Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Personal Response to Omicron

Throughout the pandemic, our household has been on the careful end. We started preparing in [February 2020](https://www.jefftk.com/p/quarantine-preparations), isolated thoroughly from [March](https://www.jefftk.com/p/stepping-up-isolation) to [July](https://www.jefftk.com/p/partially-stepping-down-isolation), moderately over the summer, and then thoroughly again from [October](https://www.jefftk.com/p/increasing-isolation-again) until all the adults in our house were [vaccinated](https://www.jefftk.com/p/vaccination-and-house-rules). Because I was [immunocompromised](https://www.jefftk.com/p/experience-on-methotrexate), we had a [newborn](https://www.norawise.com), and kids under five couldn't get vaccinated yet, however, our family's 2021 was still a lot like 2020. Then, in doing [Christmas holidays with family](https://www.jefftk.com/p/covid-christmas) I was very careful individually in the two weeks leading up to it and I was the one [working on precautions](https://www.jefftk.com/p/elevated-air-purifier-cubes) and making sure we had enough tests: some of the people I really wanted to spend Christmas with are at elevated risk.

I wrote [last week](https://www.jefftk.com/p/omicron-paths) about how there are a range of paths we could take with Omicron as a society, but now that Christmas is over what am I going to do personally?

Well, what's the weather out there?

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-2021-12-28.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-2021-12-28-big.png)

That's a lot of covid [in the sewer](https://www.jefftk.com/p/interpreting-the-biobot-spike), 5x the previous peak and still going up.

I think if it were critical that I or a [housemate](https://www.jefftk.com/p/shared-house-setup) didn't get Omicron, it would be possible, but very difficult. We would need to go back to isolating the way we were in Fall 2020, treating vaccinated people as about as risky as unvaccinated people, pulling the kids out of school, and never going indoors anywhere. Given the likely effects of contracting covid as a child or boosted adult, this is not worth it for us or I suspect most people.

Instead, I expect that I, the people in my house, and pretty much everyone who doesn't take intense and careful effort to avoid it will be exposed to Omicron at some point in the next ~month. It's not a good thing, but it is what it is. Afterward, people's immune systems will have had yet another covid exposure, and I expect cases to go low until next fall. So I'm not going to stress about it: I'll follow official guidance and mask regulations, cheerfully go along with precautions others need, and test+isolate when sick, but I'm not going to go above and beyond to attempt to reduce spread the way I did for earlier parts of the pandemic.

I'm thinking of Omicron as the first wave of the endemic phase of covid-19. While "it's just the flu" was completely wrong in 2020, in 2022 the situation has changed enough of that "what would I do in flu season" is now a good guide.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100239111864742)*
# Genetics: It sometimes skips a generation is a terrible explanation!

**Question**: "How come your son Jimmie isn't colorblind when his father is"  
**Wrong answer**: "It some times skips a generations, maybe his kids will inherent it"  
**Right Answer**: "it's on the X chromosome, he got his fathers Y chromosome, so his kids will not inherent colorblindness from his side of the family!"

**Question**: "How come your daughter Susie isn't colorblind when her farther is"  
**Confused answer**: "It some times skips a generations, maybe her kids will inherent it"  
**Right Answer**: "The confused answer is less wrong than with the son, it's on the X chromosome, she got her fathers X chromosome, so half heir sons will be color blind"

Simple genetics, your Mother has XX your father has XY, let's use little x to denote colorblindness, you get a random chromosome from each parent.

Colorblind father -> sons have normal vision, daughters are carriers:   
xY + XX - > 50% XY + 50% xX

Colorblind mother -> sons are colorblind, daughters are carriers  
XY + xx - > 50% xY + 50% xX

Carrier mother -> half sons are colorblind, half of daughters are carriers  
XY + xX - > 25% xY + 25% XY + 25% xX + 25% XX

Finally if colorblindness runs in both families:  
xY + xX -> 25% xY + 25% XY + 25% xx + 25% xX

both parents colorblind -> all children colorblind

**Question**: "Have you ever wondered, how does the xX females know not to use the color blind gene?"  
**Answer**: "They do not, half the relevant cells in their eyes will have a bad photo receptor... but the brain is pretty smart, it quickly learns to boost the signal from the other half of the cells"

**Warning**: The above is strictly only true for X-linked dominant diseases such as colorblindness, a similar approach can be used to elucidate the inheritance pattern of Classical Mendelian traits, but does not work for complex trait such as height which is influenced by multiple genes.
# Careful With Trailing Averages

With covid, it is common for people to look at seven day trailing averages. For example, the [MA Covid Dashboard](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-response-reporting) has "the seven day average of percent positivity is 18.42%". While this isn't exactly wrong, it's not a good fit for a rapidly rising number. Here's how it's usually presented:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-percent-positive-traditional.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-percent-positive-traditional-big.png)

This gives the impression that 18.4% is the number for 12/30, but it's clearer to think of it as a number for 12/27. That way it represents our best guess of how things were on the 27th by looking three days into the future and three days into the past to average out fluctuations:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-percent-positive-shifted.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-percent-positive-shifted-big.png)

On the other hand, these variations are clearly not noise; it's a weekly cycle. People are much more likely to test positive on the weekend than during the week:

| Monday | 89% |
| --- | --- |
| Tuesday | 85% |
| Wednesday | 96% |
| Thursday | 93% |
| Friday | 113% |
| Saturday | 172% |
| Sunday | 145% |

(Average ratio by day of week comparing daily test positivity to the seven day average of test positivity centered on that day.)

This makes sense: weekend testing will include a larger proportion of people who are getting tested because they are sick.

Instead of trying to average this pattern away, we can use it, scaling each day by the inverse of its average departure from the 7d average:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-percent-positive-adjusted.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-percent-positive-adjusted-big.png)

This gives us a metric that is as responsive as the daily numbers with less of the day-by-day variation from from measuring different populations on different days. It's not perfect, you can see it getting things wrong by treating Thanksgiving and Christmas like normal days, but it's pretty good.

When case numbers are changing quickly, this responsiveness is helpful. Using the most recent seven days we'd get a test positivity of 18%, but the most recent weekday-adjusted daily number is 23% (+25%).

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100239291883982)*
# New Year's Prediction Thread (2022)

This is a thread for anyone to post predictions for 2022.

  

(Inspired by similar threads LW has done in the past, and also by [Scott Alexander's yearly tradition](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-predictions-for-2021) and by [Miles Brundage](https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/1477115052763369472)'s predictions about AI)
# What explains the excess mortality?

We were talking about the point of our COVID-19 policies being about preventing deaths. We now see from [OurWorldInData](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-per-million-covid?country=MEX~PER~FRA~BRA~USA~GBR~BGR~ISR~AUS) that different countries had very different results in regards to excess deaths. While Sweden has had more deaths than its Scandinavian neighbors of Finland and Norway, it has less than half of the excess deaths of the United Kingdom and less than a third of that of the United States. If we truly care about the deaths, finding out why that's the case and what's driven the high excess deaths in some countries looks to me like an important project.

Does anyone have a good graph of why the status quo looks the way it does?
# Scott Alexander 2021 Predictions: Market Prices - Resolution

Last year, I looked at [Scott's forecasts for 2021](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-predictions-for-2021?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDQ0NjYyMiwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzU2NTM4NDcsIl8iOiJORHJFVSIsImlhdCI6MTYxOTQ3OTE2MSwiZXhwIjoxNjE5NDgyNzYxLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItODkxMjAiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.BEElpY1WWwCRqC3Sl4WC-gTpt-HP-8srKpwQ9VTZlHo) and [compared them to the market forecasts](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sAmkpdmfDMCohXiBX/scott-alexander-2021-predictions-market-prices). Today I went through those forecasts (and [Zvi's *](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Cpy23aBzx3hnjKbnt/scott-alexander-2021-predictions-buy-sell-hold) \- a buy/hold/sell exercise done on Scott's estimates) added the resolutions and calculated a Brier score and a log-score.

 Results were as follows:

|     | Brier | Log |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Scott | 0.20 | 1.24 |
| Zvi | 0.16 | 0.93 |
| Market | 0.14 | 0.90 |

So in summary "market" about as good as Zvi and both better than Scott . (Albeit on a pretty small sample of 19 questions). (Lower is better for Brier score and log-score)

Full details can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14jYDcPLHa9ZFbxJV9TxT0Ty9Dl7s5h4s5jPPlkDej24/edit?usp=sharing)

| Question | Scott | Zvi | Market | Result |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Biden approval rating (as per 538) is greater than 50% | 80% | 80% | 61% | 0   |
| Court packing is clearly going to happen (new justices don’t have to be appointed by end of year) | 5%  | 1%  | 5%  | 0   |
| Yang is New York mayor | 80% | 70% | 70% | 0   |
| Newsom recalled as CA governor | 5%  | 5%  | 7%  | 0   |
| Tokyo Olympics happen on schedule | 70% | 80% | 77% | 1   |
| Major flare-up (significantly worse than anything in past 5 years) in Russia/Ukraine war | 32% | 15% | 16% | 0   |
| Netanyahu is still Israeli PM | 40% | 25% | 22% | 0   |
| Prospera has at least 1000 residents | 30% | 30% | 18% | 0   |
| GME >$100 (Currently $170) | 50% | 50% | 60% | 1   |
| Bitcoin above 100K | 40% | 23% | 23% | 0   |
| Ethereum above 5K | 50% | 30% | 11% | 0   |
| Ethereum above 0.05 BTC | 70% | 55% | 33% | 1   |
| Dow above 35K | 90% | 50% | 50% | 1   |
| …above 37.5K: | 70% | 20% | 20% | 0   |
| Unemployment above 5% | 40% | 50% | 37% | 0   |
| Starship reaches orbit | 60% | 60% | 50% | 0   |
| Greater than 66% of US population vaccinated against COVID | 50% | 60% | 77% | 1   |
| Vitamin D is generally recognized (eg NICE, UpToDate) as effective COVID treatment | 30% | 20% | 25% | 0   |
| US approves AstraZeneca vaccine | 20% | 20% | 37% | 0   |

\* I made a couple of assumptions when calculating Zvi's probabilities for things where he wasn't super explicit about his numbers. I will of course update these if asked.
# Open Thread - Jan 2022 [Vote Experiment!]

Experiment: Reaction-Ballot Voting
----------------------------------

**This open thread is using an new experimental voting system: reaction-ballot voting.** 

In addition to voting on a comment's overall quality, you can also vote separately on a number of axes, and apply a small set of emoji reactions. Try out and discuss this voting system here! Notes:

*   Voting on each axis is weighted according to the voter's karma the same way as votes are in the regular voting system. All axes can be strong-voted with click-and-hold. The commenter's karma is only affected by your vote on the "overall" access, not your vote on any of the other axes.
*   **This is one experiment among several.** Bugs are possible. We're interested in what effect this has on the quality of conversation, what the experience of voting in this system is like, and what the experience of skimming a thread and seeing these scores is like.
*   The user interface for this voting system doesn't work well on touch/mobile devices. Third-party clients such as GreaterWrong will only be able to see and cast overall votes, but should work fine otherwise.

**Please tell us what you think! Love it/hate it/think it should be different? Let us know.**

Regular Open Thread Boilerplate
-------------------------------

If it’s worth saying, but not worth its own post, here's a place to put it.

If you are new to LessWrong, here's the place to introduce yourself. Personal stories, anecdotes, or just general comments on how you found us and what you hope to get from the site and community are invited. This is also the place to discuss feature requests and other ideas you have for the site, if you don't want to write a full top-level post.

If you want to explore the community more, I recommend [reading the Library,](https://www.lesswrong.com/library) [checking recent Curated posts](https://www.lesswrong.com/?view=curated), [seeing if there are any meetups in your area](https://www.lesswrong.com/community), and checking out the [Getting Started](https://www.lesswrong.com/faq#Getting_Started) section of the [LessWrong FAQ](https://www.lesswrong.com/faq). If you want to orient to the content on the site, you can also check out the new [Concepts section](https://www.lesswrong.com/tags/all).

The Open Thread tag is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/open-threads?sortedBy=new). The Open Thread sequence is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/yai5mppkuCHPQmzpN).
# Apply for research internships at ARC!

**(Update: we are no longer accepting applications for interns.)**

In addition to [hiring full-time researchers](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/dLoK6KGcHAoudtwdo/arc-is-hiring), ARC is also hiring for 1-3 month internships. We’re open to interns for summer 2022 in particular, but if a different time works for you that’s fine too.

Internships are appropriate for undergraduates and graduate students, or for anyone considering a career change.

To apply for an internship, you can use this application and check the “internship” box. If you submitted an application previously there’s no need to resubmit; we’ll clarify if there is ambiguity.

Salary for interns is $15k/month. We encourage interns to work from our Berkeley office especially at the start of their internship.

(The rest of this post is copied from our [previous hiring post](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/dLoK6KGcHAoudtwdo/arc-is-hiring).)

### What is ARC?

ARC is a non-profit organization focused on theoretical research to align future machine learning systems with human interests. We are aiming to develop alignment strategies that would continue to work regardless of how far we scaled up ML or how ML models end up working internally.

Probably the best way to understand our work is to read [Eliciting Latent Knowledge](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WwsnJQstPq91_Yh-Ch2XRL8H_EpsnjrC1dwZXR37PC8/edit?usp=sharing), a report describing some recent and upcoming research, which illustrates our general methodology.

We currently have 2 research staff (Paul Christiano and Mark Xu). We’re aiming to hire another 1-2 researchers in early 2022. ARC is a new organization and is hoping to grow significantly over the next few years, so early hires will play a key role in helping define and scale up our research.

### Who should apply?

Most of all, you should send in an application if you feel excited about proposing the kinds of algorithms and counterexamples [described in our report on ELK](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WwsnJQstPq91_Yh-Ch2XRL8H_EpsnjrC1dwZXR37PC8/edit?usp=sharing).

We’re **open to anyone who is excited about working on alignment even if you don't yet have any research background** (or your research is in another field). You may be an especially good fit if you:

*   Are creative and generative (e.g. you may already have some ideas for potential strategies or counterexamples for ELK, even if they don't work).
*   Have experience designing algorithms, proving theorems, or formalizing concepts.
*   Have a broad base of knowledge in mathematics and computer science (we often draw test cases and counterexamples from these fields).
*   Have thought a lot about the AI alignment problem, especially in the limit of very powerful AI systems.

Hiring will be a priority for us in early 2022 and we don't mind reading a lot of applications, so please err on the side of sending in an application even if you’re not sure you’ll be a fit!
# [New Feature] Support for Footnotes!

It is with great excitement[^u3ibj5ot8kj] that I am pleased to announce that the main LessWrong text editor[^j6mge1xal3b] now has support for footnotes![^nxvmf5nwk39] A huge thanks to our friends over at the [Effective Altruism Forum](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/) who coded this one up.

You can insert footnotes via:

**1.** Manually selecting text in the text box and selecting *insert footnote* from the footnotes menu icon.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/7d30caf467cc4331530f6f608f56515227ba60c74e777e8e.png)

The footnote icon is the **\[*\]** on the right.

**2\.** Using Markdown syntax

*   Type \[^*n*\] where is the number of the footnote you wish to insert.
*   To insert a new footnote, use *n* that is <number of existing footnotes + 1>; to reuse an existing footnote, set *n* to be whichever footnote you are reusing.

**Footnotes will automatically renumber as you add and delete them!**

What's more, footnotes will render with hover-over previews once published:

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/c64dcc494efd820032359c81ff837e38b9cb275f97e3bb3b.png)

Behold! A footnote hover-preview!

That's it. Go forth and create scholarly works!

[^u3ibj5ot8kj]: I mean it, really. I've looked forward to us adding this support for years. 

[^j6mge1xal3b]: That is, the LW Docs editor, as distinct from the Markdown editor and legacy Draft-JS editor.[4] 

[^nxvmf5nwk39]: The Markdown editor already had support for footnotes using Markdown footnote syntax. 

[^ickxqrcwu4s]: Yes, footnotes can have footnotes. And those footnotes can reference themselves.[4]
# Omicron in Biobot

I wrote a few weeks ago about how the increase in covid in Boston's sewage was seasonal, and [didn't yet reflect Omicron](https://www.jefftk.com/p/interpreting-the-biobot-spike). Now this, though, this is Omicron:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-2022-01-03-vs-2020.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-2022-01-03-vs-2020-big.png)

We're at about 8x the previous peak and still climbing:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-2022-01-03.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-2022-01-03-big.png)

It also looks to be moving a bit quicker in the Southern half of the system, possibly even peaking but that might be optimism:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-ns-recent-2022-01-03.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/ma-wastewater-covid-biobot-ns-recent-2022-01-03-big.png)

Test positivity is very high: [22%](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-response-reporting#covid-19-interactive-data-dashboard-) over the last seven days per the state dashboard, but 29% if you take the most recent daily number and [adjust for effect of the day of the week](https://www.jefftk.com/p/careful-with-trailing-averages). This, plus rapid testing now being much more common, means that official case numbers are pretty hard to interpret, so it's really nice to have the wastewater data as something consistent. That is, unless Omicron makes people excrete more virus at a given level of infectivity...

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100239602356792)*
# Newcomb's Problem as an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

The intuitively paradoxical aspect of Newcomb's Problem is that it contains a loop. Your decision determines Omega's prediction, which determines the options you decide between. There are many decision theories that solve this problem, usually leading to one-boxing. However, these decision theories are less than intuitive because of their acausal nature. This is a hopefully more intuitive analysis of Newcomb's Problem that unrolls the loop and reveals the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma within.

First, unroll the loop. To do this, have Omega run purely on past data. To keep the high quality of the prediction, the past data must also determine your decision at that point. This is easiest to implement with a bot (in the sense of PrudentBot, but much simpler). Specifically, you choose your decision, and that sets up a bot that only performs that decision. After unrolling, we now have an iterated game, as the dependence on the same round has been replaced with one on a previous round.

Now, from your perspective, your income is as follows.
|              | Fill B   | Leave B empty |
|--------------|----------|---------------|
| Take A and B | $1001000 | $1000         |
| Take B       | $1000000 | $0            |

Now, relabelling.
|              | Cooperate | Defect |
|--------------|----------|---------------|
| Cooperate | $1000000 | $0            |
| Defect | $1001000 | $1000         |

This is just the Prisoner's Dilemma! And as it was iterated by unrolling, it is the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

Omega plays TitForTat, while you can choose between CooperateBot and DefectBot. As CooperateBot performs better against TitForTat than DefectBot, you're best off cooperating. As cooperating corresponds to one-boxing, you should one-box.

Rerolling the loop, you should one-box in the original problem.
# How To Raise Others’ Aspirations in 17 Easy Steps

*Title taken from Tyler Cowen:* [*The high-return activity of raising others’ aspirations*](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/10/high-return-activity-raising-others-aspirations.html)

*This is taken from a* [*twitter thread*](https://twitter.com/ChanaMessinger/status/1463160594941554696) *(which I also wrote up on my* [*website*](https://chanamessinger.com/blog/building-agency-list)*) that I was - aptly for the content - encouraged to put in non-Twitter places. Thanks for the encouragement!*

**Things you can say to people in ten seconds that sometimes produce insanely outsized effects:**

1.  Yeah, someone \*should\* do that. Why not you?
2.  Is there something you could do about that problem in the next [five minutes](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/five-minute-timers)?
3.  That's a great thought - have you written it up somewhere? I'd be excited to share it if so.
4.  Should you write a book / blog?
5.  You want to do that but don't think you will? Do you want to make a concrete plan now?
6.  Do you want me to ask in a week / month if you've done that or how it's going?
7.  Feeling stuck sucks. Want to brainstorm together?
8.  Feeling stuck sucks. Have you spent a [five minute](https://twitter.com/ChanaMessinger/status/1464986916361805825?s=20) [timer](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/five-minute-timers) generating options?
9.  What's the twenty minute / minimum viable product version of this overwhelming-feeling thing?
10.  Do you want me to sit with you while you fill out that application/write that email? Too bad, it's happening.
11.  Is it worth just asking / cold emailing and seeing?
12.  Is there anyone I know who you'd like to be introduced to?
13.  Do you want to just set an alarm on your phone now as a reminder? *(from* [*Damon Sasi*](http://daystareld.com/)*)*
14.  Do you know anyone else who might have struggled with or succeeded at that? Have you talked to them about it? *(from* [*Damon Sasi*](http://daystareld.com/)*)*
15.  Who do you know who you could ask for help from?
16.  You are Allowed (to try, to do, to build, to ask). I strongly recommend [this link of things you are allowed to do.](https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/)
    *   (Or do you [not need permission](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dhj9dhiwhq3DX6W8z/hero-licensing) in the first place?)
17.  Do you sort of already know what you're going to do / have your mind made up about this?
# You can't understand human agency without understanding amoeba agency

This is supposed to be a trivially true statement, and yet it sounds controversial somehow, doesn't it? 

The difference between the two is quantitative, not qualitative, unless you explicitly or implicitly subscribe to the "humans are the only real agents" idea, which is not even one step removed from "unlike other animals, humans possess souls". And yet when I browse through research on (embedded) agency, most of it is about humans, not anything less complicated. Sure, studying humans has an apparent advantage over studying other animals because we, as humans, have an inside view not readily accessible in other species. Whether it is a real advantage depends on how misleading the inside view is. After all, it comes with a dangling node of free will, with the feeling of qualia and ineffable redness of red, and with a host of other evolutionary artifacts that once may have been useful for survival in a small tribe, but now are a just along for the ride. And in any case, evolution satisfices for survival, it does not optimize the inside view for accuracy.

I understand why philosophy focuses almost exclusively on humans, but I don't understand why, say, AI research does not focus on simple creatures first, and maybe even on non-living agents before that. Well, that's not entirely true, posts like this one do appear:

[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3SG4WbNPoP8fsuZgs/agency-in-conway-s-game-of-life](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3SG4WbNPoP8fsuZgs/agency-in-conway-s-game-of-life)

but they seem to be a small minority, as far as I can tell. What am I missing here?
# AMA: I was unschooled for most of my childhood, then voluntarily chose to leave to go to a large public high school.

I've seen a lot of discussion in the LW community about alternatives to traditional school for kids. Given how few kids actually get to experience the alternatives ([<4% of kids in the US are homeschooled](https://www.thinkimpact.com/homeschooling-statistics/#:~:text=3%25%20to%204%25%20of%20the,of%20homeschooled%20students%20representing%2068%25.), [<10% of those are unschooled](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/26/unschooling-lets-children-forgo-traditional-classroom/87437888/)), I think the success and failure modes are less well understood than for traditional schools. I want to offer myself as a datapoint to anyone interested in my subjective experience. Eventually, I want this to be a standalone blog post, but my thoughts still feel pretty disparate, so I'm hoping this will help me find a more cohesive narrative. 

**About me**: I'm now in my mid 20s, went to a "good college" and now have a "good job" in tech (despite a brief gap derping around as an artist...what can I say I was unschooled). I'm not a teacher. I don't have kids. I do feel that unschooling had a big impact on my life, and I'm hoping this will help me understand it better, and how it can empirically affect others.
# Why maximize human life?

There is an idea, or maybe an assumption, that I've seen mentioned in many Lesswrong posts. This is the idea that **human life should be maximized**: that one of our goals should be to create as many humans as possible. Or perhaps even: that *preventing* humans from being born is as bad as killing living humans.

I've seen this idea used to argue for a larger point, but I haven't yet seen arguments to justify the idea itself. I only have some directional notions:

*   I understand not wanting human life, and possibly the various human cultures, to die out, and we should make sure that there are enough humans to prevent that. This in no way necessitates maximization, though.
*   If you accept the grabby aliens model, this necessitates that humans should be grabby, because otherwise, grabby aliens will cause us to die out. This would also imply maximization of human life across the galaxy. However, I get the idea that this isn't the main reason for people to want maximization, as the other implication — that we need to be grabby — is almost never mentioned in the relevant posts.
*   I could see an argument for maximizing utility, under the utilitarian framework, where you argue that creating more life would create more potential utility. However, this means that
    *   you should also *actually create* the utility for all these new lives, or they will not add to (or even subtract from) your utility calculation; simply wanting to create lives without considering living conditions does not seem to take this into account 
    *   it is possible that maximizing animal life, or perhaps alien or artificial life, would create more utility, as these lives might be optimized with way less effort

So I would like to hear, from people who actually hold the "maximizing human life" position, some of your explanations for why. (Or pointers to a source or a framework that explains it.)
# Omicron variolation?

Given that the balance of evidence is looking more and more like O is mild, should healthy folks below some age (60 years?) seek to expose themselves? Cost/benefit will obviously vary with vaccination status, but this is looking like an opportunity for a low-risk inoculation against whatever variants descend from Omicron. Any strong arguments against this?
# The best curriculum for every goal

In the fine tradition of [Best Textbook](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-textbooks-on-every-subject), [Best Software](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zHS4FJhByRjqsuH4o/the-best-software-for-every-need) and [Best Visualization](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ek72rktvMrz69HBTL/the-best-visualizations-on-every-subject):

For our purposes a curriculum is one or more discrete resources (website, book, article, tutorial, whatevs) *plus* one or more goal-states, such as acquiring or practicing a new skill, learning about a subject, or similar. Type signature is:

    curriculum is (List<resource>, List<goal-state>)

## Submission Rules:

- One nomination per comment 
- Please include an explanation of why you nominated it 
- If you can compare your nomination to other curricula, that's excellent but not required

*(NB: "comparing to other curricula" could be comparison of resources OR goal-states OR both; I think a certain amount of comparison between goal-states could be really interesting, but my hope is that this thread has significant attention devoted to discussing resources.)* 

This was motivated by looking at one of Gwern's self-experimentation posts and realizing that I wanted to be able to do that kind of [self-]experimental design + data analysis + visualization. This is my attempt to manifest that curriculum [plus many others] into being.
# Total compute available to evolution

I’m looking for estimates of the total compute available to evolution:

Total number of cell divisions

Total number of times a DNA nucleotide was transcribed to RNA

Total number of times an RNA codon was translated to an amino acid

Total number of base pairs in all genomes

Total entropy of the set of all genomes

I’d like to identify other significant sources of compute available to evolution (epigenome? lateral gene transfer? interspecies communication?) and how to quantify them.

I’m looking for estimates of total compute over all 4 billion years of Earth life, and also how compute varied with time.

Grateful for any leads!
# Uncontroversially good legislation

Say you’re fortuitously seated next to a senator, state assembly member, or city supervisor at a wedding. You’ve got to talk about something, so you figure it wouldn’t be rude to mention some legislative issue you’re passionate about. 

What would the legislation be? 

I’m curious about almost definitely good laws *that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents could all get behind*. This could be at the local, state, or federal level although it seems as though there might be more obvious reforms in smaller governments. (I searched around for this here and on EA forums and didn’t find any, but would love to know about any similar lists.)

Here’s a few I could think of. These are debatable and surely reflect my own biases and limited knowledge.

1.  **Price transparency:** Airlines are required by the [Full Fare Advertising rule](https://www.travellaw.com/page/dot-full-fare-advertising-rule) to show the all-in cost whenever they advertise prices. Why not the same for hotels and food delivery, where the price jumps at the last page from taxes and fees? This would better allow businesses to compete on price rather than deception.
2.  **Let us buy glasses:** We can’t buy glasses or contact lenses if our eye prescription is over 1-2 years old. This means that every 1-2 years, glasses-wearers need to pay $200 to optometrists for the slip of paper (and stinging eyeballs). Seems like it’s probably a racket and the benefit from detecting the odd eye cancer is outweighed by the costs, although see the debate [here](https://antone.geckotribe.com/alpha-gecko/the-great-contact-prescription-scam/). (Edit: it's actually not that hard to get around this, at least for glasses. Thanks [Dustin](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9fK9jSgTWJhcGYjbh/uncontroversially-good-legislation?commentId=Fsg6hhi7xBPmkzFTA).)
3.  **Tax filing in the US should be more automated:** This one is well-known (see [Planet Money episode](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero)) and seems like another case of common sense vs. lobbyists. (Speaking of Planet Money, another candidate is repealing the [Jones Act](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/27/553990861/episode-524-mr-jones-act).)

What are some others?
# Tips for productively using short (<30min) blocks of time

Here's a common situation I find myself in: it's 1:30pm and I have a commitment at 2pm. I'd like to spend the next 30 minutes working, but all of the tasks I need to complete will take much more than 30 minutes to complete. I think to myself: "By the time I get set up to do this task (context switching etc), it will be basically time for my 2pm meeting, so I'll have mostly wasted the last 30 minutes."

My primary fix for this is reserving contiguous blocks in my schedule for deep work. However, I do not always have control over my schedule.

What are tips for effectively using short (<30min) blocks of time? 

(Feel free to redefine "short" if you perceive "short" in a different way.)
# No Abstraction Without a Goal

* Abstractions are important.
    * In order to think in terms of "trees" and "birds" instead of raw retinal activation rates, human minds need to form abstractions.
    * In order to keep Nature red in tooth and claw, organisms must first [evolve abstractions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JBFHzfPkXHB2XfDGj/evolution-of-modularity) like "tooth" and "claw".
    * [Neural networks can learn human abstractions](https://distill.pub/2021/multimodal-neurons/).
    * Figuring out abstraction is possibly "[the main foundational piece](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3L46WGauGpr7nYubu/the-plan#Why_so_much_focus_on_abstraction_s)" of successful AI alignment.
* Abstractions are functions that map a high-dimensional space to a low-dimensional space. They have more possible inputs than possible outputs, so abstractions have to shed _some_ information.
* Abstractions filter out useless information, while keeping useful information.
* In order for there to be such a thing as "useful information", there must be some goal(s) being pursued.

You might argue that "abstraction" only means preserving information used to predict [faraway](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vDGvHBDuMtcPd8Lks/public-static-what-is-abstraction#Information_About_Things__Far_Away_) observations from a given system. However, coarse modeling of distant objects is often a convergent subgoal of the kind of organisms that Nature selects for. 

The scout does not tell the general about the bluejays he saw. He reports the number of bombers in the enemy's hangar. Condensation of information always selects for goal-relevant information. Any condensation of information implies that the omitted information is less goal-relevant than the reported information; there is no abstraction without a goal.
# Calibration proverbs

*Cross-post from* [*Telescopic Turnip*](https://malmesbury.substack.com/p/calibration-proverbs).

Every problem is a calibration problem. That’s why most advice is basically useless: it tells you what to do, but doesn’t tell you when to stop. Therefore, the best pieces of advice are calibration  advice. What we need is a metric to know if we are doing well, or if we should change our habits (and in which direction). For example, here are two poor pieces of advice:

"You should spend more time reading blogs, because compared to traditional media, bloggers have more freedom to communicate in original ways, and are more accountable when they say something false."

"You should spend less time reading blogs, because keeping up with a big pile of subscriptions takes a lot of time and makes you anxious."

Neither of these is really useful. Instead, we can produce one piece of calibration advice:

"After catching up with your backlog of blog posts, ask yourself what you remember out of it. If you can’t say what half of the posts were about, you should probably clean up your subscriptions."

Of course, that doesn’t sound like the timeless advice my grandmother received from her grandmother. To make it compelling, we need to [make it rhyme](https://doi.org/10.1111%2F1467-9280.00282):

"Before you subscribe to another blog,   
check what you took home from your backlog."

Now *that* sounds like ancient wisdom. 

Thereafter is my humble attempt at writing calibration proverbs. As a non-native, English’s pronunciation is still a mystery to me, so the rhymes might be a bit wonky. Anyways, may these proverbs contribute to making 2022 a better year than 2021.

"He who thinks a claim by evidence is backed,   
can he predict the effect size just from the abstract?"

"Only when you leave a long conversation,   
you can tell if it warranted [your apprehension](https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2661596/volumes/v47/NA-48)."

"If you don’t enjoy the taste of tea,   
seek how to [infuse it properly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103)."

"Always check for bikes when you get out of your car.   
Always."

"When checking the source teaches you something new,   
the source of the source you should check too."

"One hour with your kids is worth two hours online,   
according to [Han et al twenty twenty one](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3931340)."

"Man whose roommates wear t-shirts in winter,   
would better calm down with the goddamn heater."

What other calibration proverbs should we transmit to our grandchildren?

* * *

*Thanks to Justis for the proofreading and rhyme consulting.*
# Value extrapolation partially resolves symbol grounding

Take the following AI, trained on videos of happy humans:

![](https://www.dropbox.com/s/087ft0l1w2p9n32/wire_head_multiple_rewards.png?raw=1)


Since we know about [AI wireheading](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vXzM5L6njDZSf4Ftk/defining-ai-wireheading), we know that there are at least two ways the AI could interpret its reward function[^simp]: either we want it to make more happy humans (or more humans happy); call this $R_1$. Or we want it to make more videos of happy humans; call this $R_2$.

[^simp]: This is a massive over-simplification of what would be needed to define "happy" or anything similar.

We would want the AI to learn to maximise $R_1$, of course. But even without that, if it [generates $R_1$ as a candidate](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/xujLGRKFLKsPCTimd/p/oCWk8QpjgyqbFHKtK) and [applies a suitable diminishing return to all its reward functions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EFZ64igiNNwiLHaYk/bayesianism-versus-conservatism-versus-goodhart), then we will have a positive outcome - the AI may fill the universe with videos of happy humans, but it will also act to make us happy.

Thus solving value extrapolation will solve symbol grounding, at least in part.
# Political Office for Beginners?

If an American citizen was looking to run for office (from local, state, all the way to federal), what would be the recommended steps to take?  
  
Specific questions that come to mind:  
\* How would a Millennial or Gen Z'er deal with existing social media accounts?  
\* How would a Gen X'er or Boomer create and navigate social media accounts and advertising?  
\* Where and how would the first $10,000 do the greatest good? First $100,000? Etc.  
\* Are there political grants/party grants/etc. available in the United States for less-funded campaigns?  
\* When should a citizen start campaigning for an election?  
\* Where and how would the first 100 hours do the greatest good? First 1,000? Etc.
# Paper claims: "Rationality" flavored words rose since 1850, began declining ~1980

*Epistemic status: found the link, thought it was kinda interesting, mostly kicking off discussion. *

This article felt somewhat related to "[Have Epistemic Conditions Always Been This Bad](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PjfsbKrK5MnJDDoFr/have-epistemic-conditions-always-been-this-bad)?", and the question of whether humanity was (briefly) in a golden age of epistemics.

> Analyzing language from millions of books, the researchers found that words associated with reasoning, such as "determine" and "conclusion," rose systematically beginning in 1850, while words related to human experience such as "feel" and "believe" declined. This pattern has reversed over the past 40 years, paralleled by a shift from a collectivistic to an individualistic focus as reflected by the ratio of singular to plural pronouns such as "I"/"we."

Original paper here: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/51/e2107848118
# Do you want quadratic voting in the Final Voting Phase?

For the 2020 Review, people have continued using the 7-point preliminary voting option throughout the Review Phase. I've personally found it fairly satisfying to use. I'm considering whether to add back the "fine-tuned quadratic voting" option from previous years in the Final Voting Phase.

I currently am mostly happy to leave it as-is (i.e. just use the 7-button voting system the entire time). The extra complexity cost of a separate voting system doesn't seem worth it. But I'm interested in hearing from anyone who wanted to make a strong bid (or, even a weak desire) for a return to the original system.

Some facts about how the current system is playing out:

*   175 users have voted at all. 112 have cast at least 2 votes. 73 have cast 5+ votes.
*   The system doesn't let you know how many "points" you've spent, and most users have spent a lot less than their allotted 500 points (which are getting spent 'under the hood')
*   There are not very many downvotes.

My personal take is:

*   It's fine for many users to just be voting on a few posts they have an opinion on, rather than "maxing out their ballot."
*   I feel like when I look at the raw votes, they feel like they capture people actually voting how good they thought each post was, which makes them a more useful signal of how people felt about it (by contrast, last year the votes felt more like an arbitrary sorting signal, at least to me)
*   If I were starting over, I'd probably only have one "negative" vote option (which I'd set to -4) rather than 3 options.
    *   Not enough people are using the negative options to justify the 3 extra buttons.
    *   Having the "downvote" option be set to -4 (which costs 10 points), also removes the incentive to downvote everything you don't like to -1 (which is often a cheaper way to boost the relative values of posts you do like, but which makes "downvotes" a more confusing signal).
*   Meanwhile, if I were starting over, I might prefer to have an extra positive option. Right now most of my votes are "4s", but I'd kinda like to be able to signal two gradations of "medium post", and reserve 9s for "actually massively important."
*   (The previous two ideas probably aren't worth the complexity cost of switching-mid-stream this year, but my current guess is that I should implement them for next year)

Curious what other people think.
# I have COVID, for how long should I isolate?

Case was relatively mild, and I'm feeling a lot better now (day 5), though I still have the sniffles and minor fatigue. I tested negative last week and positive this week via PCR, so I'm pretty confident this was COVID and not an unrelated illness. I live in the US, where CDC guidelines now say I can go into public spaces if my symptoms are "resolving" and I wear a mask, though this feels a little permissive given the requirements of other countries. It's unlikely I will be able to get an antigen test result back before day 10. I'm fully vaccinated and boosted with pfizer as of ~3 months ago. I'm having trouble finding high quality research on infectiousness over time. What do you think is a reasonable amount of time to wait (possibly conditional on symptoms) to do the following? None are essential to my basic needs. I will probably do the median of what the community recommends if it seems well supported.

*   Attend an outdoor event masked where I might be <6ft away from others. 
*   Go to a grocery store masked at off-peak hours
*   Ride a bus masked
*   Eat indoors at a crowded restaurant.
# How to tradeoff utility and agency?

I'm slowly working through a bunch of philosophical criticisms of consequentialism and utilitarianism, kicked off by this book: [https://www.routledge.com/Risk-Philosophical-Perspectives/Lewens/p/book/9780415422840](https://www.routledge.com/Risk-Philosophical-Perspectives/Lewens/p/book/9780415422840) (which I don't think is good enough to actually recommend)

One common thread is complaints about utilitarianism and consequentialism giving incorrect answers in specific cases.  One is the topic of this question: When evaluating potential harms, how can we decide between a potential harm that's the result of someone's agency (their own beliefs, decisions, and actions) vs a potential harm from an outside source (e.g. imposed by the state)?

I'm open to gedanken experiments to illustrate this, but for now I'll use something dumb and simple.  You can save one of two people; saving them means getting them 100% protection from this specific potential harm, all else being equal.

*   Person A has entered into a risky position by their own actions, after deciding to do so based on their beliefs.  They are currently at a 10% chance of death (with the remainder 90% nothing happens).
*   Person B has been forced into a risk position by their state, which they were born into and have not been allowed to leave.  They are currently at X% chance of death (with the remainder nothing happens).

Assume that Persons A and B have approximately the same utility ahead of the (QALYs, etc).  The point of the question is to specifically quantifiably find a ratio to tradeoff between agency and utility (in this case mortality).

**For what values of X would you chose to save Person B?**

I'm interested in things like natural experiments would would show how current decision systems or philosophies answer this question.  I am also interested in peoples personal takes.