trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People
by lionhearted (Sebastian Marshall) — 2010-12-01T08:25:47.450Z

Related to: Rationalists Should Win, Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate, Can Humanism Match Religion's Output?, Humans Are Not Automatically Strategic, Paul Graham's "Why Nerds Are Unpopular"

The "Prisoner's Dilemma" refers to a game theory problem developed in the 1950's. Two prisoners are taken and interrogated separately. If either of them confesses and betrays the other person - "defecting" - they'll receive a reduced sentence, and their partner will get a greater sentence. However, if both defect, then they'll both receive higher sentences than if neither of them confessed.

This brings the prisoner to a strange problem. The best solution individually is to defect. But if both take the individually best solution, then they'll be worst off overall. This has wide ranging implications for international relations, negotiation, politics, and many other fields.

Members of LessWrong are incredibly smart people who tend to like game theory, and debate and explore and try to understand problems like this. But, does knowing game theory actually make you more effective in real life?

I think the answer is yes, with a caveat - you need the basic social skills to implement your game theory solution. The worst-case scenario in an interrogation would be to "defect by accident" - meaning that you'd just blurt out something stupidly because you didn't think it through before speaking. This might result in you and your partner both receiving higher sentences... a very bad situation. Game theory doesn't take over until basic skill conditions are met, so that you could actually execute any plan you come up with.

The Purpose of This Post: I think many smart people "defect" by accident. I don't mean in serious situations like a police investigation. I mean in casual, everyday situations, where they tweak and upset people around them by accident, due to a lack of reflection of desired outcomes.

Rationalists should win. Defecting by accident frequently results in losing. Let's examine this phenomenon, and ideally work to improve it.

Contents Of This Post

I'll define "defecting by accident."
I'll explain a common outcome of defecting by accident.
I'll give some recent, mild examples of accidental defections.
I'll give examples of how to turn accidental d

...
Aspie toy: the Neocube
by cousin_it — 2010-12-01T07:18:52.929Z

This post is going to sound like an ad. Sorry about that. I'm not affiliated, etc, etc.

Last Friday I bought a very simple toy: a set of 216 little magnetic metal balls, about the size of ball bearings. Since then I've been completely entranced by it and unable to put the thing down. Here's a Flickr group to show what I mean. The little balls seem to want to come together in symmetrical patterns: you can make square and hexagonal flat patches, curved patches with 3/4/5/6-fold symmetry, stable 3D cubic lattices, fcc and hcp lattices and many hollow and solid polyhedra. So far I've managed to make a tetrahedron, two varieties of cube (1, 2), an octahedron, an icosahedron, and other stuff (my current favorite shape is the solid truncated octahedron). It's like crack for the right type of person.

And there's the rub. Carrying this toy around and showing it to my friends has made me realize with forgotten clarity that I'm special. Practically no one reacts to it the same way as me. The word "aspie" has been uttered, half in jest, half seriously. Even though my intelligence may be pretty average (judging by online tests I have lower IQ than most LW regulars), I seem to have this rare natural ability to get deeply interested in things that "normal" people find boring.

This ability... this instinctive desire to tinker with symmetrical patterns... has shaped my entire life by now, because it's what first attracted me to math and then programming. But how could it ever be environmental, if I remember having it since my earliest childhood? Is it genetic? Is math success genetic, then? What do you think?
Broken window fallacy and economic illiteracy.
by Desrtopa — 2010-12-01T04:48:12.618Z

Some time ago, I had a talk with my father where I explained to him the concept of the broken window fallacy. The idea was completely novel to him, and while it didn't take long for him to grasp the principles, he still needed my help in coming up with examples of ways that it applies to the market in the real world.

My father has an MBA from Columbia University and has held VP positions at multiple marketing firms.

I am not remotely expert on economics; I do not even consider myself an aficionado. But it has frequently been my observation that not just average citizens, but people whose positions have given them every reason to learn and use the information, are critically ignorant of basic economic principles. It feels like watching engineers try to produce functional designs based on Aristotelian physics. You cannot rationally pursue self interest when your map does not correspond to the territory.

I suppose the worst thing for me to hear at this point is that there is some reason with which I am not yet familiar which prevents this from having grand scale detrimental effects on the economy, since it would imply that businesses cannot be made more sane by the increased dissemination of basic economic information. Otherwise, this seems like a fairly important avenue to address, since the basic standards for economic education, in educated businesspeople and the general public, are so low that I doubt the educational system has even begun to climb the slope of diminishing returns on effort invested into it.
The Boundaries of Biases
by Vaniver — 2010-12-01T00:43:02.154Z

Thinking about meta-contrarianism and biases (among other things), I came to the following question:

When are biases a good thing?

Since the caution too important to leave to the conclusion, I'm going to put it before I give an answer, even though the flow will be fudged as a result. In Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (a book I strongly recommend), Bishop and Trout talk a lot about statistical prediction rules, where linear regressions on data often outperform human experts. One of the findings they discussed was that not only did experts have lower accuracy than the statistically generated rules, when given the result of the rule and the option to defect from its prediction they were much more likely to chose to defect when the rule was right and they were wrong than the other way around. So, for almost all of the experts, the best choice was "stick to the rule, even if you think it's wrong." Likewise, even if you've got a long explanation as to why your action isn't biased and how this is a good idea just this once, you should stick to the rule.

But there's still something very important to keep in mind: rules have domains in which they apply. "Do as the Romans do" has the domain of "when in Rome." Even if the rule is a black box, such that you do not understand how it created its outputs given its inputs, you can trust the outputs so long as you know which inputs are appropriate for that box. Sticking to the behavior of other Romans will make you fit in better, even if you're not socially aware enough to notice differences in how much you fit in. But if you're in Japan, "do as the Romans do" is bad advice.

When you know how the rule works- when you're at level 2 or 3 understanding- then you can probably look at a rule and decide if it's appropriate in that circumstance, because you can see what determines the domain of the rule. When you understand the proverb, you know it really means "When in X, do as the residents of X do", and then you can pretty easily figure out that "do as the Romans do" only fits when you're in Rome. But, as we can see with this toy example, pushing these boundaries helps you understand the rule- "why is it a bad idea to do what the Romans do in Japan?"

On that note, let's return to our original question. When are biases a good thing?

Someone who likes to capitalize the word Truth would probably instantly reply "never!...
Public rationality
by NancyLebovitz — 2010-11-30T22:50:51.939Z

I'm going to list some moderately well-known people who strike me as unusually rational. They aren't "rationalists" in the sense that they don't generally explicitly talk about rationality.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi run a web site and talk radio show about car repair. They have a repetitious sense of humor, but if you look past that, you see that they have a very wide body of knowledge (and sometime, we should talk about how much detailed knowledge is worth acquiring so that you have something to be rational with), publicly display the process of testing hypotheses, and get in touch with people they've given advice to later to find out whether the advice worked. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Ta Nehisi Coates writes a politics and culture blog for The Atlantic. He's notable for trying to see how everyone is doing what makes sense to them-- rather a difficult thing when you're taking on the mind-killer subjects.

Atul Gawande writes books and articles about the practice of medicine. It was particularly striking in his recent The Checklist Manifesto that when his checklists seemed to produce notable improvements in surgical outcomes, his first reaction was concern that there was something wrong with the experiment rather than delight that he'd been proven correct.

Any other recommendations?
Convincing An Illogical Being
by falenas108 — 2010-11-30T22:08:39.540Z

There is a person who rejects logic as a valid way of making decisions. This person is perfectly capable of understanding logical arguments, but chooses to reject them.

Is there any way to convince this person that logic is not necessarily a bad thing?

The reason I bring this up is that there is a significant percentage of the population who thinks that using logic is bad, and thinks that they will make better decisions simply by relying on emotions. I think we should clarify if there is anything we as a community could say to these people to help them accept the idea of logic.

Trying to convince them using purely logical methods would not work, as they reject logic. The idea is similar to that of trying to prove that a system of mathematics works without using math. I believe that the proof for this is looking at the real world, and seeing the results math predicts.

The obvious application would be to show how using logic has better results than going by pure emotions. However, doing that would also seem like a logical argument, and would most likely also get rejected. Is succeeding at swaying such an individual even possible?
Where are other places to meet rationality-minded people?
by InquilineKea — 2010-11-30T09:55:27.904Z

This thread can be seen as a continuation of a previous thread (http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/33u/theoretical_target_audience_size_of_less_wrong/). I felt the need to make a new thread since this post is long and also since it is more targeted. This may help us further achieve our goals as well. EDIT: http://www.google.com/search?q=related%3Alesswrong.com is actually one of the best places to find people in the LW demographic.

Now, I'll say this - I much prefer LessWrong to other hangouts for those who are focused on rationality. But of course, posts here must be of fairly high quality (for good reasons), and some rationality-minded people may want to continue talking with other rationality-minded people in less formal settings (such as chatroom or forum settings). So that's a good reason to think about other communities too (and in addition, it can attract new visitors to our community). These communities do not necessarily have to have a focus on rationality - rather - they should just have a population of rationality-focused individuals who are not afraid to speak out.

Now, part of the strategy that we often have to use is to find the rationality-focused people in a sea of people who don't care much about rationality. So I've been always thought a lot about the demographics of each community I've joined. Most people in local gifted programs, for example, don't seem to be very interested in rationality (although it seems that interest in rationality does seem to increase with age).There are some real-life venues for meeting similar people, but it's often a lot harder since almost all rationality groups are online (and it's far easier to attract attention to low-popularity topics online). College, for example, seems to be a difficult place to locate rationality-minded individuals, unless the college has an online discussion with a significant portion of the population participating. Sometimes, facebook groups have been an excellent substitute for college, as long as the facebook groups have an audience of a large portion of the college population. Normally, this only works for smaller populations since Facebook's interface is not good for handling large groups (I've seen the Caltech freshman facebook groups, which I've really liked, but unfortunately, I go to a state university rather than Caltech).

There are numerous online venues for finding people: I...
Unsolved Problems in Philosophy Part 1: The Liar's Paradox
by Kevin — 2010-11-30T08:56:51.279Z

Graham Priest discusses The Liar's Paradox for a NY Times blog. It seems that one way of solving the Liar's Paradox is defining dialethei, a true contradiction. Less Wrong, can you do what modern philosophers have failed to do and solve or successfully dissolve the Liar's Paradox? This doesn't seem nearly as hard as solving free will.

This post is a practice problem for what may become a sequence on unsolved problems in philosophy.
The necklaces are known basically for their deep faith based connotations. 
by beautifuljewelry — 2010-11-30T03:37:13.326Z

The jewelry are known generally for their deep faith based connotations. They are put on around the neck while protective pandora 2010 versus evil powers and many types of dangers. They are also extremely necessary for fashion make-up. Nonetheless, most women use them either for fashion so that as charms. The pendants are also known as things of attraction.
They might attract good fortune, success,Tiffany Pendants, luck and also other goodies to you with them regularly. Underneath normal circumstances, you will find proper behavioral habits expected from those who wear the. For example, the pandora sale are certainly not to be worn with a clothing piece and also attire. You can￥t stash them under your outfit rather; you have to keep the exposed around your neck especially when you wear any of them a quality Buddha necklace. Again, you￥re not expected to visit inappropriate locations whilst wearing the chains especially the ones that will bear the Buddha image.
In all, Buddha pendants are generally unique Pandora Bangles items you can always go for. These people not only boost your style appearance; rather,Tiffany Necklace sale, they also serve you as protective amulets.
Does TDT pay in Counterfactual Mugging?
by Bongo — 2010-11-29T21:31:36.631Z

On one hand, this old article said TDT doesn't pay. On the other hand, I imagine TDT not paying would be a slam-dunk argument for favoring UDT, which pays, and I haven't seen people make that argument. So I'm confused here. Thanks.

Edit: this wiki page explains all the jargon
Blood Feud 2.0
by Strange7 — 2010-11-29T14:12:15.156Z

I've been thinking about the idea of culpability.

What is it for, exactly? Why did societies that use the concept win out over those who stuck with the default response of not assigning any particular emotional significance to a given intangible abstraction?

If I'm understanding correctly, a given person can be said to be responsible for a given event if and only if a different decision on the part of that person (at some point prior to the event) would be a necessary condition for the event to have not occurred. So, in a code of laws, statements along the lines of "When X happens, find the person responsible and punish them" act as an incentive to avoid becoming 'the person responsible,' that is, to put some effort into recognizing when a situation where your actions might lead to negative externalities, and to make the decision that won't result in someone, somewhere down the line, getting angry enough to hunt you down and burn you alive.

A person cannot be said to be culpable if they had no choice in the matter, or if they had no way of knowing the full consequences of whatever choice they did have. Recklessness is punished less severely than premeditation, and being provably, irresistably coerced into something is hardly punished at all. The causal chain must be traced back to the most recent point where it was sensitive to a conscious decision in a mind capable of considering the law, because that's the only point where distant deterrence or encouragement could have an effect.

"Ignorance is no excuse" because if it were, any halfway-competent criminal could cultivate scrupulous unawareness and be untouchable, but people think it should be an excuse because the law needs to be predictable to work. Same reason punishing someone for doing what was legal at the time doesn't make sense, except as a power-play.

So, let's say you're a tribal hominid, having just figured out all the above in one of those incommunicable, unrepeatable flashes of brilliance. How do you go about implementing it? With limited resources, you can't implement it widely enough to benefit everyone in the known world, even if you wanted to. You can't lay down a written code of laws because standardized writing hasn't even been invented yet, and you can't trust the whole tribe to carry on an oral tradition because you can barely trust half of them not to stab you in the back when you catc...
Individuals angry with humanity as a possible existential risk?
by InquilineKea — 2010-11-29T09:13:54.335Z

Basically, as technology improves, it will increase the ability of any individual human to change the world, and by extension, it will increase any individual's ability to inflict more significant damage on it, if they so desire. This could be significant in the case of individuals who are especially angry with the world, and who want to take others down with them (e.g. the Columbine shooters, the Unabomber to an extent)

Now, the thing is this - what if someone angry at the world ultimately developed the means to annihilate the world at his own will? (or to cause massive destruction?) Certainly, this has not happened yet, but it's a possibility with improved technology (especially an improved ability to bioengineer viruses and various nanoparticles). Now, one of the biggest constraints to this is lack of resources (available to an individual). But of course, with the development of nanotechnology (and the use of fewer resources used to construct certain things, and other developments such as the substitution of carbon tubes for other materials), this may not be as much of a constraint as it is now. We could improve monitoring, but this would obviously present a threat to civil liberties. (This is not an argument against technology - I'm a transhumanist after all, and I completely embrace technological developments. But this is something I've never seen a good solution to) Of course, reducing the number of angry individuals would also reduce the probability of this happening. This demands an understanding of psychology (especially the psychologies of people who are self-centered, don't like it when they have to compromise, and who collect grudges very easily). And then a creative way to make them less angry (but this is quite difficult, which is why the creativity is needed). especially since many people get angry at the very thought of compromise. So has anyone else thought of this? And of possible solutions?
On Lottery Tickets
by SeventhNadir — 2010-11-29T08:21:16.743Z

I've often seen the issue of lottery tickets crop up on LessWrong and the consensus seems to be that the behaviour is irrational. It highlights for me a confusion that I've had about what it means for something to be "rational" and I'm seeking clarification. I think it might be useful to break the term down into the distinction I learnt about here, epistemic and instrumental rationality.

Epistemic rationality - This seems to be the most common failure of people who play the lottery. It might be an overt failure of probabilistic reasoning like someone believing their chances of winning to be 50-50 because they can imagine two potential outcome. Maybe they believe that they're "due" to win some money as they commit "the gamblers fallacy". Or it might be a more subtle failure resulting from correct knowledge of probability, but a fundamental inability to represent that number we call "scope insensitivity". I think in the cases where these errors are committed, no-one would argue that these people are being "rational".

However, what if someone had a perfect knowledge of the probabilities involved? If this person bought a lottery ticket would we still consider this a failure of epistemic rationality? You might say that anyone with perfect information of these probabilities would know that lottery tickets are poor financial investments, but we're not talking about instrumental rationality just yet.

Instrumental rationality - Now we're talking about it. The criteria for rationality in this case is, acting in a way that achieves your goals. If your goals in buying a lottery ticket are as one dimensional as making money, then the lottery is a (very) poor investment and I don't think anyone else would disagree. Here is where I start getting confused though, because what happens when a lottery ticket satisfies goals other than financial gain? It is conceivable that I could get more than $5's worth (here meaning my subjective and relative sense of what money is worth) of entertainment out of a $5 lottery ticket. What happens here? I hope you can see the more general problem that arises if you'd answer "It's still instrumentally irrational".

I'm not arguing that the lottery is a good idea or that it's socially desirable. I think that it does tend to drain capitol from the people that can least afford it. If you've argued the idea of the lottery to death, pick a different exa...