trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Who owns LessWrong?
by PhilGoetz — 2011-09-29T16:22:09.677Z

The LessWrong wiki contains a biased and offensive entry on group selection. I edited the wiki page, to append some points representing an opposing view at the end. Eliezer removed my points, leaving only a link at the end. He said he thought my points were wrong, but would not say which points he thought were wrong, or why he thought they were wrong.

Is it reasonable for me to restore my changes over Eliezer's edit, since he is unwilling to give reasons for his edit? What sort of rights or privileges does Eliezer have over LW or LW wiki content?

(Please try not to turn this into a discussion of group selection.)

ADDED: Please go meta, folks. I am not trying to argue about this specific Wiki article. I am not asking for redress. Specifics about this wiki article are irrelevant. I am asking whether this is still a benevolent dictatorship.

The relevant questions are not what the appropriate form of debate is, or anything about this wiki article. The relevant questions are:

Who owns the domain?

Who created the Wiki?

Who owns the code?

Who pays for the servers?

If someone is in charge, what rights do they reserve for themselves?

At what point does the ratio of community contributions to Eliezer's contributions mean we have the right to claim some ownership?

The Wiki main page says, "The wiki about rationality that anyone who is logged in can edit". Apparently that is a lie. If I do not have as much right as Eliezer does to write a wiki post, I want that point explicitly spelled out.
[paper draft] Coalescing minds: brain uploading-related group mind scenarios
by Kaj_Sotala — 2011-09-29T15:51:16.606Z

http://www.xuenay.net/Papers/CoalescingMinds.pdf

Abstract: We present a hypothetical process of mind coalescence, where artificial connections are created between two brains. This might simply allow for an improved form of communication. At the other extreme, it might merge two minds into one in a process that can be thought of as a reverse split-brain operation. We propose that one way mind coalescence might happen is via an exocortex, a prosthetic extension of the biological brain which integrates with the brain as seamlessly as parts of the biological brain integrate with each other. An exocortex may also prove to be the easiest route for mind uploading, as a person’s personality gradually moves from away from the aging biological brain and onto the exocortex. Memories might also be copied and shared even without minds being permanently merged. Over time, the borders of personal identity may become loose or even unnecessary.

Like my other draft, this is for the special issue on mind uploading in the International Journal of Machine Consciousness. The deadline is Oct 1st, so any comments will have to be quick for me to take them into account.

This one is co-authored with Harri Valpola.

EDIT: Improved paper on the basis of feedback; see this comment for the changelog.
Free Tutoring in Math/Programming
by Patrick — 2011-09-29T13:45:19.348Z

I enjoy teaching, and I'd like to do my bit for the Less Wrong community. I've tutored a few people on the #lesswrong IRC channel in freenode without causing permanent brain damage. Hence I'm extending my offer of free tutoring from #lesswrong to lesswrong.com.

I offer tutoring in the following programming languages:

Haskell

C

Python

Scheme

I offer tutoring in the following areas of mathematics:

Elementary Algebra

Trigonometry

Calculus

Linear Algebra

Analysis

Abstract Algebra

Logic

Category Theory

Probability Theory

Combinatorics

Computational Complexity

If you're interested contact me. Contact details below:

IRC: PatrickRobotham

Skype: grey_fox26

Email: patrick.robotham2@gmail.com
Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief
by Lightwave — 2011-09-29T10:11:49.168Z

Article: Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief in an outcome

Defying logic, people given weak evidence can regard predictions supported by that evidence as less likely than if they aren’t given the evidence at all.
...
Consider the following statement: “Widespread use of hybrid and electric cars could reduce worldwide carbon emissions. One bill that has passed the Senate provides a $250 tax credit for purchasing a hybrid or electric car. How likely is it that at least one-fifth of the U.S. car fleet will be hybrid or electric in 2025?”
That middle sentence is the weak evidence. People presented with the entire statement — or similar statements with the same three-sentence structure but on different topics — answered the final question lower than people who read the statement without the middle sentence. They did so even though other people who saw the middle statement in isolation rated it as positive evidence for, in this case, higher adoption of hybrid and electric cars.

Paper: When good evidence goes bad: The weak evidence effect in judgment and decision-making

Abstract:

An indispensable principle of rational thought is that positive evidence should increase
belief. In this paper, we demonstrate that people routinely violate this principle when pre-
dicting an outcome from a weak cause. In Experiment 1 participants given weak positive
evidence judged outcomes of public policy initiatives to be less likely than participants
given no evidence, even though the evidence was separately judged to be supportive.
Experiment 2 ruled out a pragmatic explanation of the result, that the weak evidence
implies the absence of stronger evidence. In Experiment 3, weak positive evidence made
people less likely to gamble on the outcome of the 2010 United States mid-term Congres-
sional election. Experiments 4 and 5 replicated these findings with everyday causal
scenarios. We argue that this ‘‘weak evidence effect’’ arises because people focus dispro-
portionately on the mentioned weak cause and fail to think about alternative causes.
Hall, "Ethics for Self-Improving Machines" (2011)
by lukeprog — 2011-09-29T04:55:01.368Z

FYI.

J. Storrs Hall (of Beyond AI) has written a new article "Ethics for Self-Improving Machines" for the new Machine Ethics volume from CUP. Sections of it are viewable on Google Books. At a glance, most of the chapters in this volume have been previously published.

Note also that Robot Ethics is on its way from MIT Press. At a glance, most of its chapters have not been published before.
'Newcomblike' Video Game: Frozen Synapse
by AdeleneDawner — 2011-09-29T04:26:17.944Z

Disregarding for the moment the question of whether video games are a rational use of one's time:

Frozen Synapse is a turn based strategy combat game that appears to be particularly interesting from a rationalist standpoint. I haven't played it, but according to the reviews, it's actually a combination of turn-based and real-time play. Each turn encompasses 5 seconds of realtime, but that 5 seconds of realtime doesn't happen until both players have constructed their moves, which they may take as long as they'd like to do. Constructing a move involves giving your several units and your opponent's several units commands, watching what happens when the units play out those commands, and repeating that process until one has a set of commands for one's units that one considers optimal given what one predicts one's opponent will do. This happens on a procedurally-generated battlefield; there are reports of this occasionally giving one player or the other an insurmountable advantage, but the reviews seem to indicate that being able to play on a fresh field each time and having to think about proper use of its layout on the fly outweighs this issue.

Also, the game came to my attention because there's a Humble Bundle available for it now, which means that it can be acquired very nearly for free; just ignore the 'beat the average to get more games' hook.
[SEQ RERUN] Hold Off On Proposing Solutions
by MinibearRex — 2011-09-29T03:06:25.050Z

Today's post, Hold Off On Proposing Solutions was originally published on 17 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Proposing Solutions Prematurely is dangerous, because it introduces weak conclusions in the pool of the facts you are considering, and as a result the data set you think about becomes weaker, overly tilted towards premature conclusions that are likely to be wrong, that are less representative of the phenomenon you are trying to model than the initial facts you started from, before coming up with the premature conclusions.

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 The Logical Fallacy of Generalizing from Fictional Evidence, 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 : Baltimore meetup
by Owen_Richardson — 2011-09-29T02:37:22.659Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore meetup

WHEN:
01 October 2011 02:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
"Chocolatea Cafe", 3811 Canterbury Road Baltimore, MD

I know this is short notice, but me and Mark Eichenlaub at least will be meeting up this Saturday. =]

Note that the venue has changed from last time.

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore meetup
The effects of religion (draft)
by Solvent — 2011-09-29T01:11:21.517Z

I've written this essay about the effects of religion. I plan to post it in the main section. However, in my year or so of lurking here I've noticed that most of the first main posts people create are either irrelevant or bad, and end up down voting the poster to oblivion. To this aim, I first post it here, for your critique, and also to tell me if you think it's appropriate to post in the main section of LessWrong.

The effects of religion

In the atheist community, it's held as pretty much a self-proving truth thar religion is a bad thing. I have attempted to produce a taxonomy of the effects of religion, both positive and negative. This is written based on my personal experience of the Christian church, and on whatever actual facts I could find.

So. My list of the external effects of religion. These are given as both comparisons to normal people, who don't think much about religion or effective charity, and comparisons to LessWrongians.

It's worth pointing out that western society seems to have a lot of cached thoughts from Christianity. Normal people are often not Christian, but casually believe a lot of its teachings. As a result, many of the negative effects of Christianity affect non-Christians who don't pay particular attention to their beliefs too.

The purpose of this essay is to determine if LessWrong should actively evangelize against religion. If we really wanted to, we could probably do so fairly easily. I conclude that it's probably not worthwhile doing so.

Charitable giving

The Christians I know all seem to give far more to charity, both in terms of money and time, than average people. Eliezer pointed this out somewhere, but I can't seem to find a reference. The giving probably isn't quite optimized, but it's a far cry better than nothing. A large proportion of the charity which the Christians I know support seems highly effective, and very little of it is optimized for evangelism alone.

It could be that by co-incidence I just happen to know particularly effective Christians for some reason.

It's worth considering the degree to which Christians and atheists disagree on what charities are worth supporting. The only things Christians support which atheists wouldn't as much are things like school chaplains, giving Bibles, and protesting for various Christian issues like opposing gay marriage and abortion. Ridiculous amounts are certainly ...
Wanted: backup plans for "seed AI turns out to be easy"
by Wei Dai — 2011-09-28T21:54:34.459Z

Earlier, I argued that instead of working on FAI, a better strategy is to pursue an upload or IA based Singularity. In response to this, some argue that we still need to work on FAI/CEV, because what if it turns out that seed AI is much easier than brain emulation or intelligence amplification, and we can't stop or sufficiently delay others from building them? If we had a solution to CEV, we could rush to build a seed AI ourselves, or convince others to make use of the ideas.

But CEV seems a terrible backup plan for this contingency, since it involves lots of hard philosophical and implementation problems and therefore is likely to arrive too late if seed AI turns out to be easy. (Searching for whether Eliezer or someone else addressed the issue of implementation problems before, I found just a couple of sentences, in the original CEV document: "The task of construing a satisfactory initial dynamic is not so impossible as it seems. The satisfactory initial dynamic can be coded and tinkered with over years, and may improve itself in obvious and straightforward ways before taking on the task of rewriting itself entirely." Which does not make any sense to me—why can't every other AGI builder make the same argument, that their code can be "tinkered with" over many years, and therefore is safe? Why aren't we risking the "initial dynamic" FOOMing while it's being tinkered with? Actually, it seems to me that an AI cannot begin to extrapolate anyone's volition until it's already more powerful than a human, so I have no idea how the tinkering is supposed to work at all.)

So, granting that "seed AI is much easier than brain emulation or intelligence amplification" is a very real possibility, I think we need better backup plans. This post is a bit similar to The Friendly AI Game, in that I'm asking for a utility function for a seed AI, but the goal here is not necessarily to build an FAI directly, but to somehow make an eventual positive Singularity more likely, while keeping the utility function simple enough that there's a good chance it can be specified and implemented correctly within a relatively short amount of time. Also, the top entry in that post is an AI that can answer formally specified questions with minimal side effects, apparently with the idea that we can use such an AI to advance many kinds of science and technology. But I agree with Neso...
Reversed stupidity sometimes provides useful information
by Scott Alexander — 2011-09-28T10:28:37.513Z

In his recent CATO article, Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence, Eliezer writes:

To psychoanalyze these people’s flaws, even correctly, and even if they constitute a numerical majority of the people talking about “quantum,” says nothing at all about whether the smartest people who believe in “quantum” might perhaps be justified in doing so ... there are large numbers of embarrassing people who believe in flying saucers, but this cannot possibly be Bayesian evidence against the presence of aliens, unless you believe that aliens would suppress flying-saucer cults, so that we are less likely to see flying-saucer cults if aliens exist than if they do not exist. So even if you have truly and correctly identified a cluster of people who believe X for very bad, no good, awful, non-virtuous reasons, one does not properly conclude not-X, but rather calls it all not-evidence.

I think the statement makes a correct point - don't dismiss an idea just because a few proponents are stupid - but is too strong as written. In some cases, we can derive information about the truth of a proposition by psychoanalyzing reasons for believing it.

There are certain propositions that people are likely to assert regardless of whether or not they are true. Maybe they're useful for status disputes, or part of a community membership test, or just synchronize well with particula human biases. "X proves the existence of God" commonly gets asserted whether or not X actually proves the existence of God. Anything that supports one race, gender, political party, or ideology over another is also suspect. Let's call these sorts of propositions "popular claims". Some true propositions might be popular claims, but popular claims are popular whether or not they are true.

Some popular claims are surprising. Without knowing anything about modern society, one might not predict that diluting chemicals thousands of times to cure diseases, or claiming the government is hiding alien bodies, would be common failure modes. You don't know these are popular claims until you hear them.

If a very large group of people make a certain assertion, and you always find it to be false, you now have very good evidence that it's a popular claim, a proposition that people will very often assert even if it's false.

Normally, when someone asserts a proposition, you assume they have ...
Meetup : Houston Meetup - Saturday, October 1
by Cog — 2011-09-28T06:08:03.459Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Houston Meetup - Saturday, October 1

WHEN:
01 October 2011 03:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
2010 Commerce St, Houston, Tx. 77002

There will be another meeting at the hackerspace this Saturday. I'll be giving a presentation on a theoretical neuroscience article about timing in the brain. While not related to rationality directly, it's a topic I understand well and can use to segue into methods and goals of theoretical neuroscience as a whole. This should take an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

If anyone is interested in reading up before hand, the article is here:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.2382

Discussion article for the meetup : Houston Meetup - Saturday, October 1
Quixey - startup applying LW-style rationality - hiring engineers
by Liron — 2011-09-28T04:50:45.130Z

Quixey is a 2-year-old startup with a lot of ties to the rationalist community. Our product is an all-platform "functional search" engine for apps. Our main engineering task is to build the most accurate possible map of all software on all platforms (the "functional web"), and write search algorithms that let users find apps to do what they need.

We're hiring top-notch engineers for full time positions in our Palo Alto, CA office. If your overall engineering skill level is "Google+", we have a lot to offer:

Team

Everyone is shockingly good at their job.

Nick_Tarleton is our Chief Architect.

Marcello, paulfchristiano and mtaran were Quixey engineers earlier this year.

Our CEO, Tomer Kagan, is the best strategist ever (source: anyone who has met him).

My own LW claim to fame is You Are A Brain.

Eric Schmidt's personal fund led our seed funding round.

Personal growth

You'll tackle huge engineering challenges.

You'll learn how to be more like a goal-driven agent and not get sidetracked by non-essential priorities.

You'll be given a lot of freedom and trust. You can set up new infrastructure and tools, expense business products and services, and even subcontract some of your tasks if you think it's a good idea.

You'll watch the business team negotiate deals way more awesome than what seems possible.

You'll participate in conferences, retreats, and other cool startup stuff.

Success

We're at the point where our value proposition has been validated many times over on the business development side, and we're focused on rapid engineering execution. We know we're making a product that people will use.

We're building one of the biggest companies in the software industry. If you work here, you're doing something great.

Quality of life

We use a bunch of great tools like Python 3, MongoDB, Amazon AWS, nginx, Git and jQuery.

We do everything we can to create an environment where engineers can do their best work. That means private cubicles with doors made out of sliding whiteboards, standard-issue Macbook/Thinkpad laptops and 30" monitors, good chairs, and any other tools you need to do your best work.

We don't have gratuitously extravagant perks, but we do have a health and wellness package: 3 healthy catered meals a day, fridges stocked with high-quality snacks and drinks, a free members

...
Rationality Quotes With Attributions Hidden: from Mein Kampf to Men****x
by lessdazed — 2011-09-28T04:50:23.745Z

This thread has an experimental format for posting rationality quotes. Here is the format:

For those posting quotes:

Post the quote as usual, but not the author, original language translated from, or other information. That information is to be input after the quote according to the following format:

[Source](http://linkgoes.here "hovertext goes here")

For example:

>When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place.

[Source](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30216.html "Goethe, translated.")

The source information will be available by hovering the mouse over "Source", without opening a new page. This format allows quotations to be evaluated with less context available, with all that entails. I hope this allays some of the uncertainty regarding why words of the Bible or authors such as Nietzsche are sometimes poorly received. People are encouraged to vote without considering the source information. If locally idolized people said genuinely silly things even considering the context, feel free to post those as well, but please use your best judgement as to whether or not taking it out of context is fair to the speaker.

Please use your own judgement in deciding which quotes thread to post material. This isn't intended to compete with the main thread, it's an experiment to see if people like a different format better. Some people thought this format, or something like it, should simply be tried on the next regular quotes thread to minimize any disruption caused by having multiple threads, while others thought disruption wold be minimized by having a separate thread and leaving the main thread as normal. This is what I decided to do.

The usual rules apply, except that there is no fixed limit to the number of quotes one may submit, because I'd like to populate this thread without taking too much from the usual thread.

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)

Do not quote yourself.

Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
Meetup : Chicago Meetup
by steven0461 — 2011-09-28T04:29:35.777Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Chicago Meetup

WHEN: 02 October 2011 03:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE: 6 E. Cedar St., Chicago, IL

We're meeting at the Big Bowl. Look for a LW sign. At the previous meetup, some of us agreed it would be good to have an official topic. No great topic comes to mind right now, so if we still want to have one, let's figure something out in the comments.

If you're coming, please leave a comment or a message to the google group (http://groups.google.com/group/less-wrong-chicago), so we can give BB an idea of how many people to expect.

Discussion article for the meetup : Chicago Meetup