trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
What is your coronavirus prediction for Israel?
by Yair Halberstadt — 2021-06-17T19:10:49.697Z

Israel was the fastest country to vaccinate and has the most people fully vaccinated of any country. It has reached vaccine saturation where there are very few people left to vaccinate (it's currently vaccinating 12 - 16 year olds but at an imperceptible rate). It's cases were falling until recently, and almost all restrictions have now been removed.

What happens to Israel is important, as it offers an early glimpse on whether vaccinations alone can be enough to make covid die out.

Recently cases in Israel have stopped falling, and even started rising. Besides for the usual sources, there's some very good quality data available on https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general (warning - Hebrew, but google translate does an okish job).

Do you predict this is just noise, or if cases will continue to rise? How high and will it stop life getting back to normal, or will it become just another disease, like the seasonal flu? Is this related to covid variants, removal of restrictions, international travel, or something else?
Covid 6/17: One Last Scare
by Zvi — 2021-06-17T18:40:01.502Z

The one last scare, from America’s perspective, is the Delta variant. If we can remain stable or improving once Delta takes over, then barring another even more infectious variant, we’ve won. If and where we can’t do that, it’s not over.

That’s the question. How much Delta is out there already, how much worse is it, and will that be enough to undo our work? If it is, how long until further vaccinations can turn things around again?

Before I look into that, let’s run the numbers.

The Numbers

Predictions

Prediction from last week: Positivity rate of 1.8% (down 0.2%), deaths fall by 9%.

Results: Positivity rate of 1.9% (up 0.1%), deaths fall by 20%.

Prediction: Positivity rate of 1.8% (down 0.1%), deaths fall by 9%.

I think the deaths drop likely reflects variance in reporting, so while it is definitely good news I do not want to predict a further large drop from a number that is likely to be somewhat artificially low. For positivity rate, we seem to have shifted to a regime of rapidly declining numbers of tests, especially in areas with declining infection rates. Thus, it’s quite possible that the positive test rate will stop reflecting the state of the pandemic. I still expect the number to keep dropping a bit, but it wouldn’t be that surprising if it stabilized around 2% from here on in with improvements reflected mainly elsewhere.

Deaths

Date	WEST	MIDWEST	SOUTH	NORTHEAST	TOTAL
May 6-May 12	826	1069	1392	855	4142
May 13-May 19	592	1194	1277	811	3874
May 20-May 26	615	948	1279	631	3473
May 27-June 2	527	838	1170	456	2991
June 3-June 9	720	817	915	431	2883
Jun 10-Jun 16	368	611	961	314	2254

It seems like we can safely say that last week’s measured death count was too high and should have been more in the 2500-2700 range, and we remain roughly on the previous pace of decline from May. This week’s number is likely slightly lower than its true value, with some deaths shifted from this week into last week versus when they would usually be measured. Note that the raw total was even lower, as I added back some deaths in California when they reported negative numbers on multiple days, which I cancelled back up to zero.

Cases

Date	WEST	MIDWEST	SOUTH	NORTHEAST	TOTAL
Apr 29-May 5	52,984	78,778	85,641	68,299	285,702
May 6-May 12	46,045	59,945	70,740	46,782	223,512
May 13-May 19	39,601	45,030	63,529	34,309	182,469
May 20-May 26	33,890	34,694	48,973	24,849	142,406
May 27-June 2	31,172	20,044	33,293	14,660	99,169
Jun 3-Jun 9	25,987	18,267	32,545	11,540	88

...
The aducanumab approval
by ChristianKl — 2021-06-17T14:05:39.846Z
Link: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/08/the-aducanumab-approval

As the world knows, the FDA approved Biogen’s anti-amyloid antibody today, surely the first marketed drug whose Phase III trial was stopped for futility. I think this is one of the worst FDA decisions I have ever seen, because – like the advisory committee that reviewed the application, and like the FDA’s own statisticians – I don’t believe that Biogen really demonstrated efficacy. No problem apparently. The agency seems to have approved it based on its demonstrated ability to clear beta-amyloid, and is asking Biogen to run a confirmatory trial to show efficacy.

[...]

So the FDA has, for expediency’s sake, bought into the amyloid hypothesis although every single attempt to translate that into a beneficial clinical effect has failed. I really, really don’t like the precedent that this sets: what doesn’t get approved, now? I suppose only things that definitely cause harm, because otherwise why not just ask for the same deal that Biogen got, and go out and prove efficacy while you turn a profit? I know that this is just the libertarian turn that many people have wished for, but I’m still not sanguine about it.
Who wants to run a B2B SaaS startup?
by jefftk — 2021-06-17T13:40:02.311Z

A friend of mine has been bootstrapping a business-to-business
software-as-a-service startup that's seeing serious growth. It needs
someone who can put dedicated effort into scaling it, but my friend is
near the end of their career and looking to retire. What do people
do in this situation?

More details: they were running a traditional labor-limited small
business and they automated some of the work. This automation was a
huge improvement and they realized it could be useful to other
companies. In early 2019 they had a web app ready and started taking
external customers. In late 2020 they started to see serious growth,
which has continued. They let me share some numbers:

This is a run rate of ~$340k/y, up from ~$100k/y a quarter ago, ~$52k a
quarter before that, ~$12k/y a quarter before that, and ~$7k a year
ago. That's growth of ~50x in a year, or 7.8% a week, which is
extremely good. Expenses are servers ($40/m), plus the time
they have been putting into it (~20hr/wk).

They have ~50 customers, and churn is essentially zero: they have only
had one customer leave, and that was because that customer lost the
contract they were using the service for. Their customers are really
happy: the service is very reasonably priced given the large amount of
work it saves. My friend estimates that they are at under 1% of their
potential customers with the current offering, has ideas for several
other things they could offer, and doesn't know of any competitors.

It looks to me like it's uncommon for someone to sell a business at
this stage: typically a founder would at least stay through the
hyper-growth phase. Unfortunately, my friend is not able to give the
company the attention it deserves, and it could grow much more
effectively under management that wants to be running a fast-growing
startup.

I don't know what makes sense here. Possibly someone who is thinking
of founding a startup might instead be interested in buying this one?
I don't know if there's some thing where you buy a company with its own
stock, vesting over some number of years? This would be a very good
situation compared to most tech startups: they have product-market
fit, customers love it, they're profitable, and they're seeing
excellent growth. Alternatively, perhaps there are companies that buy
businesses like these and run them? Does anyone have experience with
...
The Apprentice Thread
by Zvi — 2021-06-17T13:10:01.175Z

A while back, LessWrong poster Aysajan put up a post asking to be someone’s apprentice. He talked about it with johnswentworth, who I recently confirmed via meeting him in person is awesome and does reliably interesting work, and an apprentice experiment was born.

As John says, you gotta admire the chutzpah. Asking for what one wants is a known to be successful but highly underused strategy, I presume mostly because of the permanent global chutzpah shortage and the associated danger that it might result in mild social awkwardness.

In addition to the highly successful use of chutzpah, this also points out that apprenticeships are also a known to be successful but highly underused strategy. My feelings about so-called ‘schools’ are well known, but education is great, and apprenticeship is one of the best ways to get an actually excellent and useful education.

I’ve been an apprentice, regardless of whether it was called that, and it was awesome. At Jane Street they have a formal education process, but the core of how you get good is an apprenticeship. You learn from the best, by working with the best and asking them questions. I believe I am a natural trader, but I am good largely because I learned from working directly with three of the best in succession at three different jobs. I know Magic and game design by spending tons of time talking and working with top Magic players and game designers.

I’ve been a mentor of sorts a few times. That’s mostly been great too, and I’m plausibly taking on another one now, although I’m cheating because he is already exceptional and largely does not need the help.

Thus, we have two overpowered strategies here that the world needs more of: Apprenticeship and Chutzpah. Lowering the activation energy required for either or both of them seems great, as does providing encouragement.

Both can of course be overused and abused. Too much of the wrong kind of chutzpah is no good for anyone, and apprenticeship can turn into a bunch of not very useful unpaid work, or end up holding people back. In the context of posts like this, I am not much worried about either of these failure modes.

For this post/thread I will focus on apprenticeship. In particular, I want to see if I can give social permission and a coordination mechanism that can perhaps take place in the comments (reminder that my posts have two comments sections, the prima...
Eponymous Laws Part I: Laws of the Internet
by rogersbacon — 2021-06-17T12:22:31.426Z

(originally posted at Secretum Secretorum)

I think there is something fascinating and useful about many of the observations, adages, and aphorisms that we (often sarcastically) designate as eponymous laws, effects, or principles in the same way we might for a scientific law. They are often funny (and memorable because of it), but many of them do speak to very fundamental aspects of human psychology and the human condition more generally. Murphy’s Law is probably the most well known example.

Murphy’s Law – “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”

There are also a few lesser-known corollaries.

Murphy's Second Law – “Nothing is as easy as it looks”

Murphy's Third Law – “Everything takes longer than you think it will (even when you account for Murphy’s Third Law).1

Murphy's Fourth Law – “If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong (corollary - if there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.)”

I searched far and wide to compile a comprehensive list of eponymous laws/effects/principles. I am exerting some editorial control; a few laws that I didn’t find particularly interesting/humorous are left out. There are also a few that aren’t named after anyone, but are still in the same spirit as the eponymous laws so I included them. I have divided the list into three categories: internet laws, programming/software development laws, and miscellaneous. I’ll break them up into separate sections and post them over the course of the next few weeks.

Muphry’s Law, also known as Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation – “any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror”

Godwin’s Law – “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1”

Poe’s Law – “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.”

Skitt’s Law – “Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself” or “the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster.”

Danth’s Law – “If you have to insist that you’ve won an internet argument, you’ve probably lost badly.”

DeMyer’s Second Law – “Anyone ...
How to make errands fun
by dominicq — 2021-06-17T11:27:50.262Z

Despite being a believer in outsourcing all tasks that cost less than my aspirational hourly rate, I regularly have to do such tasks when they're impractical to outsource. This is almost always, as the most outsourceable tasks are those that repeat often, but cannot be automated. Doing legwork to do paperwork always happens for unique paperwork.

I'm going through a continuous phase where I just can't accept that I actually have to go to the bank and wait in a queue and listen to terrible music. So I want to offer myself (and others who may read this) some nudges towards making life more bearable when running non-repetitive but boring errands.

Make it physical training!

People make neat compartments for things that are physical training, and things that are not physical training. But way back before you could pay to come into an air-conditioned room and move metal around, there were no such compartments. You moved. That was it. So maybe you jump on your bike and ride to the bank. Or you see a nice tree on your way back, and you climb it. Or you jump a couple of fences and shorten the distance. Or you just take a long walk.

Make it rest from physical training!

Having compartments for physical movement isn't all bad because they allow you to go all in one one particular skill or muscle group. Nobody gets a good deadlift from just walking to the bank. So maybe, instead of having compartments for rest days and non-rest days, you just have errand days where you can't make it to the gym and you go: "Oh, I guess today is rest day."

Make it errand-related learning!

Is there some learning experience that you could benefit from? Bureaucracy is actually a great training tool for figuring out people and their motivations. A bank teller isn't just a REST API that you have to use in person: it's a unique human, with a unique set of motivations, desires, quirks, mannerisms, and more. If you become interested in seeing the person, and not the interface, an entire world opens up. See Everything is fertile.

Make it non-errand-related learning!

Did you know that they make audiobooks?

Make it an opportunity to socialize!

Go with a friend! "Hey, wanna keep me company while I do X and then go get ice cream?" Or you go with several friends, and arrive to the bank with your entourage. Just don't make the errand the entirety of the meeting: reward your friends' patience and go do something more...
Taboo "Outside View"
by Daniel Kokotajlo — 2021-06-17T09:36:49.855Z

No one has ever seen an AGI takeoff, so any attempt to understand it must use these outside view considerations.

—[Redacted for privacy]

What? That’s exactly backwards. If we had lots of experience with past AGI takeoffs, using the outside view to predict the next one would be a lot more effective.

—My reaction

Two years ago I wrote a

deep-dive summary

of

Superforecasting

and the associated scientific literature. I learned about the “Outside view” / “Inside view” distinction, and the evidence supporting it. At the time I was excited about the concept and wrote: “...I think we should do our best to imitate these best-practices, and that means using the outside view far more than we would naturally be inclined.”

Now that I have more experience, I think the concept is doing more harm than good in our community. The term is easily abused and its meaning has expanded too much. I recommend we permanently

taboo

“Outside view,” i.e. stop using the word and use more precise, less confused concepts instead. This post explains why.

What does “Outside view” mean now?

Over the past two years I’ve noticed people (including myself!) do lots of different things in the name of the Outside View. I’ve compiled the following lists based on fuzzy memory of hundreds of conversations with dozens of people:

Big List O’ Things People Describe As Outside View:

Reference class forecasting

, the practice of computing a probability of an event by looking at the frequency with which similar events occurred in similar situations. Also called comparison class forecasting. [EDIT: Eliezer rightly points out that sometimes reasoning by analogy is undeservedly called reference class forecasting; reference classes are supposed to be held to a much higher standard, in which your sample size is larger and the analogy is especially tight.]
Trend extrapolation, e.g. “AGI implies insane GWP growth; let’s forecast AGI timelines by extrapolating GWP trends.”
Foxy aggregation, the practice of using multiple methods to compute an answer and then making your final forecast be some intuition-weighted average of those methods.
Bias correction, in others or in oneself, e.g. “There’s a selection effect in our community for people who think AI is a big deal, and one reason to think AI is a big deal is if you have short timelines, so I’m going to bump my timelines estimate longer to correct for this.”
Deference to wis

...
Neo-Mohism
by Bae's Theorem — 2021-06-16T21:57:29.727Z

“When one advances claims, one must first establish a standard of assessment. To make claims in the absence of such a standard is like trying to establish on the surface of a spinning potter’s wheel where the sun will rise and set. Without a fixed standard, one cannot clearly ascertain what is right and wrong, or what is beneficial and harmful.”

-Mozi, ‘A Condemnation of Fatalism’

Meta-Note

I am constantly editing this framework, and it is tedious to keep it updated here as well. For the latest version, see here.

Confidence: “Firmly Tentative”

This is my attempt to "codify" the things I have learned from the Rationalist and Effective Altruism communities. I affectionately refer to it as "Neo-Mohism", because Mohism resonates with me and it seems ripe to be given an update for the modern age.

High Concept (TL;DR)

Neo-Mohists aspire to be kind to both themselves and others (including all sentient beings), but also the type of person who spurs themselves and others to greater heights. They are financially prudent, including in their charitable giving and retirement. When they acquire influence they do not waver on their ideals, and they seek out dissenting opinions to make sure they are held accountable. They do not make an effort to be seen as special, nor do they resent taking a back seat and allowing others to take charge when appropriate, but they do wish to make the world a better place.

The 10 Neo-Mohist Tenets

The main tenets of Neo-Mohism are 5 couplets of intertwined concepts.

“The Void” and “Bayesian Rationality”

(inspired by the classical Mohist tenets of “Heaven’s Intent” and “Understanding Ghosts”)

This can rightly be called a “meta-tenet”, as it rules the formation and revision of all other tenets.

“The Void” is a stand-in for “everything we are trying to accomplish with Neo-Mohism, and everything we would try to accomplish if we had more information and consistent values”. Never let Neo-Mohism get in the way of what Neo-Mohism is trying to accomplish.

Bayesian Rationality

is the epistemology of choice for Neo-Mohism. Neo-Mohism does not make certain proclamations of true/false; all beliefs are required to have a confidence interval assigned to them (including all moral conclusions). As per Bayesian Rationality, the ultimate arbiter of Neo-Mohist tenets is the ability to make advance, falsifiable predictions, allowing the uni

...
Variables Don't Represent The Physical World (And That's OK)
by johnswentworth — 2021-06-16T19:05:08.512Z

Suppose I’m a fish farmer, running an experiment with a new type of feed for my fish. In one particular tank, I have 100 fish, and I measure the weight of each fish. I model the weight of each fish as an independent draw from the same distribution, and I want to estimate the mean of that distribution.

Key point: even if I measure every single one of the 100 fish, I will still have some uncertainty in the distribution-mean. Sample-mean is not distribution-mean. My ability to control the fish’ environment is limited; if I try to re-run the experiment with another tank of fish, I don’t think I’ll actually be drawing from the same distribution (more precisely, I don’t think the “same distribution” model will correctly represent my information anymore). Once I measure the weights of each of the 100 fish, that’s it - there’s no more fish I can measure to refine my estimate of the distribution-mean by looking at the physical world, even in principle. Maybe I could gain some more information with detailed simulations and measurements of tank-parameters, but that would be a different model, with a possibly-different distribution-mean.

The distribution-mean is not fully determined by variables in the physical world.

And this isn’t some weird corner-case! This is one of the simplest, most prototypical use-cases of probability/statistics. It’s in intro classes in high-school.

Another example: temperature. We often describe temperature, intuitively, as representing the average kinetic energy of molecules, bouncing around microscopically. But if we look at the math, temperature works exactly like the distribution-mean in the fish example: it doesn’t represent the actual average energy of the particles, it represents the mean energy of some model-distribution from which the actual particle-energies are randomly drawn. Even if we measured the exact energy of every particle in a box, we’d still have nonzero (though extremely small) uncertainty in the temperature.

One thing to note here: we’re talking about purely classical uncertainty. This has nothing to do with quantum mechanics or the uncertainty principle. Quantum adds another source of irresolvable uncertainty, but even in the quantum case we will also have irresolvable classical uncertainty.

Clusters

Clustering provides another lens on the same phenomenon. Consider this clustering problem:

Let’s say that the lower-left c...