trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
On Caring
by So8res — 2014-10-15T01:59:05.567Z

This is an essay describing some of my motivation to be an effective altruist. It is crossposted from my blog. Many of the ideas here are quite similar to others found in the sequences. I have a slightly different take, and after adjusting for the typical mind fallacy I expect that this post may contain insights that are new to many.

1

I'm not very good at feeling the size of large numbers. Once you start tossing around numbers larger than 1000 (or maybe even 100), the numbers just seem "big".

Consider Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. If you told me that Sirius is as big as a million earths, I would feel like that's a lot of Earths. If, instead, you told me that you could fit a billion Earths inside Sirius… I would still just feel like that's a lot of Earths.

The feelings are almost identical. In context, my brain grudgingly admits that a billion is a lot larger than a million, and puts forth a token effort to feel like a billion-Earth-sized star is bigger than a million-Earth-sized star. But out of context — if I wasn't anchored at "a million" when I heard "a billion" — both these numbers just feel vaguely large.

I feel a little respect for the bigness of numbers, if you pick really really large numbers. If you say "one followed by a hundred zeroes", then this feels a lot bigger than a billion. But it certainly doesn't feel (in my gut) like it's 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 times bigger than a billion. Not in the way that four apples internally feels like twice as many as two apples. My brain can't even begin to wrap itself around this sort of magnitude differential.

This phenomena is related to scope insensitivity, and it's important to me because I live in a world where sometimes the things I care about are really really numerous.

For example, billions of people live in squalor, with hundreds of millions of them deprived of basic needs and/or dying from disease. And though most of them are out of my sight, I still care about them.

The loss of a human life with all is joys and all its sorrows is tragic no matter what the cause, and the tragedy is not reduced simply because I was far away, or because I did not know of it, or because I did not know how to help, or because I was not personally responsible.

Knowing this, I care about every...
Superintelligence 5: Forms of Superintelligence
by KatjaGrace — 2014-10-14T01:00:46.144Z

This is part of a weekly reading group on Nick Bostrom's book, Superintelligence. For more information about the group, and an index of posts so far see the announcement post. For the schedule of future topics, see MIRI's reading guide.

Welcome. This week we discuss the fifth section in the reading guide: Forms of superintelligence. This corresponds to Chapter 3, on different ways in which an intelligence can be super.

This post summarizes the section, and offers a few relevant notes, and ideas for further investigation. Some of my own thoughts and questions for discussion are in the comments.

There is no need to proceed in order through this post, or to look at everything. Feel free to jump straight to the discussion. Where applicable and I remember, page numbers indicate the rough part of the chapter that is most related (not necessarily that the chapter is being cited for the specific claim).

Reading: Chapter 3 (p52-61)

Summary

A speed superintelligence could do what a human does, but faster. This would make the outside world seem very slow to it. It might cope with this partially by being very tiny, or virtual. (p53)

A collective superintelligence is composed of smaller intellects, interacting in some way. It is especially good at tasks that can be broken into parts and completed in parallel. It can be improved by adding more smaller intellects, or by organizing them better. (p54)

A quality superintelligence can carry out intellectual tasks that humans just can't in practice, without necessarily being better or faster at the things humans can do. This can be understood by analogy with the difference between other animals and humans, or the difference between humans with and without certain cognitive capabilities. (p56-7)

These different kinds of superintelligence are especially good at different kinds of tasks. We might say they have different 'direct reach'. Ultimately they could all lead to one another, so can indirectly carry out the same tasks. We might say their 'indirect reach' is the same. (p58-9)

We don't know how smart it is possible for a biological or a synthetic intelligence to be. Nonetheless we can be confident that synthetic entities can be much more intelligent than biological entities.

Digital intelligences would have better hardware: they would be made of components ten million times fa

...
[Link] Why Science Is Not Necessarily Self-Correcting
by ChristianKl — 2014-10-13T13:51:02.708Z

Why Science Is Not Necessarily Self-Correcting John P. A. Ioannidis

The ability to self-correct is considered a hallmark of science. However, self-correction does not always happen to scientific evidence by default. The trajectory of scientific credibility can fluctuate over time, both for defined scientific fields and for science at-large. History suggests that major catastrophes in scientific credibility are unfortunately possible and the argument that “it is obvious that progress is made” is weak. Careful evaluation of the current status of credibility of various scientific fields is important in order to understand any credibility deficits and how one could obtain and establish more trustworthy results. Efficient and unbiased replication mechanisms are essential for maintaining high levels of scientific credibility. Depending on the types of results obtained in the discovery and replication phases, there are different paradigms of research: optimal, self-correcting, false nonreplication, and perpetuated fallacy. In the absence of replication efforts, one is left with unconfirmed (genuine) discoveries and unchallenged fallacies. In several fields of investigation, including many areas of psychological science, perpetuated and unchallenged fallacies may comprise the majority of the circulating evidence. I catalogue a number of impediments to self-correction that have been empirically studied in psychological science. Finally, I discuss some proposed solutions to promote sound replication practices enhancing the credibility of scientific results as well as some potential disadvantages of each of them. Any deviation from the principle that seeking the truth has priority over any other goals may be seriously damaging to the self-correcting functions of science.
Meetup : Australia online meetup
by Elo — 2014-10-13T11:07:11.483Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Australia online meetup

WHEN:
19 October 2014 07:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
Sydney

See you at the online hangout. From wherever you are.

Link to be posted about 10 minutes before hand because they expire otherwise.

We use google hangouts so make sure you can get into one of those before the meetup or else there is a whole bunch of fluffing around installing things.

bring any fickle puzzles or questions to the floor. or neat group-projects. We created cognitive bias short stories in the past and it was fun!

https://www.facebook.com/events/991080387585441/

Usual representation includes; Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, NZ, This one guy from South America...

time 1900 - 23:30. UTC+11 (Sunday evening)

Discussion article for the meetup : Australia online meetup
Open thread, Oct. 13 - Oct. 19, 2014
by MrMind — 2014-10-13T08:17:22.462Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
Baysian conundrum
by Jan_Rzymkowski — 2014-10-13T00:39:45.207Z

For some time I've been pondering on a certain scenario, which I'll describe shortly. I hope you may help me find a satisfactory answer or at very least be as perplexed by this probabilistic question as me. Feel free to assign any reasonable a priori probabilities as you like. Here's the problem:
It's cold cold winter. Radiators are hardly working, but it's not why you're sitting so anxiously in your chair. The real reason is that tomorrow is your assigned upload (and damn, it's just one in million chance you're not gonna get it) and you just can't wait to leave your corporality behind. "Oh, I'm so sick of having a body, especially now. I'm freezing!" you think to yourself, "I wish I were already uploaded and could just pop myself off to a tropical island."

And now it strikes you. It's a weird solution, but it feels so appealing. You make a solemn oath (you'd say one in million chance you'd break it), that soon after upload you will simulate this exact moment thousand times simultaneously and when the clock strikes 11 AM, you're gonna be transposed to a Hawaiian beach, with a fancy drink in your hand.

It's 10:59 on a clock. What's the probability that you'd be in a tropical paradise in one minute?

And to make things more paradoxical: What would be said probability, if you wouldn't have made such an oath - just seconds ago?
[Link] The Coming Plague
by  — 2014-10-12T14:37:45.309Z

Related to: Forty Days , Low Hanging Poop

From professor Gregory Cochran's blog West Hunters.

Laurie Garret has an article out in the Washington Post. She say that there’s no point in trying to block the spread of Ebola by travel bans.

The problem is, she’s full of crap. Look, there are two possible scenarios. In both of them, r, the number of new cases generated by each case, is greater than 1 in parts of West Africa – which is why you get exponential growth, why you have an epidemic. If r < 1.0, the series converges – a case generates a few extra cases before dying out.

Everything we know so far suggests that even though it is greater than 1.0, r in West Africa is not all that big (maybe around 2), mostly because of unfortunate local burial customs and incompetent medical personnel.

It seems highly likely that r in US conditions is well under 1.0 which means you can’t get an epidemic. However, r is probably not zero. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get a few cases per imported case, from immediate contact and hospital mistakes. As an example, suppose that on average each case imported to the US generated a total of two other cases before dying out (counting secondary, tertiary, etc infections). Then, on average, the number of US citizens infected would be twice the number of infected visitors.

Now suppose that a travel ban blocked 80% of sick people trying to fly here from Liberia. We’d have 80% fewer cases in US citizens: and that would be a good thing. Really it would. Does Laurie Garret understand this? Obviously not. She is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, but she is incompetent. Totally useless, like virtually everyone else in public life.

We hear people from the CDC saying that any travel restrictions would backfire, but that’s nonsense too. One might wonder why they say such goofy things: I would guess that a major reason is that they were taught in school that quarantines are useless (and worse yet, old-fashioned), just as many biologists were taught that parasites are really harmless – have to be, because evolution!

In the other scenario, r > 1.0 in US conditions as well, or at least is greater than 1.0 in some subsets of the US population. This is very unlikely

...
Positive Book and Other Media Recommendations for a Teen Audience
by Brendon_Wong — 2014-10-12T06:10:01.251Z

Hi Less Wrong,

I've got the opportunity to promote books and other forms of content to a largely teenage audience. I'm looking for some good book recommendations and recommendations for a limited amount of other media (websites, movies, etc) that will spread awareness of positive ideas and issues in the world, while still being entertaining to the target audience. HPMOR comes to mind, and although I don't think its main focus is to promote an issue to readers, it is an excellent choice because it is well ranked, promotes rationality which can directly help readers, and is completely free to read online. Recommendations don't have to be free, but that is a very important factor.

Thanks everyone!

Edit: Thanks everyone for your contributions. I realize I was being a little too vague, I think content that promotes ethical/altruistic behavior is mainly what I am looking for, either inspiring it with fiction or causing motivation for it with nonfiction. I am looking for free web content, although paid content recommendations are also appreciated. This is for a general youth audience, not a club or any sort of interest group.
Five Planets In Search Of A Sci-Fi Story
by Scott Alexander — 2014-10-12T06:08:18.000Z

Gamma Andromeda, where philosophical stoicism went too far. Its inhabitants, tired of the roller coaster ride of daily existence, decided to learn equanimity in the face of gain or misfortune, neither dreading disaster nor taking joy in success.

But that turned out to be really hard, so instead they just hacked it. Whenever something good happens, the Gammandromedans give themselves an electric shock proportional in strength to its goodness. Whenever something bad happens, the Gammandromedans take an opiate-like drug that directly stimulates the pleasure centers of their brain, in a dose proportional in strength to its badness.

As a result, every day on Gamma Andromeda is equally good compared to every other day, and its inhabitants need not be jostled about by fear or hope for the future.

This does sort of screw up their incentives to make good things happen, but luckily they’re all virtue ethicists.

Zyzzx Prime, inhabited by an alien race descended from a barnacle-like creature. Barnacles are famous for their two stage life-cycle: in the first, they are mobile and curious creatures, cleverly picking out the best spot to make their home. In the second, they root themselves to the spot and, having no further use for their brain, eat it.

This particular alien race has evolved far beyond that point and does not literally eat its brain. However, once an alien reaches sufficiently high social status, it releases a series of hormones that tell its brain, essentially, that it is now in a safe place and doesn’t have to waste so much energy on thought and creativity to get ahead. As a result, its mental acuity drops two or three standard deviations.

The Zyzzxians’ society is marked by a series of experiments with government – monarchy, democracy, dictatorship – only to discover that, whether chosen by succession, election, or ruthless conquest, its once brilliant leaders lose their genius immediately upon accession and do a terrible job. Their government is thus marked by a series of perpetual pointless revolutions.

At one point, a scientific effort was launched to discover the hormones responsible and whether it was possible to block them. Unfortunately, any scientist who showed promise soon lost their genius, and those promoted to be heads of research institutes became stumbling blocks who mismanaged funds and held back their less prestigiou...
2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Call For Critiques/Questions
by Scott Alexander — 2014-10-11T06:39:14.489Z

It's that time of year again. Actually, a little earlier than that time of year, but I'm pushing it ahead a little to match when Ozy and I expect to have more free time to process the results.
The first draft of the 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2013 results here) .
You can see the survey below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft
I want two things from you.
First, please critique this draft (it's much the same as last year's). Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about taxes" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than a few questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.
Meetup : Perth, Australia: Sunday lunch
by  — 2014-10-11T04:24:19.594Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Perth, Australia: Sunday lunch

WHEN:
19 October 2014 12:00:00PM (+0800)

WHERE:
Annalakshmi, Barrack Square, Perth, Australia

Come have lunch with other Less Wrongians! We'll be at Annalakshmi, a pay-what-you-want vegetarian restaurant.

We'll discuss System 1 and System 2, two different ways we think. Very roughly, System 1 is instinctive and System 2 is analytic. When is one style of thinking more helpful than the other? When is one more challenging than the other?

You can RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Perth-Less-Wrong/events/212764552/

How to find us: I'll have a silver water bottle labeled "CFAR" in orange. We'll be outside the restaurant until 12 PM, then go inside.

Discussion article for the meetup : Perth, Australia: Sunday lunch
Meetup : Bath: Introduction and PredictionBook
by KnaveOfAllTrades — 2014-10-10T20:36:31.898Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Bath: Introduction and PredictionBook

WHEN:
19 October 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
5-10 James St W, Avon, Bath BA1 2BX

I'll be hosting a meetup for Bath, UK on Sunday 19th October at 14:00.

The meetup will be held at the King of Wessex, which is a Wetherspoons pub in the city. Start time is 14:00, and I'll wait at least ninety minutes after that for the first arrivals. I'll put a Less Wrong paperclip print-out on the table so you can identify me.
In case you need to contact me (e.g. if the venue is unexpectedly busy and we have to move elsewhere and you can't find us), my mobile number is the product 3 x 3 x 23 x 97 x 375127, preceded by a zero (so eleven digits total).
Since this is the first meetup, we'll start off with introductions and chit-chat. I will also formulate and bring along (but not check the veracity of) some propositions for us to place probabilities on, as calibration training.
I recommend you create and play around with a PredictionBook account in advance of the meetup to get to grips with it and in case you have any questions about it we can discuss on the day.
(Why not register right now? It only takes one or two minutes.)
Bonus points if you bring a device to log your predictions on PredictionBook as we go along, and as a back-up in case my laptop dies. (The venue has free Wi-Fi that you can register for in a few minutes.)

Discussion article for the meetup : Bath: Introduction and PredictionBook
Solstice 2014 - Kickstarter and Megameetup
by Raemon — 2014-10-10T17:55:45.225Z

Summary:

We're running another Winter Solstice kickstarter - this is to fund the venue, musicians, food, drink and decorations for a big event in NYC on December 20th, as well as to record more music and print a larger run of the Solstice Book of Traditions.

There will also be a Rationality Megameetup the following Sunday. (More generally, people are welcome to come to Highgarden and spend the night starting on Friday - although we request that people register their presence via this form so we don't run out of space)

I'd also like to raise additional money so I can focus full time for the next couple months on helping other communities run their own version of the event, tailored to meet their particular needs while still feeling like part of a cohesive, broader movement - and giving the attendees a genuinely powerful experience.

The Beginning

Four years ago, twenty NYC rationalists gathered in a room to celebrate the Winter Solstice. We sang songs and told stories about things that seemed very important to us. The precariousness of human life. The thousands of years of labor and curiosity that led us from a dangerous stone age to the modern world. The potential to create something even better, if humanity can get our act together and survive long enough.

One of the most important ideas we honored was the importance of facing truths, even when they are uncomfortable or make us feel silly or are outright terrifying. Over the evening, we gradually extinguished candles, acknowledging harsher and harsher elements of reality.

Until we sat in absolute darkness - aware that humanity is flawed, and alone, in an unforgivingly neutral universe.

But also aware that we sit beside people who care deeply about truth, and about our future. Aware that across the world, people are working to give humanity a bright tomorrow, and that we have the power to help. Aware that across history, people have looked impossible situations in the face, and through ingenuity and persperation, made the impossible happen.

That seemed worth celebrating.

The Story So Far

As it turned out, this resonated with people outside the rationality community. When we ran the event again in 2012, non-religious but non-Less Wrong attended the event and told me they found it very moving. In 2013, we pushed it much larger - I ran a kickstarter campaign to fund a big ...