trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Enabling Children
by lincolnquirk — 2021-03-03T00:02:01.350Z

There was a recent discussion on Less Wrong about whether or not ambitious people should have kids.

I didn't manage to watch it, though I have a lot of interest in the topic. It wasn't recorded but I can still hope for someone to post lots of details about it in the comments.

One subtheme from the comments that stuck out to me was the idea that there are lots of people who want children (because it would satisfy a genetic urge, or because it is fulfilling, etc.) but delay or decide not to procreate. They hold off because they expect that having children dominates their life in a way which could prevent them as a parent from being able to focus on your work, and this could be a severe limiter for ambitious goals. I certainly resonate with this.

To solve this, I've been thinking for a long time that it would be great if a bunch of families lived together. You'd only require one parent (or caretaker) to watch over a bunch of other people's kids at any moment. Living together has a bunch of other benefits too. It's hard to find big houses (or a cluster) with all the amenities that a bunch of separate families would need, but it is possible to build such developments to spec.

As a proof of concept, Jefftk raises his kids with a bunch of other adults in the house. I don't think his house would be big enough for those adults to have their own families, though.

Why don't people already co-raise their kids with other ambitious families? Well, I think some people probably do, in private situations that we aren't aware of. But it's not widespread. It seems like a really difficult coordination problem, to set up a good situation to raise kids with other families all in one place. You have to solve simultaneously for:

the space needs of all the families, plus any hired help

money: the means to pay for the house (mortgages, rent, etc), wages for hired help if any; plus negotiating loans or room rents across lots of people

whatever location constraints you have (for jobs/commutes/schools/etc)

all the labor of actually finding or building a home (possibly including solving zoning constraints) and maintenance

challenges related to having a bunch of people sharing the same space and presumably working from home, being very busy, etc. (like, there's a normal cooking rotation but someone gets called away and nobody else has enough time to prepare dinner for 12, clean up afterwards,

...
A Formula for the Value of Existential Risk Reduction
by harsimony — 2021-03-02T18:54:15.346Z
Link: https://harsimony.wordpress.com/2021/02/28/a-formula-for-the-value-of-existential-risk-reduction/

(EDIT: fixed the formatting issues on an earlier version of this post)

How important is existential risk reduction (XRR)? Here, I present a model to estimate the value of eliminating existential risks.

Note that this model is exceedingly simple; it is actually contained within other studies of existential risk, but I feel the implications have not been fully considered.

The Model

Let’s imagine that, if we did nothing, there is a certain per-century probability of human extinction p. This means that the discount rate (survival probability) is 1−p=γ. This would mean that the total value of the future, discounted by the probability of extinction each century, is1:

Vtotal=∞∑t=0γt∗V(t)

Where V(t) is the expected value (however that might be defined) of each century t.

For the purposes of this post, our goal is to maximize Vtotal via XRR.

To do this, imagine we eliminate a specific existential risk (e.g. get rid of all nuclear weapons). This has the effect of raising γ by a multiplicative factor r, making the new discount rate rγ (note that 1≤r≤1γ since the overall discount rate can’t be larger than one).

Now, the new value of the future V′total is:

V′total=∞∑t=0(rγ)t∗V(t)

Using this “risk reduction coefficient” r is a natural representation of XRR because different risks multiply to produce the overall discount rate.

For example, if there was a per-century probability of extinction from asteroids pa=1−γaand a per-century probability of extinction from nuclear war pn=1−γn, then the overall discount rate is γa∗γn. So, if we eliminated the risk of nuclear extinction, the new discount rate is now γa. In this case, r=1γn.

Lets assume V(t) is a constant V each century2, we obtain a simple formula for V′total in this case:

V′total=V1−rγ

What happens to V′total when we reduce existential risks in a world where X-risk is high, versus a world where X-risk is low?

Imagine two scenarios:

A world with nuclear weapons which also has a low level of existential risk from other sources (e.g. not many dangerous asteroids in it’s solar system, AI alignment problem has been solved, etc.). γ=0.99 in this world (that is, there is a 99% chance of surviving each century).

A world with nuclear weapons which also has a high level of existential

...
Attempt at a gears model of getting infected with COVID-19
by ChristianKl — 2021-03-02T15:39:36.087Z

I read a bit but don't know how good my understanding is. For reasoning about TAFFIX or the RaDVaC vaccine it would be good to have a decent gears model. I'm writing my current model so that others can check it for errors and not for others believing my model:

There's SARS-CoV-2 particles in the air around you.

You breath in those particles.

If your nasal cavity is lined with mucus, those particles get onto the mucus and the mucus traps them. The mucus however itself doesn't kill SARS-CoV-2 particles in it.

There are two ways of getting rid of the mucus with the SARS-CoV-2 particles. Either you blow your nose and get rid of the mucus in your nasal cavity that way or you shallow it.

If the body knows how to defend against SARS-CoV-2 from a previous infection it puts antibodies inside the mucus to bind the SARS-CoV-2 particles. If the SARS-CoV-2 particles however aren't bound they sometimes get again into the inhaled air and make it into the lung or the go from the mucus into the nasal tissue.

Once antigens enter the nasal tissue, the mucosal immune system starts producing antibodies for those antigens so that they get trapped in the mucus and in the nasal tissue.

If there are too much SARS-CoV-2 particles the immune system in the nasal tissue doesn't manage to handle the threat in time, the SARS-CoV-2 particles grow in quantity. The get into the lymph and blood and travel through the body. Then the normal immune system kicks in and tries to fight it. If there aren't many particles it somehow manages to fight it (so that there's a threshold for infection) but if there are too much it first has to go through effort to build up the immune system defenses and there's a COVID-19 infection.

Is there something wrong in my recounting or something important I'm missing? I'm also happy of other resources that give a clear gears model.
Good, Evil and (?)Indifferent God Challanges
by Szymon Kucharski — 2021-03-02T13:57:50.908Z

Let's assume for the sake of discussion, that some form of the omniscient, omnipotent, personal creator of the universe(s) exists. (I do not hold that assumption, I am curious about some logical implications and correlations of what I am going to describe, everything here is a thought experiment)

Many people have wondered about the problem of evil. Why evil, and suffering is probably the most obvious example, exists in the world created by an Omnibenevolent God. You can find some theodicy trying to "justify" the existence of a benevolent God. Relatively recently, dr. Stephen Law popularized the conception of a perfectly evil God, an entirely malevolent being. You could read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_God_Challenge
There are also a few videos made by Alex O'Connor on his YouTube channel CosmicSkeptic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLnsY5io964
Both Good and Evil God challenges seem to be symmetric.

Line of argumentation we can use trying to make one of the reasonings more probable can be as well used to do so with the second one.

Translation results It may follow from this that we should attribute equal probability to the Concepts of a Perfectly Good and Evil God, assuming that he is at the end of the spectrum of classically understood good or evil. This could mean that we are living in either the best or the worst possible world, with a 50% probability.

I would want to ask is there a 3rd logical possibility, the indifferent God "hypothesis". In such a world, God would not care about the suffering and well-being of sentient creatures at all. I think it could be a logical option. In that case, our certainty of God being good would be about 33,3%, which doesn't look impressive to me.

I would tend to assume that suffering and well-being do not have to even be something God (understood as a personal creator of the universe, with omnipotence and omniscience) would think about as important. We could assume that for God minimizing suffering and/or maximizing well-being is no, and never was a priority. Actually, that option is believed by Christians, where suffering is not intrinsically bad, and the highest good is not hedonistic well-being, but God's Love and His Will. In our imagination, we can make that will be (probably) whatever we want so that God's goal is neither to reduce suffering (and/or maximize well-being) n...
A whirlwind tour of Ethereum finance
by cata — 2021-03-02T09:36:23.477Z

As a hacker and cryptocurrency liker, I have been hearing for a while about "DeFi" stuff going on in Ethereum without really knowing what it was. I own a bunch of ETH, so I finally decided that enough was enough and spent a few evenings figuring out what was going on. To my pleasant surprise, a lot of it was fascinating, and I thought I would share it with LW in the hopes that other people will be interested too and share their thoughts.

Throughout this post I will assume that the reader has a basic mental model of how Ethereum works. If you don't, you might find this intro & reference useful.

Why should I care about this?

For one thing, it's the coolest, most cypherpunk thing going. Remember how back in 2012, everyone knew that Bitcoin existed, but it was a pain in the ass to use and it kind of felt weird and risky? It feels exactly like that using all this stuff. It's loads of fun.

For another thing, the economic mechanism design stuff is really fun to think about, and in many cases nobody knows the right answer yet. It's a chance for random bystanders to hang out with problems on the edge of human understanding, because nobody cared about these problems before there was so much money floating around in them.

For a third thing, you can maybe make some money. Specifically, if you have spare time, a fair bit of cash, appetite for risk, conscientiousness, some programming and finance knowledge, and you are capable of and interested in understanding how these systems work, I think it's safe to say that you have a huge edge, and you should be able to find places to extract value.

General overview

In broad strokes, people are trying to reinvent all of the stuff from typical regulated finance in trustless, decentralized ways (thus "DeFi".) That includes:

Making anything that has value into a transferable asset, typically on Ethereum, and typically an ERC-20 token. A token is an interoperable currency that keeps track of people's balances and lets people transfer it.
Making liquid exchanges where you can swap all of those tokens at market prices.
Making schemes for moving those tokens over time, like borrowing, futures, etc.
Making elaborate scams and arbitrages to obtain other people's tokens.

It's not completely clear to me what the main value proposition of all of this is. It's easy to generate things about it that seem somewhat valuable, but hard to say how each stack...
Good brainteasers for children?
by ejacob — 2021-03-02T06:44:24.789Z

I love asking children (and adults in some cases) the following question:

Five birds are sitting in a tree. A hunter takes a rifle and shoots one of them. How many birds are left? (Edit: Rephrased to avoid several problems)

Five ducks are sitting in a field. A hunter shoots and kills one of the ducks. How many ducks remain sitting in the field? (If your answer is 'four' - try again!)

This is a system I/system II trap, akin to "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?" In my experience kids (and adults) usually get this wrong the first time, but kids get a special kick out of something that sounds like a math problem they do for homework but turns out to be a bit more. I've also used the 2, 4, 8 puzzle for impromptu demos of confirmation bias. These are fun and engaging ways to teach kids about cognitive biases before they could realistically read the Sequences or Thinking Fast and Slow.

Can we share or brainstorm any more? Some basic inclusion criteria (feel free to argue or suggest more):

Problems/tasks should reliably trigger some cognitive bias or other "glitch."
Any stepwise thinking needs to be finished within a child's attention span. Feel free to assume it's a particularly smart and motivated child if you need to.

I don't have any kids of my own but have local friends with younger families. Having a few tricks like these really helps me create a "fun uncle" persona, but I'm also curious if parents have a different perspective or experience posing these kinds of questions to their kids.
The Flexibility of Abstract Concepts
by lsusr — 2021-03-02T06:43:21.170Z

I can discuss Daoist ideas with Taiwanese friends easily even if they have no background in Daoism. But when I try the same thing with white people it often feels as if I'm trying to explain quantum field theory to someone who has never heard of mathematics. It is easier for me to discuss Zen with a Taiwanese atheist than a Western psychonaut.

In his book review on The Geography of Thought, PeterMcCluskey draws attention to differences between Westerners' and East Asians' ways of thinking. This post elaborates on one specific difference: the flexibility of abstract concepts.

Western people are trained to think terms of universal principles. East Asians are trained to think contextually.

The Dao [map] is not the Dao [territory]

East Asians are conditioned from an early age to understand that the map is not the territory. Saying "the map is not the territory" would be like saying "the sky is up", "money is valuable" or "don't kick kittens". The distinction between map and territory has been understood for literally thousands of years.

道可道也，非恒道也。

The "dao" referred to by "the dao" [map] is not the dao [territory].

― 《道德经》Dao de Jing by Laozi 老子, 4th century BC

Of course the map is not the territory. How could anyone who comprehends the concept of lying possibly confuse the two? And yet, I was talking to an American a couple months ago who literally did not believe me when I tried to explain how the word "infinity" has different meanings in different contexts.

Western Rhetoric

Western society has a long tradition of rhetoric where you debate the truth of statements like "murder is bad" or "the Greens should win the next election". Practically every grade school essay states a claim and then defends it. "A theme in The Great Gatsby is…".

American rhetoric reaches its purest form in the Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate format. In the LD debate format two competitors debate a resolution like "Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee universal child care."[1] One side is debates in favor. The other side debates against.

Resolutions never center around objective facts. (That would be a policy debate.) Instead, they come down to questions of value. Each debater defines victory in terms of a value criterion. A value is something universally agreed to be good like "justice". The criterion is a method of measuring the value.

Throughout the entire process it is implied that i...
Tap Water and Filtration
by manaterra — 2021-03-02T03:45:52.477Z

I've been wondering about the safety and quality of the tap water in my city. I've always been assured that it's clean right out the tap. But I spent this past year living rurally with a groundwater well on-site, and when I visited the city I was struck by how bad the tap water tasted to me.

Given its frequency of use in all our lives, I am generally surprised by the lack of discussion around water quality in my circles. It seems like nobody talks about it, and almost everyone I know drinks (and cooks with etc) what I now consider bad-tasting tap water. Does anyone have good leads or resources on this topic? I'd like to learn more and am unsure where to look first.

Some questions under consideration:

What is 'safe' to drink?

What makes water quality good vs bad?

Are taste and safety/quality correlated?

Any recommended water quality tests?

To filter or not to filter?

Which filtering methods actually work?

What questions would you be asking?
Are the Born probabilities really that mysterious?
by Adele Lopez — 2021-03-02T03:08:34.334Z

In Eliezer's Quantum Mechanics sequence, he presents the Born probabilities as still being mysterious in our understanding. In particular, the fact that it's the only non-linear phenomenon in quantum mechanics is considered quite strange.

However, I've been reading Everett's "Many Worlds" thesis, and he derives the Born probabilities (pp. 69-72) by asking what happens to an observer as the system evolves. If we posit a measure M for which the measure of a trajectory (of an observer) at one time equals the sum of the measures of each trajectory "branching" from the initial one, then he shows it must be (up to a multiplicative constant) the squared amplitude.

He then claims that this is "fully analogous" to Liouville's theorem, which can be interpreted as a law of Conservation of Information. So taking this seriously, the Born probabilities are as inevitable as the 2nd law of thermodynamics and the uncertainty principle, among many other well-known consequences of Liouville's theorem.

In that case, it seems to me that most of the mystery has been washed away. But I'm not quite sure to what extent he means all of that when saying "fully analogous". In particular, I'd like to know if the Born probabilities are truly an inevitable consequence of Conservation of Information?
Economic Class
by lsusr — 2021-03-02T01:58:27.070Z

Social class is fossilized wealth. There are three economic classes in the USA.

If you do physical work then you belong to the the "working class", "lower class", "blue collar" or simply "labor".

If you do nonphysical work then you belong to the "middle class" or "white collar".

If other people work for you then you belong to the "upper class" or "bourgeoisie".

Labor

The working class lives in the physical world. Blue collar problems are physical problems like injury, health, violence and broken machines. At the bottom of the working class you find mindless labor like agricultural labor, food service, cashiers and—increasingly—warehouses. (Petty crime is underclass.)

College used to be a ticket out of the lower class. This path is increasingly difficult due to price increases, credential inflation and opaque acceptance criteria designed to keep the lower class in its place. The military does still function in its traditional role as a ticket into the middle class, but only if you get into the right specialties.

In the middle of the working class are the skilled trades. All the traditional handyman job live here: plumber, roofer, electrician, drywall repair. Among women you can find lots of nursing. Retail sales belongs here too as do police officers. Rare occupations include jugglers, clowns, close-up magicians and other small-scale entertainers. (Media-based entertainers belong to the middle class.) Psychics and priests serve the working class but are themselves middle class.

Attempting to break into the middle class can be risky due to the sticker price of college plus the lost wages. If you go into the military there's no guarantee they'll teach you anything useful. A more prudent goal may be to break into the skilled trades. Blue collar work doesn't require credentials the way white collar work does. If you can do something then employers will generally allow to do it. If you aren't allowed to do it then it's because there's a union rule or government regulation getting in you way. Your productivity is fundamentally limited by physical reality. No matter how good of a janitor you are, there is a physical limit to the number of rooms you can clean in a day.

The working class might go to trade school for a year or two but most of what you know you learned from friends, absorbed from family, taught yourself or—most likely—learned on the job. It's straightforw...
Notes on "Bioterror and Biowarfare" (2006)
by MichaelA — 2021-03-02T00:43:22.299Z

Cross-posted from the EA Forum

I recently finished reading Malcolm Dando’s 2006 book

Bioterror and Biowarfare: A Beginner’s Guide

, following

Darius Meissner’s recommendation

. I’d recommend the book for people who want to learn more about bioterror, biowarfare, and/or chemical weapons, and who don’t yet have extensive knowledge on those topics. (I fit that description, and have ranked the book as the 24th most useful-to-me of

the 49 effective-altruism-related books I’ve read since learning about effective altruism (EA)

.)

Here, I'll:

Summarise my six "main updates" from this book
Share the Anki cards I made for myself when reading the book

I intend this as a lower-effort alternative to writing notes specifically for public consumption or writing a proper book review
If you want to download the cards themselves to import them into your own deck, follow

this link

Share a few final thoughts on whether you should read this book

(Since the first of those three parts seems the most valuable per word, and the second part is quite long, I’ve split parts 2 and 3 into comments below the post itself.)

My hope is that this post will be help some people to quickly:

Gain some key insights from the book
Work out whether reading/listening to the book is worth their time

(Note: Before commenting on this post, it may be worth considering whether your comment might pose an

infohazard

[

see also

]. Feel free to send me a direct message instead/first. Relatedly, I ran this post by someone before publishing it.)

My main updates from the book

This section briefly summarises the main ways in which the book shifted my beliefs on relatively high-level points that seem potentially decision-relevant, as opposed to just specific facts I learned about. Note that each of those updates was more like a partial shift towards even more / somewhat less

credence

in something, rather than a total reversal of my previous views. (See also Update Yourself Incrementally.)

It seems that the picture I’d gotten regarding bioterror and biowarfare from some talks/writings by EAs (especially

The Precipice

) was basically correct, not misleading, and not missing extremely important points

I already would’ve guessed that that’s the case, but my guess would’ve only had perhaps ~75% confidence.

So this updates me towards placing a bit more trust in the analysis I get from EAs (or at least professional high profil

...