trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Learning To Love Scientific Consensus
by Scott Alexander — 2017-09-02T08:44:12.184Z

[Related to: Contrarians, Crackpots, and Consensus, How Common Are Science Failures?. Epistemic status is “subtle and likely to be misinterpreted”.]

I.

There’s a list of scientific mavericks who were ridiculed by hidebound reactionaries but later vindicated that’s been going viral. I examined the first ten mavericks on the list to see if its claims held up. Overall I wasn’t too impressed. Let me go over them in more detail.

SVANTE ARRHENIUS:

His idea that electrolytes are full of charged atoms was considered crazy. The atomic theory was new at the time, and everyone “knew” that atoms were indivisible (and hence they could not lose or gain any electric charge.) Because of his heretical idea, he only received his university degree by a very narrow margin.

Sure, the professors who were judging his PhD thesis weren’t too convinced. So Arrhenius sent his proposal to the world’s top chemists at the time, and they were super-interested and started fighting among themselves to work with Arrhenius on it. Top chemist Wilhelm Ostwald received the paper the same day his daughter was born, and suggested that the paper was the more exciting of the two events. He journeyed to Arrhenius’ hometown of Uppsala, Sweden to try to convince Arrhenius to work with him; Arrhenius refused for personal reasons but later got a scholarship and worked with the top physicists in Europe. Arrhenius became a professor in a prestigious university about ten years after presenting his “ridiculed” paper, and won the Nobel Prize ten years after that.

HANS ALFVEN:

Astronomers thought that gravity alone is important in solar systems, in galaxies, etc. Alfven’s idea that plasma physics is of equal or greater importance to gravity was derided for decades.

This isn’t a great description of Alfven’s conflict with the establishment, but the list seems basically right insofar as Alfven’s ideas were ignored for thirty years before being proven mostly correct. I will give them this one.

JOHN BAIRD:

When the first television system was demonstrated to the Royal Society (British scientists,) they scoffed and ridiculed, calling Baird a swindler.

I can’t find any reference to this in various Baird articles and biographies. The closest I can come is this article by someone who was there at the demonstration, who sai...
I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup
by Scott Alexander — 2017-09-02T08:22:19.612Z

[Content warning: Politics, religion, social justice, spoilers for “The Secret of Father Brown”. This isn’t especially original to me and I don’t claim anything more than to be explaining and rewording things I have heard from a bunch of other people. Unapologetically America-centric because I’m not informed enough to make it otherwise. Try to keep this off Reddit and other similar sorts of things.]

I.

In Chesterton’s The Secret of Father Brown

, a beloved nobleman who murdered his good-for-nothing brother in a duel thirty years ago returns to his hometown wracked by guilt. All the townspeople want to forgive him immediately, and they mock the titular priest for only being willing to give a measured forgiveness conditional on penance and self-reflection. They lecture the priest on the virtues of charity and compassion.

Later, it comes out that the beloved nobleman did not in fact kill his good-for-nothing brother. The good-for-nothing brother killed the beloved nobleman (and stole his identity). Now the townspeople want to see him lynched or burned alive, and it is only the priest who – consistently – offers a measured forgiveness conditional on penance and self-reflection.

The priest tells them:

It seems to me that you only pardon the sins that you don’t really think sinful. You only forgive criminals when they commit what you don’t regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. You forgive a conventional duel just as you forgive a conventional divorce. You forgive because there isn’t anything to be forgiven.

He further notes that this is why the townspeople can self-righteously consider themselves more compassionate and forgiving than he is. Actual forgiveness, the kind the priest needs to cultivate to forgive evildoers, is really really hard. The fake forgiveness the townspeople use to forgive the people they like is really easy, so they get to boast not only of their forgiving nature, but of how much nicer they are than those mean old priests who find forgiveness difficult and want penance along with it.

After some thought I agree with Chesterton’s point. There are a lot of people who say “I forgive you” when they mean “No harm done”, and a lot of people who say “That was unforgiveable” when they mean “That was genuinely really bad”. Whether or not forgiveness is right is a complicated topic I do not want to get in here. But since forgiveness is generally consider...
The Doomsday argument in anthropic decision theory
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2017-08-31T13:44:15.030Z

EDIT: added a simplified version here.

Crossposted at the intelligent agents forum.

In Anthropic Decision Theory (ADT), behaviours that resemble the Self Sampling Assumption (SSA) derive from average utilitarian preferences (and from certain specific selfish preferences).

However, SSA implies the doomsday argument, and, to date, I hadn't found a good way to express the doomsday argument within ADT.

This post will remedy that hole, by showing how there is a natural doomsday-like behaviour for average utilitarian agents within ADT.

Anthropic behaviour

The comparable phrasings of the two doomsday arguments (probability and decision-based) are:

In the standard doomsday argument, the probability of extinction is increased for an agent that uses SSA probability versus one that doesn't.

In the ADT doomsday argument, an average utilitarian behaves as if it were a total utilitarian with a higher revealed probability of doom.

Thus in both cases, doomsday agent believes/behaves as if it were a non-doomsday agent with a higher probability of doom.

Revealed probability of events

What are these revealed probabilities?

Well, suppose that X and X' are two events that may happen. The agent has a choice between betting on one or the other; if they bet on the first, they get a reward of r if X happens, if they bet on the second, they get a reward of r' if X' happens.

If an agent is an expected utility maximiser and chooses X over X', this implies that rP(X) ≥ r'P(X'), where P(X) and P(X') are the probabilities the agent assigns to X and X'.

Thus, observing the behaviour of the agent allows one to deduce their probability estimation for X and X'.

Revealed anthropic and non-anthropic probabilities

To simplify comparisons, assume that Y is an event that will happen with probability 1; if the agent bets on Y, it will get a reward of 1. The Y's only purpose is to compare with other events.

Then X is an event that will happen with an unknown probability, if bet on, the agent will get a reward of r. In comparison, Xs is an event that will happen with certainty if and only if humanity survives for a certain amount of time. If the agent bets on Xs and it happens, it will then give a reward of rs.

The agent need to bet on one of Y, X, and Xs. Suppose that the agent is an average utilitarian, and that their actual estimated probability for human survival is p; thus P(Xs...
The Doomsday argument in anthropic decision theory
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2017-08-31T13:20:26.000Z

In Anthropic Decision Theory (ADT), behaviours that resemble the Self Sampling Assumption (SSA) derive from average utilitarian preferences (and from certain specific selfish preferences).

However, SSA implies the doomsday argument, and, to date, I hadn't found a good way to express the doomsday argument within ADT.

This post will remedy that hole, by showing how there is a natural doomsday-like behaviour for average utilitarian agents within ADT.

Anthropic behaviour

The comparable phrasings of the two doomsday arguments (probability and decision-based) are:

In the standard doomsday argument, the probability of extinction is increased for an agent that uses SSA probability versus one that doesn't.

In the ADT doomsday argument, an average utilitarian behaves as if it were a total utilitarian with a higher revealed probability of doom.

Thus in both cases, doomsday agent believes/behaves as if it were a non-doomsday agent with a higher probability of doom.

Revealed probability of events

What are these revealed probabilities?

Well, suppose that X and X′ are two events that may happen. The agent has a choice between betting on one or the other; if they bet on the first, they get a reward of r if X happens, if they bet on the second, they get a reward of r′ if X′ happens.

If an agent is an expected utility maximiser and chooses X over X′, this implies that rP(X)≥r′P(X′), where P(X) and P(X′) are the probabilities the agent assigns to X and X′.

Thus, observing the behaviour of the agent allows one to deduce their probability estimation for X and X′.

Revealed anthropic and non-anthropic probabilities

To simplify comparisons, assume that Y is an event that will happen with probability 1; if the agent bets on Y, it will get a reward of 1.
The Y's only purpose is to compare with other events.

Then X is an event that will happen with an unknown probability, if bet on, the agent will get a reward of r. In comparison, Xs is an event that will happen with certainty if and only if humanity survives for a certain amount of time. If the agent bets on Xs and it happens, it will then give a reward of rs.

The agent need to bet on one of Y, X, and Xs. Suppose that the agent is an average utilitarian, and that their actual estimated probability for human survival is p; thus P(Xs)=p. If humanity survives, the total human population will be Ω; if it doesn't, then it will be limited to ω

...
What you can’t say to a sympathetic ear
by KatjaGrace — 2017-08-31T00:05:30.000Z

Suppose we live in a society where it is strongly frowned upon to believe that an onion is a fruit. It is ok to disagree about what defines ‘fruit’, or what Allium varieties are onions. But none of this will get you off the hook—you had just better not suggest that an onions is a fruit.

You don’t think about the issue much yourself. If you had to, you would probably agree with the consensus view that the onion is not a fruit, given a few clarifications of the question. If you were allowed, you would probably admit that you don’t care much about the question. And that you would kind of prefer that it was possible to discuss the issue calmly and without accusations of transcendent evil.

However none of these things is relevant in the real world, because you daren’t even advocate for calmer consideration of the onion classification issue. People would infer that (in a sense) you don’t want to punish people who say that an onion is a fruit. And (in a different sense) not punishing it is much like endorsing it. Punishing non-punishers is an important part of cooperation.

Now suppose you and I are chatting over lunch in a work cafeteria, and I glance furtively around and then lean over to you with gleaming eyes, and whisper that I am making fruit soup tonight, and ahem, there are many people who would cry if they watched me cutting up the fruit for it.

You see what I’m saying. Nobody else seems to have heard. Are you annoyed? Do you think worse of me?

My guess is yes, at least quite plausibly.

And you are not annoyed because you find my comments troubling in their own right. You disagree with them, but don’t find them intrinsically offensive. Outside the context of our society, you wouldn’t mind.

You might be offended that I am willing to suggest an onion is a fruit in your presence in spite of knowing that most people would be unhappy about this. But suppose that we know each other well, and you know I know you are hard to hurt, even with grievous categorization errors.

I think you still have a strong reason to be annoyed. Which is that I am intentionally taking an action that the rest of the world thinks you are strongly obliged to punish—for instance, by threatening to stop associating with me unless I have an amazing excuse for what kind of seizure took over my mouth. Which means you must decide on the spot whethe...
Critiquing other people’s plans politely
by KatjaGrace — 2017-08-30T23:25:35.000Z

I wrote most of this post last year after spending several days at EA Global, a conference for Effective Altruists. I just went to this year’s, which reminds me I should post it. In good news, I am not writing about how to get around to things.

Many Effective Altruists are trying to do things that are really good with their lives, and EA Global can be an exciting time for hashing out which things those should be. Which brings to the fore some issues with doing this.

It is hard to have good plans for creating large amounts of value in the world, especially if you are an ignorant young person. Happily, lots of people know different things to one another, including many that are relevant to the probable success of everyone’s plans. Unhappily, exchanging this information can be somewhat fraught.

How things go wrong

1. The attack

One kind of bad thing that can happen is Ann says ‘I am starting a student group for minority square dancers because I think it will change the values of the future artificial arachnid civilization that arises in our place’ and everyone else thinks, ‘Oh boy, I know the correct answer to this one’ and they all jump in and helpfully explain that Ann’s plan is terrible in almost every way, and Ann is sad, and maybe thinks she shouldn’t hang out with these people anyway.

There is also a much milder version of this, where Ann says ‘I am starting a student group for open borders’ and Ben argues that open borders might not be that good, and that he thinks it probably isn’t the best thing to fight for. And Ann agrees in principle that it is good to discuss these things, but she admittedly still feels kind of sad about Ben’s willingness to criticize and oppose her, and it makes their friendship a bit worse.

2. The polite sidestep

I am not sure if #1 actually happens. Probably the milder version does, but I don’t remember seeing it much. A different kind of bad thing seems more common. Clara says ‘I’m going to work at Startup.io and earn money to give to my favorite EA cause—Raising Awareness About Goodness—and at the same time, I’ll be directly improving the lives of thousands of children somehow’. And Dora and Eloise and Freda would not have this plan themselves in a fit, because they can see many reasons it probably won’t work. They have heard ba...
Intrinsic properties and Eliezer's metaethics
by Tyrrell_McAllister — 2017-08-29T23:26:53.144Z

Abstract

I give an account for why some properties seem intrinsic while others seem extrinsic. In light of this account, the property of moral goodness seems intrinsic in one way and extrinsic in another. Most properties do not suffer from this ambiguity. I suggest that this is why many people find Eliezer's metaethics to be confusing.

Section 1: Intuitions of intrinsicness

What makes a particular property seem more or less intrinsic, as opposed to extrinsic?

Consider the following three properties that a physical object X might have:

The property of having the shape of a regular triangular. (I'll call this property "∆-ness" or "being ∆-shaped", for short.)

The property of being hard, in the sense of resisting deformation.

The property of being a key that can open a particular lock L (or L-opening-ness).

To me, intuitively, ∆-ness seems entirely intrinsic, and hardness seems somewhat less intrinsic, but still very intrinsic. However, the property of opening a particular lock seems very extrinsic. (If the notion of "intrinsic" seems meaningless to you, please keep reading. I believe that I ground these intuitions in something meaningful below.)

When I query my intuition on these examples, it elaborates as follows:

(1) If an object X is ∆-shaped, then X is ∆-shaped independently of any consideration of anything else. Object X could manifest its ∆-ness even in perfect isolation, in a universe that contained no other objects. In that sense, being ∆-shaped is intrinsic to X.

(2) If an object X is hard, then that fact does have a whiff of extrinsicness about it. After all, X's being hard is typically apparent only in an interaction between X and some other object Y, such as in a forceful collision after which the parts of X are still in nearly the same arrangement.

Nonetheless, X's hardness still feels to me to be primarily "in" X. Yes, something else has to be brought onto the scene for X's hardness to do anything. That is, X's hardness can be detected only with the help of some "test object" Y (to bounce off of X, for example). Nonetheless, the hardness detected is intrinsic to X. It is not, for example, primarily a fact about the system consisting of X and the test object Y together.

(3) Being an L-opening key (where L is a particular lock), on the other hand, feels very extrinsic to me. A thought experiment that pumps this intuition for me is this: Imagine a molte...
Is there a flaw in the simulation argument?
by philosophytorres — 2017-08-29T14:34:33.109Z

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with the following "refutation" of the simulation argument? (I know this is a bit long -- my apologies! I also posted an earlier draft several months ago and got some excellent feedback. I don't see a flaw, but perhaps I'm missing something!)

Consider the following three scenarios:

Scenario 1: Imagine that you’re standing in a hallway, which we’ll label Location A. You are blindfolded and then escorted into one of two rooms, either X or Y, but you don’t know which one. While in the unknown room, you are told that there are exactly 1,000 people in room X and only a single person in room Y. There is no way of communicating with anyone else, so you must use the information given to guess which room you’re in. If you guess correctly, you win 1 million dollars. Using the principle of indifference as your guide, you guess that you’re in room X—and consequently, you almost certainly win 1 million dollars. After all, since betting odds are a guide to rationality, if everyone in room X and Y were to bet that they’re in room X, just about everyone would win.
Scenario 2: Imagine that you’re standing in a hallway, which we’ll label Location A. You are blindfolded and then escorted into one of two rooms, either X or Y, but you don’t know which one. While in the unknown room, you are told that there are exactly 1,000 people in room X and only a single person in room Y. You are also told that over the past year, a total of 1 billion people have been in room Y at one time or another whereas only 10,000 people have been in room X. There is no way of communicating with anyone else, so you must use the information given to guess which room you’re in. If you guess correctly, you win 1 million dollars. The question here is: Does the extra information about the past histories of rooms X and Y change your mind about which room you’re in? It shouldn’t. After all, if everyone currently in rooms X and Y were to bet that they’re in room X, just about everyone would win.
Scenario 3: Imagine that you’re standing in a hallway, which we’ll label Location A. You are blindfolded and then told that you’ll be escorted into room Z through one of two rooms, either X or Y, but you won’t know which one. At any given moment, or timeslice, there will always be exac...
Doing a big survey on work, stress, and productivity. Feedback / anything you're curious about?
by lionhearted (Sebastian Marshall) — 2017-08-29T14:19:37.241Z

In September, doing a big survey on work, stress, and productivity -- going to gather a bunch of possibly germane data, and then see what correlations stand out.

Current version is around 90% complete here --

[done]

Any feedback? Any data you'd be very interested in getting? We're basically guaranteed to get basic statistical significance / sample size, and might have respondents in the mid-thousands if things break right. What would you like to know? Feedback? Thanks.

Edit 7 September: it's now live here -- https://form.jotform.com/71974198606368 -- I answered a few of the top questions and read all the rest and incorporated some of the feedback. Thanks so much.
Request For Collaboration
by DragonGod — 2017-08-28T23:05:33.967Z

I want to work on a paper: "The Information Theoretic Conception of Personhood". My philosophy is shit though, so I am interested in a coauthor. Someone who has the relevant philosophical knowledge to let the paper stand the tests of academic rigour.

DM me if you're willing to help.

One sentence thesis of the paper: "I am my information".

Some conclusions: A simulation of me is me.

I have no idea of the length, but I want to flesh the paper to be something that meets the standards of Academia.
Open thread, August 28 - September 3, 2017
by Thomas — 2017-08-28T06:11:19.159Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, 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 start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting
FACTS ARE FACTS?
by arisen — 2017-08-28T04:13:34.706Z

Sure, I agree, facts are facts. But facts themselves are of little use if we don't peer through the causal relation between them, only then they become useful to us, because then, based on those relations between facts, we can analyse, know and predict our next move towards the best possible outcome. As an example, early agriculturists made connections between seasons and celestial movements, being more and more precise, in order to determine the plantation of certain seeds at certain times. It's obvious we all need to do this because it's in our best interest to harmonize with natural or social cycles for our well-being. But here is the trick! When relationships between facts are analysed: what is, de facto, just a simple correlation; to someone it may falsely appear as causation; hence a skew in one's view of reality due to a logical fallacy. A reality bias. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation.