trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[SEQ RERUN] A Sense That More Is Possible
by MinibearRex — 2013-03-22T05:01:52.957Z

Today's post, A Sense That More Is Possible was originally published on 13 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

The art of human rationality may have not been much developed because its practitioners lack a sense that vastly more is possible. The level of expertise that most rationalists strive to develop is not on a par with the skills of a professional mathematician - more like that of a strong casual amateur. Self-proclaimed "rationalists" don't seem to get huge amounts of personal mileage out of their craft, and no one sees a problem with this. Yet rationalists get less systematic training in a less systematic context than a first-dan black belt gets in hitting people.

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 Raising the Sanity Waterline, 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.
Stanford talk: easy step to universal colonisation
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2013-03-22T04:35:37.259Z

I'll be speaking in Stanford this weekend, at the Advancing Humanity Symposium, looking into space exploration and colonisation - how easy it is to cross the voids between the stars and the galaxies and expand across the whole reachable universe.
https://www.facebook.com/events/338219042964586/?fref=ts

The talk will cover research described in “Eternity in six hours: intergalactic spreading of intelligent life and sharpening the Fermi paradox", with Dr. Anders Sandberg, forthcoming in the journal Acta Astronautica. For an earlier exploration of related ideas, see this popular talk from last year on the Dyson spheres, von Neumann probes and the Fermi paradox:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTfuI-9jIo
Meetup : Brussels Biased Boardgaming
by Roxolan — 2013-03-22T02:59:56.723Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Brussels Biased Boardgaming

WHEN:
30 March 2013 01:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Les Chroniques Ludiques, Rue Vanderkindere 236, 1180 Uccle, Brussels, Belgium

For this special meetup, we will meet at the game shop Les Chroniques Ludiques to do some Biased Boardgaming, most likely Pandemics. You'll recognize us by our LessWrong sign. The meeting will be in English to accomodate both French and Dutch speaking members.

If you are coming for the first time, please consider filling out this one minute form to share your contact information.

Discussion article for the meetup : Brussels Biased Boardgaming
[LINK] Transcendence (2014) -- A movie about "technological singularity"
by Shmi — 2013-03-21T16:51:00.007Z

Transcendence is an upcoming movie, starring Johnny Depp:

Two leading computer scientists work toward their goal of Technological Singularity, as a radical anti-technology organization fights to prevent them from creating a world where computers can transcend the abilities of the human brain.

It could be fun to speculate what the spin will be and how many standard pitfalls they will hit. I also wonder which side I would be rooting for. From the scarce descriptions available, it does not seem to be based on the idea of recursive self-improvement, but rather on mind uploading.
Another community about existential risk - Arctic news
by turchin — 2013-03-21T15:33:12.274Z

LW is a community of people who mostly share the idea that AI is the main existential risk. But it is not the only one community in the web which has large ammount of evidence about particular existential risk. And the main problem for my point of view is that both communities (but in fact there are many) do not aware about each other existence. This is a real bias.

Here I would like to present another group which I recently found in the net. I cant judge their arguments but find them interesting.

This is http://arctic-news.blogspot.ru/

Their main idea is that Arctic is melting very quickly which could lead to runaway global warming which could start as early as 2015. They explain a lot about positive feedbacks with methane hydrates, water wapors and provide many real time information, maps, satelite images to confirm their point of view.

My idea is not to start discuss arctic ice on LW or AI in Arctic news, but to point on existening of such separated communties which (because of confirantion bias) concentrated deeply of their own agenda. The other such communties are flutrackers, zerohedge, theoildrum and more.

And one probable property of confirmation bias is that a person not only overvalue his own pile of evidences but dismisses value of any other piles of evidences. And that is why such X-risks orientated communities exist in isolation from each other.
Call for Volunteers at Global Future 2045
by MichaelAnissimov — 2013-03-21T12:17:49.160Z

This post is on behalf of Amy Willey, former MIRI employee who is Volunteer Coordinator for GF 2045.

One of the most exciting futurist events this year will be Global Future 2045, in New York City on June 15-16.

They need volunteers! You can apply to be a volunteer here.

Amy Willey, the volunteer coordinator, previously organized Singularity Summit. She is fun to work with! Volunteering at Global Future 2045 is an opportunity to meet many interesting scientists and futurists.
[LINK]Real time mapping of neural activity in a larval zebra fish
by NancyLebovitz — 2013-03-21T06:06:09.060Z

https://plus.google.com/109794669788083578017/posts/gLgSnkCtgrR

Brain function relies on communication between large populations of neurons across multiple brain areas, a full understanding of which would require knowledge of the time-varying activity of all neurons in the central nervous system. Here we use light-sheet microscopy to record activity, reported through the genetically encoded calcium indicator GCaMP5G, from the entire volume of the brain of the larval zebrafish in vivo at 0.8 Hz, capturing more than 80% of all neurons at single-cell resolution. Demonstrating how this technique can be used to reveal functionally defined circuits across the brain, we identify two populations of neurons with correlated activity patterns. One circuit consists of hindbrain neurons functionally coupled to spinal cord neuropil. The other consists of an anatomically symmetric population in the anterior hindbrain, with activity in the left and right halves oscillating in antiphase, on a timescale of 20 s, and coupled to equally slow oscillations in the inferior olive.

Page down at the link to see the animation.
[SEQ RERUN] Raising the Sanity Waterline
by MinibearRex — 2013-03-21T04:47:21.520Z

Today's post, Raising the Sanity Waterline was originally published on 12 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Behind every particular failure of social rationality is a larger and more general failure of social rationality; even if all religious content were deleted tomorrow from all human minds, the larger failures that permit religion would still be present. Religion may serve the function of an asphyxiated canary in a coal mine - getting rid of the canary doesn't get rid of the gas. Even a complete social victory for atheism would only be the beginning of the real work of rationalists. What could you teach people without ever explicitly mentioning religion, that would raise their general epistemic waterline to the point that religion went underwater?

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 Striving to Accept, 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.
Meetup : Vancouver
by  — 2013-03-20T20:12:06.192Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver

WHEN:
23 March 2013 03:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
2505 w broadway, vancouver bc

We've had some great discussions recently about ambition, actually feeling things that you know, how to learn, etc. Interestingly, our planned discussions usually go off track into more interesting areas quite quickly, so the best discussions have been unplanned.

Anyways, please join us for rationality discussion and learning at Benny's Bagels on west broadway at 15:00 on Saturday.

Join the mailing list if you're new or haven't already.

See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver
Solstice and Megameetup Preparations for 2013
by Raemon — 2013-03-20T19:23:43.240Z

I'm officially spinning the Solstice and related ritual stuff into something distinct from Less Wrong (there are good reasons to leave LW focusing on straight-up rationality, and I think it should cater more towards "serious business intellectuals" than trying to appeal to the masses, which is essentially my goal).
I'll be checking in from time to time to let people know what I'm doing. I just posted an introduction newsletter for Solstice and Megameetup activity for 2013. You can view it here, and if you want to participate in future discussion, you may want to join the rational-ritual mailing list.

Some key points:

The Winter Solstice 2011 had been a bit of an experiment, and went well enough, but left us with a sense of "all right, now let's do that for real next year." I think the 2012 Solstice delivered on that. Our house was filled to the brim with 50 people, and I got a lot of profound thanks from people who described it as very emotionally affective, helping them deal with death and successful at community bonding in a way that few other things had been for them.

Now I'm gearing up for this year's work. I have a few main goals for this year:

Have Solstices and Megameetups at a number of cities other than New York.

Have one very large Solstice in NY (looking to seat at least 100 people and trying to seat 800 if I can, in a large auditorium), that caters to the mainstream skeptic/freethinker/humanist crowd. (There will also be a smaller, more intimate and transhumanist Less Wrong Solstice in NYC, but I'm leaning towards it not doubling as a megameetup)

Create an official website that ties this all together, and makes it easier for people to get involved, share music/art, and find people to collaborate with. I want it to be distinct from Less Wrong so that people who aren't interested in ritual don't feel put out, as well as give non-LW-folk a chance to discover it.

For the first goal to be successful, we're going to need other other people doing some non-trivial logistical work. A few people had expressed interest in having Solstices or megameetups in their city but weren't sure if they were able to take on that responsibility personally. Some people were interested in making a Solstice happen but hadn't actually personally experienced it and weren't sure they were qualified.
These are non-triv

...
[SEQ RERUN] Striving to Accept
by MinibearRex — 2013-03-20T05:53:37.684Z

Today's post, Striving to Accept was originally published on 09 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Trying extra hard to believe something seems like Dark Side Epistemology, but what about trying extra hard to accept something that you know is true.

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 Don't Believe You'll Self-Deceive, 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.
Rude research
by KatjaGrace — 2013-03-20T01:00:25.000Z

Cross posted from Overcoming Bias. Comments there.

***

Bryan Caplan says intelligence research is very unpopular because it looks so bad to call half of people stupider than average, let alone stupid outright. Calling people stupid is rude.

But if this is the main thing going on, many other kinds of research should be similarly hated. It’s rude to call people lazy, ugly bastards whose mothers wouldn’t love them. Yet there is little hostility regarding research into conscientiousness, physical attractiveness, parental marriage status, or personal relationships. At least as far as I can tell. Is there? Or what else is going on with intelligence?
Meetup : Montreal Meetup - Bayes' Theorem
by Paul_G — 2013-03-19T20:12:21.114Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Montreal Meetup - Bayes' Theorem

WHEN:
25 March 2013 06:30:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
655 Ave. Du President-Kennedy, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The next weekly meetup is going to be another look at Bayes' theorem, given by our resident statistician.

See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Montreal Meetup - Bayes' Theorem
Meetup : Durham HPMoR meetup, ch. 47-50
by therufs — 2013-03-19T15:20:44.348Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham HPMoR meetup, ch. 47-50

WHEN:
23 March 2013 11:30:00AM (-0400)

WHERE:
721 Rigsbee Avenue, Durham, NC 27701

Discussion of the interstitial chapters after Humanism but before TSPE.

We'll reprise our last meetup's format:

11:30 -- Food from food trucks on Hunt St. near Foster/the farmers' market

11:45 -- Coffee from Cocoa Cinnamon, at Foster & Geer

12? -- meet at Fullsteam (address above), just south of Rigsbee and Geer. (Last week we were a little late, but I will redouble my efforts to mind the time.)

All locations are within a couple of blocks; park wherever looks convenient.

Assorted weather sources are currently predicting a pleasant day, but if they change their minds we may consider a more sheltered venue. If so, we'll change the meetup location not later than noon Friday. Join the RTLW Google group if you'd like to be notified via email: http://groups.google.com/group/RTLW

As always, having done the reading (even recently) is encouraged, but not required.

A note: Marry Durham will be starting a little later on in the afternoon (nominally 2-5 PM, but Durhamites like to party.) I suspect we'll all be arriving early enough that this shouldn't pose too many logistical concerns, but I would recommend not parking on Rigsbee if you'll need to leave at any particular time.

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham HPMoR meetup, ch. 47-50
[SEQ RERUN] Don't Believe You'll Self-Deceive
by MinibearRex — 2013-03-19T03:57:02.933Z

Today's post, Don't Believe You'll Self-Deceive was originally published on 09 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

It may be wise to tell yourself that you will not be able to successfully deceive yourself, because by telling yourself this, you may make it true.

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 Moore's Paradox, 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.
Critiques of the heuristics and biases tradition
by lukeprog — 2013-03-18T23:49:57.035Z

The chapter on judgment under uncertainty in the (excellent) new Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology has a handy little section on recent critiques of the "heuristics and biases" tradition. It also discusses problems with the somewhat-competing "fast and frugal heuristics" school of thought, but for now let me just quote the section on heuristics and biases (pp. 608-609):

The heuristics and biases program has been highly influential; however, some have argued that in recent years the influence, at least in psychology, has waned (McKenzie, 2005). This waning has been due in part to pointed critiques of the approach (e.g., Gigerenzer, 1996). This critique comprises two main arguments: (1) that by focusing mainly on coherence standards [e.g. their rationality given the subject's other beliefs, as contrasted with correspondence standards having to do with the real-world accuracy of a subject's beliefs] the approach ignores the role played by the environment or the context in which a judgment is made; and (2) that the explanations of phenomena via one-word labels such as availability, anchoring, and representativeness are vague, insufficient, and say nothing about the processes underlying judgment (see Kahneman, 2003; Kahneman & Tversky, 1996 for responses to this critique).

The accuracy of some of the heuristics proposed by Tversky and Kahneman can be compared to correspondence criteria (availability and anchoring). Thus, arguing that the tradition only uses the “narrow norms” (Gigerenzer, 1996) of coherence criteria is not strictly accurate (cf. Dunwoody, 2009). Nonetheless, responses in famous examples like the Linda problem can be reinterpreted as sensible rather than erroneous if one uses conversational or pragmatic norms rather than those derived from probability theory (Hilton, 1995). For example, Hertwig, Benz and Krauss (2008) asked participants which of the following two statements is more probable:

[X] The percentage of adolescent smokers in Germany decreases at least 15% from current levels by September 1, 2003.

[X&Y] The tobacco tax in Germany is increased by 5 cents per cigarette and the percentage of adolescent smokers in Germany decreases at least 15% from current levels by September 1, 2003.

According to the conjunction rule, [X&Y cannot be more probable than X] and yet the majority of participants ranked the statemen

...
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Bookshelves
by JesseGalef — 2013-03-18T21:52:53.440Z

A while back in the Columbus Rationality group, we started wondering: What books would the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality houses have in each of their libraries? We had fun categorizing different subjects:

Gryffindor - Combat, ethics, and justice

Ravenclaw - Philosophy, cognitive science, and math

Slytherin -Influence and power

Hufflepuff - Happiness, productivity, and friendship

And so, I found myself taking all my books off their shelves this weekend and picking the best to represent each rationality!House and made them into Facebook cover-image-sized pictures. Click each image to see it larger, with a list on the left:

(first posted at Measure of Doubt)

I’m always open to book recommendations and suggestions for good fits. What other books would be especially appropriate for each shelf?
Recent updates to gwern.net (2012-2013) 
by gwern — 2013-03-18T19:54:30.809Z

Previous: Recent updates to gwern.net (2011)

“But where shall wisdom be found? / And where is the place of understanding? / Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living…for the price of wisdom is above rubies.”

As before, here is material I’ve worked on in the 477 days since my last update which LWers may find interesting. In roughly chronological & topical order, here are the major additions to gwern.net:

I interviewed translator Michael House about his work in Japan as a translator

finished data collection for my hafu anime statistics page and begun analysis. (I’ve achieved good coverage of characters, found an astonishingly consistent absence of Korean characters, and confirmed the blond-haired/blue-eyed stereotype; but my original thesis doesn’t seem to work and the data is too unevenly distributed to identify time trends.)

judged the 2011 & 2012 results for the Haskell Summer of Codes and the accuracy of my predictions

did a meta-analysis on whether dual n-back increases IQ, and examining possible biases and various claims about what makes the training work or not work

did another meta-analysis on whether iodine increases IQ, etc

modafinil:

checked for subjective effects of blinded modafinil

updated my modafinil price-chart twice, and expanded with brand data and a new armodafinil table

researched modafinil-related prosecutions & convictions in the USA

and any connection with schizophrenia

tried kratom

did a nicotine gum/n-back experiment

did 2 potassium experiments; neither improved my mood/productivity, and one damaged my sleep

my Silk Road page has been expanded with a BBC interview, putting SR in a historical cypherpunk context, an updated account of all arrests & law enforcement actions, and application of basic statistics to ordering

ran 2 sleep experiments on the timing of taking a vitamin D supplement: I found that taking vitamin D before bed substantially damaged my sleep, while taking vitamin D after waking up did not hurt & somewhat helped

checked whether a walking desk (treadmill) damaged typing speed or accuracy

I have run 3 Wikipedia experiments establishing that: Talk page edits are ignored by editors; random link deletions (and their restoration) are also ignored by editors; and external link suggestions on Talk pages are also ignored by readers. (I take the former 2 as indica

...