Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Mitt Romney's $10,000 bet

For those who don't follow politics, Mitt Romney offered to bet Rick Perry $10,000 that Perry had misquoted Romney. ([video](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/mitt-romney-offers-rick-perry-10000-bet-spar-health-care-obama-politics-15130859))[](http://www.newser.com/story/135156/mitt-romneys-10k-debate-bet-a-bad-move-say-critics.html)

[Most political commenters see the move as a gaffe.](http://www.newser.com/story/135156/mitt-romneys-10k-debate-bet-a-bad-move-say-critics.html) They claim the bet made Romney look out of touch, because it reminded voters that Romney is rich enough to afford $10,000.

As a believer in prediction markets, I am disappointed in the public's reaction. Romney made a bold move by making his beliefs pay rent. Critics point out that $10,000 is "chump change" for Romney, but Romney still but himself at risk. If he had lost the bet, Perry could have made a production about cashing a $10,000 check from a disgraced Romney. Besides, if money were the issue, Perry could have countered with a non-monetary bet.  "Loser has to attend the next debate in a clown suit" or something.

If politicians had to face real consequences every time they made a false statement, they would have a larger incentive to tell the truth. It's a shame Romney's bet probably won't catch on.

\-\-\-\-

This post is not an endorsement of Mitt Romney or his politics. All I am endorsing is political betting.
# New 'landing page' website: Friendly-AI.com

I've created a new "landing page" on Friendly AI at [Friendly-AI.com](http://friendly-ai.com/). This is similar to [IntelligenceExplosion.com](http://intelligenceexplosion.com/), [Existential-Risk.org](http://www.existential-risk.org/), [Anthropic-Principle.com](http://www.anthropic-principle.com/), and [simulation-argument.com](http://www.simulation-argument.com/).

The site is less ambitious than the original plan for it was, but it serves its purpose.

Design courtesy of [Lightwave](/user/Lightwave/).
# Examples of the Mind Projection Fallacy?

I suspect that achieving a clear mental picture of the sheer depth and breadth of the mind projection fallacy is a powerful mental tool. It's hard for me to state this in clearer terms, though, because I don't have a wide collection of good examples of the mind projection fallacy.

In a discussion yesterday, we _all_ had trouble finding actual example of the mind projection fallacy. Overall, we had essentially two examples:

*   Taste. People frequently confuse "I like this" and "this is good." (This really subsumes the [attractiveness example](/lw/oi/mind_projection_fallacy/).)
*   Probability. This seems like a pretty good just-so-story for where frequentist probability comes from, as opposed to Bayesian probability.

Searching for "mind projection fallacy" on Less Wrong, I also see:

*   Thinking that purpose is an inherent property of something, instead of it having been placed there by someone for some reason. ([here](/lw/te/three_fallacies_of_teleology/))
*   Mulling or arguing over definitions to solve object-level problems. (actually, most the [ways words can be wrong](/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/) sequence)

Imagine I'm trying to explain the mind projection fallacy to someone, and giving a handful of sharp, clear examples before explaining the general principle. What are some examples I could use? (I really want to explain it more sharply to _myself_, but also to members of my meetup.)
# Tracking emotions with kinesthetic memory

I've been trying to manage my negative thoughts and I've stumbled on an interesting technique. In order to increase my mindfulness of my ruminations and my thoughts. I started making a check mark on a piece of paper when I had specific thought. I didn't feel like I had the emotional strength to battle every thought, but at least making a little checkmark was easy. Then, deciding I wanted to do this anywhere, I started instead making a quick checkmark gesture with my pointer finger.

The results have been interesting. One effect is I can now more easily sense the heartbeat of my mood. Usually, I could tell how I was feeling at any one time, but I never noticed the flow of things. But with gestural movement, I can remember how often I've been doing it. I can also see if I'm doing it every few minutes or every few seconds.

There's another result that's very interesting and offsetting. Sometimes, the movements are semiautomatic. This fits in with a modular theory of the brain, I think. So, I'll have a fleeting negative thought, reflexively make the gesture, and go "Oh, I just had a negative thought, I didn't notice that. Maybe I should do something." It feels a little strange from the inside.

So, just something that was interesting to me. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or interesting information.
# Building case-studies of akrasia

The idea for this came to me when reading [nyan_sandwich's "An akrasia case study."](/r/lesswrong/lw/8s9/an_akrasia_case_study/) I outlined the idea itself in [my comment in that thread.](/r/lesswrong/lw/8s9/an_akrasia_case_study/5ffm)

So here's the plan:

*   In a comment reply to this, describe a [specific](/lw/ic/the_virtue_of_narrowness/) instance of akrasia in your own life. Place an emphasis on the specificity. Focus on a specific task, either positive (i.e., that you judge to be good to do but self-sabotage from doing, like writing a paper) or negative (i.e., that you know you shouldn't do but do anyway, like buying more Frosted Flakes for breakfast and continuing to eat them). The more specific, the better.
*   You can share multiple instances, but please create new comments for each.
*   If you tried an anti-akrasia technique in this specific context, explain what you did and what effect it had. If you have some way in which you measured its effects objectively, please share that. If not, though, that's okay; we can still learn something from what various attempts to tackle different manifestations of akrasia [feel like from the inside](/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/). The goal here is _not_ to [propose solutions](/lw/ka/hold_off_on_proposing_solutions); instead, it's to see what different things that feel like solutions seem to do to different kinds of akrasia. So even failed attempts are useful.
*   If you tried multiple approaches or if your approach requires some explanation, you might consider describing it and its effects in a reply to your description of the instance of akrasia you applied it to.

Let me emphasize one more time that [we are not looking for solutions in this thread](/lw/ka/hold_off_on_proposing_solutions). _Please_ [don't give each other suggestions](/lw/9v/beware_of_otheroptimizing/)! If you think you're on to something hot in terms of [the "kicking" aspect of the Art](/lw/2c/a_sense_that_more_is_possible/1ff), please _show_ us with a description of how the technique worked _for you_ on a _specific_ instance - but share the instance _first_. The goal here is not to demonstrate that you have a clever anti-akrasia technique. The goal instead is to see what different instances of akrasia and attempts to tackle it _actually look like_.

If at all possible, please share both successes _and_ failures. This is especially helpful if we can see successes and failures _of the same technique_. This helps to balance out [positive bias](/lw/iw/positive_bias_look_into_the_dark/) and gives us a better idea of the parameters within which different techniques work. Be especially wary if you have a favorite anti-akrasia technique because of [the subconscious desire to attempt to change reality by pretending your favorite technique is actually perfect](/lw/1u/you_may_already_be_a_sinner). If you _do_ have a favorite technique, please actively seek out [its true weak points](/lw/jy/avoiding_your_beliefs_real_weak_points/).

Let's crack this thing!
# The rationalist's checklist

Doctor Peter Pronovost has managed to single-handedly reduce the infection rates in ICU facilities nationwide from numbers like fourteen percent or twenty percent to _zer_o. His solution is idiotically simple: a checklist. In a process as complex as ICU treatment, doctors perform chained simple steps very many times, and it can be easy to forget a step. These things add up. Read [the article](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all ) before continuing.

In their phenomenal book, [The Power of Full Engagement](http://www.amazon.com/Power-Full-Engagement-Managing-Performance/dp/0743226747), Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz discuss a pattern they have discovered among all top performers, ranging from sports to music and business. Beyond a certain level, all top performers had established positive rituals for relaxation and deliberate practice. These positive rituals were daily ingrained habits and allowed them to surpass the merely excellent performers.

It is difficult to make use of most Less Wrong posts in terms of changing one's behavior. Even if you integrate a lesson fully, you will still miss steps on occasion. I propose we suggest checklists for various recurring activities that will offload these responsibilities from conscious thought to its much more reliable brother, ingrained habit. Fortunately, we [should not need many checklists](/r/discussion/lw/8sa/why_i_write_about_the_basics/).

An example of a checklist is a morning routine:

*   Short exercise (40 pushups, 50 situps)
*   Shower
*   Daily cosmetics (brush teeth, shave, skin moisturizer, hair forming cream, male scented lotion, deodorant)
*   Make breakfast, which can be depending on what day it is mod 3: Black mango tea as well as
*      Omelette with cheese and tomatoes
*      Cereal with a side of oatmeal
*      A piece of fruit and yoghurt
*   Brief non-work and non-study related reading, for example, a novel

Another example of a checklist is during a conversation with a non-rationalist on the [5-second level](/lw/5kz/the_5second_level/): If you feel strong affect (anger or annoyance) at someone's point in a debate,

*   Say "Let me think about this for a second."

*   Are you two on the same  [inferential level](/lw/kg/expecting_short_inferential_distances)? If not, backtrack by trying to bridge it first.

*   Have either of you committed a  [cognitive bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)? (This may not be so helpful, given this is a potential fifty-item checklist!) If so, inform them about them about it in a friendly manner. ("Ah, I see! You have to be careful here because..." or "Oh, oops, I had forgotten here about...")

Think of this as a re-run of the 5-second level post, with an outreach towards more than just specific rationality skills. The checklists that are not required to be performed extemporaneously (i.e., not in conversation) should be like a physical checklist, that one can write down and should go through every time.
# No one knows what Peano arithmetic doesn't know

**WARNING:** this post requires some knowledge of mathematical logic and computability theory.

I was just talking with Wei Dai and something came up that seems at once obvious and counterintuitive. Though if the argument is correct, I guess it will be old news to about 50% of the people who read my posts :-)

Imagine you have an oracle that can determine if an arbitrary statement is provable in Peano arithmetic. Then you can try using it as a halting oracle: for an arbitrary Turing machine T, ask "can PA prove that there's an integer N such that T makes N steps and then halts?". If the oracle says yes, you know that the statement is true for standard integers because they're one of the models of PA, therefore N is a standard integer, therefore T halts. And if the oracle says no, you know that there's no such standard integer N because otherwise the oracle would've found a long and boring proof involving the encoding of N as SSS...S0, therefore T doesn't halt. So your oracle can indeed serve as a halting oracle.

On the other hand, if you had a halting oracle to begin with, you could use it as a provability oracle for PA: "if a program successively enumerates all proofs in PA, will it ever find a proof for such-and-such statement?"

So having a provability oracle for PA or any other consistent formal system that proves some valid arithmetic truths (like ZFC) is equivalent to having a halting oracle, and thus leads to a provability oracle for any other formal system. In other words, if you knew all about the logical implications of PA, then you would also know all about the logical implications of ZFC and all other formal systems. Hee hee.

**ETA:** this line leads to a nontrivial question. Is there a formal system (not talking about the standard integers, I guess) whose provability oracle is strictly weaker than the halting oracle, but still uncomputable?

**ETA 2:** the question seems to be resolved, see Zetetic's comment and my reply.
# The Controls are Lying: A Note on the Memetic Hazards of Video Games [Link]

Chris Pruett writes [on the _Robot Invader_](http://robotinvader.com/blog/?p=164) blog:

> Good player handling code is often smoke and mirrors; the player presses buttons and sees a reasonable result, but in between those two operations a whole lot of code is working to ensure that the result is the _best_ of many potential results.  For example, my friend [Greggman](http://greggman.com/) discovered that [Mario 3's jumping rules change depending on whether or not a level has slopes in it.](http://games.greggman.com/game/programming_m_c__kids/) Halo's targeting reticle famously slows as it passes over an enemy to make it easier to target with an analog stick without using an auto-aim system. When Spider-Man swings, he certainly does not orient about the spot where his web connects to a building (at least, he didn't in the [swinging system I wrote](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orbWj7zh9lE)).
> 
> Good player handling code doesn't just translate the player's inputs into action, it tries to discern the player's _intent_. Once the intended action has been identified, if the rules of the game allow it, good player handling code makes the action happen–_even if it means breaking the rules of the simulation a little._ The goal of good handling code isn't to maintain a "correct" simulation, it's to provide a fun game. It sucks to miss a jump by three centimeters. It sucks to take the full force of a hit from a blow that visually missed. It sucks to swing into a brick wall at 80 miles per hour instead of continuing down the street. To the extent that the code can understand the player's intent, it should act on that intent rather than on the raw input. _Do what I mean, not what I say._

I suppose this explains why I am better at arcade bowling games than I am at actual bowling. More seriously, while I had some vague awareness of this, I am slightly surprised at the breadth (_Mario 3!?_) and depth to which this "control re-interpretation" takes place.
# Visual Map of US LW-ers

Earlier this month, Metus did a post asking for LW-ers locations. I thought it would even more useful to have this information in visual format, so I created a Google map. You can access it on the website below. Unfortunately, I am terrible at this post-writing interface, so I can't get the image of the map to load onto here. You'll have to click the link to view it.

**Original Post**: [http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8sm/where\_do\_you\_live\_meetup\_planners\_want\_to\_know/](/r/discussion/lw/8sm/where_do_you_live_meetup_planners_want_to_know/)

(If you haven't filled out the poll yet, please do it! If more people submit their location info, I'll add them to the map.)

*   **[Link to the Map](http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=210190591453187349305.0004b4806a4115a36be54)**

These are only for US locations that had a 5-digit zip-code, or a city name. I may or may not map the other countries. If someone else wants to volunteer, send me a message, and I'll add you as a collaborator to the map, so you can edit.
# Is anyone else worried about SOPA? Trying to do anything about it?

Referring, of course, to the proposed U.S. legislation which could cause severe damage to the Internet—at least, that's what a lot of people are saying.  See, e.g., this [Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/internet-inventors-warn-against-sopa-and-pipa) (the first signatory listed is Vint Cerf).  On Wikipedia, people including Jimbo Wales are [discussing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#SOPA_update) [strategies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative) as extreme as _blanking the entire site_ (except for an explanatory message) to get people's attention, and thereby perhaps incite them to action, such as calling their Congressional representative.

I just happened to find out about all this a few hours ago, being someone who tries to avoid distractions like most kinds of news, so possibly others here with similar habits will appreciate having it called to ther attention.  Or possibly they won't.  But to those of you who possess relevant kinds of expertise: 

*   Is it possible to project likely consequences of this legislation's being passed?
*   What are those consequences?
*   Assuming they are on net undesirable, what can be done that would be most likely to prevent its passage?

(I think this subject can be discussed without political advocacy, in which I am mostly not at all interested anyway.  It just looks like a practical problem to me.)

**Edited to Add:** I forgot to include a fourth bullet point:

*   Again assuming they are undesirable, what can be done to ameliorate|circumvent them?

It seems to have been assumed by many commenters, nevertheless.
# What is your rationality blind spot?

It has been noticed since the time immemorial that cognitive biases have a nasty tendency of being invisible to self (note the proverbial log in one's eye). Uncovering their own blind spot is probably the hardest task for an aspired rationalist. EY and others have devoted a number of posts to this issue (e.g. the [How To Actually Change Your Mind](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences#How_To_Actually_Change_Your_Mind) sequence), and I am wondering if it is bearing fruit for the LW participants. 

To this end, I suggest that people post what they think their current rationality blind spot they are struggling with is (not the usual sweet success stories of "overcoming bias"), and let others comment on whether they agree or not, given their impressions of the person here and possibly in real life. My guess is that most of us would miss the mark widely (it's called a blind spot for a reason). Needless to say, if you post, you should expect to get crockered. Also needless to say, if you disagree with a person pointing out your bias, odds are that you are the one who is wrong.

(Who, me, go first? Oh, I have no biases, at least none that I can see.)
# Decision Analysis Sequence

This is the introduction (conclusion) to my decision analysis sequence. It covers (much more quickly and less completely) what you would expect to see in a semester-long course on decision making. The posts are:

1.  [**Uncertainty**](/lw/8lb/uncertainty/): the basics of treating uncertainties as probabilities and doing Bayesian math.
2.  **[5 Axioms of Decision Making](/lw/8m5/5_axioms_of_decision_making/)**: the five steps / assumptions that form the foundation of careful decision-making.
3.  [**Compressing Reality to Math**](/lw/8uj/compressing_reality_to_math/): how to take a sticky, complicated situation and condense it down to something a calculator can solve, without feeling like you've left something important out.
4.  [**Measures, Risk, Death, and War**](/lw/8ui/measures_risk_death_and_war/): how to deal with many similar prospects (utilities), risks of death, and adversaries.
5.  [**Value of Information: Four Examples**](/lw/85x/value_of_information_four_examples/): how to value information-gathering activity, like tests or waiting, and incorporate it into your decision-making process.

I'd like to welcome any comments about the sequence here. What parts did I do well? What parts need work? What parts would you like to see expanded (or removed)?

One of the difficulties in posting about a topic like this is that it's foundational: basic, but important to get right. The idea of an expected utility calculation is not new (although the approach I take here may be novel for many of you) and, like I say in the VoI post, there's often more benefit in applying the process to examples than repeatedly talking about the process. The case studies I have access to, though, are not ones I can publish online, and I don't think I can construct an example that would work as well as a real one. Do people have problems they would like me to analyze with this framework as examples?
# Some thoughts on AI, Philosophy, and Safety

I've spent some time over the last two weeks thinking about problems around FAI. I've committed some of these thoughts to writing and put them up [here](http://ordinaryideas.wordpress.com/).

There are about a dozen real posts and some scraps. I think some of this material will be interesting to certain LWers; there is a lot of discussion of how to write down concepts and instructions formally (which doesn't seem so valuable in itself, but it seems like someone should do it at some point) some review and observations on decision theory, and some random remarks on complexity theory, entropy, and prediction markets.
# Less Wrong Archives

The last straw was finding out that the manually-generated (why manual? I don't understand!) "[All Articles](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong/All_Articles)" article is more than a year out of date. The auto-generated [list](http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~andwhay/postlist.html) of Eliezer's Overcoming Bias posts isn't out of date if you only want the posts that were once on Overcoming Bias, but why would you want only those?

Can we please have a real, automatically generated archives link for Less Wrong? Perhaps one for the Discussion section, too. (And one that skips over meetups. Those don't need to be recorded for antiquity.)

I'm sincerely confused as to why we don't already have one of these. It seems like such an obviously essential tool. It seems like an [open problem](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Open_problems_on_Less_Wrong) that nobody has actually thought of. Or maybe I'm just weird and care about archives far more than everyone else does.

Unfortunately, this is not something I can actually help with. _Good luck to any brave soul who also thinks this is a problem but can actually do something to fix it._
# Holiday giving thread

Since this is the [season to respect the universe as a worthy foe](/lw/8x5/ritual_report_nyc_less_wrong_solstice_celebration/) and remember the challenges ahead of us, it felt appropriate that I should donate some money for a good cause. Then it occurred to me, why not use the opportunity to encourage somebody else to do so as well?

So, if you promise to donate money to either the [Singularity Institute](http://intelligence.org/donate/) or the [Future of Humanity Institute](http://www.giving.ox.ac.uk/academic_departments/humanities/extra_pages/future_of_humanity.html) before the end of the year, _and pledge that you wouldn't have done so without this opportunity_, then I will match your donation dollar-for-dollar. Saying "I would have donated 50 dollars without this opportunity but with it I'll donate 75" is also fine - in that case I'll match the extra 25. I'll match up to a total of 100 EUR (about 130 USD at today's rate): first-come first-served, so get your matches while they're hot. _EDIT:_ I hit my maximum total, but curiousepic is running a matching as well, see below!

Please feel free to also declare any of your (more or less) completely unrelated donations in this thread, or to set up your own matching pledges.

**Matchings:**

curiousepic [matches](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5ifw) up to a total of $1000 on donations to [SI](http://intelligence.org/donate/), [SENS](http://www.sens.org/donate), or [GiveWell](http://givewell.org/charities/top-charities). (Up to **$800**.)

Kaj Sotala matched up to a total of $130 on donations to [SI](http://intelligence.org/donate/) or [FHI](http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/donate). (Up to **$130**.)

**Matched donations:**

Barry_Cotter [donated](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5igg) $25 to SI. (matched $25 each by curiousepic, Kaj Sotala)

Daniel_Burfoot [donated](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5ijq) $100 to SI. (matched $100 each by curiousepic, Kaj Sotala)

atucker [donated](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5ikr) $12/month to SI. (matched $5 by Kaj Sotala, $144? by curiousepic)

wmorgan [donated](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5j6m) $1531 to SI. ([matched $531](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5jo1) by curiousepic)

**Non-matched donations:**

Dr_Manhattan [donated](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5ie1) $100 to SI.

lincolquirk [donated](/r/discussion/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5imc) $700 to SI, $300 to Against Malaria Foundation.

Normal_Anomaly [donated](/lw/8z8/holiday_giving_thread/5ips) $300 to Against Malaria Foundation.
# Historical examples of flinching away

I'm looking for historical examples of "flinching away," so I can illustrate the concept to others and talk about [motivated cognition](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Motivated_cognition) and [leaving a line of retreat](/lw/o4/leave_a_line_of_retreat/) and so on.

The ideal example would be one of motivated skepticism with grave consequences. Like, a military commander who shied away from believing certain reports because they implied something huge and scary was about to happen, and then the huge and scary thing happened and caused great damage. Something like that.

What examples can you think of?
# [LINK] Lincoln on Rationality

[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/a-fateful-christmas-meeting/](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/a-fateful-christmas-meeting/)

> But Lincoln, like Chase, harbored doubts about taking a conciliatory approach. At the conclusion of what became a four-hour meeting, the president proposed to Seward that they both draft arguments supporting their positions. He and Seward would then face off the next day like lawyers competing in court to win the jury’s verdict.
> 
> The meeting on Dec. 26 proved to be both shorter and less combative, with the cabinet quickly agreeing to the release of Mason and Slidell. Lincoln, despite his position the day before, raised no objections. Surprised that his fiercest opponent had changed his mind, Seward asked the president what had prompted the reversal. “I found that I could not make an argument that would satisfy my own mind, and that proved to me your ground was the right one,” replied the president.

This reminded me of [Groupthink](http://www.amazon.com/Groupthink-Psychological-Studies-Decisions-Fiascoes/dp/0395317045/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324795684&sr=8-1) by Irving L. Janis (also see [Wikipedia's article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink)), which analyzed how bad decisions are made (e.g. the [Bay of Pigs Invasion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion)) and avoided (e.g. the [Cuban Missile Crisis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis)).
# Merry Newtonmas LW. Have some rationalist music.

**Related to:** [So You've Changed Your Mind](/lw/5h8/so_youve_changed_your_mind/)

Basically [my band](http://www.squidrock.com/) did an album whose theme was "change your mind", largely inspired by [the LW sequence](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_Mind). It's not Bayes Theorem in rhyming form, but the subject matter and spirit of it should (hopefully) resonate with LW readers.

Anyway, for obvious reasons I'm curious what you'll think of it, and so in the spirit of giving here's a [direct link to download the album for free](http://www.squidrock.com/album_lw.zip). If you don't want to download the whole thing immediately, you can also stream each song via [Bandcamp](http://doctorsquid.bandcamp.com/album/doctor-squid-changes-the-channel).

Sound-wise, you'll probably like it if you like 90s rock/pop/alternative.
# If You Were Brilliant When You Were Ten...

(If I do anything wrong here, please tell me. I don't know what I'm doing and would benefit from being told what I've got wrong, if anything. I've never made a top-level post here before.)

So, it seems like most people here are really smart. And a lot of us, I'm betting, will have been identified as smart when we were children, and gotten complimented on it a lot. And it's pretty common for that to really mess you up, and then you don't end up reaching your full potential. Admittedly, maybe only people who've gotten past all that read Less Wrong. Maybe I'm the exception. But somehow I doubt that very much.

So here's the only thing I can think of to say if this is your situation: **ask stupid questions.**

Seriously, even if it shows that you have no clue what was just said. (Especially if it shows that. You don't want to continue not understanding.) You can optimize for being smart, you can optimize for seeming smart, but sometimes you need to pick which one to optimize for. It may make you uncomfortable to admit to not knowing something. It may make you feel like the people around you will stop thinking you're all-knowing. But if you don't know how to ask stupid questions, and you just keep pretending to understand, you'll fall behind and eventually be outed as being really, really stupid, instead of just pretty normal. Which sounds worse?

Here, let me demonstrate: so, what tags go on this post and how would I know?

So, anyone else know of any similar things to do, to get back to optimizing for being smart instead of for seeming smart?
# Philosophy that can be "taken seriously by computer scientists"

I've long held [CMU's philosophy department](http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/) in high regard. One of their leading lights, [Clark Glymour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Glymour), recently published a short [manifesto](http://choiceandinference.com/2011/12/23/in-light-of-some-recent-discussion-over-at-new-apps-i-bring-you-clark-glymours-manifesto/), which Brian Leiter [summed up](http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2011/12/speaking-of-making-things-up.html) as saying that "the measure of value for philosophy departments is whether they are taken seriously by computer scientists."

Selected quote from Glymour's manifesto:

> Were I a university administrator facing a contracting budget, I would not look to eliminate biosciences or computer engineering. I would notice that the philosophers seem smart, but their writings are tediously incestuous and of no influence except among themselves, and I would conclude that my academy could do without such a department... But not if I found that my philosophy department retrieved a million dollars a year in grants and fellowships, and contained members whose work is cited and used in multiple subjects, and whose faculty taught the traditional subject well to the university’s undergraduates.

Also see the critique [here](http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/12/glymour-against-philosophy.html), but I'd like to have Glymour working on FAI.
# What causes burnout?

When I try to figure out how to balance personal happiness with saving the world, I think a lot about burnout.  If I make a major change - e.g. changing careers - what are the chances I'll burn out and become a lot less useful as a result?

I've never burned out, so I don't know where that edge is for me (plus I suspect the edge moves around depending on circumstances).  I'm obviously biased on the topic: there's the temptation to tell myself "This will prevent burnout and make me more effective in the long run" every time I want to do something.

Some things people here have described as causing burnout:

[Going through the motions of a religion you don't believe in](/lw/2ku/welcome_to_less_wrong_20102011/5g5i)

[Training yourself to feel guilty whenever you relax](/lw/8gv/the_curse_of_identity)

[Pursuing altruism too exclusively](/lw/38u/best_career_models_for_doing_research/33et)  (That post suggests Bostrom's [parliamentary model](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/moral-uncertainty-towards-a-solution.html) as an antidote).

Do you have more examples?  Have you burned out?  Are there things that you think have kept you from burning out?
# Best of Rationality Quotes, 2011 Edition

I created a 2011 update to last year's Best of Rationality Quotes collection. ([Here is the original.](/lw/3cn/best_of_rationality_quotes_20092010/))

**[Best of Rationality Quotes 2011](http://people.mokk.bme.hu/%7Edaniel/rationality_quotes_2011/rq_only2011.html "Best of Rationality Quotes 2011")** (360kB page, 352 quotes)

and **[Best of Rationality Quotes 2009-2011](http://people.mokk.bme.hu/%7Edaniel/rationality_quotes_2011/rq.html "Best of Rationality Quotes 2009-2011")** (700kB page, 706 quotes)

The page was built by a short script ([source code here](http://people.mokk.bme.hu/%7Edaniel/rationality_quotes_2011/ "source code")) from all the LW Rationality Quotes threads so far. (We had such a thread each month since April 2009.) The script collects all comments with karma score 10 or more, and sorts them by score. Replies are not collected, only top-level comments.

A year ago commenters asked for various statistics and top-lists based on the data. This year I re-ran the scripts I wrote to answer those requests. (Source code for these is also at the above link, see the README.) I added the results as comments to this post:

*   [Top quote contributors by total karma score collected](/lw/91s/best_of_rationality_quotes_2011_edition/5jbp)
*   [Top quote contributors by karma score collected in 2011  
    ](/lw/91s/best_of_rationality_quotes_2011_edition/5jbq)
*   [Top quote contributors by statistical significance level](/lw/91s/best_of_rationality_quotes_2011_edition/5jbu)  (See  [this comment](/lw/3cn/best_of_rationality_quotes_20092010/37ej)  for a description of this metric.)[  
    ](/lw/3cn/best_of_rationality_quotes_20092010/37ej)
*   [Top original authors by number of quotes](/lw/91s/best_of_rationality_quotes_2011_edition/5jbs)
*   [Top original authors by total karma score collected](/lw/91s/best_of_rationality_quotes_2011_edition/5jbt)
# Eutopia is Scary - for the author

As Eliezer [makes the point](/lw/xl/eutopia_is_scary/) that real utopias will be scary - certainly more scary that my latest [attempt](/lw/8zs/just_another_day_in_utopia/). Mainly they will be scary because they'll be different, and humans don't like different, and it's vital that the authors realise this if they want to create a realistic scenario. It's necessary to craft a world where we would be out of place.

But it's important to remember that utopias will not be scary for the people living there - the aspects that we find scary at the beginning of the 21st century are not what the locals will be afraid of (put your hand up if you are currently terrified that the majority of women can vote in modern democracies). Scary is in the observer, not the territory.

This is a special challenge when writing a fictional utopia. Dystopias and flawed utopias are much easier to write than utopias; when you can [drop an anvil](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/55/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality) on your protagonist whenever you feel like it, then the tension and interest are much easier to sustain. And the scary parts of utopia are a cheap and easy way of dropping anvils: the reader thrills to this frightening and interesting concept, start objecting/agreeing/thinking about and with it. But it's all ok, you think, it's not dystopia, it's just a scary utopia; you can get your thrills without going astray.

But all that detracts from your real mission, which is to write a utopia that is genuinely good for the people in it, and would be genuinely interesting to read about _even if it weren't scary_. I found this particularly hard, and I'd recommend that those who write utopias do a first draft or summary without any scary bits in it - if this doesn't feel interesting on its own, then you've failed.

Then when you do add the scary bits, make sure they don't suck all the energy out of your story, and make sure you emphasise that the protagonists find these aspects commonplace rather than frightening. There is a length issue - if your story is long, you can afford to put more scary bits in, and even make the reader start seeing them just as the locals do, without the main point being swallowed up. If your story's short, however, I'd cut down on the scary radically: if "[rape is legal](/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/)" and you only have a few pages, then that's what most people are going to remember about your story. The scariness is a flavouring, not the main dish.
# Less Wrong mentoring thread

I just had a 17-year-old Less Wronger e-mail me for advice regarding the [Thiel Fellowship](http://www.thielfellowship.org/) after reading my [application essay](/lw/3iq/being_rational_and_being_productive_similar_core/) from last year when I was 19. We had a long instant message conversation where I gave him a lot of advice which he seemed to find highly useful (my biggest piece of advice was to start teaching himself programming using [Learn Python the Hard Way](http://learnpythonthehardway.org/), shamelessly asking for help using a pseudonym on IRC channels, forums, and [Stack Overflow](http://stackoverflow.com/) if he got stuck).

It seems likely that there are other Less Wrong users who still live with their parents who could benefit from life and career advice. I'm especially interested in reaching those who see reducing [existential risk](/lw/8f0/existential_risk/) as a major life goal.

A related idea is for people who have some goal they want to achieve, like having a romantic relationship with someone of their preferred gender or being admitted to a prestigious graduate school, to pair up with someone who has accomplished that goal.

So if you're a young person who would like advice, an older person who would like to give advice, a person who wants to accomplish a goal, or a person who has accomplished a goal and is willing to help others accomplish that goal, consider leaving a comment on this post so you can find your counterpart.

I realize this post is a bit open ended--consider it an experiment in tapping Less Wrong's social capital in a novel fashion.
# Negentropy Overrated?

[This](http://ordinaryideas.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/entropy-reversibility-and-uncomputation/) post may be interesting to some LWers.

In summary: it looks like our universe can support reversible computers which don't create entropy. Reversible computers can simulate irreversible computers, with pretty mild time and space blowup. So if moral value comes from computation, negentropy probably won't be such an important resource for distant future folks, and if the universe lasts a long time we may be able to simulate astronomically long-lived civilizations (easily 10^(10^25) clock cycles, using current estimates and neglecting other obstructions). 

Has this been discussed before, and/or is there some reason that it doesn't work or isn't relevant? I suspect that this consideration won't matter in the long run, but it is at least interesting and seems to significantly deflate (long-run) concerns about entropy.
# Stupid Questions Open Thread

This is for anyone in the LessWrong community who has made at least some effort to read the sequences and follow along, but is still confused on some point, and is perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed. Here, newbies and not-so-newbies are free to ask very basic but still relevant questions with the understanding that the answers are probably somewhere in the sequences. Similarly, LessWrong tends to presume a rather high threshold for understanding science and technology. Relevant questions in those areas are welcome as well.  Anyone who chooses to respond should respectfully guide the questioner to a helpful resource, and questioners should be appropriately grateful. Good faith should be presumed on both sides, unless and until it is shown to be absent.  If a questioner is not sure whether a question is relevant, ask it, and also ask if it's relevant.
# [LINK] "Prediction Audits" for Nate Silver, Dave Weigel

[Nate Silver](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/our-smartest-and-dumbest-columns-of-2011/) (the NYT quantitative political analyst) and [Dave Weigel](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/12/david_weigel_chooses_his_four_dumbest_political_predictions_of_the_year.html) (the Slate columnist) have started a good tradition, listing their worst predictions of 2011. (Silver also listed his best.)

If any other pundits are doing the same, link them here.
# Why some people seem to be proud of their ignorance?

Sometimes I run into people that have rather strong opinions on some topic, and it turns out that they are basing them on quite shallow and biased information. They are aware that their knowledge is quite limited compared to mine, and they admit that they don't want to put in the effort needed to learn enough to level the field.

But that's not really a problem. What is bothering me is that, sometimes, that declaration of ignorance is expressed with some kind of _pride_. 

This behaviour is noticeable on other levels too, in politics or in the sciences-humanities culture clash.

I came up with several hypotheses which might account for this:

1.  Being opinionated on a topic you know little about is a sign of **confidence** and **bravery**. Any fool can play it safe and carefully form opinions based on solid knowledge, but it takes _a real man_ to do it quickly and decidedly, with only partial information.
2.  Knowing something is an **identity badge**. In-depth knowledge of science, or computers, or any number of other fields is a sign that you are a geek. People are proud of not being geeks, or are a proud member of some other group that does not care for that particular knowledge.
3.  Knowledge is **relative** and/or **unimportant**. Not caring about concrete knowledge is a sign of post-modernist sophistication, or an avant-garde, non-mainstream thinking, which is something to be proud of.
4.  Displaying pride **overcompensates** for shame one normally feels when forced to acknowledge one's ignorance.

Do you notice this behaviour too? What do you think causes it?

_EDIT: formatting, style, grammar_
# Evaporative cooling of group beliefs: current example

Background info: a splinter group, which broke off from the LDS ("Mormon") church ~100 years ago, refusing to give up polygamy, has been in the headlines over the last year; their leader was sentenced to life in prison for rape of teenage girls he took as plural wives.

Deseret News, [Sex banned until Warren Jeffs' prison walls crumble, FLDS relatives say](http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705396590/Sex-banned-until-Warren-Jeffs-prison-walls-crumble-FLDS-relatives-say.html?pg=1)

> "As the year comes to an end and the followers of Warren Jeffs await the apocalypse he has predicted, they're living under a challenging edict: they're forbidden to have sex until Jeffs is sprung from a Texas prison.
> 
> It's one of the strangest edicts in a season full of them. Jeffs has issued a stream of revelations, prophecies and orders to his congregation in the border community of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
> 
> **The recent edicts from Jeffs' prison cell seem to be having two contradictory effects. Many are leaving the FLDS faith in disgust. Those who stay are reported to be increasingly devoted** to a man who is serving a lifetime sentence for raping underage girls.
> 
> According to numerous critics and outside observers, the imprisoned FLDS leader has sometimes acted through his brother Lyle and other times has spoken directly to his congregation over the phone from prison. He recently banned many of the things his followers enjoy: bicycles, ATVs, trampolines, even children's toys. But the sex edict reaches into the bedrooms of all his devoted followers.
> 
> According to Holm, Jeffs declared all existing marriages to be void....."they have all been told that they are not to live as husband and wife"....Holm thinks about 100 members have left in recent weeks from the community of 10,000.

Eliezer, [Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs](/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/)

> Why would a group belief become _stronger_ after encountering crushing counterevidence?
> 
> In Festinger's classic "When Prophecy Fails", one of the cult members walked out the door immediately after the flying saucer failed to land.  Who gets fed up and leaves _first?_  An _average_ cult member?  Or a relatively more skeptical member, who previously might have been acting as a voice of moderation, a brake on the more fanatic members?
> 
> After the members with the highest kinetic energy escape, the remaining discussions will be between the extreme fanatics on one end and the slightly less extreme fanatics on the other end, with the group consensus somewhere in the "middle".

This doesn't simply seem to be a case of a new weighted average after some skeptics are gone (only 1% of FLDS have left). There are other dynamics going on among those remaining.

The image that comes to my mind is a lot of points scattered along a skepticism/fanaticism axis, and a repelling magnet placed on that line. This magnet pushes the already-skeptical values into greater skepticism (and out) and pushing the more fanatical members into greater fanaticism. How well does that actually represent what's going on? Not sure.
# Meta analysis of Writing Therapy

Robin Hanson [recently mentioned "writing therapy"](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/easy-job-fix.html) as potentially having surprisingly large benefits. In the example he gives, recently unemployed engineers who write about their experience find jobs more quickly than those that did not.

The meta-analysis paper he links to was pretty lame, but I found another meta-analysis, ["Experimental disclosure and its moderators: A meta-analysis"](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29304719/Papers/Experimental%20Disclosure%20and%20its%20moderators%3A%20a%20meta%20analysis.pdf), on a somewhat broader topic of Experimental Disclosure that appears to be much better.

My judgment is non-expert, but it looks to me like a very high quality meta-analysis. The authors use a large number of studies (146) and include a large number of potential moderators, discuss their methodology in detail, and address publication bias intelligently. 

The authors find small to moderate positive effects on measures of psychological health, physiological health and general life outcomes. They also find a number of interesting moderating factors.
# New Year's Prediction Thread (2012)

Going through [expiring predictions](http://predictionbook.com/predictions/judged) reminded me. Just as we did for [2010](/lw/1la/new_years_predictions_thread/) and [2011](/lw/3kz/new_years_predictions_thread_2010/), it's time for LessWrong to make its beliefs pay rent and give hostages to fortune in making predictions for events in 2012 and beyond.

Suggested topics include: _Methods of Rationality_ updates (eg. "will there be any?"), economic benchmarks (price of gold has been an educational one for me this past year), medical advances (but be careful not to be [too optimistic](/lw/8yp/prediction_is_hard_especially_of_medicine/)!), personal precommitments (signing up for cryonics?), being [curmudgeonly](/lw/925/link_g%C3%B6del_escher_bach_read_through_starting_on/5jkw) about self-improvement, making [daring predictions](http://predictionbook.com/predictions/5037) about the future of AGI, and so on.

As before, please be fairly specific. I intend to put most predictions on [PredictionBook.com](http://predictionbook.com/happenstance) and it'd be nice if they weren't too hard to judge in the future.

(If you want advice on making good predictions, I've tried to write up a few [useful heuristics](http://www.gwern.net/Prediction%20markets#how-i-make-predictions) I've learned. So far in the judging process, I've done pretty well this year, although I'm a little annoyed I got a [Yemen prediction](http://predictionbook.com/predictions/3242) right but for the wrong reasons.)