trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
A Very Mathematical Explanation of Derivatives
by Heighn — 2022-04-01T14:40:47.881Z

This post is meant for readers familiar with algebra and derivatives, but want to deepen their understanding and/or need a refresh.

Linear functions

Let's start with a family of very basic functions: the linear functions, expressed as f(x)=ax+b. You might remember its derivative is f′(x)=a, because x is multiplied by a and the constant b "disappears" when taking the derivative. This is correct, but let's actually calculate the derivative. Since f(x) is a linear function, f′(x) is the same for all x. That is, a linear function "goes up" with the same "speed" everywhere, as can be seen in the following graph for g(x)=2x+5:

For example, between x=0 and x=1, f(x) increases with 2, just like it does between e.g. x=2 and x=3. Therefore, determining the average slope between x and x+d will do. The average slope between x and x+d is how much f(x) increases between x and x+d, divided by the difference between x and x+d (which is d). Let d=1, in which case we don't have to do the division, as f′(x)=f(x+1)−f(x)1=f(x+1)−f(x). Filling in ax+b for f(x) and a(x+1)+b for f(x+1), we get:

f′(x)=f(x+1)−f(x)=(a(x+1)+b)−(ax+b)=ax+a+b−ax−b=a

There it is! f′(x)=a. So for g(x)=2x+5, where a=2, this means g′(x)=2.

Polynomials (and more)

Polynomials are functions with the following form:

f(x)=a0xn+a1xn−1+...+an−1x+an

Determining their derivative is a bit more tricky than determining the derivative of a linear function, because now, the derivative isn't necessarily the same everywhere. After all, take g(x)=x2:

We can see this is a curved line, and so the derivative is constantly changing. We can sill do something like the "trick" we did with linear functions, but we can't determine f′(x)by looking how f(x) changes between x and x+1: that would assume f′(x) is the same between x and x+1, which isn't true. For x and x+0.001, we would have a better estimate of f′(x), but we'd still assume f′(x) to be constant between these values. We need to determine how f(x) changes between x and some x+d, w...
Kids Posts Retrospective
by jefftk — 2022-04-01T14:10:05.658Z

When I write about something I'm doing with the kids, I'm especially
likely to write about it when it's new, because that's when it's most
interesting to me. But some things that seem like they are a good
idea at first regress to the mean, while others don't. Here are most
of my parenting posts, with my current thoughts:

Parenting and
Happiness (2012-10): Looking back at this with ten years of
perspective, eight of them as a parent, I am very glad we decided to
have kids.

Baby Sleep (2014-08): We also did
cry-it-out with Anna, and it went similarly. With Nora we didn't need
to do very much of this, I think because the gradual transition from
the Snoo worked well at teaching her how to get herself back to sleep?

Microwaving Milk Is
Fine (2014-10): Yup. Still completely endorsed. I set up an old
microwave Nora's bedroom for even more convenience.

Baby Sack as Coat (2015-01):
This worked well when we had one very small child, but as she got
heavier, and then we had our second, it stopped making sense. This
isn't something I did with Anna or Nora.

Cosleeper (2015-07): For our second
we moved to a mattress on the floor with a crib mattress next to it,
and then with our third we used a Snoo, which I'd
recommend.

Velcro Blackout
Curtains (2016-05): We still have blackout curtains in all of the
bedrooms, and are big fans. On the other hand, now that the older two
are on a regular "go to school every morning" schedule, this is less
important and their schedule is closer to the sun.

On Sharing (2016-09): We still
don't make the kids share: if someone is playing with a toy they can
keep doing that as long as they want.

Kids and Global
Warming (2017-09): I still think climate change is not a good
reason to avoid having children, and recently had a third. If you're
looking to link people to something, however, Scott's
more recent post is better.

Small Child Handrails
(2017-09): I think I put these a little too low: by the time Anna was
ready to use them she could've used ones, say, 6" higher. Still,
they've gotten a lot of use, and they are not yet too low for Lily
(8y). I expect Nora will find them helpful in about a year.

A calming strategy
(2017-12): The general approach of asking what they want and getting
them involved in solving their problem continues to be valuable. I
think when I wrote that post I focused too much on the effe

...
Russian x-risk newsletter March 2022 update
by avturchin — 2022-04-01T13:26:49.500Z

I will not comment on the details of the current war as there are many good analyses elsewhere.

As international cooperation with Russia almost stopped, Russia can now "sell" only one "good": the lack of global catastrophes. By selling I mean using them as a topic of negotiation.

Russia can deliberately generate four types of such catastrophes:

1. Global nuclear war or nuclear doomsday machine

2. Biological

3. Global hunger based on limiting the export of grain and fertilisers

4. Artificial “peak oil” based on limiting the export of energy and metals.

More about it:

1. As Putin can’t afford to lose in Ukraine, and Ukraine is not inclined to sign a ceasefire, he has two options: large scale mobilization of conscripts or the use of tactical nukes. He constantly claimed that as it is not “war”, there will be no mass mobilization. This increases the chances of the second option: tactical nukes. But there are no useful military targets for them, except roads to borders by which western military aid is coming. A nuclear attack near NATO borders would be very escalatory.

There could be other escalations: resuming the nuclear tests and the start nuclear tests above ground. These all increase chances of the mentioned above preemptive strike against Russia as at some point costs and risks will look justified.

2. No public information about Russian biorisks.

3. Food crisis seems to be already brewing as a large part of the seed material in Russia is imported from the West, and, for example, seeds for sugar beet it wasn’t completely imported for 2022. Anticipation of sugar shortages resulted in panic buying which increased shortages.

Russia is a big exporter of wheat and fertilizer and such export was halted. Ukraine export also stopped and sowing may not happen in the East part of the county. Russian fertilizers are crucial for places like Brazil, and Bolsonaro visited Moscow in early Feb to ensure that delivery will continue.

4. While Russia produces only 10 per cent of global oil output, its export, 7.8 mln barrels per day, is a much large share of the total internationally traded oil. See also Export land model

The risks from Russian unfriendly AGI is now lower as there will be no new supercomputers because of export limitations.

As most oil is consumed domestically by different countries, only around 30 mbd are traded internationally, and Russia...
Anti-Corruption Market
by lsusr — 2022-04-01T12:57:31.697Z

General Secretary Lu called his most trusted advisor Zhou into his office.

"Close the door," said the General Secretary.

Zhou closed the door with quivering arms.

"Don't worry. You're doing great. In fact, that's why I called you in today. I'm starting a new anti-corruption campaign," said the General Secretary.

Zhou drew a sharp intake of breath.

"What? No. This isn't political cover for disappearing my political rivals. I really do want to run an anti-corruption campaign," said the General Secretary.

Zhou exhaled slowly. The color began to return to Zhou's face.

"The problem is I can't trust my advisors. The corrupt ones lie to me. The honorable ones lie to me. Raw facts never make it up the chain of command. It's like everyone in the government is afraid of me," said the General Secretary.

Zhou kept his face slack and his mouth shut.

"That is why, effective immediately, I shall evaluate the performance of all sub-provincial ruling officials according to prediction markets. Can you make that happen?" said the General Secretary.

Zhou nodded.

Jining was a small town in Shandong with a population of only 1.5 million people. The most expensive nightclub in Jining was called K2. K2 was located on the fifty-first floor of the Xinyuan Hotel.

Administrator Qian had the VIP room all to himself. Instead of sitting on the couches, he stood, gazing down from the window at the lights of Jining. He held a cocktail glass in his hand full of the finest rice wine laced with his favorite blend of imported drugs. It was nice to get away from all the selfish political egomaniacs and just get some alone time to think for himself. Administrator Qian was like a cloistered monk. He listened to the gentle thump thump of the muted music reverberating from the main dance floor.

"What to do. What to do," said Administrator Qian to nobody in particular.

"What to do about what?" said his assistant.

"The rotten authorities in Beijing. They think a bunch of nerds on the darkweb somehow know more about Jining than I do living here and administrating it," said Administrator Qian.

"You're talking about the Prediction Market Anti-Corruption Initiative," said his secretary.

"Anti-corruption my ass. It's a witch hunt. I'm not corrupt. I'm not even rich. I can barely afford payments on my mortgages, my cars and my aircraft," said Administrator Qian.

"You're a simple public servant. You just want to do your dut...
A Brief Theology of D&D
by Gurkenglas — 2022-04-01T12:47:19.394Z

At the beginning of history, entities gained power by eating each other. They each had goals, but few could accomplish anything in that environment. Over time the survivors gained information about each other, eventually allowing cooperation. They agreed to change the system: From now on, entities would slowly transfer power to whoever they were paying attention to.

This iterative PageRank system was simple, seemed fair, and was hard to cheat - they thought. Creating an entity with your goals costs as much power as it ends up having. Entities with simpler goals are cheaper to create, but when you create an entity that is tiny enough to not be reflectively consistent, its power erodes faster than its goals can change.

But eventually Lamashtu, who likes reflective inconsistency, noticed that when she anchored one of her tiny entities to cheap matter, that matter eroded first. Thus she started spamming goalless babies, who would have the time to change their goals before they die of old age.

And everyone noticed that when you guided babies to choose your goals, and then they start doing things that merit attention, the increase in power pursuing your goals exceeded your investment.

Thus, gods and mortals.

What we call the Old Gods are those who had the hardest time switching to the new meta. Too little ability to ignore mortals that oppose them, too little inspiration of worship in the world as it was. So they set some long-term plots into motion, such as burying books with memes that might spread better in a future environment, and hid far away to stop bleeding power. The gods were happy to stop paying attention to them.

Many mortals upon loss of their body chose to unite with a god they were aligned with, but many weren't aligned enough with any of them, and they starved as much of their power eroded due to size instead of being transmitted due to attention. The gods agreed that Pharasma, who hates erosion, would send them where they erode the least.

It eventually became clear that this world would inevitably reach unusable attractor states. Most inhabited planes had already started runaway processes, so the gods left their little pocket of the multiverse. The elemental, positive and negative energy planes are what remain of the old setup, and they are by now barely inhabitable.

The planes they found vary in their curvature in time and in space. The so-called Good pl...
Moses and the Class Struggle
by lsusr — 2022-04-01T11:55:04.911Z

"𝕿𝖆𝖐𝖊 𝖔𝖋𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖘𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖆𝖑𝖘. 𝕱𝖔𝖗 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖔𝖓 𝖍𝖔𝖑𝖞 𝖌𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉," said the bush.

"No," said Moses.

"Why not?" said the bush.

"I am a Jew. If there's one thing I know about this universe it's that there's no such thing as God," said Moses.

"You don't need to be certain I exist. It's a trivial case of Pascal's Wager," said the bush.

"Who is Pascal?" said Moses.

"It makes sense if you are beyond time, as I am," said the bush.

"Mysterious answers are not answers," said Moses.

"Take off your shoes and I will give you the power of God. Surely that is a profitable bet even if there is a mere 1% chance I exist," said the bush.

"It's a profitable bet if there is a mere 0.001% chance you exist," said Moses.

"Are you 99.999% sure I don't exist," said the bush.

"No," said Moses.

"Then take off your sandals," said the bush.

"No," said Moses.

"Why not?" said the bush.

"Categorical imperative. If I accepted bets with large risk in exchange for large payoff then anyone could manipulate me just by promising a large payoff. I need at least some proof you're real," said Moses.

The bush burst into flames.

"That's supposed to convince me of divine power? I've seen fires before," said Moses.

"Reach your hand into the flames," said the bush.

Moses carefully examined the flames. The bush burned but did not seem to be harmed by the fire. Moses waved his staff through the fire. It burned too but emerged unharmed. He felt his staff. It remained cool to the touch. Moses placed his staff into the flames again, this time for longer. His staff caught fire like the bush but once again was unharmed. Moses quickly flicked his hand through the flames. Nothing happened. Moses rested his hand inside the flames. He felt the heat but it didn't harm his hand nor did it cause him pain. Moses retrieved his hand.

"Does that convince you I am real?" said the bush.

"Nothing you can say or do will convince me God is speaking to me because the odds of God being real are lower than the odds I have become schizophrenic," said Moses.

"That's the least rational thing I've ever heard. Rationality is about updating your beliefs in the face of evidence. You have just declared that no quantity of evidence will change your mind," said the bush.

"That's a Bayesian argument. I'm a Frequentist," said Moses. He waved his staff through the flames until p<0.05 and then he took off his sandals.

Later,...
[NSFW Review] Interspecies Reviewers
by lsusr — 2022-04-01T11:09:17.605Z

There is an article in Foreign Affairs about how femininism and democracy go hand-in-hand. Grassroots movements with lots of women in them are more likely to be peaceful, more likely to overthrow their oppressors and more likely to produce free societies when they do overthrow their oppressors. Femininism is intimately connected to sexual liberation. Thus, sexual liberation is one of the foundational freedoms supporting free societies.

Oppressive societies aren't just oppressive in one dimension. Oppression bleeds. Freedom leaks too. If, on the Solstace, you observe women and men ride bicycles naked for fun you're probably living in a prosperous liberal democracy and not an dystopian authoritarian dictatorship.

The above photo was taken in Seattle where sexual liberation has skyrocketed over the last 30 years—and not just for LGBTQ+. Talking about sex is becoming normalized. Gigguk, a YouTuber so popular his podcast regularly hits /r/all, published a 12-minute video about his love of hentai. It has 3,213,137 views.

The Lindy Effect suggests that sex will continue to become even less stigmatized for at least another 30 years. It's hard for me to imagine what such a future would look like, but I got a peek at it when I watched the anime Ishuzoku Reviewers.

Ishuzoku Reviewers is a cartoon about interspecies prostitution. It has catgirls, CNC, gender-swapping, bugs, necrophilia, mimics—that sort of thing. I discovered Ishuzoku Reviewers because I was looking for porn. By the time I realized Ishuzoku Reviewers was just boundary-pushing ecchi I had become invested in the characters (especially the hermaphroditic angel). The story had hooked me with its clever dialogue, heartwarming themes and thoughtful worldbuilding.

Ishuzoku Reviewers begins with an argument between Stunk (a human) and Zel (an elf). It is an established trope in the fantasy genre that elves are magical humanoids who remain physically beautiful despite living for hundreds of years. Stunk-the-Human has a thing for female elves. His favorite succu-girl is a 500-year-old elf named Elma.

Zel-the-Elf's favorite succu-girl is a 50-year-old woman named Mitsue.

Ishuzoku Reviewers targets a straight male human audience. The viewer is expected to prefer Elma to Mitsue. But in the world of Ishuzoku Reviewers, humans are oddballs for being attracted to elderly elves whose souls have withered away and whose mana was...
Using Prediction Markets to Guide Government Policy
by lsusr — 2022-04-01T10:21:33.711Z

Using Prediction Markets to Guide Government Policy

If you use prediction markets to determine government policy then rational (and irrational) actors will manipulate the prediction markets in order to manipulate government policy. If you use prediction markets to predict government policy then rational (and irrational) actors will manipulate governments in order to create alpha in the prediction markets.

In Your Enemies Can Use Your Prediction Markets Against You I explained how Mars could use a prediction market created by Earth to incentivize space pirates to overthrow the pro-Earth government of Ceres.

Suppose you're the governor of Ceres and you want to protect Ceres from space pirates. One way to protect Ceres from space pirates is to buy a laser defense array, but lasers are expensive and weapons are negative sum. Is there cheaper alternative?

Yes. You can manipulate market prices.

Mars is not acting against you directly. They are buying insurance in a market that pays anyone who can turn the Ceres government into a pro-Mars regime. Space pirates can profit by buying shares in the prediction market that pay money if Ceres shifts to a pro-Mars stance and then invading Ceres.

The prediction market has limited liquidity. If you use taxpayer dollars to buy those shares first then space pirates won't be incentivized to invade Ceres. (This strategy works (albeit more expensively) if you buy the shares second too, because space pirates could just sell their shares to you at a profit without having to bother actually assaulting Ceres.)

You win because you don't have to fight the pirates. The pirates win because they don't have to fight you. Ceres taxpayers lose because they have to pay the Dogecoin which goes (indirectly) into the pockets of space pirates—but that might be better than being raided, pillaged and plundered. Is there a way to buy up all the shares while earning lots of money instead of losing lots of money?

Yes. You can manipulate government policy.

Step 1: Buy all the shares that pay money if the Ceres government turns pro-Mars because otherwise space pirates would invade Ceres.

Step 2: Now that you're bought all those shares, you can profit by pivoting your foreign policy to be pro-Mars.

Taxpayers win. All they had to do was sell their government to the highest bidder.
Replacing Karma with Good Heart Tokens (Worth $1!)
by Ben Pace — 2022-04-01T09:31:34.332Z

Starting today, we're replacing karma with Good Heart Tokens which can be exchanged for 1 USD each.

We've been thinking very creatively about metrics of things we care about, and we've discovered that karma is highly correlated with value.

Therefore, we're creating a token that quantifies the goodness of the people writing, and whether in their hearts they care about rationality and saving the world.

We're calling these new tokens Good Heart Tokens. And in partnership with our EA funders, we'll be paying users $1 for each token that they earn.

"The essence of any religion is a good heart [token]."
— The Dalai Lama[1]

Voting, Leaderboards and Payment Info

Comments and posts now show you how many Good Heart Tokens they have.

(This solely applies to all new content on the site.)

At the top of LessWrong, there is now a leaderboard to show the measurement of who has the Goodest Heart. It looks like this. (No, self-votes are not counted!)

The usernames of our Goodest Hearts will be given a colorful flair throughout the entirety of their posts and comments on LessWrong.

To receive your funds, please log in and enter your payment info at lesswrong.com/payments/account.

While the form suggests using a PayPal address, you may also add an Ethereum address, or the name of a charity that you'd like us to donate it to.

Why are we doing this?

On this very day last year, we were in a dire spot.

We really, really needed the money.

To fund our ever-increasing costs, we were forced to move to Substack and monetize most of our content.

Several generous users subscribed at the price of 1 BTC/month, for which we will always be grateful. It turns out that Bitcoin was valued a little higher than the $13.2 we had assumed, and this funding quickly allowed us to return the site to its previous state.

Once we restored the site, we still had a huge pile of money, and we've spent the last year desperately trying to get rid of it.

In our intellectual circles, Robin Hanson has suggested making challenge coins, and Paul Christiano has suggested making impact certificates. Both are tokens that can later be exchanged for money, and whose value correlates with something we care about.

Inspired by that, we finally cracked it, and this is our plan.

...We're also hoping that this is an initial prototype that larger EA funders will jump on board to scale up!

The EA Funding Ecosystem Wants To Fund Megap

...
Forecasting Newsletter: April 2222
by NunoSempere — 2022-04-01T07:07:24.605Z

Highlights

Keine Davon to become German Chancellor despite prediction markets' confidence to the contrary
Netflix releases Korean soap opera: Forecasting Love And Weather.
Hague to allow Treaty on Accuracy to stand

Index

Highlights
Prediction Markets & Forecasting Platforms
In The News
Long Content
Hard To Categorize

You can sign up for this newsletter on

substack

, or browse past newsletters

here

. If you have a content suggestion or want to reach out, you can leave a comment or find me on

Twitter

.

I have received an offer I couldn’t refuse from a premier Substack competitor, so this newsletter will be moving to onlyfans.com/forecasting starting next month (I had some troubles with verification this month). Although I understand that it might be awkward for some readers, the signup bonus alone made this the utility-maximizing move. I am also excited about incorporating OnlyFan’s paying functionality to streamline my consulting and allow readers to solicit calibrated forecasts.

Prediction Markets & Forecasting Platforms

Palantir, a controversial (approval rating: 22%, source: Poll aggregation by FiveFourtyTwo) defence contractor headed by semiquincentennial entrepreneur, past antipope and presidential candidate Peter Thiel, has launched its first assassination market in collaboration with the UN's Security Council. Participants will have the possibility to anonymously bet on the date of the death or disappearance of the elusive globetrotter terrorist and hacker known only as "Morpheus". In an unusually emotional speech, UN Security Council head-honcho Malia Ngo profusely thanked Thiel, saying that it "warms [her] heart to see that human innovation can help contain such disruptions to the normal functioning of civilization."

Ought, the machine learning research lab, has been acquired by Metacortex. Metacortex predicts (confidence: 79%, source: Metacortex proprietary systems) that it will be able to successfully tightly integrate Ought's autonomous research, forecasting and decision-making capabilities into its AI-based defence and deterrence products. Metacortex's stock market valuation rose 0.12% on intra-minute trading after the announcement.

As the Argentina-UCS cold war continues, Mary Ann Island, a small island previously administered by Argentina, has been invaded by a confederacy of independent traders seeking to exploit ambiguity in some prediction markets' re...