Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# What do bad clothes signal about you?

Yesterday I attended a meetup where the discussion turned to fashion for a time (because apparently the mini-camp participants were given some instructions on fashion as a useful part of instrumental rationality). (Unfortunately none of us knew much about the topic so the discussion turned into "how can we find an expert to advise us for minimal cost?") It was mentioned that dressing "badly" can be a useful signalling device, and some examples were given. Here's an attempt at a more complete list of possible signals one might be sending by dressing "badly".

* I have better use of my time than thinking about what to wear. Since thinking about what to wear is generally a highly valuable use of time, perhaps I'm really productive at something else.
* I'm in a profession where technical skills are valued above social skills.
* Costly signaling is mostly a zero-sum game. I like to opt out of zero-sum games.
* Either I'm a loner or none of my friends care about fashion either. If you care a lot about fashion, our interests are probably too different, and us socializing is probably not the best use of your time or mine. 
* I'm a member of a group or subculture where dressing "badly" is normative and used for identification/affiliation.

The idea here is, if you do decide to start dressing "well", know what you're giving up first. (Of course you're also giving up possibly implying that nobody taught you how to dress and you're not sufficiently strategic to have thought of learning it yourself. Or implying that you don't have the mental, financial, and/or social resources to keep up with fashion. A lot of signaling depends on what your audience already knows about you, or can infer from your other signals.) See also Yvain's related post, [Why Real Men Wear Pink](/lw/154/why_real_men_wear_pink/) and comments there.
# Rationality Boot Camp

We have been at Rationality Boot Camp for nearly a week (Jasen has decided it should be renamed "megacamp", but since everyone here has probably heard of it under the name Boot Camp, I'll stick with that).

So far, it has been quite a lot of fun certainly a fair amount more than I expect I would have at regular Boot Camp. We have a blog about the sessions (I think it is likely to be too high volume for posting to Less Wrong to be the ideal solution: I'm willing to change this if there's a strong consensus that I'm wrong). So far, I have made the only two posts: I think some of the other campers will be blogging at some point, I will try to post at least a few times a week. If anyone is interested in reading it, it can be found here: 

http://rationalitybootcamp.blogspot.com
# Suspended animation/hibernation: would you use it if it were available?

[This TED talk](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mark_roth_suspended_animation.html) on suspended animation by Mark Roth captivated me when I first saw it last year, and I have been eagerly trying to follow developments on the subject ever since.

My question for the lesswrong crowd is, if suspended animation were available today in such a way that you could "skip" years, decades or even centuries in a de-animated state while not aging or aging only slightly, would you go for it? Would it be the rational thing to do, or would it be more rational to wait until you really needed it, for example, when you are nearing end of life or if you get diagnosed with an incurable, terminal illness?

What about friends and family? I can see people not wanting to use it because it would mean "waking up" in a world where the people they care about no longer exist. This is also an issue with cryonics, and I believe was the main reason Heinlein chose to be cremated rather than cryopreserved. However, the moral dilemma is more complicated, because with cryonics, it happens after you're dead, but with suspended animation, it must be done while you're still alive, so unless you get de-animated towards the end of your life, you've made a conscious decision to spend your remaining time on Earth in the future with other people rather than with those around you in the present. However, I could also see it being easier to sell people on than cryonics, if it worked as advertised, because it would be more of a sure thing, and might even be cheaper. I could even see it becoming so popular that a large percentage of the population opts out of their present life and the problems it presents them, hoping to "sleep" their way to a better future, causing problems of population imbalance.

I'm bringing this subject up here because I find the concept fascinating, and it doesn't seem to get nearly as much attention as cryonics, yet it will be much more disruptive if/when it ever arrives.
# N-back news: Jaeggi 2011, or, is there a psychologist/statistician in the house?

Following up on the [2010 study](/lw/2u4/dual_nback_news/), Jaeggi and University of Michigan people have run a Single N-back study on 60 or so children.

*   Abstract: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/03/1103228108.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/03/1103228108.abstract)
*   PDF: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/03/1103228108.full.pdf](http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/03/1103228108.full.pdf)

The abstract is confident and the mainstream coverage unquestioning of the basic claim. But reading it, the data did not seem very solid at all - I will forbear from describing my reservations exactly; I have been accused of being biased against n-backing, however, and I'd appreciate outside opinions, especially from people with expertise in the area.

(Background: [Jaeggi 2011 in my DNB FAQ](http://www.gwern.net/N-back%20FAQ#jaeggi-2011). Don't read it unless you can't render the above requested opinion, since it includes my criticisms.)
# Amateur Cryonics (one guy packed in dry ice) Festival Seeks Buyer

[http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci\_18282009?source=most\_viewed](http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_18282009?source=most_viewed) 

I'd imagine the efficacy is halfway between proper cryonics and embalming and burying; the more interesting part may be the festival.  Nederland is a small town 20 miles from Boulder, CO.  I doubt the festival attendees are cryonics advocates, but they don't seem prone to the negative associations corpsicles often raise.  Perhaps it's just because Boulder, Colorado is full of weirdos, but I wonder if there are more exploitable effects in play.
# [prize] new contest for Spaced Repetition literature review ($365+)

**Update**: the prize is now [finished](/lw/76h/spaced_repetition_literature_review_prize_and_the/)!

The [previous contest](/lw/62t/prize_spaced_repetition_literature_review/) was poorly formatted for eliciting the most useful reviews of the spaced repetition literature so I've created a new slightly different contest. 

I'm interested in [making projects happen](/lw/5zd/making_projects_happen/) on Less Wrong. In order to find out what works and to inspire others to try things too, I'm sponsoring the following small project:

[Spaced Repetition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition) is often mentioned on Less Wrong as a technique for adding facts to memory. I've started using Anki and it certainly seems to be useful. However, I haven't seen a good summary of evidence on Spaced Repetition and I would like to change that.

I hereby offer a prize, currently [$385](http://jsalvatier.chipin.com/spaced-repetition-research-summary), to the best literature review submitted by **August 1st**. 'Best' will be judged by voting with discussion beforehand by the [Seattle LW meetup group](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong_meetup_groups#Seattle.2C_WA). People are not allowed to vote for their own submissions.

The summary should address questions such as:

*   What spacing is best?
*   How much does spaced repetition actually help memory?
*   Does spaced repetition have hidden benefits or costs?
*   Does the effectiveness vary across domains? How much? 
*   Is there research on the kinds of questions that work best? Especially for avoiding 'guessing the password' and memorizing the card per se rather than the material.
*   What questions do researchers think are most important?
*   Is there any interesting ongoing research? If so, what is it on?
*   What, if any, questions do researchers think it is important to answer? Are there other unanswered questions that would jump out at a smart person?
*   What does spaced repetition not do that people might expect it to?

The post should summarize the state of current evidence and provide citations to back up the claims in the article. Referencing both academic and non-academic research is encouraged. Lukeprog's [The Science of Winning At Life](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Science_of_Winning_at_Life) sequence contains several examples of good literature review posts.

If you think you would benefit from the result of this project, please add to the prize! You can contribute to the prize on the [ChipIn page](http://jsalvatier.chipin.com/spaced-repetition-research-summary).

If you have suggestions, questions or comments, please leave them in the comments. Prizes demotivating? Due date too soon/far? Specification too vague? Judgement procedure not credible enough?

This project is tagged with the 'project' tag and listed on the [Projects wiki](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Projects) page.
# Help Request: Cryonics Policies

I’m hoping to sign up for cryonics when I can afford it, and I’m not sure which agency and treatment plan to get.

As of [this Cryonics institute document](http://www.cryonics.org/comparisons.html), whole-body suspension with Alcor costs $200,000. Neurosuspension costs $80,000. With the cheaper but possibly lower quality Cryonics Institute, whole-body suspension costs $28,000 and they don’t do neurosuspension. American Cryonics Society is in between, costing $155,000 (again, no neurosuspension option).

What are the upsides and downsides of these options, in the eyes of people who are signed up, considering signing up, or know a lot about the subject? Also, I know there are some people here who have looked at cryonics and found it a bad decision. Input from them is also welcome.
# What are the best news sources to read for *insightful* discussions?

I generally agree with Bryan Caplan that [news is generally useless](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/03/the_case_agains_6.html ):

However, there are some analytical sources of news that are exceptions.

Personally, what I find most stimulating is http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/home.aspx . http://www.cato-unbound.org/ is also quite stimulating, although it isn't contemporary news. Then on the more non-news-y side, IEEE Spectrum and Communications of the ACM can occasionally be great. And while Scientific American has dumbed down in recent years, the featured articles in Science News (http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feed/type/article) are \*amazingly\* insightful. Two examples are below:

http://blog.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/330593/title/Inside\_Job http://www.comoogl.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/74456/title/Healthy\_Aging\_in\_a_Pill

You usually don't even get analyses like these in Science or Nature.

And [http://www.newgeography.com/](http://www.newgeography.com/) is surprisingly insightful.

What do people here think of The Atlantic? It's better than other news sources, and I was impressed with it when I was in 8th grade. And some columnists, particularly Reihan Salam, are great (Reihan isn't in the position of supporting \*any\* politician or party, so that puts him in a position where I don't suspect him of twisting facts \[even a little bit\] to support his position - something that I do often suspect for people like Ezra Klein and other left-wing pundits). But even The Atlantic does seem to be too much in line with mainstream opinion.

Other than that, I get most of my analysis from Gene Expression and Information Processing. I'm not too much of an economist yet, so I don't really read the economics blogs. FuturePundit/ParaPundit is right on many things, but its blogposts don't contain too much depth in them.
# Much-Better-Life Simulator™ - Sales Conversation

**Related to:** [A Much Better Life?](/lw/1op/a_much_better_life/)

**Reply to:** [Why No Wireheading?](/lw/69r/why_no_wireheading/)

### The Sales Conversation  

**Sales girl:** Our _Much-Better-Life Simulator_™ is going to provide the most enjoyable life you could ever experience.

**Customer:** But it is a simulation, it is fake. I want the real thing, I want to live my real life.

**Sales girl:** We accounted for all possibilities and determined that the expected utility of your life outside of our _Much-Better-Life Simulator_™ is dramatically lower.

**Customer:** You don't know what I value and you can't make me value what I don't want. I told you that I value reality over fiction.

**Sales girl:** We accounted for that as well! Let me ask you how much utility you assign to one hour of _ultimate well-being_™, where 'ultimate' means the best possible satisfaction of all desirable bodily sensations a human body and brain is capable of experiencing?

**Customer:** Hmm, that's a tough question. I am not sure how to assign a certain amount of utility to it.

**Sales girl:** You say that you value reality more than what you call 'fiction'. But you nonetheless value fiction, right?

**Customer:** Yes of course, I love fiction. I read science fiction books and watch movies like most humans do.

**Sales girl:** Then how much more would you value one hour of _ultimate well-being_™ by other means compared to one hour of _ultimate well-being_™ that is the result of our _Much-Better-Life Simulator_™?

**Customer:** If you ask me like that, I would exchange ten hours in your simulator with one hour of real satisfaction, something that is the result of an actual achievement rather than your fake.

**Sales girl:** Thank you. Would you agree if I said that for you one hour outside, that is 10 times less satisfying, roughly equals one hour in our simulator?

**Customer:** Yes, for sure.

**Sales girl:** Then you should buy our product. Not only is it very unlikely for you to experience even a tenth of _ultimate well-being_™ that we offer more than a few times per year, but our simulator delivers and allows your brain to experience 20 times more perceptual data than you would be able to experience outside of our simulator. All this at a constant rate while experiencing _ultimate well-being_™. And we offer free upgrades that are expected to deliver exponential speed-ups and qualitative improvements for the next few decades.

**Customer:** Thanks, but no thanks. I rather enjoy the real thing.

**Sales girl:** But I showed you that our product easily outweighs the additional amount of utility you expected to experience outside of our simulator.

**Customer:** You just tricked me into this utility thing, I don't want to buy your product. Please leave me alone now.
# The proper use of regret?

Bryan Caplan in [Parenthood as the Trump of All Past Regret](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/06/parenthood_as_t.html) explains: whatever tiny alterations he makes to his life before he had his children, would result in him not having the precise children he has today whom he so dearly loves, and therefore he does not regret a thing.

This is seems to me like an entirely wrong use of regret. I think regret is useful when it suggests how you could have done otherwise, when having different such behavioral policy consistently leads to better results in structurally similar situations.

It's not exactly like the mistake of thinking that chaos theory should suggest you pay attention to every little thing in life. There the mistake was to think you could reliably and precisely enough predict how the little things being different leads to outcomes being different. Bryan is thinking about a very specific outcome in his life which he already knows has come to pass. He is counterfactually considering how it would not have been if everything in his past were not exactly as they were.

But given determinism, everything is already decided. This does not rule out free will, but it does suggest a proper use for counterfactuals. According to Vladimir Nesov: The meaning of a thing is how you should be influenced by it (the most succinct expression of LW philosophy imho). According to Gary Drescher: Why should you consider alternatives when making a decision, given that your ultimate actions are already determined? Because counterfactually-speaking if you did not consider such alternatives, you wouldn't have decided the way you did. So the use of counterfactuals, and in particular regret, is for us deciding how to behave. I don't see how Caplan's regret makes use of this.

And of course, there are other aesthetic uses to counterfactuals. Fiction, to take an obvious example. But am I missing something here in thinking that Bryan's regret is quite useless?
# Two working memories, one on each side of the brain [link]

[Not a working memory of four, it's really two plus two.](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110620161313.htm)

Tl, dr: It's easier to remember four things if you've got two on one side of your visual field and two on the other. Three or four on one side can cause overload errors.

Working memory for other senses hasn't been explored yet on this level.
# The Present State of Bitcoin

Last Sunday, the largest BitCoin exchange, MtGox, was broken into. Reported details are complicated and possibly unreliable, but a fair amount is known. Trading is suspended while the exchange's source code is checked for vulnerabilities. All MtGox accounts are being put through a verification process and mandatory password reset. According to [MtGox's support page](https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due-to-a-compromised-account-rollback), a compromised account with 500k coins did a massive sell-off, clearing the order book and driving the price down to 0.01; MtGox has announced that trades around this time will be rolled back. A database of hashed usernames, email addresses, and passwords was leaked on or before June 17 (several hashes from the leaked database were posted on a forum). There is also a [report](http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=18709.0) that a cross-site request forgery vulnerability existed, and was being used to steal from users, probably for weeks. There are also highly plausible reports of a SQL injection vulnerability. MtGox has claimed that only $1000 worth of coins were lost, but this is unclear; the large sell-off may have been an attempt to work around the withdrawal rate limit, by making the rate-limiter use an incorrect exchange rate. [Analysis of the blockchain](http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20000.0) seems to suggest that MtGox does still control its coins, or at least a large number of coins.

In the best-case scenario, MtGox reopens for business in a couple days, some traders who would have profited from the sell-off will be angry, and the Bitcoin economy, such as it is, continues as before. In the worst case, MtGox is insolvent, either because they lost more coins as a result of this attack or an earlier attack than they've acknowledged, or because the coming run on the exchange exposes an undisclosed fractional reserve policy.

Meanwhile, TradeHill, the second-largest exchange, is trading at 13.2 USD/BTC with greatly increased volume, compared to 17.5 before this all started. The EFF has stopped accepting BitCoins, in response to these events, and donated their Bitcoin holdings to the Bitcoin faucet. Botnet herders have started hunting for Bitcoin wallets, and allinvain (real name unknown) [reported](http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=16457.0) losing 25kBTC from an unencrypted wallet that way.

And I, with a significant amount of both US dollars and Bitcoins frozen on MtGox, am having a very hard time focusing on cell phone app development.
# So, I guess the site redesign is live?

I saw some discussion posts earlier talking about a LessWrong redesign, and now that things look different, I guess that it's been implemented. I'm always slightly annoyed for a while when a site I use gets redesigned because I have to relearn where everything is, but it eventually wears off once I'm used to the changes.

My initial impressions:

"Hmmm... it seems like the category menus have been replaced by dropdown menus. It's not like I used many of them anyway."

"Okay, I've clicked my name to see my recently posted comments. Now, where's the link to see it in context? Oh, I guess I have to click that icon in the lower right corner. For some reason I was looking for something at the upper right of the comment box."

"Well, that worked. Now how do I click to the parent comment? Oh, wait, it's probably one of those new icons in the lower right corner. I'll just mouseover them to see what they do..."

::realization sets in::

"AAUGH! LESSWRONG IS USING [MYSTERY MEAT NAVIGATION!!!](http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html "WebPagesThatSuck: Mystery Meat Navigation")"

So, what does everyone else think of the new redesign?
# Charles Stross: Three arguments against the singularity

I periodically get email from folks who, having read "Accelerando", assume I am some kind of fire-breathing extropian zealot who believes in the imminence of the singularity, the uploading of the libertarians, and the rapture of the nerds. I find this mildly distressing, and so I think it's time to set the record straight and say what I really think.

Short version: _Santa Claus doesn't exist._

\- Charles Stross, [Three arguments against the singularity](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html), 2011-06-22

EDITED TO ADD: don't get your hopes up, this is pretty weak stuff.
# [Link] Does a Simulation Really Need to Be Run?

[http://blog.regehr.org/archives/546](http://blog.regehr.org/archives/546)

John Regehr, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Utah, writes about two algorithmic optimizations for [Conway's Game of Life](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life), and speculates on the implications for self-aware entities in simulations.

> [Hashlife](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashlife) is a clever optimization that treats the Life grid as a hierarchy of quadtrees. By observing that the maximum speed of signal propagation in a Life configuration is one cell per step, it becomes possible to evolve squares of the Life grid multiple steps into the future using hash codes. Hashlife is amazing to watch: it starts out slow but as the hashtable fills up, it suddenly “explodes” into exponential progress. I recommend [Golly](http://golly.sourceforge.net/). Hashlife is one of my ten all-time favorite algorithms.

Those who have read Greg Egan's [Permutation City](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City) will find the concept of Hashlife familiar.

> Another ingenious simulation speedup (developed, as it happens, around the same time as Hashlife) is [Time Warp](http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/2007/N1906.pdf), which relaxes the synchronization requirements, permitting a processor to run well ahead of its neighbors. This opens up the possibility that a processor will at some point receive a message that violates causality: it needs to be executed in the past. Clearly this is a problem. The solution is to roll back the simulation state to the time of the message and resume execution from there. If rollbacks are infrequent, overall performance may increase due to improved asynchrony. This is a form of “optimistic concurrency” and it can be shown to preserve the meaning of a simulation in the sense that the Time Warp implementation must always return the same final answer as the non-optimistic implementation.
# Karma threshold for meetup organisers?

A spambot has apparently [attacked](/meetups/6) the meetup section. Since the problems with bots in the discussion section have disappeared after minimal karma requirements were introduced, I suspect that similar limits were omitted for meetup organising. This should be easy to fix.
# HPMoR Podcast Over 9000 = New Trailer

The Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality audiobook/podcast exceeded nine thousand total downloads last night! Over 800 per episode on average. In celebration I put together another trailer. :) This one is taken from Chapter 7, the most popular chapter so far. I like to think it's because it has the speech about the Line of Francis Bacon and the Blood of the Enlightenment (which I personally loved), but maybe it's just because it's the only episode with an Explicit tag and that draws curiosity? Either way, it's the first chapter I truly fell in love with, and I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-fOw-n1CU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-fOw-n1CU)
# HP:MoR: request for Reliable Sources

For the last few weeks, I have been engaged in a slow motion edit war on the [Wikipedia Eliezer Yudkowsky article](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky), about including discussion of HP:MoR. The [specific text](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Eliezer_Yudkowsky&action=historysubmit&diff=435111663&oldid=435001210) being removed, to my eyes, well-sourced and germane to the article. But it may be that only 2 reviews of it is not enough and the other editor will respite if I can add in another RS or two.

Of course, I don't know of any besides the ones I have. That's where you all come in. What can I add to bolster the case for inclusion?

(If this seems trivial to you, I will note that the WP article gets around [2000 readers](http://stats.grok.se/en/201105/Eliezer%20Yudkowsky) a month, and will continue to do so indefinitely; the WP article is also ranked #3-4 in Google for "Eliezer Yudkowsky". My impression is also that people reading WP articles tend to be 'high-quality' visitors, who spend time reading it and whose opinions are molded by it. At least, I've noticed this with _Evangelion_ articles - points and quotes I've spent time referencing and highlighting tend to show up in reviews and other mainstream coverage...)
# Recent site changes

Recent site changes have generated more unhappiness than I expected. This post is a brief note to share resources that will make it easier for concerned site users to track what's happening and what we intend.

1.  First, know that [we're listening](/user/matt). We'll make further site changes next week that will likely include some reversions.
2.  The official site issue tracker remains [unchanged](/code.google.com/p/lesswrong/issues/list), but for the next week or so we'll work from [this public Google Doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/11QkdkFZy3j2UCvrefwfivLFWSlJJIxzRWY2GIFqduoE/view?hl=en_US) (just because it's lighter weight). Nothing on that document is a promise - just evidence of our current thinking. We'll strike out items on that list as we deliver them to our (private) staging server, and will roll them out onto the live site soon after.
3.  I've reached out to a small handful of SIAI and LessWrong heavyweights to track my balance as we make these changes. [My feed](/user/matt) should make it clear that I'm trying to act with calm rationality, but I'm obviously invested in the work we've shared to date and asking for some external help seems prudent.
4.  I'll track discussion on this post.

**Some reflections:**

1.  On what we did wrong
    1.  We didn't predict the unhappiness our changes caused.
    2.  We didn't make it clear that we were listening for feedback, and that changes were not final.
2.  On what many of you did right
    1.  Calmly and politely voiced your concerns about some of our changes.
    2.  Where you liked some of our changes, said so where we could see it. Thank you.
3.  On what many of you could have done differently, that would have increased average happiness (particularly mine)
    1.  Calmly and politely voiced your concerns about some of our changes.
    2.  Checked the very common assumption that the recent changes were final and would not be discussed. (Please note that I've _first_ admitted fault in not making this clearer.)

A bare fact of this episode is that I'm feeling shellshocked, and have not enjoyed the experience of spending significant time and money trying to make LessWrong better. Unless my brain is built differently than others of my species this experience is likely to lead to spending less on projects like this in the future.

Please feel free to add to these lists in the comments, and please feel free to  [other-optimize](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Other-optimizing)  me.  [Tsuyoku Naritai](/lw/h8/tsuyoku_naritai_i_want_to_become_stronger/).  
… but try to be polite.
# Reductionism reading list

*   Yudkowsky, [Reductionism sequence](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Reductionism_(sequence)) (2008)
*   Ladyman et al., _[Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized](http://www.amazon.com/Every-Thing-Must-Metaphysics-Naturalized/dp/0199573093/)_ (2007)
*   Bickle, _[Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account](http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Neuroscience-Ruthlessly-Reductive-Account/dp/1402013027/)_ (2003)
*   Bickle, '[Real Reduction in Real Neuroscience](http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Bickle-Real-Reduction-in-Real-Neuroscience.pdf)' (2008)
*   Glimcher, _[Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis](/lw/5up/review_foundations_of_neuroeconomic_analysis/)_ (2010)
*   Ney, '[Reductionism](http://www.iep.utm.edu/red-ism/)' \[for Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy\] (2008)
*   Hohwy & Kallestrup (eds.), _[Being Reduced](http://www.amazon.com/Being-Reduced-Reduction-Explanation-Causation/dp/0199211531/)_ (2008)
*   Drescher, _[Good and Real](http://www.amazon.com/Good-Real-Demystifying-Paradoxes-Bradford/dp/0262042339/)_ (2006)

I can't endorse everything in all these works, but they each provide insights into understanding reduction.

What else do ya'll recommend?
# Exclude the supernatural? My worldview is up for grabs.

**Background**

I was raised in the Churches of Christ and my family is all very serious about Christianity. About 3 years ago, I started to ask some hard questions, and the answers from other Christians were very unsatisfying. I used to believe that the Bible was, you know, _inspired by a loving God_, but its endorsement of genocide, the abuse of slaves, and the mistreatment of women and children really started to bother me.

I set out to study these issues as much as I could. I stayed up past midnight for weeks reading [what](http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=45) [Christians](http://www.mandm.org.nz/2010/08/contra-mundum-did-god-command-genocide-in-the-old-testament.html) [have](http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767) [to](http://gregboyd.blogspot.com/2008/03/divinely-inspired-infanticide-and.html) [say](http://christianthinktank.com/rbutcher1.html), and this process triggered a real [crisis of faith](/lw/ur/crisis_of_faith/). What started out as a search for answers on Biblical genocide led me to places like commonsenseatheism.com. I learned that the Bible has serious credibility problems on lots of issues that no one ever told me about. Wow.

**My Question**

Now I'm pretty sure that the God of the Bible is man-made and Jesus of Nazareth was [probably a failed prophet](http://books.google.com/books?id=c9K_6NN3llcC), but I don't have good reasons to reject the supernatural all together. I'm working through the sequences, but this process is slow. I will probably struggle with this question for months, maybe longer.

[Excluding the Supernatural](/lw/tv/excluding_the_supernatural/) was interesting, but it left me wanting a more thorough explanation. Where do you think I should go from here? Should I just continue reading the sequences, and re-read them until the ideas gel? I'm coming from 30 years of Sunday School level thinking. It's not like I grew up with words like "epistemology" and "epiphenomenalism". If there is no supernatural, and I can be confident about that, I will need to re-evaluate a lot of things. My worldview is up for grabs.
# Music: The 21st Century Monads

> **The 21^st^ Century Monads** are an international musical collaboration whose songs address fundamental issues in philosophy, including specialized topics in contemporary analytic philosophy and the history of philosophy. The musical genres range from dance to folk. The songs are unique, original songs, not cheesy parodies.

**Link:** [people.umass.edu/phil511/monads/](http://people.umass.edu/phil511/monads/)

**Via:** [m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/06/song-of-love-and-logic.html](http://m-phi.blogspot.com/2011/06/song-of-love-and-logic.html)

It's all completely free. Here are some of the titles:

_“We Can’t Stop Doing Metaphysics”_ [MP3](http://people.umass.edu/phil498y-klement/monads/WeCantStopDoingMetaphysics.mp3)

_“Your Body Is You”_ [MP3](http://people.umass.edu/phil335-klement/monads/Your_Body_Is_You.mp3)

_“Utilitarian Girlfriend”_ [MP3](http://people.umass.edu/phil110-klement/monads/Utilitarian_Girlfriend.mp3)

_“My Paper Was Rejected Again”_ [MP3](http://people.umass.edu/phil511/monads/music/mypaperwasrejectedagain.mp3)  

_"In the land of P and not-P  
You’d both be and not be mine"_ [MP3](http://people.umass.edu/phil498y-klement/monads/In_the_Land_of_P_and_Not_P.mp3)
# The Ideological Turing Test

[Bryan Caplan](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html):

[Mill states it well](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/66643): "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that."  If someone can correctly explain a position but continue to disagree with it, that position is less likely to be correct.  And if ability to correctly explain a position leads almost automatically to agreement with it, that position is more likely to be correct.

\[...\] Put me and five random liberal social science Ph.D.s in a chat room.  Let liberal readers ask questions for an hour, then vote on who isn't really a liberal.  Then put Krugman and five random libertarian social science Ph.D.s in a chat room.  Let libertarian readers ask questions for an hour, then vote on who isn't really a libertarian.  Simple as that.

My challenge: Nail down the logistics, and I'll happily bet money that I fool more voters than Krugman.

[Leah at Unequally Yoked](http://www.unequally-yoked.com/2011/06/guestblogging-challenge-take.html):

Just like Caplan, I'd like to put my money where my mouth is and play in an ideological Turing Test against a Christian blogger.

**UPDATE: **Two Christians have contacted me to tell me they're interested.  Please suggest format ideas for us to talk over and let me know if you'd like to join in!

update to clarify: When the panel is made up of mostly genuine Blues and one or a few Greens pretending to be Blue, then the judges are all Blue.
# Discussion: Yudkowsky's actual accomplishments besides divulgation

Basically this: "Eliezer Yudkowsky  writes and pretends he's an AI researcher but probably hasn't written so much as an Eliza bot."

While the Eliezer S. Yudkowsky site has lots of divulgation articles and his work on rationality is of indisputable value, I find myself at a loss when I want to respond to this. Which frustrates me very much.

So, to avoid this sort of situation in the future, I have to ask: What did the man, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, actually accomplish in his own field?

Please don't downvote the hell out of me, I'm just trying to create a future reference for this sort of annoyance.
# The True Rejection Challenge

An exercise:

Name something that you do not do but should/wish you did/are told you ought, or that you do less than is normally recommended.  (For instance, "exercise" or "eat vegetables".)

Make an exhaustive list of your sufficient conditions for avoiding this thing.  (If you suspect that your list may be non-exhaustive, mention that in your comment.)

Precommit that: If someone comes up with a way to do the thing which doesn't have any of your _listed_ problems, you will at least try it.  It counts if you come up with this response yourself upon making your list.

(Based on: [Is That Your True Rejection?](/lw/wj/is_that_your_true_rejection/))

Edit to add: Kindly stick to the spirit of the exercise; if you have no advice in line with the exercise, this is not the place to offer it.  Do not drift into confrontational or abusive demands that people adjust their restrictions to suit your cached suggestion, and do not offer unsolicited [other-optimizing](/lw/9v/beware_of_otheroptimizing/).

To alleviate crowding, Armok_GoB has created [a second thread for this challenge](/r/discussion/lw/6h2/the_true_rejection_challenge_thread_2/).
# Competitive Essay Writing

Quick report on an anti-akrasia method [NMJablonski](/user/NMJablonski/) and I tried out: Competitive Essay Writing. Two (or more) people have something they need to write (but may not particularly want to)- everyone gets on a IM client and every thirty minutes reports how many words they've written so far.

I didn't have an essay to write, but I did have a wiki to update for the D&D campaign I'm running, and I so did that while NMJablonski wrote an essay for school due the next day. I won handily, but that may have been the style of writing I was doing. I found it useful to have the pressure to not waste time chasing rabbit trails (hmm, I ought to name this professor after the guy who discovered the circulation of blood. Why, hello wikipedia!), and he found it useful to have pressure to report a number- instead of staring at the screen wondering what to write, he would just pick something and go with it.

The next step, I think, is to write a program so that, instead of having to manually report progress every 30 minutes, the word count automatically updates for everyone you're competing with. I don't know if that would be distracting or not- I imagine having immediate feedback, instead of delayed feedback, would be superior.
# The RPG Thread

I thought maybe playing RPG's might help us get to know each other outside meet-ups. Specifically, I found [this particular game](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlele3vpxbe) of interest to this community: it is in many ways the antithesis of everything we stand for... which is why I think we rationalists, of all people, would appreciate it the most. It might also be a useful tool for elaborating collective thought experiments in a playful way (among many other things, it's one of the few gaming systems where roleplaying an artificial superintelligence trying to break out into the real world would be a perfectly plausible and context-relevant and plot-justifiable scenario), and help us expand and explore our idea-space further and deeper. Anyone interested in starting a game somewhere?

Other RPG's and suggestions are of course absolutely welcome.
# Biomedical engineers analyze—and duplicate—the neural mechanism of learning in rats [link]

[Restoring Memory, Repairing Damaged Brains (article @ PR Newswire)](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usc-restoring-memory-repairing-damaged-brains-124051534.html)

> Using an electronic system that duplicates the neural signals associated with memory, they managed to replicate the brain function in rats associated with long-term learned behavior, even when the rats had been drugged to forget.

This series of experiments, as described, sounds very well-constructed and thorough. The scientists first recorded specific activity in the hippocampus, where short-term memory becomes long-term memory. They then used drugs to inhibit that activity, preventing the formation of and access to long-term memory. Using the information they had gathered about the hippocampus activity, they constructed an artificial replacement and implanted it into the rats' brains. This successfully restored the rats' ability to store and use long-term memory. Further, they implanted the device into rats without suppressed hippocampal activity, and demonstrated increased memory abilities in those subjects.

> "These integrated experimental modeling studies show for the first time that with sufficient information about the neural coding of memories, a neural prosthesis capable of real-time identification and manipulation of the encoding process can restore and even enhance cognitive mnemonic processes," says the paper.

It's a truly impressive result.
# Learning how to explain things

We've learned not to expect short [inferential distances](/lw/kg/expecting_short_inferential_distances/) when explaining ideas we understand. We've also learned that leaping too far ahead when explaining ideas like transhumanism can [freak people out](http://www.sl4.org/shocklevels.html).

I want to be [really really good](/lw/h8/tsuyoku_naritai_i_want_to_become_stronger/) at explaining ideas. Does anyone have recommendations about how to figure out _what the next inferential step is_ in another person's mind? 

Categories which are not answers themselves but are areas in which I expect to find answers:

*   Asking filter questions
*   Social contexts
*   Verbal cues
*   Body language

Ideally, I would like to find conversation-independent answers to this question; not just answers that fit for explaining transhumanism.
# Cryonics facility coming to Texas?

It seems that the non-profit Stasis Foundation is planning to build a cryopreservation "castle" (dubbed the "Timeship") in the San Antonio area.  My parents pointed me to [this article](http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Frozen-in-time-1427875.php), which was carried in the _Austin American-Statesman_.  I can't find a site for the Stasis Foundation; ([here's](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1147&bih=863&q=The+Stasis+Foundation&oq=The+Stasis+Foundation&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=undefined&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=843l843l0l1l1l0l0l0l0l78l78l1l1) the Google search and here's the [Timeship](http://timeship.org/) propaganda page).  The article discusses the effort in the context of a potential loss of tax exemption for not moving the project forward in a timely manner.

So is anyone familiar with this group?  What advantages do they seek by having this facility that can't be achieved with existing cryonics non-profits?
# Observed Pascal's Mugging

When I first read about [Pascal's Mugging](/lw/kd/pascals_mugging_tiny_probabilities_of_vast/ "Pascal's Mugging"), it stuck in my brain.  I knew that I had seen something like this occur in real life, though I couldn't quite place the specifics at the time.  Then it hit me- chain letters are a classical example of this.  They promise that if you copy the letter X times and distribute it, you will have good luck, your hair will grow back, etc., but if you don't distribute it, you will have bad luck, pianos will fall on you, etc.  

I thought a little bit further about this, because I knew I hadn't originally gotten bothered about this sort of thing because of chain letters (no one sends actual mail anymore); chain letters are just the obvious example that will occur after five minutes of thought.  The actual thing that had stuck in my brain was a phenomenon particular to the internet.  On Youtube and 4chan, there are often messages posted at least superficially similar to the following:

In \[year\], \[someone\] was killed after \[spectacularly gruesome details\].  Post a copy of this message in the next 10 minutes, or the ghost of \[someone\] will find you tonight and \[spectacularly gruesome details\].  

These threads have hundreds of replies almost every time that I see them  on 4chan, and on Youtube they spread from one video to the next while actual comments become buried.  This demonstrates that at least a significant fraction of the people that see these make the mental calculation that if they do not post it, they have a small chance of suffering incredible disutility, but if they do post it, they suffer only a few seconds of lost time.  (They're also much more effective at spreading than chain letters because the transmission time and cost of spreading are much less than with chain letters).

This is one of the best examples of real-life Pascalian muggings that I've found and one of the arguments for the benefits of raising the sanity waterline- the lost man-hours to this sort of thing may be non-trivial.  Also, this demonstrates one crude way of hacking the human brain in order to accomplish a task.  Essentially, these postings and all of their variants are simple memetic mind viruses.  In 4chan especially, they can be seen to outcompete actual posting when placed side by side.  No one wants to be killed in spectacularly gruesome detail, and so they spread with ease and can dominate threads when the conditions are right.  

Anyone else have examples of Pascal's Mugging or memetic viruses?
# Is it possible to prevent the torture of ems?

When I was reading [The Seven Biggest Dick Moves in the History of Gaming](http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-7-biggest-dick-moves-in-history-online-gaming/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage), I was struck by the number of people who are strongly motivated to cause misery to others \[1\], apparently for its own sake. I think the default assumption here is that the primary risk to ems is from errors in programming an AI, but cruelty from other ems, from silicon minds closely based on humans but not ems (is there a convenient term for this?) and from just plain organic humans strikes me as extremely likely.

We're talking about a species where a significant number of people feel better when they torture Sims. I don't think torturing Sims is of any moral importance, but it serves as an indicator about what people like to do. I also wonder how good a simulation has to be before torturing it does matter.

I find it hard to imagine a system where it's easy to upload people which has security so good that torturing copies wouldn't be feasible, but maybe I'm missing something.

\[1\] The article was also very funny. I point this out only because I feel a possibly excessive need to reassure readers that I have normal reactions.
# I'm becoming intolerant. Help.

Basically, I cannot stand people who will not bow to the Truth.

I always had this trait, but I noticed lately that it is becoming worse, and has [consequences](http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion_talk:Spell_Stacking#Umm.._Stacking.3F).  Ironically, the main trigger seems to be the sequences. They gave me a confidence that sometimes frightens me. There are multiple manifestations:

*   Before, I had no problem whatsoever with believers of various religions (as long as they don't do bad things). I was still acting like an agnostic at that time. Now I tend to think less of them.
*   Before, I tolerated disagreement about some subjects, like the supernatural. Now I loath any form of epistemic relativism.
*   I now tend regard anyone who isn't Bayesian as either uneducated or moronic. Same thing about materialist reductionism, only with a slightly lower confidence. (And my inability to convince people of the validity of Occam's Razor doesn't help.)
*   I sound more and more arrogant, and possibly full of myself.
*   My urge to [rewire the brain](http://xkcd.com/386/) of anyone who won't listen grows stronger.

The closest semi-famous embodiment of this character trait I can think of is [Xah Lee](http://xahlee.org/). I like much of his writing, but he can be very blunt, sometimes [to the point of insult](http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/wikimorons.html).

Needless to say, I do not [endorse](/lw/209/highlights_and_shadows/) all these changes. The problem is, while I know I should calm down, I just **[can't](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/18/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality) [lose](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/19/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality)** when I'm confident truth is on my side. I'm not even sure I _should_. (Note however that I'm rather good at losing to [evidence](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Evidence).)

So, what do you think? What should I do? Thanks.