trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Optimizing Sleep
by  — 2011-05-10T11:36:36.496Z

I have an atypical sleep schedule. I tend to drift in the hours that I keep (that is, going to sleep later and later each day until a 'reset' is required). I also am willing to sacrifice sleep if something sufficiently interesting or urgent (problem sets, a Neal Stephenson book, a new Less Wrong article about an interesting topic) comes up. While procrastination earlier in the day can also play a part in my staying up late, I've noticed that, left to my own devices, I seem to prefer a day-night inversion. I'm naturally much more active at night than during the day, and will skip a meal or two in order to maintain this schedule. (Note: I realize that day-night sleep inversion can be a sign of a medical illness. For reasons I won't go into here, I don't believe that any of them are applicable.)

The schedule that I have now is not optimal for a number of reasons:

Not being able to socialize with very many other people due to not syncing up with their schedules.

'Drifting' leads to unpredictability in my ability to function at a given time during an upcoming day- which is important for tests and classes.

Sleeping during the day is more difficult than at night (extra noises, distractions, etc.)

What I'd like to do is figure out how to optimize my sleep schedule. I'd prefer not to just 'invert' it to be a typical sleep schedule, but to either alter the sleep schedule or discover changes that I can make in other parts of my life that will mitigate the downsides. Some things are obvious: microwavable food for when nothing else is available at night is one change that I can make right away and would minimize the damage from skipping meals. The social issues and 'drifting' are more complicated and don't present an obvious solution after a few minutes of reflection. The reason I resist changing back to a regular sleep schedule is that I know that I'm groggy and miserable in the morning and less productive until about noon of that day if forced to operate under a regular sleep schedule.

Do you have an atypical sleep schedule now, or have you in earlier parts of your life? I would hazard a guess that among the Less Wrong/Rationality/Skeptic/Bayesian community, experimentation in sleep schedule would be higher than in the general population. Have you tried a polyphasic sleep s...
Norms survey (dead)
by Cayenne — 2011-05-10T11:01:34.728Z

Edit - Barring a major surprise, this post should be regarded as a worthless artifact of my impulse to do things instead of talking about them. I apologize for any time wasted on this, and would recommend ignoring it unless it is for historical purposes. I'll just stick to things I'm less bad at from now on.

This article will be edited as people post and discuss.

I believe that we need to have a clear, concise statement about the beliefs, practices, and taboos that it is rational to hold, and that we already hold as a group. To be clear, this is not an attempt to make new norms, but an attempt to codify the ones that we already hold and to get a rough estimate of the popularity/importance of each.

Core Rational - skills, meta-beliefs, and habits that enhance personal rationality

Social Rational - norms that enhance working in groups rationally

LessWrong Norms - norms for dealing with Less Wrong specifically

Common Knowledge - basic, useful beliefs to build on

Please post one phrase at a time and then give your reasoning under it. Once any idea has a common consensus, I'll add it to this article in the appropriate list.

Edited - Removed the word 'should' as someone has suggested a better phrasing. Edited again - category change, remove extra now-useless examples.
Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don’t Implement Themselves
by calcsam — 2011-05-10T07:15:54.207Z

Related to: Lessons from Latter-day Saints, Building Rationalist Communities overview

This is my basic thesis:

Marx needed a Lenin. Fermi, Hahn and Meitner needed a Manhattan Project. EY and the Sequences need more clearly- and simply-defined rationality skills and methods for improving them.

Using Eliezer’s levels scheme, these are the three descending levels on which belief systems operate: theology, norms, and implementation.

I’ll give some examples. Here’s a general example, again from the Latter-day Saints:

Theology: God knows everything. Your purpose on earth is to become like God;

Norms: You should pursue as much education as possible.

Implementation: Create and operate a really big, cheap university system.[1]

Here’s one that I often dealt with as a missionary:

Theology: God is really good at making decisions. Your purpose on earth is to become like God.

Norms: You shouldn’t take alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee, or addictive substances. Taking addictive substances impairs your ability to make correct decisions.

Implementation: We are going to bring you candy every week so that when you’re tempted to buy a cigarette, you can eat the strawberry toffee instead. (Or, we are going to stop by your house every day at 8:30pm to give you a boost, because going from 7 cups of coffee a day to 0 is tough.)

I did both of these (with different people), and they worked.

Norms and Implementation

As a missionary for the Church, my basic role was to:

find people who were willing to try something out

design individualized “commitment systems” for each person, and

support them in implementing them.

There’s a lifestyle change here.

The “basic package,” (my terminology), which is a prerequisite to joining the church, includes: a strong focus on strengthening the family, daily family prayer and scripture study, the aforementioned health code, and sex only inside marriage. The glue is weekly church attendance, ensuring membership in a community that shares the same values.

After the “basic package,” it gets a bit more complex, as there are lots of higher-level elements of this lifestyle. To sample a few in no particular order:

Loving others. Developing gratitude. Keeping a journal. Following Church leaders. Inviting other people to church. Serving others, especially by accepting r

...
[HPMoR] Trailer up
by Eneasz — 2011-05-10T06:15:10.928Z

Hopefully I'm not spamming the discussion board. Anyway, based on the highest-karma comment from the last post, I've created a trailer for the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality podcast.

Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sozq1YsGgZ4
Seeking advice on a moral dilemma
by  — 2011-05-10T06:00:42.798Z

I just found 120 Euro (about $172) on the floor in the hallway in a hostel in Berlin. What should I do, and why?

It's not inconceivable that the hostel might just take the money if I turn it in.

I'll be at this hostel for about two more days.
Schneier talks about The Dishonest Minority [Link]
by Nic_Smith — 2011-05-10T05:27:25.332Z

Evolution. Morality. Strategy. Security/Cryptography. This hits so many topics of interest, I can't imagine it not being discussed here. Bruce Schneier blogs about his book-in-progress, The Dishonest Minority:

Humans evolved along this path. The basic mechanism can be modeled simply. It is in our collective group interest for everyone to cooperate. It is in any given individual's short-term self interest not to cooperate: to defect, in game theory terms. But if everyone defects, society falls apart. To ensure widespread cooperation and minimal defection, we collectively implement a variety of societal security systems.

I am somewhat reminded of Robin Hanson's Homo Hypocritus writings from the above, although it is not the same. Schneier says that the book is basically a first draft at this point, and might still change quite a bit. Some of the comments focus on whether "dishonest" is actually the best term to use for defecting from social norms.
How should I help us achieve immortality?
by Hul-Gil — 2011-05-10T02:00:16.735Z

I was immensely glad to find this community, because while I knew intellectually that I was not the only person who felt that rationality was important, death was bad, and technology was our savior, I had never met anyone else who did. I thus determined my career without much input from anything except my own interests; which is not so bad, of course, but I have realized that I might benefit from advice from like-minded people.

Specifically, I would like to know what LessWrong thinks I should do in order to get into "immortality research." Edit: that means "what field should I go into if I want humanity to have extended lifespans as soon as possible?"

I feel immortality, or at least life-extension, is one of - if not the - most important thing(s) humanity can accomplish right now. I don't think I am suited to AI work, however. Another obvious option is an MD, but that's not in my temperament either. My major right now is biochemistry, in preparation for a doctorate in either biochemistry itself, or pharmacology.

I think there's a good chance that advances in this area could contribute to life extension; aging is a biochemical process, right? And certainly drugs will be involved in life extension. But is this the best place to apply my efforts? I have considered that biogerontology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerontology) might be better, as it is about aging specifically; but I don't know much about the field - only that Wikipedia says it is new and very few universities offer degrees in it. My final idea is nanotechnology of some kind; I believe nanomachines may be able to repair our bodies. I'm not sure what type of nanotechnology I'd be looking at for this, or if degrees in it are offered.

Any ideas, suggestions, or comments in general are welcome. I favor the biochemical approach as of now, but only through temperament. As far as I know, AI, biochemical/pharmacological methods, and nanotechnology are all about equally close to giving us immortality. If someone feels one option is better than the others, or has recommended reading on the subject, please share!

Thanks in advance, my new rational friends.
Scholarship: How to Do It Efficiently
by lukeprog — 2011-05-09T22:05:42.156Z

Scholarship is an important virtue of rationality, but it can be costly. Its major costs are time and effort. Thus, if you can reduce the time and effort required for scholarship - if you can learn to do scholarship more efficiently - then scholarship will be worth your effort more often than it previously was.

As an autodidact who now consumes whole fields of knowledge in mere weeks, I've developed efficient habits that allow me to research topics quickly. I'll share my research habits with you now.

Review articles and textbooks are king

My first task is to find scholarly review (or 'survey') articles on my chosen topic from the past five years (the more recent, the better). A good review article provides:

An overview of the subject matter of the field and the terms being used (for scholarly googling later).

An overview of the open and solved problems in the field, and which researchers are working on them.

Pointers to the key studies that give researchers their current understanding of the topic.

If you can find a recent scholarly edited volume of review articles on the topic, then you've hit the jackpot. (Edited volumes are better than single-author volumes, because when starting out you want to avoid reading only one particular researcher's perspective.) Examples from my own research of just this year include:

Affective neuroscience: Pleasures of the Brain (2009)

Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain (2008)

Dual process theories of psychology: In Two Minds (2009)

Intuition and unconscious learning: Intuition in Judgment and Decision Making (2007)

Goals: The Psychology of Goals (2009)

Catastrophic risks: Global Catastrophic Risks (2008)

If the field is large enough, there may exist an edited 'Handbook' on the subject, which is basically just a very large scholarly edited volume of review articles. Examples: Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2007), Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology (2009), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience (2009), Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (2008), Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics (2011), Handbook of Relationship Intitiation (2008), and Handbook of Implicit Social Cognition (2010). For the humanities, see the Blackwell Companions and Cambridge Companions.

If your questions are basic ...
Moderation Wiki Article
by saliency — 2011-05-09T19:42:02.627Z

I have transformed

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Site_features

into

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Moderation

I think "site features" is to general of a topic for the content contained in the article.

In the new wiki article I focus on the topic of all the ways content can be moderated and give the information I have gathered about the process. I took the liberty to simply state that Eliezer_Yudkowsky is the one who promotes articles to the PROMOTED section. Besides that most is taken from other areas of the site.

I'm sure there are factual and formating errors please correct/contribute as needed.
When Intuitions Are Useful
by lukeprog — 2011-05-09T19:40:04.436Z

Part of the sequence: Rationality and Philosophy

In this series, I have examined how intuitions work so that I can clarify how rationalists1 should and shouldn't use their intuitions2 when solving philosophical problems. Understanding the cognitive algorithms that generate our intuitions can dissolve traditional philosophical problems. As Brian Talbot puts it:

...where psychological research indicates that certain intuitions are likely to be inaccurate, or that whole categories of intuitions are not good evidence, this will overall benefit philosophy. This has the potential to resolve some problems due to conflicting intuitions, since some of the conflicting intuitions may be shown to be unreliable and not to be taken seriously; it also has the potential to free some domains of philosophy from the burden of having to conform to our intuitions, a burden that has been too heavy to bear in many cases...3

Knowing how intuitions work can also tell us something about how we can train them to make them render more accurate judgments.4

Problems with intuition

In most philosophy, intuitions play the role that observations do in science: they support and undermine various theories.5 Conceptual analyses are rejected when intuitive counterexamples are presented. Moral theories are rejected when they lead to intuitively revolting results. Theories of mind and language and metaphysics rise and fall depending on how well they can be made to fit our intuitions, even in bizarre science fiction hypothetical scenarios.6

But why trust our intuitions? Our intuitions often turn out to contradict each other,7 or they are contradicted by empirical evidence,8 or they vary between people and between groups of people.9 Compared to scientific methods, the philosopher's use of intuitions as his primary tool doesn't seem to have been very productive.10 Also, we can't calibrate our intuitions, because wherever we have a non-intuition standard against which to calibrate our intuitions, we don't need to use intuition in the first place.11 Moreover, philosophers have typically known very little about where their intuitions come from, and why they should trust them in the first place!12

Defenders of intuitionist philosophy reply that we can't do philosophy without intuitions.13 Others point out that we have similar worries about the reliability of ...
Meetup report: Darwin, Some Rationalists and the Joker [link]
by XFrequentist — 2011-05-09T19:01:14.541Z

This past weekend the Ottawa LessWrong meetup hosted Venkat Rao, who is on a nomadic journey to promote his (good) new book and to find enlightenment through deliberate idleness.

I thought the resulting post might be of some interest.

Here's an excerpt:

For those of you aren’t familiar with Less Wrong, it is a community of rationalists associated with the Singularity Institute. I admit I was rather wary and curious at the same time.

[...]

I suspect I am in a sort of evil-twin relationship with the Less Wrong philosophy of cognition and decision-making. When I said this at the meetup, one of the attendees remarked, “…and you’re the evil twin.”

[...]

To my pleasant surprise though, the meeting was a great deal of fun. I guess I was sort of expecting an inquisition by a panel of Spocks given the views I espouse, but it was mainly a freewheeling open-ended discussion that went down plenty of interesting rabbit holes. Beer, nachos and bad geek jokes flowed freely.

[...]

I am now less wary of the lesswrongers than I used to be. They bring a healthy sense of doubt, irony, aesthetics and skepticism to their passion for rationality.

He goes on to say that he'll continue to make fun of LessWrongers, but it says something of Venkat's charming wit that he was able to drop the "Spock" and "faith" bombs (both of which irk me), and I still like the guy.

On a related note, it was a great deal of fun having a special guest appearance. If anyone's passing through, please drop a line! I'd recommend either coming in the summer, or bringing your ice skates!
Chemicals and Electricity
by lionhearted (Sebastian Marshall) — 2011-05-09T17:55:25.123Z

I'm doing some work for an old friend of mine.

His situation is interesting. Not too long ago, he lost his job and got divorced, and otherwise his life got pretty screwed up and off-track.

He left the United States, took a job below his old skill level for a while, and then stopped that and started a company. Now he's living an exceptional life, and on the verge of making a lot of money.

I thought that was awesome, and I was quite happy for him. After we'd gotten done going through a lot of numbers, choosing some vendors, designing some systems, and otherwise figuring business out on the phone, we talked personal life. I said, "Man, I'm so happy for you. So much is going right. Congratulations."

He wasn't excited. He was a little worried.

He said, "Sebastian, man... I hope I don't change. I like who I am right now, I hope this doesn't change me."

And you know what?

His fears are valid. He's going to change.

Almost guaranteed.

--

Eliezer cover why power corrupts in the appropriately titled, "Why Does Power Corrupt?"

But to understand the nature of this, you have to realize something that's (1) entirely true, (2) potentially unpleasant, (3) not thought about very often, and (4) has the risk of "not even seeming profound" when it's said -- despite the importance of it.

That is:

You're a bunch of chemicals and electricity.

Well, that's slightly imprecise. You're actually matter and energy. But give me some slack with terms, because chemicals and electricity are going to get the point across more elegantly.

There's an illusion that we're in control of our actions, and that all of them are consciously chosen. I do think we have a tremendous amount of control over our lives, moreso than most people realize. But that control comes over relatively long periods of time, not minute-by-minute.

Minute-by-minute, your thinking and actions are the product of the matter and energy that is you moving around and interacting. Specifically, your biochemicals and electricity in your brain have a huge impact on your thoughts and actions.

Reading "Take a Nap, Change Your Life" by Dr. Sara Mednick really opened up my perspective on this. I read the book while I was researching getting more productivity and creativity out of napping, and I was looking right to her recommendations for better sleep and sleep cycles.

But she goes into neurochemistry and how the brain works in the book a lot as well. One...
Main site karma requirement for posting broken?
by AdeleneDawner — 2011-05-09T16:28:43.909Z

I just noticed that calcsam, who just posted two top posts in the main section of the site, only has the 100 karma that he has, so far, gained from those posts.

I don't object to those posts being there, but how did he do that?

Edit: Question answered; Eliezer mucked around with the karma system to make this possible in this specific case.
[HPMoR] Celebratory Trailer
by Eneasz — 2011-05-09T16:20:32.436Z

Over the weekend the Methods of Rationality audio-book podcast tipped 1000 downloads, and I figured in celebration I'd put a trailer or two out on YouTube. Nothing fancy, just some stills/pics with an audio clip of 30-60 seconds. Thing is, I don't know what would work best for this. So I'm asking any readers of the fanfic - what first really captured your attention when you started reading Methods of Rationality? When did you say "Ok, that's it, I gotta read all of this now"? Or, if you're a listener to the podcast, are there any particular points that you thought were cool enough to share widely?

The restrictions are that it should be somewhere in the 30-60 second range, and that it has to be from the first 6 chapters (since that's all that's been recorded so far).

Thanks!
Building rationalist communities: a series overview
by calcsam — 2011-05-09T15:15:34.190Z

Related to: How to build rationalist communities

"Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em," as it is written:

- Holy Books Don’t Implement Themselves

o Marx needed a Lenin. Fermi, Hahn and Meitner needed a Manhattan Project. The Bible needs a Rick Warren.

o EY and the Sequences need:

§ a Distiller that generates Rationality Projects.

§ some Organizers to help people embark on these Projects.

- Getting People To Do Stuff

o It doesn’t matter what ideas were conveyed in group meeting, the subset that matters is what group members resolved to do

o It doesn’t matter what group members resolved to do, the subset that matters is what you, the Organizer, followed up with.

- Bhagwat’s Law of Commitment

o The degree to which people identify with the group is directly proportional to the amount of stuff you tell them to do that works.

- Head in the Clouds < Making It Rain

o If someone is unable to articulate how they are going to implement a principle into their day-to-day lives, they are unlikely to implement it.

- Herding Cats

o If you don’t let people do something meaningful, they will never be any help.

o Feeling needed as a part of a community is a powerful motive to keep coming to meetings.

o Know the name and face of every newcomer. Have a good conversation with each. Afterwards, send them an e-mail showing them you are glad they came.

- "The Four People Who Do Everything" organization problem

o When you focus on doing stuff, some fandom members become core members.

o Others leave or detach themselves.

o But if you don’t have competent core members who organize, the group falls apart or stagnates.

o Attrition is the organization-killer. Spending ton

...