Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Best way to write a bicolor article on Less Wrong?

I am planning to write an article that would use *two colors* to distinguish between "map" and "territory", kinda like in [*The Neverending Story*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story). In other words, instead of:

> The sentence 'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white.

I want to write something like:

> **Snow is white** if and only if snow is white.

In general, the quote marks have the advantage of unlimited nesting, but I don't need it now; my article will have *exactly two levels*, not more. On the other hand, I feel that the bicolor version may be easier to *perceive* instinctively; the words referring to the map and the territory are not only surrounded by marks, they *look differently* by themselves. Also, quote marks are generally used for various purposes (quoting, irony, etc.), so authors emphasise the "this refers to map, as opposed to the territory" usage by not saying merely "X", but "the sentence X", "the words X", "the text X", etc. By removing such words, even my example here is shorter.

So, how to do this technically?

*   If I understand it correctly, Markdown *doesn't* support colors, but you can replace Markdown editor with Rich text editor in user settings, and the Rich text editor supports colors. Am I right?
*   Alternatively, instead of colors, I could use *italics* or *bold* font, just like I did in the example here. Not only is this simple in Markdown editor, but as an advantage, if some blind people read this, their software would probably pronounce those words in a different *voice*, making the article more accessible. (Is this true? Can anyone confirm?) The minor disadvantage is that I will *not* be able to use the italics or bold font in the *usual* way in the article, but I think I can live with that. Though, as you see, I *love* using italics, so I would probably use bold font for the map-words.
*   (For the sake of completeness, using CAPITAL LETTERS would also be an option, but it is an *ugly* option I would rather avoid.)
*   And maybe more of the above could be combined, e.g. the words referring to the map could be written using italics *and* different color. That would make them even more stand out of the remaining text. Is it worth the extra effort?

Is there another option I missed here?

Which option would you prefer? I care about everyone's opinion, but the perspectives of colorblind or blind readers are especially valuable, because using a wrong option might completely ruin the article for them.
# I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt

From the BPF blog (of which I’m a volunteer) here’s the story of a kid with a terminal illness who is holding out for the development of brain preservation for future uploading. In the comments he justifies not signing up for cryonics with

> Lack of medical accountability and support from the scientific community are shortcomings of cryonics that are unacceptable for many, including me. To address that, I think the neuroscience and medical establishment should start supporting and developing brain preservation \[ASC\] in a hospital setting today. These shortcomings prevented me from choosing cryonics, and I want people to have far better options at the end of their lives than I did.
# Avoid Contentious Terms

A succinct term for a concept is great, but only if everyone involved views it similarly. If you're trying to write something persuasive, controversial terms are traps that can derail discussion and make finding common ground harder. Consider limiting yourself to well understood terms to avoid distracting from your core argument.

One of my favorite [comments](https://www.jefftk.com/p/dividing-tasks#fb-921154566742) I've received was "you're really good at talking about the patriarchy without talking about the patriarchy," on a post about [dividing tasks in marriage](https://www.jefftk.com/p/dividing-tasks). I didn't use terms like "emotional labor", "sexism", or, as noted, "patriarchy". This typically involves slightly longer phrasing, but it's not too bad; that post has "not everyone wants to be or will be in a male-female couple" instead of bringing in "heteronormative". Similarly, a version of the post I wrote about [tickling kids](https://www.jefftk.com/p/tickling) that used "consent" or "rape culture" would have been worse.

There are two main ways people bounce off terms:

*   Affiliation. A piece mentioning "emotional labor" will lead readers to one set of inferences about the author; one mentioning "traditional marriage" will bring different inferences to mind. This can be useful if you are trying to strengthen the views of people who already agree with you, but not if you're trying to bring in new people.
    
*   Confusion. Your audience may not know what your terms mean, or, worse, may think they mean something different than you do. In discussions with your friends a broad understanding of "racist" may be implicit, but if you use the term to describe credit scoring many readers will take it as a claim that the system was maliciously and intentionally designed to disadvantage people on the basis of their race, and perhaps that credit scores explicitly consider an applicant's race.
    

There are some downsides to this approach: it can make it harder to find your piece through searching and it can feel somewhat detached from the broader conversation on the issue. It's probably not for everyone, but it's a pragmatic approach I've found works well.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100207470130032)*
# Coincidences are Improbable

Ada Palmer:

> events which are improbable and proximal are likely to have a causal link

I usually feel fine after eating food. One day, I decided to try a new dish at a restaurant. Afterward, my stomach is upset. I suspect that the new dish caused my stomachache. How justified is this suspicion?

Suppose events $A$ and $B$ both have a probability $0.01$ of occurring, and you observe both. This event favors various hypotheses over each other to the extent that they sharply predicted $A \land B$. A hypothesis that has $P(B \mid A) = c * 0.01$ assigns $c$ times more probability mass to $A \land B$ than hypotheses that suppose $A$ and $B$ are independent.

More concretely, a hypothesis that postulates a strong causal link between $A$ and $B$ might have $P(B \mid A) = 0.9$. This hypothesis is favored $90:1$ over a hypothesis that has $P(B \mid A) = P(B) = 0.01$. More generally, if you observe two improbable things, this is evidence that the presence of one observation makes the other more likely, with the evidence getting stronger as the connection between the two events strengthens.

Coincidences happen, but they are improbable. If you get a dog and your couch starts getting damaged, your dog is probably doing it. If your skin gets irritated and you recently switched lotion brands, you're probably allergic to the new brand. If my friend and I both saw someone six feet tall with red hair, we probably saw the same person. If your friend introduces you to someone that is both vegan and plays Magic the Gathering, you probably forget that your friend is also vegan and plays Magic the Gathering.

There are four ways events can be causally linked, only two of which are direct:

- $A$ causes $B$; your dog caused the couch damage.
- $B$ causes $A$; your skin irritation is caused by the new lotion brand.
- Some event $C$ causes both; the same 6-foot person causes both you and your friend to see them.
- Some event $D$ caused by both has been conditioned upon; new introductions have improbable attribute combinations because your friend seeks those combinations out.

When enough coincidences happen, start looking for a causal link.
# Are multiple shorter exposures less likely to reduce in infections of COVID-19 then one larger exposure?

At 15 separate days Alice spends 1 minute in close proximity of Carol, who is infected with COVID-19. Bob on the other hand spends 15 minutes on one day with Carol, who is infected with COVID-19. Assuming the infectiousness of Carol is the same on every day and everything else about the risk factors is constant, is Bob more likely to get infected then Alice? If so, by how much?

([StackExchange crosspost](https://medicalsciences.stackexchange.com/q/25773/588); [Quora crosspost](https://www.quora.com/unanswered/At-15-separate-days-Alice-spends-1-minute-in-close-proximity-of-Carol-who-is-infected-with-COVID-19-Bob-on-the-other-hand-spends-15-minutes-on-one-day-with-Carol-Is-Bob-more-likely-to-get-infected-then-Alice))
# Anna and Oliver discuss Children and X-Risk

This Sunday, Anna Salamon and Oliver Habryka will discuss whether people who care about x-risk should have children.

A short summary of Oliver's position is:

> If we want to reduce existential risk and protect the cosmic commons, we have some really tough challenges ahead and need to really succeed at some ambitious and world-scale plans. I have a sense that once people have children, they tend to stop trying to do ambitious things. It also dramatically reduces the flexibility of what plans or experiments they can try.

And a short summary of Anna's position is:

> Most human activity is fake (pretends to be about one thing while being micro-governed by a different and unaligned process, e.g. somebody tries to "work on AI risk" while almost all of the micropulls come from wanting to keep fear at bay, or for a different person from wanting to feel busy and important, rather than from actually seeing and caring about AI risk). Returns from stuff that is less fake seem really a lot better than returns from stuff that is more fake -- particularly for areas that are easy to be confused about, such as AI risk. I suspect the desire for kids/lineage is really basic for a lot of people (almost everyone?), (despite being often not very conscious, though usually more conscious at 40 than at 30, and more at 30 than at 20), and that aligning with it leaves most of us with more of a shot at doing real things.

We'll be meeting in Zoom at 12pm PT

[https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7151633248?pwd=RnpaUFNZbVYvTTV6RWJVZFFSQ0VPUT09](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7151633248?pwd%3DRnpaUFNZbVYvTTV6RWJVZFFSQ0VPUT09&sa=D&source=calendar&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw2GMdw9HPEmYl1DL-rmlfFA)
# "New EA cause area: voting"; or, "what's wrong with this calculation?"


Consider my home county:

- Number of voters $\approx 700k$
- (Corollary: probability of swinging an election: $1 / \sqrt{nVoters} \approx 1/800$)
- GDP: $400B
- Amount by which GDP might go up or down depending on a single election: 0.1%
- Probability I support the better side: 60%

Expected GDP increase from my voting \
... = (fraction of GDP at stake) * P(I swing election) * (P(I'm good) - P(I'm bad))\
... = ($400B * 0.1%) * (1/800) * (60% - 40%)\
... = $100k

...which seems absurdly large! And it just gets crazier as you look at larger areas, since GDP goes up like $nVoters$ while P(swing) only goes down like $1 / \sqrt{nVoters}$. For the United States, the same calculation yields a benefit of $300k.

What's going wrong here? (Or, is nothing going wrong? In which case, I guess I'll [stop donating to charity and devote that time and energy to Getting Out The Vote instead](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/19/nobody-is-perfect-everything-is-commensurable/).)
# Different kinds of language proficiency

It’s funny how forms asking for your language proficiency use “native language” to mean “best possible proficiency”.

My native languages are Finnish and Swedish, but I’m out of practice with Swedish so my English vocabulary is *way* better than my Swedish. Though interestingly, speaking either Finnish and Swedish with someone give me a sense of emotional connection that’s lacking if I use English.

I feel I know English words better than Swedish, *but* Swedish words have a sense of subtle emotional nuance that’s missing from the English ones. So there’s a dimension on which my Swedish *does* feel better than my English, but it doesn’t seem to translate directly to fluency in the traditional sense.

Something like… the place in my mind that holds Swedish contains less stuff, but also feels like less effort to access.

Mark Lippmann once described “the felt meaning” as “the place your mind goes to when looking for words”. My Swedish place feels closer to where I am, and easier to go to, than my English place – even if the Swedish place is smaller and has more cobwebs around things, and once there, I may need to rummage around to find where the heck I put that one word again.

That sense of closeness also translates to increased emotional closeness when talking with someone in Swedish. Both Finnish- and Swedish-speakers feel like “my people” in some sense. With English, it always feels like there’s some amount of a chasm between us. We can communicate, and we can definitely connect in quite a few ways, but it’s always shouting over a chasm – even if its presence is sometimes easy to forget.
# Why aren't we all using Taffix?

Taffix is a nasal powder spray that builds up a protective mechanical barrier against viruses and allergens in the nasal cavity. The EMA allowed them to write on their packaging insert to advertise it's clinical effects by saying: 

> Taffix was found highly effective in blocking several respiratory viruses including SARS-CoV-2 in laboratory studies. 

The idea was conceived in March and they did a study during the Jewish New Year event which was as expect a superspreader event (orthodox Jewish people gathering in close proximity while a lot of them were infected). Among the 83 people who received the intervention only the two people who reported not consistently using the spray (you have to apply it every 5 hours) got infected while in the control group 16 out of 160 got infected. Nobody reported any side-effects. 

It seems that the information took month to tickle through to us at LessWrong with [ejacob](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FejcxpbdRTfNb7hGZ/ejacob-s-shortform?commentId=9yXyf3EfqRxSH3ZA5) writing in his shortform. Living in Europe I could simply order my Taffix on Amazon and had it delievered soon after. In the spirit of more dakka, it would make sense to everyone to get their Taffix. Maybe we could have even prevented the winter lockdown if everybody would have gotten their Taffix.
# How might cryptocurrencies affect AGI timelines?

Summary: Deflation (or so I heard) is considered harmful because it stifles growth. Central banks have been fighting it to keep economies healthy. Cryptocurrencies can be designed to be deflationary. If the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies becomes big, central banks may have no way to contain the deflation. This may be catastrophic in many ways – but might it also slow AGI development and buy safety research more time? 

I’ve been wondering what the “crypto endgame” may look like. Crypto may just turn out to have been a bubble or may continue for decades unchanged at its current limited level of significance. But we’re probably sufficiently prepared for those scenarios already.

Instead the crypto market capitalization might take off at a superlinear pace. Bitcoin is currently on [rank 14](https://fiatmarketcap.com/) among the world’s currencies and holds 0.7% of the aggregate value of all of them. [All cryptocurrencies together](https://www.coingecko.com/) hold about 1.1% of the world’s monetary value.

The crypto space is rife with network effects. Or it is one huge network effect. These are wont to show superlinear growth if they show any growth. Superlinear growth often doesn’t last long enough to be significant, but in other cases it does. So maybe crypto’s market capitalization will grow by an order of magnitude or more within a few years, so before AGI is developed. That might happen if more more companies follow the examples of MicroStrategy or Tesla and invest their spare cash into a cryptocurrency. Phil Bonello, director of research at Grayscale, also [mentions a scenario](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK47miQCt9E) in which governments start buying crypto and thereby force all other governments to follow suit. I don’t know the reasoning behind that, so I don’t know how forcible that effect will be, but it doesn’t seem to be hard to come up with plausible growth scenarios. (At least if you’re incentivized to come up with them the way Grayscale is.)

Some cryptocurrencies, notably Bitcoin, are designed to be deflationary. If companies across the board find that they generate greater profits by investing all their spare cash into deflationary cryptocurrencies rather than reinvesting into their own production, innovation may stall. (Isn’t that one of the typical reasons why deflation is considered harmful?)

So that brings me to my questions:

1. Conditional on the cryptocurrency market growing by another 1–2 orders of magnitude in the next five years or so, what happens to the global financial system and the world economy? (Might this future look like a cyberpunk dystopia where a rich elite retires on their capital gains, and anyone who didn’t enter the period with enough capital has very few avenues to sell their labor and so lives in poverty?)
2. And might this stalled innovation also carry over to AGI in that technology companies will find it more profitable to invest into cryptocurrencies rather than compute or staff, thereby buying safety research a few more years or decades to solve ethics, decision theory, and international coordination?
# How do you run a fit-test for a mask at home when you don't have fancy equipment?

Commercial fit-testing for masks needs quite fancy equipment like the [Allegro Saccharin Fit Test Kit 2040](https://www.amazon.com/Allegro-Saccharin-Fit-Test-2040/dp/B00K0Y4Q7E/ref=as_li_ss_tl?keywords=Allegro+Saccharin+Respirator+Fit+Test+Kit+2040&qid=1564721101&s=gateway&sr=8-3&linkCode=sl1&tag=drearltips-20&linkId=132826ab98168bf52efc2ff7bc2e92e9) which combines undesireable features of being currently unavailable to order, expensive and having to take up room in my apartment after beign ordered. 

It seems to me that there should be a way to get fit-testing done without as fancy equipment as it's just about exposing oneself to the smell of one of the substances that are are suitable for fit-testing (that have the right molecular size). Has anybody here found a way to do reliable fit-testing for themselves without the commerical equipment?
# Full-time AGI Safety!

Hi everyone!

I'm Steve Byrnes, a professional physicist in Boston. Y'all may know me as a regular blogger and commenter on this site. ([Example post](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/wcNEXDHowiWkRxDNv/inner-alignment-in-salt-starved-rats), [Full list](https://sjbyrnes.com/agi.html).)

Well, out of the blue, an exceptionally generous sponsor has granted me a grant to spend the next year full-time trying to advance AGI safety! (Eternal gratitude to Beth Barnes and the [CEA](https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/) donor lottery program!)

To make a long story short, my research plan is to immerse myself in the latest thinking about how the human brain works (i.e., what algorithm does it run?), and apply those insights to help move forward the discussion on AGI safety and strategy. (And conversely, to also help move forward the discussion of "What if we succeed?" within neuroscience.)

Until now I've been researching and blogging in little bits of time squeezed between work and kids. Not anymore! Starting today, I'm in full-time, all-out effort mode!

I *know* that this year is going to fly by far too quickly; I’m desperate to make the most of it. One thing that will help is lots of exchange of ideas! You can email me at [steven.byrnes@gmail.com](mailto:steven.byrnes@gmail.com) if you want to see my research proposal, or discuss topics of interest, or just say hi!   :-)
# Focusmate: Cryonics sign up

Event will be here: https://meet.google.com/ari-sqxa-qnh

Focusmate is an event format where we all work at the same time, but without talking. It can help get things done.

During this time we will all work on making progress towards:
- deciding whether we want to sign up for cryonics
- making a plan for when to sign up for cryonics (if not now)
- making progress towards being signed up for cryonics

I'm already signed up for cryonics, but I will be here to answer people's questions by text. Why by text?
- Because I will document the answers one the [Biostasis Wiki](http://wiki.lessdead.com/index.php?title=Biostasis_FAQ)
- To avoid distracting others

If more than 0 people attend, I will organize another one the first Sunday of next month.
# Grading myself on SSC's 2020 predictions

[Mantic Monday: Judging April COVID Predictions](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-judging-april-covid)

[Judging Our April 2020 Covid-19 Predictions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dRuTeLm7oEfxxBFRF/judging-our-april-2020-covid-19-predictions)

I privately recorded my own predictions on these questions. I felt uncomfortable posting these publicly at the time. I can't fix that, but I can post my answers now and do better next time.

Score: 3.34

![questions](https://i.imgur.com/hIg1tOB.png)

*Edit*: Per @bucky, I'm pretty sure the scoring rule I used (ln(p) - ln(.5)) is wrong, but I'm not sure what would be the correct rule.
# Are the Born probabilities really that mysterious?

In Eliezer's Quantum Mechanics sequence, he presents the [Born probabilities](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3ZKvf9u2XEWddGZmS/the-born-probabilities) as still being mysterious in our understanding. In particular, the fact that it's the only non-linear phenomenon in quantum mechanics is considered quite strange.

However, I've been reading [Everett's "Many Worlds" thesis](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/manyworlds/pdf/dissertation.pdf), and he derives the Born probabilities (pp. 69-72) by asking what happens to an observer as the system evolves. If we posit a measure M for which the measure of a trajectory (of an observer) at one time equals the sum of the measures of each trajectory "branching" from the initial one, then he shows it must be (up to a multiplicative constant) the squared amplitude.

He then claims that this is "fully analogous" to Liouville's theorem, which can be interpreted as a law of Conservation of Information. So taking this seriously, the Born probabilities are as inevitable as the 2nd law of thermodynamics and the uncertainty principle, among many other well-known consequences of Liouville's theorem.

In that case, it seems to me that most of the mystery has been washed away. But I'm not quite sure to what extent he means all of that when saying "fully analogous". In particular, I'd like to know if the Born probabilities are truly an inevitable consequence of Conservation of Information?
# Tap Water and Filtration

I've been wondering about the safety and quality of the tap water in my city. I've always been assured that it's clean right out the tap. But I spent this past year living rurally with a groundwater well on-site, and when I visited the city I was struck by how bad the tap water tasted to me.

Given its frequency of use in all our lives, I am generally surprised by the lack of discussion around water quality in my circles. It seems like nobody talks about it, and almost everyone I know drinks (and cooks with etc) what I now consider bad-tasting tap water. Does anyone have good leads or resources on this topic? I'd like to learn more and am unsure where to look first.

Some questions under consideration:

- What is 'safe' to drink?
- What makes water quality good vs bad? 
- Are taste and safety/quality correlated?
- Any recommended water quality tests?
- To filter or not to filter?
- Which filtering methods actually work? 
- What questions would you be asking?
# Good brainteasers for children?

I love asking children (and adults in some cases) the following question:

~~Five birds are sitting in a tree. A hunter takes a rifle and shoots one of them. How many birds are left?~~ (Edit: Rephrased to avoid several problems)

Five ducks are sitting in a field. A hunter shoots and kills one of the ducks. How many ducks remain sitting in the field? (*If your answer is 'four' - try again!)*

This is a system I/system II trap, akin to "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?" In my experience kids (and adults) usually get this wrong the first time, but kids get a special kick out of something that sounds like a math problem they do for homework but turns out to be a bit more. I've also used the [2, 4, 8 puzzle](https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/what-comes-after-2-4-8-a-math-riddle-that-doesnt-add-up-552291) for impromptu demos of confirmation bias. These are fun and engaging ways to teach kids about cognitive biases before they could realistically read the Sequences or Thinking Fast and Slow.

Can we share or brainstorm any more? Some basic inclusion criteria (feel free to argue or suggest more):

1.  Problems/tasks should reliably trigger some cognitive bias or other "glitch."
2.  Any stepwise thinking needs to be finished within a child's attention span. Feel free to assume it's a particularly smart and motivated child if you need to.

I don't have any kids of my own but have local friends with younger families. Having a few tricks like these really helps me create a "fun uncle" persona, but I'm also curious if parents have a different perspective or experience posing these kinds of questions to their kids.
# Attempt at a gears model of getting infected with COVID-19

I read a bit but don't know how good my understanding is. For reasoning about TAFFIX or the RaDVaC vaccine it would be good to have a decent gears model. I'm writing my current model so that others can check it for errors and not for others believing my model:

There's SARS-CoV-2 particles in the air around you.

You breath in those particles.

If your nasal cavity is lined with mucus, those particles get onto the mucus and the mucus traps them. The mucus however itself doesn't kill SARS-CoV-2 particles in it.

There are two ways of getting rid of the mucus with the SARS-CoV-2 particles. Either you blow your nose and get rid of the mucus in your nasal cavity that way or you shallow it.

If the body knows how to defend against SARS-CoV-2 from a previous infection it puts antibodies inside the mucus to bind the SARS-CoV-2 particles. If the SARS-CoV-2 particles however aren't bound they sometimes get again into the inhaled air and make it into the lung or the go from the mucus into the nasal tissue.

Once antigens enter the nasal tissue, the mucosal immune system starts producing antibodies for those antigens so that they get trapped in the mucus and in the nasal tissue.

If there are too much SARS-CoV-2 particles the immune system in the nasal tissue doesn't manage to handle the threat in time, the SARS-CoV-2 particles grow in quantity. The get into the lymph and blood and travel through the body. Then the normal immune system kicks in and tries to fight it. If there aren't many particles it somehow manages to fight it (so that there's a threshold for infection) but if there are too much it first has to go through effort to build up the immune system defenses and there's a COVID-19 infection.

Is there something wrong in my recounting or something important I'm missing? I'm also happy of other resources that give a clear gears model.
# What other peptide vaccines might it be useful to make?

Related: [Making Vaccine](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine)

In my limited understanding of the workings of the open-source radvac vaccine, it is surprisingly basic. In particular, if the peptide design works, then simply ordering and snorting it is sufficient. Most of the rest of the process, which is about creating nanoparticles to which the peptides can attach, just serves to boost effectiveness. 

When I say this is "basic", I still want to commend the radvac team and johnswentworth for the combined ingenuity and agency required for making it happen. Sometimes it takes true skill to *find* a simple solution.

Especially when most people aren't even looking. 

I spent most of last year *not even considering the hypothesis* that it might be possible to make safe, cheap and effective vaccines at home. For a year I allowed my life to be governed by a constraint that a more competent version of me could have relaxed in a few months. 

It feels a bit like going to Hogwarts and seeing someone do transfiguration for the first time. The thoughts that should be racing through my mind are: *how do I learn such magic?* And: *if I could master such magic... what else could I use it for? *

I'm curious for others' input as I think through that. 

**What else could the general method of peptides, administered intranasally, be used for? **

Other diseases, things other than vaccinations, or even enhancement rather than prevention? 

My knowledge of this domain is very limited, and these questions might not have interesting answers. But they certainly seems worth at least posing, and I am curious about the result.
# Open & Welcome Thread – March 2021

If it’s worth saying, but not worth its own post, here's a place to put it.

If you are new to LessWrong, here's the place to introduce yourself. Personal stories, anecdotes, or just general comments on how you found us and what you hope to get from the site and community are invited. This is also the place to discuss feature requests and other ideas you have for the site, if you don't want to write a full top-level post.

If you want to explore the community more, I recommend [reading the Library,](https://www.lesswrong.com/library) [checking recent Curated posts](https://www.lesswrong.com/?view=curated), [seeing if there are any meetups in your area](https://www.lesswrong.com/community), and checking out the [Getting Started](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2rWKkWuPrgTMpLRbp/lesswrong-faq-1#Getting_Started) section of the [LessWrong FAQ](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2rWKkWuPrgTMpLRbp/lesswrong-faq-1). If you want to orient to the content on the site, you can also check out the new [Concepts section](https://www.lesswrong.com/tags/all).

The Open Thread tag is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/open-threads?sortedBy=new). The Open Thread sequence is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/yai5mppkuCHPQmzpN).
# Garden Party 2.0

The Walled Garden is being remodeled, and you are invited to come celebrate.

We'll open with an optional round of lightning talks and google-doc collaboration (in the new Meeting Hall), and then wander the new central garden as we chat/catch up/share what we're working on or thinking about.

We've learned a bunch about what makes for a good Gather Town space, and I've recently rebuilt the central garden space in a way that makes it much easier to modify. I've made some deliberate changes (which I hope are improvements!) over the previous pre-built D&D artwork, and I'm interested in feedback on what else we could do to improve it as a space.

![No photo description available.](https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/156131618_5158258864247309_8470211531033111825_o.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=3&_nc_sid=340051&_nc_ohc=QR7CVSBdlecAX8S6r6K&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&oh=11e0aeeaddf0ba6ac40503e79f1abf8c&oe=6066A162)

Event link is here:

[http://garden.lesswrong.com?code=nU6B&event=garden-party-2-0](http://garden.lesswrong.com/?code=nU6B&event=garden-party-2-0&fbclid=IwAR3T8l5lExVZ8THzgde2WGLKGjogFsFuy0amztqA75XMstZwEK6QvJlXRMw)
# AI Safety Beginners Meetup (Pacific Time)

Are you new to AI Safety? Then this event if for you. This is an occasion to ask all your questions, and meet others in your situation.   
  
Are you a veteran in AI Safety, or just have been around long enough to have some wisdom to share. Then you are welcome to join this meetup to share your knowledge and experience.   
  
[More info here](https://www.aisafetysupport.org/events/discussion-days).
# Limits of Giving

A friend recently asked what my goal was in giving: was there some amount of donations that would be enough? If someone give me a large enough amount of money, which I then donated, would I be free of further altruistic obligations?

These questions feel to me like they come from a very different perspective, so I want to try and explain how I think about it. If I continue on my current [path](https://www.jefftk.com/donations), perhaps over the next 40 years I might manage to donate $10M. There's a sense, then, in which I have a target of $10M. If through some unrealistically good fortune my [0.34%](https://www.jefftk.com/money) of [Wave stock options](https://www.jefftk.com/p/whats-next) turned into $50M, however, I wouldn't donate $10M and then devote myself to leisure.

The level of need in the world is [enormous](https://www.jefftk.com/p/theres-lots-more-to-do), far bigger than my personal efforts can address. The poorest billion people need a marginal dollar far more than I do; no one should be dying of malaria; our society's ability to handle a pandemic is terrifyingly bad; we are putting much less effort than we should be into making sure humanity doesn't [go extinct](https://www.jefftk.com/p/thoughts-on-existential-risk).

Now I'm not going to sell all my possessions and live as cheaply as possible, but I am going to be thoughtful about [balancing costs to myself against benefits to others](https://www.jefftk.com/p/balancing-costs-to-ourselves-with-benefits-to-others) and making good [altruistic tradeoffs](https://www.jefftk.com/p/effective-altruism-and-everyday-decisions). The more money I have, the larger a portion I can give while continuing to spend money on myself in ways that make me happy.

Considered this way, responding to receiving $50M by decreasing the percentage I gave would be exactly backwards.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100208575764332)*
# Grabby aliens and Zoo hypothesis 

Robin Hanson [created](https://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/12/how-far-aggressive-aliens.html) a model of grabby aliens. In this model, we live before the arrival of an alien colonisation wave, because such a wave will prevent the appearance of the new civilizations. Thus, we could find ourselves only *before* the arrival of the aliens if any exists in our Universe.  

However, at least some of the colonisators will preserve a fraction of habitable planets for different reasons: ethics, science, tourism, neglect. Let’s assume that it will be 0.01 of the total colonized volume. The numbers could vary, but it still looks like that in a densely packed universe the total volume of colonized space-time is significantly larger than the space-time for habitable planets before colonization arrival, and thus even a fraction of this volume could be larger than the volume of the virgin habitable space. This is because the colonized space will exist almost forever until the end of the universe.

Moreover, any small effort from the alien civilization to seed life (artificial panspermia) or to protect habitable planets from catastrophes like asteroid impacts will significantly increase the number of habitable planets *inside* the colonization zone. Hanson’s model also assumes that the probability of civilization appearance for any given planet is growing with time, so later regions will have a higher density of habitable planets, as more planets will reach this stage. 

Given all this, our civilization has higher chances to appear after the colonization wave has passed us and thus aliens need to be somewhere nearby, but hidden, which is known as the Zoo Hypothesis. In other words, we live inside the sphere of influence of Kardashev 3 civilization which either helped our appearance via artificial panspermia etc or at least do not prevent our existence. 

In this formulation, the idea starts to look like a variant of the simulation argument as here it is assumed that an advance civilization could create many non-advance civilizations.
# What ethical thought experiments can be reversed?

Some thought experiments follow this template:
1. We have a moral intuition
2. We make some computation to what this intuition implies
3. We check how we feel about this implication, and it feels counter-intuitive

Then some people bite the (3) bullet. But bullets sometimes (always?) have a counter-bullet.

You can reverse those thought experiments: take ~(3) as your starting moral intuition, and then derive ~(1) which will be counter-intuitive.

For example, you can start with:
1. I would care about saving a drowning person even if it came at the cost of ruining my suit
2. There are a lot of metaphorically drowning people in the world
3. Therefore I should donate all my money to effective poverty alleviation charities

This is called "[shut up and multiply](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/shut-up-and-multiply)".

But you can also use the reverse:
1. I don't want to donate all my money to effective poverty alleviation charities
2. A drowning person would cost more to save because it would ruin my suit
3. Therefore I shouldn't save a drowning person

This is called "[shut up and divide](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ea8pt2dsrS6D4P54F/shut-up-and-divide)" (also related: [Boredom vs. Scope Insensitivity](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6S4Lf2tCMWAfbGtdt/boredom-vs-scope-insensitivity)).

Step (2) might be eliminating a relevant feature which generates the counter-intuition, or it might be a way to open our eyes to something we were not seeing. And maybe for some thought experiment you find both the assumption and conclusion intuitive or counterintuitive. But that's not the object of this post.

Here I'm just interested in seeing what the reverse of ethical thought experiments look like. I'll put more examples as answer. I would like to know which other ethical thought experiments have this pattern -- that is, an ethical thought experiment that starts with an intuition to derive a counter-intuition, which can be reversed, to instead derive that the initial assumption is the wrong one.

Update: As I'm writing some of them, I realized some ethical thought experiment are presented as a clash of intuitions (so the "reverse" is part of the original presentation), whereas others seem to be trying to persuade the reader to bite the bullet on a certain counter-intuition, and omit to mention the reverse ethical thought experiment.
# Contrarian Writing Advice

Daniel Kokotajlo [points out](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RaW2fPzHZtfcqpLqG/lsusr-s-shortform?commentId=EqKYmxDXkambe33mP) that I write in ways that directly contradict standard writing advice.

# Importance > Truth

Most writing revolves around whether $x$ is true. My writing revolves around whether $x$ is important. If $x$ is unimportant then you should not bother writing whether $x$ is true.

What you think about is more important than what you think. Most writing implies "we should talk about $x$". My writing often implies "[we should not talk about $x$](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6zuhR6C8WoKMzGKsW/we-should-not-raise-awareness)".

# Clean logical chains

A single logical argument is sufficient to prove the truth value of a statement. Additional arguments are redundant. If I want to prove something is true then I write my best argument and stop. This maximizes cruxiness.

Cruxiness is a weakness a debate, which is why you don't see it in persuasive writing. Debates are dirty. A clean argument has nothing left to take away.

# Write for an intelligent audience

No matter how carefully I write, there is always a chance someone will misinterpret it. When I spell things out so clearly only an idiot could misinterpret my words, the comments get *worse* because idiots misinterpret my words. On the other hand, when I fill my writing with differential equations, the only people with anything stupid to say are mathematicians and physics PhDs because they are the only ones confident enough to say anything at all. A lower bound is established.

There is a principle of marketing where you don't want to advertise your products to people who won't like them because then people will complain about you which is bad. Dumb people are less likely to misunderstand my complicated ideas when I abstain from dumbing them down.

# Few Quotes

If I quote George Orwell then I imply that I couldn't come up with anything better to write than George Orwell. The reader should just read George Orwell instead.

Another reason to use quotes is to pass the buck. You can borrow authority on startups by quoting the expert Paul Graham. It's better to be an expert yourself. Einstein didn't need to quote Newton when he wrote about relativity.

Quotes *are* useful when they encapsulate someone else's large body of work. Such a reference functions like a DLL (dynamic link library).

# Conclusion

The human brain is an opaque mass of connections. You cannot fully insulate the lies you tell from your model of reality. Persuasion is like lying. Pandering to others gunks up your internal model of reality.

I write to [discover](http://paulgraham.com/discover.html) and [explain](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RkmSn7rdhJs6kzu67/aim-to-explain-not-persuade). I do not write to persuade.
# Bakeoff

For most of the past week Lily has been trying to persuade us to have a cooking competition. Her initial idea involved kids cooking unassisted, but after talking through ways I saw this going poorly she decided she was ok with teams. This morning she said it was time, and declared it would be Lily + Jeff vs Anna + Julia.

Unfortunately, Anna was only interested in being a judge. After extended discussion Lily determined that we would be a team and Julia would compete as an individual. Luckily for Lily, when Julia woke up she was up for participating.

Lily started by making a list of the allowed ingredients:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-ingredients.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-ingredients-big.jpg)

Since we only have one non-vegan oven we weren't going to have things ready at the same time, and Julia wanted to eat hers for breakfast anyway; we decided she'd have the oven first. She was enough faster that she was done with the oven before Anna and I were even close to ready to put ours in.

Julia made chocolate popovers:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-chocolate-popovers.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-chocolate-popovers-big.jpg)

Lily and I made a sponge cake with chocolate buttercream frosting:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-lily-frosting-cake.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-lily-frosting-cake-big.jpg)

The cake was a clear judge's favorite:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-anna-sees-cake.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/bakeoff-anna-sees-cake-big.jpg)

*Lily*: does it win?

*Anna*: yes!

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100208865004692)*
# Announcement: Real-time discussions in a new Clubhouse community.

Update: Clubhouse added a feature. You can now join the club directly from [this link](https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/rationality-live). 

Update 2: Clubhouse is now available on Android too. 

The latest conversational Schelling point is Clubhouse. I'll admit, I also didn't get it at first — what features does it offer over other voice chat applications? Technically, none. To some extent, its exclusivity makes it more desirable, leading to an influx of people joining. But, what I've come to realise is that by focussing on *only* audio and designing the the right UX for promoting large discussions, the Clubhouse team stumbled on something that keeps people returning to the app again and again.

This isn't quite like other social media. After a few weeks of exploring different communities on the app, I realised that it has some wonderful things going for it. Used correctly, it's somewhere between a serendipity engine and a 21st-century [Agora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora). 

A recent update allows users to create communities from within the app. I've always longed to connect with others of the Rationalist persuasion in a more real-time way, so I took the liberty of creating a community to facilitate those conversations. You can find it by searching for *Rationality, Live* under the Clubs tab in the app. It's open to all, but there are rules and moderation options to prevent trolling and abuse. Anyone is free to follow or become a member. Members can schedule events with topics of their choice. There is already [an event scheduled for Friday 12th / Saturday 13th](https://www.joinclubhouse.com/event/xlO1Qqoq), depending on your time zone. 

"Isn't this what LessWrong meetups are for?" Yes. I know there are meetups, but (from experience) they're not viable outside of a few major (mostly US) cities. During a pandemic, none of them are viable. Starting a community on Clubhouse can supplement IRL meetups and is more robust to future disruptions and relocations.

My hope is that this community will make it easier to find people who want to discuss the kinds of topics on LessWrong and SSC in a more direct, conversational way. It may also lower the activation energy. Personally, I have several ideas every week for things I'd love to post about and discuss on LW, but this is my first actual post. Perhaps we can leverage the energy of Clubhouse to get more minds engaged. 

Clubhouse allows me to invite a limited number of additional users if they join via the new community. If you act fast, you may still be able to get in [at this URL](https://www.joinclubhouse.com/join/Rationality,%20Live/JTxdt6JR). 

I look forward to seeing many of you there!

EDIT: As of present, Clubhouse is only available on iPhone with a mobile number. I believe they're working on an Android version (and unrestricted access) for the coming months.
# What are the biggest current impacts of AI?

I'd like to have a clearer picture of the domains in which AI systems have already been deployed - particularly those in which they are having the largest impacts on the world, and what those impacts are.

Some reasons why this might be useful:
- AI systems don't (currently) get deployed on large scales overnight (due to things like caution, bureaucracy, manufacturing bottlenecks). And AI systems that are highly useful in particular domains don't (currently) get developed overnight. So, all else being equal, the domains in which AI systems are being deployed today seem more likely to be the first domains in which more powerful versions of those systems begin to have large scale/transformative impacts. Knowing which domains these are seems useful, because coping with the transformative impacts of _these particular_ future powerful AI systems seems a more urgent problem than coping with impacts of future powerful AI systems in general (the main reason I'm interested).
- It could help ground concerns about future AI systems more, which could encourage:
    - AI researchers to care more about the societal impacts of their work, and
    - society at large to take AI risk more seriously.
- (I think having answers to this question is likely to be useful in slow takeoff worlds, but much less useful/interesting if fast takeoff)

I'm curious for people's thoughts, either for ideas about specific impacts, or for ways I can try to investigate this despite apparent difficulties in finding out how AI systems are actually being used for commercial, political and military applications.

---
My current best guesses:
- selecting content on social media (due to the huge scale)
- surveillance in China, incl. of Uighurs (due to the obvious harm and large scale)

Other contenders:
- driverless cars (in the near future)
- aiding and making decisions for e.g. employment, loans, and criminal sentencing (but how large scale are AI systems being deployed here, and are they really having a big impact?)
- delivering personalised advertising
- medical diagnosis
- algorithmic trading

Domains I'm uncertain about (but in which Allan Dafoe [suggested](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/42reWndoTEhFqu6T8/ai-governance-opportunity-and-theory-of-impact) AI systems are increasingly being deployed):
- by authoritarian governments to shape online discourse (are they really using AI systems, and if so, what kind of algorithms?)
- for autonomous weapons systems (really? are we talking DL systems, or more like plain old control systems for e.g. missile guidance)
- for cyber tools and autonomous cyber capabilities?
- in education?