trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Practicing what you preach
by TwistingFingers — 2011-10-23T18:12:11.805Z

LessWrongers as a group are often accused of talking about rationality without putting it into practice (for an elaborated discussion of this see Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality). This behavior is particularly insidious because it is self-reinforcing: it will attract more armchair rationalists to LessWrong who will in turn reinforce the trend in an affective death spiral until LessWrong is a community of utilitarian apologists akin to the internet communities of anorexics who congratulate each other on their weight loss. It will be a community where instead of discussing practical ways to "overcome bias" (the original intent of the sequences) we discuss arcane decision theories, who gets to be in our CEV, and the most rational birthday presents (sound familiar?).

A recent attempt to counter this trend or at least make us feel better about it was a series of discussions on "leveling up": accomplishing a set of practical well-defined goals to increment your rationalist "level". It's hard to see how these goals fit into a long-term plan to achieve anything besides self-improvement for its own sake. Indeed, the article begins by priming us with a renaissance-man inspired quote and stands in stark contrast to articles emphasizing practical altruism such as "efficient charity"

So what's the solution? I don't know. However I can tell you a few things about the solution, whatever it may be:

It wont feel like the right thing to do; your moral intuitions (being designed to operate in a small community of hunter gatherers) are unlikely to suggest to you anything near the optimal task.

It will be something you can start working on right now, immediately.

It will disregard arbitrary self-limitations like abstaining from politics or keeping yourself aligned with a community of family and friends.

Speaking about it would undermine your reputation through signaling. A true rationalist has no need for humility, sentimental empathy, or the absurdity heuristic.

Whatever you may decide to do, be sure it follows these principles. If none of your plans align with these guidelines then construct a new one, on the spot, immediately. Just do something: every moment you sit hundreds of thousands are dying and billions are suffering. Under your judgement your plan can self-modify in the future to overcome its flaws. Become an opti...
Why is memory but not CPU following Moore's law?
by PhilGoetz — 2011-10-23T06:46:23.608Z

In Dec. 2005, I bought a new CPU for $389. It was an AMD Athlon 64 X2, with dual 2.0GHz processors. I also bought 1GB of RAM for $120.

In September 2008, I bought a new CPU. It was an AMD Phenom II X4, with quad 3.0 GHz processors, for $190. I also bought 8GB of RAM for $270.

Now I'm looking for a newer CPU and more RAM. I can buy an AMD Phenom II X6, with six 3.2 GHz processors, for $170. I can also buy 16GB of RAM for $100.

Dec. 2005 was 5 years and 10 months ago. So we should have had 3 to 4 Moore doublings. From .0333 GHz/$, that would take us to .266 to .533 GHz/$. From 8.3 MB/$, we should have gone to 66.4 or 132.8 MB/$.

Instead, I am at 6x3.2 GHz/$170 = .113 GHz/$ and 160 MB/$. CPU speed is lagging far behind Moore's Law, while RAM is outstripping it.

Both depend on transistor density. So why are they so different?
HPMoR: What do you think you know?
by malthrin — 2011-10-23T04:17:31.650Z

(And somewhere in the back of his mind was a small, small note of confusion, a sense of something wrong about that story; and it should have been a part of Harry's art to notice that tiny note, but he was distracted. For it is a sad rule that whenever you are most in need of your art as a rationalist, that is when you are most likely to forget it.)

Why does the wizarding world believe Voldemort used the Killing Curse on Harry? Whether or not the Love Shield exists in MoR, I doubt most wizards had an >epsilon prior for the Killing Curse resulting in a scarred but otherwise unharmed target, a dead and burned spellcaster, and a destroyed building. There were no surviving witnesses except Baby Harry. Where did that version of events come from?

If I was Joe Random Wizard and heard that evidence without names attached, I would naively hypothesize: Dark Wizard shows up at house, encounters mother + father + their allies. Battle ensues. Parents and Dark Wizard are slain. House is destroyed and baby is hit by debris. There is one obvious question - why the allies didn't take the baby with them - but any answer to that is more plausible than "There were no allies; the most reliable curse in the world backfired on its most experienced practitioner."

Not that the "reflected curse" story was hard to sell. People are great at not asking the next question when they want to believe.

We have some additional information about the events of that evening:

Harry's memory under Dementation (Ch43). This may or may not be a true memory.

Snape relayed the complete prophecy to Voldemort without understanding it (Ch77). McGonagall was the propechy's witness (Ch28), but Snape has also heard the original audio (Ch77).

McGonagall knows that Voldemort is still around (Ch6).

Quirrellmort does not want to kill Harry. If he ever did, he changed his mind while offscreen.

What really happened at Godric's Hollow?

PS. If the Love Shield does exist in MoR, do you suppose Bellatrix could cast it?
Best Nonfiction Writing on Less Wrong
by lukeprog — 2011-10-23T04:02:23.072Z

However useful the content, what are some examples of the best nonfiction writing on Less Wrong? Are there pieces you think are as good as recent classics of essay form like I Think You're Fat or Lies We Tell Kids? For example, I like Yvain's The Apologist and the Revolutionary.

Which pieces would you nominate as some of the best nonfiction writing on Less Wrong?
The Protagonist Problem
by atucker — 2011-10-23T03:06:46.507Z

Followup to: Neural Correlates of Conscious Access; Related to: How an Algorithm Feels From the Inside, Dissolving the Question
Global Workspace Theory and its associated Theater Metaphor are empirically plausible, but why should it result in consciousness? Why should globally available information being processed by separate cognitive modules make us talk about being conscious?
Sure, that's how brains see stuff, but why would that make us think that it's happening to anyone? What in the world corresponds to a self?
So far, I've only encountered two threads of thought that try to approach this problem: the Social Cognitive Interface of Kurzban, and the Self-Model theories like those of Metzinger and Damasio.
I’ll be talking about the latter, starting off with what self-models are, and a bit about how they’re constructed. Then I’ll say what a self-model theory is.
Humans as Informational Processing Systems
Questions: What exactly is there for things to happen to? What can perceive things?
Well, bodies exist, and stuff can to happen to them. So let's start there.
Humans have bodies which include informational processing systems called brains. Our brains are causally entangled with the outside world, and are capable of mapping it. Sensory inputs are transformed into neural representations which can then be used in performing adaptive responses to the environment.
In addition to receiving sensory input from our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, etc, we get sensory input about the pH level of our blood, various hormone concentrations, etc. We map not only things about the outside world, but things about our own bodies. Our brain's models of our bodies also include things like limb position.
From the third person, brains are capable of representing the bodies that they're attached to. Humans are information processing systems which, in the process of interacting with the environment, maintain a representation of themselves used by the system for the purposes of the system.
Answers: We exist. We can perceive things. What we see as being our "self" is our brain's representation of ourselves. Generalizably, a "self" is a product of a system representing itself.
Note: I don't mean to assert that human self-modeling accomplished by a single neurological system or module, but I do mean to say that there are a nonzero set of systems which, when taken together, can

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[SEQ RERUN] Adaptation-Executors, not Fitness Maximizers
by MinibearRex — 2011-10-23T02:55:05.042Z

Today's post, Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers was originally published on 11 November 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

A central principle of evolutionary biology in general, and evolutionary psychology in particular. If we regarded human taste buds as trying to maximize fitness, we might expect that, say, humans fed a diet too high in calories and too low in micronutrients, would begin to find lettuce delicious, and cheeseburgers distasteful. But it is better to regard taste buds as an executing adaptation - they are adapted to an ancestral environment in which calories, not micronutrients, were the limiting factor.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Fake Optimization Criteria, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
11 Less Wrong Articles I Probably Will Never Have Time to Write
by lukeprog — 2011-10-23T02:44:02.398Z

There are many Less Wrong posts I'd like to write, but I'm starting to admit there are some of them I'll probably never get around to. I need to be doing other things. If anybody wants to write up the post ideas below, go for it! You may also want to announce you're working on one or more of them in the comments, to avoid duplicate work.

In no particular order...

The Value of Information. Less Wrong still doesn't have a tutorial on how to do value of information calculations. If 5+ examples from common circumstances are included, I think this could be useful to many people. One classic example is that most people don't spend even 10 hours figuring out how they should spend several years of their life while getting a degree. [Update: Vaniver wrote this one.]

Gamify Boring Tasks. The potato chip lady is a classic example of how to do this. I've got several of my own examples from my own life, and perhaps another author has their own. "Make it a game" is something my mother might advise for getting through boring tasks, and I didn't take this advice seriously until lots of scientific literature gave me the same advice. ('Flow' literature.) This is one tiny piece of How to Beat Procrastination that could be zoomed in on with its own post.

Biases in Charity. We've all heard about scope insensitivity, but several other biases effect our charitable giving. This post could basically be a summary of this article, plus a few others from that same book. [Update: done by Kaj.]

Motivational Externalism. One of the classic debates in metaethics/moral psychology is between motivation externalism and motivational internalism. This debate seems to be in the process of being resolved by neuroscience, in favor of motivational externalism. I have spoken with LWers who do not know this. Much of the case is laid out here, though there are more details to be gleaned from neuroeconomics.

The Dr. Evil Problem. Less Wrong has spent much discussion on the sleeping beauty problem (due largely to Adam Elga). A similar problem in decision theory / probability theory that may be worth discussing is Elga's "Dr. Evil Problem," discussed here and here.

Hedonomics. Hedonomics is a particular way of combining decision research and happiness research, and has implications for scientific self-help. A beginning review is here. The field could be summarized for Less Wrong.

Thinking Too Little or T

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Meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup
by EvelynM — 2011-10-22T23:22:25.434Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup

WHEN:
26 October 2011 07:00:00PM (-0600)

WHERE:
Bean Cycle, 144 North College Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80524

Meet smart people, talk about excellence and math. Maybe play games.

Discussion article for the meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup
[LINK] Loss of local knowledge affecting intellectual trends
by GLaDOS — 2011-10-22T15:54:18.090Z

A recent entry from the West Hunters blog (written by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending with whom most LWers are probably already familiar with) caught my eye:

People who grow up in a small town, or an old and stable neighborhood, often know their neighbors. More than than that, they know pretty much everything that’s happened for the past couple of generations, whether they want to or not. For many Americans, probably most, this isn’t the case. Mobility breeds anonymity. Suburban kids haven’t necessarily been hanging out with the same peers since kindergarten, and even if they have, they probably don’t much about their friends’ sibs and parents.

If you do have that thick local knowledge, significant trait heritability is fairly obvious. You notice that the valedictorians cluster in a few families, and you also know that those families don’t need to put their kids under high pressure to get those results. They’re just smart. Some are smart but too rebellious to play the game – and that runs in families too. For that matter, you know that those family similarities, although real and noticeable, are far from absolute. You see a lot of variation within a family.

If you don’t have it, it’s easier to believe that cognitive or personality traits are generated by environmental influences – how your family toilet trained you, whether they sent you to a prep school, etc. Easier to believe, but false.

So it isn’t all that difficult to teach quantitative genetics to someone with that background. They already know it, more or less. Possession of this kind of knowledge must have been the norm in the human past. I’m sure that Bushmen have it.

The loss of this knowledge must have significant consequences, not just susceptibility to nurturist dogma. In the typical ancestral situation, you knew a lot about the relatives of all potential mates. Today, you might meet someone in college and know nothing about her family history. In particular, you might not be aware that schizophrenia runs in her family. You can’t weigh what you don’t know. In modern circumstances, I suspect that the reproductive success of people with a fair-sized dose of alleles that predispose to schiz has gone up – with the net co

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Truth & social graces
by irrational — 2011-10-22T04:28:57.977Z

I've seen an article on LW about Santa Claus and most people were very keen on not lying to their kids (and I agree). I have a little kid who is generally quite truthful, innocent enough not to lie in most cases. I noticed recently that when someone asks him, "How are you", he usually answers in detail because, well, you asked, didn't you? When I was a teenager I hated people who lied and I tended to ignore these unwritten social rules to the extent I could. I.e. I didn't ask if I didn't want to know and people thought I was rude. So, my question is, should I teach him to lie upon these occasions?

More broadly, I was thinking, why am I committed to being truthful, in general? I guess because I would hate to be lied to myself. This is a kind of magical thinking maybe, or maybe it's a part of the social contract. This sort of lying in fact promotes the social well-being because to answer truthfully creates an unwelcome burden on my interlocutor who asked out of politeness and is not in truth interested. But it still feels wrong to lie. Even more wrong to teach your kid to do so.
[SEQ RERUN] Fake Optimization Criteria
by MinibearRex — 2011-10-22T03:21:55.298Z

Today's post, Fake Optimization Criteria was originally published on 10 November 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Why study evolution? For one thing - it lets us see an alien optimization process up close - lets us see the real consequence of optimizing strictly for an alien optimization criterion like inclusive genetic fitness. Humans, who try to persuade other humans to do things their way, think that this policy criterion ought to require predators to restrain their breeding to live in harmony with prey; the true result is something that humans find less aesthetic.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Fake Morality, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Things you are supposed to like
by PhilGoetz — 2011-10-22T02:04:34.066Z

I'm trying to like Beethoven's Great Fugue.

"This piece alone completely changed my life and how I perceive and appreciate﻿ music."

"Those that claim to love Beethoven but not this are fakers, frauds, wannabees, but most of all are people who are incapable of stopping everything for 10 minutes and reveling in absolute beauty, absolute perfection. Beethoven at﻿ his finest."

"This is the absolute peak of Beethoven."

"It's now my﻿ favorite piece by Beethoven."

These are some of the comments on the page. Articulate music lovers with excellent taste praise this piece to heaven. Plus, it was written by Beethoven.

It bores me.

The first two times I listened to it, it stirred no feelings in me except irritation and impatience for its end. I found it devoid of small-scale or large-scale structure or transitions, aimless, unharmonious, and deficient in melody, rhythm, and melodic or rhythmic coordination between the four parts, none of which I would care to hear by themselves (which is a key measure of the quality of a fugue).

Yet I feel strong pressure to like it. Liking Beethoven's Great Fugue marks you out as a music connoisseur.

I feel pressure to like other things as well. Bitter cabernets, Jackson Pollack paintings, James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the music of Arnold Schoenberg, and Burning Man. This is a pattern common to all arts. You recognize this pattern in a work when:

The work in question was created by deliberately taking away the things most people like best. In the case of wine, sweetness and fruitiness. In the case of Jackson Pollack, form, variety, relevance, and colors not found in vomit. In the music of Alban Berg, basic music theory. In every poem in any volume of "Greatest American Poetry" since 2000, rhyme, rhythm, insight, and/or importance of subject matter. In the case of Burning Man, every possible physical comfort. The work cannot be composed of things that most people appreciate plus things connoisseurs appreciate. It must be difficult to like.

The level of praise is absurd. The Great Fugue, Beethoven's finest? I'm sorry; my imagination does not stretch that far. "Burning Man changed my life completely" - I liked Burning Man; but if it changed your life completely, you probably had a vapid life.

People say the

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Weekly LW Meetups: Dublin, Madison WI, Pittsburgh, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Penn State, Austin, and London
by FrankAdamek — 2011-10-21T21:38:18.796Z

There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:

Dublin, IE, Meetup: 15 October 2011 02:00PM
Monday Madison Meetup: 17 October 2011 06:00PM
Pittsburgh Meetup: Expert Presentation on Motivation: 18 October 2011 05:45PM
Edinburgh LW Meetup: 20 October 2011 02:00PM
Melbourne social meetup: 21 October 2011 06:00PM
Penn State University: NEW Meetup starting!: 22 October 2011 02:00PM

The following meetups take place in cities with regularly scheduled meetups, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

Austin, TX: 15 October 2011 01:30PM
London This Sunday: 16 October 2011 02:00PM

Cities with regularly scheduled meetups: New York, Berkeley, Mountain View, Cambridge, MA, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, Irvine, Austin, Washington, DC, London, Oxford, Ottawa, Marin, CA (uses the Bay Area List), and West Los Angeles.

If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, and have fun!

Despite the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, we've decided to continue posting an overview of upcoming meetups on the front page every Friday. These will be an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in the next weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll now also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts will be moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up.

Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!

If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: London, Chicago, Southern California (Los Angeles/Orange County area), St. Louis, Helsinki, Melbourne, Vancouver, Madison, WI.