trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : Washington DC Short Talks Meetup
by rocurley — 2014-03-13T23:55:39.267Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Short Talks Meetup

WHEN:
16 March 2014 03:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC 20001, USA

We'll be meeting to listen to/give short talks.

If you didn't sign up to give a talk, but want to, do it anyway! This is not a formal thing.

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Short Talks Meetup
Making LessWrong notable enough for its own Wikipedia page
by VipulNaik — 2014-03-13T18:17:21.224Z

LessWrong is a great resource. It gets a fair amount of traffic (800,000 pageviews per month back when pageview-counting was working properly), has a large number of people identifying as part of the online community (2013 survey results), and has a number of lurkers including high school students (see this post). And yet, it doesn't have a Wikipedia page of its own. LessWrong on Wikipedia currently goes to Eliezer Yudkowsky's page, which has a sentence devoted to LessWrong.

The main reason for the absence of the page is that LessWrong hasn't received enough coverage in the media, so it wouldn't pass Wikipedia's notability criteria. Even if one of us created a page on LessWrong, it would get speedily deleted because there wouldn't be any reliable sources to cite.

So, question: any ideas on how to generate media coverage for LessWrong, enough that it passes the notability criteria of Wikipedia and can be given its own page? The media coverage will help directly in addition to being useful to creating a Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia page itself will help portray LessWrong as "legit" and also provide information to people that'll help them decide if the site is suitable for them.
Parenting versus career choice thinking in teenagers
by VipulNaik — 2014-03-13T17:56:29.852Z

This is a somewhat modified version of a Facebook post I made a few days ago, incorporating some of the comments there. I think the Less Wrong readership may have interesting thoughts on the subject.

In recent times, especially in the developed world and among higher socio-economic status families everywhere in the world, it's common for teenagers (and even younger children) to be encouraged to think in systematic ways about their career choice, but it's relatively rare for them to be encouraged to think in systematic ways about how many children they'll have or how they'll raise their children. A lot of teenagers do have views on the subject of children, but they're not encouraged to have views, and they're not encouraged to refine those views. With career choice, although there's still probably a lot of room for improvement in the quality of advice and guidance offered, people at least in principle acknowledge its importance.

What do you think explains the disparity? Here are some explanations with my thoughts on them:

Career choice is (believed to be) more important than the choice of how many children to have and how to raise them: For people who expect to generate a huge amount of value in their careers, this is probably true, because if they do have children, the children are likely to be less exceptional (regression to the mean). However, for most people, this probably isn't the case: having children could be one of their main forms of contribution to society.

Career choice requires planning from a younger age, because it requires selection of subjects to study in school and college: There's more lead time needed for career choice, whereas it takes only nine months to have a child. This seems to work as a reasonable explanation for people who are inclined to have very few kids, but it doesn't work for people who are interested in keeping open the option of having a large number of kids. Also, as they say, it takes two to have a baby, so one does need to plan somewhat in advance. Finally, the choice of when to have kids can affect one's selection of career as well.

Choices related to children are believed to be something that are best made after one has selected a life partner to discuss them with, and unilateral thinking is considered counterproductive: There's probably some truth to this. But the point could be made in reverse as well: in order to ma

...
What attracts smart and curious young people to physics? Should this be encouraged?
by VipulNaik — 2014-03-13T17:22:15.090Z

Many of the high school students who sought advice from Cognito Mentoring were interested in mathematics, computer science, and physics. This both makes sense and is valuable. Mathematics has many benefits: it underpins a lot of quantitative analysis, and helps us understand the world. Computer science is also quite important for obvious reasons: programming in particular is directly and indirectly useful, and a deeper understanding of algorithms and the theory of computation can help with algorithms.

Physics, however, is a little different. There are some benefits of learning physics. In particular, classical mechanics is often people's first exposure to using mathematical structure in a nontrivial way to understand and model situations pertaining to the real world. Nonetheless, unlike mathematics or computer science, the benefits of physics for people who are not in science or engineering careers are fairly low. I find myself using high school-level mathematical intuition on a regular basis (for instance, understanding the growth trajectories of various things, or interpreting graphs), and I find myself using basic programming-like intuition quite often. But I rarely find myself using my physics intuition in the real world. Moreover, I think physics quickly hits diminishing returns in terms of teaching people about mathematical modeling: I'd say that the returns from physics beyond classical mechanics, DC circuits, and basic thermodynamics are near-zero. For instance, I'd say it's more beneficial to learn microeconomics rather than electromagnetism, even though the latter is often considered more prestigious by smart people. Similarly, I think that behavioral economics is more valuable than quantum mechanics.

It's also not clear that learning physics beyond the basics suggested above (classical mechanics, thermodynamics, DC circuits) passes a cost-benefit analysis for people in the vast majority of science-based and engineering-based careers. Even the extent to which they crucially rely on these basics is questionable, given that most people don't learn the basics well and still manage to go on to do decent jobs. I'd like to hear any opinions on this. On a related note, I recently asked on Quora the question In what ways is knowledge of Newtonian classical mechanics helpful to people pursuing biomedical research? and there were a few interesting answers.

So m...
Meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup
by Maelin — 2014-03-13T12:00:15.578Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup

WHEN:
21 March 2014 06:30:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
5 / 52 Leicester St, Carlton

The March Social Meetup will be running on Friday 21st at our usual location in Carlton. All are welcome from 6:30pm.

Social meetups are casual events where we gather to chat and play games. Some people play board games, often we will play a parlour game like Mafia/Werewolf or The Resistance later in the evening. We usually arrange some sort of delivered food for dinner for those that are interested.

Just ring the number 5 when you arrive at the front gate, and we'll buzz you in. If you have any issues, feel free to call me (Richard) on 0421231789.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup
Meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Productivity Hacks
by SoftFlare — 2014-03-12T22:07:26.233Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Productivity Hacks

WHEN:
20 March 2014 07:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Google Tel Aviv

We're going to have a meetup on Thursday, March 20th at Google Israel's offices, Electra Tower, 98 Yigal Alon st., Tel Aviv.

This time we will be discussion productivity systems and hacks. We will have multiple speakers telling us how they became and stay production and the tricks they used. Anyone is welcome to bring their own systems and tricks - because the more we learn from each other, the better we'll be (and the more winning we'll do!).

Examples of subjects we will be talking about: Getting Things Done, Anki and spaced repetition, contingency planning, polyphasic sleep, commitment contracts and many more...
We will also be talking to each other about what works for each of us, and learn about how to actually implement these things in our lives.

This meetup will not require any previous knowledge of LW or rationality, and so is a great opportunity to bring along interested friends!

We'll start the meetup at 19:00, and we'll go on as much as we like to. (We've had great success with the earlier hour last meetup and so we're continuing on the trend)

Please come on time, as we will begin the discussions and talks close to when we start. But, if you can only come later, thats totally ok!

We'll meet at the 29th floor of the building (Note: Not the 26th where Google Campus is). If you arrive and cant find your way around, call Anatoly who is graciously hosting us at 054-245-1060.

Note that we are trying a transition to a meet once every two weeks. This is to allow people who cant make it to a meetup to not have to wait a whole month to meet again, and because we'd like to have both subject based and social meetups and doing one meetup a month would make that hard.

If you have any question feel free to email me at hochbergg@gmail.com or call me at 054-533-0678.

See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Productivity Hacks
[LINK] Former Christian fundamentalist: Science robbed me of my faith
by Benquo — 2014-03-12T21:32:57.649Z

This person seems to have the virtue of non-compartmentalization. What rationalist skill can we learn from this? Maybe look for ways a strong belief in one domain, to another where it's more testable?

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/09/i_was_a_fundamentalist_until_science_changed_my_mind_partner/
Meetup : Urbana-Champaign: Discussion
by Mestroyer — 2014-03-12T18:33:44.433Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign: Discussion

WHEN:
16 March 2014 11:00:00AM (-0800)

WHERE:
300 S. Goodwin Ave Apt 102 Urbana IL

WHAT:
Starting topic: contrarianism. When is it justified?
Related reading: This and everything linked at the beginning.
WHERE:
300 S Goodwin Ave Apt 102, Urbana.
The door directly to my ground-floor apartment, on which you can knock and I will hear it, is at the North-West corner of the building. Do not attempt to enter through the building's main door, because that requires keycard access, and I will not be waiting there to let you in. If you have trouble getting in, call me at REDACTED.
WHEN:
2pm Sunday.
ALSO:
If you're interested in playing my video game, I will be publicly demoing it at Engineering Open House Friday and Saturday roughly from 9am-4pm and 9am-3pm respectively, in the Siebel building, room 1304.
Cross-posted, as always, on the mailing list.

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign: Discussion
Irrationality Game III
by  — 2014-03-12T13:51:00.555Z

The 'Irrationality Game' posts in discussion came before my time here, but I had a very good time reading the bits written in the comments section. I also had a number of thoughts I would've liked to post and get feedback on, but I knew that being buried in such old threads not much would come of it. So I asked around and feedback from people has suggested that they would be open to a reboot!

I hereby again quote the original rules:

Please read the post before voting on the comments, as this is a game where voting works differently.

Warning: the comments section of this post will look odd. The most reasonable comments will have lots of negative karma. Do not be alarmed, it's all part of the plan. In order to participate in this game you should disable any viewing threshold for negatively voted comments.

Here's an irrationalist game meant to quickly collect a pool of controversial ideas for people to debate and assess. It kinda relies on people being honest and not being nitpickers, but it might be fun.

Write a comment reply to this post describing a belief you think has a reasonable chance of being true relative to the the beliefs of other Less Wrong folk. Jot down a proposition and a rough probability estimate or qualitative description, like 'fairly confident'.

Example (not my true belief): "The U.S. government was directly responsible for financing the September 11th terrorist attacks. Very confident. (~95%)."

If you post a belief, you have to vote on the beliefs of all other comments. Voting works like this: if you basically agree with the comment, vote the comment down. If you basically disagree with the comment, vote the comment up. What 'basically' means here is intuitive; instead of using a precise mathy scoring system, just make a guess. In my view, if their stated probability is 99.9% and your degree of belief is 90%, that merits an upvote: it's a pretty big difference of opinion. If they're at 99.9% and you're at 99.5%, it could go either way. If you're genuinely unsure whether or not you basically agree with them, you can pass on voting (but try not to). Vote up if you think they are either overconfident or underconfident in their belief: any disagreement is valid disagreement.

That's the spirit of the game, but some more qualifications and rules follow.

If the proposition in a commen

...
Meetup : Helsinki Meetup
by mikko — 2014-03-12T08:00:39.552Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Helsinki Meetup

WHEN:
23 March 2014 04:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Vilhonkatu 4, 00100 Helsinki

We’re having a social meetup in Kaisla. To find us there, look for someone wearing a pink elephant hat.

Discussion article for the meetup : Helsinki Meetup
Channel factors
by benkuhn — 2014-03-12T04:52:40.026Z

Or, “how not to make a fundamental attribution error on yourself;” or, “how to do that thing that you keep being frustrated at yourself for not doing;” or, “finding and solving trivial but leveraged inconveniences.”

Note: cross-posted from my blog, so some of this may be rather elementary to LessWrong readers or CFAR workshop attendees. If that's you, feel free to skip or skim to the end, where I try to crowdsource a list of interesting channel factors.

One of the key insights of social psychology is that our reactions to events are hugely dependent on the fine details of the situation in question, and often pretty much independent of personality. For instance, suppose you have a bunch of people to playing the Prisoner’s Dilemma with each other, and you want to figure out who will defect. Most people’s theory of mind here says something like, “people defect because they’re self-interested or grumpy or vindictive.” So you might ask a player’s friends how cooperative they were, and use that to guess who will cooperate.

Unfortunately, this approach is totally useless. People are equally likely to cooperate whether or not their friends think they’re cooperative. In the Prisoners’ Dilemma, your friends’ assessment of your personality does not correlate at all with your behavior.

Fortunately, there’s something else which is a pretty good predictor! In particular, it matters a lot whether the instructions of the game called it the “Community Game” or the “Wall Street Game.”1

Yep, a single phrase of the instructions, repeated twice, causes cooperation rates to double. If you ever like to think of yourself as some kind of agent whose decisions are controlled by a rational ego (instead of some random words you heard once upon a time), you might find that a bit worrying.

On the other hand, if you like to think of yourself as the kind of person who prefers to have true beliefs, you might be excited because your beliefs just got truer! You probably sometimes fail to impose egoistic control on your own decisions, and if you understand your brain purely as a consciously-controlled ego then you will be really confused when this happens, and spit out solutions like “try harder next time” or “have more willpower” or “don’...
Meetup : Brussels - all fun and games
by Roxolan — 2014-03-11T21:35:41.415Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Brussels - all fun and games

WHEN:
19 April 2014 12:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Rue des Alexiens 55 1000 Bruxelles

(Because of a scheduling conflict with the Berlin community meetup, April's meetup will not be on the second Saturday of the month. It's one week later.)

No serious theme for this month. We'll probably chat about Berlin, play boardgames that aren't rationalist training, and just talk about anything we want.

We will meet at 1 pm at "La Fleur en papier doré", close to the Brussels Central station. The meeting will be in English to facilitate both French and Dutch speaking members.

If you are coming for the first time, please consider filling out this one minute form to share your contact information.

The Brussels meetup group communicates through a Google Group.

Meetup announcements are also mirrored on meetup.com

Discussion article for the meetup : Brussels - all fun and games
Is my view contrarian?
by lukeprog — 2014-03-11T17:42:49.788Z

Previously: Contrarian Excuses, The Correct Contrarian Cluster, What is bunk?, Common Sense as a Prior, Trusting Expert Consensus, Prefer Contrarian Questions.

Robin Hanson once wrote:

On average, contrarian views are less accurate than standard views. Honest contrarians should admit this, that neutral outsiders should assign most contrarian views a lower probability than standard views, though perhaps a high enough probability to warrant further investigation. Honest contrarians who expect reasonable outsiders to give their contrarian view more than normal credence should point to strong outside indicators that correlate enough with contrarians tending more to be right.

I tend to think through the issue in three stages:

When should I consider myself to be holding a contrarian[1] view? What is the relevant expert community?

If I seem to hold a contrarian view, when do I have enough reason to think I’m correct?

If I seem to hold a correct contrarian view, what can I do to give other people good reasons to accept my view, or at least to take it seriously enough to examine it at length?

I don’t yet feel that I have “answers” to these questions, but in this post (and hopefully some future posts) I’d like to organize some of what has been said before,[2] and push things a bit further along, in the hope that further discussion and inquiry will contribute toward significant progress in social epistemology.[3] Basically, I hope to say a bunch of obvious things, in a relatively well-organized fashion, so that less obvious things can be said from there.[4]

In this post, I’ll just address stage 1. Hopefully I’ll have time to revisit stages 2 and 3 in future posts.

Is my view contrarian?

World model differences vs. value differences

Is my effective altruism a contrarian view? It seems to be more of a contrarian value judgment than a contrarian world model,[5] and by “contrarian view” I tend to mean “contrarian world model.” Some apparently contrarian views are probably actually contrarian values.

Expert consensus

Is my atheism a contrarian view? It’s definitely a world model, not a value judgment, and only 2% of people are atheists.

But what’s the relevant expert population, here? Suppose it’s “academics who specialize in the arguments and evidence concerning whether a...
[Link] First talk by CSER
by NoSuchPlace — 2014-03-11T15:01:10.003Z

The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) has recently held its first public lecture which can be found here:

Existential Risk: Surviving the 21st Century

The talk's blurb:

"In the coming century, the greatest threats to human survival may come from our own technological developments. However, if we can safely navigate the pitfalls, the benefits that technology promises are enormous. A philosopher, an astronomer, and an entrepreneur have come together to form the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. The goal: to bring a fraction of humanity’s talents to bear on the task of ensuring our long-term survival. In this lecture, Huw Price, Martin Rees and Jaan Tallinn will outline humanity’s greatest challenge: surviving the 21st century."

From CSER's about page:

"An existential risk is one that threatens the existence of our entire species. The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) — a joint initiative between a philosopher, a scientist, and a software entrepreneur — was founded on the conviction that these risks require a great deal more scientific investigation than they presently receive. CSER is a multidisciplinary research centre dedicated to the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction.

Our goal is to steer a small fraction of Cambridge’s great intellectual resources, and of the reputation built on its past and present scientific pre-eminence, to the task of ensuring that our own species has a long-term future."

The philosopher, scientist and entrepreneur in question being Huw Price, Martin Rees and Jaan Tallinn respectively.

Incase you are looking for the talk that Jaan Tallinn referred to, I think that it is this.
Meetup : Frankfurt
by Kendra — 2014-03-11T09:31:16.868Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Frankfurt

WHEN:
23 March 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Frankfurt

Location will be published in time. Contact me under 0176 34 095 760. I prefer texting to calling. If you have any special requirements and need help to attend (whether a disability, social anxiety, whatever), please tell us in advance!

Discussion article for the meetup : Frankfurt
On not getting a job as an option
by diegocaleiro — 2014-03-11T02:44:39.938Z

This was originally a comment to VipulNaik's recent indagations about the academic lifestyle versus the job lifestyle. Instead of calling it lifestyle he called them career options, but I'm taking a different emphasis here on purpose.

Due to information hazards risks, I recommend that Effective Altruists who are still wavering back and forth do not read this. Spoiler EA alert.

I'd just like to provide a cultural difference information that I have consistently noted between Americans and Brazilians which seems relevant here.

To have a job and work in the US is taken as a *de facto* biological need. It is as abnormal for an American, in my experience, to consider not working, as it is to consider not breathing, or not eating. It just doesn't cross people's minds.

If anyone has insight above and beyond "Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism" let me know about it, I've been waiting for the "why?" for years.

So yeah, let me remind people that you can spend years and years not working. that not getting a job isn't going to kill you or make you less healthy, that ultravagabonding is possible and feasible and many do it for over six months a year, that I have a friend who lives as the boyfriend of his sponsor's wife in a triad and somehow never worked a day in his life (the husband of the triad pays it all, both men are straight). That I've hosted an Argentinian who left graduate economics for two years to randomly travel the world, ended up in Rome and passed by here in his way back, through couchsurfing. That Puneet Sahani has been well over two years travelling the world with no money and an Indian passport now. I've also hosted a lovely estonian gentleman who works on computers 4 months a year in London to earn pounds, and spends eight months a year getting to know countries while learning their culture etc... Brazil was his third country.

Oh, and never forget the Uruguay couple I just met at a dance festival who have been travelling as hippies around and around South America for 5 years now, and showed no sign of owning more than 500 dollars worth of stuff.

Also in case you'd like to live in a paradise valley taking Santo Daime (a religious ritual with DMT) about twice a week, you can do it with a salary of aproximatelly 500 dollars per month in Vale do Gamarra, where I just spent carnival, that is what the guy ...