trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Yudkowsky, Thiel, de Grey, Vassar panel on changing the world
by NancyLebovitz — 2015-09-01T15:57:12.881Z

30 minute panel

The first question was why isn't everyone trying to change the world, with the underlying assumption that everyone should be. However, it isn't obviously the case that the world would be better if everyone were trying to change it. For one thing, trying to change the world mostly means trying to change other people. If everyone were trying to do it, this would be a huge drain on everyone's attention. In addition, some people are sufficiently mean and/or stupid that their efforts to change the world make things worse.
At the same time, some efforts to change the world are good, or at least plausible. Is there any way to improve the filter so that we get more ambition from benign people without just saying everyone should try to change the world, even if they're Osama bin Laden?

The discussion of why there's too much duplicated effort in science didn't bring up the problem of funding, which is probably another version of the problem of people not doing enough independent thinking.

There was some discussion of people getting too hooked on competition, which is a way of getting a lot of people pointed at the same goal.

Link thanks to Clarity
Typical Sneer Fallacy
by calef — 2015-09-01T03:13:53.781Z

I like going to see movies with my friends. This doesn't require much elaboration. What might is that I continue to go see movies with my friends despite the radically different ways in which my friends happen to enjoy watching movies. I'll separate these movie-watching philosophies into a few broad and not necessarily all-encompassing categories (you probably fall into more than one of them, as you'll see!):

(a): Movie watching for what was done right. The mantra here is "There are no bad movies." or "That was so bad it was good." Every movie has something redeeming about it, or it's at least interesting to try and figure out what that interesting and/or good thing might be. This is the way that I watch movies, most of the time (say 70%).

(b): Movie watching for entertainment. Mantra: "That was fun!". Critical analysis of the movie does not provide any enjoyment. The movie either succeeds in 'entertaining' or it fails. This is the way that I watch movies probably 15% of the time.

(c): Movie watching for what was done wrong. Mantra: "That movie was terrible." The only enjoyment that is derived from the movie-watching comes from tearing the film apart at its roots--common conversation pieces include discussion of plot inconsistencies, identification of poor directing/cinematography/etc., and even alternative options for what could have 'fixed' the film to the extent that the film could even said to be 'fixed'. I do this about ~12% of the time.

(d): Sneer. Mantra: "Have you played the drinking game?". Vocal, public, moderately-drunken dog-piling of a film's flaws are the only way a movie can be enjoyed. There's not really any thought put into the critical analysis. The movie-watching is more an excuse to be rambunctious with a group of friends than it is to actually watch a movie. I do this, conservatively, 3% of the time.

What's worth stressing here is that these are avenues of enjoyment. Even when a (c) person watches a 'bad' movie, they enjoy it to the extent that they can talk at length about what was wrong with the movie. With the exception of the Sneer category, none of these sorts of critical analysis are done out of any sort of vindictiveness, particularly and especially (c).

So, like I sai...
Meta post: Did something go wrong?
by Elo — 2015-08-31T22:58:54.562Z

There is a post at this link: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mp3/proper_posture_for_mental_arts/

It does not appear in my discussion feed. See the timestamps in the pictures below:

and:

It's currently 0900 local time on the 1/9/15. The only reason that I can think of this being wrong is that its a timezone publishing effect. But I don't know how, or what to do about it...

It also does not appear in an incognito window view of the discussion.

Now what?
An accidental experiment in location memory
by PhilGoetz — 2015-08-31T16:50:19.306Z

I bought a plastic mat to put underneath my desk chair, to protect the wooden floor from having bits of stone ground into it by the chair wheels. But it kept sliding when I stepped onto it, nearly sending me stumbling into my large, expensive, and fragile monitor. I decided to replace the mat as soon as I found a better one.

Before I found a better one, though, I realized I wasn't sliding on it anymore. My footsteps had adjusted themselves to it.

This struck me as odd. I couldn't be sensing the new surface when stepping onto it and adjusting my step to it, because once I've set my foot down on it, it's too late; I've already leaned toward the foot in a way that would make it physically impossible to reduce my angular momentum, and the slipping seems instantaneous on contact. Nor was I consciously aware of the mat anymore. It's thin, transparent, and easy to overlook.

I could think of two possibilities: Either my brain had learned to walk differently in a small, precise area in front of my desk, or I noticed the mat subconsciously and adjusted my steps subconsciously. The latter possibility freaked me out a little, because it seems like the kind of thing my brain should tell me about. Adjusting my steps subconsciously I expect; noticing a new object or environment, I expect to be told about.

A few weeks later, the mat had gradually moved a foot or two out of position, so I moved it back. The next time I came back to my desk, hours later, having forgotten all about the mat, I immediately slipped on it.

So it seems my brain was not noticing the mat, but remembering its precise location. (It's possible this is instead some physical mechanism that makes the mat stick better to the floor over time, but I can't think how that would work.)

Have any of you had similar experiences?
Proper posture for mental arts
by Valentine — 2015-08-31T02:29:01.312Z

I'd like to start by way of analogy. I think it'll make the link to rationality easier to understand if I give context first.

I sometimes teach the martial art of aikido. The way I was originally taught, you had to learn how to "feel the flow of ki" (basically life energy) through you and from your opponent, and you had to make sure that your movements - both physical and mental - were such that your "ki" would blend with and guide the "ki" of your opponent. Even after I stopped believing in ki, though, there were some core elements of the art that I just couldn't do, let alone teach, without thinking and talking in terms of ki flow.

A great example of this is the "unbendable arm". This is a pretty critical thing to get right for most aikido techniques. And it feels really weird. Most people when they first get it think that the person trying to fold their arm isn't actually pushing because it doesn't feel like effort to keep their arm straight. Many students (including me once upon a time) end up taking this basic practice as compelling proof that ki is real. Even after I realized that ki wasn't real, I still had to teach unbendable arm this way because nothing else seemed to work.

…and then I found anatomical resources like Becoming a Supple Leopard.

It turns out that the unbendable arm works when:

your thoracic spine is in a non-kyphotic position

your head isn't hanging forward (which would mimic the thoracic tension of kyphosis)

your shoulder is rolled back and down enough for the part of your clavicle immediately above the sternoclavicular joint to stick out a bit (see here)

your shoulder has slight tension in it from holding your elbow in a pointing-down position

That's it. If you do this correctly, you can relax most of your other arm muscles and still be able to resist pretty enormous force on your arm.

Why, you might ask? Well, from what I have gathered, this lets you engage your latissimus dorsi (pretty large back muscles) in stabilizing your elbow. There's also a bit of strategy where you don't actually have to fully oppose the arm-bender's strength; you just have to stabilize the elbow enough to be able to direct the push-down-on-elbow force into the push-up-on-wrist force.

But the point is, by understanding something about proper posture, you can cut literally months of training down to about ten minutes.

To oversimplif...
My future posts; a table of contents.
by Elo — 2015-08-30T22:27:20.858Z

My future posts

I have been living in the lesswrong rationality space for at least two years now. Recently more active than previously. This has been deliberate. I plan to make more serious active posts in the future. In saying so I wanted to announce the posts I intend on making when moving forwards from today. This should do a few things:

keep me on track

keep me accountable to me more than anyone else

keep me accountable to others

allow others to pick which they would like to be created sooner

allow other people to volunteer to create/collaborate on these topics

allow anyone to suggest more topics

meta: this post should help to demonstrate one person's method of developing rationality content and the time it takes to do that.

feel free to PM me about 6, or comment below.

Unfortunately these are not very well organised, they are presented in no particular order. They are probably missing posts that will help link them all together, as well as skills required to understand some of the posts on this list.

Unpublished but written:

A very long list of sleep maintenance suggestions – I wrote up all the ideas I knew of; there are about 150 or so; worth reviewing just to see if you can improve your sleep because the difference in quality of life with good sleep is a massive change. (20mins to write an intro Actually 2 hours)

A list of techniques to help you remember names. - remembering names is a low-hanging social value fruit that can improve many of your early social interactions with people. I wrote up a list of techniques to help. (2.5hrs to get feedback on and post)

Posts so far:

The null result: a magnetic ring wearing experiment. - a fun one; about how wearing magnetic rings was cool; but not imparting of superpowers. (done)

Updated here (old: list of useful apps)- my current list of apps that I use also some very good suggestions in the comments. (done)

How to learn X – How to attack a problem of learning a new area that you don't know a lot about (for a generic thing) (done)

A list of common human goals – when plotting out goals that matter to you; so you can look over some common ones and see you fulfilling them interests you. (done)

Lesswrong real time chat - A Slack channel for hanging out with other rationalists. Also where I talk about my latest posts before I put them up.

F

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Open Thread August 31 - September 6
by Elo — 2015-08-30T21:26:22.940Z

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.
Optimal predictor schemes pass a Benford test
by Vanessa Kosoy — 2015-08-30T13:25:59.000Z

We formulate a concept analogous to Garrabrant's irreducible pattern in the complexity theoretic language underlying optimal predictor schemes and prove a formal relation to Garrabant's original definition. We prove that optimal predictor schemes pass the corresponding version of the Benford test (namely, on irreducible patterns they are Δ-similar to a constant).

Results

All the proofs are given in the appendix.

Definition 1

Fix Δ an error space of rank 2. Consider (f,μ) a distributional estimation problem, α∈[0,1]. (f,μ) is called Δ(poly,log)-irreducible with expectation α when for any {0,1}-valued (poly,log)-bischeme ^A=(A,rA,aA) we have

|Eμk×UrA(k,j)[(f−α)^Akj]|∈Δ

Theorem 1

Fix Δ an error space of rank 2. Assume h:N2→N is a polynomial s.t. h−1∈Δ. Given t∈[0,1], define πkjh(t) to be t rounded within error h(k,j)−1. Consider (f,μ) a distributional estimation problem, α∈[0,1]. Define the (poly,log)-predictor scheme ^Pα,h by ^Pkjα,h(x):=πkjh(α). Then, (f,μ) is Δ(poly,log)-irreducible with expectation α if and only if ^Pα,h is a Δ(poly,log)-optimal predictor scheme for (f,μ).

Corollary 1

Consider Δ1, Δ2 error spaces of rank 2 s.t. Δ1⊆Δ2. Assume there is a polynomial h:N2→N s.t. h−1∈Δ2. Consider (f,μ) a distributional estimation problem, α∈[0,1] and ^P a Δ1(poly,log)-optimal predictor scheme for (f,μ). Suppose (f,μ) is Δ2(poly,log)-irreducible with expectation α. Then, ^Pμ≃Δ2α.

The following definition is adapted from Garrabrant with relatively minor modifications

Definition 2

Denote U≤k the uniform probability measure on {0,1}≤k. Given r:N→N and A:{0,1}∗2alg−→{0,1}, denote mA,r(k):=∑x∈{0,1}≤kPrUr(|x|)[A(x,y)=1]. Fix t:N→N. f:{0,1}∗→[0,1] is called a t(poly)-irreducible pattern with expectation α∈[0,1] when for any polynomial p:N→N there is cp>0 s.t. for any W:{0,1}∗2alg−→{0,1} if W runs within time p(t(|x|)) on any input (x,y) s.t. |y|=p(t(|x|)) then

∀k∈N:mW,p(t)(k)≥3⟹|EU≤k×Up(t(k))[f(x)∣W(x,y≤p(t(|x|)))=1]−α|≤cp|W|√loglogmW,p(t)(k)√mW,p(t)(k)

Note 1

Definition 2 differs from Garrabrant's original definition in several respects:

We consider an arbitrary function rather than the characteristic function of the set of provable sentences.

Instead of a single time bound, we consider a family of time bounds differing by a polynomial.

We allow W to be a random algorithm rather than requiring it to be deterministic.

Definition 3

Fix t:N→N. Δ2G,t is the

...
Deworming a movement
by  — 2015-08-30T09:25:45.821Z

Over the last few days I've been reviewing the evidence for EA charity recommendations. Based on my personal experience alone, the community seems to be comprehensively inept, poor at marketing, extremely insular, methodologically unsophisticated but meticulous, transparent and well-intentioned. I currently hold the belief that EA movement building does more harm than good and that is requires significant rebranding and shifts in its informal leadership or to die out before it damages the reputation of the rationalist community and our capacity to cooperate with communities that share mutual interests.

It's one thing to be ineffective and know it. It's another thing to be ineffective and not know it. It's yet another thing to be ineffective, not know it, yet champion effectiveness and make a claim to moral superiority.

In case you missed the memo deworming is controversial, GiveWell doesn't engage with the meat of the debate, and my investigations of the EA community's spaces suggests that it's not at all known. I've even briefly posted about it elsewhere on LessWrong to see if there was unspoken knowledge about it, but it seems not. Given that it's the hot topic in mainstream development studies and related academic communities, I'm aghast at how irresponsive 'we' are.

What's actionable for us here. If you're looking for a high reliability effective altruism prospect, do not donate to SCI or Evidence Action. And by extension, do not donate to EA organisations to donate to these groups, including GiveWell. I am assuming you will use those funds more wisely instead, say buying healthier food for yourself.

For who don't to review the links for a more comprehensive analyses from Cochrane and GiveWell, here is one summary of the debate recommended in the Cochrane article:

Last month there was another battle in an ongoing dispute between economists and epidemiologists over the merits of mass deworming. In brief, economists claim there is clear evidence that cheap deworming interventions have large effects on welfare via increased education and ultimately job opportunities. It’s a best buy development intervention. Epidemiologists claim that although worms are widespread and can cause illnesses sometimes, the evidence of important links to health is weak and knock-on effects of deworming to education seem implausible. As stated by Garner “the belief that

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Group Rationality Diary, August 30 - September 12
by Dahlen — 2015-08-30T06:11:20.552Z

This is the public group rationality diary for August 30th - September 12th, 2015. 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.

Archive of previous rationality diaries
There are no "bad people"
by So8res — 2015-08-30T03:00:00.000Z
Link: https://mindingourway.com/there-are-no/

When I help friends debug their intrinsic motivation, here's a pattern I often bump into:

Well, if I don't actually start working soon, then I'll be a bad person.

Or, even more worrying:

Well they wanted me to just buckle down and do the work, and I really didn't want to do it then, which means that either they were bad, or I was bad. And I didn't want to be the bad one bad, so I got angry at them, and…

I confess, I do not know what it would mean for somebody to be a "bad person." I do know what it means for somebody to be bad at achieving the goals they set for themselves. I do know what it means for someone to be good at pursuing goals that I dislike. I have no idea what it would mean for a person to "be bad."

I know what it means for a person to lack skill in a specific area. I know what it means for a person to be procrastinating. I know what it means for a person to be acting under impulses that they don't endorse, such as spite or disgust. I know what it means for someone to fail to act as they wish to act. I know what it means for someone to hurt other people, either on purpose or with a feeling of helpless resignation.

But I don't know what it would mean for a person to "be bad." That fails to parse. People don't have a hidden stone deep inside their brain that is either green or red depending on whether they are good or bad. "Badness" is not a fundamental property that a person can have. At best, "they're bad" can be shorthand for either "I don't want their goals achieved" or "they are untrained in a number of skills which would be relevant to the present situation"; but in all cases, "they are bad" must be either shorthand or nonsense.

Asking whether a person is "fundamentally good" or "fundamentally bad" is a type error. Life is not a quest where you struggle to wind up "good." That's not the sort of reality we find ourselves in.

Rather, we find ourselves embedded in a vast universe, with control over the future and a goal of making it wonderful. We find ourselves to be part of a grand deterministic pattern, and we're trying to make that pattern as beautiful as possible.

Step back and imagine history as a fixed path through the great crystal that is our universe over all time; the time-crystal that describes everything everywhere and everywhen; the time-crystal where you can look not only forwards and backwards, but beforewards and afterwards. Imagine the ...
Obstacle to modal optimality when you're being modalized
by orthonormal — 2015-08-29T20:41:59.000Z

Summary: The optimality result for modal UDT on provably extensional problems doesn't carry over even to very straightforward problems where the agent's action is "predicted" (in the sense that a modalized A is used) rather than just "run" (in the sense that a nonmodalized A is used). In fact, there's a pair of such problems on which no modal decision theory can be simultaneously optimal.

Prerequisites: "Evil" decision problems in provability logic, An optimality result for modal UDT, Improving the modal UDT optimality result

Benja's modal UDT optimality results (especially the fact that ¬□n⊥ is the only axiom schema you'll ever need) are really nifty, but they correspond to exactly the games we might think of as "truly one-player". The agent A() depends on the universe U() only by proving things about it (all instances of U() within A() are modalized, by the definition of a modal agent), while the universe depends on the agent only by running it (all instances of A() within U() are nonmodalized, by the definition of provably extensional).

So in particular, if we want to consider multi-agent problems (or other non-extensional problems), the modal UDT algorithm continues to be perfectly well-defined, but the optimality result no longer has a valid proof. But could something like that result continue to hold?

OK, fine, you've read the summary, so you know that the answer is "no" in the following sense: I can show you two such universes, such that any modal agent fails in at least one case to achieve the best outcome that any modal agent can on that problem.

Let the possible actions in both universes be denoted by a and ¬a, and the possible outcomes be denoted by g and ¬g. Let's say that g is good and ¬g is bad.

Universe 1 is defined by (U1()=g)↔□(A()=a) (and similarly, (U1()=¬g)↔¬□(A()=a)).

Universe 2 is defined by (U2()=g)↔□(A()=¬a) (and similarly, (U2()=¬g)↔¬□(A()=¬a)).

I claim that no modal decision theory (as defined in the "evil" decision problem post) can get the outcome g in both universes, but of course for each universe there exists a modal decision theory that gets the outcome g. (The constant strategies are modal decision theories.) Let →T be a modal decision theory.

Lemma: □⊥→(→T(U1)=a↔→T(U2)=a).

Given the lemma, we see that (→T(U1)=a∧¬→T(U2)=a)→¬□⊥, so □(→T(U1)=a∧¬→T(U2)=a)→□¬□⊥, and as in Gödel's second incompleteness theorem, □¬□⊥→□⊥. Thus ¬□⊥→¬(□→T(U1)=a

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