Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# No independence of irrelevant alternatives (picture proof)

Back in the old days, when people were wise and the government was just, I did a [post](/lw/2x8/lets_split_the_cake_lengthwise_upwise_and/) on the [Nash bargaining solution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bargaining_problem#Nash_bargaining_solution) for two player games. Here each player has their own utility function and they're choosing amongst joint options, and trying to bargain to find the best one. What was nice about this solution is that it is independent of irrelevant alternatives (IIA): once you've found the best solution, you can erase any other option, and it remains [the best](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrCFrFpHvw).

In order to do that, the Nash bargaining solution makes use of a "disagreement point", a special point that provides a zero to both utilities. This seems - and is - ugly. Can we preserve IIA without this clunky disagreement point?

By the title of the this post, you may have guessed that we can't. Specifically, assume the outcome is symmetric across both players (i.e. permuting the two utility functions preserves the outcome choice), the outcome is [Pareto-optimal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto-optimal) (any change will reduce the utility of at least one player) and there is no outside canonical choices for the utility functions (no special scales, no zeroes, no disagreement points). Then IIA must fail. It fails under weaker conditions as well, but the above lead to an easy picture-proof. And [picture proofs](/lw/8qv/in_the_pareto_world_liars_prosper/) are nice.

So assume there are five possible choices, whose utility values for the two players are (0, 3), (1.2, 2.6), (2, 2), (2.6, 1.2), (3, 0). These are graphed here:

![](http://images.lesswrong.com/t3_c6g_0.png?v=4327306a83f4650fac364a21755d6476)

The choice set is symmetric and the green point (2, 2) is Pareto-optimal and on the axis of symmetry. Hence by the assumptions, the green point must be the outcome chosen. Now further assume IIA, and we will derive a contradiction.

First, by IIA, we can erase the losing points (2.6, 1.2) and (3, 0). Then we can rescale the utility functions: the utility function graphed on the x axis is divided by two, while the utility graphed on the y axis has 2 subtracted from it. These changes are illustrated here:

![](http://images.lesswrong.com/t3_c6g_1.png?v=8bef7738b47b451b4ff32bf46e9b7fde)

This results in a final setup of (0, 1), (0.6, 0.6) and (1, 0):

![](http://images.lesswrong.com/t3_c6g_2.png?v=93daca71958757522420385a62f54a03)

But this is obviously wrong: symmetry implies the correct outcome should be the blue point (0.6, 0.6), not the green (1, 0) which was the outcome before we removed the "irrelevant" extra points. We have derived a contradiction, and IIA must fall.
# Urgent: Subjects needed for rationality measure development

Hello everyone,

We at the Center For Applied Rationality (formerly known as the Center for Modern Rationality) need to measure the impact of our minicamps and develop rationality measures, and for this we need a group of test subjects. The interview portion will take about 5-10 minutes and the total time required will be about 30 minutes. All of it will be conducted online. If you are interested we also need you to be willing to fill out some follow-up surveys, questionnaires, etc. in one year, when it will also take about half an hour. The interviews and follow-up surveys will be interesting; you will be helping us conduct proper science; and you will get some information back which should provide you with some new self-knowledge, or at least entertainment.

  
The interviews will be fairly anonymous; we won't share your personal information with anyone. But, you MUST NOT discuss anything related to the interview with other people, ESPECIALLY not with other less wrongers, as that could mess up our entire process. We'd prefer for that not to happen, understandably.

If you are interested in doing this, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHlmZ2tTTGJMdjlHa21wbnE4cTZab2c6MQ). Thank you!

If anything in this process does not seem to be working, please send me an email at [Drewsmithyman@gmail.com](mailto:Drewsmithyman@gmail.com) and let me know. Thank you for your time, and we hope to be interviewing many of you quite soon!
# Why do people ____?

The other day, someone did something I didn't expect.  It was something many people have done before; something that I thought of as very normal, but that I in no way understood and had not predicted.

As I said, this had happened many time before, so I wrote it off as "me not understanding people" or "people are weird" for a second, like I usually do, before realizing that ["bad at"](/lw/c4h/rationality_quotes_may_2012/6hsb) really means ["lacking basic knowledge"](/lw/453/procedural_knowledge_gaps/), which I had never realized before.

And then I thought "I should ask someone who is different from me why people do that, and eventually someone will have an answer."

But many people will have many more questions like this.  So, what have you observed people doing time and time again, but never understood?  Or something that you only understood after a long time or asking someone about it?

And can Less Wrong tell us, not necessarily why (I for one can make up evolutionary psychology fairy tales all day if I want) but what conscious thought process occurs behind these events?
# Low hanging fruit: analyzing your nutrition

Recently I decided to try an intermittent fasting diet. To do so, I had to figure out how much I could eat on my off/down days. I realized I didn't have a very good idea about how much calories my meals have, and as I was thinking about it, I started to get curious about my diet overall. How many calories do I get a day? How much of it is from fat? Do I get enough vitamins? Etc, etc, etc. All very basic questions, and since my meals are very regular, there was an easy way to find out!

(Note: anytime you feel curious and are about to find something out, make some predictions. I didn't, but I really wish I did, because I was very surprised by my findings.)

It took only a couple of hours, and [here is the result](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmMbFVjewsaRdGJRZnVDSU9sQVVMRlptMzl4ekFXS1E).

If you scroll down, you can see that my usual Breakfast+Lunch+Dinner only nets about 1000 calories and gives 30% daily value of fat. No wonder I crave cookies and chocolate so much!

There are many surprising results that I got from this. And knowing that I've been eating like this for the past few years... Wow. This is the epitome of a low hanging fruit. I can't believe I didn't do this analysis earlier!

Edit: I was not trying to say that I only get 1000 calories a day. Of course I get more than that, but the rest is from cookies and post-meal sweets. I always thought I just have a sweet tooth, but the fact that I wasn't getting enough calories from my main meals can also explain this.
# No Value

I am still quite new to LW, so I apologize if this is something that has been discussed before (I did try and search).

I would't normally post such a thing, as I try not to make a habit of complaining my problems to others, but a solution to this would likely benefit other rationalists (at least that's the excuse I made to myself).

Essentially, I am currently in a psychological state in which I simply have no strong values. There is no state of the world that I can imagine the world being in that generates a strong emotional reaction. Ever. In fact, I rarely experience strong emotions at all. When I do, I savor them whether they're positive or negative. I do have some preferences; I would somewhat prefer the world to be some ways than others, but never strongly. I prefer to feel pleasure rather than pain; I prefer the world to be a good place than a bad one, but not by much. Even my desire to have values seems to be a mere preference in much the same way. I have nothing to protect.

Is there any good solution to this?
# Logical fallacies poster, a LessWrong adaptation.

Following http://lesswrong.com/lw/bwo/logical\_fallacy\_poster/ some people complained about

*   the sarcastic illustration
*   the lack of references
*   the weird categorization that should rather fit a Bayesian framework
*   the simplistic or even wrong definitions
*   and more

Yet this poster has ONE key difference with the ideal poster, **it exists**.  
  
If it sparks criticisms that lead to a new, LessWrong compatible poster, then it is well worth the critics.

  
The obvious next step then is to make a poster that would allow to take into account such well founded suggestion and synthesize the LessWrong lessons visually.

In your opinion then what would be a good structure, e.g. a hierarchy of fallacies, and a design theme?
# The ethics of breaking belief

I'm not sure if this is precisely the correct forum for this, but if there is a better place, I don't know what it would be. At any rate...

I'm a student a Catholic university, and there are (as one might surmise) quite a lot of Catholics here, along with assorted other theists (yes, even some in the biology faculty). For this reason, I find myself acquiring more and more devoutly Catholic friends, and some of them I have grown quite close to. But the God issue keeps coming up for one reason or another, which is a source of tension. And yet as I grow closer to these people, it becomes clearer and clearer that each theist has a certain personal sequence of Dark Arts-ish levers in eir head, the flipping (or un-flipping) of which would snap em out of faith.

So the question is this: in what situations (if any) is it ethical to push such buttons? We often say, here, that that which can be destroyed by the truth should be, but these are people who have built their lives around faith, people for whom the Church is their social support group. If it were possible to disillusion the whole world all at once, that'd be one thing - but in this case my options are limited to changing the minds of only the specific individuals I have spent time getting to know, and the direct result would be their alienation from the entire community in which they've been raised.

And yet it is the truth.

I'm conflicted. LessWrong, what is your opinion?
# Two kinds of cryonics?

I've been considering lately whether it would perhaps be best to develop and promote terminology that splits cryonics into two distinct concepts for easier consumption:

1) old-style cryonics, cryopreserving people at the cost of nontrivial damage that can't yet be reversed, and

2) the tech goal of being able to _demonstrably_ bring someone back from a (very low-damage) cryopreserved state.

"Real cryonics" vs "sci-fi cryonics", if you will.  
  
As I reckon it, trying to achieve cryonics definition #2 in your lifetime is no more incredible on the surface than trying to defeat aging or engineer self-improving AI in a similar timeframe. Actually in some ways it seems easier. Yet it gets so much less press. Even _cryonics advocates_ seem rarely prone to enthuse about it.  
  
Is it possible that cryonics #1, as a feature of the collective mental map, is actually _in the way_ of cryonics #2? Should I be worried, for example, that promoting cryonics #1 actually _costs_ 100,000 lives per day over some stretch of future time because it is preventing people from noticing cryonics #2 and actually taking action on it?

Many people I talk to who are new to the topic seem to have some hazy preexisting idea of cryonics #2 that gets mangled up with cryonics #1. Perhaps they would grow into enthusiasts with attention spans for the subject matter if encouraged to pursue this simple-to-grasp concept in its own right, instead of trying to forcibly retrain into more advanced concepts.
# [Requesting Advice] Applying Instrumental Rationality to College Course Selection Dilemma

I'm faced with a dilemma and need a big dose of instrumental rationality. I'll describe the situation:  
  
This fall, I'm entering my first semester of college. I'm aiming to graduate in 3-4 years with a Mathematics B.S. In order for my course progression to go smoothly, I need to take Calculus I Honors this fall and Calculus II in the spring. These two courses serve as a prerequisite bottleneck. They prevent me from taking higher level math courses.  
  
My SAT scores have exempted me from all placement tests, including the math. But without taking a placement test, the highest any math SAT score can place me into is Pre-Calculus Honors, which is one level below what I want to take in the fall. The course progression goes Pre-Calculus Honors to Calc I Honors to Calc II Honors.  
  
So in order to take Calc I Honors in the fall, I either need to:  
  
(1) Score high enough on a College-Level Math placement test or  
  
(2) Forgo the test and take Pre-Calc Honors for 9 weeks this summer  
  
I've taken both pre-calculus and calculus in high school. I've also been studying precalculus material over the past few days, relearning a lot of what I've either forgotten or wasn't taught in class. If I decide to take the test, I'm pretty confident I'll place into Calculus I. I'd estimate that chance being within 0.8, plus or minus 0.1. If I pass the test, I'll save 9 weeks of studying in the summer and use them to prepare for classes I'll be taking in the fall. I'd also free me up to take another summer class worth 4 credits and fulfill a prerequisite.

But if I decide to forgo the test and take Precalc this summer, I'm also pretty confident I'll do very well in the class. I'd confidently wager above a 90%. The class would ensure I've got the material down better than the placement test and would also give me my first six credits.

The questions going through my mind right now include: How can I best decide between these two options? How can I compare the heterogeneous benefits/costs? Are there any other relevant factors that I'm leaving out?  
  
Advice would be greatly appreciated.

**Edit:** Writing this post, as well as reading and responding to the comments, has clarified the situation for me. Unless there is something else important I've missed, I'll take the test, place into Calc I, spend the summer taking a different summer class and preparing for fall classes. Thanks to everyone who helped me out.
# Most transferable skills?

So, transferable skills: skills that, upon improvement, increase your ability in other areas (and also improve other, higher-level skills).

A basic example would be reading/writing. Knowing how to read and write allows one to access a huge amount of other skills and resources which are otherwise unavailable. A less obvious example would be clear speech (enunciation). Ability to speak clearly improves one's prospects in a lot of different areas (e.g. professional advancement, dating, etc.).

I'm looking for additional examples. Which skills did you find to be most transferable? Did you become proficient in X, and then found this helped you in many other areas of your life? Please share.

(I tried to find whether this was discussed before, and failed; if it was, I would appreciate the link.)
# Neuroimaging as alternative/supplement to cryonics?

Paul Christiano recently [suggested](/r/discussion/lw/c0k/formalizing_value_extrapolation/) that we can use neuroimaging to form a complete mathematical characterization of a human brain, which a sufficiently powerful superintelligence would be able to reconstruct into a working mind, and the neuroimaging part is already possible today, or close to being possible.

> In fact, this project may be possible using existing resources. The complexity of the human brain is not as unapproachable as it may at first appear: though it may contain 10^14^ synapses, each described by many parameters, it can be specified much more compactly. A newborn’s brain can be specified by about 10^9^ bits of genetic information, together with a recipe for a physical simulation of development. The human brain appears to form new long-term memories at a rate of 1-2 bits per second, suggesting that it may be possible to specify an adult brain using 10^9^ additional bits of experiential information. This suggests that it may require only about 10^10^ bits of information to specify a human brain, which is at the limits of what can be reasonably collected by existing technology for functional neuroimaging.

Paul was using this idea as part of an FAI design proposal, but I'm highlighting it here since it seems to have independent value as an alternative or supplement to cryonics. That is, instead of (or in addition to) trying to get your body to be frozen and then preserved in liquid nitrogen after you die, you periodically take neuroimaging scans of your brain and save them to multiple backup locations (10^10^ bits is only about 1 gigabyte), in the hope that a friendly AI or posthuman will eventually use the scans to reconstruct your mind.

Are there any neuroimaging experts around who can tell us how feasible this really is, and how much such a scan might cost, now or in the near future?

ETA: Given the presence of thermal noise and the fact that a set of neuroimaging data may contain redundant or irrelevant information, 10^10^ bits ought to be regarded as just a rough lower bound on how much data needs to be collected and stored. Thanks to commenters who pointed this out.
# Petition:  Off topic area

Petition: LW should introduce a dedicated off topic area

Why?

1) I want to discuss various topics with people who are both intelligent and rationalist, and i know of no other place where to do it.

2) If find that rationality is getting boring in itself. I need to use it on something.

3) As stated in this comment [http://lesswrong.com/lw/btc/how\_can\_we\_get\_more\_and\_better\_lw\_contrarians/6e3p](http://lesswrong.com/lw/btc/how_can_we_get_more_and_better_lw_contrarians/6e3p)

the narrow set of topics might actually hurt LW by driving good rationalists away.
# Q&A with Aubrey de Grey on May 15

EDIT2: The video has now been posted, you can watch it here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tsI_28O3Ws](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tsI_28O3Ws)

EDIT3: I have typed up a transcript for this video, you can see it in [this google doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RKiR7r6h0fmEaEb7d-50RcXVkD_kkdBnQRebYWSiRqc/edit?pli=1) or in [the comments here](/r/discussion/lw/ddh/aubrey_de_grey_has_responded_to_his_iama_now_with/6xee).

Just a heads up to the lesswrong community. Dr. Aubrey de Grey will be doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit this upcoming Tuesday the 15th, scheduled for 9am EST. He will be doing a video-style response, which likely means that he will take the top voted questions and post his responses on youtube. When the AMA starts, you will be able to find it posted on [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/) . I will update this post with links to the question thread and video response when they go live.

EDIT: Ask Aubrey de Grey your questions here: [_Ask Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer, SENS Foundation, Anything!_](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/to32n/ask_aubrey_de_grey_chief_science_officer_sens/) He will be taking the top voted questions and answering them later this week in a video response. I will update this post then.
# Group rationality diary, 5/14/12

_Background:  I and many other attendees at the CFAR rationality minicamp last weekend learned a lot about applied rationality, and made big personal lists of things we wanted to try out in our everyday lives.  I think that a regular (weekly or maybe semi-weekly) post where people mention any new interesting habits, decisions, and actions they have taken recently would be cool as a supplement to this; it ought to be rewarding for people to be able to write a list of the cool things they did, and I expect it'll also be interesting for other people to peek in and see the sorts of goals and self-modifications people are working on.  Others at minicamp seemed enthusiastic about the idea, so I hope it takes off.  Feel free to meta-discuss whether this is a good idea or if it can be done better._

_Addendum 5/15: By the way, non-minicamp people should feel free to post too!  I am highly certain that minicamp attendees are not the only ones working on interesting things in their lives._

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of May 14th.  It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

*   Established a useful new habit
*   Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief
*   Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations
*   Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior
*   Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something
*   Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life
*   Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you
*   Tried doing any of the above and _failed_

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves.  Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Discussion's likely to continue gradually through the week, so try to remember to check back now and then!
# Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

A new article which I wrote just appeared in Hebrew in _Galileo_, Israel's top popular science magazine, in hardcopy.

It is titled "Superhuman Intelligence, Unhuman Intelligence" (_Super_\- and  _un-_ are homophones in Hebrew, a bit of wordplay.)

[You can read it here](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15177309/Galileo-FAI-article.pdf). \[Edit: Here's an [English version](http://intelligence.org/future-ai-unhuman-superhuman-humane/) on the Singularity Institute site.\]

The cover art, the "I Robot" images, and the tag line ("Artificial Intelligence: Can we reign in the golem") are a bit off; I didn't choose them; but that's par for the course.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first feature article overviewing FAI in any popular-science publication (whether online or  hardcopy).

Here is the introduction to the article. (It avoids weasel words, but all necessary caveats are given in the body of the article).

> In coming  decades, engineers will build an entity with intelligence on a level which can compete with humans. This entity will want to improve its own intelligence, and will be able to do so. The process of improvement will repeat, until it reaches a level far above  that of humans; the entity will then be able to achieve its goals efficiently. It is thus essential that its goals are good for humanity. To guarantee this, it is necessary to define the correct goals before this intelligence is built.
# A thought about Internet procrastination

Perhaps this is already well known, but it occurred to me yesterday and I thought I'd share it. The Internet seems particularly virulent as a form of procrastination; indeed, if, say, chatting at watercoolers took up as much time in the average office worker's day, we wouldn't make jokes about it. What is the feature that makes it so deadly? I suggest that it is the random reinforcement schedule: Every five minutes you "press the lever", that is, check forum X or site Y. And every six or seven checks you get the reward: Someone posted something interesting! This random reinforcement is ideal for creating addiction; thus, for example, slot machines.

As a way to avoid this effect, I'm going to strive not to do anything on the interwebs except at precisely defined times, or unless I have a specific goal in mind, say "Look up this method signature". Wish me luck, or better still, wish me willpower. :)
# Covariance in your sample vs covariance in the general population

A popular-media take on a subtle problem in sampling.  I found the graph quite illustrative.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/when-correlation-is-not-causation-but-something-much-more-screwy/256918/](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/when-correlation-is-not-causation-but-something-much-more-screwy/256918/)
# Off to Alice Springs

Am about to pack up computer then go to the airport to start a sequence of flights to [give this a try](/lw/43m/optimal_employment/).

I already have a room in a hostel booked for a few nights for when I get there, and will see how stuff goes.

Anyways, since there's been on and off discussion on this, just thought I'd post that I'm actually giving this a try.

(Will likely be a day or two before I can reply/comment/etc, given length of flights, etc.)

EDIT: Ugh. You take care of one aspect of the planning fallacy, and fail elsewhere. Long story short, I missed my flight and had to reschedule it to friday.

EDIT2: Packing up computer and going off to airport. Again. This time will be early.

EDIT3: And am here. and am exhausted. :) Will start looking for work stuff tomorrow. There's a job board at this hostel, but apparently there's not much currently. But right now am rather sleep deprived.

EDIT4: So today (Monday, May 21st) went to the visitor information center. I must have misunderstood the original article, was under the impression that the visitor center had job boards. Didn't, but pointed me to a nearby recruiting/contracting agency which they said might have appropriate stuff for visitors on a work&holiday visa. Went there. said that at least as of today there's nothing, but also needed a resume (which I didn't have with me, and my work experience is limited anyways.) Anyways, got a copy of the form, will dig out/fix up what resume I do have, and also keep looking. The board at this hostel didn't have much of anything in the way of work that I saw. Will look again, though, and see if I can find others.

EDIT5 (May 29th): Still looking for work, been asking/applying to various places, including that recruiting/contracting agency, and am right now waiting (well, and still looking.) Over the weekend, though, MileyCyrus and I went on an organized 3day Uluru/Kata Tjuta/Kings Canyon trip/hikes, which was awesome. But again, as far as work, tossing out inquiries and stuff all over, trying to find out who's hiring at the moment.
# How can we ensure that a Friendly AI team will be sane enough?

One possible answer to the [argument](/lw/6mi/some_thoughts_on_singularity_strategies/) "attempting to build FAI based on Eliezer's ideas seems infeasible and increases the risk of UFAI without helping much to increase the probability of a good outcome, and therefore we should try to achieve a positive Singularity by other means" is that it's too early to decide this. Even if our best current estimate is that trying to build such an FAI increases risk, there is still a reasonable chance that this estimate will turn out to be wrong after further investigation. Therefore, the counter-argument goes, we ought to mount a serious investigation into the feasibility and safety of Eliezer's design (as well as other possible FAI approaches), before deciding to either move forward or give up.

(I've been given to understand that this is a standard belief within SI, except possibly for Eliezer, which makes me wonder why nobody gave this counter-argument in response to my post linked above. ETA: Carl Shulman did subsequently give me a version of this argument [here](/r/discussion/lw/8c3/qa_with_new_executive_director_of_singularity/596l).)

This answer makes sense to me, except for the concern that even seriously investigating the feasibility of FAI is risky, if the team doing so isn't fully rational. For example they may be overconfident about their abilities and thereby overestimate the feasibility and safety, or commit sunken cost fallacy once they have developed lots of FAI-relevant theory in the attempt to study feasibility, or become too attached to their status and identity as FAI researchers, or some team members may disagree with a consensus of "give up" and leave to form their own AGI teams and take the dangerous knowledge developed with them.

So the question comes down to, how rational is such an FAI feasibility team likely to be, and is that enough for the benefits to exceed the costs? I don't have a lot of good ideas about how to answer this, but the question seems really important to bring up. I'm hoping this post this will trigger SI people to tell us their thoughts, and maybe other LWers have ideas they can share.
# Short article on AI in UK online Wired

A short article, quoting me and Luke:

[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/17/the-dangers-of-an-ai-smarter-than-us](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/17/the-dangers-of-an-ai-smarter-than-us)

It makes the point that it's not the shambling robots that are the risks here, but the other powers of intelligence.
# Be careful with thought experiments

[Thagard (2012)](http://www.amazon.com/The-Cognitive-Science-Explanation-Conceptual/dp/0262017288/) contains a nicely compact passage on thought experiments:

> Grisdale’s (2010) discussion of modern conceptions of water refutes a highly influential thought experiment that the meaning of water is largely a matter of reference to the world rather than mental representation. Putnam (1975) invited people to consider a planet, Twin Earth, that is a near duplicate of our own. The only difference is that on Twin Earth water is a more complicated substance XYZ rather than H2O. Water on Twin Earth is imagined to be indistinguishable from H2O, so people have the same mental representation of it. Nevertheless, according to Putnam, the meaning of the concept water on Twin Earth is different because it refers to XYZ rather than H2O. Putnam’s famous conclusion is that “meaning just ain’t in the head.”
> 
> The apparent conceivability of Twin Earth as identical to Earth except for the different constitution of water depends on ignorance of chemistry. As Grisdale (2010) documents, even a slight change in the chemical constitution of water produces dramatic changes in its effects. If normal hydrogen is replaced by different isotopes, deuterium or tritium, the water molecule markedly changes its chemical properties. Life would be impossible if H2O were replaced by heavy water, D2O or T2O; and compounds made of elements different from hydrogen and oxygen would be even more different in their properties. Hence Putnam’s thought experiment is scientifically incoherent: If water were not H2O, Twin Earth would not be at all like Earth. \[See also [Universal Fire](/lw/hq/universal_fire/). --Luke\]
> 
> This incoherence should serve as a warning to philosophers who try to base theories on thought experiments, a practice I have criticized in relation to concepts of mind (Thagard, 2010a, ch. 2). Some philosophers have thought that the nonmaterial nature of consciousness is shown by their ability to imagine beings (zombies) who are physically just like people but who lack consciousness. It is entirely likely, however, that once the brain mechanisms that produce consciousness are better understood, it will become clear that zombies are as fanciful as Putnam’s XYZ. Just as imagining that water is XYZ is a sign only of ignorance of chemistry, imagining that consciousness is nonbiological may well turn out to reveal ignorance rather than some profound conceptual truth about the nature of mind. Of course, the hypothesis that consciousness is a brain process is not part of most people’s everyday concept of consciousness, but psychological concepts can progress just like ones in physics and chemistry. \[See also the [Zombies Sequence](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Zombies_(sequence)). --Luke\]
# Shaving: Less Long

OK, OK, it's not the weightiest of topics, and it's not rocket science. But I searched the site for "shaving" and "razor" and didn't see where it had been previously addressed.

I had a beard for nearly 30 years, but have been shaving again the last 6. I have always (since a brief experimental period in high school) used an electric razor for shaving. So did my daddy and his daddy before him, back through history.. wait, that can't be right. But my daddy and his daddy did, anyway.

I can shave with my electric in about 45 seconds, or maybe twice that if I'm trying to do a great job. What on earth do men see with wet shaves? Assuming they don't find the process inherently rewarding, the only argument I've heard is that you can get a closer shave. Which brings me to rationality.

Why does one want a close shave? Beard grows continuously throughout the day and night. Let's take as a guess that after two hours, beard growth will transform a very close wet shave into hair length immediately after an electric shave. Assuming it is the ratio of hair length that determines the relative utility of two different beard configurations, the advantage of the closer shave falls throughout the day. The ratio would be 2.00 after four hours, 1.50 after six hours, etc. If wet shaving takes something like 10 minutes, if desired one could do a second electric shave in the men's room late in the afternoon and come out with less stubble for the vast majority of the day with less total time invested. 

If there is some particular moment at which the least possible beard growth is desirable, for instance for a photo shoot, then I can see the advantage of the closest possible shave. A date is another possibility, though there is anecdotal evidence that some women prefer a hint of stubble to a smooth baby face.

But with those rare exceptions, the goal isn't to have zero stubble. It's to have stubble that's less long.

Similar arguments pertain to various sorts of housecleaning. Since whatever you're cleaning starts getting dirty again immediately, putting lots of effort into extraordinary levels of cleanliness seems to have little value unless you inherently value that moment of extraordinary cleanliness.
# How to deal with non-realism?

From  [Being a Realist (even if you believe in God)](/r/discussion/lw/cha/being_a_realist_even_if_you_believe_in_god):

> theists and untheists can and should meet half way and at least agree on the logical necessity of being a realist.

My mother, who doesn't call herself a theist (I think she's agnostic), doesn't even accept realism. She doesn't even agree with this:

> There is _something_.  All that there is, we generally call "reality". Note that by this definition, reality is unique.  The corollary is, we all live in the same reality. We do not _percieve_ it in the same way, but our perceptions and reality itself aren't the same thing.
> 
> Every description of reality that matches it is true. Every description of reality that _doesn't_ match it is false. In this sense, truth is unique and universal.
> 
> (We can nuance the truth/falsehood dichotomy with probability distributions. Some probability distributions are closer to reality than others, and so on.)

That's little more than tautologies here. Yet it elicited an impression of being _forced to believe_. I know because she told me about the totalitarian dangers from such narrow thinking.

I'm happy to have finally found the root cause of our ongoing disagreement, but now, how can I deal with _that_? It looks pretty hopeless, but just in case, does someone have a suggestion, or should I just leave it at that? (My ego doesn't like it, but giving up _is_ an option.)

Now I'm relieved to know that in near mode, she's a complete realist. This craziness only shows up in far mode.
# When is Winning not Winning?

Lately I'd gotten jaded enough that I simply accepted that different rules apply to the elite class. As Hanson would say, most rules are there specifically to curtail those who don't have the ability to avoid them and to be side-stepped by those who do - it's why we evolved such big, manipulative brains. So when this video recently made the rounds it shocked me to realize how far my values had drifted over the past several years.

(the video is not about politics, it is about status. My politics are far from those of Penn)  
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWWOJGYZYpk&feature=sharek](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWWOJGYZYpk&feature=sharek)

It's good we have people like Penn around to remind us what it was like to be teenagers and still expect the world to be fair, so our brains can be used for more productive things.

By the measure our society currently uses, Obama was winning. Penn was not. Yet Penn’s approach is the winning strategy for society. Brain power is wasted on status games and social manipulation when it could be used for actually making things better. The machinations of the elite class are a huge drain of resources that could be better used in almost any other pursuit. And yet the elites are admired high-status individuals who are viewed as “winning” at life. They sit atop huge piles of utility. Idealists like Penn are regarded as immature for insisting on things as low-status as “the rules should be fair and apply identically to every one, from the inner-city crack-dealer to the Harvard post-grad.”

The “Rationalists Should Win” meme is a good one, but it risks corrupting our goals. If we focus too much on “Rationalist Should Win” we risk going for near-term gains that benefit us. Status, wealth, power, sex. Basically hedonism – things that feel good because we’ve evolved to feel good when we get them. Thus we feel we are winning, and we’re even told we are winning by our peers and by society. But these things aren’t of any use to society. A society of such “rationalists” would make only feeble and halting progress toward grasping the dream of defeating death and colonizing the stars.

It is important to not let one’s concept of “winning” be corrupted by [Azathoth](/lw/kr/an_alien_god).

ADDED 5/23:

It seems the majority of comments on this post are people who disagree on the basis of  rationality being a tool for achieving ends, but not for telling you what ends are worth achieving.

I disagree. As [is written](http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/the-sword-of-good) "The Choice between Good and Bad is not a matter of saying 'Good!'  It is about deciding which is which." And rationality can help to decide which is which. In fact without rationality you are much more likely to be partially or fully mistaken when you decide.
# Wasted life

It's just occurred to me that, giving all the cheerful risk stuff I work with, one of the most optimistic things people could say to me would be:

"You've wasted your life. Nothing of what you've done is relevant or useful."

That would make me very happy. Of course, that only works if it's credible.
# Another Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Tournament?

Last year, there was a lot of interest in the [IPD tournament](/lw/79r/prisoners_dilemma_as_a_game_theory_laboratory/) with people asking for regular events of this sort and developing new strategies (like Afterparty) within hours after the [results](/lw/7f2/prisoners_dilemma_tournament_results/) were published and also expressing interest in re-running the tournament with new rules that allowed for submitted strategies to evolve or read their opponent's source code. I noticed that many of the submitted strategies performed poorly because of a lack of understanding of the underlying mechanics, so I wrote a [comprehensive article on IPD math](/lw/7l3/fixedlength_selective_iterative_prisoners_dilemma/) that sparked some interesting comments.

And then the whole thing was never spoken of again.

So now I'd like to know: How many LWers would commit to competing in another tournament of this kind, and would someone be interested in hosting it?
# Expertise and advice

In his [essay](http://www.succeedsocially.com/changingadvice) "How The Type Of Advice Someone Can Give Can Change Over Time", the author of SucceedSocially.com writes:

> ...as someone starts to become proficient in a field, they can start to take all the basic little steps for granted. With time they may even start to forget what it was like to be a beginner, or lose touch with how it felt to not have certain abilities. I've noticed this happening myself.
> 
> ...
> 
> Once someone internalizes the basics and moves into more advanced levels of skill, I've noticed they can want to focus on the bigger picture. They'll want to figure out a handful of profound, succinct principles that tie all the advice about a field together.
> 
> ...
> 
> I think beginners often need that drilled down, specific information though. Sometimes they need to learn some tactics as well before talk of larger strategies can really sink in. I also think if an advice giver gets too broad and abstract, his ideas can become vague to the point of being unhelpful.

If you're trying to learn something, it's natural to try to find the best people in the field to learn from. And if you're thinking of sharing your thoughts on something, it's natural to think twice unless you have a proven track record of accomplishments in that area.

A better model of advice dissemination might focus on the derivative of a person's abilities. For example, if you're an amateur at something and you stumble on something that really seems to help, write it up even if you haven't reached the peak of expertise yet. And if you're looking for advice, don't be afraid to read writing by other amateurs--they are the ones who are at your stage and trying to improve themselves.

Of course, experts who do a lot of hands-on work helping amateurs are probably the best.
# List of underrated risks?

As everyone here knows, it would be a stupid idea to switch from airplanes to cars out of safety/terrorism concerns: Cars are a much more risky means of transportation than airplanes. But what other major risks are there that many people systematically undervalue or are not even consciously aware of?

The same can be asked for chances.
# One possible issue with radically increased lifespan

I might need a better title (It has now been updated), but here goes, anyway:

I've been considering this for a while now. Suppose we reach a point where we can live for centuries, maybe even millenia, then how do we balance? Even assuming we're as efficient as possible, there's a limit for how much resources we can have, meaning an artificial limit at the amount of people that could exist at any given moment even if we explore what we can of the galaxy and use any avaliable resource. There would have to be roughly the same rate of births and deaths in a stable population.

How would this be achieved? Somehow limiting lifespan, or children, assuming it's available to a majority? Or would this lead to a genespliced, technologically augmented and essentially immortal elite that the poor, unaugmented ones would have no chance of measuring up to? I'm sorry if this has already been considered, I'm very uneducated on the topic. If it has, could someone maybe link an analysis of the topic of lifespans and the like?
# Short Primers on Crucial Topics

Series: [How to Purchase AI Risk Reduction](/r/discussion/lw/cs6/how_to_purchase_ai_risk_reduction/)

Here's [another](/lw/cnj/a_scholarly_ai_risk_wiki/) [way](/r/discussion/lw/cok/funding_good_research/) we might purchase existential risk reduction: the production of **short primers on crucial topics**.

Resources like [The Sequences](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences) and [NickBostrom.com](http://nickbostrom.com/) have been incredibly effective at gathering and creating a community engaged in x-risk reduction (either through direct action or, perhaps [more importantly](https://vimeo.com/32787159), through donations), but most people who could make a difference probably won't take the time to read The Sequences or academic papers.

One solution? _Short primers on crucial topics_.

[_Facing the Singularity_](http://facingthesingularity.com/) is one example. I'm waiting for some work from remote researchers before I write the last chapter, but once it's complete we'll produce a PDF version and a Kindle version. Already, several people (including [Jaan Tallinn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Tallinn)) use it as a standard introduction they send to AI risk newbies.

![](http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ExistentialRisk.png)Similar documents (say, 10 pages in length) could be produced for topics like Existential Risk, AI Risk, Friendly AI, Optimal Philanthropy, and Rationality. These would be concise, fun to read, and emotionally engaging, while also being accurate and thoroughly hyperlinked/referenced to fuller explanations of each section and major idea (on LessWrong, in academic papers, etc.).

These could even be printed and left lying around wherever we think is most important: say, at the top math, computer science, and formal philosophy departments in the English-speaking world.

The major difficulty in executing such a project would be in finding good writers with the relevant knowledge. Eliezer, Yvain, and myself might qualify, but right now the three of us are otherwise occupied. The time investment of the primary author(s) could be minimized by outsourcing as much of the work as possible to SI's team of remote researchers, writers, and editors.

Estimated cost _per primer_:

*   80 hours from primary author. (Well, if it's _me_. I've put about 60 hours into the _writing_ of _[Facing the Singularity](http://facingthesingularity.com/)_ so far, which is of similar length to the proposed primers but I'm adding some padding to the estimate.)
*   $4,000 on remote research. (Tracking down statistics and references, etc.)
*   $1000 on book design, Kindle version production, etc.

Translations to other languages could also be produced, for an estimated cost of $2,000 per translation (this includes checks and improvements by multiple translators).
# Only say 'rational' when you can't eliminate the word

Almost all instances of the word "true" can be eliminated from the sentences in which they appear by applying Tarski's formula.  For example, if you say, "I believe the sky is blue, and that's true!" then this can be rephrased as the statement, "I believe the sky is blue, and the sky is blue."  For every "The sentence 'X' is true" you can just say X and convey the same information about what you believe - just talk about the territory the map allegedly corresponds to, instead of talking about the map.

When _can't_ you eliminate the word "true"?  When you're _generalizing_ over map-territory correspondences, e.g., "True theories are more likely to make correct experimental predictions."  There's no way to take the word 'true' out of that sentence because it's talking about a feature of map-territory correspondences in general.

Similarly, you can eliminate the sentence 'rational' from almost any sentence in which it appears.  "It's rational to believe the sky is blue", "It's true that the sky is blue", and "The sky is blue", all convey exactly the same information about what color you think the sky is - no more, no less.

When _can't_ you eliminate the word "rational" from a sentence?

When you're _generalizing_ over _cognitive algorithms _for producing map-territory correspondences (epistemic rationality) or steering the future where you want it to go (instrumental rationality).  So while you can eliminate the word 'rational' from "It's rational to believe the sky is blue", you can't eliminate the concept 'rational' from the sentence "It's epistemically rational to increase belief in hypotheses that make successful experimental predictions."  You can Taboo the word, of course, but then the sentence just becomes, "To increase map-territory correspondences, follow the cognitive algorithm of increasing belief in hypotheses that make successful experimental predictions."  You can eliminate the word, but you can't eliminate the _concept_ without changing the meaning of the sentence, because the primary subject of discussion is, in fact, _general cognitive algorithms_ with the property of producing map-territory correspondences.

**The word 'rational' should never be used on any occasion except when it is necessary, i.e., when we are discussing cognitive algorithms as algorithms.**

If you want to talk about how to buy a great car by _applying_ rationality, but you're primarily _talking about_ the car rather than _considering the question_ of which cognitive algorithms are best, then title your post Optimal Car-Buying, not Rational Car-Buying.

Thank you for observing all safety precautions.