Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# The Rebuttal Repository

Since repositories [are popular](/r/discussion/lw/i64/repository_repository/) and useful, I thought it would be good to have one where we pair common bad/incorrect/flawed/misleanding/incomplete ideas with high-quality articles that explain why those ideas are bad/incorrect/flawed/misleading/incomplete.

Examples:

_Myers-Briggs as a theory of personality._ -\> Richard Batty's ["The Myers-Briggs type Indicator: A Popular But Flawed Way of Understanding Your Personality"](http://www.80000hours.org/blog/60-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-a-popular-but-flawed-way-of-understanding-your-personality) from 80000 Hours.

_Microfinance_ -\> Ben Todd's ["Is Microfinance Mostly Hype?"](http://80000hours.org/blog/123-is-microcredit-mostly-hype) and GiveWell's ["6 Myths About Microfinance Charity Donors Can Do Without"](http://blog.givewell.org/2009/10/23/6-myths-about-microfinance-charity-that-donors-can-do-without/).

_Zizek's talk on charity ["First as Tragedy, then as Farce"](http://www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-animate-first-as-tragedy,-then-as-farce) (or the idea that charity is bad because it undermines political change)_ -\> Jeff Kaufman's ["Good Charity as Neither Tragedy or Farce"](http://www.jefftk.com/p/good-charity-as-neither-tragedy-nor-farce).

_The idea that the AI will be benevolent/Friendly by default._ -\> Luke and Louie's ["Intelligence Explosion and Machine Ethics"](http://intelligence.org/files/IE-ME.pdf).

etc.
# New Monthly Thread: Bragging

In an attempt to encourage more people to _actually do awesome things_ (a la instrumental rationality), I am proposing a new monthly thread (can be changed to bi-weekly, should that be demanded). Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to comment on this thread explaining **the most awesome thing you've done this month**. You may be as blatantly proud of you self as you feel. You may unabashedly consider yourself _the coolest freaking person ever_ because of that awesome thing you're dying to tell everyone about. This is the place to do just that.

Remember, however, that this **isn't** any kind of progress thread. Nor is it any kind of proposal thread._This thread is solely for people to talk about the awesomest thing they've done all month. not will do. not are working on_. **have already done.** This is to cultivate an environment of object level productivity rather than meta-productivity methods.

So, what's the coolest thing you've done this month?
# Does Checkers have simpler rules than Go?

I've [seen](http://www.jefftk.com/p/aliens-dont-play-chess) various contenders for the title of simplest abstract game that's interesting enough that a professional community could reasonably play it full time. While [Go](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)) probably has the best ratio of interest to complexity, [Checkers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draughts) and [Dots and Boxes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_Boxes) might be simpler while remaining sufficiently interesting. \[1\] But is Checkers actually simpler than Go? If so, how much? How would we decide this?

Initially you might approach this by writing out rules. There's an [elegant set for Go](http://homepages.cwi.nl/~tromp/go.html) and I [wrote some for Checkers](http://www.jefftk.com/p/aliens-dont-play-chess#fb-623983460022_785694), but English is a very flexible language. Perhaps my rules are underspecified? Perhaps they're overly verbose? It's hard to say.

A more objective test is to [write a computer program](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity) that implements the rules. It needs to determine whether moves are valid, and identify a winner. The shorter the computer program, the simpler the rules of the game. This only gives you an upper bound on the complexity, because someone could come along and write a shorter one, but in general we expect that shorter programs imply shorter possible programs.

To investigate this, I wrote ones for each of the three games. I wrote them quickly, and they're kind of terse, but they represent the rules as efficiently as I could figure out. The one for Go is based off Tromp's definition of the rules while the other two implement the rules as they are in my head. This probably gives an advantage to Go because those rules had a lot of care go into them, but I'm not sure how much of one.

The programs as written have some excess information, such as comments, vaguely friendly error messages, whitespace, and meaningful variable names. I took a [jscompiler](https://developers.google.com/closure/compiler/)-like pass over them to remove as much of this as possible, and making them nearly unreadable in the process. Then I ran them through a lossless compressor, gzip, and computed their sizes:

*   Checkers: 648 bytes
*   Dots and Boxes: 505 bytes
*   Go: 596 bytes

(The programs are [on github](https://github.com/jeffkaufman/game-complexity). If you have suggestions for simplifying them further, send me a pull request.)

  
\[1\] Go is the most interesting of the three, and has stood up to centuries of analysis and play, but Dots and Boxes is [surprisingly complex](http://library.msri.org/books/Book29/files/westboxes.pdf) (pdf) and there used to be professional Checkers players. (I'm having a remarkably hard time determining if there are still Checkers professionals.)

_I also posted this [on my blog](http://www.jefftk.com/p/simplest-interesting-game)._
# Engaging Intellectual Elites at Less Wrong

Is Less Wrong, despite its flaws, the highest-quality relatively-general-interest forum on the web? It seems to me that, to find reliably higher-quality discussion, I must turn to more narrowly focused sites, e.g. [MathOverflow](http://mathoverflow.net/) and the [GiveWell blog](http://blog.givewell.org/).

Many people smarter than myself have reported the same impression. But if you know of any comparably high-quality relatively-general-interest forums, please link me to them!

In the meantime: suppose it's true that Less Wrong is the highest-quality relatively-general-interest forum on the web. In that case, we're sitting on a big opportunity to grow Less Wrong into the "standard" general-interest discussion hub for people with high intelligence and high metacognition (shorthand: "intellectual elites").

Earlier, Jonah Sinick lamented [the scarcity of elites on the web](/lw/hky/the_paucity_of_elites_online/). How can we get more intellectual elites to engage on the web, and in particular at Less Wrong?

Some projects to improve the situation are extremely costly:

1.  Pay some intellectual elites with unusually good writing skills (like Eliezer) to generate a constant stream of new, interesting content.
2.  Comb through Less Wrong to replace community-specific jargon with more universally comprehensible terms, and change community norms about jargon. (E.g. GiveWell's jargon tends to be more transparent, such as their phrase "room for more funding.")

Code changes, however, could be significantly less costly. New features or site structure elements could increase engagement by intellectual elites. (To avoid [priming and contamination](/lw/k3/priming_and_contamination/), I'll hold back from naming specific examples here.)

To help us figure out which code changes are most likely to increase engagement on Less Wrong by intellectual elites, specific MIRI volunteers will be interviewing intellectual elites who (1) are familiar enough with Less Wrong to be able to simulate which code changes might cause them to engage more, but who (2) mostly just lurk, currently.

In the meantime, I figured I'd throw these ideas to the community for feedback and suggestions.
# One way to manipulate your level of abstraction related to a task

In construal level theory, ideas can be classified along a spectrum from concrete (["near" in Robin Hanson's terminology](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/near-far-summary.html)) to abstract ("far"). As a summary, here is the abstract from a 2010 review ([pdf](http://www.psych.nyu.edu/trope/Trope_Liberman_2010.pdf)): 

> People are capable of thinking about the future, the past, remote locations, another person’s perspective, and counterfactual alternatives. Without denying the uniqueness of each process, it is proposed that they constitute different forms of traversing psychological distance. Psychological distance is egocentric: Its reference point is the self in the here and now, and the different ways in which an object might be removed from that point—in time, in space, in social distance, and in hypotheticality— constitute different distance dimensions. Transcending the self in the here and now entails mental construal, and the farther removed an object is from direct experience, the higher (more abstract) the level of construal of that object. Supporting this analysis, research shows (a) that the various distances are cognitively related to each other, (b) that they similarly influence and are influenced by level of mental construal, and (c) that they similarly affect prediction, preference, and action.

Now, what if you want to think about some thing in a more or less near or far way? Here's one well-studied strategy to do so (e.g., see pdf [here](http://psych.nyu.edu/tropelab/publications/LibermanTropeMcCraeSherman2007.pdf)).

To think about a task in more concrete terms, ask yourself _how_ you would do it. Then, however you answer that question, ask yourself how would you do _that_. Do this two (or so) more times, and you will be thinking about that task significantly more concretely. 

To think about a task in more abstract terms, ask yourself _why_ you would do it. Then ask yourself why you would want that 3 (or so) more times. 

An excerpt from the 2007 study in the second link to give an example of how this would work: 

> Suppose you indicate “taking a vacation” as one of your goals. Please write the goal in the uppermost square. Then, think why you would like to go on vacation, and write your answer in the square underneath. Suppose that you write “in order to rest.” Now, please think why you would like to rest, and write your answer in the third square. Suppose that you write “in order to renew your energy.” Finally, write in the last square why you would like to renew your energy.
# Internal and external criticism

I notice that if you want to persuade me away from a position, it sometimes works to have me talk with two kinds of people: 1) people who have good reasons for disagreeing with my position, and 2) people who agree with my position for similar reasons and hold it even more strongly than I do.  
  
In both cases, the difference in opinion forces me to re-examine my reasons for believing in something, but the direction of the examination is different. Case 1 makes me think "are these criticisms valid, or do I (should I) support this position because of some reason that the criticisms do not take into account?". Case 2 makes me think "this person believes in this thing for basically the same reasons that I do, so why haven't those reasons pushed me to a similar extreme? Do I actually have unacknowledged reasons for doubting the validity of those reasons, which would deserve further consideration?"  
  
In case 1, I am being presented with criticisms that came from outside my own thought process. In case 2, I am searching my own thought process for criticisms that have been generated within it. So the source of the criticism is either external or internal, respectively. A combination of both may prove decisive in situations where just one isn't enough.  
  
Now the question is, are there reliable ways for inducing one of the cases in situations where only the other is present, and I have reason to suspect that I'm being overconfident about something?
# Another Anki deck for Less Wrong content

Anki decks of Less Wrong content have been shared here [before](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Spaced_repetition#SR_decks). However, they felt a bit huge (one deck was >1500 cards) and/or not helpful to me. As I go through the sequences, I create Anki cards, and I've decided they are at a point where I can share them. Maybe someone else will benefit from them.

Current content: [The deck](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1691010092) currently consists of 186 Anki cards (82 Q&A, 104 cloze deletion), covering the following Less Wrong sequences: The Map and the Territory, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, How to Actually Change Your Mind, A Human's Guide to Words, and Reductionism.  
All cards contain an extra field for their source, usually 1-2 Less Wrong posts, rarely a link to Wikipedia. Some mathy cards use LaTeX. I don't know what happens if you don't have LateX installed. Though if this is a problem, I think I can convert the LaTeX code to images with an Anki plugin.

Important caveats:

1.  My cards tend to have more context than those I've seen in most other decks, to the point that one might consider them overloaded with information. That's partly due to personal preference, and partly because I need as much context as possible so I memorize more than just a teacher's [password](/lw/iq/guessing_the_teachers_password/).
2.  In contrast to previously shared Anki decks of Less Wrong content, I do not aim to make this deck comprehensive. Rather, I create cards for content which I understood _and_ which seems suitable for memorization _and_ which seemed particularly useful to me. Conversely, I did not create cards when I couldn't think of a way to memorize something, or when I did not understand (the usefulness of) something. (For instance, [Original Seeing](/lw/k7/original_seeing/) and [Priming and Contamination](/lw/k3/priming_and_contamination/) did not work for me.)
3.  I've tried a few shared decks so far, and everybody seems to create cards differently. So I'm not sure to which extent this deck can be useful to anyone who isn't me.

Open question: I'm still not sure to which extent I'm memorizing internalized and understood _knowledge_ with these cards, and to which extent they are just fake explanations or attempts to guess at passwords.

And a final disclaimer: The content is mostly taken verbatim from Yudkowsky's sequences, though I've often edited the text so it fit better as an Anki card. I checked the cards thoroughly before making the deck public, but any remaining errors are mine.

I'm thankful for suggestions and other feedback.
# Lesswrong Philosophy and Personal Identity

Although Elizier has dealt with personal identity questions (in terms of ruling out the body theory), he has not actually, as far as I know, "solved" the problem of Personal Identity as it is understood in philosophy. Nor, as far as I know, has any thinker (Robin Hanson, Yvain, etc) broadly in the same school of thought.  

Why do I think it worth solving? One- Lesswrong has a tradition of trying to solve all of philosophy through thinking better than philosophers do. Even when I don't agree with it, the result is often enlightening. Two- What counts as 'same person' could easily have significant implications for large numbers of ethical dilemnas, and thus for Lesswrongian ethics.   

Three- most importantly of all, the correct theory has practical implications for cryonics. I don't know enough to assert any theory as actually true, but if, say, Identity as Continuity of Form rather than of Matter were the true theory it would mean that preserving only the mental data would not be enough. What kind of preservation is necessary also varies somewhat- the difference in requirement based on a Continuity of Consciousness v.s a Continuity of Psyche theory, for example should be obvious.

I'm curious what people here think. What is the correct answer? No-self theory? Psyche theory? Derek Parfit's theory in some manner? Or if there is a correct way to dissolve the question, what is that correct way?
# Why Productivity? Why Gratitude?

I recently did a series of online seminars where productivity guru [Jason Womack](http://womackcompany.com/) tried to apply his advice for academics.

The productivity advice was good but not especially new after having read a lot of anti-akrasia posts on LW; EverydayUtilitarian recently wrote a great summary of these kind of ideas [here](http://www.everydayutilitarian.com/essays/how-i-am-productive/). I suppose the fact that the advice wasn't new to me means LW has been doing a good job of bringing in good instrumental rationality advice from elsewhere.

But the most interesting parts of the seminars weren't actually ways to be more productive.

One is a question: why do you want to be more productive?

After asking themselves this, some people might realize that they don't actually need to be more productive. Why get more things done? If you work as a certain kind of corporate drone, becoming more productive might not make you or anyone else much better off. Perhaps you are rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic, becoming better at a job or project when you should be doing something else entirely. If your goal in work is to make you and your family better off, then it might be counterproductive to employ strategies that make you less happy or take you away from your family.

Alternatively, if you realize you have all kinds of really great reasons to be more productive, this should encourage you.

The other big non-exactly-productivity idea I learned about was gratitude.

The most obvious reason to send people thank-you notes is that it will make them happy, and is just the right thing to do. Another good reason you have probably heard of is that it will make you happier, like keeping a [gratitude journal](/lw/i0c/for_happiness_keep_a_gratitude_journal/).

What I didn't realize before are the tangible benefits of sending thank-you notes. Jason Womack says he tries you send one a day, and has had many people respond by offering to do some project with him. I recently started sending out more thank-you emails to people who have helped improve my work, and have already had someone respond by offering a large and totally unexpected benefit (a letter of recommendation). It seems like sending out more thank you notes is just an all around win.
# P/S/A - Sam Harris offering money for a little good philosophy

Sam Harris is here offering a substantial amount of money to anyone who can show a flaw in the philosophy of 'The Moral Landscape' in 1000 word or less, or at least the best attempt.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-moral-landscape-challenge1

Up to $20,000 is on offer, although that's only if you change his mind. Whilst we know that this is very difficult, note how few people offer large sums of money for the privelage of being disproven.

In case anyone does win, I will remind you that this site is created and maintained by people who work at MIRI and CFAR, which rely on outside donations, and with whom I am not affiliated.

Note: Is this misplaced in Discussion? I imagine that it could be easily overlooked in an open thread by the sorts of people who would be able to use this information well?
# Reflective Control

You've had those moments -- the ones where you're _very_ aware of where you're at in the world, and you're mapping out your future and plans very smartly, and you're feeling great about taking action and pushing important things forwards.

I used to find myself only reaching that place, at random, once or twice per year.

But every time I did, I would spend just a few hours sketching out plans, thinking about my priorities, discarding old things I used to do that didn't bring much value, and pushing my limits to do new worthwhile things. I thought, "This is really valuable. I should do this more often."

Eventually, I named that state: Reflective Control.

As often happens, by naming something it becomes easier to do it more often.

At this time, I still had a hazy poorly working feeling about what _it_ was. So I tried to define it. After many attempts, I came to this:

\> Reflective Control is when you're firmly off autopilot, in a high-positive and high-willpower state, and are able to take action.

You'll note there's four discreet components to it: firmly off autopilot (reflective), high positivity, high will, and cable of and oriented towards taking action.

I also asked myself, "How to know if you're in Reflective Control?"

My best answer of an exercise for it is,

\> You set aside the impulses/distractions, and try to set a concrete Control-related goal. This is meta-work, meaning the process of defining your life and what needs to happen next. You do this calmly. By setting a concrete Control-related goal successfully and then executing on it, you know you're in an RC state.

\> Example: "I will identify all the open projects I've got, and the next steps for each of them."

With that definition and that exercise in hand, I was able to do something which works almost magically when I wanted to take on big challenges: I could rate myself from 1-100 on the four key elements of the component, and then set a concrete goal to achieve, and analyze a little about which factor might be holding me back. Here is an example from my journal:

\> Reflective 70/100, positive 70/100, will 65/100, action 40/100… ok, I'm feeling good once a good, just some anxiety suppressing will a little and action quite a bit, but no problem. My goal is to finish the xxx outline before I leave here.

I've found this incredibly useful. Summary:

*There's a state I call "Reflective Control" where I'm off autopilot and thinking (reflective), in a positive mood, with willpower and action-oriented.

*I can put explicit numbers on this, somewhat subjectively, from 1-100. This lets me see where the link in the chain is, if any.

*By setting a concrete goal and working towards it, you can get more objective feedback and balance whichever element is lowest with some practical actions.
# Useful Habits Repository

[Repositories](/lw/i64/repository_repository/) are awesome, and [we should have more of them](/lw/hyu/meta_open_threads_and_repository_threads_are/).

I recently completed [BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits](http://tinyhabits.com/), and it's a pretty lightweight way to install new habits (recommended). However, I realized I could use a better repository of useful habits.

So, please use this thread to suggest habits that you've found useful. Bonus points for evidence/anecdata of usefulness.

Obviously, 1 habit per comment makes upvotes a clearer signal of collective approval.
# Ignorance in parenting

**Followup to:** [Strategic ignorance and plausible deniability](/lw/72d/strategic_ignorance_and_plausible_deniability/)

My in-law always says: "For children it is easier be forgiven then to get permission." 

**EDIT:** This post is superseeded by my [Book Review: Kazdin's The Everyday Parenting Toolkit](/r/discussion/lw/jzg/book_review_kazdins_the_everyday_parenting_toolkit/) I recommend reading only that. The remaining insight of this post is: Children expend more brain power on their parents than the parents on them. 

Kaj_Sotala wrote

> Parents may also pretend that they don't notice their kids engaging in some minor misbehavior, if they don't want to lose their authority but don't feel like interfering either.

I can say from experience: **That is risky.**

Children (esp. small ones) expend significantly more brain power on their parents than the parents on their children (your mileage may vary). I can assure you that they will notice these cases - at least some - and take that into account one way or the other.

If the children notice this they may assume that you either condone, accept, bear or ignore it. None of these has positive effects.

**Possible alternative strategies:**

*   Invest the energy on the necessary consequences (these will be well invested because you save on lots of further occassions) 
*   Signal the child that you did notice, tolerate but do not accept it. This indicates to the child that the border to really unacceptable behavior is near. If the child still continues you do not get around to act. I do this with a smile and treat it as a gamed played by the child. This breaks a possible tension but may have disadvantages for discipline.  
*   Establish clear limits to acceptable behavior that avoid repeated testing of where the border actually is. 
*   Less restrictions that may be broken to begin with.

I am influenced by [The Adlerian School](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Adler#The_Adlerian_School). Of relevance here is [Striving for significance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adlerian_psychology#Striving_for_significance).

The testing of limits and the resulting interaction with the parent give the child a feeling of significance if the parent acknoledges the act of the child even if he doesn't agree with it. On the other hand ignoring the act of the child is negative feedback about significance.

EDIT: The asymmetry between parents and children with respect to the effectiveness of deniability can be generalized to any situation where one actor has significantly less overall information about the situation than another actor and thus might not be able to reliably estimate whether deniability is possible.

ADDED: [tadamsmar  pointed out](/lw/iif/ignorance_in_parenting/adm5) that ignoring is scientifically known to be effective and the advice or rather personal expierence I have related in this post may be contraproductive (at least if applied in isolation).
# Types of recursion

As a freshman in college I took an intro linguistics class where we spent a lot of time discussing universal grammar and recursive phrase structures. One of the examples we looked at I still don't fully understand - it illustrated two distinct forms of nested phrases that he mind handles very differently.

1\. Nested prepositional phrases

The car in the driveway of the house on the street in NY...

I can make that sentence go on indefinitely, and while a reader (or listener) might get bored or forget parts, it will never feel confusing. It's just (The car (in the driveway (of the house (on the street (...))))).

2\. Nested tense phrases

The mouse the cat the dog the man walked barked at chased ate the cheese.

Yes, it's grammatical. The mouse ate the cheese. (The mouse the cat chased) ate the cheese.  The mouse (the cat the dog barked at) chased ate the cheese. The mouse the cat (the dog the man walked) barked at chased at the cheese.

Personally, I lose track with the introduction of the dog. At first I thought it was just a matter of working memory, but the information content is not that high. I can even turn it back into the first kind of recursion and then suddenly have no difficulty keeping it all in my head: The man walked the dog that barked at the cat that chased the mouse that ate the cheese. It seems to be more a bug in my natural language processing module. 

Any suggestions on what might be going on here?
# Which subreddits should we create on Less Wrong?

Less Wrong is based on [reddit](http://www.reddit.com/) code, which means we can create [subreddits](http://www.reddit.com/reddits/) with relative ease.

Right now we have two subreddits, Main and Discussion. These are distinguished not by subject matter, but by whether a post is the _type_ of thing that might be promoted to the front page or not (e.g. a meetup announcement, or a particularly well-composed and useful post).

As a result, almost everything is published to Discussion, and thus **it is difficult for busy people to follow only the subjects they care about**. More people will be able to engage if we split things into topic-specific subreddits, and make it easy to follow only what they care about.

To make it easier for people to follow only what they care about, we're building the code for a Dashboard thingie.

But we also need to figure out _which_ subreddits to create, and we'd like community feedback about that.

We'll probably start small, with just 1-5 new subreddits.

Below are some initial ideas, to get the conversation started.

**Idea 1**

*   _Main_: still the place for things that might be promoted.
*   _Applied Rationality_: for articles about [what Jonathan Baron would call](/lw/gs5/improving_human_rationality_through_cognitive/) descriptive and prescriptive rationality, for both epistemic and instrumental rationality (stuff about biases, self-improvement stuff, etc.).
*   _Normative Rationality_: for articles about what Baron would call normative rationality, for both epistemic and instrumental rationality (examining the foundations of probability theory, decision theory, anthropics, and lots of stuff that is called "philosophy"). 
*   _The Future_: for articles about forecasting, x-risk, and future technologies.
*   _Misc_: Discussion, renamed, for everything that doesn't belong in the other subreddits.

**Idea 2**

*   _Main_
*   _Epistemic Rationality_: for articles about how to figure out the world, spanning the descriptive, prescriptive, and normative.
*   _Instrumental Rationality_: for articles about how to take action to achieve your goals, spanning the descriptive, prescriptive, and normative. (One difficulty with the epistemic/instrumental split is that many (most?) applied rationality techniques seem to be relevant to both epistemic and instrumental rationality.)
*   _The Future_
*   _Misc._
# LINK: Study demonstrates politically motivated innumeracy

Original article: [Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992 "Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government").

Easy-to-read summary of the results: [Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/new-study-politics-makes-you-innumerate "Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math ").

Easier-to-read summary of the summary: A group including both liberals and conservatives were first tested for numeracy, then given either fictional stats on the efficacy of a rash treatment (how many people get better/worse, with/without the treatment) or quantitatively identical fictional stats on gun regulation and crime (in how many cities crime went up/down, with/without gun control laws). They had to say whether, according to the stats, the treatment was effective or whether the laws reduced crime. (In half of the cases the answer was yes, in half no). For the rash problem, numerate people did better in giving the right answer, irrespectively of their politics. For the gun control problem, numerate people (of both political sides) were much better at giving the right answer when it agreed with their political beliefs; when the conclusion implied by the stats disagreed with their political beliefs, they did no better than innumerate people.
# Mistakes repository

This is a repository for major, life-altering mistakes that you or others have made. Detailed accounts of specific mistakes are welcome, and so are mentions of general classes of mistakes that people often make. If similar repositories already exist (inside or outside of LW), links are greatly appreciated.

The purpose of this repository is to collect information about serious misjudgements and mistakes in order to help people avoid similar mistakes. (I am posting this repository because I'm trying to conduct a premortem on my life and figure out what catastrophic risks may screw me over in the near or far future.)
# Military Rationalities and Irrationalities

In response to the question

> "Does anyone happen to know of reliable ways for increasing one's supply of executive function, by the way? I seem to run out of it very quickly in general."
> 
> (Kaj_Solata)

I posted that my military experience seems effectively designed to increase executive function. Some examples of this from myself and [metastable](/user/metastable/overview/ "metastable user profile") are

Uniforms- not having to think about your wardrobe, ever, saves a lot of time, mental effort, and money. [Steve Jobs and President Obama are known for also using uniforms specifically for this purpose.](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/10/05/steve-jobs-always-dressed-exactly-the-same-heres-who-else-does/)

PT- Daily, routinized exercise. Done in a way that very few people are deciding what comes next.

-Maximum use of daylight hours

Med Group and Force Support-Minimized high-risk projects outside of workplace (paternalistic health care, insurance, and in many cases, housing and continuing education.)

After a moment's thought it occurred to me that there are some double-edged swords in Military Rationality as well, some of which lead to classic jokes like 'Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.'

Regulations- A select few 'experts' create policies which everyone else is required to follow at all times. Unfortunately these experts are never (never ever) encouraged to consider knock-on effects. Ugh.

Anybody else have insights on the military they want to share here? I feel a couple of good posts on increasing executive function might come out of a discussion on the rationalities and irrationalities of the armed forces.
# The Ultimate Newcomb's Problem

You see two boxes and you can either take both boxes, or take only box B. Box A is transparent and contains $1000. Box B contains a visible number, say 1033.  The Bank of Omega, which operates by very clear and transparent mechanisms, will pay you $1M if this number is prime, and $0 if it is composite. Omega is known to select prime numbers for Box B whenever Omega predicts that you will take only Box B; and conversely select composite numbers if Omega predicts that you will take both boxes. Omega has previously predicted correctly in 99.9% of cases.

Separately, the Numerical Lottery has randomly selected 1033 and is displaying this number on a screen nearby. The Lottery Bank, likewise operating by a clear known mechanism, will pay you $2 million if it has selected a composite number, and otherwise pay you $0.  (This event will take place regardless of whether you take only B or both boxes, and both the Bank of Omega and the Lottery Bank _will_ carry out their payment processes - you don't have to choose one game or the other.)

You previously played the game with Omega and the Numerical Lottery a few thousand times before you ran across this case where Omega's number and the Lottery number were the same, so this event is not suspicious.

Omega also knew the Lottery number before you saw it, and while making its prediction, and Omega likewise predicts correctly in 99.9% of the cases where the Lottery number happens to match Omega's number.  (Omega's number is chosen independently of the lottery number, however.)

You have two minutes to make a decision, you don't have a calculator, and if you try to factor the number you will be run over by the trolley from the [Ultimate Trolley Problem](http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm).

Do you take only box B, or both boxes?
# College courses versus LessWrong

Compared to many of the people reading this, I've not participated extensively on LessWrong. In fact, I created my account only about a week ago. That said, I _have_ read many LessWrong articles by contributors such as [Eliezer](/user/Eliezer_Yudkowsky), [Jonah](/user/JonahSinick/), [Yvain](/user/Yvain/), [Gwern](/user/Gwern/), and many others (if I missed you, my apologies). I wouldn't say it was a huge transformative experience. But I have probably learned a bit more from LessWrong than I learned sitting in on a class by Nobel Prize-winning economist [Gary Becker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Becker) on [human capital](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital) (without formally registering for the class or doing the coursework). I've learned more of value from LessWrong than all the [MIT OpenCourseWare](http://ocw.mit.edu) lectures I've consumed. There are a few online experiences, such as [reading EconLog](http://econlog.econlib.org), that have been more educational for me than LessWrong, but I can count these on the fingers of one hand.

Some of my friends have claimed that reading LessWrong systematically (and perhaps participating in the comments and attempting to write posts) would generate more value for an undergraduate than a typical core college class (with the possible exception of technical classes specific to the person's major or area of specialization). I'm curious about whether readers agree with this assessment. Do you feel, for instance, that LessWrong provided you with more valuable human capital than your introductory general chemistry sequence? What about comparing LessWrong with an undergraduate "intro to philosophy" class? Or an undergraduate intro class on the history of economic thought? At what percentile would you rank LessWrong relative to your college classes?

A second related question is whether there's a possibility of building a college course -- or college-like course, perhaps a [MOOC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course) \-\- specifically revolving around mastery of the content in LessWrong (perhaps starting with the [Sequences](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences)). Would such a college course be possible to design in principle? How would such a college course compare with core requirements for undergraduates today?
# [LINK] Larry = Harry sans magic? Google vs. Death

[Google's announcement](http://googlepress.blogspot.ca/2013/09/calico-announcement.html), [Time magazine](http://techland.time.com/2013/09/18/google-vs-death/) rather sensationalist headline.

In any case, it's nice to know that Google set its sights to "challenge ... aging and associated diseases". Apple's Tim Cook:

For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. 

One more step towards "world optimization".
# Interactive Infographic on Simpson's Paradox

Since Simpson's Paradox has been discussed here [recently](/r/discussion/lw/ioj/understanding_simpsons_paradox/) (and [not so recently](/lw/3q3/simpsons_paradox/)), I thought I'd share this interactive^1^ [infographic](http://vudlab.com/simpsons/) that I found via the FlowingData blog. I already understood Simpson's Paradox pretty well, but playing with the sliders helped me get a more intuitive feel for it.

I expect similar tools would be helpful for explaining Bayes' Theorem and some of the other things we talk about on LW (like Pareto efficiency and Nash equilibria). Do such things exist?

* * *

^1^ The interactive part is farther down the page.
# Torture vs. Shampoo

I was reading the original comment thread on [Torture vs. Dust Specks](/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/), and notice Eliezer [saying](/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/ueq) he wouldn't pay a penny to avoid a _single_ dust speck - which confused me, until I noticed that the original specification of the problem says the dust speck "floated into your eye and irritated it just a little, for a fraction of a second, barely enough to make you notice before you blink and wipe away the dust speck." I guess I blanked that out when I first read the post. My default visualization when I imagine "dust speck in my eye" is something _substantially_ more annoying than that.

This leads me to wonder if people would have responded differently if instead of going out of his way to make the alternative to torture involve something as trivial-sounding as possible, Eliezer had gone for some merely minor mishap - say, getting shampoo in your eye. After all, lots of us have gotten shampoo in our eyes at least once (maybe when we were kids), and it's easy to imagine paying $2.99 for a bottle of won't-irritate-your-eyes shampoo over an otherwise identical $2.98 bottle that will hurt if you get it in your eyes (or your kid's eyes, if you're totally confident that, as an adult, you'll be able to keep shampoo out of your eyes).

From there, it's easy to argue that if you're honest with yourself you wouldn't pay $(3^^^3/100) to save one person from being tortured for 50 years, so you should choose one person getting tortured for 50 years over [3^^^3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth's_up-arrow_notation) people getting shampoo (the stingy kind) in their eyes. I suppose, however, that might not change your answer to torture vs. specks if you think there's a qualitative difference between the speck (as originally specified by Eliezer) and getting shampoo in your eye.
# Inferential silence

Every now and then, I write an LW comment on some topic and feel that the contents of my comment pretty much settles the issue decisively. Instead, the comment seems to get ignored entirely - it either gets very few votes or none, nobody responds to it, and the discussion generally continues as if it had never been posted.

Similarly, every now and then I see somebody else make a post or comment that they clearly feel is decisive, but which doesn't seem very interesting to me. Either it seems to be saying something obvious, or I don't get its connection to the topic at hand in the first place.

This seems like it would be about inferential distance: either the writer doesn't know the things that make the reader experience the comment as uninteresting, or the reader doesn't know the things that make the writer experience the comment as interesting. So there's _inferential silence_ \- a sufficiently long inferential distance that a claim doesn't provoke even objections, just uncomprehending or indifferent silence.

But "explain your reasoning in more detail" doesn't seem like it would help with the issue. For one, we often don't know beforehand when people don't share our assumptions. Also, some of the comments or posts that seem to encounter this kind of a fate are _already_ relatively long. For example, [Wei Dai wondered](/lw/ig9/outside_views_and_miris_fai_endgame/9nv5) why MIRI-affiliated people don't often respond to his posts that raise criticisms, and I essentially replied [that](/lw/ig9/outside_views_and_miris_fai_endgame/9nvz) I found the content of his post relatively obvious so didn't have much to say.

Perhaps people could more often explicitly comment if they notice that something that a poster seems to consider a big thing doesn't seem very interesting or meaningful to them, and briefly explain why? Even a sentence or two might be helpful for the original poster.
# What makes us think _any_ of our terminal values aren't based on a misunderstanding of reality?

Let's say Bob's terminal value is to travel back in time and ride a dinosaur.

It is instrumentally rational for Bob to study physics so he can learn how to build a time machine. As he learns more physics, Bob realizes that his terminal value is not only utterly impossible but meaningless. By definition, someone in Bob's past riding a dinosaur is not a future evolution of the present Bob.

There are a number of ways to create the subjective experience of having gone into the past and ridden a dinosaur. But to Bob, it's not the same because he wanted both the subjective experience and the knowledge that it corresponded to objective fact. Without the latter, he might as well have just watched a movie or played a video game.

So if we took the original, innocent-of-physics Bob and somehow calculated his coherent extrapolated volition, we would end up with a Bob who has given up on time travel. The original Bob would not want to be this Bob.

But, how do we know that \_anything\_ we value won't similarly dissolve under [sufficiently thorough deconstruction](/lw/of/dissolving_the_question/)? Let's suppose for a minute that all "human values" are [dangling units](/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/); that everything we want is as possible and makes as much sense as wanting to hear the sound of blue or taste the flavor of a prime number. What is the rational course of action in such a situation?

PS: If your response resembles "keep attempting to XXX anyway", please explain what privileges XXX over any number of other alternatives other than your current preference. Are you using some kind of pre-commitment strategy to a subset of your current goals? Do you now wish you had used the same strategy to precommit to goals you had when you were a toddler?
# Making Fun of Things is Easy

Making fun of things is actually really easy if you try even a little bit. Nearly anything can be made fun of, and in practice nearly anything is made fun of. This is concerning for several reasons.  
  
First, if you are trying to do something, whether or not people are making fun of it is not necessarily a good signal as to whether or not it's actually good. A lot of good things get made fun of. A lot of bad things get made fun of. Thus, whether or not something gets made fun of is not necessarily a good indicator of whether or not it's actually good.^\[1\]^ Optimally, only bad things would get made fun of, making it easy to determine what is good and bad - but this doesn't appear to be the case.  
  
Second, if you want to make something sound bad, it's really easy. If you don't believe this, just take a politician or organization that you like and search for some criticism of it. It should generally be trivial to find people that are making fun of it for reasons that would sound compelling to a casual observer - even if those reasons aren't actually good. But a casual observer doesn't know that and thus can easily be fooled.^\[2\]^  
  
Further, the fact that it's easy to make fun of things makes it so that a clever person can find themselves unnecessarily contemptuous of anything and everything. This sort of premature cynicism tends to be a failure mode I've noticed in many otherwise very intelligent people. Finding faults with things is pretty trivial, but you can quickly go from "it's easy to find faults with everything" to "everything is bad." This tends to be an undesirable mode of thinking - even if true, it's not particularly helpful.  
  
\[1\] Whether or not something gets made fun of by the right people is a better indicator. That said, if you know who the right people are you usually have access to much more reliable methods.  
  
\[2\] If you're still not convinced, take a politician or organization that you do like and really truly try to write an argument against that politician or organization. Note that this might actually change your opinion, so be warned.
# Why aren't there more forum-blogs like LW?

LW has a unique format. It is a forum-blog.

It is not a forum in the traditional sense. In traditional forums you cannot have long, essay-like posts (technically you can, but somehow the culture discourages it). Also, visually the top-level post appears separate and isn't similar to the comments. Like forums, you do have threaded comments and a karma system. Further, anyone who wants can register, post and comment. 

It is not a blog in the traditional sense. In most blogs only a select few can post. On LW anyone can create a blogpost, as long as it is somewhat relevant. There is also a notion of Main, where the moderators select the best posts. And the bloggers can aspire to achieve the Main standard.

I feel that this kind of forum-blogs can be very useful in many domains: math, physics, meditation, music, health and nutrition and so on. Of course, we'd need to assemble a [high-quality audience who are not afraid downvote and also have good moderators](/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/). The problem of assembling a high-quality audience can also be done in LW fashion. Write a good blog for sometime and then convert the format of the blog to forum-blog. The advantage is that the new people who write posts have a guaranteed high-quality audience and are hence incentivized to post and make good posts.

So here's my appeal to people who already have blogs with a good readership: please consider converting your blog into a forum-blog in the style of LW. It will be a huge service to the community. If you do so, please don't be shy to moderate and select the best and treat them separately.

Or is there some other subtlety that I'm missing which is preventing the creation of forum-blogs? Or are there already forum-blogs out there and I'm just not aware of them?

EDIT: In reply [Randaly's comment](/Then my appeal to LW's masters: please consider releasing an open-source toolkit that allows the creation of blogs based on the LW format.), I appeal to LW's masters: please consider releasing an open-source toolkit that allows the creation of blogs based on the LW format.

EDIT: David_Gerard [points out](/lw/iqo/why_arent_there_more_forumblogs_like_lw/9t37) that LW's source is [open](https://github.com/tricycle/lesswrong).