trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Terminal and Instrumental Beliefs
by Scott Garrabrant — 2014-02-12T22:45:04.853Z

Cross-Posted on By Way of Contradiction

As you may know from my past posts, I believe that probabilities should not be viewed as uncertainty, but instead as weights on how much you care about different possible universes. This is a very subjective view of reality. In particular, it seems to imply that when other people have different beliefs than me, there is no sense in which they can be wrong. They just care about the possible futures with different weights than I do. I will now try to argue that this is not a necessary conclusion.

First, let's be clear what we mean by saying that probabilities are weights on values. Imagine I have an unfair coin which give heads with probability 90%. I care 9 times as much about the possible futures in which the coin comes up heads as I do about the possible futures in which the coins comes up tails. Notice that this does not mean I want to coin to come up heads. What it means is that I would prefer getting a dollar if the coin comes up heads to getting a dollar if the coin comes up tails.

Now, imagine that you are unaware of the fact that it is an unfair coin. By default, you believe that the coin comes up heads with probability 50%. How can we express the fact that I have a correct belief, and you have an incorrect belief in the language of values?

We will take advantage of the language of terminal and instrumental values. A terminal value is something that you try to get because you want it. An instrumental value is something that you try to get because you believe it will help you get something else that you want.

If you believe a statement S, that means that you care more about the worlds in which S is true. If you terminally assign a higher value to worlds in which S is true, we will call this belief a terminal belief. On the other hand, if you believe S because you think that S is logically implied by some other terminal belief, T, we will call your belief in S an instrumental belief.

Instrumental values can be wrong, if you are factually wrong about the fact that the instrumental value will help achieve your terminal values. Similarly, an Instrumental belief can be wrong if you are factually wrong about the fact that it is implied by your terminal belief.

Your belief that the coin will come up heads with probability 50% is an instrumental belief. You have a terminal belief in some form of Occam's razor. This causes you t...
[Meta] Open thread even more often?
by solipsist — 2014-02-12T21:28:23.458Z

This week's open thread is less than a day old, and has already accumulated more comments than the 15 latest non-open-thread posts combined. I fear the thread will wither and die before Friday.

Going from monthly to weekly open threads was a big hit. Should we ratchet up open thread frequency even more? Should we add more outlets for comments, or will comments inevitably expand to fill the available room?

Proposal for discussion: We follow a regimen of weekly blather threads for the next two weeks, then reassess.

Stupid questions (Monday) - Admit your ignorance

Advice (Tuesday) - Seek the wisdom of the crowd

Open Thread (Wednesday) - Catch-all prattle

Links (Friday) - Quality readings. Meme postings punishable by death

Addendum

I posted a Links on Friday and a Stupid Questions on Monday. In the 5 post-days that they've been up, they've accumulated 32 comments. Based on these numbers, it seems unlikely that these topical open threads will relieve pressure on the main Open Thread and so I've stopped the experiment.
Meetup : Berkeley: The Twelve Virtues
by Nisan — 2014-02-12T19:56:53.045Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Berkeley: The Twelve Virtues

WHEN:
12 February 2014 07:00:00PM (-0800)

WHERE:
2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, CA 94703

Tonight's meetup will feature a critical discussion of the Twelve Virtues of Rationality, an essay that is cited in the Less Wrong Sequences:

http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues/

In particular, I'd like to see discussion of:

What exactly are these virtues, and what are good examples of them?

Which virtues are overemphasized?

What virtues are underemphasized or absent?

Comparison with other lists of virtues (Catholicism, Benjamin Franklin, etc.)

Whether the idea of "virtue" is useful at all.

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm tonight. At 7:30pm we'll review our weekly goals and record goals for the coming week. Then we'll discuss the twelve virtues as long as people are interested.

The CFAR office is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Even though this takes place at CFAR, it's not a CFAR-sponsored event.

Discussion article for the meetup : Berkeley: The Twelve Virtues
Meetup : CANCELLED - Montreal Less Wrong - Easy Lifehacks
by bartimaeus — 2014-02-12T19:16:04.347Z

Discussion article for the meetup : CANCELLED - Montreal Less Wrong - Easy Lifehacks

WHEN:
24 February 2014 07:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
3459 McTavish, Montréal, qc, ca

Unfortunately, the meetup has to be cancelled; hopefully it can be done soon. Apologies for the last-second cancellation.

Discussion article for the meetup : CANCELLED - Montreal Less Wrong - Easy Lifehacks
Calorie Restriction: My Theory and Practice
by brazil84 — 2014-02-12T01:16:44.750Z

Like most futurist-oriented people, I am fascinated by the idea of long-term life extension -- the notion that eventually people will have life expectancies of hundreds of years; thousands of years; or even more. Although medicine has a ways to go in this area, one obvious approach is to take low tech steps to increase one's lifespan in hopes of living long enough to take advantage of possible future advances. i.e., to roll with +1 dice. Besides the obvious steps like wearing seat belts; getting regular exercise; eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, calorie restriction presents itself as an intriguing possible method of life extension.

In this essay, I will attempt to briefly define calorie restriction; assess how useful it might be; speculate about how it might be useful; and use the foregoing to justify my own personal approach to calorie restriction, which I will describe presently. Of course I welcome comments and criticisms, especially since I am messing around with my own health.

I should note at the outset that I have no formal training or credentials in medicine nutrition or anything like that. I'm just an attorney.

I should also add that my approach to calorie restriction is not a diet in the sense of being a weight loss strategy for people who cannot control their eating. This is not a weight loss post! I do not describe in this essay how I control my eating; control is assumed.

Last, my general approach is one of no regret. i.e. My main priority in calorie-restricting myself is to avoid doing anything too radical in terms of loss of quality of life or risk to my health.

I. What is Calorie Restriction?

Wikipedia defines "calorie restriction" as follows:

Caloric restriction (CR), or calorie restriction, is a dietary regiment that is based on low calorie intake. "Low" can be defined relative to the subject's previous intake before intentionally restricting calories, or relative to an average person of similar body type.

So immediately we see a problem -- the concept of calorie restriction is ambiguous. How am I supposed to evaluate and possibly implement calorie restriction in my life if I am not even clear on what it means? This is not just a problem for laymen like me. Imagine you are a researcher who is studying the effects of calorie restrictions in lab chimps. How do you feed ...
Meetup : Bratislava Meetup X.
by Viliam_Bur — 2014-02-11T19:55:01.061Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Bratislava Meetup X.

WHEN:
24 February 2014 06:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Bistro The Peach, Heydukova 21, Bratislava

The same place; discussion about HP:MoR, and possibly other topics.

Na rovnakom mieste a v rovnakom čase ako zvyčajne, okrúhle desiate bratislavské stretnutie. Téma: Harry Potter a metódy racionality. Možné sú aj ďalšie témy, podľa záujmu.

Discussion article for the meetup : Bratislava Meetup X.
Weighting the probability of being a mind by the quantity of the matter composing the computer that calculates that mind
by yttrium — 2014-02-11T15:34:52.374Z

TL;DR by lavalamp: Treating "computers running minds" as discrete objects might cause a paradox in probability calculations that involve self-location. "The probability of being a certain mind" is probably an extensive physical quantity, i.e. rises proportionally to the size of the physical system doing the associated computations.

There are two computers simulating two minds. At some time, one of the minds is being shown a red light, and the other one is shown a green one (call this "Situation 1"). Conditioned on you being one of the minds, what is the probability you should assign to seeing red?

Naively, the answer seems to be 1/2, which comes from assigning being each of the minds an equal probability. If one had three computers and showed two of them a red light and the third one a green one, the probability would be calculated as 2/3, even if the red-seeing computers will be in exactly the same computational state at all times (call this "Situation 2").

However, I think that taking this point of view leads to paradoxes.

An example: Consider an electrical circuit made of (ideal) wires, resistors, capacitors and transistors (sufficient in principle to build a computer); the supply voltage comes from outside of the circuit considered. Under assumptions regarding the physical implementation of this circuit that do not restrict the possible circuit diagrams, it is possible to split the matter composing it into two part that both comprise working circuits reproducing the original circuit's behavior independently of the other part, in an analogous fashion to how the Ebborian's brains are split.* To clarify, what I have in mind is cutting up the wires and resistors orthogonally to their cross-sections - after the splitting, equivalent wires should be on equivalent potentials at the same time, but the currents flowing will be reduced by some factor.

Now imagine the circuit is a computer, simulating the mind that is going to see red in Situation 1 (the mind that will see green still exists). If one splits the circuit as described, one suddenly ends up with two circuits simulating the same mind, i.e. Situation 2 (let's imagine that the computers are split before they are turned on for the first time, so that stream-of-consciousness-considerations will not influence the calculated probability, like e.g. Deda answering 1/2 to Yu'el's question in the linked article). Howe...
Brainstorming: children's stories
by Emile — 2014-02-11T13:23:17.029Z

So I have a three-year old kid, and will usually read or tell him a bedtime story.

That is a nice opportunity to introduce new concepts, but my capacity for improvisation is limited, especially towards the end of the day. So I'm asking the good people on LessWrong for ideas. How would you wrap various lesswrongish ideas in a short story a little kid would pay attention to?

I'm mostly interested in the aspects of "practical rationality" that aren't going to be taught at school or in children's books or children's TV shows - so things like Sunk Costs, taking the outside view, wondering which side is true instead of arguing for a side, etc.

Pointers to outside sources of such stories are welcome too!

Edit: actually, if you want to share ideas of games or activities of the same kind, go ahead! :)
Useful Personality Tests
by seez — 2014-02-11T11:18:39.009Z

Have you ever taken a personality quiz/test that helped you have valuable insights? If so, what were the tests and how were they useful?

The only useful ones I've found all yielded the same type of insight. They showed me where I stand relative to others, which is can be genuinely useful since representative samples of large populations can be hard to come by. This includes IQ tests and tests for mental disorders (in my experience, people are usually aware that they are, for example, smarter than the average (although the Dunning-Kruger effect might complicate this) or have some intrusive thoughts and compulsive rituals, but might be surprised to find that they are three standard deviations above the norm or that their symptoms are sufficiently severe to be considered OCD).

No remotely reliable (as in, not astrology) test I have ever seen has revealed genuinely surprising information for a moderately self-aware person, outside of ranking. Furthermore, they rarely gather personality data in a remotely subtle or non-transparent way ("do you like spending lots of time with large groups of people?" "yes..." "surprise, you're an extrovert!"), and thus seem super susceptible to test-takers' attempts to confirm a desired identity.

An example of a more interesting/subtle way to potentially conduct a personality test would be to use question like OKTrends' "do you like beer?" which clusters strongly with "do you have sex on the first date," and, potentially, sexual openness. Such results might be harder for manipulate (consciously or unconsciously) and could assist with deeper self-awareness.

Edited because the first link was broken.
Meetup : LessWrong Hamburg - about Procrastination
by Gunnar_Zarncke — 2014-02-10T21:27:19.545Z

Discussion article for the meetup : LessWrong Hamburg - about Procrastination

WHEN: 21 February 2014 07:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Gaußstrasse 190B, 22765 Hamburg

As our first Meetup in Hamburg went well we planned a next one. Here it is.

We will be at a new location this time. Thanks to F.R. We are in some company offices in Gaußstrasse 190B, 22765 Hamburg. Look for doorbell Altocon, sign go7seas TransGlobalTours on the 2nd floor.

The main topic is procrastination.

There will be a short presentation about procrastination and dealing with it.

There will be a report about using beeminder.

We will probably play Liars Dice aka Bluff, Set (the game) or Pandemic

If you want to eat or drink something you have to bring it yourself.

The Meetup is open-ended (again) which judging from last time means significantly past midnight.

The mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lesswrong-hamburg

Discussion article for the meetup : LessWrong Hamburg - about Procrastination
Meetup : Saint Petersburg sunday meetup
by efim — 2014-02-10T17:38:21.961Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Saint Petersburg sunday meetup

WHEN:
16 February 2014 04:00:00PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Санкт-Петербург, м. Технологический Институт, ул.1-я Красноармейская, дом 15

We most likely will be trying out Pandemia and biased board gaming.

Also I expect some discussions to arrise around topics of congitive biases, utility, or other zeitgeist stuff.

If you are russian lesswronger who sees one of my ads for the first time, please check out our newsletter or vk group: newsletter or http://vk.com/lw_spb for more detailed descriptions.

If you are a foreign guest in Saint Petersburg - we also would all be glad to see you and to meet you - at lest some of our attendees speak english.

Discussion article for the meetup : Saint Petersburg sunday meetup
Baldness
by TraderJoe — 2014-02-10T10:13:04.023Z

I have been reviewing FUE hair transplants, and I would like LWers' opinion. I'm actually surprised this isn't covered, as it seems relevant to many users.

As far as I can tell, the downsides are:
- Mild scarring on the back of the head
- Doesn’t prevent continued hair loss, so if you get e.g. a bald spot filled in, then you will in a few years have a spot of hair in an oasis
- Cost
- Mild pain/hassle in the initial weeks.
- Possibility of finding a dodgy surgeon

The scarring is basically covered if you have a few two days’ hair growth there and I am fine with that as a long-term solution. he continued hair loss is potentially dealt with by a repeated transplant and more certainly dealt with by getting the initial transplant “all over”, i.e. thickening hair, rather than just moving the hairline forward. But it is the area I am most uncertain about. I should add that I am 29 with male pattern baldness on both sides of my family, Norwood level 4, and have seen hair loss stabilised (I have been taking propecia for the last year).

Ignoring the cost, my questions are:
- Is anyone aware of any other problems besides these?
- Do you think this solution works?
- Any ideas on how to pick the right surgeon (using someone in Singapore most probably)?
Meetup : Yale: Initial Meetup
by Lambda — 2014-02-10T06:11:27.667Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Yale: Initial Meetup

WHEN:
16 February 2014 02:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Bass Library Cafe, 110 Wall St, New Haven, CT 06511

Hi. If anyone who goes to Yale is interested in meeting up, I'll be in Bass Cafe on Sunday, February 16, from 2 to 4 pm. I'll bring my copy of Good and Real for identification purposes.

Discussion article for the meetup : Yale: Initial Meetup
The rationality of splitting donations
by JonahS — 2014-02-10T03:13:22.828Z

Here are some tentative thoughts that I haven't run by anyone to check for soundness. They're not genuinely original to me – they've been floating around the effective altruism community in some form or other for a while – I just hadn't thought them through in sufficient detail to take them to their logical conclusion. I'd appreciate any feedback.

Suppose that the expected number of lives saved per additional dollar donated to charity A is x and the expected value of lives saved per additional dollar donated to charity B is y, where x and y are constants, and x > y. Then if you're trying to maximize the expected number of lives saved (c.f. The "Intuitions" Behind "Utilitarianism"), you should make all of your charitable contributions to charity A.

In practice, x and y will not be constant, because of room for more funding issues. So splitting one's donations can maximize number of lives saved, if x is sometimes smaller than y.

But suppose that you're donating $d, where increasing the charities' budgets by $d would leave the condition x > y unaltered. A common view is that one should then donate all $d to charity A.

However, this doesn't take into account timeless decision theory. If all donors to charities A and B were identical to you, then your decision to donate $d to charity A would be equivalent to a decision for all donors' funds to go to charity A rather than charity B, effectively constituting a decision for charity A to get a little bit more money in exchange for charity B existing altogether. If x > y doesn't always hold, this is not expected value maximizing. The other donors aren't identical to you, but their decisions are still correlated with yours on account of the psychological unity of humankind, and shared cultural backgrounds.

Suppose that x > y is not always true. For simplicity, suppose that the total amount that donors will donate to charities A and B is fixed and known to you. If there were no correlation between your decision making and that of other donors, then it would be that you should give all of your money to charity A. If the correlation between your decision making and that of the other donors was perfect, then your ratio of donations to charity A to charity B should be the same as the ratio of the total amount of funding that you think charity A should get to the total amount of funding that you...
Finance as a career option
by JonahS — 2014-02-09T20:47:30.847Z

As a part of our research for Cognito Mentoring, Vipul Naik and I compiled a draft of a page on finance as a career option. Because some Less Wrongers are planning on earning to give and finance is a commonly considered career option for those who are earning to give, I thought that it might be of interest to the Less Wrong community. See also 80,000 Hours' blog posts on finance as a career.

Finance is a popular career option amongst graduates from elite universities: with about 20% of Harvard, Princeton and Yale graduates getting jobs in the field. Economist and New York Times columnist Tyler Cowen has suggested that people with high intelligence have a significant edge in the field.

Finance has a number of sectors. Careers in Finance breaks finance down into Commercial Banking, Corporate Finance, Financial Planning, Hedge Funds, Insurance, Investment Banking, Money Management, Private Equity and Real Estate. The nature of jobs in finance varies considerably from sector to sector.

Our remarks below concern jobs in higher paying jobs in finance, such as jobs in investment banking, private equity and at hedge funds.

Compensation

Salaries in investment banking, private equity and hedge funds can be very high:

Careers in Finance reports that somebody with ~5 years of experience at an investment bank typically makes ~$450K/year.

In 2006, Richard Rusczyk (formerly an employee at hedge fund DE Shaw) wrote "While it's not expected that you'll make a million dollars in year 5, neither is it impossible. If you're not making at least middle six-digits by year 6-8 as a quant in a hedge fund, then something has gone very wrong for you."

Stock market trader Joe Mela wrote that "If you’re good at [being a trader], you can make millions 5 years down the line."

Some of the most wealthy people in the world, such as George Soros (net worth $23 billion) and James Simons (net worth 11.7 billion) made their money in these fields.

James Miller points out that the high income is moderated by high marginal taxes as well as the high cost of living in New York city (where most finance firms are).

Work-life balance

The high pay in investment banking should be viewed in the context of the grueling hours on the job. According to IBankingFAQ,

Analysts can routinely expect to work 90-100 hours per week or even more. A typical

...