trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
The 12 Second Rule (i.e. think before answering) and other Epistemic Norms
by Raemon — 2016-09-05T23:08:43.138Z

Epistemic Status/Effort: I'm 85% confident this is a good idea, and that the broader idea is at least a good direction. Have gotten feedback from a few people and spend some time actively thinking through ramifications of it. Interested in more feedback.

TLDR:

1) When asking a group a question, i.e. "what do you think about X?", ask people to wait 12 seconds, to give each other time to think. If you notice someone else ask a question and people immediately answering, suggest people pause the conversation until people have had some time to think. (Probably specific mention "12 second rule" to give people a handy tag to remember)

2) In general, look for opportunities to improve or share social norms that'll help your community think more clearly, and show appreciation when others do so (i.e. "Epistemic Norms")

(this was originally conceived for the self-described "rationality" community, but I think is a good idea any group that'd like to improve their critical thinking as well as creativity.)
There are three reasons the 12-second rule seems important to me:

On an individual level, it makes it easier to think of the best answer, rather than going with your cached thought.

On the group level, it makes it easier to prevent anchoring/conformity/priming effects.

Also on the group level, it means that people take longer to think of answers get to practice actually thinking for themselves

If you're using it with people who aren't familiar with it, make sure to briefly summarize what you're doing and why.

Elaboration:

While visiting rationalist friends in SF, I was participating in a small conversation (about six participants) in which someone asked a question. Immediately, one person said "I think Y. Or maybe Z." A couple other people said "Yeah. Y or Z, or... maybe W or V?" But the conversation was already anchored around the initial answers.

I said "hey, shouldn't we stop to each think first?" (this happens to be a thing my friends in NYC do). And I was somewhat surprised that the response was more like "oh, I guess that's a good idea" than "oh yeah whoops I forgot."

It seemed like a fairly obvious social norm for a community that prides itself on rationality, and while the question wasn't *super* important, I think its helpful to practice this sort of social norm on a day-to-day basis.
This prompted some broader questions - it occurred to me there were likely norm...
Stupid Questions September 2016
by pepe_prime — 2016-09-05T22:34:50.517Z

This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.

Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.

To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.
Preference over null preference
by Elo — 2016-09-05T12:47:23.434Z

Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/preference-over-null-preference/

For some parts of life it is better to exist with a prepared preference, for other parts of life it is better to exist without a prepared preference. This is going to be about looking at the sets of preferences and what might be better in each scenario.

On the object level some examples:

I like blue hair

I don't like the colour red

I like to eat Chinese food

My favourite animal is a frog

I don't like sport

I would rather spend time in a library than a nightclub

I love bacon icecream

This is my favourite hat

The specific examples are irrelevant but hopefully you get the idea. Having a preference is about having full set and reducing it to a smaller set. Example: one colour is my favourite out of the full set of colours.

In contrast, a null preference might look like this:

I don't care what kind of pizza we eat

I eat anything

I just like being with friends, it doesn't matter what we do

I love reading

I've never really had a favourite animal

Use your best judgement for me

I can't decide what to wear

While null preferences are technically just another form of preference, I want to separate them out for a moment so that we can talk about them.

Deciding whether you should hold a preference, even if you didn't previously have one - can be an effective strategy for making decisions where there were previously difficulties. The benefit of having a preference is that it stands as a pre-commitment to yourself to maintain existing choices on certain choice-nodes.

The disadvantage of using this strategy is that if your preference fails to be fulfilled then you are at risk of disappointment.

If you get to the supermarket and can't decide which type of jam (or jelly for american;) to buy, you can consult an existing preference for blueberry jam and skip the whole idea of considering other types of jam.

For preference failure, if you prefer blueberry but the store doesn't have any, you risk leaving without jam, or being left with a choice less desirable like strawberry.

Nothing about your preference on the world effects the world until you interact with it. For the jam example: deciding you like blueberry will not cause blueberry jam to be available to you. Modifying the map will not immediately impact the ...
Open Thread, Sept 5. - Sept 11. 2016
by Elo — 2016-09-05T00:59:34.969Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting.
Do whole lines hold the line against holding up the line?
by KatjaGrace — 2016-09-04T21:21:31.000Z

I have devoted a lot of time to standing in the security lines in various airports. Usually, I am trying to multitask with something else happening on my phone. A terrible impediment to this multitasking is that the airport line keeps moving. Every time the person in front of me walks forward three steps, I have to pick up my belongings and do the same. I’m in favor of the line moving over not moving, but it would be much better if I could wait until there was ten feet of space, and then bulk-process walking forward in one go. This arrangement would also seem to be better for everyone in the line behind me, who are in roughly the same situation. So why don’t I do it?

I at least imagine social pressure to continue walking forward. If I try waiting a bit longer than usual, I at least imagine that the people behind me are getting kind of restless and thinking I’m a bad line-member, and will soon do something analogous to honking their horns at a driver who isn’t driving at a green light, or simply walk around me. Because the thing I would be doing would look superficially a bit like stopping people from getting to the front of the line as soon as possible. So far, I haven’t actually tried it, probably because it sounds too uncomfortable.

Perhaps I am imagining all of this. Why would the people behind me care? This change would seem to be neutral to good for all of them. Well, maybe not for the person right behind me. I can imagine the person right behind me caring is because IF it were bad for me to hold up the line, it would be her job to be restless about it at me. And whether or not she cares, she imagines that the people behind her might. Or, she expects me to expect that other people care, and so interprets me as making a social transgression that should rightly be noted, whether or not the consequences are good.

So roughly, I expect maybe everyone feels badly toward me for doing this, because they think the thing I’m doing is antisocial, even though it would immediately make everyone’s lives better. This might seem like an uninteresting window into my own ability to overthink standing in a line, but I think it is more interesting for two reasons. One is that even if I am weird in this way, it is a nice vivid example of a human having overwhelming hesitation to do a thing that seems both selfishly and socially beneficial for fear of seco...
Not all theories of consciousness are created equal: a reply to Robert Lawrence Kuhn's recent article in Skeptic Magazine [Link]
by oge — 2016-09-04T20:35:56.171Z

I found this article on the Brain Preservation Foundation's blog that covers a lot of common theories of consciousness and shows how they kinna miss the point when it comes to determining if certain folks should or should not upload our brains if given the opportunity.

Hence I see no reason to agree with Kuhn’s pessimistic conclusions about uploading even assuming his eccentric taxonomy of theories of consciousness is correct. What I want to focus on in the reminder of this blog is challenging the assumption that the best approach to consciousness is tabulating lists of possible theories of consciousness and assuming they each deserve equal consideration (much like the recent trend in covering politics to give equal time to each position regardless of any empirical relevant considerations). Many of the theories of consciousness on Kuhn’s list, while reasonable in the past, are now known to be false based on our best current understanding of neuroscience and physics (specifically, I am referring to theories that require mental causation or mental substances). Among the remaining theories, some of them are much more plausible than others.

http://www.brainpreservation.org/not-all-theories-of-consciousness-are-created-equal-a-reply-to-robert-lawrence-kuhns-recent-article-in-skeptic-magazine/
Content warning: death
by KatjaGrace — 2016-09-04T16:00:16.000Z

(Content warning: death)

People often use trigger and content warnings to tell readers about content that might be costly to read, before they are already reading it. I have seen warnings about a large variety of upsetting contents, but I have seen very few about death (I thought it was none, but after waiting a while I noticed a couple). And more generally, outside of the sphere where things like content warnings are common, people also seem totally ok talking about horrific deaths in a way that would seem totally inappropriate for topics that might be upsetting. I continue to find this strange. Isn’t death one of the canonical things that is awful? And it’s not some abstract or unemotional awfulness that might not traumatize people, like ‘costs’ or ‘taxes’. Usually in life, I think death is one of the most upsetting things that ever happens.

I for one find death upsetting, and would generally much prefer not to read about it [edit: or did at time of writing—I currently find almost nothing upsetting]. However it is clear that I’m at least somewhat unusual, and so not surprising that others’ preferences diverge from mine here. But still, isn’t death a usual thing to be bothered by in other ways? Isn’t there this whole academic area of terror management, about how bothered people are by death? According to Wikipedia, the theory is derived from Ernest Becker‘s 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Denial of Death, “in which Becker argues most human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death”. If it is at all plausible that most of human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death, aren’t there at least a minority of people who would get value out of not accidentally reading about some heartbreaking and horrific familial manslaughter over breakfast on a regular basis? This really seems like low hanging fruit, before you get to reworking your relation to religious symbolism or whatever to bolster your sense of permanence.

Yet I read about death all the time, all over the place. For instance on Facebook sometimes there are even pictures of dead people and nobody else seems to find this costly (ok, apparently many of my friends find actual photographs of recent corpses bad, but it seems more decayed human remains are ok with people). I’ve tried asking...
Meetup : LW Melbourne: Lightning talks
by Chriswaterguy — 2016-09-03T02:35:49.880Z

Discussion article for the meetup : LW Melbourne: Lightning talks

WHEN:
10 September 2016 03:30:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Australia

The next meetup for Less Wrong Melbourne (other than the social dinner on 3rd Sept) will be Saturday 10th September. Turn up at 3:30pm to socialise, because we start at 4pm sharp.

This month we're having lightning talks on various stimulating and intellectually challenging topics. We still have a couple of spots, so if you'd like to give a short talk (around 5 min) please leave a comment. Tentative topics so far include:

An equation for global carbon emissions and what it tells us about mitigation options.

Emergence - Eliezer doesn't believe in it, but is there a case for it?

Telomeres and longevity.

We'll finish with some strategic self-improvement options (none of which involve walking across breaking boards with your bare hands or being asked to chant). At about 6:30pm some of us will probably head for dinner in the CBD, and you are welcome to join us.

WHEN: Saturday 10th September, 3:30pm to 6:30pm

WHERE: Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane. Level 3 (Jenny Florence Room). If you have any trouble finding the venue or getting in, text or call Chris on 0439 471 632. For the greatest convenience, prompt service and general awesomeness, please arrive around 3:30pm.

WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?: The Less Wrong Melbourne Rationality Dojos are self-improvement sessions for those committed to the art of rationality and personal growth. We welcome new members who are interested in exploring rationality. We're "aspiring rationalists" and always open to learn.

Discussion article for the meetup : LW Melbourne: Lightning talks
The map of ideas how the Universe appeared from nothing
by turchin — 2016-09-02T16:49:26.148Z

There is a question which is especially disturbing during sleepless August nights, and which could cut your train of thought with existential worry at any unpredictable moment.

The question is, “Why does anything exist at all?” It seems more logical that nothing will ever exist.

A more specific form of the question is “How has our universe appeared from nothing?” The last question has some hidden assumptions (about time, universe, nothing and causality), but it is also is more concrete.

Let’s try to put these thoughts into some form of “logical equation”:

1.”Nothingness + deterministic causality = non existence”

2. But “I = exist”.

So something is wrong in this set of conjectures. If the first conjecture is false, then either nothingness is able to create existence, or causality is able to create it, or existence is not existence.

There is also a chance that our binary logic is wrong.

Listing these possibilities we can create a map of solutions of the “nothingness problem”.

There are two (main) ways in which we could try to answer this question: we could go UP from a logical-philosophical level, or we could go DOWN using our best physical theories to the moment of the universe’s appearance and the nature of causality.

Our theories of general relativity, QM and inflation are good for describing the (almost) beginning of the universe. As Krauss showed, the only thing we need is a random generator of simple physical laws in the beginning. But the origin of this thing is still not clear.

There is a gap between these two levels of the explanation, and a really good theory should be able to fill it, that is to show the way between first existing thing and smallest working set of physical laws (and Woldram’s idea about cellular automata is one of such possible bridges).

But we don’t need the bridge yet. We need explanation how anything exists at all.

How we going to solve the problem? Where we can get information?

Possible sources of evidence:

1. Correlation between physical and philosophical theories. There is an interesting way to do so using the fact that the nature of nothingness, causality and existence are somehow presented within the character of physical laws. That is, we could use the type of physical laws we observe as evidence ...
Weekly LW Meetups
by FrankAdamek — 2016-09-02T14:41:00.534Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on September 2nd. The following week's summary is here.

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

European Community Weekend: 02 September 2016 03:35PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

Baltimore Area Weekly Meetup: 04 September 2016 08:00PM
Melbourne: Social dinner : 03 September 2016 06:00PM
Moscow LW meetup in "Nauchka" library: 09 September 2016 07:50PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - September 2016: 04 September 2016 04:00PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - October 2016: 02 October 2016 04:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Fun & Games: 04 September 2016 03:30PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Canberra, Columbus, Denver, Kraków, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers and a Slack channel for daily discussion and online meetups on Sunday night US time.

If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, build community, and have fun!

In addition to the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, a meetup overview is posted on the front page every Friday. These are an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in upcoming weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts are moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up.

Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!

If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: Atlanta, Cambridge UK, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Marin CA, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Portland, Salt Lake City, South...
Oracle design as de-black-boxer.
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-09-02T13:38:07.000Z

This paper introduces an interpreter for learning algorithms, for the purpose of clarifying what is happening inside the algorithm.

The interpreter, Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), gives the human user some idea of the important factors going into the learning algorithm's decision, such as:

We can use the first Oracle design here for similar purposes, though for giving clarity. The "Counterfactually Unread Agent" can already be used to see what values of a specific random variable will maximise a certain utility function. We could also search across a whole slew of random variables, to see which one is most important in maximising the given utility function, giving outputs like this:
New music powers
by Elo — 2016-09-02T07:39:27.569Z

Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/new-music-powers/

I have written before about how I am pretty terrible at canvassing music in my head. This lends to the appalling ability (to musically oriented people) to be able to do things like listen to the same song on repeat 500 times or more in a row without being bothered by it either way. I never cared more than the sense of "this is interesting but irrelevant" on the idea.

Being indifferent to music has given me the ability to be completely useless at holding a musical preference, or explore the value of music in terms of going to music events, or participating in musical experiences.

This week something changed! Or more accurately last week. Last week I was listening to a piece for the n'th time, but at the same time was quite badly sleep deprived. As I was listening the music started falling apart. Different parts of the music changed volume so that I could isolate different instruments and follow different features of the music. At the time, being a bit sleep deprived I took it as a warning that maybe it was time to go to bed. hint hint: your going a little nuts.

Today I noticed I can still do it. When I am no longer sleep deprived I can pay attention to music in a different way than I used to be able to. I can single out the drums and only "listen" to that part, or the guitar, or the vocals. (it's pop music on the radio).

Of course the reason I bothered to write about it, and the reason that it's interesting is; as half the readers can probably imagine - I told a musical friend of mine that I had developed new powers and he said,

Wait, people can't normally do that?

So I get to add this to the pile of typical mind, sensory perception assumptions that we make when we interpret our own individual world through our own senses. What if your's worked a bit differently? How much would that fundamentally change how you operate as a human? How much you assume about the world around you and how it works? And how everyone else works?

Question: What are your natural assumptions about how your senses work? Have you ever noticed anyone else acting on different basic natural assumptions?

Meta: this took 45mins to write.
Rationality Quotes September–December  2016
by Sabiola — 2016-09-02T06:44:39.085Z

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

Post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)

Do not quote yourself.

Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.

EDIT: I haven't posted a monthly thread for October and November, since people haven't been posting many quotes and some people have said a monthly frequency might be too high. I'll make them quarterly instead. I should actually have made a new thread for October-December, but I'll leave it like this since people have been posting in it this month.