Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# [Link] Why prison doesn't work and what to do about it

link: [http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/07/why-prison-doesnt-work-and-what-to-do.html](http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/07/why-prison-doesnt-work-and-what-to-do.html)

I came across this short well-reasoned essay via reddit, but most of the discussion there was by people who ([ironically](http://www.reddit.com/help/faq#Whatdoesthenameredditmean) enough) appeared not to have read it. The comment section under the article itself was similar. Some seemed not to have read the first paragraph.

> Prison time is a very severe punishment. JS Mill likened it to being consigned to a living tomb.* Any society that employs it should do so with care and restraint. Yet we do not. Partly because we think that prison is a humane punishment, it is drastically over-used in many countries, to the point of cruelty. Aside from failing in humanity, prison does not even perform well at the specific functions of a criminal justice system, namely, deterrence, retribution, security, and rehabilitation. We need to reconsider our over-reliance on prison, and reconsider whether other types of punishment, including capital and corporal punishment, may sometimes be more effective and more humane.

The author's arguments against the imprisonment system, and for alternative methods of punishment, are interesting. They touch upon ideas which are hard to consider rationally. The very idea of punishment is something most people appear to find unpleasant. Indeed so it must be if something is to be considered a punishment.

> Flogging is barbaric and ugly. Yet that in itself does not mean it is cruel or inhumane or otherwise unfit as a punishment. Punishments, by definition, are supposed to be very unpleasant.

I found some relevant previous discussion on Less Wrong ([Crime and Punishment](/lw/4x9/crime_and_punishment/), [The Wrath of Kahneman](/lw/1p/the_wrath_of_kahneman)), and Overcoming Bias ([Prison is Cruel](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/12/prison-is-cruel.html)), but these seem to be about specifics, and not the system in general.

I am curious both what the scientific consensus is on punishment systems, and what Less Wrong thinks of them. With such an emotionally charged issue, it's hard to find rational discussion about it.
# Brain structure - scans reveal an amazingly regular pattern

[http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2012/nimh-29.htm](http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2012/nimh-29.htm) has images of human and monkey brain scans which reveal an amazingly grid-like pattern of neuronal connections. What are the implications? Could brain scanning, emulation etc be simpler than would appear from images of tangled up neuronal cells (eg here: [http://www.willamette.edu/~gorr/classes/cs449/brain.html](http://www.willamette.edu/~gorr/classes/cs449/brain.html))?

(My mother is a retired neuroscientist... I'd ask her for comment, but she is on holidays.)
# AI cooperation is already studied in academia as "program equilibrium"

About a month ago I accidentally found out that the LW idea of [quining cooperation](/lw/do/reformalizing_pd/) is already studied in academia:

1) Moshe Tennenholtz's 2004 paper [Program Equilibrium](http://ie.technion.ac.il/~moshet/progeqnote4.pdf) describes the idea of programs cooperating in the Prisoner's Dilemma by inspecting each other's source code.

2) Lance Fortnow's 2009 paper [Program Equilibria and Discounted Computation Time](http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~fortnow/papers/discount.pdf) describes an analogue of Benja Fallenstein's idea for [implementing correlated play](/lw/14d/an_alternative_approach_to_ai_cooperation/100c), among other things.

3) Peters and Szentes's 2012 paper [Definable and Contractible Contracts](http://else.econ.ucl.ac.uk/papers/uploaded/327.pdf) studies quining cooperation over a wider class of definable (not just computable) functions.

As far as I know, academia still hasn't discovered Loebian cooperation or the subsequent ideas about formal models of UDT, but I might easily be wrong about that. In any case, the episode has given me a mini-crisis of faith, and a new appreciation of academia. That was a big part of the motivation for my [previous post](/lw/dg8/should_you_try_to_do_good_work_on_lw/).
# [Retracted] Simpson's paradox strikes again: there is no great stagnation?

_ETA: The table linked by Landsburg has been called into serious question by [Evan Soltas](http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=9f37ca02a1e3cbd4f3d0a3618a39fbca&loc=http%3A%2F%2Flesswrong.com%2Fr%2Fdiscussion%2Flw%2Fduw%2Fsimpsons_paradox_strikes_again_there_is_no_great%2F&v=1&libid=1343691925790&out=http%3A%2F%2Fesoltas.blogspot.com%2F2012%2F07%2Finaccurate-consequences.html&ref=http%3A%2F%2Flesswrong.com%2Fr%2Fdiscussion%2Fnew%2F&title=Simpson's%20paradox%20strikes%20again%3A%20there%20is%20no%20great%20stagnation%20-%20Less%20Wrong%20Discussion&txt=http%3A%2F%2Fesoltas.blogspot.com%2F2012%2F07%2Finaccurate-consequences.html&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13436919076491) \[H.T. CronoDAS\]. I edited the post to leave only the table to provide context for the comment discussion of its status._

Economist Steve Landsburg has a [post](http://www.thebigquestions.com/2012/07/30/the-numbers-racket/) \[H.T. [David Henderson](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/landsburg_on_me.html)\] about the supposed stagnation of median wages in the United States in recent decades. In the linked table median wages have risen for: 

![](http://www.landsburg.org/breakdown.gif)
# [Link] Machiavelli in historical context

In modern usage, the name "Machiavelli" is a byword for cynical, selfish scheming. In [this post](http://exurbe.com/?p=1429), a Renaissance scholar places Machiavelli the human being into historical context, illuminating that Machiavelli was not cynical so much as desirous of an accurate map of the territory, and not selfish at all but rather relentlessly goal-oriented. (The post starts slowly -- that's historical context for ya.) In writing _Il Principe_, Machiavelli ([quite possibly unintentionally](/lw/dvr/link_machiavelli_in_historical_context/74j0)) committed to posterity two major breakthroughs, which we would now call (i) the creation of modern political science and history and (ii) the introduction of utilitarian/consequentialist ethics. 

### Consequentialism 

In 1498, at the age of 29, Machiavelli was made a high official of the Florentine analogue of the State Department/Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His job was to [shut up and do the impossible](/lw/up/shut_up_and_do_the_impossible/):

> *   **Goal:** Prevent Florence from being conquered by any of 10+ different incredibly enormous foreign powers.
> *   **Resources:** 100 bags of gold, 4 sheep, 1 wood, lots of books and a bust of Caesar.
> *   **Go!**

And thus did Machiavelli come to invent consequentialism.

### Modern Political Science

> **1508**. The Italian territories destabilized by the Borgias are ripe for conquest.  Everyone in Europe wants to go to war with everyone else and Italy will be the biggest battlefield.  Machaivelli’s job now is to figure out who to ally with, and who to bribe.  If he can’t predict the sides there’s no way to know where Florence should commit its precious resources.  How will it fall out?  Will Tudor claims on the French throne drive England to ally with Spain against France?  Or will French and Spanish rival claims to Southern Italy lead France to recruit England against the houses of Aragon and Habsburg?  Will the Holy Roman Emperor try to seize Milan from the French?  Will the Ottomans ally with France to seize and divide the Spanish holdings in the Mediterranean?  Will the Swiss finally wake up and notice that they have all the best armies in Europe and could conquer whatever the heck they wanted if they tried?  (Seriously, Machiavelli spends a lot of time worrying about this possibility.)  All the ambassadors from the great kingdoms and empires meet, and Machiavelli spends frantic months exchanging letters with colleagues evaluating the psychology of every prince, what each has to gain, to lose, to prove.  He comes up with several probable scenarios and begins preparations.  At last a courier rushes in with the news.  The day has come.  The alliance has formed.  It is: everyone joins forces to attack Venice.
> 
> O_O      ????????
> 
> Conclusion: must invent Modern Political Science.
# Advice please: Cognitive distortion preventing me from accomplishing anything

The cognitive distortion is called "catastrophizing", I think.

I'm afraid of unexpected, strongly negative events occurring to me without warning.  Nothing specific, just a generalized fear.  That fear is crippling me.  Worse, there's a part of me that feels that fear is keeping me safe.  "If I let go of that fear," it goes, "I would start doing things and then I wouldn't be safe any more."

I haven't filled out a job application in over a week, because doing so would force me out into the world if i got an interview, and into the world consistently if I got the job.
# Looking for a roommate in Mountain View

In September I will be moving to Mountain View, CA together with a friend of mine from MIT. It turns out that the quality/cost ratio increases noticeably with the number of people living together, so we are looking for one or more additional roommates. All things being equal, I would much rather live with other rationalists, which is why I'm posting this on LessWrong.

### About us

My name is Jacob, and my roommate's name is Jonathan. We both recently graduated from MIT (me with a bachelor's in mathematics, him with a master's in electrical engineering). I am going to graduate school in machine learning at Stanford; Jonathan works at Synaptics (the company that makes touch sensors).

You can find approximately four-month-outdated information about me at my old MIT [website](http://web.mit.edu/jsteinha/www/). I've been awarded both the Hertz and NSF Fellowships, which means that I have a guaranteed source of income for the next five years regardless of any external factors like my adviser's ability to pay for me. **I teach for SPARC (CFAR's high school program) and am very interested in building up the rationalist community in the south bay.**

### Reasons you should live with us

*   we both have steady sources of income and are on highly successful career tracks
*   your behavior is strongly affected by the culture you live in; living with other rationalists will make you more rational
*   we both value open communication and are difficult to offend, which makes conflict resolution much easier
*   be at the center of exciting developments: I am working directly on important problems in AI and rationalist outreach, and know an embarrassingly large amount of math / computer science, even by LessWrong standards
*   I know a lot about sports and strength training, and am happy to help you out if your goal is to become stronger / more athletic
*   I am also first aid and CPR certified, so you are slightly less likely to die if you live with me
*   Jonathan is a pretty good cook and would be interested in leading the effort on group dinners and/or teaching some culinary basics.
*   Jonathan is good at do-it-yourself electronics (sensors, microcontrollers, FPGAs) and is willing to share experience / expertise
*   we are both willing to participate in house-wide life-hacking experiments (N = 3 is much better than N = 1 for data size)

### What we are looking for

*   interest in building up the rationalist community
*   steady source of income
*   you are interesting to talk to and instrumentally rational

### Contact info

If you might be interested in living with us, send me a PM telling me a little bit about yourself; I'll then give you my e-mail and we can figure out if there is likely to be a good fit (obviously, we will also meet in person before any final decisions are made).

EDIT: One person said via email that they tried and failed to PM me. In case this is a larger issue, my e-mail is jsteinha@csail.mit.edu.
# Issue 301 shipped: Show parent comments on /comments

See http://code.google.com/p/lesswrong/issues/detail?id=301 for detail.

Go to [your Preferences page](/prefs/) and "Show parent comments on[/comments](http://lesswrong.com/comments)" to take advantage of this feature.

(Work done by John Simon, integrated by [User:wmoore](/user/wmoore/).)
# "Epiphany addiction"

LW doesn't seem to have a discussion of the article [Epiphany Addiction](http://www.succeedsocially.com/epiphany), by Chris at succeedsocially. First paragraph:

> "Epiphany Addiction" is an informal little term I came up with to describe a process that I've observed happen to people who try to work on their personal issues. How it works is that someone will be trying to solve a problem they have, say a lack of confidence around other people. Somehow they'll come across a piece of advice or a motivational snippet that will make them have an epiphany or a profound realization. This often happens when people are reading self-help materials and they come across something that stands out to them. People can also come up with epiphanies themselves if they're doing a lot of writing and reflecting in an attempt to try and analyze their problems.

I like that article because it describes a dangerous failure mode of smart people. One example was the self-help blog of Phillip Eby (pjeby), where each new post seemed to bring new amazing insights, and after a while you became jaded. An even better, though controversial, example could be Eliezer's Sequences, if you view them as a series of epiphanies about AI research that didn't lead to much tangible progress. (Please don't make that statement the sole focus of discussion!)

The underlying problem seems to be that people get a rush of power from neat-sounding realizations, and mistake that feeling for actual power. I don't know any good remedy for that, but being aware of the problem could help.
# A cynical explanation for why rationalists worry about FAI

My friend, hearing me recount tales of LessWrong, recently asked me if I thought it was simply a coincidence that so many LessWrong rationality nerds cared so much about creating Friendly AI. "If Eliezer had simply been obsessed by saving the world from asteroids, would they all be focused on that?"

Obviously one possibility (the inside view) is simply that rationality compels you to focus on FAI. But if we take [the outside view](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Outside_view) for a second, it does seem like FAI has a special attraction for armchair rationalists: it's the rare heroic act that can be accomplished without ever confronting reality.

After all, if you want to save the planet from an asteroid, you have to do a lot of _work_! You have to build stuff and test it and just generally solve a lot of gritty engineering problems. But if you want to save the planet from AI, you can conveniently do the whole thing without getting out of bed.

Indeed, as [the Tool AI debate](/lw/cbs/thoughts_on_the_singularity_institute_si/) as shown, SIAI types have withdrawn from reality even further. There are a lot of AI researchers who spend a lot of time building models, analyzing data, and generally solving a lot of gritty engineering problems all day. But the SIAI view conveniently says this is all very dangerous and that one shouldn't even begin to try implementing anything like an AI until one has perfectly solved all of the theoretical problems first.

Obviously this isn't any sort of proof that working on FAI is irrational, but it does seem awfully suspicious that people who really like to spend their time thinking about ideas have managed to persuade themselves that they can _save the entire species from certain doom_ just by thinking about ideas.
# Meetup : Bratislava, Slovakia - the first LW meetup

Discussion article for the meetup : [Bratislava, Slovakia - the first LW meetup](/meetups/cm)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**WHEN:** 18 August 2012 05:00:00PM (+0200)

**WHERE:** Bratislava, city center

Dear Lesswrongians, we cordially invite You to the first Lesswrong meetup in Bratislava ! We just were at the Rationality minicamp in California, met Eliezer and other awesome LessWrongians (and introduced the word "awesome" into our active vocabulary :-) ), and we would finally like to meet the Lesswrong fans in our area. For questions, write in the discussion under this announcement.

We are looking forward to see You !

BarbaraB and Viliam_Bur

Edit: I removed the contact data after the meetup, because the meeting was in my home.

Edit 2: The lesswrongians in our area can still contact me at barbarabrezna@gmail.com. We will try another meetup in October.

Discussion article for the meetup : [Bratislava, Slovakia - the first LW meetup](/meetups/cm)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# A rationalist My Little Pony fanfic

For the past two months, I've been writing, and posting, roughly two thousand words a day of "[Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me](https://www.fimfiction.net/story/33512/Myou%27ve-Gotta-be-Kidding-Me)", a story set in a "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" fanfic universe, "[Chess Game of the Gods](https://www.fimfiction.net/group/907)". Outside of the sheer NaNoWriMo-like exercise of pushing out near-daily chapters, I've also been trying to keep in mind the various principles I've learned from Yudkowsky and LessWrong, and to try to present them in a way that people who like reading MLP fanfics might be able to appreciate.

I've just come to something of a minor climax with chapter 60, and while I'll definitely be continuing the story, this seems like a good time to mention it here, for whatever feedback and constructive criticism anyone cares to offer.
# What are your questions about making a difference?

How can you best use your time to make a difference?

[80,000 Hours](http://www.80000hours.org) now has several people working full time on research, and they would like your questions!

We’re happy to consider any questions about how to effectively make a difference, in whatever sphere of your life – volunteering, career or donations. These questions could be at the conceptual or ethical level, or they could concern nitty-gritty practicalities.

We’re particularly interested in questions that are not already well addressed by other groups, and where there's significant opportunity for progress.

The most popular questions will receive the attention of our research team, and their findings will feature in our new careers guide.

Either post your questions below, or send them to [careers@80000hours.org](mailto:careers@80000hours.org)
# Cynical explanations of FAI critics (including myself)

**Related Posts:** [A cynical explanation for why rationalists worry about FAI](/lw/dy8/a_cynical_explanation_for_why_rationalists_worry/), [A belief propagation graph](/lw/bl2/a_belief_propagation_graph/)

Lately I've been pondering the fact that while there are many critics of SIAI and its plan to form a team to build FAI, few of us seem to agree on what SIAI or we should do instead. Here are some of the alternative suggestions offered so far:

*   work on computer security
*   work to improve laws and institutions
*   work on mind uploading
*   work on intelligence amplification
*   work on non-autonomous AI (e.g., Oracle AI, "Tool AI", automated formal reasoning systems, etc.)
*   work on academically "mainstream" AGI approaches or trust that those researchers know what they are doing
*   stop worrying about the Singularity and work on more mundane goals

Given that ideal reasoners are not supposed to disagree, it seems likely that most if not all of these alternative suggestions can also be explained by their proponents being less than rational. Looking at myself and [my suggestion](/lw/6mi/some_thoughts_on_singularity_strategies/) to work on IA or uploading, I've noticed that I have a tendency to be initially over-optimistic about some technology and then become gradually more pessimistic as I learn more details about it, so that I end up being more optimistic about technologies that I'm less familiar with than the ones that I've studied in detail. (Another example of this is me being initially enamoured with Cypherpunk ideas and then giving up on them after inventing some key pieces of the necessary technology and seeing in more detail how it would actually have to work.)

I'll skip giving explanations for other critics to avoid offending them, but it shouldn't be too hard for the reader to come up with their own explanations. It seems that I can't trust any of the FAI critics, including myself, nor do I think Eliezer and company are much better at reasoning or intuiting their way to a correct conclusion about how we should face the apparent threat and opportunity that is the Singularity. What _useful_ implications can I draw from this? I don't know, but it seems like it can't hurt to pose the question to LessWrong.
# Let's be friendly to our allies

Less Wrong was created to produce rationalists, [so that many causes could benefit from the efforts of those rationalists](/lw/66/rationality_common_interest_of_many_causes/). The point is not just to have nice place to talk about rationality, but to [really make ourselves stronger](/lw/h8/tsuyoku_naritai_i_want_to_become_stronger/), to apply the lessons that we learn here to improve our own lives, and to [improve the world](/tag/philanthropy/).

[80,000 Hours](http://80000hours.org/) is an organization created to provide direct domain specific help to people who want to support charitable causes, the same causes Less Wrong is supposed to produce rationalists to support. 80,000 Hours has goals clearly aligned with ours. Provided we think they are pursuing their aligned goals effectively, we should be excited about this. We should be happy when they reach out to us, to see how we can work together.

So, I am very disappointed to see the negative reception of a Less Wrong post by 80,000 Hours member Benjamin Todd, [asking us what questions we would like 80,000 Hours to answer for us](/r/discussion/lw/dr1/what_are_your_questions_about_making_a_difference/). They are basically offering to do free research for us on things that we care about, because our goals are aligned. And yet, as of this writing, that post has a score of -7, and it has received comments [complaining that it is an ad](/r/discussion/lw/dr1/what_are_your_questions_about_making_a_difference/76vq). To be clear, ads of the sort that we want to avoid do not offer free services relevant to a core purpose of our community. I won't argue whether or not the post was an ad, but I will say that it belongs on Less Wrong and we should give it a good reception.

I would like to thank Benjamin Todd and others at 80,000 hours for their work in helping people be more effective philanthropists and otherwise support important causes, and for engaging Less Wrong in this project. I also thank everyone who responded to post with their actual questions about making a difference.

And, please, can we be nice to people who help us?
# The weakest arguments for and against human level AI

While going through the list of arguments for why to expect human level AI to happen or be impossible I was stuck by the same tremendously weak arguments that kept on coming up again and again. The weakest argument in favour of AI was the perenial:

*   Moore's Law hence AI!

Lest you think I'm exaggerating how weakly the argument was used, here are some random quotes:

*   Progress in computer hardware has followed an amazingly steady curve in the last few decades \[16\]. Based largely on this trend, I believe that the creation of greater than human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years. (Vinge, 1993)
*   Computers aren't terribly smart right now, but that's because the human brain has about a million times the raw power of todays' computers. \[...\] Since computer capacity doubles every two years or so, we expect that in about 40 years, the computers will be as powerful as human brains. (Eder 1994)
*   Suppose my projections are correct, and the hardware requirements for human equivalence are available in 10 years for about the current price of a medium large computer.  Suppose further that software development keeps pace (and it should be increasingly easy, because big computers are great programming aids), and machines able to think as well as humans begin to appear in 10 years. (Moravec, 1977)

At least Moravec gives a glance towards software, even though it is merely to say that software "keeps pace" with hardware. What is the common scale for hardware and software that he seems to be using? I'd like to put Starcraft II, Excel 2003 and Cygwin on a hardware scale - do these correspond to Penitums, Ataris, and Colossus? I'm not particularly ripping into Moravec, but if you realise that software is important, then you should attempt to model software progress!

But very rarely do any of these predictors try and show why having computers with say, the memory capacity or the FOPS of a human brain, will suddenly cause an AI to emerge.

The weakest argument against AI was the standard:

*   Free will (or creativity) hence no AI!

Some of the more sophisticated go "Gödel, hence no AI!". If the crux of your whole argument is that only humans can do X, then you need to show that only humans can do X - not assert it and spend the rest of your paper talking in great details about other things.
# Luke is doing an AMA on Reddit

I'm sure most of us are used to just being able to badger him about things in the comments here on LW, but for anyone interested [here's the link](http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/ "http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/y9lm0/i_am_luke_muehlhauser_ceo_of_the_singularity/").
# Competence in experts: summary

Just giving a short table-summary of an [article](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/074959789290064E) by James Shanteau on which areas and tasks experts developed a good intuition - and which ones they didn't. Though the article is old, the results seem to be in agreement with more recent summaries, such as [Kahneman and Klein's](http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/64/6/515/). The heart of the article was a decomposition of characteristics (for professions and for tasks within those professions) where we would expert experts to develop good performance:

  

| Good performance | Poor performance |
| --- | --- |
| Static stimuli Decisions about things Experts agree on stimuli More predictable problems Some errors expected Repetitive tasks Feedback available Objective analysis available Problem decomposable Decision aids common | Dynamic (changeable) stimuli Decisions about behavior Experts disagree on stimuli Less predictable problems Few errors expected Unique tasks Feedback unavailable Subjective analysis only Problem not decomposable Decision aids rare |

I do feel that this may go some way to explaining the expert's performance [here](/lw/e36/ai_timeline_predictions_are_we_getting_better/).
# Kelly Criteria and Two Envelopes

(This post is motivated by [recent](/lw/dy9/solving_the_two_envelopes_problem/) [discussions](/lw/e26/who_wants_to_start_an_important_startup/77e3) here of the two titular topics.)

Suppose someone hands you two envelopes and gives you some information that allows you to conclude either:

1.  The expected ratio of amount of money in the red envelope to the amount in the blue is >1, or
2.  With probability close to 1 (say 0.999) the amount of money in the red envelope is greater than the amount in the blue.

In either case, is the conclusion sufficient to imply that one should choose the red envelope over the blue? Obviously not, right? (Well, at least #2 should be obvious, and #1 was recently [pointed out](/lw/dy9/solving_the_two_envelopes_problem/75dh) by VincentYu.) In any case I will also give some simple counter-examples here:

1.  Suppose red envelope has $5 and blue envelope has even chance of $1 and $100. E(R/B) = .5(5/1)+.5(5/100) = 2.525 but one would want to choose the blue envelope assuming utility linear in money.
2.  Red envelope has $100, blue envelope has $99 with probability 0.999 and $1 million with probability 0.001. 

Notice that it's not sufficient to establish both conclusions at once either (my second example above actually satisfies both).

A common argument for the Kelly Criteria being "optimal" (see page 10 of [this review paper](http://www.bf.uzh.ch/publikationen/pdf/publ_1967.pdf) recommended by Robin Hanson) is to mathematically establish conclusions 1 and 2, with Kelly Criteria in place of the red envelope and "any other strategy" in place of the blue envelope. However it turns out that "optimal" is not supposed to be normative, as the paper later explains:

> In essence the critique is that you should maximize your utility function rather than to base your investment decision on some other criterion. This is certainly correct, but fails to appreciate that Kelly's results are not necessarily normative but rather descriptive.

So the upshot here is that unless your utility function is actually log in money and not, say, linear (or even [superlinear](/lw/12v/fair_division_of_blackhole_negentropy_an/)) in the amount of resources under your control, you may not want to adopt the Kelly Criteria even when the other commonly mentioned assumptions are satisfied.
# Can we teach Rationality at the University of Reddit?

[This was posted a few hours ago](http://blog.reddit.com/2012/08/university-of-reddit-explore-any.html "University of Reddit"). Basically, the reddit admins have decided to promote the so-called "University of Reddit", a subreddit where people can offer and teach any course they'd like, or just attend a course. [This is official website for all courses](http://ureddit.com/ "University of Reddit"). At the time of this posting the subreddit had ~38,400 subscribers, but I expect it will grow significantly.  
  
Given the reddit demographics, a Rationality course has the potential to become extremely popular. The exposure can popularize CFAR and LessWrong, and can be used to recruit fresh minds for rationality-related causes. Also maybe run experiments with curricula or methods of teaching rationality?  
  
What do you guys think?
# [LINK] Strong AI Startup Raises $15M

[http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/21/vicarious-good-ventures-funding/](http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/21/vicarious-good-ventures-funding/)

> Vicarious, a startup that says it’s “building software that thinks and learns like a human,” has just raised a $15 million Series A.
> 
> The round was led by Good Ventures, the investment firm founded by Dustin Moskovitz, who also co-founded Facebook and Asana. (The firm’s profits will be donated to the Good Ventures Foundation.) Founders Fund, Open Field Capital, Steve Brown, and Zarco Investment Group participated too.
> 
> Vicarious launched in February 2011 with funding from Founders Fund, Moskovitz, Adam D’Angelo (former Facebook CTO and co-founder of Quora), Felicis Ventures, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. Since then, co-founder D. Scott Phoenix tells me that the company has been in research mode. The research has resulted in a system that’s supposed to interpret the content of photos and videos in a way that’s similar to humans, and which is powered by the company’s “key innovation”, the Recursive Cortical Network.
> 
> Ultimately, Phoenix says the technology could be used in “almost every industry,” including robotics, medical image analysis, and image and video search,. But that’s a ways off — Phoenix and his co-founder Dileep George say they’re still deep in research and development, and that the funding will be used to expand those R&D efforts. Developing products that commercialize the technology is still several years off, George says.
> 
> “Based on our experiments in the last year, we are very optimistic about our rate of progress,” he says. “At the same time, this is a very challenging problem. We are not getting too excited about how productize things. We’re testing everything very carefully.”
> 
> You don’t see too many venture-backed software companies spending years on research nowadays, and Phoenix says he was lucky to find investors who share his big vision — to use AI to “help humanity thrive.” The investors at Good Ventures and Founders Fund have a “natural affinity” for that kind of talk (Founders Fund’s Peter Thiel, for example, has been pretty vocal about what he sees as a lack of transformative innovation), but Phoenix says it’s “very different from the language that a lot of other investors speak.”

[Discussion on Hacker News](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4413568)

[](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4413568)Meta: this is my first post here, let me know if I am doing something wrong or if I shouldn't post this here.
# Four major problems with neuroscience

A discussion of [four errors](http://neurobonkers.com/2012/08/21/the-science-of-bad-neuroscience/) which lead to false positives-- neglecting maturation (that brains change with time, even without intervention, learning effects (people who take a test more than once get better at it), regression to the mean (people who are unusually good or bad at something will probably have a more average score on subsequent attempts), and the placebo effect.

The link above is a summary of [a lecture](http://clients2.mediaondemand.net/acamh/09-03-2012/player/default.aspx?eventId=2959) which isn't playing for me, so any further information about the lecture would be greatly appreciated.
# AI timeline prediction data

The data forming the background of my [analysis](/lw/e36/ai_timeline_predictions_are_we_getting_better/ ) of AI timeline predictions is now available online. Many thanks to Jonathan Wang and Brian Potter, who gathered the data, to [Kaj Sotala](http://kajsotala.fi/), who analysed and categorised it, and to [Luke Muehlhauser](http://lukeprog.com/) and the [Singularity Institute](http://intelligence.org/), who commissioned and paid for it.

The full data can be found [here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rvovix3e0v2pag/SIAI-FHI_AI_predictions.xls?raw=1) (this includes my estimates for the "median date for human level AGI"). The same data without my median estimates can be found [here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/tko7ji9etmrrl05/SIAI-FHI_AI_predictions_no_median.xls?raw=1).

I encourage people to produce their own estimate of the "median date"! If you do so, you should use the second database (the one without my estimates). And you should decide in advance what kind of criteria you are going to use to compute this median, or whether you are going to reuse my criteria. And finally you should inform me or the world in general of your values, whether they are very similar or very different to mine.

My criteria were:

*   When a range was given, I took the mid-point of that range (rounded down). If a year was given with a 50% likelihood estimate, I took that year. If it was the collection of a variety of expert opinions, I took the prediction of the median expert. If the author predicted some sort of AI by a given date (partial AI or superintelligent AI), and gave no other estimate, I took that date as their estimate rather than trying to correct it in one direction or the other (there were roughly the same number of subhuman AIs as suphuman AIs in the list, and not that many of either). I read extracts of the papers to make judgement calls when interpreting problematic statements like "within thirty years" or "during this century" (is that a range or an end-date?). I never chose a date other than one actually predicted, or the midpoint of a range.

Incidentally, you may notice that a certain Stuart Armstrong is included in the list, for a prediction I made back in 2007 (for AI in 2207). Yes, I counted that prediction in my analysis (as a non-expert prediction), and no, I don't stand by that date today.
# Heading off a near-term AGI arms race

I know people have talked about this in the past, but now seems like an important time for some practical brainstorming here. Hypothetical: the recent $15mm Series A funding of Vicarious by Good Ventures and Founders Fund sets off a wave of $450mm in funded AGI projects of approximately the same scope, over the next ten years. Let's estimate a third of that goes to paying for man-years of actual, low-level, basic AGI capabilities research. That's about 1500 man-years. Anything which can show something resembling progress can easily secure another few hundred man-years to continue making progress.

Now, if this scenario comes to pass, it seems like one of the worst-case scenarios -- if AGI is possible today, that's a lot of highly incentivized, funded research to make it happen, without strong safety incentives. It seems to depend on VCs realizing the high potential impact of an AGI project, and of the companies having access to good researchers.

The [Hacker News thread](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4413568) suggests that some people (VCs included) probably already realize the high potential impact, without much consideration for safety:

> ...I think this exactly the sort of innovation timeline real venture capitalists should be considering - funding real R&D that could have a revolutionary impact even if the odds are against it.

> The company to get all of this right will be the first two trillion dollar company.

Is there any way to reverse this trend in public perception? Is there any way to reduce the number of capable researchers? Are there any other angles of attack for this problem?

I'll admit to being very scared.
# Cryonics donation fund for Kim Suozzi established by Society for Venturism

Following the news that [Kim Suozzi has terminal brain cancer and wants to be cryopreserved](/r/discussion/lw/e5d/link_reddit_help_me_find_some_peace_im_dying_young/), many of us have donated to help her out, while others, including me, planned to donate when CI set up a fund to receive donations on her behalf. [Now the Society for Venturism has set up a fund](http://www.venturist.info/kim-suozzi-charity.html), and it is time for us to follow through on those plans. (Unless you are really insisting that the fund be managed by CI specifically.)

(**ETA**: [Kim has posted on this herself](/r/discussion/lw/e9k/update_society_of_venturism_is_spearheading_kim/).)
# UPDATE: Society of Venturism is spearheading Kim Suozzi's cryopreservation charity

Hey everyone,

I'm Kim Suozzi, a 23-year old brain cancer patient trying to secure cryopreservation before my death.

I know I haven't updated in awhile so I just wanted to check in and say how thankful I am for everyone that has been donating and supporting me so far. I've gotten way more of a response than I could have ever expected, and it's hard to find words regarding this whole thing, but I want you know that I am endlessly grateful for the hope you've already offered to me.

I have two days of radiation treatment left, then I'm off to hopefully pursue a clinical trial. Things are going well considering the circumstances; I have no big side effects other than being tired.

I updated the other day with a video, if anyone is interested:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lISC8I_IiCg

I also wanted to clarify that though The Society of Venturism is fundraising on my behalf, I also have a direct link to my paypal (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=\_s-xclick&hosted\_button_id=4WR8KS68RC6YY) for independent donations. However, I would like to move funds to the Venturists since they are third-party and a non-profit, that way people can be sure the funds go to cryo and nothing else. It looks like setting it up through the Society for Venturism is a better bet than going though CI or Alcor as it can be difficult to move funds in the case that you choose one company over the other or need to change things around with financing.

Anyway the Society for Venturim Charity is located here: http://venturist.info/kim-suozzi-charity.html, Sorry to repost since I know it's elsewhere already. I just wanted to try to put it all in one message since some others were asking.

I can't say this enough: thank you for all of you consideration and support through all of this,and to all those who have already donated. Maybe if I achieve reanimation, I can throw a party and show you guys what I'm really like, (not just your run-of-the-mill-dying-patient.)

Hope to meet you/ talk to you soon, whether in this time or much later.

Kim
# What is the evidence in favor of paleo?

I recently [came out against paleo](/lw/e3a/open_thread_august_1631_2012/79ke) in the open thread, and realized that I probably haven't yet heard the strongest arguments in favor of a paleo diet. So, what are said arguments?

EDIT: Or more generally, why should I eat less carbohydrates and more protein / fat?
# Anyone know of empirically driven lobbying efforts?

I was recently in an argument with a friend about the efficacy of WhiteHouse.gov petitions.  He was disappointed that atheists hadn't pushed the Free Alexander Aan petition up to 25,000 signatures and thought this was a bad sign for future projects.  I thought it wasn't a very good 'ask' so it was reasonable for otherwise committed activist to ignore it.  He ended up pulling Pascal's Mugging by arguing "nothing tangible may ever happen as a result, but we don’t know that, and it does send a palpable signal either way."

I was annoyed, but I also noticed I couldn't think of any GiveWell equivalent for advocacy efforts.  I was pretty confident that this WhiteHouse.gov petition was a waste of time, but I wasn't sure whether I'd prefer for a cause I supported to focus on petitions, voter education, wacky stunts to up coverage, etc etc. I've seen plenty of studies on how to get people to _sign_ petitions, but none on whether they work.

The Human Rights Campaign used to run into a lot of criticism for just wining and dining legislators instead of getting pushier or focusing on electing new allies, but, when DADT was killed, the pundits seemed to think the strategy had paid off.  It looks like no one is very good at predicting which lobbying techniques will work, just popping in at various timepoints, seeing whether the policy changed, and passing or failing the outreach effort on that basis.

I'm actually a researcher for a consumer protection group that does a fair amount of lobbying, and it can feel a little like a cargo cult over here.  It feels a bit like we just try to keep an issue in view (through visits, press coverage, etc) so that when Congress or a regulatory body lumbers into action, they might think of our pet issue.  

Government gridlock is out of our hands, so the metrics we track (number of signatures on a petition, press citations of our work, social shares of data infographics) are meant to be proxies for our influence, but I'm not aware of any heuristic we use to check which align best with the regulatory results we're actually seeking.

Has anyone seen interesting data on this or have heuristics they use when deciding which advocacy efforts to support and promote?
# [META] Karma for last 30 days?

Has anyone yet mentioned or reported that for the last couple days, the "karma for last 30 days" is showing zero for everyone? And that we no longer can see the top contributors for the last 30 days either?

Do we have an explanation or estimation for a bugfix on this?
# Dealing with trolling and the signal to noise ratio

The recent implementation of a -5 karma penalty for replying to comments that are at -3 or below has clearly met with some disagreement and controversy. See [http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/eb9/meta\_karma\_for\_last\_30_days/7aon](/r/discussion/lw/eb9/meta_karma_for_last_30_days/7aon) . However, at the same time, it seems that Eliezer's observation that trolling and related problems have over time gotten worse here may be correct. It may be that this an inevitable consequence of growth, but it may be that it can be handled or reduced with some solution or set of solutions. I'm starting this discussion thread for people to propose possible solutions. To minimize anchoring bias and related problems, I'm not going to include my ideas in this header but in a comment below. People should think about the problem before reading proposed solutions (again to minimize anchoring issues).
# [Link] Quantity Always Trumps Quality

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-trumps-quality.html](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-trumps-quality.html)

> The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".
> 
> Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: **the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity**. **It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.**

For _some reason_ it just seems _we in particular_ could learn something from this anecdote.

Iterate more. The practice effect is your friend as is mining out positive outliers in really huge sets. I wanted to also mention something about using going meta as a way to procrastinate but I feared I would summon a Newsome.

  
**Edit:** This has been [mentioned before](/r/lesswrong/lw/53e/just_try_it_quantity_trumps_quality/). I think it is good to remind people of it. [Desrtopa](http://lesswrong.com/user/Desrtopa/) writes:  

> Not only has it been mentioned before, last time it came up I [searched and failed to find corroboration of the claim that it actually happened](/r/lesswrong/lw/53e/just_try_it_quantity_trumps_quality/3trx). Since applying a deliberately inconsistent grading rubric is not something professors are normally allowed to do, I strongly suspect that the anecdote is fictional.

It is therefore best to assume this is a parable.
# Meta: What do you think of a karma vote checklist?

I'm imagining an optional checklist offered if you downvote, with the list possibly including troll, poor spelling/grammar, false, redundant....

For that matter, if an optional checklist for downvotes makes sense, then perhaps there should also be one for upvotes: sensible, informative, funny, caused an update....

I'm imagining a little chart appearing if your cursor is on a karma number, the way the proportions of stars do for amazon reviews.

I don't know how much trouble this would be to program-- I'm just floating the idea.