trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[SEQ RERUN] Why is the Future So Absurd?
by MinibearRex — 2011-08-20T02:12:33.019Z

Today's post, Why is the Future So Absurd? was originally published on 07 September 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

New technologies and social changes have consistently happened at a rate that would seem absurd and impossible to people only a few decades before they happen. Hindsight bias causes us to see the past as obvious and as a series of changes towards the "normalcy" of the present; availability biases make it hard for us to imagine changes greater than those we've already encountered, or the effects of multiple changes. The future will be stranger than we think.

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 Availability, 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.
A Crash Course in the Neuroscience of Human Motivation
by lukeprog — 2011-08-19T21:15:05.845Z

[PDF of this article updated Aug. 23, 2011]

[skip to preface]

Whenever I write a new article for Less Wrong, I'm pulled in two opposite directions.

One force pulls me toward writing short, exciting posts with lots of brain candy and just one main point. Eliezer has done that kind of thing very well many times: see Making Beliefs Pay Rent, Hindsight Devalues Science, Probability is in the Mind, Taboo Your Words, Mind Projection Fallacy, Guessing the Teacher's Password, Hold Off on Proposing Solutions, Applause Lights, Dissolving the Question, and many more.

Another force pulls me toward writing long, factually dense posts that fill in as many of the pieces of a particular argument in one fell swoop as possible. This is largely because I want to write about the cutting edge of human knowledge but I keep realizing that the inferential gap is larger than I had anticipated, and I want to fill in that inferential gap quickly so I can get to the cutting edge.

For example, I had to draw on dozens of Eliezer's posts just to say I was heading toward my metaethics sequence. I've also published 21 new posts (many of them quite long and heavily researched) written specifically because I need to refer to them in my metaethics sequence.1 I tried to make these posts interesting and useful on their own, but my primary motivation for writing them was that I need them for my metaethics sequence.

And now I've written only four posts2 in my metaethics sequence and already the inferential gap to my next post in that sequence is huge again. :(

So I'd like to try an experiment. I won't do it often, but I want to try it at least once. Instead of writing 20 more short posts between now and the next post in my metaethics sequence, I'll attempt to fill in a big chunk of the inferential gap to my next metaethics post in one fell swoop by writing a long tutorial post (a la Eliezer's tutorials on Bayes' Theorem and technical explanation).3

So if you're not up for a 20-page tutorial on human motivation, this post isn't for you, but I hope you're glad I bothered to write it for the sake of others. If you are in the mood for a 20-page tutorial on human motivation, please proceed.

Who knows what I want to do? Who knows what anyone wants to do? How can you be sure about something like that? Isn’t it all a question of brain chemistry, signals&

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Good resource for marketing research?
by Mercurial — 2011-08-19T20:52:21.114Z

I'm planning on starting a business in a few years. I realize that I have absolutely zero entrepreneurial experience and really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to appealing to my target audience. I know a number of psychological tricks that should in theory work, but theory and practice often differ and my understanding of the theory isn't robust enough to make up for the difference.

So, what I need is some kind of rational direction to look in so that I can start digging into the basic marketing research I'll need to do before I plunk money down on a business. At this point my expertise is limited to having read Michael Gerber's book The E-Myth Revisited, which in my naivety seems like a good way to address the question of how to avoid being a victim of the stunning failure rate of private businesses. But I really wouldn't be surprised to discover that Gerber is just dead wrong and that I don't have the background needed to understand that.

So, my question is: Where can I look to get rational guidance on this? I prefer a book or a series or something like that since I don't have the money to hire a professional yet, and it's still a bit early to start plunking money down on the seed of a business idea.

I doubt the nature of the business I'm thinking of is all that relevant since I'm looking for pretty basic, general information on marketing. But as I could easily be wrong: This is for a school. My hope is to get an alternative high school set up that trains students to be meaningfully ready for the modern world, dropping the stuff that's there purely due to cultural momentum. By and large (but not completely), this means focusing on metacognitive skills rather than primarily on subject content. I'm an education researcher and know of a number of psychological tools that are extremely promising and have proven effective in a wide range of cases but simply haven't been adopted for use in classrooms on any relevant scale, so part of my work between now and when I start this school is going to be aimed at doing research to hammer out the pragmatics. But that's the idea in a very tiny nutshell: use findings in psychology and sociology to teach stuff to teenagers that they'll actually find useful throughout their lives and that society will be glad that they know. I'm interested in making this...
Meetup : Austin, TX
by Vaniver — 2011-08-19T20:38:39.818Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Austin, TX

WHEN:
20 August 2011 01:30:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
2222B Guadalupe St Austin, Texas 78705

I'm back after missing three meetups! I hope you'll be there. Once again, at Caffe Medici, starting at 1:30PM.

Discussion article for the meetup : Austin, TX
Spaced Repetition literature review prize: And the winner is...
by jsalvatier — 2011-08-19T20:35:55.559Z

The Spaced Repetition literature review prize for the best new review of the evidence on Spaced Repetition has ended and the judging panel has made its decision. The prize attracted entries from Duke (entry) and Gwern (entry). After reviewing the submissions separately and then discussing them together, the judging panel unanimously judged Gwern's entry to be the best.

With great pleasure, we now award Gwern the prize of $385.

Anki cards for Gwern's review are available as the shared deck "Gwern Spaced Repetition Lit Review". If you have improvements or alternate decks, post them in the comments.

The three judges, BenLowell, Guy Srinivasan and John Salvatier (me), are Seattle LessWrongers who volunteered to judge the contest.

We thank Duke and Gwern for their submissions, as well as users randomwalker, Antisuji, Dr_Manhattan, Benquo, Nick_Roy for contributing to the prize fund.
Meetup : West LA Meetup 08-23-2011
by  — 2011-08-19T17:45:32.522Z

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA Meetup 08-23-2011

WHEN:
23 August 2011 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
10800 West Pico Blvd, Suite 312, Los Angeles, CA 90064

When: 7pm - 9pm August 23th.

Where: The Westside Pavillion - on the bridge, which connects Nordstrom 3rd floor with Barnes & Noble / Landmark Theatres 3rd floor.

Parking is free for 3 hours.

Recommended Reading:

-why truth? And...

-What Do We Mean Be "Rationality"?

-Cached Selves

-We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think

Whether you're a regular reader or totally new, here for the theoretical musings or the practical things, come by and say hello! The conversation is largely unstructured, and the people are awesome.

There will be snacks. I will bring a whiteboard with Bayes' Theorem written on it.

See also: West LA Biweekly Meetups

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA Meetup 08-23-2011
Meetup : Singapore September 2011
by sriku — 2011-08-19T14:49:57.053Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Singapore September 2011

WHEN:
03 September 2011 04:00:00PM (+0800)

WHERE:
23 folkstone road, Singapore

Hi, I haven't seen a Singapore meetup posted here and would like to know if any lw-ers in Singapore are interested in meeting up (and why won't you be?).

Starbucks at the spanking new (and not yet on google maps) University Town is a good area with plenty of seating both in and around. Of course, everything is flexible. The address given is an approximate location and you'll have to walk into UTown from that spot.

Discussion article for the meetup : Singapore September 2011
LessWrong as place for scientifically literate advice
by Metus — 2011-08-19T14:05:10.617Z

Disclaimer and abstract: English is not my native language, so please notify me if you see grammatical or stylistic mistakes. This posting is mainly an account of my thoughts. It is highly informal and contains almost no advice but asks for it. I am relatively new to LessWrong and rationality but hope that I can contribute something useful. Here I suggest to give and gather advice to and from readers of LessWrong, sketch possible topics and list a few examples of such advice existing. Also, I present a provisional solution to gather this advice and a more sustainable solution. Sadly, I can not offer advice on the topics mentioned below as I am merely an interested amateur.

Benefiting from rationality

LessWrong is full of smart people who 'believe' in rationality. But you have to benefit from something to make it worth believing it, you have to make beliefs pay rent. This applies especially to rationality. But rationality benefits us heavily through the scientific method and thus the giant body of work scientists have produced throughout the centuries. Too much was written to be reviewed by a single individual so it seems rational to sum up the results with notes on confidence and consequences. It would be scientifically literate advice as opposed to anecdotical help. Such an effort, especially if it is made systematically would help draw attention to LessWrong and rationality.

Beginnings

Some scattered efforts are already made here on LessWrong on producing such advice as hinted at in the above paragraph. Look for example at lukeprog's articles on happiness. How they draw heavily from scientific articles and give concrete, simple to understand advices is how an article for rational advice should look like. In "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids" Bryan Caplan also draws heavily from scientific literature to prove that given today's parent's efforts, the majority of children's life outcomes are determined by environmental or genetic factors. He then concludes that today's adults perceive the cost of children as higher than it is and thus should have more kids.

Possible Topics

The topics people need advice on are mostly the same throughout the ages: Happiness, love, health money. But seeing as it is a recurring theme on LessWrong, advice can be given on cryonics, akrasia and social behavior in broader sense. Many more topics are possible of course...
[SEQ RERUN] Availability
by MinibearRex — 2011-08-19T04:29:51.999Z

Today's post, Availability was originally published on 06 September 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Availability bias is a tendency to estimate the probability of an event based on whatever evidence about that event pops into your mind, without taking into account the ways in which some pieces of evidence are more memorable than others, or some pieces of evidence are easier to come by than others. This bias directly consists in considering a mismatched data set that leads to a distorted model, and biased estimate.

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 Absurdity Heuristic, Absurdity Bias, 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.
Question about meetup location address format ..
by sriku — 2011-08-19T03:26:34.722Z

(This is an admin question.)

I haven't seen any meetups proposed in Singapore thus far and thought of posting one. However, the "submit" on the page comes back and says "you must supply a location", even when I do have the field filled (I set it to "Starbucks at University Town, Singapore"). Does it expect the address to be in a specific format?
Why We Can't Take Expected Value Estimates Literally (Even When They're Unbiased)
by HoldenKarnofsky — 2011-08-18T23:34:12.099Z

Note: I am cross-posting this GiveWell Blog post, after consulting a couple of community members, because it is relevant to many topics discussed on Less Wrong, particularly efficient charity/optimal philanthropy and Pascal's Mugging. The post includes a proposed "solution" to the dilemma posed by Pascal's Mugging that has not been proposed before as far as I know. It is longer than usual for a Less Wrong post, so I have put everything but the summary below the fold. Also, note that I use the term "expected value" because it is more generic than "expected utility"; the arguments here pertain to estimating the expected value of any quantity, not just utility.

While some people feel that GiveWell puts too much emphasis on the measurable and quantifiable, there are others who go further than we do in quantification, and justify their giving (or other) decisions based on fully explicit expected-value formulas. The latter group tends to critique us - or at least disagree with us - based on our preference for strong evidence over high apparent "expected value," and based on the heavy role of non-formalized intuition in our decisionmaking. This post is directed at the latter group.

We believe that people in this group are often making a fundamental mistake, one that we have long had intuitive objections to but have recently developed a more formal (though still fairly rough) critique of. The mistake (we believe) is estimating the "expected value" of a donation (or other action) based solely on a fully explicit, quantified formula, many of whose inputs are guesses or very rough estimates. We believe that any estimate along these lines needs to be adjusted using a "Bayesian prior"; that this adjustment can rarely be made (reasonably) using an explicit, formal calculation; and that most attempts to do the latter, even when they seem to be making very conservative downward adjustments to the expected value of an opportunity, are not making nearly large enough downward adjustments to be consistent with the proper Bayesian approach.

This view of ours illustrates why - while we seek to ground our recommendations in relevant facts, calculations and quantifications to the extent possible - every recommendation we make incorporates many different forms of evidence and involves a strong dose of intuition. And we generally prefer to give where we have st...
Meetup : Chicago Meetup At State and Elm, August 27th
by Nic_Smith — 2011-08-18T23:01:32.268Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Chicago Meetup At State and Elm, August 27th

WHEN:
27 August 2011 03:30:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
1130 North State Street, Chicago, IL

We'll be meeting at the cafe on the first floor of the State and Elm Barnes & Noble, 1130 N State St, at 3:30pm CST on Saturday, August 27th. The tentative topic of discussion is "recent posts on LessWrong."

Discussion Group Post

Barnes & Noble Store Info

Discussion article for the meetup : Chicago Meetup At State and Elm, August 27th
(US only) Donate $2 to charity (bing rewards)
by Jonathan_Graehl — 2011-08-18T21:16:48.694Z

Probably not worth most of your time, but if you already have a Windows Live account, log in here and you earn enough Bing reward points (whatever those are) to donate $2 to charity - http://www.bing.com/rewards/signup/web

Unfortunately, the charity selection is limited to a couple of "better educate the poor" organizations.
Meetup : DC Meetup: NoVa, Rationality Games
by atucker — 2011-08-18T19:02:53.351Z

Discussion article for the meetup : DC Meetup: NoVa, Rationality Games

WHEN:
30 August 2011 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
Ballston Commons Mall

Trying out a few more locations/times to better serve the DC area LW community.

We'll play rationality games for at least an hour but other topics are welcome.

Discussion article for the meetup : DC Meetup: NoVa, Rationality Games
[Link] Givewell: Why We Can’t Take Expected Value Estimates Literally
by  — 2011-08-18T18:25:55.416Z

http://blog.givewell.org/2011/08/18/why-we-cant-take-expected-value-estimates-literally-even-when-theyre-unbiased/

Long post over at GiveWell about relying on expected value estimates for charitable donations. The main thrust is that large expected values with high variance carry very little weight when combined with a proper prior. LessWrong is referenced heavily throughout.

We believe that people in this group are often making a fundamental mistake, one that we have long had intuitive objections to but have recently developed a more formal (though still fairly rough) critique of. The mistake (we believe) is estimating the “expected value” of a donation (or other action) based solely on a fully explicit, quantified formula, many of whose inputs are guesses or very rough estimates. We believe that any estimate along these lines needs to be adjusted using a “Bayesian prior”; that this adjustment can rarely be made (reasonably) using an explicit, formal calculation; and that most attempts to do the latter, even when they seem to be making very conservative downward adjustments to the expected value of an opportunity, are not making nearly large enough downward adjustments to be consistent with the proper Bayesian approach.

This view of ours illustrates why - while we seek to ground our recommendations in relevant facts, calculations and quantifications to the extent possible - every recommendation we make incorporates many different forms of evidence and involves a strong dose of intuition. And we generally prefer to give where we have strong evidence that donations can do a lot of goodrather than where we have weak evidence that donations can do far more good - a preference that I believe is inconsistent with the approach of giving based on explicit expected-value formulas (at least those that (a) have significant room for error (b) do not incorporate Bayesian adjustments, which are very rare in these analyses and very difficult to do both formally and reasonably).

I'm particularly interested in anyone more familiar with bayesian stats who can shed more light on the validity of Givewell's approach here.
[LINK] NYTimes essay on willpower, based on an upcoming Baumeister book
by Vladimir_Golovin — 2011-08-18T10:05:17.720Z

A surprisingly good New York Times essay on willpower / ego depletion:
Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?

As it turns out, the essay is based on an upcoming Roy F. Baumeister book, "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength", which will be available from Amazon in a couple of weeks (September 1, 2011) both as a hardcover and a Kindle edition.

Some quotes from the essay (italics and headings mine):

You spend the most willpower when you have to make AND implement your decisions:

which phase of the decision-making process was most fatiguing? To find out, Kathleen Vohs, a former colleague of Baumeister’s now at the University of Minnesota, performed an experiment using the self-service Web site of Dell Computers. One group in the experiment carefully studied the advantages and disadvantages of various features available for a computer — the type of screen, the size of the hard drive, etc. — without actually making a final decision on which ones to choose. A second group was given a list of predetermined specifications and told to configure a computer by going through the laborious, step-by-step process of locating the specified features among the arrays of options and then clicking on the right ones. The purpose of this was to duplicate everything that happens in the postdecisional phase, when the choice is implemented. The third group had to figure out for themselves which features they wanted on their computers and go through the process of choosing them; they didn’t simply ponder options (like the first group) or implement others’ choices (like the second group). They had to cast the die, and that turned out to be the most fatiguing task of all. When self-control was measured, they were the one who were most depleted, by far.

Willpower depletion makes you reluctant to make trade-offs:

Once you’re mentally depleted, you become reluctant to make trade-offs, which involve a particularly advanced and taxing form of decision making. In the rest of the animal kingdom, there aren’t a lot of protracted negotiations between predators and prey. To compromise is a complex human ability and therefore one of the first to decline when willpower is depleted. You become what researchers call a cognitive miser, hoarding your energy. If you’re shopping, you’re liable to look at only one dimension, li

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