trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
A Modest Proposal: Logging for Environmentalists
by localdeity — 2021-08-18T21:53:46.522Z

(Epistemic status: non-expert who's spent about 5 minutes looking into the subject)

So, we have more wildfires this year in California, which are once again screwing up the local air quality. As I understand it, there's lots of dry wood accumulating; the fires are bound to happen eventually, and if we manage to suppress them for some years, they'll just burn harder when (not if) the blaze finally happens—and we're currently reaping the effects of prior years of fire suppression.

I had a hunch, and googled, and found an article from September 2020 that says:

This year’s fires in California have already burned through 1.4 million hectares (3.4 million acres) of land, and the fire season isn’t set to end for at least a couple of months.

The fires have already generated more than 91 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is about 25% more than the state’s annual emissions from fossil fuels.

Which led me to an idea. Could you pay logging companies to take a bunch of that wood, possibly chopping down some fraction of the living trees in the process, and do something with it that will prevent it being burned? Good lumber can be used for construction (and you could sell it to the logging companies to help pay for this), bad wood can be buried or something.

Would the economics work out? A 2008 paper estimates the costs of burying wood, as a carbon-capture technique, to be $14 per ton of CO2. This would be without any offsets from selling the good lumber. Meanwhile, there was a recent thread on /r/slatestarcodex about the costs of carbon capture, and most of the numbers I see there are much higher. (It seems the cost estimates for many proposed methods involve a lot of guesswork about economies of scale.) And it would have the further benefit of shrinking the wildfires and improving Californian air quality. I thought there might be a low-hanging fruit tree here.

Anyway, neither practical politics nor this type of technology are my domain, nor do I know anyone who does work in the right domain, so I will just leave the idea here.
Shame: Authentic & Applied/Manufactured Shame
by Phoenix Eliot — 2021-08-18T21:37:11.118Z

I've been chewing on the book The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren a lot, lately. It gives a surprising and (to me) unique perspective on emotions and how they behave when they're able to act in their healthy un-stuck ways ("Flowing" as the book calls it).

Shame in particular was very interesting to me.

First, here's some quick definitions from the book that might not match what you're used to. I'll be using these definitions for the sake of this post.

Shame is the emotion you feel when you've done something wrong, feel that you are Wrong, or have gotten one of those messages from others.
Guilt is not an emotion, but rather the state of being having done something wrong. Because it's not an emotion (per this definition), we don't discuss it much.

Another common definition of these terms instead call both emotions, and split along the lines "I did something wrong" (guilt) vs "I am Wrong" (shame). This is also a fine definition, but not what the book or this post use. (For example, I think Replacing Guilt is pretty compatible with these ideas, just using different words).

The Types of Shame

Per the book, Shame has three forms (two of which are closely related):

Applied Shame / Manufactured Shame
Authentic shame

Let's start with the first two.

Applied Shame is what you feel when someone else is shaming you. They are applying shame onto you from the outside. Think of kids making fun of you at school, or parents/authority figures telling you "you did a Bad Thing and you should feel Bad". Social rejection in general also fits, though more loosely.

Manufactured Shame is when you have learned that a behavior tends to result in applied shame, so you automatically manufacture the shame yourself without anyone needing to apply it to you. If for example your parents would shame you thoroughly any time you cried, there's a good chance you internalized that other people see crying as a shameful act, and so you installed a piece of that person into yourself to create the shame on their behalf whenever you would (or do) cry.

So, Manufactured Shame is essentially just Applied Shame that you've implicitly agreed to apply to yourself on others' behalf. Often this response pattern of manufacturing shame lingers from very old wounds.

(I won't be going into detail on how to disown Applied/Manufactured shame in this post because they're hard to summarize succinctly enough to fit within the...
When Programmers Don't Understand Code, Don't Blame The User
by Adam Zerner — 2021-08-18T19:59:04.285Z

In Undergraduation, Paul Graham said something that has always stuck with me:

On the whole, grad school is probably better than most alternatives. You meet a lot of smart people, and your glum procrastination will at least be a powerful common bond. And of course you have a PhD at the end. I forgot about that. I suppose that's worth something.

The greatest advantage of a PhD (besides being the union card of academia, of course) may be that it gives you some baseline confidence. For example, the Honeywell thermostats in my house have the most atrocious UI. My mother, who has the same model, diligently spent a day reading the user's manual to learn how to operate hers. She assumed the problem was with her. But I can think to myself "If someone with a PhD in computer science can't understand this thermostat, it must be badly designed."

I thought about this today. In a pull request at work, someone had some code that looked like this:

const arr = [stuff]
const that = this;

arr.forEach(function () {
that.method();
});

Someone else commented about how that = this isn't necessary. You should just be able to do this.method(). I've been programming with JavaScript for about eight years now, and I found myself confused.

I know that the value of this is supposed to be based on what calls the function. Like if you have obj.fn(), inside of fn, this will be obj. But what happens when you just do fn()?

That is where I get confused. Without looking it up, my memory says that it usually defaults to the global object, but that there may be other rules I'm forgetting that have to do with the scope. When I looked it up, it seemed that it does default to the global object, but I wasn't 100% sure. Maybe it does have to do with scope. The docs didn't seem clear. So it took me some time to think up an example to test each hypothesis, which ended up allowing me to prove to myself that it is in fact defaulting to the global object, and that it doesn't care about scope.

But then there is the question of what is going on in Array.prototype.forEach. How is that callback function getting executed? Does the value of this get "set by the call"? Eg. does something like obj.cb() happen, in which case the value of this is obj? If so, what is obj? Or does it get executed like cb()? The docs don't really make that clear IMO.

Anyway, the point of explaining all of this is to give you a sense th...
Vaccination with natural immunity
by sudoLife — 2021-08-18T05:47:21.870Z

Why it's important to me: I have had Covid, alas unofficially, which means the healthcare system doesn't recognize me eligible for just one shot of Pfizer.

The same healthcare system also supposedly issued a statement early this summer about how recovered patients must receive one mRNA shot only and not a viral-vector jab.

This makes me worried.

Have any of you gone through this? It seems I should not subject my immune system to unnecessary work (second jab) that doesn't produce results.

P.S. Jannsen has only one shot, but it's viral-vector. I've read through some of the papers, and it seems it has about the same / lower efficacy and more side effects. This one, maybe?

UPD. A valid request for a more clearly stated question has been raised.

My main question is which vaccine seem to render a better outcome given the situation. While I have read through a study, I still lack insight from others.
Finite Factored Sets: Polynomials and Probability
by Scott Garrabrant — 2021-08-17T21:53:03.269Z

In this post, given a finite factored set F=(S,B), we will show how to associate each E⊆S with a characteristic polynomial, QFE. We will discuss how to factor these characteristic polynomials, and use these characteristic polynomials to build up to the fundamental theorem of finite factored sets, which associates conditional orthogonality with conditional independence in probability distributions.

5.1. Characteristic Polynomials

Definition 28. Given a finite factored set F=(S,B), let PolyF denote the ring of polynomials with coefficients in R and variables in P(S).

Definition 29. Given a finite factored set F=(S,B), a p∈PolyF, and an f:P(S)→R, we write p(f)∈R for the evaluation of p at f, computed by replacing each E⊆S with f(E).

Definition 30. Given a finite factored set F=(S,B), and a polynomial p∈PolyF, supp(p)⊆P(S) denotes the set of all variables v∈P(S) that appear in p. supp(p) is called the support of p.

Definition 31. Given a finite factored set F=(S,B) and an E⊆S, let QFE∈PolyF be given by QFE=∑s∈E∏b∈B[s]b. QFE is called the characteristic polynomial of E (in F).

We will be building up to an understanding of how to factor QFE into irreducibles. For that, we will first need to give some basic notation for manipulating polynomials in PolyF.

Definition 32. Given a finite factored set F=(S,B), an s∈S, and a C⊆B, let monoFC(s)∈PolyF be given by monoFC(s)=∏b∈C[s]b.

Definition 33. Given a finite factored set F=(S,B), an E⊆S, and a C⊆B, let monosFC(E)∈P(PolyF) be given by monosFC(E)={monoFC(s)∣s∈E}.

Definition 34. Given a finite factored set F=(S,B), an E⊆S, and a C⊆B, let polyFC(E)∈PolyF be given by polyFC(E)=∑m∈monosFC(E)m.

Proposition 26. Let F=(S,B) be a finite factored set, and let E⊆S. Then QFE=polyFB(E).

Proof. We start by showing that for all s≠t∈S, monoFB(s)≠monoFB(t).

Let s≠t∈S be arbitrary. By Proposition 3, if s≠t, there must be some b∈B such that [s]b≠[t]b. Then, note that [s]b∈supp(monoFB(s)). If [s]b were also in supp(monoFB(...
Factors of mental and physical abilities - a statistical analysis
by dynomight — 2021-08-17T20:42:28.310Z
Link: https://dynomight.net/general-intelligence/

(Cross-posted with various interactive elements (videos, expandy/contracty boxes) that required slightly awkward substitutes here.)

Is there a general factor of intelligence?

This question is a trap. If you try to answer it, you’ll find yourself beset by semantic questions. What’s intelligence? What’s a factor? And if you get past those, you’ll then find a bleak valley of statistical arcana. What do the eigenvalues look like? Do they imply causality?

This is all backward. If your goal is to understand the external world, you can skip the hand wringing and start by looking at the damn data. So let’s do that.

Physical tests are correlated

To start, let’s forget about intelligence, and ask an easier question: Does it make sense to refer to some people as “more physically fit” than others? Is that reasonable, or do we need to break things down by strength, speed, coordination, etc.?

To answer this, I looked for studies that gave people batteries of different physical tests. I found three that make enough information available to analyze.

Paper
Population

Baumgartner and Zuidema, 1972
283 male and 336 female college students in Michigan

Marsh and Redmaye, 1994
105 students at two private girls' schools in Sydney

Ibrahim et al., 2011
330 Malaysian students aged 12-15

Here are the correlations among the different tests in the first study. The columns are the same as the rows---so the 3rd square in the first row is the correlation between hand grip and pull-ups.

This is males. (Females are similar, except with lower correlations in upper-body strength.)

Here are links for Marsh and Redmaye and Ibrahim et al..

Most tests are positively correlated, and none are negative. Is this surprising? I don't know. For our purposes, we just want this as a point of comparison.

Mental tests are correlated

We can do the same analysis with batteries of mental tests. For whatever reason, many more studies have been done with mental tests, so I picked four of the best studies.

Paper
Population

Alderton et al. 1997
12,813 members of the US Navy, Army, and Air Forces

Deary, 2000
365 representative Scottish people

Chabris 2011
111 Boston adults 18 - 60 years old

MacCann et al., 2014
688 students from colleges around the US.

Here are the correlations in the first study.

This test battery is designed to measure aptitude for various military tasks. Some of these, lik...
Who was the person who escaped the Nazis a day before they cracked down?
by masasin — 2021-08-17T19:43:43.477Z

I'm trying to find the primary source for this, but I remember one person (who may have been a physicist) left Germany (or another country) on a train. That same train the next day was stopped and thousands of Jews were arrested. He is alleged to have said something to the effect of needing to be one day faster than the rest, but I forgot who it was, and what the quote is.
Thoughts on Moral Philosophy
by Chris_Leong — 2021-08-17T12:57:22.019Z

I don't really feel that I personally have any special insight into moral philosophy, but nonetheless, some people may find it interesting or useful to know where I stand or the philosophers/perspectives that I do consider to have such insight.

That said, perhaps my most original offering is my three-paragaph post On Disingenuity:

Suppose someone claims that all morality is relative, but when pressed on whether this would apply even to murder, they act evasive and refuse to give a clear answer. A critic might conclude that this person is disingenuous in refusing to accept the clear logical consequences of their belief.

However, imagine that there's a really strong social stigma against asserting that murder might not be bad, to the point of permanently damaging such a person's reputation, even though there's no consequence for making the actually stronger claim that all morality is relative. The relativist might therefore see the critic as the one who is disingenuous; trying to leverage social pressure against them instead of arguing on the basis of reason.

Thus in the right circumstances, each side can quite reasonably see the other as disingenuous. I suspect that everyone will have experienced both sides of the coin at different times depending on the issue being discussed.

I strongly dislike most arguments that morality is relative or subjective as they usually involve a bunch of handwaving and biting bullets which the proponent hasn't really thought through, but I also acknowledge that Hume's Is-Ought disjunction is quite devastating for the prospects of establishing an objective morality.

Derek Parfit makes the best attempt I've seen to get around this disjunction with a) his use of the Future Tuesday thought experiment to argue that some preferences are objectively more correct than others and b) by noting that people generally believe that we can have knowledge about mathematics despite its seemingly non-empirical nature and then noting that this suggests that we might be able to similarly have such a priori knowledge about morality. I didn't find his arguments completely persuasive, but I've only read summaries.

I find that discussions about moral philosophy are much more productive when we make a distinction between Principled and Pragmatic Morality. For example, someone may endorse utilitarianism in principle, whilst rejecting it in practise because of th...
Simultaneous Redundant Research
by eg — 2021-08-17T12:17:27.701Z

Suppose for some big problem that research labor is plentiful and time is short. Obviously the first thing to do is to divide the research into subproblems and research them in parallel. But what if the number of research teams still exceeds the number of real subproblems identified?

One possibility: some teams preregister methodologies for each subproblem, then each remaining team picks one to copy and perform independently, like replication, but concurrently with the original team.

Possible advantages of this approach:

* Redundancy: If one team gets stopped or delayed, you still get the preliminary result on time.

* Immediate replication: If all goes well, you get the more confident replicated result faster than with sequential replication.

* Faster error detection: If there is a discrepancy in results, there could be immediate investigation of what the teams did differently.

* Research capital: The "extra" teams get to spend their time doing real research instead of other things, presumably making them better at doing real research for when more subproblems become available.

* Replication motivation: Public reports of the results of the first team to finish could mention the other teams by name, thus creating more prestige for replication.

And for more conceptual rather than empirical research, the teams might go in completely different directions and generate insights that a single team or individual would not.
A Better Time until Sunburn Calculator
by Josh Jacobson — 2021-08-17T00:40:00.663Z

This is a preliminary review (more on what this means).

I became curious about sun exposure recently. I did an abbreviated review of some of the relevant literature and came away thinking that whether sun exposure is beneficial or not was unclear at that level of investigation (this seems to be an open question for most LWers as well).

One consensus that did seem to exist was that sunburn is bad and a thing to avoid. In order to be able to avoid it, and especially to be able to avoid it while still getting the potential benefits of non-burning sun exposure, I figured it would be helpful to know how long I could be in the sun without getting burnt.

This could be determined by trial and error, and maybe that would be a valid approach if I felt a good sample size could be obtained in an enjoyable, low-risk way. I don’t like sunburn though (and it probably wouldn’t be low-risk), so I was personally interested in finding a calculator that would predict this.

If you google something like “sunburn calculator” you’ll get a lot of results. But they are incredibly bad. Most seem highly untrustworthy, many clearly have bad inaccuracies, some don’t gather sufficient information for meaningful calculation, and ~none are transparent about their methodology or how to interpret their results.

So I’ve built a better, bad, sunburn calculator (view, copy).

It’s better than others because:

At least some of the results have high interpretability. It can calculate how many minutes it takes for 1% of people in this situation to develop a sunburn, and what percent of people in these conditions will get a sunburn after the indicated number of minutes.

There’s transparency. Sources are cited (in notes), calculations are available on-sheet (formulas & hidden rows), and I’ve added relevant notes and context where appropriate to help with interpretability.

Relatively feature-rich. It accounts for sunscreen protection typically not working as advertised, and includes some information about how much sun exposure to actually aim for.

Information quality is probably better. I didn’t spend much time vetting studies or calculations used, but I still strongly suspect that the information quality is significantly better than otherwise readily available. I think it probably mostly asks for the right inputs as well, given the state of knowledge today.

But despite being better, this calcul...
Thinking about AI relationally 

by TekhneMakre — 2021-08-16T22:03:07.780Z

[Hastily written, caveat emptor.]
One way to think about AI (alignment) is like how you think about fixing a car, or about an ordinary computer program. Let's say this is the "objectual" way of thinking (objectual, just meaning, "as an object"). In the objectual way of thinking, you emphasize the object and deemphasize yourself. You're concerned with the self-contained causes of the object, its autonomous internal dynamics and laws. "How do I assemble the parts of this thing so that, without further intervention from me, the internal dynamics of it will produce the consequences I want?"
Another way of thinking is more like how you relate to another person. Let's say this is the "relational" way of thinking. When you relate to a person, you expect to reprogram yourself to communicate with them and accomodate their needs and get gains from joint strategies, and you expect them to do the same. You expect that in most cases they'll understand things roughly the way you understand things; and in many cases they'll want the same things as you, and behave similarly to you. You can understand them not by forming a little simulation of them, but by tuning some dials on yourself to match the settings in the other person, and then just looking at yourself. "How do I continuously rearrange myself in response to the other person's self-rearrangement, so that the other person's ongoing self-rearrangement in response to my self-rearrangement, will together have good results?"
This distinction is more of a fuzzy spectrum or dimension, than a dichotomy. In math, you're sort of programming yourself, and you're trying to understand something that isn't you (the mathematical objects), but the only access you have to the math is configurations of your thinking... More generally, in natural science, you're trying to think of things objectually, but to do that you have to think relationally: how can I get more information about the object, which concepts can I use to understand it, where am I confused. Training an animal is another intermediate case.
Relational thinking emphasizes different question from objectual thinking. The relational questions about AGI seem to me more interesting for alignment than the objectual questions.
For example, in the theory around HCH, IIUC (which I maybe don't), there's an emphasis on using learning theory to get as much mileage (info, values, robustnes...
Welcome to Boston Astral Codex Ten
by delton137 — 2021-08-16T19:22:37.096Z

Robi Rahman and I (Dan Elton) are re-booting in person meetups in conjunction with Taymon, who is the long time organizer.
We are trying to group the community! Please feel free to attend even if you feel awkward about it, even if you're a first-time reader, and even if you’re not "the typical SSC reader".
Our mailing list is here:
https://groups.google.com/g/ssc-boston
Our new Facebook group is:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023018131571906
A related Facebook group is Cambridge Less Wrong:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/210721069282479
Our email is bostonacx@gmail.com