trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : MelbLW Social Meetup: Apr 2016
by Maelin — 2016-04-10T09:59:59.235Z

Discussion article for the meetup : MelbLW Social Meetup: Apr 2016

WHEN:
15 April 2016 06:30:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
Bull and Bear Tavern, 347 Flinders Lane, Melbourne VIC 3000

The LessWrong Melbourne Social Meetup is on again, this Friday!

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/921062154679530/

Social Meetups occur on the third Friday of each month. They are casual get-togethers where we chat over a few drinks and a meal. Sometimes we play games as well.

Where? This month we are back at the Bull & Bear Tavern in Flinders Lane, near Queen St. There will be a comedy event on in the Bistro area at the back, but we will be downstairs in the Tavern area (with the pool tables).

When? Friday 15th April, starting from 6:30 pm. Start time is very loose so feel free to come whenever suits you. We usually stay at the main venue until about 11pm.

Dinner? The Bull & Bear serve decent pub food and we usually get a plate of wedges or two to share as well. Those who are still keen typically go for a late dinner after the event, and lately we've been frequenting Father's Office which offers late night a-la-carte menu at half price (!).

Contact? Any questions or issues, just call or SMS Richard on 0421231789.

Hope to see you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : MelbLW Social Meetup: Apr 2016
Meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - July
by luminosity — 2016-04-10T00:31:31.651Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - July

WHEN:
03 July 2016 04:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
10 Shepherd Street, Chippendale

Join us for the July dojo at Humanist House! This time we will be focused on exercises for a mid-year review during our normal two hour meetup. The usual socialising over dinner will occur afterwards.

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - July
Meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - June
by luminosity — 2016-04-10T00:29:21.483Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - June

WHEN:
05 June 2016 04:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
10 Shepherd Street, Chippendale

Join us for the June dojo at Humanist House! As per usual, we will be running different exercises for two hours, followed by socialising over dinner for those who want to come along afterwards.

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - June
Meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - May
by luminosity — 2016-04-10T00:27:26.762Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - May

WHEN:
01 May 2016 04:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
10 Shepherd Street, Chippendale

Join us for the May dojo at Humanist House! As per usual, we will be running different exercises for two hours, followed by socialising over dinner for those who want to come along.

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Rationality Dojo - May
Meetup : Meet up LW Sao Paulo
by leohmarruda — 2016-04-09T16:57:20.936Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Meet up LW Sao Paulo

WHEN:
16 April 2016 02:00:27PM (-0300)

WHERE:
Vanilla café - 2o andar, Rua Antônio Carlos, 452. São Paulo, Brazil.

Encontro mensal de racionalistas, novatos são bem vindos!
Teremos algumas lições de racionalidade prática, discussões diversas e jogos de tabuleiro no final.

Discussion article for the meetup : Meet up LW Sao Paulo
An update on Signal Data Science (an intensive data science training program) 
by JonahS — 2016-04-09T05:02:40.771Z

In December 2015, Robert Cordwell and I cofounded Signal Data Science (website), which we announced on Less Wrong.

Our first cohort has just concluded, and overall went very well. We're planning another one in Berkeley from May 2nd – June 24th. The program is a good fit for people who are both excited to learn how to extract insights from data sets and looking to prepare for industry data science jobs. If you're interested attending the next cohort, we would love to hear from you. You can apply here, or contact us at signaldatascience@gmail.com.

We offer inquiry-based learning and an unusually intellectually curious peer group. Unlike typical college classes, Signal Data Science focuses on learning by doing. You’ll learn from a combination of lectures, short knowledge-reinforcement problems, and longer, more open-ended assignments focusing on analyzing real datasets. (That’s your chance to discover something new!) Don’t worry if that sounds daunting: our instructors will be there to support you every step of the way.

You’ll learn both the theory and the application of a wide array of data science techniques. We offer a pair programming-focused curriculum, allowing students to learn from each other’s strengths. We cover everything from basic linear regression to advanced, industry-relevant methods like support vector machines and dimensionality reduction. You’ll do an advanced, self-directed project at the end of the course. Curious? Check out our showcase of past students’ final projects. Whatever your interests are—from doing something with real-world, industry-relevant applicability to applying cutting-edge neural nets—we’ll work with you to find a project to match your interests and help you showcase it to prospective employers.

Less Wrong readers might be especially interested by Olivia Schaefer's project, which describes results of doing some natural language processing on the Less Wrong comment corpus, explaining how the words pictured in different colors below are at opposite ends of an axis.
Meetup : Role playing game based on HPMOR in Moscow
by Alexander230 — 2016-04-08T21:45:11.818Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Role playing game based on HPMOR in Moscow

WHEN:
23 April 2016 03:00:00AM (+0300)

WHERE:
Большая Дорогомиловская, 5к2

Welcome to our custom made role playing game "Hogwarts and methods of rationality", inspired by HPMOR story! It will be intellectual role playing game with rationality-based minigames. You can read more detailed announce and description here: https://goo.gl/Gp16os

Discussion article for the meetup : Role playing game based on HPMOR in Moscow
Positivity Thread :)
by Viliam — 2016-04-08T21:34:03.535Z

Hi everyone! This is an experimental thread to relax and enjoy the company of other aspiring rationalists. Special rules for communication and voting apply here. Please play along!

(If for whatever reason you cannot or don't want to follow the rules, please don't post in this thread. However, feel free to voice your opinion in the corresponding meta thread.)

Here is the spirit of the rules:

be nice

be cheerful

don't go meta

And here are the details:

On the scale from negative (hostility, complaints, passive aggression) through neutral (bare facts) to positive (happiness, fun, love), please only post comments from the "neutral to positive" half. Preferably at least slightly positive; but don't push yourself too far if you don't feel so. The goal is to make both yourself and your audience feel comfortable.

If you disagree with someone, please consider whether the issue is important enough to disagree openly. If it isn't, you also have an option to simply skip the comment. You can send the author a private message. Or you can post your disagreement in the meta thread (and then send them the link in a private message). If you still believe it is better to disagree here, please do it politely and friendly.

Avoid inherently controversial topics, such as politics, religion, or interpretations of quantum physics.

Feel free to post stuff that normally doesn't get posted on LessWrong. Feel free to be silly, as long as it harms no one. Emoticons are allowed. Note: This website supports Unicode. ◕‿◕

Upvote the stuff you like. :)

Downvote only the stuff that breaks the rules. :( In this thread, the proper reaction to a comment that you don't like, but doesn't break the rules, is to ignore it.

Please don't downvote a comment below zero, unless you believe that the breaking of rules was intentional.

(Note: There is one user permanently banned from this website. Any comment posted from any of this user's new accounts is considered an intentional breaking of the rules, regardless of its content.)

Don't go meta in this thread. If you want to discuss whether the rules here should be different, or whether a specific comment did or didn't break the rules, or something like that, please use the meta thread.

Don't abuse the rules. I already know that you are clever, and that you could easily break the spirit of the rules while following the letter. Just don't, please...
Meetup : Moscow social meetup: Excercises and games for rationality skills improvement
by Alexander230 — 2016-04-08T20:32:33.951Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow social meetup: Excercises and games for rationality skills improvement

WHEN:
17 April 2016 02:00:00PM (+0300)

WHERE:
Moscow, Strelbishensky pereulok, 10

Welcome to the social meetup of Moscow LessWrong community! There will be excercises and games that will help you to improve your rationality skills.

Activities planned for this meetup:

Belief investigation excercise: https://goo.gl/W2ObTT, https://goo.gl/Sxywhs

FallacyMania game: https://goo.gl/sI26lP

Zendo game: https://goo.gl/yO7ATH

Tower of Chaos game: https://goo.gl/u9qgc3

Bets on events: calibration excercise

Training Game Party: https://goo.gl/mNT7J3

Address of meetup:

Strelbishensky per., 10, ap.60, 3rd porch, code 60B3112, 5th floor. Nearest metro station: Vystavochnaya. If you have questions, call me 8-905-527-30-82 or write me on e-mail alexander230r@gmail.com (it's better to call if you're searching the way before the meetup).

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow social meetup: Excercises and games for rationality skills improvement
Meetup : Games in Kocherga club: FallacyMania, Tower of Chaos, Training game
by Alexander230 — 2016-04-08T19:29:11.877Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Games in Kocherga club: FallacyMania, Tower of Chaos, Training game

WHEN:
27 April 2016 07:40:00PM (+0300)

WHERE:
Moscow, B.Dorogomilovskaya, 5-2

Welcome to Moscow LW community makeshift games! In that games, some rationality skills are involved, so you can practise while you playing!

FallacyMania: it is a game where you guess logical fallacies in arguments, or practise using logical fallacies yourself (depending on team in which you will be).

Details about the game are here: https://lesswrong-ru.hackpad.com/Fallacymania--neGfMe9MFjH

Tower of Chaos: funny game with guessing the rules of human placement on a Twister mat.

Game rules: https://goo.gl/u9qgc3

Training Game Party: all players try to train the subject to guess and make some action without words, using only positive reinforcement.

Game rules: https://goo.gl/mNT7J3

Come to antikafe "Kocherga", ul.B.Dorogomilovskaya, 5-2. The map is here: http://kocherga-club.ru/#contacts . Nearest metro station is Kievskaya. If you are lost, call Sasha at +7-905-527-30-82.

Games begin at 19:40, the length is 2.5-3 hours.

Discussion article for the meetup : Games in Kocherga club: FallacyMania, Tower of Chaos, Training game
New LW Meetup: Nairobi
by FrankAdamek — 2016-04-08T15:50:23.835Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on April 8th. The following week's summary is here.

New meetups (or meetups with a hiatus of more than a year) are happening in:

Nairobi mini-Meetup #1: Double Crux: 30 April 2016 03:34PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Ann Arbor Meetup: 16 April 2016 07:00PM
Baltimore: Intro to LW / general discussion: 10 April 2016 10:00AM
European Community Weekend: 02 September 2016 03:35PM
New Hampshire Meetup: 12 April 2016 07:00PM
San Antonio Meetup: 10 April 2016 02:00PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

Sydney Rationality Dojo - April 2016: 10 April 2016 04:00PM
Vienna Meetup: 16 April 2016 02:00PM
Vienna Meetup: 23 April 2016 03:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Cherry Blossoms: 10 April 2016 03:30PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Canberra, Columbus, Denver, Kraków, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, Mountain View, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, Seattle, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers and a Slack channel for daily discussion and online meetups on Sunday night US time.

If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, build community, and have fun!

In addition to the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, a meetup overview is posted on the front page every Friday. These are an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in upcoming weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts are moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up.

Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!

If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an ir...
Monthly Bragging Thread April 2016
by Soothsilver — 2016-04-08T13:26:58.618Z

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to comment on this thread explaining the most awesome thing you've done this month. You may be as blatantly proud of yourself as you feel. You may unabashedly consider yourself the coolest freaking person ever because of that awesome thing you're dying to tell everyone about. This is the place to do just that.

Remember, however, that this isn't any kind of progress thread. Nor is it any kind of proposal thread. This thread is solely for people to talk about the awesome things they have done. Not "will do." Not "are working on." Have already done. This is to cultivate an environment of object level productivity rather than meta-productivity methods. For example:

Published a new novel: Yes, brag heartily.

Wrote an outline for a new novel: No, please wait until the novel is finished.

So, what's the coolest thing you've done this month?

(Previous bragging thread - January 2016)
Utility, probability and false beliefs
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-04-08T11:15:54.000Z

This is part of the process of rigourising and formalising past ideas.

Paul Christiano recently asked why I used utility changes, rather than probability changes, to have an AI believe (or act as if it believed) false things. While investigating that, I developed several different methods for achieving the belief changes that we desired. This post analyses these methods.

Different models of forced beliefs

Let x and ¬x refer to the future outcome of a binary random variable X (write P(x) as a shorthand for P(X=x), and so on). Assume that we want P(x):P(¬x) to be in the 1:λ ratio for some λ (since the ratio is all that matters, λ=∞ is valid, meaning P(x)=0). Assume that we have an agent, who has utility u, has seen past evidence e, and wishes to assess the expected utility of their action a.

Typically, for expected utility, we sum over the possible worlds. In practice, we almost always sum over sets of possible worlds, the sets determined by some key features of interest. In assessing the quality of health interventions, for instance, we do not carefully and separately treat each possible position of atoms in the sun. Thus let V be the set of variables or values we can about, and v a possible value vector V can take. As usual, we'll be writing P(v) as a shorthand for P(V=v). The utility function u assigns utilities to possible v's.

One of the advantages of this approach is that it can avoid many issues of conditionals like P(A|B) when P(B)=0.

The first obvious idea is to condition on x and ¬x:

(1) Σv u(v)(P(v|x,e,a)+λP(v|¬x,e,a))
The second one is to use intersections rather than conditionals (as in this post):

(2) Σv u(v)(P(v,x|e,a)+λP(v,¬x|e,a))
Finally, imagine that we have a set of variables H, that "screen off" the effects of e and a, up until X. Let h be a set of values H can take. Thus P(x|h,e,a)=P(x|h). One could see H as the full set of possible pre-X histories, but it could be much smaller - maybe just the local environment around X. This gives a third definition:

(3) Σv Σh u(v)(P(v|h,x,e,a)+λP(v|h,¬x,e,a))P(h|,e,a)

Changing and unchangeable P(x)

An important thing to note is that all three definitions are equivalent for fixed P(x), up to changes of λ. The equivalence of (2) and (1) derives from the fact that Σv u(v)(P(v,x|e,a)+λP(v,¬x|e,a)) = Σv u(v)(P(x)P(v|x,e,a)+λP(¬x)P(v|¬x,e,a)) (we write P(x) rather than P(x|e,a) since the probability of x is fixed).

...
Update to the list of apps that are useful to me
by Elo — 2016-04-08T01:02:14.989Z

on the 22 August 2015, I wrote an apps list of useful apps, in the comments were a number of suggestions which I immediately tried. This is an update. Original can be found at this link:

http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mnm/a_list_of_apps_that_are_useful_to_me_and_other/

I rewrite the whole list below.

But first - my recommended list in short:

Get an external battery block (and own more than enough spare power cables)

Wunderlist

Ingress

How are you feeling?

Alarm clock plus

Twilight

Business calendar

Clipper

Rain alarm

Data monitor

Rescuetime

Powercalc

Es File viewer

WheresmyDroid?

Google Docs/sheets etc.

(possibly pushbullet and DTG GTD but I have not had them for long enough)

The bold are the top selections, but I would encourage everyone to have all the apps in the above list.
New:

The environment
The overlays
The normals:
Quantified apps:
Misc
Twilight - Does a better job and can filter red light as well as brightness.
Social
Not used:

Timestamp Widget. - on clicking to open it - it logs a timestamp. Can include notes too.

Wunderlist - Recommend it - for shared shopping lists, or any kind of list of things to do. It's not perfect but it works.

T2 mood tracker - as a second backup to my other mood tracker. This one takes more effort to do so I only enter the data every few days. YMMV it might be useful to you.

HOVBX - an overlay for google hangouts that sits on top of the call buttons so you don't accidentally call people (useful for groups who butt-dial each other)

Fleksy - A different keyboard - it seems faster but I am used to swiftkey so I don't use this one.

Tagtime - useful to try. reminds you hourly or so to tag what you are currently working on. I used it for a while to help keep me on track. I noticed I was significantly off track and eventually stopped using it because I felt bad about it. I feel like I spend more time on-task now but because I want to. This was a step in the journey of deciding to do that.

Alarm clock plus - it's the best alarm clock app. I don't use alarms often but this one does everything.

Squats/Push ups/sit ups/pull ups - Rittr labs - good at a simple exercise routine. Just tells you what to do. designed to get you from zero to "up to N" of an...
Meetup : Ann Arbor Meetup
by Bound_up — 2016-04-08T00:34:48.614Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Ann Arbor Meetup

WHEN:
16 April 2016 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
701 East university Ave, Ann Arbor, Room TBA

We'll be discussing the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm

I found the references to the group he organized, "The Junto," as potentially applicable to future meetups.

As determined unanimously a few weeks ago, anybody who wants to give a quick lightning presentation on an idea of their choosing will be invited to do so.

Our room number will be announced the 13th at the earliest and likely a bit later than that.

We'll be meeting every other week, Saturday at 7, so the next meetup will be the 30th.

Discussion article for the meetup : Ann Arbor Meetup
Dissolving Deep Questions: A Decline in Contemporary Controversy
by Bound_up — 2016-04-08T00:03:09.431Z

I'm practicing dissolving questions. For some of these questions, there's no dispute as to the nature of the facts, and people are just arguing about what frame to hang life's picture in, what words to use to describe it. For others, there are real factual disputes hiding behind these semantic squabbles, and this technique lets us get past disputing definitions and graduate to mapmaking.

Most of these questions are *actually argued* in prominent venues, and my intention is to give a response that if presented in such a venue, would leave the combatants with nothing to say, or if not, with a concrete and tractable problem. Potential for progress.

Please comment any other controversies this technique would benefit.

The key in every case is to look at reality as it is, and then dispute *that* if there's disagreement, letting fade into obscurity the relatively trivial question of what words to use to describe the piece of reality in question (at least until that greater problem is given its due).

The tree in the forest question seems to me a good place to demonstrate the principle at first since it's not politicized. Perhaps in real venues, it would be useful to give an uncontroversial example of the technique before applying it to the controversy at hand.

1. If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a "sound?"

Some say sound is a series of vibrations, others that it is an auditory experience. Regardless of which word you use, the reality of the situation is that the tree will fall over, make vibrations, and there will not be any auditory experiences. That is the entirety of the situation, there is no disagreement. Now, you can argue about whether or not we should describe this with the word “sound” or “noise,” or “fershizzleplumf,” but let’s all be aware that we’re arguing about which word to use to describe reality; we’re not arguing about what reality is truly like.

2. Is Islam a "religion of peace?"

This simply depends on what you mean by religion of peace, an ambiguous term, to be sure. The fact of the matter is that Islam’s teachings include some which can be interpreted to encourage peace, and other interpreted to encourage violence. Some adherents of the religion are violent, or support violence, and some do not. These are the facts, beyond dispute. If you ...