trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : Less Wrong Israel Meetup (Tel Aviv): Quantum Computing
by SoftFlare — 2013-11-20T16:46:15.598Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong Israel Meetup (Tel Aviv): Quantum Computing

WHEN:
28 November 2013 08:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
7 begin ramat gan

We're going to have a meetup on Thursday, November 28th at VisionMap's offices, Gibor Sport House, 15th floor, 7 Menachem Begin st., Ramat-Gan.

Our program is:

20:00-20:15: Assembly

20:15-21:00: Main Talk

21:00-22:00: Dinner & Discussion

22:00-23:00: Rump Session (minitalks)

23:00-: End of official programming

Main Talk: Quantum Computing / Anatoly Vorobey

We're used to living in a world where things happen in order. But in reality of quantum physics, things work a little differently. This lets us do all sorts of cool things which starting with the basics of computing theory - you'll learn about in this talk.

Backup Talk: TBA

Rump Session: Each participant will give a 4-minute talk (+3 minute encore if we applaud hard enough). Giving a talk isn't mandatory, but it's highly recommended. Not confident that what you have to say is relevant to our interests? Unsure about your public speaking skills? Doesn't matter - in the rump session, anything goes. - Note, you don't have to prepare a talk to come! Speaking at the rump session is completely only if you want to.

Feel free to contact me (Gal Hochberg) at hochbergg@gmail.com or at 0545330678 for any further information

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong Israel Meetup (Tel Aviv): Quantum Computing
Q: Correlation often does imply Causation, but does not specify which kind?
by  — 2013-11-20T14:13:30.087Z

Hello, introduction and embarassments

I'd like start with by apologizing for making this thread and include an explanation why. This post is very likely to be embarassing, it's about math and I can't do math. I'm a fairly smart person and also reasonably adept at handling abstract matters, rationality and so forth. But this is from an average Joe's perspective. On this topic, probability and mathematics in general, it's hardly a merit at all. Mathematics tends to involve people who all are at least fairly smart and reasonably adept at handling abstract matters. This shouldn't be a topic for me to touch, I know there's plenty of people who are more fit to do the job. Also this website seems to have really skilled thinkers, which of most are smarter, better educated and in many ways better suited, and in my opinion some of them could be perceived as exactly the type of people who do math and science. Sorry if I'm not one of you. I hope this post will not become an embarassment for myself, I also hope it will not cause a sudden spike in shared sense of shame for you guys. If that however does occur, I hope that this will be a learning experience for me and/or others who are not adept with mathematics - When you point out my errors, that is. :)

Correlation does not imply causation?

I often run into this phrase.. Correlation does not imply causation. Something about it bugs me, intuitively. Which for this audience is like blasphemy. Intuition that is. Last time I made some comments on the subject in a whim, it was very embarassing. I got my silly comments handed right back to me. But later I thought there was something to it and so I thought.. Well I'm gonna ask you guys, since I can't figure it out.

What correlation is about?

Correlation is a mathematical method of observing relationships between mathematical objects. Points, statistics which can be converted to points and so forth. There at least a couple of ways of calculating these relationships, the only probability related things I know of are the Spearman correlation and Pearson correlation. Then there's also bayes which is not really the same thing.

Sometimes it's blatantly obvious that a correlation can not be a coincidence. If it's blatanly obvious intuitively into such an extent that you at least think you can trust your intuition, in my book it means I don't know the method of clinically arrivin...
Meetup : Urbana-Champaign fun and games
by Manfred — 2013-11-20T04:47:47.021Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign fun and games

WHEN:
24 November 2013 02:00:00PM (-0600)

WHERE:
412 W. Elm St, Urbana, Illinois

We'll be meeting at a house to copy those Washington DC people and play games. If you have never played Wits and Wagers, you should definitely come.

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign fun and games
Group Rationality Diary, November 16-30
by therufs — 2013-11-19T21:01:00.014Z

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for November 16-30 (that I've now fished out of my drafts folder, *cough*.)

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

The poll earlier this month seems to be sufficiently in favor of maintaining the current schedule that extra votes are unlikely to change things much, but if you'd really like to register your opinion, you are welcome to do so here.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: November 1-15

Rationality diaries archive
Effective Altruism and Cryonics, Contest Results
by lsparrish — 2013-11-19T17:06:04.714Z

Thank you to each of the five contestants who entered an essay into the contest that was started a little over a week ago to explore cryonics as a prospective target for effective altruism. The five entries (listed chronologically) are:

jkaufman

deleted

RomeoStevens

jaime2000

Ishaan

All five of essays show evidence of much thought and hard work. Based on multiple readings of each, here are some brief impressions from each essay:

The entry by jkaufman is intelligently written and even-handed, giving math-based arguments why cryonics might or might not be competitive with effective charities such as AMF. The bar set by such charities is very high. However, depending what utilitarian framework you use, cryonics could be competitive if the chances of it working are sufficiently good. On the other hand, when considered in person-neutral terms, advertising cryonics seems to be a better use of a given dollar than signing up, as chances are you could induce multiple others to sign up for the same money.

The entry by deleted, which is presented in outline form, brings up several good points, although it does not defend all of them at length, and comes up slightly short of the 800 word target. Despite the brevity (and some spelling errors), I had a positive reaction to it personally, particularly the discussion of cryonics as a possible alternative to end-of-life intensive care. It would be interesting to see a more fleshed out version and/or multiple essays exploring the points touched on in this outline.

The entry by RomeoStevens discusses, among other things, the prospect that money raised for cryonics is likely to be money that could not otherwise be raised for a beneficial purpose. Although similar in some respects to the jkaufman essay, it stresses the usefulness of self-interest in others (e.g. aging wealthy people) as a way to attempt to produce the most good. It also goes into some of the more counterintuitive points that argue for cryonics as potential EA, such as effects on low-funded/high-value research, and the altered time preference of a cryonicist.

The entry by jaime2000 examines the necessary conditions for someone to be signed up for cryonics to determine which is the most efficient use of additional funding. This essay is well organized and sourced. It recommends building public awareness (for example, advertising) as the most efficient path to p

...
Happiness and Productivity. Living Alone. Living with Friends. Living with Family. 
by diegocaleiro — 2013-11-19T01:35:53.684Z

What I want to get people to discuss here is obvious given the title. What has been their experience regarding who and specially how many people they live with, and how that impacted their motivation and happiness.

I don't want to peruse papers on happiness and productivity, because I'm particularly interested in anecdotal tales coming from a Lesswrong sample.

Three pieces of information seem relevant, so if that is okay with whoever comments, I'd ask people to tell us if they consider themselves introverts (recharge batteries by being alone) extroverts, or both. As well as their age and hometown.

The reason I want to have a fuller understanding of this is that I've slowly come to have a strong belief that the main problem with people I know who are suffering, or failing to achieve their goals, is living with fewer tribal affiliates than they "need". And that belief could very well be false or biased.

I'm equally interested in what people think in general about their friends' living situation: "Most of my friends who live with friends experience such and such emotion, but the ones who live with family experience such and such problems with motivation"
as I am in personal experiences.
Following a suggestion about creating topics like this before, I'll put my own case in the comments.
CRISPR opens up new genetic engineering potential
by Jordan — 2013-11-19T00:56:42.202Z

I've been hearing around the news about a new genetic engineering method called CRISPR. The method can purportedly edit any gene in a human genome (or other animal or bacterium genome) with very high accuracy. The new method may remove the risks associated with gene therapy, which can introduce undesired mutations by inserting genes into the middle of an existing gene sequence.

Here's a report:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/this-is-a-triumph-of-basic-science-with-huge-implications-crispr-technique-breaks-the-mould-8925323.html

Thoughts? There is already discussion about the use of CRISPR with IVF (in-vitro fertilization) for the purposes of germ-line engineering, but even without this the method may prove very efficacious for gene therapy on non-germ-line cells. What are the ramifications for human engineering? For germ-line intelligence enhancement?
London LW CoZE exercise report
by philh — 2013-11-19T00:34:21.950Z

(Cross-posted to my shiny new blog.)

Human brains are bad at evaluating consequences. Sometimes we want to do something, and logically we're pretty sure we won't die or anything, but our lizard hindbrains are screaming at us to flee. Comfort Zone Expansion (CoZE) is an exercise that CFAR teaches to get our lizard hindbrains to accept that what we're doing is actually pretty safe.

Roughly it involves two steps. One: do something that makes our lizard hindbrains get pretty antsy. Two: don't get eaten as a result.

I organised a CoZE exercise for LessWrong London on Septmeber 1st. We had a total of eight participants, I think I was the only one who'd done any structured CoZE before.

My plan was: we meet at 11am, have a discussion about CoZE, play some improv games to warm up, and then head to the nearby mall for 1.30 pm. In reality, the discussion started closer to 12pm, with some people showing up part way through or not until it was finished.

After finishing the discussion, we didn't end up doing any improv games. We also became slightly disorganised; we agreed on a meeting time an hour and a half in the future, but then our group didn't really split up until about twenty minutes after that. I could have handled this better. We got distracted by the need for lunch, which I could have made specific plans for. (Ideally I would have started the discussion after lunch, but shops close early on Sunday.)

Report

My solo activities went considerably less well than I'd expected. My first thing was to ask a vendor in the walkway for some free chocolate, which annoyed her more than I'd expected. Maybe she gets asked that a lot? It was kind of discouraging.

After that I wanted to go into a perfume shop and ask for help with scent, because I don't know anything about it. I wandered past the front a couple of times, deciding to go when the shop was nearly empty, but then when that happened I still chickened out. That, too, was kind of discouraging.

Then I decided to get back in state by doing something that seemed easy: making eye contact with people and smiling. It turns out that "making eye-contact" is a two-player game, and nobody else was playing. After some minutes of that I just gave up for the day.

In my defense: I had a cold that day and was feeling a bit shitty (while wandering near the perfume shop I got a nose-bleed, and had to divert to the bathroom temporarily), and th...
Lotteries & MWI
by DataPacRat — 2013-11-18T22:46:44.102Z

I haven't been able to find the source of the idea, but I've recently been reminded of:

Lotteries are a way to funnel some money from many of you to a few of you.

This is, of course, based on the Multiple Worlds Interpretation: if the lottery has one-in-a-million odds, then for every million timelines in which you buy a lottery ticket, in one timeline you'll win it. There's a certain amount of friction - it's not a perfect wealth transfer - based on the lottery's odds. But, looked at from this perspective, the question of "should I buy a lottery ticket?" seems like it might be slightly more complicated than "it's a tax on idiots".

But I'm reminded of my current .sig: "Then again, I could be wrong." And even if this is, in fact, a valid viewpoint, it brings up further questions, such as: how can the friction be minimized, and the efficiency of the transfer be maximized? Does deliberately introducing randomness at any point in the process ensure that at least some of your MWI-selves gain a benefit, as opposed to buying a ticket after the numbers have been chosen but before they've been revealed?

How interesting can this idea be made to be?
Skirting the mere addition paradox
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2013-11-18T17:50:48.269Z

Consider the following facts:

For any population of people of happiness h, you can add more people of happiness less than h, and still improve things.

For any population of people, you can spread people's happiness in a more egalitarian way, while keeping the same average happiness, and this makes things no worse.

This sounds a lot like the mere addition paradox, illustrated by the following diagram:

This is seems to lead directly to the repugnant conclusion - that there is a huge population of people who's lives are barely worth living, but that this outcome is better because of the large number of them (in practice this conclusion may have a little less bite than feared, at least for non-total utilitarians).

But that conclusion doesn't follow at all! Consider the following aggregation formula, where au is the average utility of the population and n is the total number of people in the population:

au(1-(1/2)n)

This obeys the two properties above, and yet does not lead to a repugnant conclusion. How so? Well, property 2 is immediate - since only the average utility appears, the reallocating utility in a more egalitarian way does not decrease the aggregation. For property 1, define f(n)=1-(1/2)n. This function f is strictly increasing, so if we add more members of the population, the product goes up - this allows us to diminish the average utility slightly (by decreasing the utility of the people we've added, say), and still end up with a higher aggregation.

How do we know that there is no repugnant conclusion? Well, f(n) is bounded above by 1. So let au and n be the average utility and size of a given population, and au' and n' those of a population better than this one. Hence au(f(n)) < au'(f(n')) < au'. So the average utility can never sink below au(f(n)): the average utility is bounded.

So some weaker versions of the mere addition argument do not imply the repugnant conclusion.
To the folks who met in Princeton Saturday 11/16/2013
by HalMorris — 2013-11-18T13:19:13.208Z

It was nice to be with some new people, and you seem like some interesting seekers after truth. I'm Hal, the guy who could be grandfather to at least some of you.

I have a web site at therealtruthproject.blogspot.com.

Looking for the best thinking about

discovering,

propagating,

recognizing, and

living life guided by

the truth, whatever it may turn out to be, and by effective ongoing practices that reveal more of the truth as needed.

That's an attempt to sum up what "Practical Epistemology" means to me. I approached LW because I thought I'd find some encouragement among people who seem concerned about rational thinking, albeit I don't think it's enough.

It will take changing the way the world looks to the vast majority of people who never think of joining groups to ponder the "methods of rationality" to make the world more safe, rational, and happy; that's why the phrase "Truth Project" came into my head several years ago, even if the "project" is nothing more than one guy reading and reading (and learning about social epistemology, memetics, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, chimpanzees vs bonobos, Why Nations Fail, The Idea of Justice. positive interventions in the economies of Bangladesh, etc.) and wondering how in the hell to make such a thing work. It may sound arrogantly audacious, or crack-pot-ish just to state it, but other people buy lottery tickets.

If nothing else, this could be a starting point for more conversation, if not with me, with the other person who sat next to you.
Another problem with quantum measure
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2013-11-18T11:03:46.703Z

Let's play around with the quantum measure some more. Specifically, let's posit a theory T that claims that the quantum measure of our universe is increasing - say by 50% each day. Why could this be happening? Well, here's a quasi-justification for it: imagine there are lots and lots of of universes, most of them in chaotic random states, jumping around to other chaotic random states, in accordance with the usual laws of quantum mechanics. Occasionally, one of them will partially tunnel, by chance, into the same state our universe is in - and then will evolve forwards in time exactly as our universe is. Over time, we'll accumulate an ever-growing measure.

That theory sounds pretty unlikely, no matter what feeble attempts are made to justify it. But T is observationally indistinguishable from our own universe, and has a non-zero probability of being true. It's the reverse of the (more likely) theory presented here, in which the quantum measure was being constantly diminished. And it's very bad news for theories that treat the quantum measure (squared) as akin to a probability, without ever renormalising. It implies that one must continually sacrifice for the long-term: any pleasure today is wasted, as that pleasure will be weighted so much more tomorrow, next week, next year, next century... A slight fleeting smile on the face of the last human is worth more than all the ecstasy of the previous trillions.

One solution to the "quantum measure is continually diminishing" problem was to note that as the measure of the universe diminished, it would eventually get so low that that any alternative, non-measure diminishing theory, not matter how initially unlikely, would predominate. But that solution is not available here - indeed, that argument runs in reverse, and makes the situation worse. No matter how initially unlikely the "quantum measure is continually increasing" theory is, eventually, the measure will become so high that it completely dominates all other theories.
Meetup : Moscow, Memory Tricks
by Yuu — 2013-11-18T10:57:42.591Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, Memory Tricks

WHEN:
24 November 2013 04:00:00PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Russia, Moscow, ulitsa L'va Tolstogo 16

We will have a report about how memory works, tips and tricks to remember, spaced repetition and Anki.

There will be a discussion section next, so please think about topics you want to discuss on Sunday.

After that we will have a game session: you can bring some tabletop games and play it with other people.

We will also have Prediction Market and Scavenger Hunt. You can follow the corresponding links to the discussions on the Russian forum.

If you are going for the first time:
We gather in the Yandex office, you need the second revolving door with the sign “Яндекс”, here is the photo of the entrance you need. You need to pass the first entrance and the bicycle parking on you way. Here is additional guide how to get there: link.
You can fill this one minute form (in Russian), to share your contact information.
We start at 16:00 and sometimes finish at night.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, Memory Tricks
Meetup : London Social Meetup, 24/11/2013 [Back to the Shakespeare's Head]
by Tenoke — 2013-11-18T10:38:17.739Z

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social Meetup, 24/11/2013 [Back to the Shakespeare's Head]

WHEN: 24 November 2013 02:00:00 PM (+0000)

WHERE: 64 Shakespeare's Head, Africa House, 64-68 Kingsway, London WC2B 6BG, UK-68 Kingsway, London WC2B 6BG, UK

LessWrong London is having another meetup this Sunday (24/11) at 2:00 PM. We are back to our usual venue - The Shakespeare's Head by Holborn tube station.

There is no fixed topic of discussion nor is there anything planned so be prepared for anything. There will be a sign identifying us (hopefully one with a paperclip) and if you have any problems feel free to contact me by e-mail - Tenoke[at]Tenoke.com or by phone - 07425168803.

Reminder: The LW London Meetups are currently a weekly event - Every Sunday at 2:00 PM!

If you want more information about the meetup or anything else come by our google group or alternatively to the facebook group

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social Meetup, 24/11/2013 [Back to the Shakespeare's Head]
Meetup : Washington DC fun and games meetup
by rocurley — 2013-11-18T04:01:34.107Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC fun and games meetup

WHEN:
24 November 2013 03:00:00PM (-0500)

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 fun and games meetup