trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[SEQ RERUN] Conservation of Expected Evidence
by MinibearRex — 2011-07-18T02:27:13.683Z

Title: [SEQ RERUN] Conservation of Expected Evidence Tags: sequence_reruns Today's post, Conservation of Expected Evidence was originally published on 13 August 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

If you are about to make an observation, then the expected value of your posterior probability must equal your current prior probability. On average, you must expect to be exactly as confident as when you started out. If you are a true Bayesian, you cannot seek evidence to confirm your theory, because you do not expect any evidence to do that. You can only seek evidence to test your theory.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Approving reinforces low-effort behaviors
by Scott Alexander — 2011-07-17T20:43:03.221Z

In addition to "liking" to describe pleasure and "wanting" to describe motivation, we add "approving" to describe thoughts that are ego syntonic.
A heroin addict likes heroin. He certainly wants more heroin. But he may not approve of taking heroin. In fact, there are enough different cases to fill in all eight boxes of the implied 2x2x2 grid (your mileage may vary):
+wanting/+liking/+approving: Romantic love. If you're doing it right, you enjoy being with your partner, you're motivated to spend time with your partner, and you think love is a wonderful (maybe even many-splendored) thing.
+wanting/+liking/-approving: The aforementioned heroin addict feels good when taking heroin, is motivated to get more, but wishes he wasn't addicted.
+wanting/-liking/+approving: I have taken up disc golf. I play it every day, and when events conspire to prevent me from playing it, I seethe. I approve of this pastime: I need to take up more sports, and it helps me spend time with my family. But when I am playing, all I feel is stressed and angry that I was literally *that* close how could I miss that shot aaaaarggghh.
+wanting/-liking/-approving: The jaded addict. I have a friend who says she no longer even enjoys coffee or gets any boost from it, she just feels like she has to have it when she gets up.
-wanting/+liking/+approving: Reading non-fiction. I enjoy it when I'm doing it, I think it's great because it makes me more educated, but I can rarely bring myself to do it.
-wanting/-liking/+approving: Working in a soup kitchen. Unless you're the type for whom helping others is literally its own reward it's not the most fun thing in the world, nor is it the most attractive, but it makes you a Good Person and so you should do it.
-wanting/+liking/-approving: The non-addict. I don't want heroin right now. I think heroin use is repugnant. But if I took some, I sure bet I'd like it.
-wanting/-liking/-approving: Torture. I don't want to be tortured, I wouldn't like it if I were, and I will go on record declaring myself to be against it.
Discussion of goals is mostly about approving; a goal is an ego-syntonic thought. When we speak of goals that are hard to achieve, we're usually talking about +approving/-wanting. The previous discussion of learning Swahili is one example; more noble causes like Working To Help The Less Fortunate can be others.

Ego syntonicity itself is mildly reinforcing by ...
Ego syntonic thoughts and values
by Scott Alexander — 2011-07-17T20:43:00.558Z

Related to: Will your real preferences please stand up?

Last week I read a book in which two friends - let's call them John and Lisa so I don't spoil the book for anyone who wanders into it - got poisoned. They only had enough antidote for one person and had to decide who lived and who died. John, who was much larger than Lisa, decided to hold Lisa down and force the antidote down her throat. Lisa just smirked; she'd replaced the antidote with a lookalike after slipping the real thing into John's drink earlier in the day.
These are good friends. Not only was each willing to give the antidote to the other, but each realized it would be unfair to make the other live with the crippling guilt of having chosen to survive at the expense of a friend's life, and so decided to force the antidote on the other unwillingly to prevent any guilt over the fateful decision. Whatever you think of the ethics of their decision, you can't help admire the thought processes.
Your brain might be this kind of a friend.
In Trivers' hypothesis of self-deception, one of the most important functions of the conscious mind is effective signaling. Since people have the potential to be excellent lie-detectors, the conscious mind isn't given full access to information so that it can lend the ring of truth to useful falsehoods.
But this doesn't always work. If you're addicted to heroin, at some point you're going to notice. And telling your friends "No, I'm not addicted, it's just a coincidence that I take heroin every day," isn't going to cut it. But there's another way in which the brain can sequester information to promote effective signaling.
Wikipedia defines the term "ego syntonic" as "referring to behaviors, values, feelings that are in harmony with or acceptable to the needs and goals of the ego, or consistent with one's ideal self-image", and "ego dystonic" as the opposite of that. A heroin addict might say "I hate heroin, but somehow I just feel compelled to keep taking it." But an astronaut will say "I love being an astronaut and I worked hard to get into this career."
Both the addict and the astronaut have desires: the addict wants to take heroin, the astronaut wants to fly in space. But the addict's desires manifest as an unpleasant compulsion from outside, and the astronaut's manifest as a genuine and heartfelt love.
Suppose that in the original example, John predicted that Lisa would ...
How to solve the national debt deadlock
by PhilGoetz — 2011-07-17T16:42:38.488Z

The US Congress is trying to resolve the national debt by getting hundreds of people to agree on a solution. This is silly. They should agree on the rules of a game to play that will result in a solution, and then play the game.

Here is an example game. Suppose there are N representatives, all with an equal vote. They need to reduce the budget by $D.

Order the representatives numerically, in some manner that interleaves Republicans and Democrats.

"1 full turn" will mean that representatives make one move in order 1..N, and then one move in order N..1.

Take at least two full turns to make a list of budget choices. On each move, a representative will write down one budget item - an expense that may be cut, or something that may become a revenue source. They may write down something that is a subset or superset of an existing item - for instance, one person might write, "Air Force budget", and another might write, "Reduce maintenance inspections of hanger J11 at Wright air force base from weekly to monthly". They can get as specific as they want to.

If there are not $2D of options on the table, repeat.

Each representative is given 10 "cut" votes, worth D/(5N) each; and 5 "defend" votes, also worth D/(5N) each. A "defend" vote cancels out a "cut" vote.

Each representative secretly assigns their "cut" and "defend" votes to the choices on the table.

Results are revealed and tallied up, and a budget will be drawn up accordingly.

What game-theoretic problems does this game have? Can you think of a better game? Is it politically better to call it a "decision process" than a game?

The main trouble area, to my mind, is order of play. First I said that budget items would be listed by taking turns. The 1..N, N..1 order is supposed to make neither first nor last position preferable. But taking turns introduces complications, of not wanting to reveal your intentions early.

Then I said votes are placed secretly and revealed all at once. This solves problems about game-theoretically trying to conceal information or bluff your opponent. It introduces other problems, such as tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios, where every Republican spends their "defend" votes on some pork in their state instead of on preventing tax cuts, because they assume some other Republican will do that.

Is it better to...
The importance of Not Getting the Joke
by CharlieSheen — 2011-07-17T09:34:15.104Z

One of my favorite genres in the prestige press is the Self-Refuting Article. These are articles that contain all the facts necessary to undermine the premise of the piece, but reporters, editors, and readers all conspire together in an act of collective stupidity to Not Get the Joke.

-Steve Sailer, here

But why do people conspire in an act of collective stupidity to Not Get The Joke? Before I proceed let me first admit that it is indeed hard to identify such situations with any reasonable level of certainty, its seems difficult to do, when "Not Getting the Joke" is good for our side its subjectively harder to spot (see mind killer). I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but it seems to me that three obvious things are going on here:

The author and the audience share many of the same biases. Maybe they really don't get the joke

bandwagon effect, even if the overlap in biases isn't that great people are lazy thinkers and prefer a given answer.

The right answer happens to be enemy attire and might provoke accusations or suspicion from others in the in group.

Now, perhaps not so obviously, could it be people have some incentives to say and even believe or at least try to believe things that are obviously wrong even to people of their tribe (political/religious/ect. affilation)? Why would something like this arise? My mind at this point wandered to conspicuous consumption.

Conspicuous consumption is lavish spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth.

Could there be such a thing as conspicuous wrongness?

"Look how much I identify with our group, I'm even willing to buy even if it dosen't do us much good. If I wasn't so virtuous I could never believe something this silly."

But why would sticking to the script when its blatantly false to others in the tribe boost your status and self-esteem? Well, sticking to it when its blatantly obvious to most people dosen't cost you anything now does it? Sticking to it when its merely uncertain only costs you the esteem of the out group (worthless in most cases)?

4.

Sticking to the script, when everyone knows the script is false, is a sign of either cleverness or innocence, and more than that it is a sign that that cleverness or innocence is perfectly aligned to the interests of the tribe.

So my question ...
Experiment: Psychoanalyze Me
by Wei Dai — 2011-07-17T07:54:10.162Z

From Yvain's latest post:

These studies suggest that people do not have introspective awareness to the processes that generate their behavior. They guess their preferences, justifications, and beliefs by inferring the most plausible rationale for their observed behavior, but are unable to make these guesses qualitatively better than outside observers.

I guess this probably applies to beliefs as well as behavior. That is, the reasons people give for their beliefs are probably not based on real introspection either, which would explain why it's often so hard to find one's true rejection.

If I do not have highly privileged access to my own reasoning and decision making processes, it stands to reason that other people should sometimes be able to tell me things about my goals or beliefs that I myself have missed. But apparently it's not that simple. In the True Rejection post, Eliezer wrote

However, attempts to directly, publicly psychoanalyze the Other may cause the conversation to degenerate very fast, in my observation.

This seems important enough to gather more data on. How and why do such conversations degenerate? Can we do something to prevent degeneration while still providing useful psychological insights to each other? So, as a first step, I hereby extend an open invitation to LW: tell me, whenever my stated goals and/or reasons do not seem to match up with my actual goals/reasons, what you think they really are.

(Presumably, the degeneration has to do with status and offense. But perhaps in our community, one can gain status by conspicuously not taking offense to such analyses, and instead taking them seriously?)
[SEQ RERUN] Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence
by MinibearRex — 2011-07-17T04:08:57.917Z

Title: [SEQ RERUN] Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence Tags: sequence_reruns Today's post, Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence was originally published on 12 August 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Absence of proof is not proof of absence. But absence of evidence is always evidence of absence. According to the probability calculus, if P(H|E) > P(H) (observing E would be evidence for hypothesis H), then P(H|~E) < P(H) (absence of E is evidence against H). The absence of an observation may be strong evidence or very weak evidence of absence, but it is always evidence.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was I Defy the Data!, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Meta: How do I navigate to see my oldest comments?
by Will_Newsome — 2011-07-17T03:56:54.984Z

Title says it all, really. I was thinking about writing a post encouraging looking back on ones LW comments over the past year or so to see how much ones views have changed, how much more or less they've changed than expected, what weaknesses have been patched, what themes have become prominent, what values have changed, et cetera. Ideally there'd be a structured and optimally informative way of doing so. I plan on looking at the social psychology literature to see what they recommend, if anything. Anyway, yeah, it'd be cool if I had a way of instantly navigating to my least recent comment, 'cuz using Google search and all probably works but it's not something I want to recommend to others in a post. Also, any comments or critiques on the idea of such a post are welcome. Thanks yo!
Relink: Why and how to debate charitably
by Will_Newsome — 2011-07-17T00:53:30.278Z

This was already linked to in a previous post, but the site pdf23ds.net is no longer up for reasons that can be discovered via search engine. However one can peruse the old blog using the WayBackMachine. Here is a working link. Title is an apt description and it's a pithy read.
Meetup : Weekly Berkeley Meetup - Karaoke!
by FrankAdamek — 2011-07-16T21:46:29.707Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Weekly Berkeley Meetup - Karaoke!

WHEN:
20 July 2011 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
3090 El Cerrito Plz El Cerrito, CA 94530

This week we'll be going out for Karaoke, after we have dinner. You can join us for dinner, Karaoke, or for maximum utils, both.

We will not be meeting at the regular location. We will be meeting at 7:00 PM at the Starbucks at the El Cerrito Plaza, a block away from the El Cerrito BART station. The address is:

3090 El Cerrito Plz
El Cerrito, CA 94530

At 7:20 we will grab dinner at one of the nearby restaurants, then walk several blocks to Music Tunnel KTV Karaoke (a different karaoke place than last time). Their address is:

3288 Pierce St,
Ste A-128,
Richmond, CA 94804

They're reviewed as being the best Karaoke place in the bay area, and reported to have especially good sound systems and song selection. The cost depends on our number of people, but the total cost will most likely be $10 per person, with a small chance of it being as high as $16. Each person also has to pay $2 towards something from the menu; I'm informed that this can easily be done without being trapped into paying more than $2. They also let you bring in your own food and drinks if you like, but alcohol is verboten.

As always, feel free to call me at 952.217.0505 if you would like any help finding us.

See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Weekly Berkeley Meetup - Karaoke!
The limits of introspection
by Scott Alexander — 2011-07-16T21:00:58.436Z

Related to: Inferring Our Desires

The last post in this series suggested that we make up goals and preference for other people as we go along, but ended with the suggestion that we do the same for ourselves. This deserves some evidence.
One of the most famous sets of investigations into this issue was Nisbett and Wilson's Verbal Reports on Mental Processes, the discovery of which I owe to another Less Wronger even though I can't remember who. The abstract says it all:

When people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit casual theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes.

In short, people guess, and sometimes they get lucky. But where's the evidence?
Nisbett & Schachter, 1966. People were asked to get electric shocks to see how much shock they could stand (I myself would have waited to see if one of those see-how-much-free-candy-you'll-eat studies from the post last week was still open). Half the subjects were also given a placebo pill which they were told would cause heart palpitations, tremors, and breathing irregularities - the main problems people report when they get shocked. The hypothesis: people who took the pill would attribute much of the unpleasantness of the shock to the pill instead, and so tolerate more shock. This occurred right on schedule: people who took the pill tolerated four times as strong a shock as controls. When asked why they did so well, the twelve subjects in the experimental group came up with fabricated reasons; one example given was "I played with radios as a child, so I'm used to electricity." Only three of twelve subjects made a connection between the pill and their shock tolerance; when the researchers revealed the deception and their hypothesis, most subjects said it was an interesting idea and probably explained ...
Meetup : First San Diego, CA, USA meetup
by Mercurial — 2011-07-16T16:07:16.983Z

Discussion article for the meetup : First San Diego, CA, USA meetup

WHEN:
31 July 2011 01:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
6380 Del Cerro Blvd. San Diego, CA 92120

We're holding what I believe is the first San Diego meetup on Sunday, July 31st starting at 1pm at the K&B Wine Cellars near San Diego State University:

6380 Del Cerro Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92120

The phone number for the place is 619-286-0884. This is one of a number of places along a strip that's attached to a grocery store of sorts. It's something like a coffee house only with beer, wine, & liquor instead of coffee. (Underage attendees should be fine; you just won't be able to get alcohol. There's food and some non-alcoholic drinks if you like.) We're meeting in a semi-hidden room in the far back. When you walk in, go as straight as you can while staying close to the left wall.

This will be an introductory meeting so that those in the San Diego area can meet one another. We'll talk about what we want to get out of these meetups and hammer out some specific plans for how to accomplish that. From some initial conversations, it sounds like we'll have monthly meetups, though that stands a fair chance of changing depending on what we discuss here.

Feel free to bring friends, significant others, or anyone else who's interested in rationality. Also, give some thought to what you'd like out of these meetups. It doesn't have to be profound; camaraderie or "I don't know" are fine answers. But if you give it a bit of thought ahead of time, you might find it easier to envision and articulate more precisely what it is that you'd like to see these meetups become.

I should also mention that this location has a projector setup, so if there's something you'd like to share PowerPoint style, feel free to bring that. I haven't gotten details from the restaurant as yet about how to use the projector setup (e.g. is it transparencies or a laptop hookup?), but I'll edit in that clarification once I get it.

Let me know if you have any questions. Also, if you could either reply here or give me a quick PM to let me know you're coming, that would be helpful. That way I can let the place know how many to set the space up for.

ETA: I should add that I do have some material on practical uses of mindfulness that I'm quite willing to offer. I've

...
Posts with comments crash (bug's probably in comment rendering). The comment rss works.
by Emile — 2011-07-16T08:43:35.805Z

I'm just putting this here in case it helps someone fix the problem, mods; feel free to delete this once things are fixed.

It seems posts with comments crash (so the bug's probably in the comment rendering code or something). Posts without comments can be read, so can the comment rss; inbox works but "view comments by user" doesn't ("view submitted" does).

(Don't reply to this, it'll make the page inaccessible :P)

So it's still possible to view existing posts (even with comments) through the rss feed, but not comment on them.

(My best bet would be something to do with comment karma calculation)

(Actually, after poking though recent commits on github, my bet would now be on comment retraction and deletion)
Meetup : Houston Meetup
by Cog — 2011-07-16T05:43:01.619Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Houston Meetup

WHEN:
17 July 2011 02:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
2010 Commerce St, Houston, Tx. 77002

After a short hiatus (I was out of town) the Houston meetup group will resume. Given the short notice, it will mainly be an informal social meeting. Two of our members have never seen our hackerspace before, and wanted a quick tour. If anyone else wishes to join us, come along. Our building will have a large surplus military generator out front with a sign saying "Less Wrong". PM for my cell number if you think you might want to come.

Discussion article for the meetup : Houston Meetup
I'm broken...?
by Mercurial — 2011-07-16T05:11:30.415Z

It seems that every time I try to go to this meetup announcement I posted, I get the spiffy new Less Wrong "system has crashed" error. I get the same problem when I click on my username (presumably because the top post in that list is the one linked to above).

It was working fine earlier. I'm not sure what happened. I'd like to read the comments that have since been added. Can anyone offer a hint about this?