trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : Urbana-Champaign Scantily Attended Meetups Rerun
by Mestroyer — 2014-04-10T05:06:17.144Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign Scantily Attended Meetups Rerun

WHEN:
13 April 2014 12:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
300 S Goodwin Ave Apt 102, Urbana.

Two meetups I can remember didn't have enough people at them to make them what they could have been. By the power of disjunction, I bet that one of them was only scantily attended because people couldn't make it that week, even though it is a worthwhile topic.

So, two topics for this meetup:
Nomic (A game where you vote to change any of the rules)
and
Folk Wisdom (How to extract real wisdom from it),

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign Scantily Attended Meetups Rerun
Meetup : Washington DC Games meetup
by rocurley — 2014-04-10T04:35:59.793Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Games meetup

WHEN:
13 April 2014 03:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC 20001, USA

We'll be meeting to hang out and play games.

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Games meetup
Meetup : LW Ottawa meetup
by amacfie — 2014-04-10T01:25:20.576Z

Discussion article for the meetup : LW Ottawa meetup

WHEN:
17 April 2014 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Royal Oak on the Canal, 221 Echo Dr, Ottawa, ON K1S 1N1, Canada

There hasn't been a meetup in Ottawa for while, so if you're in the area, here's your chance to attend one! We'll have some general discussion, and try rationality exercises like paranoid debating and the repetition game. There'll be a "LW" sign on the table.

Discussion article for the meetup : LW Ottawa meetup
Bleg: Read and learn, or become an activist?
by VipulNaik — 2014-04-09T21:39:36.526Z

Suppose a high school student is deeply interested in a particular social or political issue and interested in doing something about the subject. What advice would you give him/her?

You may assume that the high school student is roughly similar in profile to the typical active LessWrong participant when he/she was in high school.

Some candidate social and political issues are listed below.

Topics of particular interest to the LessWrong audience:

Effective altruism

Existential risk, in particular unfriendly AI

Epistemic rationality

Others that are more commonly perceived as important issues in the world today:

World peace

Global warming

Education policy

Effectively combating crime

Civil liberties violations

Migration policy

I asked a few people to opine on the last two issues on the list (in Facebook posts linked above) and the respondents generally focused on the acquisition of background knowledge rather than direct activism (i.e., read and learn rather than proselytize). Prima facie, this seems like sound advice. But it's quite possible that the set of people I interact with on Facebook is biased in favor of armchair stuff to the exclusion of activism. What do people here think?

Feel free to pick on one particular item in one of the above lists, or something not on either of the lists, and provide a specific answer for that. Or, provide general guidelines. Also feel free to specify additional assumptions (such as the country the student is in, or the student's other abilities or interests) and answer within the constraints of those assumptions.

PS: For some of the issues, you may feel that the issue is overrated or misguided (for instance, you may think that global warming is a non-issue, or that the status quo is optimal with respect to civil liberties or migration policy). In this case, your advice to the hypothetical high school student might largely be directed at making him/her come around to your point of view of the irrelevance of the issue. Comments suggesting you'd give advice of that sort are also welcome. If you'd simply suggest to the high school student to refrain from thinking about socially or politically charged topics entirely, that would also be interesting to know (cf. politics is the mindkiller).
The value of the online hive mind
by VipulNaik — 2014-04-09T16:52:38.818Z

The phrase "wisdom of crowds" was made popular in James Surowiecki's eponymous book. The idea of aggregating a diverse range of opinions has been proposed in different forms, ranging from polling to prediction markets. Empirically, prediction markets perform somewhat better than crude polling, but just the act of aggregation itself improves significantly over not aggregating. Even crude aggregation mechanisms can be beneficial.

Aggregation over larger numbers of people can be beneficial even if most people aren't experts. However, it's important to note that aggregation is beneficial only if enough people have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the subject, and those who don't know anything are either unbiased or their biases cancel out(see The Myth of the Rational Voter for more). Aggregation with a certain level of filtering to sieve out the signal from the noise can overcome the problem of ignorance or even bias, as long as there is enough signal on the whole (i.e., enough people in absolute terms who know what they're talking about).

When you're stuck with a question, whether personal, professional, or academic, it is often effective to turn to the hive mind for suggestions. Not that the hive mind can, or should, make your decisions for you. But it can offer valuable input that would otherwise take you a lot of time to collect.

In the past, few people had access to the wisdom of the hive mind when it came to their own questions. Now, however, we have the Internet, and Internet research is a powerful way that people can access the hive mind for far more specific questions than they could have dreamed of before. There are many different types of onilne hive mind you could access:

The Google/Internet hive mind: Search what the Internet as a whole has to say, using Google as your discovery tool. There's a lot of wisdom out there. The advantage is that you can access a huge corpus of knowledge. The disadvantage is that you cannot ask your own questions and the knowledge isn't arranged in a question-and-answer format.

The Wikipedia hive mind: Avail of an "encyclopedia" that's been written through the collaborative efforts of hundreds of thousands of people, and is regularly updated, to fill in the gaps in your knowledge and make an informed decision.

The Quora/LessWrong/StackExchange/Reddit/discussion forum/blogosphere hive mind: Avail of stuff that's explicit

...
Meetup : Socialising in the Sun, London 13/04
by Tenoke — 2014-04-09T16:22:12.973Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Socialising in the Sun, London 13/04

WHEN: 13 April 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Newman's Row, London WC2A 3TL

We are having another Social Meetup on Sunday at 2 PM, this time outdoors [weather permitting].

The meetup will take place at Lincoln's Inn Fields (near Holborn station) and more specifically around this spot. I will bring a deck of cards, so we can have the option of playing Resistance; if anyone has frisbees and other such props - feel free to bring them as well.

In case the weather is bad we will meet at the Shakespeare's Head. Both locations are near to each other, but if you want to make sure where we are meeting then check on the mailing list on Sunday morning.

Note: There will be no Meetup on Easter (20/04) since the turnout is expected to be minimal

If you get lost, feel free to contact me by e-mail - Tenoke(at)Tenoke.com or by phone - 07425168803. Alternatively, if you want more information about the meetup or anything else, come by our mailing list or the facebook group

Discussion article for the meetup : Socialising in the Sun, London 13/04
How much does where you go to college affect earnings?
by JonahS — 2014-04-09T07:50:10.179Z

Students who go to more selective colleges make more money later in life. The 2013-2014 PayScale College Salary Report gives starting salaries of ~$60k for graduates of Ivy League schools vs. ~$45k/year for graduates of mid-tier state schools, and mid-career salaries of ~$110k/year for graduates of Ivy League schools vs. ~$80k/year for mid-tier state schools, so the difference is about 30%.

This partially reflects students who go to more selective colleges being more able and ambitious, as opposed to attending a more selective college boosting one's income. How much does attending boost income? The famous paper Estimating the Return to College Selectivity Over the Career Using Administrative Earning Data (2011) by Dale and Krueger raises the possibility that on average, attending a more selective college doesn't raise earnings at all. Specifically, controlling for

Student high school GPA

Student SAT score

The average SAT score of the colleges that a student applied for1

The number of applications that the student submitted

Various demographic factors (race, sex, parental education)

they found that as a group, there was no statistically significant difference in income later in life between students who went to more selective colleges and students who went to less selective colleges. Their finding is somewhat robust: it's based on a large (~10k) sample size, it's true both of the class of 1976 and the class of 1989, it's true of the class of 1976 from age 25 through age 50 and it's true both of men and of women.2,3

A couple of caveats:

Blacks, Hispanics, and children of parents who don't have college degrees and who attended more selective schools earned more than those who did not.

The 27 universities that the students were drawn from are highly selective: if one were to look at less selective universities, one might get different results.

Dale and Krueger's central finding has been taken to be evidence that going to a more selective college does not increase one's earnings, contrary to conventional wisdom.

There are many factors that could give rise to a difference in income between those who attended more selective colleges, some of which favor those who attended less selective colleges, and could counterbalance others that increase earnings. I list some potential contributing factors below (some of which were pointed out b...
Schelling Day 2.0
by Ben_LandauTaylor — 2014-04-09T06:58:21.416Z

Schelling Day is a holiday about getting to know the people in your community that we created and celebrated in 2013. By popular request, I've revised the procedure to take into account what we learned last year. I'm aware of plans to hold Schelling Day in Boston, New York, and San Francisco on April 16. (Not 14, because of the conflict with Passover, which is also a major community event for many people.) I'd love to know of any additional celebrations that you guys hold.

Last year's event played a part in the Boston group’s development into a closer and more caring community. Sharing the things you want to share, and receiving compassion and understanding from the group, turns out to be extremely powerful evidence that it’s safe to share important things with the group—and as it turns out, brains update if you give them good evidence.

Schelling Day

If necessary, split into groups of no more than 10-15 people. Each group gathers and sits in a circle. At the center is a table. On the table are four small bowls of delicious snacks. Eating the delicious snacks at this stage is VERBOTEN. There is also a single large, empty bowl.

Everyone will have a six-sided die.

Everyone will have a chance to speak, or to not speak. When it’s your turn, roll your die. Showing the result to others is VERBOTEN.

If your die shows a six, you MUST speak. If your die shows a one, you MUST NOT speak. Otherwise, you choose whether or not to speak. The die is to provide plausible deniability. Attempting to guess whether someone’s decision was forced by the die roll is VERBOTEN.

If you speak, take up to five minutes[1] to tell the group something important about yourself. Then, choose at least one of the categories below that matches what you said. Scoop a small amount of the corresponding delicious snack from the small bowls into the central bowl. (If you want, you can use these categories for inspiration, but don’t let them restrict you from saying something that matters.)

Struggles (Chocolate):

Challenges, burdens, things you’re tired of hiding, etc.

Joys (Raspberries):

Passions, guilty pleasures, “I love you guys” speeches, etc.

Background (Grapes):

Who you are, where you came from, why you are the way you are, etc.

Other (Blueberries):

Because trying to make an exhaustive list would be silly.

People ...
Recommendations for donating to an anti-death cause
by fowlertm — 2014-04-09T02:56:56.298Z

I've recently had the bad luck of having numerous people close to me die. Though I've wanted to contribute to anti-aging and anti-death research for a while, I'm only now in the position of being stable and materially well-off enough to throw around semi-serious cash.

Who should I donate to? I don't want to do anything with cryonics yet; I haven't given cryonics enough thought to be convinced it'd be worth the money. But I was considering the Methuselah foundation.

Suggestions?
The failed simulation effect and its implications for the optimization of extracurricular activities
by VipulNaik — 2014-04-08T19:27:53.567Z

Cal Newport's book How To Become a Straight-A Student The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less (that I blogged about recently) discusses a concept that Newport calls the failed simulation effect. Newport:

The Failed-Simulation-Effect Hypothesis If you cannot mentally simulate the steps taken by a student to reach an accomplishment, you will experience a feeling of profound impressiveness.
Newport, Cal (2010-07-20). How to Be a High School Superstar: A Revolutionary Plan to Get into College by Standing Out (Without Burning Out) (p. 182). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Newport gives the following example in his book:

Playing in a rock band doesn’t generate the Failed-Simulation Effect. You can easily simulate the steps required for that accomplishment: buy an instrument, take lessons, practice, brood, and so on. There’s no mystery. By contrast, publishing a bestselling book at the age of sixteen defies simulation. “How does a teenager get a book deal?” you ask in wonderment. This failure to simulate generates a sense of awed respect: “He must be something special.”
Newport, Cal (2010-07-20). How to Be a High School Superstar: A Revolutionary Plan to Get into College by Standing Out (Without Burning Out) (pp. 182-183). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

On the basis of this insight, Newport's bottom line for people looking for accomplishments in the high school extracurricular realm is:

Pursue accomplishments that are hard to explain, not hard to do.

My impression is that Newport is broadly correct as far as college admissions advice goes: activities that are hard to simulate seem more impressive, and therefore improve one's chances at admission (ceteris paribus). But impressing admissions committees isn't the only goal in life. In this post, I explore the question: how aligned is this advice to the other things that matter, namely, direct personal value (in the form of consumption and human capital) and social value?

Understanding the question

I'm interested in exploring how closely the following are related for a given accomplishment (with the exception of (1) and (2), the rest measure the value created in some respected; see also this page):

Hardness: The amount of skill, effort, or character strength needed.

Impressiveness (primarily in the context of signa

...
Google vs Wikipedia, for-profit vs not-for-profit
by Schmoo — 2014-04-08T14:42:28.144Z

When Wikipedia was new, there was much entusiasm over it's not-for-profit model. Recent years have seen a steady decline in the number of users, though. Meanwhile, companies such as Google and Amazon grow ever larger and are, arguably, besides making huge profits contributing to the growth of human knowledge and prosperity on a massive scale.

An important question in this regard is to what extent information should be generated and controlled by not-for-profits such as Wikipedia (or even the government) or by for-profit entities. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these different systems? To some extent they are the same as for any other economic activity, but producing and organizing information are of course quite different from producing cars in ways that are relevant to this question.

Advantages for the for-profit system:

The main advantage of the for-profit system is that has a tendency to make for more efficiency. The cut-throat competition among IT companies forces them to become more efficient and innovative. Meanwhile Wikipedia does not seem to be either very innovative or efficient, since an oligarchy of old wikipedians block most new ideas (according to the article above).

Advantages for the not-for-profit system:

The idea underpinning market economics is the "invisible hand" which is supposed to aggregate everybody's selfish behaviour into collective good (given a certain institutional set-up). When it works, it often does so brilliantly, but unfortunately companies often don't have an incentive to behave in a way that is beneficial for the community. For instance, many social media make it hard to delete accounts, do but a bare minimum to combat criminal activities on their sites, etc. In short they don't work in their users' interests, and hence fails to maximize the collective good. Another problem is that the massive amount of information they acquire isn't shared properly, as pointed out in an article in Science:

Google is a business, but it also holds in trust data on the desires, thoughts, and the connections of humanity. Making money “without doing evil” (paraphrasing Google's motto) is not enough when it is feasible to do so much good. It is also incumbent upon academia to build institutional models to facilitate collaborations with such big data projects—something that is too often missing now in universitie

...
Be comfortable with hypocrisy
by The_Duck — 2014-04-08T10:03:05.356Z

Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age takes place several decades in the future and this conversation is looking back on the present day:

"You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others-after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism?" [...]

"Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others’ shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour-you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy." [...]

"We take a somewhat different view of hypocrisy," Finkle-McGraw continued. "In the late-twentieth-century Weltanschauung, a hypocrite was someone who espoused high moral views as part of a planned campaign of deception-he never held these beliefs sincerely and routinely violated them in privacy. Of course, most hypocrites are not like that. Most of the time it's a spirit-is-willing, flesh-is-weak sort of thing."

"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code," Major Napier said, working it through, "does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code."

I'm not sure if I agree with this characterization of the current political climate; in any case, that's not the point I'm interested in. I'm also not interested in moral relativism.

But the passage does point out a flaw which I recognize in myself: a preference for consistency over actually doing the right thing. I place a lot of stock--as I think many here do--on self-consistency. After all, clearly any moral code which is inconsistent is wrong. But dismissing a moral code for inconsistency or a person for hypocrisy is lazy. Morality is hard. It's easy to get a warm glow from the nice self-con...
Solomonoff induction on a random string
by christopherj — 2014-04-08T05:30:08.541Z

So, I've been hearing a lot about the awesomeness of Solomonoff induction, at least as a theoretical framework. However, my admittedly limited understanding of Solomonoff induction suggests that it would form an epicly bad hypothesis if given a random string. So my question is, if I misunderstood, how does it deal with randomness? And if I understood correctly, isn't this a rather large gap?

Edit: Thanks for all the comments! My new understanding is that Solomonoff induction is able to understand that it is dealing with a random string (because it finds itself giving equal weight to programs that output a 1 or a 0 for the next bit), but despite that is designed to keep looking for a pattern forever. While this is a horrible use of resources, the SI is a theoretical framework that has infinite resources, so that's a meaningless criticism. Overall this seems acceptable, though if you want to actually implement a SI you'll need to instruct it on giving up. Furthermore, the SI will not include randomness as a distinct function in its hypothesis, which could lead to improper weighting of priors, but will still have good predictive power -- and considering that Solomonoff induction was only meant for computable functions, this is a pretty good result.