trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Quantified Risks of Gay Male Sex
by pianoforte611 — 2014-08-18T23:55:11.577Z

If you are a gay male then you’ve probably worried at one point about sexually transmitted diseases. Indeed men who have sex with men have some of the highest prevalence of many of these diseases. And if you’re not a gay male, you’ve probably still thought about STDs at one point. But how much should you worry? There are many organizations and resources that will tell you to wear a condom, but very few will tell you the relative risks of wearing a condom vs not. I’d like to provide a concise summary of the risks associated with gay male sex and the extent to which these risks can be reduced. (See Mark Manson’s guide for a similar resources for heterosexual sex.). I will do so by first giving some information about each disease, including its prevalence among gay men. Most of this data will come from the US, but the US actually has an unusually high prevalence for many diseases. Certainly HIV is much less common in many parts of Europe. I will end with a case study of HIV, which will include an analysis of the probabilities of transmission broken down by the nature of sex act and a discussion of risk reduction techniques.

When dealing with risks associated with sex, there are few relevant parameters. The most common is the prevalence – the proportion of people in the population that have the disease. Since you can only get a disease from someone who has it, the prevalence is arguably the most important statistic. There are two more relevant statistics – the per act infectivity (the chance of contracting the disease after having sex once) and the per partner infectivity (the chance of contracting the disease after having sex with one partner for the duration of the relationship). As it turns out the latter two probabilities are very difficult to calculate. I only obtained those values for for HIV. It is especially difficult to determine per act risks for specific types of sex acts since many MSM engage in a variety of acts with multiple partners. Nevertheless estimates do exist and will explored in detail in the HIV case study section.

HIV

Prevalence: Between 13 - 28%. My guess is about 13%.

The most infamous of the STDs. There is no cure but it can be managed with anti-retroviral therapy. A commonly reported statistic is that 19% of MSM (men who have sex with men) in the US are HIV positive (1). For black MSM, this nu...
Owen Cotton-Barratt on GPP
by KatjaGrace — 2014-08-18T18:03:35.000Z

I interviewed Owen Cotton-Barratt about the Global Priorities Project, as part of a ‘shallow investigation’ (inspired by Givewell) into cause prioritization which will be released soon. Notes from the conversation are cross-posted here from the 80000hours blog, and also available in other formats on my website.

***

Participants

Owen Cotton-Barratt: Lead Researcher, Global Priorities Project

Katja Grace: Research Assistant, Machine Intelligence Research Institute

Notes

This is a summary made by Katja of points made by Owen during a conversation on March 24 2014.

What the Global Priorities Project (GPP) does

The Global Priorities Project is new, and intends to experiment for a while with different types of projects and then work on those that appear highest value in the longer term. Their work will likely address questions about how to prioritize, improve arguments around different options, and will produce recommendations. It will probably be mostly research, but also include for instance some policy lobbying. They will likely do some work with concrete policy-relevant consequences and also some work on general high level arguments that apply to many things. Most features of the project are open to modification after early experimentation. There will be principally two audiences: policy makers and philanthropists, the latter including effective altruists and foundations. GPP has some access to moderately senior government and civil service policy people and are experimenting with the difficulty of pushing for high impact policies.

Research areas

Research topics will be driven by a combination of importance and comparative advantage. GPP is likely to focus on prioritizing broad areas rather than narrower interventions, though these things are closely linked. It is good to keep an eye on object level questions to ensure that you are thinking about things the right way. Owen is interested in developing frameworks for comparing things. This can produce value both in their own evaluations and through introducing metrics that others want to use, and so making proposals more comparable in general.

Work so far

Unprecedented technological risks

GPP has a draft report on unprecedented technological risks. They have shown it to several people involved in policy and received positive feedback. Somebody requested a stack of printed copies for their office, t...
Open thread, 18-24 August 2014
by David_Gerard — 2014-08-18T16:55:33.828Z

Previous open thread

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.

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

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
Meetup : London Social - August 24th
by sixes_and_sevens — 2014-08-18T16:37:35.719Z

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - August 24th

WHEN:
24 August 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Holborn, London

The next London meetup will be Sunday, August 24th. This will be a social meetup with no special content. Come along and discuss all the weird LessWrongy stuff you can't get away with in polite company.

The venue is the Shakespeare's Head near Holborn tube station. We'll generally have some sign attesting to the group's identity, and usually try to get one of the large circular tables near the back of the pub.

About London LessWrong:

We're currently running meetups every other Sunday, and tend to get between 5 and 15 attendees. Most of our meetups default to unstructured social discussion on LessWrongy subjects, though we occasionally have special topics, events or activities. Sometimes we play games.

We have a Google Group and a Facebook group where we plan and discuss stuff. We would be extraordinarily pleased if you joined them.

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - August 24th
The metaphor/myth of general intelligence
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2014-08-18T16:04:48.245Z

Thanks for Kaj for making me think along these lines.

It's agreed on this list that general intelligences - those that are capable of displaying high cognitive performance across a whole range of domains - are those that we need to be worrying about. This is rational: the most worrying AIs are those with truly general intelligences, and so those should be the focus of our worries and work.

But I'm wondering if we're overestimating the probability of general intelligences, and whether we shouldn't adjust against this.

First of all, the concept of general intelligence is a simple one - perhaps too simple. It's an intelligence that is generally "good" at everything, so we can collapse its various abilities across many domains into "it's intelligent", and leave it at that. It's significant to note that since the very beginning of the field, AI people have been thinking in terms of general intelligences.

And their expectations have been constantly frustrated. We've made great progress in narrow areas, very little in general intelligences. Chess was solved without "understanding"; Jeopardy! was defeated without general intelligence; cars can navigate our cluttered roads while being able to do little else. If we started with a prior in 1956 about the feasibility of general intelligence, then we should be adjusting that prior downwards.

But what do I mean by "feasibility of general intelligence"? There are several things this could mean, not least the ease with which such an intelligence could be constructed. But I'd prefer to look at another assumption: the idea that a general intelligence will really be formidable in multiple domains, and that one of the best ways of accomplishing a goal in a particular domain is to construct a general intelligence and let it specialise.

First of all, humans are very far from being general intelligences. We can solve a lot of problems when the problems are presented in particular, easy to understand formats that allow good human-style learning. But if we picked a random complicated Turing machine from the space of such machines, we'd probably be pretty hopeless at predicting its behaviour. We would probably score very low on the scale of intelligence used to construct the AIXI. The general intelligence, "g", is a misnomer - it designates the fact that the various human intelligences are correlated, not that humans are generally intellig...
A thought on AI unemployment and its consequences
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2014-08-18T12:10:24.385Z

I haven't given much thought to the concept of automation and computer induced unemployment. Others at the FHI have been looking into it in more details - see Carl Frey's "The Future of Employment", which did estimates for 70 chosen professions as to their degree of automatability, and extended the results of this using O∗NET, an online service developed for the US Department of Labor, which gave the key features of an occupation as a standardised and measurable set of variables.

The reasons that I haven't been looking at it too much is that AI-unemployment has considerably less impact that AI-superintelligence, and thus is a less important use of time. However, if automation does cause mass unemployment, then advocating for AI safety will happen in a very different context to currently. Much will depend on how that mass unemployment problem is dealt with, what lessons are learnt, and the views of whoever is the most powerful in society. Just off the top of my head, I could think of four scenarios on whether risk goes up or down, depending on whether the unemployment problem was satisfactorily "solved" or not:

AI risk\Unemployment	Problem solved	Problem unsolved

Risk reduced

With good practice in dealing
with AI problems, people and
organisations are willing and
able to address the big issues.
The world is very conscious of the
misery that unrestricted AI
research can cause, and very
wary of future disruptions. Those
at the top want to hang on to
their gains, and they are the one
with the most control over AIs
and automation research.

Risk increased

Having dealt with the easier
automation problems in a
particular way (eg taxation),
people underestimate the risk
and expect the same
solutions to work.
Society is locked into a bitter
conflict between those benefiting
from automation and those
losing out, and superintelligence
is seen through the same prism.
Those who profited from
automation are the most
powerful, and decide to push
ahead.

But of course the situation is far more complicated, with many different possible permutations, and no guarantee that the same approach will be used across the planet. And let the division into four boxes not fool us into thinking that any is of comparable probability to the others - more research is (really) needed.
A "Holy Grail" Humor Theory in One Page.
by EGarrett — 2014-08-18T10:26:08.944Z

Alrighty, with the mass downvoters gone, I can make the leap to posting some ideas. Here's the Humor Theory I've been developing over the last few months and have discussed at Meet-Ups, and have written two SSRN papers about, in one page. I've taken the document I posted on the Facebook group and retyped and formatted it here.

I strongly suspect that it's the correct solution to this unsolved problem. There was even a new neurology study released in the last few days that confirms one of the predictions I drew from this theory about the evolution of human intelligence.

Note that I tried to fit as much info as I could on the page, but obviously it's not enough space to cover everything, and the other papers are devoted to that. Any constructive questions, discussion etc are welcome.

A "Holy Grail" Humor Theory in One Page.

Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and hundreds of other philosophers have tried to understand humor. No one has ever found a single idea that explains it in all its forms, or shows what's sufficient to create it. Thus, it's been called a "Holy Grail" of social science. Consider this...

In small groups without language, where we evolved, social orders were needed for efficiency. But fighting for leadership would hurt them. So a peaceful, nonverbal method was extremely beneficial. Thus, the "gasp" we make when seeing someone fall evolved into a rapid-fire version at seeing certain failures, which allowed us to signal others to see what happened, and know who not to follow. The reaction, naturally, would feel good and make us smile, to lower our aggression and show no threat. This reaction is called laughter. The instinct that controls it is called humor. It's triggered by the brain weighing things it observes in the proportion:

Humor = ((Qualityexpected - Qualitydisplayed) * Noticeability * Validity) / Anxiety

Or H=((Qe-Qd)NV)/A. When the results of this ratio are greater than 0, we find the thing funny and will laugh, in the smallest amounts with slight smiles, small feelings of pleasure or small diaphragm spasms. The numerator terms simply state that something has to be significantly lower in quality than what we assumed, and we must notice it and feel it's real, and the denominator states that anxiety lowers the reaction. This is because laughter is a noisy reflex that threatens someone else's status, so if there is a chance o...
Meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup: Communities and the rationalist community
by SoftFlare — 2014-08-18T08:16:07.077Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup: Communities and the rationalist community

WHEN:
21 August 2014 07:00:00PM (+0300)

WHERE:
98 Yigal Alon St., 29th floor, Tel Aviv

We're going to have a meetup on Thursday, August 21st at Google Israel's offices, Electra Tower, 98 Yigal Alon st., Tel Aviv.

This time will be a discussion of Communities, Community Building and the Rationalist

Community. We will have an overview of interesting things other meetups do around the world and we will discuss outreach, attracting more members and growing our own community. We'll also talk about fun things we want to do in future meetups.

This meetup will have a lectur-y section, and then we will have a discussion on how to make our community better.

We'll start the meetup at 19:00, and we'll go on as much as we like to. (We've had great success with the earlier hour last meetup and so we're continuing on the trend)

Please come on time, as we will begin the discussions and talks close to when we start. But, if you can only come later, thats totally ok!

We'll meet at the 29th floor of the building (Note: Not where Google Campus is). If you arrive and cant find your way around, call Anatoly who is graciously hosting us at 054-245-1060.

The Israeli Less Wrong Meetup happens once every two weeks. This is to allow people who cant make it to a meetup to not have to wait a whole month to meet again, and because we'd like to have both subject based and social meetups without having to wait for a month in between.

If you have any question feel free to email me at hochbergg@gmail.com or call me at 054-533-0678.

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup: Communities and the rationalist community
Group Rationality Diary, August 16-31
by therufs — 2014-08-18T02:33:14.885Z

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for August 16-31.

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.

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

Previous diary: August 1-15

Next diary: September 1-15

Rationality diaries archive
Meetup : Australia-wide mega-meetup
by Elo — 2014-08-17T23:08:12.703Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Australia-wide mega-meetup

WHEN:
24 August 2014 07:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
Australia

https://www.facebook.com/events/1547367772141284/

Hello LessWrong! The organised minds of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra are sanctioning an online hangout for the second month in a row. We had about 15 people turn up last time and we eventually wrote some funny short stories out of it.

This is a hangout from the comfort of your own beds! from anywhere around the country!

Had a problem recently? need a room full of people to tell it to? (You don't have to have a problem to listen to other people's problems) but hey, maybe we can help!

Our next hangout will be between 7pm and 12pm AEST (GMT +10) and the link to the google hangout will be posted at some time just before 7 on the 24th of August. (the link expires)

Discussion article for the meetup : Australia-wide mega-meetup
[meta] Future moderation and investigation of downvote abuse cases, or, I don't want to deal with this stuff
by Kaj_Sotala — 2014-08-17T14:40:21.320Z

Since the episode with Eugine_Nier, I have received three private messages from different people asking me to investigate various cases of suspected mass downvoting. And to be quite honest, I don't want to deal with this. Eugine's case was relatively clear-cut, since he had engaged in systematic downvoting of a massive scale, but the new situations are a lot fuzzier and I'm not sure of what exactly the rules should be (what counts as a permitted use of the downvote system and what doesn't?).

At least one person has also privately contacted me and offered to carry out moderator duties if I don't want them, but even if I told them yes (on what basis? why them and not someone else?), I don't know what kind of policy I should tell them to enforce. I only happened to be appointed a moderator because I was in the list of top 10 posters at a particular time, and I don't feel like I should have any particular authority to make the rules. Nor do I feel like I have any good idea of what the rules should be, or who would be the right person to enforce them.

In any case, I don't want to be doing this job, nor do I particularly feel like being responsible for figuring out who should, or how, or what the heck. I've already started visiting LW less often because I dread having new investigation requests to deal with. So if you folks could be so kind as to figure it out without my involvement? If there's a clear consensus that someone in particular should deal with this, I can give them mod powers, or something.
Meetup : Perth, Australia: More Wrong
by  — 2014-08-17T09:58:09.258Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Perth, Australia: More Wrong

WHEN:
23 August 2014 12:00:00PM (+0800)

WHERE:
43 Barrack St, Perth, Australia

Read some of the fundamental essays of Less Wrong, then discuss them at the pub.

Here's what you should read:

What Do We Mean By "Rationality"?: http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/

What is Evidence?: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jl/what_is_evidence/

If you want more to read, check out the rest of the "Map and Territory" sequence.

We'll be at 43 Below in the Perth CBD.

How to find me: I'll have a silver water bottle labeled "CFAR" in orange.

You can RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Perth-Less-Wrong/events/201428242/

Discussion article for the meetup : Perth, Australia: More Wrong
Meetup : Vienna
by Creutzer — 2014-08-17T03:49:07.242Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Vienna

WHEN:
23 August 2014 03:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Kaisermühlenstraße 24/2, 1220 Wien, meeting room behind the building

When arriving by U2 or Schnellbahn train: take the exit towards
Kaisermühlenstraße, cross the street, step through the building (on Erich
Fried Weg) and go right, along the backside of the building until you get
to the meeting room (it has a glass front so it should be hard to miss).

map step 1 step 2 step 3

Important: Google maps doesn't recognise the address, so what is being displayed here is nonsense. Use this map instead.

Discussion article for the meetup : Vienna
Thoughts on becoming more organized
by Will_BC — 2014-08-17T03:46:03.127Z

It seems to me that the rationality movement is doing a sub-optimal job at proliferating. I have seen on multiple occasions posts which suggest that LessWrong is in decline. I think that this has a lot to do with organization, and by organization I mean the effectiveness with which a group of people obtains its goals. I believe that rationality has a more populist message, and I would like to see it refined and spread. I have a collection of my thoughts https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9BZfCmYSqm-TTlfRW1hMVJ5VnM&usp=sharing, with the more concise and up to date summary of my suggestions https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I-T-jiuhHr951FUHZ6q-KUW4oK-GHCjF9bVGr2dwR1M/edit?usp=sharing. I have not developed these ideas to the point where I am strongly attached to them. What I would like to do for now is to create three monthly discussion groups.

The first is based on instrumental rationality, and I'd like to call it Success Club. For this group I would like to use [Alex Vermeer's 8760 hours guide](http://alexvermeer.com/8760hours/) as a basis. If you want to join this group, I would suggest you be open minded and able to deal with other people's sensitive issues. This will work as a support group, and if you can't keep confidentiality you won't be able to be a member. The second group is based on more general or epistemic rationality. I would use the sequences as a basis, but if any CFAR alums have better suggestions I would welcome them. The third group is a meta group, discussing the movement as a whole and how to make it more effective. I would like to start by discussing the ideas in the google drive folder that I shared and move from there.

If anyone is interested in any of these groups, please send me a PM with a little about yourself and which group(s) you'd be interested in joining.

Edit: Could someone explain why I've been downvoted? Judging by the way the karma is proportioned I'm getting a good number of positive and negative reactions but not a whole lot in the way of feedback.