold-off-on-proposing-solutions).

(By ‘lockdown’ we refer to the thing that the US, UK and China have been doing, and what Sweden didn’t. There is naturally a lot of variation between countries, so this cannot have a canonical answer. If your consideration only applies to a small number of countries, that is fine.)
# The Achilles Heel Hypothesis for AI

Pitfalls for AI Systems via Decision Theoretic Adversaries
----------------------------------------------------------

This post accompanies a new [paper related to AI alignment](https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.05418). A brief outline and informal discussion of the ideas is presented here, but of course, you should check out the paper for the full thing. 

As progress in AI continues to advance at a rapid pace, it is important to know how advanced systems will make choices and in what ways they may fail. When thinking about the prospect of superintelligence, I think it’s all too easy and all too common to imagine that an ASI would be something which humans, by definition, can’t ever outsmart. But I don’t think we should take this for granted. Even if an AI system seems very intelligent -- potentially even superintelligent -- this doesn’t mean that it’s immune to making egregiously bad decisions when presented with adversarial situations. Thus the main insight of this paper:

*The Achilles Heel hypothesis: Being a highly-successful goal-oriented agent does not imply a lack of decision theoretic weaknesses in adversarial situations. Highly intelligent systems can stably possess "Achilles Heels" which cause these vulnerabilities.*

More precisely, I define an Achilles Heel as a delusion which is *impairing* (results in irrational choices in adversarial situations), *subtle* (doesn’t result in irrational choices in normal situations), *implantable* (able to be introduced) and *stable* (remaining in a system reliably over time). 

In the paper, a total of 8 prime candidates Achilles Heels are considered alongside ways by which they could be exploited and implanted:  

1.  Corrigibility
2.  Evidential decision theory
3.  Causal decision theory
4.  Updateful decision theory
5.  Simulational belief
6.  Sleeping beauty assumptions
7.  Infinite temporal models
8.  Aversion to the use of subjective priors

This was all inspired by thinking about how, since paradoxes can often stump humans, they might also fool certain AI systems in ways that we should anticipate. It surveys and augments work in decision theory involving dilemmas and paradoxes in context of this hypothesis and makes a handful of novel contributions involving implantation. My hope is that this will lead to insights on how to better model and build advanced AI. On one hand, Achilles Heels are a possible failure mode which we want to avoid, but on the other, they are an opportunity for building better models via adversarial training or the use of certain Achilles Heels for containment. This paper may also just be a useful reference in general for the topics it surveys. 

For more info, you’ll have to read it! Also feel free to contact me at [scasper@college.harvard.edu](mailto:scasper@college.harvard.edu).
# What is your electronic drawing set up?

I'm interested in drawing on a tablet. I'll put my specific criteria below, but I'd like this to be as broadly useful as possible, so I'm going to ask the questions in general first: 

> What is your set up for electronic drawing? What tools do you use? What apps? What's your use case, and why are these choices the best for it? What would make you change your mind about your choices?

**My specific preferences**

That said, my specific goal is a tablet I use for Art (drawing and writing) that has no other distractions, to facilitate focused work. The use case leads to the following restrictions:

*   I don't want to be tethered to a second device, so it needs to be a generalist tablet, not just a drawing tablet.
*   I don't know what requirements I should be putting down for a drawing tablet, please tell me. Pen sensitivity seems important, but will I notice the difference between 8,192 and 4,096 pressure levels? How much processing power do I need to scribble?
*   I'm invested in the android ecosystem. Unfortunately, the only android tablets anyone recommends for drawing are from Samsung, and for [complicated and stupid reasons](https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyTab/comments/dc64ra/samsung_tab_s6_keyboard_shiftspace_bar/), the writing use case rules out Samsung  (this is what's killing me on my [current distraction-free writing set up](https://acesounderglass.com/2020/05/31/turns-out-interruptions-are-bad-who-knew/)).
*   If there were a really cheap tablet that was for some reason amazing at drawing but terrible for writing, I could probably limp by with my current writing set up.
*   Ideally USB-C charged, will tolerate micro-USB, really would rather not use lightning or another proprietary connector as it's one more damn cable to carry around.
# Election Preparation

Historically, uncertainty about who is the rightful leader has often led to violence. While I think the most likely outcome for the coming election in the US is a peaceful transition from Trump to Biden, the range of possibilities is wide enough that it's worth making some preparations for worse outcomes.

The most likely risk to me seems to be supply chain disruptions. If things go poorly, staying home is probably going to be your best option, and you want to have whatever supplies you need on hand so that you don't have to go out. This is [always good policy](https://www.jefftk.com/p/disasters), but is especially important if there is a potential disaster [you can see coming](https://www.jefftk.com/p/quarantine-preparations). Make sure you have enough food, refills on medicines, and spares for critical items (glasses, medical equipment). If there are things that you usually purchase in a "just in time" manner, buy ahead. Think through things you might be going to want and consider getting them now instead. Check in with friends and relatives and make sure they're in an ok spot.

I think there is also some risk of rioting and fires, especially on election night or perhaps after a court verdict is announced. If you have a car, making sure you have a full tank of gas is worth it. Aside from that, however, I think planning for riots is not that different for planning for supply issues. If you would be considering participating in riots, you would probably also want to plan in advance for any gear you might want.

Someone who was much more risk averse than I am, or who anticipated a much worse outcome, might consider making plans to be in a remote area, or outside the country. I'd recommend against buying firearms: there's a lot of practice that goes into using them well, and if you don't know what you're doing you're probably going to make things worse.

As someone who would like to see Biden elected, and expects you do as well, I think the most important thing to do is to vote. A clear victory is hard to dispute.
# What are some beautiful, rationalist artworks? 

So you can now drag-and-drop images into comments. (Thanks, LessWrong dev team!) 

Hence, this post is an excuse to build a beautiful, inspiring, powerful — and primarily visual — comment section. 

Let's celebrate all that is great about the Art of Rationality, with images. 

Rules 
------

*   **Each answer must contain a picture. No links! **

It should be possible to just scroll through the comments and adore the artwork. There shouldn't be any need to click-through to other pages. (Think of it like a Pinterest board, if you've ever seen those.)

Adding text is fine, but consider doing it in a comment underneath your image, so it can be collapsed.  

*   **Pictures should be somehow relate to the Art of Rationality, as practiced on LessWrong. **

*Allowed:* a breathtaking shot of a SpaceX launch; [that solemn shot of Petrov deep in thought, gazing out his window](https://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/stanislav-petrov.jpg?x17135); [a painting of Galileo spearheading empiricism against the inquisition](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/galileo-facing-roman-inquisition-pg-reproductions.jpg), ...

*Not allowed:* a random pretty mountain; the Mona Lisa; abstract expressionism, ...

I'll be liberal with this condition if you can give a good justification for why you chose your piece. 

*   **Pictures should be beautiful art** ***independently*** **of their relation to rationality.**

*Allowed:* an exquisite shot of some piece of elegantly engineered machinery; a richly colourful and swirling galaxy, ...

*Not allowed:* a random picture of Einstein and Gödel hanging out; a low-resolution photo of a galaxy which is cool *because it represents an important advance in astronomy*, but which in-and-of-itself just looks like some lame computer graphics; [Petrov's own tourist photos](https://www.brightstarsound.com/world_hero/photos/liberty_expanded.jpg), ...

*   **Don't be a jerk, but do note if you think something is a major conflict with a virtue. **

Probably goes without saying... but don't be a pretentious art critic. The point of this thread is to pay tribute to those virtues that keep us striving to leave this world in a better place than we found it, guided by the Light of Science. Don't shout over the music. 

That being said, I do care about pictures actually representing rationality. For example, take [that photo of the exhausted surgeon after a 23h heart transplant](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/zbigniew-religa-story-1987/). If it turned out (hypothetical) to have been the result of really poor utilitarian calculations, and actually is in direct conflict with some of our virtues: I think it's important to note that. 

\-\-\-

Note: I'm certainly *not* saying that the above rules are all that rationalist art is about. I'm just going for a particular vision with this comment field. Other posts can enforce other visions. :)
# Sunday October 18, 12:00PM (PT) — Garden Party

This Sunday noon (12:00PM PT) we're having a party in the LessWrong Walled Garden.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/cb70f5b6453d21e83efabb0c637bb649e1a43986aae9d06d.png)

It can always be Spring if we really want it to be.

This is a private space that the LessWrong team has been working on (and coworking in) for the past couple weeks. Tomorrow we'll be hosting our first public event. Come chat with fellow LessWrong folk and explore the Garden grounds.

The Garden will be open from 12 noon to 4pm Pacific Time.

Details
-------

**When?** Sunday October 18, 12:00PM (PT) to 16:00PM (PT)

**Where?** [https://gather.town/app/aPVfK3G76UukgiHx/lesswrong-campus](https://gather.town/app/aPVfK3G76UukgiHx/lesswrong-campus)

**How?** [Gather.Town](https://gather.town/) is a 2D space where you are connected (by video call) to people who are near you in the 2D space. You can turn off your video and your audio at will. There's also a bunch of further features available for communication.

**Advice for video calls?** Aim for these three things:

1.  Be in a space without other people (to reduce background noise)
2.  Use headphones (so there's no audio feedback)
3.  Use a headset mic (to help block out ambient noise)

For more advice see Ben Kuhn's [Tips for the most immersive video calls](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DEe5cvpaTQeF9kkru/tips-for-the-most-immersive-video-calls).

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/1f74452e93616453520b89da54c40f77c4989d6289ec1c7b.png)

The LessWrong Walled Garden.
# Retain flexibility with habits?

I've recently been using habits to increase my productivity.  
However, I've noticed a downside. If I start the day off by failing  
my morning routine (wake up early, exercise) the entire rest  
of the day is wasted since I feel off track.  
  
Before habits I was much more flexible. Is there a way to avoid the mental state of  
giving up when, for example, I wake up late?
# What posts do you want written?

I have many posts that I want written but do not have time to write and I suspect there are other people that feel similarly. [This post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Tr7tAyt5zZpdTwTQK/the-solomonoff-prior-is-malign) on the Solomonoff prior was one example, until I got fed up and just wrote it.

Please write one post idea per answer so they can be voted on seperately.
# It's hard to use utility maximization to justify creating new sentient beings

Cedric and Bertrand want to see a movie. Bertrand wants to see *Muscled Duded Blow Stuff Up*. Cedric wants to see *Quiet Remembrances: Time as Allegory*. There's also *Middlebrow Space Fantasy*. They are rational but not selfish - they care about the other's happiness as much as their own. What should they see?