trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Cryonics Promotional Video Contest -- 10 BTC Prize
by lsparrish — 2011-04-30T20:31:22.620Z

There was recently a proposal that we should create YouTube commercials for cryonics. This is an area where the cryonics community is sorely lacking fresh content, and which in my opinion has higher leverage per unit effort relative to other kinds of content, for making the kinds of cultural changes that need to be made for cryonics to gain acceptance.

One important strategy to beat procrastination, is to turn ideas into concrete action quickly rather than talking about them for too long. Another is to raise the amount of positive feedback a person expects to receive. Prizes have been used successfully in the past for the promotion of creative efforts with considerable success, and I have long thought that this would work for cryonics promotions as well. It's time for a simple empirical test.

To get things started, I am offering the nominal sum of 10 bitcoins1 as a prize to whoever creates the the most "liked" promotional or educational video for cryonics on YouTube for the month of May, 2011. If anyone wishes to contribute to the prize and thus increase its size, send bitcoins here: <removed>

All funds sent to the above address will be transferred to the address of the person whose YouTube video promoting cryonics receives the most "likes" on YouTube during the month of May. Donors who let me know that they have donated will be given credit for donating below.

Start date: May 1, 2011 at 12:00 AM GMT. Entry video cannot have been released on YouTube sooner than this.

End date: June 1, 2011 at 12:00 AM GMT. This is when the votes (likes) will be tallied and the prize awarded.

Video must promote cryonics and/or answer common questions about cryonics.

Multiple submissions per person are allowed and encouraged, as are collaborations2.

Xtranormal videos, slide shows, stick figure cartoons, voice-overs, and anything else that can go in a YouTube video are acceptable.

Winner must have or obtain a bitcoin address3, and must let us know what it is along with a link to their video (which must be posted to YouTube) in the comments section of this post.

In the event that there are multiple videos with substantially similar numbers of likes (to within 1% of the top number) at midnight of June first, they will all be treated as co-winners and receive equal shares of the prize.

Anyone who wants to donate to non-winning entries that they liked is welcome to do so as we...
Question: How many people have tried to optimize rationality outreach?
by atucker — 2011-04-30T04:18:27.772Z

There's been some talk about rationality outreach recently. And not so recently. I was just wondering:

Who has actually tried to optimize for rationality outreach?

I think Jasen did it to form the NYC group. That went well.
Are there any other cases/attempts that you know of? How did they go?
An inflection point for probability estimates of the AI takeoff?
by Prismattic — 2011-04-29T23:37:19.797Z

Suppose that your current estimate for possibility of an AI takeoff coming in the next 10 years is some probability x. As technology is constantly becoming more sophisticated, presumably your probability estimate 10 years from now will be some y > x. And 10 years after that, it will be z > y. My question is, does there come a point in the future where, assuming that an AI takeoff has not yet happened in spite of much advanced technology, you begin to revise your estimate downward with each passing year? If so, how many decades (centuries) from now would you expect the inflection point in your estimate?
How hard do we really want to sell cryonics?
by Strange7 — 2011-04-29T21:34:01.049Z

For a lot of serious charitable causes, people expend tremendous resources on 'raising awareness' which probably, on net, accomplishes little or nothing for the cause it nominally supports. For cryonics, though, the technology already exists, the target audience can pay for it themselves, the main obstacle is genuine ignorance and perverse fear-of-death countermeasures.

The second problem seems intractable, but in the long term we can just let the blind idiot god fix it.

For the first, have any of the organizations involved considered saving up for, say, a superbowl ad? Or even just some youtube videos. I am imagining it set up as a conversation between two people in, say, an office. The skeptic brings up some plausible-sounding objection (sticking to the saner stuff), which is illustrated by cartoons with the continuing conversation as voiceover.

See, I talked to a relative of mine, who I respect very highly, on easter. She's planning to get cremated. Mentioned some technical objections which I know have been resolved, but which I couldn't adequately explain on the spot, and didn't know where to point her for the source.
[SEQ RERUN] Politics is the Mind-Killer
by Tyrrell_McAllister — 2011-04-29T21:26:52.662Z

Today's post, Politics is the Mind-Killer was originally published on 18 February 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

People act funny when they talk about politics. In the ancestral environment, being on the wrong side might get you killed, and being on the correct side might get you sex, food or let you kill your hated rival. If you must talk about politics (for the purposes of teaching rationality) use examples from the distant past. Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back - providing aid and comfort to the enemy. If your topic legitimately relates to attempts to ban evolution in school curricula, then go ahead and talk about it - but don't blame it explicitly on the whole Republican Party (Democratic/Liberal/Conservative/Nationalist).

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 Outside the Laboratory, 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.
What do you mean by "wrong", in the moral sense?
by zaph — 2011-04-29T16:39:39.385Z

I've been reading through the recent discussions on morality here, and I wanted to ask about how people are using the word "wrong". Something I've read here (I don't recall the specific post or comment) discussed how someone could be rationally wrong, say thinking 2+2=5, and that's equivalent to being morally wrong, say committing an unprovoked violent act. Now, I won't pretend that I don't agree with both statements, but the word "wrong" to me is referring to different things in my mind. In the first case, it means the answer, assuming base 10, etc., is incorrect. Whether or not math has some platonic reality outside of people's minds, or is a construction we have, in that system, the answer isn't correct, given all the other points that are assumed to be true. When it comes to the wrongness of a violent act, however, it's completely different. I think it's wrong to inflict pain for no reason. I don't have a list of axioms of why that's the case, and I don't think I need one.
Harry Sue and The Methods of Rationality
by Tiiba — 2011-04-29T06:39:05.661Z

I've been hearing about this fic for a long time, and I've been somewhat suspicious of it. I knew that Eliezer is a pretty good writer, but that his attempts to graft Bayes onto his characters are invariably rather inorganic. On top of that, OOC is irritating to me even when I expect it.

Nothing, however, prepared me for this. I just got done reading chapter 6. Up to this point, Harry's greatest sin was dumping a Less Wrong post onto poor Minerva every ten minutes. And she understood everything, including pop culture references (when in the books, most wizards don't comprehend rubber ducks).

Now, in this chapter, Harry thought he heard a strange note in the prof's voice, decided in a split second that she's trying to destroy his parents, and informed her of this suspicion in the form of a hissy fit. Then he started blackmailing her, and finished by implying that she's a nearsighted idiot, but it's alright, most people are. And he started calling her McGonnagal, then switched to Minerva, and is now planning on Minny for the future. I expected her to snap at some point and beat him to a pulp with the first heavy object that presents itself.

I read the reviews pertaining to that chapter. They all proclaimed it to be a masterpiece, the standard by which all other fiction should be measured. To me, it was what people call "epic fail". I cannot find any other way to describe my reaction. Calling it terrible just doesn't have that drop of vitriol that I think is necessary.

But this is Eliezer Yudkowsky. I KNOW he can write. I KNOW that he can detect and neutralize a Black Hole Sue. And yet...

Does he?
Extremely Important Cell Phone Feature Missing
by jimrandomh — 2011-04-29T01:48:23.091Z

Regular cell phones are so useful and have become so cheap that they have quickly become nearly a human universal. Smartphones are steadily getting cheaper and more common, and will soon be universal, even in very poor areas. The features present in this generation of phones will have major effects on the course of future events, just as the features of previous generations did. For example, the inclusion of cameras in cell phones has made many crimes and abuses of power harder to get away with. But there is a feature missing, an extremely important feature.

Consumer cell phones cannot send messages to satellites, not even emergency text messages, not even in a disaster area which major powers have decided to point all their antennas at, not even if you're willing to spend your whole battery on transmit power.

This is unacceptable. This is the difference between life and death in a wide variety of disaster scenarios, some of which are definitely going to happen. This is the difference between rescuers following GPS coordinates, and rescuers searching blindly. This is the difference between rescuers that leave immediately and rescuers that wait for a missing person report. This could be the difference between a genocide going unreported, and being deterred. Sending short messages from cell phones to satellites is technically feasible, although will require of coordination between cell phone makers and satellite owners and it may require launching new hardware into orbit. I do not believe that it would increase the cost of the phones themselves by much. This should work worldwide, and it should also be part of the United States FCC's Enhanced 911 requirements.

Many lives depend on this getting done. This affects existential risk. Who has the connections to make it happen?
[SEQ RERUN] Outside the Laboratory
by Tyrrell_McAllister — 2011-04-29T01:04:38.551Z

Today's post, Outside the Laboratory was originally published on 21 January 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Written regarding the proverb "Outside the laboratory, scientists are no wiser than anyone else." The case is made that if this proverb is in fact true, that's quite worrisome because it implies that scientists are blindly following scientific rituals without understanding why. In particular, it is argued that if a scientist is religious, they probably don't understand the foundations of science very well.

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 Some Claims Are Just Too Extraordinary, 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.
Meditation, insight, and rationality. (Part 1 of 3)
by DavidM — 2011-04-28T20:26:29.071Z

For millennia, the practice of meditation has been deeply intertwined with many of the world's major and minor religious and spiritual traditions, as a technique aimed as everything from developing magical powers to communing with gods and demons. By contrast, during the last few decades in the West, enthusiasts have promoted meditation (along with a variety of its secularized offshoots) as a good way to cultivate relaxation, creativity, and psychological self-improvement in the context of our hurried and stressful lives. Because of this variegated cultural history, it's no surprise that many people see it as either as an exercise that leads to irrationality and madness, or as a harmless but questionably-effective pop science fad---sometimes both at once!

Set against this backdrop, small and somewhat private groups with an interest in meditation have long gathered together in secret to discuss and learn. Not satisfied with the popular dogmas, they got down to figuring out, as best they could, whether meditation really leads to anything that could be called "enlightenment": by experimenting on themselves, comparing notes with others, seeing where it led them, and seeing whether it would repeatably lead others to the same point. Because their subject is taboo, they have labored in the shadows for a very long time; but the modern mass-adoption of the internet has allowed what they know to reach a widening audience. And while they fought for years to discover these things, you now have the opportunity to hear about them merely for the cost of your internet connection---for some of you that may be a blessing, but guard your minds so that it isn't also a curse.

Before I begin, there are three caveats:

1) The perspective I'm going to present is one most closely associated with Buddhism, and you may be inclined to ask "Is this a good description of what Buddhists believe?" or "Is this what Buddhism is really about?" or even shout "This doesn't sound like Buddhism to me!" The relation between this material and Buddhism is an interesting topic (and I'll discuss that in Part 2), but for now, I make no claims whatsoever. This material draws enormous inspiration from particular strains of Buddhism, and one may argue that it is a highly plausible interpretation of what Buddhism is 'really about,' but in the end it stands or falls by itself.

2) What is declassified on th...
So You've Changed Your Mind
by Spurlock — 2011-04-28T19:42:15.164Z

Related to: Politics is the mind-killer, Entangled Truths, Contagious Lies, The Importance of Saying "Oops", Leave a Line of Retreat, You Can Face Reality

This is something I wrote, sort of in brain-dump mode, in the process of trying to organize my thoughts for a song I'm working on. I don't think it covers any new ground for this community, but I was somewhat taken with the way it turned out and figured I'd go ahead and post it for LW's enjoyment.

So you've changed your mind. Given up your sacred belief, the one that defined so much of who you are for so long.

You are probably feeling pretty scared right now.

Your life revolved around this. There is not a single aspect of your life that will not feel the effects of this momentous tumult. Right now though, you're still in shock. You know that later, little by little, as you lie awake in bed or stare at your desk at work, the idea will creep its way through the web of your mind. It will touch each and every idea, and change it, and move on. And that changed idea will change other ideas, and those ideas will change as well. Who are you as a person if not the person who holds that idea? For as this new notion gradually but violently makes its way through your skull, will it not upset everything that you know, everything that you do, everything that you are? Will you not then be another person?

The thought is terrifying. What person will you be?

Will you be like the jackasses that you argued against for so long? Yes, they were right all along, but damn they were infuriating. Is that your lot now? Another loud-mouth, uncompromising, thick-skulled, pushy, self-righteous snob who lives for the thrill of making everyone else feel ignorant? Dear God. Is that your fate? Perhaps in just a few days? You're reminded of the film character who has just been bitten by a zombie: Knowing the disgusting, horrific, inhuman beast he is now doomed to become, he says good-bye to The Girl, politely leaves the room, and wraps his mouth around both barrels of his shotgun.

Is that it then? Better dead than Red? But surely this is nonsense. For starters, you know damn well that you just don't have the, well... courage? resolve? commitment? hopelessness? inclination? lack-of-perspective? impulsiveness? Whatever it is that separates those who could actually, really and truly, do such a thing, from... you. But really now. If this isn't "g...
Assumption of positive rationality
by AlexMennen — 2011-04-28T16:41:50.161Z

Let's pretend for the sake of simplicity that all belief-holding entities are either rational or irrational. Rational entities have beliefs that correlate well with reality, and update their beliefs with evidence properly. Irrational entities have beliefs that do not correlate with reality at all, and update their beliefs randomly. Now suppose Bob wants to know what the probability that he is rational is. He estimates that someone with a thought process that seems like his does from the inside is 70% likely to be rational and 30% likely to be irrational. Unfortunately, this does not help much. If Bob is irrational, then his estimate is useless. If Bob is rational, then, after updating on the fact that a randomly selected Bob-like entity is rational, the we can estimate that the probability of another randomly selected Bob-like entity being rational is higher than 70% (exact value depending on the uncertainty regarding what percentage of Bob-like entities are rational). But Bob doesn't care whether a randomly selected Bob-like entity is rational; he wants to know whether he is rational. And conditional on Bob's attempts to figure it out being effective, the probability of that is 1 by definition. Conditional on Bob being irrational, he cannot give meaningful estimates of the probability of much of anything. Thus, even if we ignore the difficulty of coming up with a prior, if Bob tries to evaluate evidence regarding whether or not he is rational, he ends up with:
P(evidence given Bob is rational) = x (he can figure it out)
P(evidence given Bob is irrational) = ?
I am not aware of any good ways to do Bayesian reasoning with question marks. It seems that Bob cannot meaningfully estimate the probability that he is rational. However, in a decision theoretic sense, this is not really an issue for him, because Bob cannot be an effective decision agent if his beliefs about how to achieve his objectives are uncorrelated with reality, so he has no expected utility invested in the possibility that he is irrational. All he needs are probabilities conditional on him being rational, and that's what he has.
This does not seem to extend well to further increases in rationality. If you act on the assumption that you are immune to some common cognitive bias, you will just fail at life. However, I can think of one real-life application of this principle: the possibility that you ar...
Reminder: London meetup, Sunday 2pm, near Holborn
by Paul Crowley — 2011-04-28T09:26:04.851Z

Reminder: London meetup on Sunday May 1 at 14:00 at the Shakespeares Head (official page) on Kingsway near Holborn Tube station. Note that there's more than one pub in London with that name, so make sure you get the right one. As always, we'll have a big picture of a paperclip on the table so you can find us; I look like this. Hope to see lots of you there!
What are the leftover questions of metaethics?
by cousin_it — 2011-04-28T08:46:58.803Z

lukeprog gave a list of metaethics questions here:

What does moral language mean? Do moral facts exist? If so, what are they like, and are they reducible to natural facts? How can we know whether moral judgments are true or false? Is there a connection between making a moral judgment and being motivated to abide by it? Are moral judgments objective or subjective, relative or absolute? Does it make sense to talk about moral progress?

Most of these questions make no sense to me. I imagine that the moral intuitions in my brain come from a special black box within it, a "morality core" whose outputs I cannot easily change. (Explaining how my "morality core" ended up a certain way is a task for evo psych, not philosophy.) Or I can be more enlightened and adopt Nesov's idea that the "morality core" doesn't exist as a unified device, only as an umbrella name for all the diverse "reasons for action" that my brain can fire. Either perspective can be implemented as a computer program pretty easily, so I don't feel there's any philosophical mystery left over. All we have is factual questions about how people's "morality cores" vary in time and from person to person, how compelling their voices are, finding patterns in their outputs, etc. Can someone explain what problem metaethics is supposed to solve?
HELP! I want to do good
by Giles — 2011-04-28T05:29:30.494Z

There are people out there who want to do good in the world, but don't know how.

Maybe you are one of them.

Maybe you kind of feel that you should be into the "saving the world" stuff but aren't quite sure if it's for you. You'd have to be some kind of saint, right? That doesn't sound like you.

Maybe you really do feel it's you, but don't know where to start. You've read the "How to Save the World" guide and your reaction is, ok, I get it, now where do I start? A plan that starts "first, change your entire life" somehow doesn't sound like a very good plan.

All the guides on how to save the world, all the advice, all the essays on why cooperation is so hard, everything I've read so far, has missed one fundamental point.

If I could put it into words, it would be this:

AAAAAAAAAAAGGGHH WTF CRAP WHERE DO I START EEK BLURFBL

If that's your reaction then you're half way there. That's what you get when you finally grasp how much pointless pain, misery, risk, death there is in the world; just how much good could be done if everyone would get their act together; just how little anyone seems to care.

If you're still reading, then maybe this is you. A little bit.

And I want to help you.

How will I help you? That's the easy part. I'll start a community of aspiring rationalist do-gooders. If I can, I'll start it right here in the comments section of this post. If anything about this post speaks to you, let me know. At this point I just want to know whether there's anybody out there.

And what then? I'll listen to people's opinions, feelings and concerns. I'll post about my worldview and invite people to criticize, attack, tear it apart. Because it's not my worldview I care about. I care about making the world better. I have something to protect.

The posts will mainly be about what I don't see enough of on Less Wrong. About reconciling being rational with being human. Posts that encourage doing rather than thinking. I've had enough ideas that I can commit to writing 20 discussion posts over a reasonable timescale, although some might be quite short - just single ideas.

Someone mentioned there should be a "saving the world wiki". That sounds like a great idea and I'm sure that setting one up would be well within my power if someone else doesn't get around to it first.

But how I intend to help you is not the important part. The important part is why.

To answer that I'll need to take a coup...