trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Buying happiness
by gjm — 2016-06-16T17:08:53.802Z

There's a semi-famous paper by Dunn, Gilbert and Wilson: "If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right". (Proper reference: Dunn, E.W., Gilbert, D.T., and Wilson, T.D., If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right, Journal of Consumer Psychology, vol 21, issue 2, April 2011, pp. 115–125.) It's been referenced a few times on LW but curiously never written up properly here. The purpose of this post is to remedy that.

There is an earlier LW post called "Be Happier" which among other things references this paper and quotes some things it says, but that post is monstrously long and covers a lot more ground (hence, less details on the material in this paper).

Dunn, Gilbert and Wilson (hereafter "DGW") offer eight principles to follow. Here they are.

1. Buy experiences instead of things.

Many studies have asked people to reflect on past "material" and/or "experiential" purchases and have consistently found that they report greater happiness from (and are made happier by recalling) the latter than the former.

Why? DGW propose 5 reasons. First, deliberately sought-out experiences encourage us to focus on the here and now (something shown to increase happiness substantially); second, when things don't change we adapt to them rapidly, and "material" purchases like cars and tables tend to be pretty stable (whereas ongoing experiences are more varied); third, it turns out that people spend more time anticipating experiences before they happen and recalling them afterwards than they do for material purchases. Fourth, experiences are less directly comparable to alternatives than material things, and therefore less subject to post-purchase regret. Fifth, experiences are often shared, and other people are a great source of happiness.

2. Help others instead of yourself.

Prosocial spending correlates better to happiness than personal spending. If you give random people money and either tell them to spend it on themselves or to spend it on someone else, the latter makes them happier. Reflecting on past spending-on-others makes people happier than reflecting on past spending-on-self. (I am a little skeptical about that one: the right point of comparison would be not the past spending but the past enjoyment of whatever you spent the money on.)

Why? DGW propose two reasons. First, prosocial spending is good for relationsh...
Start taking drugs randomly
by KatjaGrace — 2016-06-16T17:00:13.000Z

I wanted to try a drug. I also wanted to be able to distinguish the direct effects of the drug from the placebo effects of the drug. Most importantly, I wanted to isolate placebo side effects. It seemed there was a chance of real side effects, and that meant that it was basically guaranteed that I would imagine those side effects. However, if I could tell that I was imagining them, I figured I might stop doing it.

The usual way to distinguish placebo effects from real effects is to have a bunch of people, and give half of them the real drug and half the placebo drug. Then if five percent of both groups gets a headache, you know that it’s entirely placebo headache.

Of course, that had already been worked out for this drug. It probably causes a few real side effects, and a few placebo ones. But what I wanted to know was whether the side effects were real in my own particular case.

If you want to figure this out, a natural idea is to get someone else to randomly give you drug or placebo on different days (or on different few-day bouts, if the drug takes time to act). After enough times, you can tell if the drug periods are better or worse.

This is a hard enough experiment to run on yourself if it takes a day for the drug to work. But what if the drug might take a month to work or to have side effects? Someone could randomize whether you get the drug or placebo for whole several month long stints, but at this point it will take you a year to get a few data points, and each one will be as different from the others as several month long periods are wont to be, aside from any effect from the drug. And you will have missed out on taking the drug for half a year.

Here is a different way to do this: randomize the start date. I asked a friend to pick a random day within the next few months, and then give me placebo pills until that day and from then on, a real pill. He did this by putting all the pills inside big red capsules so that I couldn’t tell them apart, and then put them in a pill advent-calendar, changing over at the right day. He wrote down the date of the switch. Then I took the pills, kept records of the thing I was trying to fix, and watched out for anything that seemed like the feared side effects.

This way, I was basically getting a bunch of somewhat different one-month periods in a row, without needing to allocate a month to each. If it took exact...
Learning desiderata
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-06-16T05:30:24.000Z

A putative new idea for AI control; index here.

In a previous post, I argued that Conservation of expected ethics isn't enough. Reflecting on that, I think the learning problem can be decomposed into three aspects:

#. The desire to learn.
#. Unbiased learning (the agent doesn't try to influence the direction of its learning to achieve a particular goal).
#. Safe learning (the agent doesn't affect the world negatively because of its learning process).

Note that 2. is precisely the conservation of expected ethics.

How the ideas to date measure up

Of the previous ideas, how do they measure up?

Traditional value learning scores high on 1. (it desires to learn), but fails both 2. and 3.

Indifference achieves 3. (note that the agent's utility might be unsafe, but this would not be because of the learning process), but fails 1. and 2. It also has problems with its counterfactuals, which arguably invalidate 3.

Factoring out arguably achieves all of these objectives, but also has problems with its counterfactuals, which arguably invalidate 3.

Guarded learning, an idea I'll be presenting soon, will hit 1. and 2. but not 3. To get safe learning from it, we'll need to inculcate safety conscious values early in the learning project.

Is there some platonic ideal of an agent that achieves all three of these objectives? Maybe. Imagine a boxed oracle that attempts to learn what value humans might have in a counterfactual world where the oracle didn't exist. This would seem to achieve all the objectives, and shows why unbiased learning needs to be separated from safe learning. This oracle is safe because it is boxed, and unbiased because of the counterfactual.
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: History of Science Fiction Fandom
by RobinZ — 2016-06-15T23:29:09.324Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: History of Science Fiction Fandom

WHEN:
19 June 2016 03:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture

We will be meeting in the courtyard for a presentation about the history of science-fiction fandom.

As usual, side conversations are allowed and encouraged.

Upcoming meetups:

Jun. 26: Fermi Estimates

Jul. 3: Outdoor Fun & Games

Jul. 10: Webcomics

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: History of Science Fiction Fandom
Meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup: June
by Maelin — 2016-06-15T23:25:38.602Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup: June

WHEN:
17 June 2016 06:35:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
Bull & Bear Tavern, 347 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

This month's Social Meetup is on as scheduled!

FB Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1049029171819342/

Social Meetups are casual get-togethers held on the third Friday of each month. They are informal events where we sit around and chat over a few drinks and a meal. Sometimes we will play games as well.

Where? Bull & Bear Tavern, 347 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

When? Friday 17th June, starting from 6:30pm. Start time is loose so show up whenever. We are usually there until about 11pm.

Dinner? The B&B serves reasonable pub food and we will usually share some wedges or similar. A few of us typically go for a late dinner after the event. Recently we've been going to Father's Office which offers late night a la carte dining at half price.

Contact? Any issues or questions, contact Richard on 0421231789.

Hope to see you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup: June
Adversity to Success
by Elo — 2016-06-15T22:24:29.752Z

It's a classic story, your average millionaire tells their story of how they had a life of struggling and subsequently overcame such struggles and went on to become a (multi-)millionaire. "What a great story" everyone says. But why does it happen, and why does it happen so often?

The easy answer: Survivorship bias. What happened to the rest of the regiment in the army*? What happened to the other homeless people on the streets? They all suffered, struggled and died out, or went on to live mediocre enough lives that they didn't write about their experiences. Surely there are more millionaires that write about their "story" than people who went through adversity writing about their story...

But is that enough? Does that explain it? It certainly would explain a few millionaires. Also what about your average not-suffering human. Middle class, ordinary income, is there something about suffering and risk-taking that they should want to do? Telling someone to give up their job and live on the streets for a month just to know what suffering "feels like", in the hope of going on to become a millionaire... Sounds like a terrible idea! And good luck selling a book with that kind of advice.

So what is it about suffering that we should care about? What can we learn from all these stories if not "survivorship bias is a strong, show-stopping applause light"?

Coping Mechanisms

One thing that hardship gives you, other than a great story is the mental ability to say, "something really bad happened and I survived", and consequently, "I can survive the next really bad event". The future is likely to have all sorts of ups and downs. There will always be bad days with car accidents, days where you nearly get fired, or lose the big deal. There will also be great days! Days where you make the deal, every plan executes successfully, you get the rewards you were striving for, it seems like you were just lucky...

When you have a coping mechanism you can walk through bad days like water off a duck's back, then you can take the good days and use them to climb and grow as if the bad days weren't even there.

The next question is; How can one develop coping mechanisms without voluntarily undergoing hardship? (with exercises like CoZE, or voluntarily experiencing disco...
Meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (IV)
by steven0461 — 2016-06-15T20:29:04.853Z

Discussion article for the meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (IV)

WHEN:
19 June 2016 03:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
438 Coleman Ave, San Jose, CA 95110

You're invited to bring whatever you'd like to see at Park Day - balls, frisbees, food, etc. (Also, consider taking measures against the sun.) We'll carry a green blanket so you can recognize us. The idea is to gather outside near the listed address at the park entrance first, but probably walk elsewhere soon. If you can't find us or there's something else, please call me (Steven) at 510-6844565.

Discussion article for the meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (IV)
Conservation of Expected Ethics isn't enough
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-06-15T18:08:10.000Z

An idea relevant for AI control; index here.

Thanks to Jessica Taylor.

I've been playing with systems to ensure or incentivise conservation of expected ethics - the idea that if an agent estimates that utilities v and w are (for instance) equally likely, then its future estimate for the correctness of v and w must be the same. In other words, it can try and get more information, but can't bias the direction of the update.

Unfortunately, CEE isn't enough. Here are a few decisions the AI can take that respect CEE. Imagine that the conditions of update relied on, for instance, humans answering questions:

#. Don't ask.
#. Ask casually.
#. Ask emphatically.
#. Build a robot that randomly rewires humans to answer one way or the other.
#. Build a robot that observes humans, figures out which way they're going to answer, then rewires them to answer the opposite way.

All of these conserve CEE, but, obviously, the last two options are not ideal...
Diaspora roundup thread, 15th June 2016
by philh — 2016-06-15T09:36:09.466Z

This is a new experimental weekly thread.

Guidelines: Top-level comments here should be links to things written by members of the rationalist community, preferably that would be interesting specifically to this community. Self-promotion is totally fine. Including a very brief summary or excerpt is great, but not required. Generally stick to one link per top-level comment. Recent links are preferred.

Rule: Do not link to anyone who does not want to be linked to. In particular, Scott Alexander has asked people not to link to specific posts on his tumblr. As far as I know he's never rescinded that. Do not link to posts on his tumblr.
Revitalising Less Wrong is not a lost purpose
by casebash — 2016-06-15T08:10:04.070Z

ohn_Maxwell_IV argued that revitalising Less Wrong is a lost purpose. I'm also very skeptical about Less Wrong 2.0 - but I wouldn't agree with it being a lost purpose. It is just that we are currently not on a track to anywhere. The #LW_code_renovation channel resulted in a couple of minor code changes, but there hasn't been any discussion for at least a month. All that this means, however, is that if we want a better less wrong that we have to do something other than what we have been doing so far. Here are some suggestions.

Systematic changes, not content production

The key problem currently is the lack of content, so the most immediate solution is to produce more content. However, not many people are an Elizier or a Scott. Think about what percentage of blog are actually successful - now throw on the extra limitation of having to be on topic on Less Wrong. Note that many of Scott's most popular posts would be too political to be posted on Less Wrong. Trying to get a group of people together to post content on Less Wrong wouldn't work. Let's say 10 people agreed to join such a group. 5 would end up doing nothing, 3 would do 2-3 posts and it'd fall on the last 2 to drive the site. The odds would be strongly against them. Most people can't consistently pump out high quality content.

The plan to get people to return to Less Wrong and post here won't work either unless combined with changes. Presumably, people have moved to their own blogs for a reason. Why would they come back to posting on Less Wrong, unless something was changed? We might be able to convince some people to make a few posts here, but we aren't going to return the community to its glory days without consistent content.

Why not try to change how the system is set up instead to encourage more content?

Decide on a direction

We now have a huge list of potential changes, but we don't have a direction. Some of those changes would help bring in more content and solve the key issue, while other changes wouldn't. The problem is that there is currently no consensus on what needs to be done. This makes it so much less likely that anything will actually get done, particularly given that it isn't clear whether a particular change would be approved or not if someone did actually do it. At the moment, what we have is people coming on to the site suggesting features and there is discussion, but the...
Meetup : Baltimore weekly meetup
by iarwain1 — 2016-06-14T23:48:16.464Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore weekly meetup

WHEN:
19 June 2016 08:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
1726 reisterstown road pikesville maryland 21208

At the Pikesville DoubleTree - Hilton, at the restaurant / bar or at one of the tables outside.

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore weekly meetup
Meetup : San Antonio Meetup
by Bryan-san — 2016-06-14T20:10:38.667Z

Discussion article for the meetup : San Antonio Meetup

WHEN:
19 June 2016 02:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
12651 Vance Jackson Rd #118, San Antonio, TX 78230

Meetup to discuss rationality and all things LessWrong at Yumi Berry.

Topic of the Week: The Double Crux Game

Look for the sign that says "LW".

Discussion article for the meetup : San Antonio Meetup
[EA relevant] Announcing "Everyday Heroes of Effective Giving" Series 
by Gleb_Tsipursky — 2016-06-14T16:21:40.761Z

We have so many great people involved in the EA movement, people who think hard and well about what cause to prioritize and who dedicate a significant portion of their money and time to advancing global flourishing in the most cost-effective manner. However, articles about EA participants typically feature the most dedicated folks, which contributes to those who don't reach such levels reluctant to call themselves EA members.

So to advance the cause of celebrating all in the EA movement and recognizing the value of all movement members appropriately, we at Intentional Insights are launching the "Everyday Heroes of Effective Giving" video series. This series of brief videos, around 10 minutes each, will showcase folks from across the movement, including from around the world, as we do the filming through videoconference (Google hangouts). We ask participants four questions:

1) How would you define effective giving and what makes you passionate about it?
2) What is your story of getting involved in effective giving?
3) What are you doing now in the area of effective giving?
4) What do you plan to do in the future and what do you envision as the mark you want to leave on the world?

Why do we frame the title and questions in terms of "effective giving?" Well, these videos are meant to be available as a resource to be shared with anyone and create a sense of narrative, identification, and emotional appeal, which are part of broader effective outreach strategies. Thus, using the terminology of effective giving decreases the likelihood of non-value aligned people trying to join the EA movement, while encouraging such people to give to more effective charities. Note that participants usually mention the EA movement in their comments, which provides a potential trail to the EA movement for those who would be interested in thinking hard about doing the most good.

We already released three videos. The first features Boris Yakubchik, who was involved in the EA movement before it was a movement as such. The second one is with Scott Weathers, an EA health policy expert who is currently interning at the WHO and is going on for a PhD in public health this Fall. The third features Alfredo Parra, the main organizer of EA Munich. Since the videos are short, I will post future videos on the EA Forum when we have finished doing a set of three.

FYI, the fact that ...
Meetup : SF Meetup: Fun and Games
by maia — 2016-06-14T15:09:50.573Z

Discussion article for the meetup : SF Meetup: Fun and Games

WHEN:
20 June 2016 06:15:28PM (-0700)

WHERE:
1597 Howard St, San Francisco

We’ll be meeting to play board (and other) games!

I have Dominion, Puzzle Strike, Ticket to Ride, Suburbia, Set, and standard playing cards. Please feel free to bring other games you’d like to play.

This week I'd also like to try playing some interactive non-board games; for example, the Schelling Point Game (where everyone tries to think of the same object in a category), the Description Game (where we take turns trying to notice new things about an object), and possibly even the Clicker Game (where we try to use reinforcement learning techniques on each other). Feel free to bring your own of these as well.

Format:

We meet and start hanging out at 6:15, but don’t officially start doing the meetup topic until 6:45-7 to accommodate stragglers. Usually there is a food order that goes out before we start the meetup topic.

About these meetups:

The mission of the SF LessWrong meetup is to provide a fun, low-key social space with some structured interaction, where new and non-new community members can mingle and have interesting conversations. Everyone is welcome.

We explicitly encourage people to split off from the main conversation or diverge from the topic if that would be more fun for them (moving side conversations into a separate part of the space if appropriate). Meetup topics are here as a tool to facilitate fun interaction, and we certainly don’t want them to inhibit it.

Discussion article for the meetup : SF Meetup: Fun and Games
Attempts to Debias Hindsight Backfire!
by Gram_Stone — 2016-06-13T16:13:50.267Z

(Content note: A common suggestion for debiasing hindsight: try to think of many alternative historical outcomes. But thinking of too many examples can actually make hindsight bias worse.)

Followup to: Availability Heuristic Considered Ambiguous

Related to: Hindsight Bias

I.

Hindsight bias is when people who know the answer vastly overestimate its predictability or obviousness, compared to the estimates of subjects who must guess without advance knowledge. Hindsight bias is sometimes called the I-knew-it-all-along effect.

The way that this bias is usually explained is via the availability of outcome-related knowledge. The outcome is very salient, but the possible alternatives are not, so the probability that people claim they would have assigned to an event that has already happened gets jacked up. It's also known that knowing about hindsight bias and trying to adjust for it consciously doesn't eliminate it.

This means that most attempts at debiasing focus on making alternative outcomes more salient. One is encouraged to recall other ways that things could have happened. Even this merely attenuates the hindsight bias, and does not eliminate it (Koriat, Lichtenstein, & Fischhoff, 1980; Slovic & Fischhoff, 1977).

II.

Remember what happened with the availability heuristic when we varied the number of examples that subjects had to recall? Crazy things happened because of the phenomenal experience of difficulty that recalling more examples caused within the subjects.

You might imagine that, if you recalled too many examples, you could actually make the hindsight bias worse, because if subjects experience alternative outcomes as difficult to generate, then they'll consider the alternatives less likely, and not more.

Relatedly, Sanna, Schwarz, and Stocker (2002, Experiment 2) presented participants with a description of the British–Gurkha War (taken from Fischhoff, 1975; you should remember this one). Depending on conditions, subjects were told either that the British or the Gurkha had won the war, or were given no outcome information. Afterwards, they were asked, “If we hadn’t already told you who had won, what would you have thought the probability of the British (Gurkhas, respectively) winning would be?”, and asked to give a probability in the form of a percentage.

Like in the original hindsight bias studies, subject...
Open thread, Jun. 13 - Jun. 19, 2016
by MrMind — 2016-06-13T06:57:38.359Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), 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 be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

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