trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Rational vs. Scientific Ev-Psych
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2008-01-04T07:01:14.000Z

Prerequisite: Evolutionary Psychology

Years ago, before I left my parents' nest, I was standing in front of a refrigerator, looking inside. My mother approached and said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Looking for the ketchup. I don't see it."

My mother reached behind a couple of bottles and took out the ketchup.

She said, "If you don't see the ketchup, why don't you move things around and look behind them, instead of just standing and staring into the refrigerator? Do you think the ketchup is magically going to appear if you stare into the refrigerator long enough?"

And lo, the light went on over my head, and I said: "Men are hunters, so if we can't find our prey, we instinctively freeze motionless and wait for it to wander into our field of vision. Women are gatherers, so they move things around and look behind them."

Now this sort of thing is not scientifically respectable; it is called a "just-so story", after Kipling's "Just-So Stories" like "How the Camel Got His Hump". The implication being that you can make up anything you like for an evolutionary story, but the difficult thing is finding a way to prove it.

Well, fine, but I bet it's still true.

The sexual division of labor in hunter-gatherer societies - "Men hunt, women gather" - is a human universal among hunter-gatherers, like it or not; and it has experimentally tested cognitive consequences: Men are better at throwing spears; women are better at remembering where things are. So that part is pretty much nailed down - the controversial thing is saying, "This is why men stand motionless and stare into the refrigerator."

But even the Refrigerator Hypothesis is not as untestable as one might think. For a start, you have to verify that this is a cross-cultural universal - you have to check to see if men and women in China and South Africa exhibit the same stereotypical behavior as in the US. And you also have to verify that hunters who don't see prey where they expect it, do indeed freeze motionless and wait for the prey to wander across their vision.

But that doesn't prove that the same psychology is at work in a man staring into a refrigerator, does it?

Well, you could install an eye-tracker on a hunter; look for a characteristic pattern of eye movements when they're frozen waiting for prey; and use simulations or game theory to show that...
Stop Voting For Nincompoops
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2008-01-02T18:00:00.000Z

Followup to: The Two-Party Swindle, The American System and Misleading Labels

If evolutionary psychology could be simplified down to one sentence (which it can't), it would be: "Our instincts are adaptations that increased fitness in the ancestral environment, and we go on feeling that way regardless of whether it increases fitness today." Sex with condoms, tastes for sugar and fat, etc.

In the ancestral environment, there was no such thing as voter confidentiality. If you backed a power faction in your hunter-gatherer band, everyone knew which side you'd picked. The penalty for choosing the losing side could easily be death.

Our emotions are shaped to steer us through hunter-gatherer life, not life in the modern world. It should be no surprise, then, that when people choose political sides, they feel drawn to the faction that seems stronger, better positioned to win. Even when voting is confidential. Just as people enjoy sex, even when using contraception.

(George Orwell had a few words to say in "Raffles and Miss Blandish" about where the admiration of power can go. The danger, not of lusting for power, but just of feeling drawn to it.)

In a recent special election for California governor, the usual lock of the party structure broke down - they neglected to block that special case, and so you could get in with 65 signatures and $3500. As a result there were 135 candidates.

With 135 candidates, one might have thought there would be an opportunity for some genuine voter choice - a lower barrier to entry, which would create a chance to elect an exceptionally competent governor. However, the media immediately swung into action and decided that only a tiny fraction of these candidates would be allowed to get any publicity. Which ones? Why, the ones who already had name recognition! Those, after all, were the candidates who were likely to win, so those were the ones which the media reported on.

Amazingly, the media collectively exerted such tremendous power, in nearly perfect coordination, without deliberate intention (conspiracies are generally much less necessary than believed). They genuinely thought, I think, that they were reporting the news rather than making it. Did it even occur to them that the entire business was self-referential? Did any...
The American System and Misleading Labels
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2008-01-02T07:38:09.000Z

"How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
-- Abraham Lincoln

So I was at this conference. Where one of the topics was legal rights for human-level Artificial Intelligence. And personally, I don't think this is going to be the major problem, but these are the kinds of conferences I go to. Anyway. Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was present; and he said:

"The legal status of AIs is ultimately a legislative question, and in the American system of democracy, legislative questions are decided by the Supreme Court."

Much laughter followed. We all knew it was true. (And Brad has taken a case or two to the Supreme Court, so he was speaking from experience.)

I'm not criticizing the Supreme Court. They don't always agree with me on every issue - that is not a politician's job - but reasoned cooperative discourse, compact outputs, and sheer professionalism all make the Supreme Court a far more competent legislative body than Congress.

Try to say aloud the color - not the meaning, the color - of the following letters:

RED

Now say aloud the meaning of the letters, not their color:

PURPLE

Which task felt more difficult? It's actually easier to pay attention to the labels of things than their substances.

But if you're going to be faced with several repetitions of the first task, there's a way to make it easier - just blur your eyes a little, so that you can see the color a moment before you're distracted by the meaning. Try it - defocus your eyes slightly, and then say the following colors aloud:

BLUE ORANGE YELLOW

If you want to know what the Supreme Court really does, you should blur your eyes so that you can't see the words "Supreme" or "Court", or all the giant signs reading "judge", "Honorable", or "judicial branch of government". Then how can you tell what they do? Well, you could follow these nine people around for a few days and observe them at work. You'll see that they dress in funny outfits and go to a building where they hear some people arguing with each other. Then they'll talk it over for a while, and issue one or two s...
The Simple Truth
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2008-01-01T20:00:44.147Z

I remember this paper I wrote on existentialism. My teacher gave it back with an F. She’d underlined true and truth wherever it appeared in the essay, probably about twenty times, with a question mark beside each. She wanted to know what I meant by truth.

—Danielle Egan, journalist

This essay is meant to restore a naive view of truth.

Someone says to you: “My miracle snake oil can rid you of lung cancer in just three weeks.” You reply: “Didn’t a clinical study show this claim to be untrue?” The one returns: “This notion of ‘truth’ is quite naive; what do you mean by ‘true’?”

Many people, so questioned, don’t know how to answer in exquisitely rigorous detail. Nonetheless they would not be wise to abandon the concept of “truth.” There was a time when no one knew the equations of gravity in exquisitely rigorous detail, yet if you walked off a cliff, you would fall.

Often I have seen—especially on Internet mailing lists—that amidst other conversation, someone says “X is true,” and then an argument breaks out over the use of the word “true.” This essay is not meant as an encyclopedic reference for that argument. Rather, I hope the arguers will read this essay, and then go back to whatever they were discussing before someone questioned the nature of truth.

In this essay I pose questions. If you see what seems like a really obvious answer, it’s probably the answer I intend. The obvious choice isn’t always the best choice, but sometimes, by golly, it is. I don’t stop looking as soon I find an obvious answer, but if I go on looking, and the obvious-seeming answer still seems obvious, I don’t feel guilty about keeping it. Oh, sure, everyone thinks two plus two is four, everyone says two plus two is four, and in the mere mundane drudgery of everyday life everyone behaves as if two plus two is four, but what does two plus two really, ultimately equal? As near as I can figure, four. It’s still four even if I intone the question in a solemn, portentous tone of voice.

Does that seem like an unduly simple answer? Maybe, on this occasion, life doesn’t need to be complicated. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

If you are one of those fortunate folk to whom the question seems trivial at the outset, I hope it still seems trivial at the finish. If you find yourself stumped by deep and meaningful questions, remember that if you know exactly how a system works, and could build one yourself out ...
The Two-Party Swindle
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2008-01-01T08:38:28.000Z

The Robbers Cave Experiment had as its subject 22 twelve-year-old boys, selected from 22 different schools in Oklahoma City, all doing well in school, all from stable middle-class Protestant families. In short, the boys were as similar to each other as the experimenters could arrange, though none started out knowing any of the others. The experiment, conducted in the aftermath of WWII, was meant to investigate conflicts between groups. How would the scientists spark an intergroup conflict to investigate? Well, the first step was to divide the 22 boys into two groups of 11 campers -

- and that was quite sufficient. There was hostility almost from the moment each group became aware of the other group's existence. Though they had not needed any name for themselves before, they named themselves the Eagles and the Rattlers. After the researchers (disguised as camp counselors) instigated contests for prizes, rivalry reached a fever pitch and all traces of good sportsmanship disintegrated. The Eagles stole the Rattlers' flag and burned it; the Rattlers raided the Eagles' cabin and stole the blue jeans of the group leader and painted it orange and carried it as a flag the next day.

Each group developed a stereotype of itself and a contrasting stereotype of the opposing group (though the boys had been initially selected to be as similar as possible). The Rattlers swore heavily and regarded themselves as rough-and-tough. The Eagles swore off swearing, and developed an image of themselves as proper-and-moral.

Consider, in this light, the episode of the Blues and the Greens in the days of Rome. Since the time of the ancient Romans, and continuing into the era of Byzantium and the Roman Empire, the Roman populace had been divided into the warring Blue and Green factions. Blues murdered Greens and Greens murdered Blues, despite all attempts at policing. They died in single combats, in ambushes, in group battles, in riots.

From Procopius, History of the Wars, I:

In every city the population has been divided for a long time past into the Blue and the Green factions [...] And they fight against their opponents knowing not for what end they imperil themselves [...] So there grows up in them against their fellow men a hostility which has no cause, and at no time does it cease or disappear, for it gives place neither to the tie

...
Posting on Politics
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2008-01-01T07:25:59.000Z

Politics, ah, politics! If human insanities could physically manifest as lumps of putrefaction, and the dripping slimes collected
into a giant festering pit, and the mound of corruption formed itself
into a monster and shambled forth to eat brains...

Ordinarily I prefer to discuss politics
indirectly, rather than directly. Politics varies from government to government. Better to talk about human universals - cognitive biases that can be nailed down and examined in the laboratory - malfunctions of sanity that appear wherever humans go. Then it's up to you to apply the knowledge to your own political situation.

This policy also avoids offending people, so I tend to suspect my clever-sounding rationale for following it.

Over the next two weeks, Iowa and New
Hampshire will exercise their Constitutional right to appoint the next President of the United States. I
hope you will forgive me if I am, briefly, relevant.

I intend to do a
series of three posts directly applying to politics. Don't worry, after that it's back to the safe refuge of cognitive
science.

Rest assured that I don't plan on endorsing a party, let alone a candidate.

If I say something that you disagree with, remember that my attempts at
rationality are not sourced from a divine scripture, and hence are not
a package deal.
You read plenty of other blogs, I hope, where an author occasionally
says something you dislike, from time to time?
My Strange Beliefs
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2007-12-30T12:15:00.000Z

Yesterday, "Overcoming Cryonics" wrote:

Eliezer, enough with your nonsense about cryonicism, life-extensionism, trans-humanism, and the singularity. These things have nothing to do with overcoming bias... if you're going to enforce the comments policy then you should also self-enforce the overcoming bias posting policy instead of using posts to blithely proselytize your cryonicism / life-extensionism / trans-humanism / singularity religion.

One, there is nothing in the Overcoming Bias posting policy against transhumanism.

Two, as a matter of fact, I do try to avoid proselytizing here. I have other forums in which to vent my thoughts on transhumanism. When I write a blog post proselytizing transhumanism, it looks like this, this, or this.

But it's hard for me to avoid all references to transhumanism. "Overcoming Cryonics" commented to a post in which there was exactly one reference to a transhumanist topic. I had said:

The first time I gave a presentation - the first time I ever climbed onto a stage in front of a couple of hundred people to talk about the Singularity - I briefly thought to myself: "I bet most people would be experiencing 'stage fright' about now. But that wouldn't be helpful, so I'm not going to go there.

What, exactly, am I supposed to do about that? The first time I ever got up on stage, I was in fact talking about the Singularity! That's the actual history! Transhumanism is not a hobby for me, it's my paid day job as a Research Fellow of the Singularity Institute. Asking me to avoid all mentions of transhumanism is like asking Robin Hanson to avoid all mentions of academia.

Occasionally, someone remarks that I seem to take notions like the Singularity on faith, because I mention them but don't defend them.

I don't defend my views here. Because I know that not everyone is interested in the considerable volume of work I have produced on transhumanism. Which you can find on yudkowsky.net.

If, however, you don't like any mention of transhumanism, even as an illustration of some other point about rationality - well, this is a blog. These are blog posts. They are written in the first person. I am occasionally going to use anecdotes from my history, or even, y'know, transcribe my thought processes a little?

Given the amount of time that I spend thinking ...
Cultish Countercultishness
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2007-12-30T00:53:28.000Z

In the modern world, joining a cult is probably one of the worse things that can happen to you. The best-case scenario is that you’ll end up in a group of sincere but deluded people, making an honest mistake but otherwise well-behaved, and you’ll spend a lot of time and money but end up with nothing to show. Actually, that could describe any failed Silicon Valley startup. Which is supposed to be a hell of a harrowing experience, come to think. So yes, very scary.

Real cults are vastly worse. “Love bombing” as a recruitment technique, targeted at people going through a personal crisis. Sleep deprivation. Induced fatigue from hard labor. Distant communes to isolate the recruit from friends and family. Daily meetings to confess impure thoughts. It’s not unusual for cults to take all the recruit’s money—life savings plus weekly paycheck—forcing them to depend on the cult for food and clothing. Starvation as a punishment for disobedience. Serious brainwashing and serious harm.

With all that taken into account, I should probably sympathize more with people who are terribly nervous, embarking on some odd-seeming endeavor, that they might be joining a cult. It should not grate on my nerves. Which it does.

Point one: “Cults” and “non-cults” aren’t separated natural kinds like dogs and cats. If you look at any list of cult characteristics, you’ll see items that could easily describe political parties and corporations—“group members encouraged to distrust outside criticism as having hidden motives,” “hierarchical authoritative structure.” I’ve written on group failure modes like group polarization, happy death spirals, uncriticality, and evaporative cooling, all of which seem to feed on each other. When these failures swirl together and meet, they combine to form a Super-Failure stupider than any of the parts, like Voltron. But this is not a cult essence; it is a cult attractor.

Dogs are born with dog DNA, and cats are born with cat DNA. In the current world, there is no in-between. (Even with genetic manipulation, it wouldn’t be as simple as creating an organism with half dog genes and half cat genes.) It’s not like there’s a mutually reinforcing set of dog-characteristics, which an individual cat...
To Lead, You Must Stand Up
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2007-12-29T06:38:47.000Z

Followup to: Lonely Dissent

True story: In July, I attended a certain Silicon Valley event. I was not an organizer, or a speaker, or in any other wise involved on an official level; just an attendee. It was an evening event, and after
the main presentations were done, much of the audience hung around
talking... and talking... and talking... Finally the event
organizer began dimming the lights and turning them back up again. And the crowd still stayed; no one left. So the organizer
dimmed the lights and turned them up some more. And lo, the people continued talking.

I walked over to the event organizer, standing by the light switches, and said, "Are you hinting
for people to leave?" And he said, "Yes. In fact [the host company] says we've got to get out
of here now - the building needs to close down."

I nodded.

I walked over to the exit.

I shouted, "LISTEN UP, EVERYONE! WE'VE GOT TO GO! OUR TIME
HERE HAS PASSED! YOU CAN TALK OUTSIDE IF YOU LIKE! NOW FOLLOW ME...
TO FREEDOM!"

I turned.

I marched out the door.

And everyone followed.

I expect there were at least two or three CEOs in that Silicon Valley
crowd. It didn't lack for potential leaders. Why was it left to me to lead the CEOs to freedom?

Well, what was in it for them to perform that service to the group? It wasn't their problem. I'm in the habit of doing work I see being left undone; but this doesn't appear to be a common habit.

So why didn't some aspiring would-be future-CEO take the opportunity to distinguish themselves by acting the part of the leader? I bet at least five people in that Silicon Valley crowd had recently read a business book on leadership...

But it's terribly embarrassing to stand up in front of a crowd. What if the crowd hadn't followed me? What if I'd turned and marched out the door, and been left looking like a complete fool? Oh nos! Oh horrors!

While I have sometimes pretended to wisdom, I have never pretended
to solemnity. I wasn't worried about looking silly, because heck, I am silly. It runs in the Yudkowsky family. There is a difference between being serious and being solemn.

As for daring to stand out in the crowd, to have everyone staring at me - that was a feature of grade school. The first t...
Lonely Dissent
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2007-12-28T04:23:31.000Z

Asch’s conformity experiment showed that the presence of a single dissenter tremendously reduced the incidence of “conforming” wrong answers. Individualism is easy, experiment shows, when you have company in your defiance. Every other subject in the room, except one, says that black is white. You become the second person to say that black is black. And it feels glorious: the two of you, lonely and defiant rebels, against the world!1

But you can only join the rebellion after someone, somewhere, becomes the first to rebel. Someone has to say that black is black after hearing everyone else, one after the other, say that black is white. And that—experiment shows—is a lot harder.

Lonely dissent doesn’t feel like going to school dressed in black. It feels like going to school wearing a clown suit.

That’s the difference between joining the rebellion and leaving the pack.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s fakeness—you may have noticed this. Well, lonely dissent has got to be one of the most commonly, most ostentatiously faked characteristics around. Everyone wants to be an iconoclast.

I don’t mean to degrade the act of joining a rebellion. There are rebellions worth joining. It does take courage to brave the disapproval of your peer group, or perhaps even worse, their shrugs. Needless to say, going to a rock concert is not rebellion. But, for example, vegetarianism is. I’m not a vegetarian myself, but I respect people who are, because I expect it takes a noticeable amount of quiet courage to tell people that hamburgers won’t work for dinner.2

Still, if you tell people that you’re a vegetarian, they’ll think they understand your motives (even if they don’t). They may disagree. They may be offended if you manage to announce it proudly enough, or for that matter, they may be offended just because they’re easily offended. But they know how to relate to you.

When someone wears black to school, the teachers and the other children understand the role thereby being assumed in their society. It’s Outside the System—in a very standard way that everyone recognizes and understands. Not, y’know, actually outside the system. It’s a Challenge to Standard Thinking, of a standard sort, so that people in...