Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Plant Seeds of Rationality

After his wife died, Elzéard Bouffier decided to cultivate a forest in a desolate, treeless valley. He built small dams along the side of the nearby mountain, thus creating new streams that ran down into the valley. Then, he planted one seed at a time.

After four decades of steady work, the valley throbbed with life. You could hear the buzzing of bees and the tweeting of birds. Thousands of people moved to the valley to enjoy nature at its finest. The government assumed the regrowth was a strange natural phenomenon, and the valley's inhabitants were unaware that their happiness was due to the selfless deeds of one man.

This is [The Man Who Planted Trees](http://home.infomaniak.ch/arboretum/Man_Tree.htm), a popular inspirational tale.

But it's not just a tale. Abdul Kareem [cultivated a forest](http://web.archive.org/web/20071019045414/http://forests.org/archive/asia/indfor.htm) on a once-desolate stretch of [32 acres](http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/inspirational/abdulKareem.html) along India's West Coast, planting one seed at a time. It took _him_ only _twenty_ years. 

Like trees in the ground, rationality does not grow in the mind overnight. [Cultivating rationality](/lw/1e/raising_the_sanity_waterline/) requires care and persistence, and there are many [obstacles](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Biases). You probably won't bring someone from average (ir)rationality to [technical rationality](http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=12147) in a fortnight. But you can plant seeds.

You can politely ask rationalist questions when someone says something irrational. Don't forget to smile!

You can write letters to the editor of your local newspaper to correct faulty reasoning.

You can visit random blogs, find an error in reasoning, offer a polite correction, and link back to a few relevant [Less Wrong posts](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong/All_articles).

One person planting seeds of rationality can make a difference, and we can do even better if we organize. An organization called [Trees for the Future](http://www.plant-trees.org/about/history.htm) has helped thousands of families in thousands of villages to plant more than [50 million trees](http://web.archive.org/web/20071014144728/http://www.plant-trees.org/about/history.htm) around the world. And when it comes to rationality, we can plant more seeds if we, for example, [support the spread of critical thinking classes](http://www.criticalthinking.org/) in schools.

Do you want to collaborate with others to help spread rationality on a mass scale?

You don't even need to figure out _how_ to do it. Just contact leaders who already know what to do, and volunteer your time and energy.

[Email](mailto:cct@criticalthinking.org) the Foundation for Critical Thinking and say, "How can I help?" [Email](mailto:louie.helm@intelligence.org) Louie Helm and sign up for the [Singularity Institute Volunteer Network](http://intelligence.org/aboutus/volunteer).

Change does not happen when people gather to talk about how much they suffer from [akrasia](/lw/1sm/akrasia_tactics_review/). Change happens when lots of individuals _organize_ to make change happen.
# Non-personal preferences of never-existed people

Some people see never-existed people as moral agents, and claim that we can talk about their preferences. Generally this means their personal preference in existing versus non-existing. Formulations such "it is better for someone to have existed than not" reflect this way of thinking.  
  
But if the preferences of never-existed are relevant, then their non-personal perferences are also relevant. Do they perfer a blue world or a pink one? Would they want us to change our political systems? Would they want us to not bring into existence some never-existent people they don't like?  
  
It seems that those who are advocating bringing never-existent people into being in order to satisfy those people's preferences should be focusing their attention on their non-personal preferences instead. After all, we can only bring into being so many trillions of trillions of trillions; but there is no theoretical limit to the number of never-existent people whose non-personal preferences we can satisfy. Just get some reasonable measure across the preferences of never-existent people, and see if there's anything that sticks out from the mass.
# Columbia University Meetup

During Eliezer's whirlwind tour of New York City recently, I met several rationalists who were also students at Columbia University. It seemed like it might be a good idea to start a club. While there is a NYC Less Wrong Meetup group, many students I know feel that it's a hassle to go downtown on a school night. 

To fix this problem, I'm founding a club for people of the rational persuasion at or near Columbia University in NYC. The first meeting will be:

**When**: This Sunday, March 13, at 2:30

**Where: **At Mel's Mel's Burger Bar, 2850 Broadway (and 111th St.).

Everyone is invited. There is no requirement that you be a student, grad student, faculty member or any such thing. If you're interested, comment or send me a private message. There's a fair sized rationality community in New York and we're having a lot of fun.

Join us.
# Consulting Opportunity for Budding Econometricians

As a part of my job, I recently created an econometric model. My boss wants someone to look over the math before its submitted internally throughout the company. We have a modest amount of money set aside for someone to audit the process.

The model is an ARMA(2,1) with seasonality, trend, and a dummy variable. There's no heteroscedasticity or serial correlation, but the Ramsey Reset test suggests a more different model might work better.

I currently have the data in an eviews file, so you'd need to do zero data entry.

There's a small chance this will be used in court, but none of the liability will be transferred to you. There should be an emphasis placed on parsimony. You'd have to sign a confidentiality agreement.

If you're qualified to review this/suggest a marginally better model, then this would be an easy way for you to make bank in a couple hours time. If it goes well, there might be more work like this in the future.

Let me know if you're interested.
# What other causes are relevant to LessWrong?

This post is prompted by a [short discussion](/lw/ye/and_say_no_more_of_it/3o9e?context=3) with Wei Dai. He says:

Perhaps we should get other causes to participate/recruit on LW? Actually, why aren't they here already? We have a bunch of individuals with non-SIAI interests, but no _causes_ other than SIAI, despite Eliezer repeatedly saying that they would be welcome.

He has a good point!

Here's my plug, for the cause I spend lots of my time and energy on, Wikimedia/Wikipedia:

Wikipedia/Wikimedia is more analogous to a software project than an ordinary charity - your money is useful and most welcomed, but the real contribution is your _knowledge_.

Or, more generally: create educational material under a [free content licence](http://freedomdefined.org/Definition). If it's CC-by-sa, CC-by or public domain, it can interbreed and propagate.

(Then we need to fix the things wrong with the editor experience on Wikipedia ... though the Wikimedia Foundation is [paying serious attention to that as well](http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/March_2011_Update) of late. In the meantime, if you find Wikipedia too personally annoying to participate in directly, writing your own site and CC-by-sa'ing it [still helps a lot](http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2011/01/19/single-point-of-failure/).)

What good causes can you think of that are relevant to LessWrong and its community, that leverage effectiveness through rationality? (I'm thinking beyond just legally-blessed charities, right down to the "small circle of conspirators" level of trying together to get something done.) As well as SIAI, LW has previously had plugs for [GiveWell](/r/discussion/lw/4lb/is_givewellorg_the_best_charity_excluding_siai). What do _you_ spend _your_ time, effort and/or money on?
# Move meetups to the sidebar?

The number of meetup announcements on the main blog has been increasing. Though it's reasonable to try to get meetups high visibility to increase the chance that people who are nearby see the announcement, the posts themselves are content-free.

How difficult would it be to, instead of promoting meetup announcements, tag them "meetup" and put a "meetups" section in the sidebar, similar to "recent comments" or "recent posts"?
# What exactly IS the overpopulation argument (in regards to immortality)?

Periodically in discussions of cryonics and related issues, people bring up "the overpopulation argument, and the counterarguments that respond to it" without actually describing those arguments in detail. Overpopulation was a big concern of mine prior to exposure to anti-deathism. And so far, it still is. I have no philosophical problem with eliminating death, but it seems to me that getting rid of death BEFORE we eliminate all the other major problems facing humanity is going to make those problems much worse. Death is an enemy that should be vanquished, but it's not an enemy I'm prepared to destroy until I'm satisfied that we'll be able to handle the consequences.

If death is solved via uploads running at high speed, I'm not too concerned. (Still a little concerned, since computers still take up space, but the issue is close enough to negligible that I'm fine ignoring it).

If we're dealing with physical humans taking up physical space requiring physical resources, then I'm worried. Either we're growing exponentially, or we've eliminated childbirth, or we have strict rules in place about people who have children being willing to die. (The latter might work but modifying central aspects of the human life cycle that we are hard-wired to value seems.... challenging, to say the least)

The sense of I've gotten around here is that "exponential growth is okay, because Space is Big". Space certainly is big, and I imagine we could expand for a long time without running into conflict. But if there's even one other alien race who solves their problems the same way (expanding whenever they run out of space or resources), then eventually there's going to be conflict. And the longer we go BEFORE that conflict, the more human suffering it might entail. I'd prefer to have achieved equilibrium as a species beforehand. 

I want to expand into the universe, but I think we should do so out of \*curiosity\* rather than \*necessity.\* 

I assume there's been a lot of discussions about this and I don't want to rehash them. But if someone could summarize the issues at hand and explain what the community consensus is, I'd appreciate it. ("Community Consensus" might mean "there are a few dominant schools of thought here").

Edit: FAWS pointed out that as long as, on average, each person reproduces slightly less than once, growth will not continue exponentially. That's pretty much the answer I'm looking for. The logistics are still significant, but in the long run I think such a law would be enforcible. (Each person only gets to reproduce once, and some people will choose not to. I think there'd need to be an additional disincentive, because over the course of an immortal lifespan, people are likely to try out childrearing at \*some\* point).

I still think that the issues surrounding overpopulation should occupy at least as much of our attention as ending death (basically ensuring that people are given adequate resources to live healthy, productive lives).
# Rationalist Lord of the Rings fanfiction, newly translated from Russian

This may be old news to some people, especially the Russian speakers, but I didn't see an article about it here.

In 1999, Kirill Yeskov, a Russian paleontologist, wrote _The Last Ringbearer,_ a 270-page take on _Lord of the Rings_ from the point of view of a medic in Mordor's dying armies who is also a "skeptic and a rationalist."  In fact, Mordor represents the forces of reason in this retelling of the story.  As a Nazgúl (himself a former mathematician) explains, Mordor is "the little oasis of Reason in which your light-minded civilization had so comfortably nestled."  Barad-dur is "that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic."

The story has been newly translated and is [available](http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html) in free PDF form -- in English and the original Russian. There's a recent review from [Salon](http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2011/02/15/last_ringbearer) as well.
# Science Journalism and How To Present Probabilities [Link]

I just stumbled across [Language Log: Thou shalt not report odds ratios](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004767.html) (2007-07-30), HT [reddit/statistics](http://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/g1zt9/thou_shalt_not_report_odds_ratios_as_risk_ratios/):

> (…) this finding was widely reported in the media:(…)
> 
> “Doctors are only 60% as likely to order cardiac catheterization for women and blacks as for men and whites.”
> 
> Now let't try a little test of reading comprehension. The study found that the referral rate for white men was 90.6%. What was the referral rate for blacks and women?
> 
> If you're like most literate and numerate people, you'll calculate 60% of 90.6%, and come up with .6*.906 = .5436. So, you'll reason, the referral rate for blacks and women was about 54.4 %.
> 
> But in fact, what the study found was a referral rate for blacks and women of 84.7%.

This was a failure mode of pop-sci journalism which I was not aware of (if I would happen to know enough to understand real papers, I’d definitely value pop-sci at minus-whatever in the meantime…)

On a related note this article got me remembering [Understanding Uncertainty: 2845 ways to spin the Risk](http://understandinguncertainty.org/node/233), which argues that certain presentations bias the understanding of probabilities:

> Similarly people confronted with the statement “Cancer kills 2,414 people out of 10,000” rated cancer as more risky than those told “Cancer kills 24.14 people out of 100”. The potential influence of the size of the numerator and denominator is known as the 'ratio bias'.

I’d be quite interested if anybody could point me to further resources on good presentation of statistical facts (beside the normalization on one type of presentation), or on further pop-sci journalism failure modes.
# Visualizing Bayesian Inference [link]

[Galton Visualizing Bayesian Inference (article @ CHANCE)](http://chance.amstat.org/2011/02/galton/)

Excerpt:

> What does Bayes Theorem look like? I do not mean what does the formula—
> 
> [![](http://chance.amstat.org/files/2011/02/stigforumla.jpg "stigforumla")](http://chance.amstat.org/files/2011/02/stigforumla.jpg)
> 
> —look like; these days, every statistician knows that. I mean, how can we visualize the cognitive content of the theorem? What picture can we appeal to with the hope that any person curious about the theorem may look at it, and, after a bit of study say, “Why, that is clear—I can indeed see what is happening!”
> 
> Francis Galton could produce just such a picture; in fact, he built and operated a machine in 1877 that performs that calculation. But, despite having published the picture in Nature and the Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, he never referred to it again—and no reader seems to have appreciated what it could accomplish until recently.

Schematics for the machine and its algorithm can be found at the link. This is a really cool design, and maybe it can aid [Eliezer's](http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes) and [others'](http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=13156) efforts to help people understand Bayes' Theorem.
# Admit your ignorance

Reading [Being a teacher](/lw/4t1/being_a_teacher/) made me think about my experiences tutoring university students. I'm a PhD student, so my teaching currently consists of helping first year undergraduates on problem sheets. I think I'm reasonably good- I try to appreciate what difficulties they are having and anticipate them, by explaining what they are doing means, and approaching the problem in different ways.

One constant frustration I get though is that, having explained a problem to a particular student, the student will give me a blank look, and then mutter "ok". I know what that look means, and will ask "so do you understand that?" "sort of...." "well look at it this way....".

Now some of this may come from me- I'm explaining too fast or in a way they don't understand, and my familiarity with the subject, but I suspect some comes from them. It can be difficult to admit one's ignorance, from my own experience. I, and I suspect others who go on to do university maths, was used to being the best or near the best in school, with "being smart" being part of my core identity, something that made me distinct from my more attractive or more fit peers. Getting to university and realising one is having difficulty with even basic questions can be a knock to ones identity. So I hid my ignorance, and did myself damage. I might lose the respect of a tutor, or even a lecturer by admitting my ignorance, but the alternative is to remain ignorant.

I suspect this is a problem that is common among us all. Its a lot easier to pretend we understand, and sometimes it may help- if we want to impress a potential employer we shouldn't admit ignorance (unless the alternative makes us look more ignorant)- but in general admitting ignorance helps us learn. There is (almost) always someone with more knowledge on a particular subject than you, and a failure to use that resource is a failure of rationality.
# The Friendly AI Game

At the recent London meet-up someone (I'm afraid I can't remember who) suggested that one might be able to solve the [Friendly AI](http://intelligence.org/ourresearch/publications/what-is-friendly-ai.html) problem by building an AI whose concerns are limited to some small geographical area, and which doesn't give two hoots about what happens outside that area. Cipergoth pointed out that this would probably result in the AI converting the rest of the universe into a factory to make its small area more awesome. In the process, he mentioned that you can make a "fun game" out of figuring out ways in which proposed utility functions for Friendly AIs can go horribly wrong. I propose that we play.

Here's the game: reply to this post with proposed utility functions, stated as formally or, at least, as accurately as you can manage; follow-up comments explain why a super-human intelligence built with that particular utility function would do things that turn out to be hideously undesirable.

There are three reasons I suggest playing this game. In descending order of importance, they are:

1.  It sounds like fun
2.  It might help to convince people that the Friendly AI problem is hard(*).
3.  We might actually come up with something that's better than anything anyone's thought of before, or something where the proof of Friendliness is within grasp - the solutions to difficult mathematical problems often look obvious in hindsight, and it surely can't hurt to try

DISCLAIMER (probably unnecessary, given the audience) - I think it is unlikely that anyone will manage to come up with a formally stated utility function for which none of us can figure out a way in which it could go hideously wrong. However, if they do so, this does NOT constitute a proof of Friendliness and I 100% do not endorse any attempt to implement an AI with said utility function.

(*) I'm slightly worried that it might have the opposite effect, as people build more and more complicated conjunctions of desires to overcome the objections that we've already seen, and start to think the problem comes down to nothing more than writing a long list of special cases but, on balance, I think that's likely to have less of an effect than just seeing how naive suggestions for Friendliness can be hideously broken.
# Suicide note of an LW user

It was User:pdf23ds. [Here](http://pdf23ds.net/2011/03/15/bye/)'s the note. Excerpt:

> I wish I could have been cryonically preserved. But suicides aren’t treated well enough for that. We get sectioned. I tried asking the cryonics places about options, but they wouldn’t talk to me. Fuck you, Alcor. Fuck you, CI. I might have lived except for you.
# Anki on Android in 60 seconds

[Spaced repetition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition) is one of the most efficient ways to learn new things. (For research citations, see 'Study methods', [here](/lw/3nn/scientific_selfhelp_the_state_of_our_knowledge/).)

The best way to practice spaced repetition is to install [Anki](http://ankisrs.net/) to your phone, since you have your phone with you all day long.

I have an Android phone, so here's my 60-second guide to getting started with Anki on Android:

1.  On your Android phone, open 'Market.'
2.  Search for 'Anki'.
3.  Install the 'AnkiDroid Flashcards' app.
4.  In your app drawer, run 'AnkiDroid'.
5.  It will prompt that you don't have any decks downloaded. Tap 'Download deck' and choose 'Shared decks.'
6.  It will take a while to bring up the list of decks available online. Search for 'Less Wrong' and you'll see the deck called 'Less Wrong Sequences.' Download it.
7.  Go back to the AnkiDroid main screen, choose 'Load other deck.' Choose 'Less Wrong Sequences.'
8.  Set your options for 'New cards per day', 'session limit (minutes)', and 'session limit (questions)', then tap 'Start Reviewing.'

That's it!

(This full process will take longer than 60 seconds because of download speed, but will probably require only 60 seconds of interaction with the phone.)
# Preschoolers learning to guess the teacher's password [link]

A [Slate article](http://www.slate.com/id/2288402/pagenum/all/#p2) by psychologist Alison Gopnik about how preschoolers have already learned to [accept what the teacher says](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Guessing_the_teacher%27s_password) rather than exploring things to develop their own understanding:

> \[...\] Daphna ran through the same nine sequences with all the children, but with one group, she acted as if she were clueless about the toy. ("Wow, look at this toy. I wonder how it works? Let's try this," she said.) With the other group, she acted like a teacher. ("Here's how my toy works.") When she acted clueless, many of the children figured out the most intelligent way of getting the toy to play music (performing just the two key actions, something Daphna had not demonstrated). But when Daphna acted like a teacher, the children imitated her exactly, rather than discovering the more intelligent and more novel two-action solution.
> 
> \[...\]
> 
> These experts in machine learning argue that learning from teachers first requires you to learn _about_ teachers. For example, if you know how teachers work, you tend to assume that they are trying to be informative. When the teacher in the tube-toy experiment doesn't go looking for hidden features inside the tubes, the learner unconsciously thinks: "She's a teacher. If there were something interesting in there, she would have showed it to me." These assumptions lead children to narrow in, and to consider just the specific information a teacher provides. Without a teacher present, children look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options.

This experiment is from:

D. Buchsbaum, A. Gopnik, T.L. Griffiths, and P. Shafto (2011). Children's imitation of causal action sequences is influenced by statistical and pedagogical evidence. _Cognition_ (in press). [pdf](http://www.alisongopnik.com/Papers_Alison/overimitation-journal-article-11-28-10.pdf)

The other paper cited in the Slate article is:

E. Bonawitz, P. Shafto, H. Gweon, N.D. Goodman, E. Spelke, and L. Schulz (2011). The double-edged sword of pedagogy: Instruction limits spontaneous exploration and discovery. _Cognition_ (in press). [pdf](http://web.mit.edu/eccl/papers/The%20double-edged%20sword%20of%20pedagogy.pdf)
# Sublimity vs. Youtube

The [torture vs. dust specks](/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/) quandary is a canonical one to LW.  Off the top of my head, I can't remember anyone suggesting the reversal, one where the arguments taken by the hypothetical are positive and not negative.  I'm curious about how it affects people's intuitions.  I call it - as the title indicates - "Sublimity vs. Youtube^1^".

Suppose the impending existence of some person who is going to live to be fifty years old whatever you do^2^.  She is liable to live a life that zeroes out on a utility scale: mediocre ups and less than shattering downs, overall an unremarkable span.  But if you choose "sublimity", she's instead going to live a life that is truly _sublime_.  She will have a warm and happy childhood enriched by loving relationships, full of learning and wonder and growth; she will mature into a merrily successful adult, pursuing meaningful projects and having varied, challenging fun.  (For the sake of argument, suppose that the ripple effects of her sublime life as it affects others still lead to the math tallying up as +(1 sublime life), instead of +(1 sublime life)+(various lovely consequences).)

Or you can choose "Youtube", and 3^^^3 people who weren't doing much with some one-second period of their lives instead get to spend that second watching a brief, grainy, yet droll recording of a cat jumping into a box, which they find mildly entertaining.

Sublimity or Youtube?

^1^The choice in my variant scenario of "watching a Youtube video" rather than some small-but-romanticized pleasure ("having a butterfly land on your finger, then fly away", for instance) is deliberate.  Dust specks are _really_ tiny, and there's not much automatic tendency to emotionally inflate them.  Hopefully Youtube videos are the reverse of that.

^2^I'm choosing to make it an alteration of a person who will exist either way to avoid questions about the utility of creating people, and for greater isomorphism with the "torture" option in the original.
# Omega and self-fulfilling prophecies

Omega appears to you in a puff of logic, and presents you with a closed box. "If you open this box you will find either nothing or a million dollars," Omega tells you, "and the contents will be yours to keep." "Great," you say, taking the box, "sounds like I can't lose!" "Not so fast," says Omega, "to get that possible million dollars you have to be in the right frame of mind. If you are at least 99% confident that there's a million dollars in the box, there will be. If you're less confident than that, it will be empty. I'm not predicting the state of your mind in advance this time, I'm reading it directly and teleporting the money in only if you have enough faith that it will be there. Take as long as you like."

Assume you believe Omega.  Can you believe the million dollars will be there, strongly enough that it will be?
# Happiness Engineering

On the same day that Lukeprog posted [How to be happy](/lw/4su/how_to_be_happy/), Scott Adams made a similar post on the Dilbert Blog, [Happiness Engineering](http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/happiness_engineering/).

I'm always skeptical when receiving life advice from successful people, because their advice is biased towards taking too much risk, because successful people are selected for having been lucky.  But Scott's list doesn't raise any red flags with me, and is admirably concise.
# What is wrong with mathematics education?

[This guy says](http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education.html "short TED lecture") that the problem is that high-school math education is structured to prepare people to learn calculus in their freshman year of college.  But only a small minority of students ever takes calculus, and an even smaller minority ever uses it.  And not many people ever make much use of pre-calc subjects like algebra, trig, or analytic geometry.

Instead, high-school math should be structured to prepare people to learn _statistics_.  Probability and basic statistics, he argues, are not only more generally useful than calculus, they are also more fun.

I have to agree with him.  What do the people here think?
# Singularity goes mainstream (in philosophy)

The journal (JCS) that published [Chalmers' article on the singularity](/lw/42l/david_chalmers_the_singularity_a_philosophical/) will be devoting an entire issue in January 2012 to responses to Chalmers' article. Authors who have agreed to contribute so far [include](http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2010/12/singularity-symposium.html) big names like Ned Block, Paul Churchland, Dan Dennett, Jesse Prinz, Drew McDermott, and Robert Sawyer. (Also, Kevin Kelly and Ray Kurzweil.)

JCS is also accepting submissions. See the last page of [this PDF](http://consc.net/papers/singularityjcs.pdf).
# Designing serious games - a request for help

We need some ideas for [serious games](/lw/4fp/fun_and_games_with_cognitive_biases/). Games that will help us be better. Games that reward us for improving ourselves (even if just by the satisfaction of seeing our scores improve). Games that will help us in our quest of [Tsoyoku Naritai](/lw/h8/tsuyoku_naritai_i_want_to_become_stronger/)

We've got an upcoming [hackday in London](/lw/4vu/project_ideas_for_the_london_hackday/) \- where we'll have a (small) bunch of people able to code up any good ideas into something usable... but we need \*\*you\*\* to help us come up with a whole bunch of good ideas. 

To start with, they should be simple ideas - not as complex as [Rationalist Clue](/lw/3o8/rationalist_clue/) (which is an awesome idea... but we all have dayjobs too). I've got in mind something like the kinds of games you see at [luminosity](http://www.lumosity.com/)

The ideas should address individual biases - a way of training us to: a) recognise when we've accidentally engaged a bias b) reward us when we find a way to get the "right answer" in an unbiased manner.

We can do the programming (more help would of course be welcome), we can even come up with some ideas of our own... 

but we are few, and you are many... and the more ideas we get, the better we can choose between them... so let's roll.
# Bayesian Methods Reading List

I'm reading [this](http://cocosci.berkeley.edu/tom/bayes.html) for fun -- tutorials and book recommendations on the Bayesian methods toolboox with a cognitive science/machine learning slant.   Comes from the Computational Cognitive Science Lab at Berkeley.  I recommend the general 2008 tutorial. 

Useful stuff included in tutorial:

Parameter estimation

Model selection

Why Occam's Razor emerges _naturally_ from the Conservation of Expected Evidence

Graphical models

Hierarchical Bayesian models
# The Heilmeier Questions

Funding agencies like DARPA encourage you to consider a list of questions to guide the development of a good proposal. These are often called the [Heilmeier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Heilmeier "Heilmeier") questions or Heilmeier catechism. I often look back at this checklist when starting a new research project; they provide good inspiration, but as I read LW, I realize they could use reworking. These are the original questions:

1.  What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
2.  How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
3.  What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
4.  Who cares?
5.  If you're successful, what difference will it make?
6.  What are the risks and the payoffs?
7.  How much will it cost?
8.  How long will it take?
9.  What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success?

The best question is number 3, which I've seen in a more effective form as "Why now and not last year or ten years ago?" This is a perfect outside view question that forces you to confront the possibility that there are lots of smart people around, none of them has done this, and there is probably some good reason for this. You should know the reason before you start, and reasons like "They weren't smart enough" or "They simply never thought about this topic" are probably incorrect.

1,5,6,9 are OK but vague. "What would success look like? Is that what I want?" is a question often overlooked, even for projects that are personally very important, like picking a career. When I asked myself this question in grad school, I found myself pushed towards changing fields.

The worst are 7 and 8, which should be "How much have projects like this one cost? How long have projects like this one taken?"

The usefulness of such catechisms is a delicate balancing act. The questions should be broad enough to apply to many situations, but specific enough to start a specific train of thought for each input problem. 

A proposed, simplified revision. I would love feedback.

**So you want to solve problem x using method y.**

1.  What difference would it make if you solved this problem? Is that what you want?
2.  Why hasn't someone already solved this problem? What makes you think what stopped them won't stop you?
3.  Are there sub-problems to x? Repeat 1 and 2 for these sub-problems.
4.  Are there other potential methods to solve this problem? If so, why are you considering y and not the others?
5.  Are there other implications to solving x that you haven't considered? If so, go back to 1.
6.  If y fails to solve x, what would that teach you that you (hopefully) didn't know at the beginning?
# Simple embodied cognition hacks

I've known that the mind can be affected by the body's actions, but I often forget this when sitting at my computer chair for long stretches, and when standing and interacting in social situations I've subconciously cultivated a passive, non-confrontational but minimally interactive posture.  But simple physical actions can act as a mild nootropic for certain situations.

Article with citations: [10 Simple Postures that Boost Performance](http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/03/10-simple-postures-that-boost-performance.php "10 Simple Postures that Boost Performance")

Article summary:

1\. Take a powerful pose to feel powerful

2\. Tense muscles for willpower

3\. Cross arms for persistence

4\. Lie down for insight

5\. Nap for cognitive performance, vigour and wakefulness

6\. Hand gestures for persuasion

7\. Gesture to self for comprehension and memory

8\. Smile for happiness

9\. Mimic to empathize

10\. Imitate for comprehension and prediction
# Folk theories can be useful even when they're entirely wrong

Here's an interesting but very old paper - [two theories of Heat Control](http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/1986v10/i01/p0075p0090/MAIN.PDF).

It discusses mental models of home heating systems (thermostats) non-experts use.

These models tend to be extremely wrong from theoretical perspective, but surprisingly useful in practice.

The findings are applicable to a much wider range of subjects than just thermostats, and have certain epistemological significance, especially with regard to compartmentalization.
# Link: Paul Graham on intelligence vs determination

Paul Graham of Y-Combinator on picking winners-at-life:  
[Paul Graham spills: Why some companies get his cash and others don't](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219377 "Paul Graham spills: Why some companies get his cash and others don't ")

> _**What's most essential for a successful startup?**  
> The founders. We've learned in the six years of doing Y Combinator to look at the founders--not the business ideas--because the earlier you invest, the more you're investing in the people. When Bill Gates was starting Microsoft, the idea that he had then involved a small-time microcomputer called the Altair. That didn't seem very promising, so you had to see that this 19-year-old kid was going places._
> 
> _**What do you look for?**  
> Determination. When we started, we thought we were looking for smart people, but it turned out that intelligence was not as important as we expected. If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination, you very quickly get an ineffectual and perpetual grad student._
# death-is-bad-ism going a little bit more mainstream?

So, apparently appsumo is having a custom reddit bundle, a bundle meant to appeal to redditors, and 10% of the proceeds get donated. On the surface, doesn't sound \_that\_ interesting, except...

Take a closer look: [http://appsumo.com/reddit-special-deal/](http://appsumo.com/reddit-special-deal/) and find that the recipient of the donations will be... SENS!

I find this to be an interesting development. It wasn't the "custom transhumanist bundle" or "the custom sens bundle" but "the custom reddit bundle". Yes, "reddit" doesn't, in and of itself, count as extremely mainstream as such, but I'd say it's still an interesting development.
# "If the race starts at X, I'll win"

I just found a brilliant metaphor in an [article](http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/03/ux-design-versus-ui-development.php) about programmers vs designers, here's the relevant quote:

> ...a mistake we sometimes make as UX Designers is that we believe, if the race starts at wireframing, we will win.

This looks like a new and unflattering lens through which to view my self-image. If I have good math skills but poor understanding of customers, then I'm smugly confident about winning "if the race starts at rigorous problem formulation". But of course the universe isn't so obliging, and the race always starts before you'd hoped it would! If you feel blocked today, can it be because you're an expert at some task but poor at its natural [complementary](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html) tasks?
# Constantly ask what you're currently doing that is irrational

At today's meetup in Tortuga, we were supposed to discuss something we're currently being irrational about.  In retrospect I could probably have done better than the item I picked (for example, it now occurs to me that I'm probably currently being irrational about bedtimes and sleep-cycle stuff)...

But the key point is that while straining my brain to think of something I was currently being irrational about, but _hadn't_ fixed yet, I noticed myself being irrational in _small_ ways too.

For example, I was sitting on the floor in a way that was beginning to strain my left thigh, but wasn't standing up and finding a chair...

So I stood up and found a chair.

I think it might be a valuable exercise to spend an hour practicing rationalist mindfulness, constantly asking yourself, "What am I currently doing that is not rational?" as though you had to find _something_ to fulfill your obligation to an LW meetup.
# LessWrong search traffic doubles

LessWrong search traffic doubles... **despite Google thinking our site is a pro-family pro-democracy astrology blog**! More on that in a minute.

First, The Good News: Since I started doing SEO on LessWrong (10 months ago) search traffic from Google has **doubled**! It took researching >200 different techniques -- actually implementing 14 of them (w/ help from [Tricycle](http://tricycledevelopments.com/)) \-\- 2 of which I think are responsible for most of the improvement:

*   Reversing titles (e.g., "Less Wrong - OMG Scholarship!" -> "OMG Scholarship! - Less Wrong")
*   No-Following / No-Indexing a complex set of duplicate content

The analytics make me believe that this improvement is due to structural changes and not just generally increased traffic. But it certainly hasn't hurt that people have been writing new content and that HP:MoR exists.

Anyway, I'm _really happy _about this! This was the explicit goal I set for myself 10 months ago. It's nice to achieve goals... especially unreasonably ambitious ones.

So... YAY!! :D

OK, Now, The Bad News: So I was trying to figure out why we never get any traction for search terms like "rationality" when I looked through Google Webmaster tools. This is what Google thinks our site is about, keyword wise:

| Keyword | Occurrences |
| --- | --- |
| **vote** | **196504** |
| **points** | **152881** |
| **permalink** | **95106** |
| **children** | **84578** |
| **parent** | **56374** |
| people | 37047 |
| it's | 27082 |
| **march** | **21846** |
| **february** | **21520** |
| **january** | **20425** |
| human | 19587 |
| **december** | **18005** |
| **september** | **15695** |
| **august** | **15667** |
| **password** | **15377** |
| **april** | **14714** |
| **october** | **14011** |
| seem | 12822 |
| **november** | **11546** |
| **july** | **11265** |
| **june** | **9283** |
| world | 8542 |
| **post** | **8496** |
| actual | 8251 |
| _probability_ | _8114_ |
| **child** | **7828** |
| moral | 7787 |
| work | 7143 |
| might | 6250 |
| new | 6156 |
| theory | 5827 |
| argument | 5639 |
| read | 5278 |
| utility | 5206 |
| account | 5002 |
| evident | 4777 |
| belief | 4749 |
| remember | 4691 |
| **recent** | **4584** |
| intelligent | 4582 |
| science | 4424 |
| eliezer | 4384 |
| doesn't | 4339 |
| _rationality_ | _4188_ |
| brain | 3969 |
| decision | 3904 |
| life | 3795 |
| **username** | **3732** |
| mind | 3721 |

All the keywords that I **bolded **are purely structural elements of the Less Wrong site layout. And it appears Google actually is punishing our site for this keyword density imbalance. Google really does think our site is about voting, parenting, and astrology. And while I find it somewhat hilarious that our top source of Google impressions (27,000/mo) is for the keyword "babies", I also lament that the keyword "rationality" is our #3955 source of traffic. We should invert this.

So does anyone have any ideas? How do other sites solve this problem?
# The null model of science

Jonah Lehrer wrote about the (surprising?) power of publication bias.

[http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa\_fact\_lehrer?currentPage=all](http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all)

Cosma Shalizi (I think) said something, or pointed to something, about the null model of science - what science would look like if there were no actual effects, just statistical anomalies that look good at first. I can't find the reference, though.
# Just letting alcoholics drink

["Wet houses"-- subsidized housing for alcoholics](http://www.twincities.com/ci_16774107?nclick_check=1) (they need to get most of their own money for alcohol, but their other expenses are covered) might actually be a good idea. It's cheaper than trying to get them to stop drinking, arguably kinder than trying to get people to take on a very hard task that they aren't interested in, and leads to less collateral damage than having alcoholics couch-surfing or living on the street.

Utilitarians, what do you think?
# Collapsible article sections?

It would be nice to be able to make 'collapsible sections' in articles, like on my [atheism FAQ](http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=3148). That way, each article with (for example) a long list of references at the bottom could by default have the references collapsed, but if you click 'References' then the list of references would appear. That way people wouldn't have to scroll past several pages of references in order to leave a comment. (Examples: [1](/lw/3nn/scientific_selfhelp_the_state_of_our_knowledge/), [2](/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/), [3](/lw/4su/how_to_be_happy/), [4](/lw/4yq/the_neuroscience_of_pleasure/), [5](/lw/3gv/statistical_prediction_rules_outperform_expert/).)

This suggestion is mostly just for me at this point, though, as I'm the only one doing long lists of references. But I figured I'd mention it anyway.
# Rationalist Movies (Spoilers for the film Limitless)

I just came back from the film Limitless. The movie contained a very interesting depiction of a character who gets an black market nootropic that works very well. It gives him perfect recall, perfect situational awareness, and the ability to figure out the best thing to say/do in real time. He uses this new power to finish his book, get back together with his girlfriend, become rich, and eventually become president of the united states. Incidentally he gets in shape, establishes himself as high status at top tier social events, learns many new languages, and sleeps with a bunch of women. In the end his new found intelligence leads him to happiness. The drama in the film comes from the fact that the drug has side effects, and there's a mobster who gets his hands on some and wants more. Intelligence is depicted as a fundamentally good thing. It's even described as "I knew what I wanted and I knew how to get it." He affirms several times (and the story agrees) that he's still himself on the drug, just more effective.
# HP:MoR Audio Book Pilot

Like far too many people, I have a job that for decent chunks of my day doesn't require much concentration. I listen to various podcasts and ebooks to alleviate the boredom at these times, as well as to get me through my daily commute. I have several friends with plenty of audio-listening time, a fair bit of which is given to amateur podcasts (in the "not getting paid for it" sense), who have much less time available for straight reading. I have, on more than one occasion, thought "Wouldn't it be great if Methods of Rationality was available in audio format?"

Well, now it is.

At least, the first chapter is, in a "testing the waters" sort of way.

If you have 17 minutes free and any interest, here's the file - http://www.filedropper.com/hpmorpilot

I have one over-riding question to anyone/everyone: is this of any value? Would this be useful to anyone here, either personally, or to share with others? Would a spruced-up first chapter, and regular production of further chapters, be something you want more of?

A closely-related follow-up question: if so - am I the right person to do this? Even "acceptable", I'm not shooting for perfection. Or is something about my voice/manner so grating I should stick to non-radio work.

If the answer to these is "yes", then are there any comments/suggestions? I'm new to this recording thing. I got a decent mic and a pop-filter, and I've played around with the software a bit, but I'm still learning. I have noticed that I need to enunciate more, it turns out my "can't win" sounds just like my "can win". Further suggestions? I'm thinking of varying my pitch when different characters are talking to make it more apparent when dialog is switching back and forth, hopefully that won't be too cheesy.

If people want more of this I'll get an actual server to host the files and make it available through iTunes as a podcast.

Again: http://www.filedropper.com/hpmorpilot
# Audio from Eliezer's talk at the Oxford Transhumanists

In January we hosted Eliezer at an Oxford Transhumanists meeting. He spoke about why AI is such an incredibly consequential consideration, over and above other technologies. This will not be new material for regular lesswrong readers. The recordings from Eliezer's talk, along with previous talks, are available at http://groupspaces.com/oxfordtranshumanists/pages/past-talks.