trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Heuristics and Biases in Charity
by Kaj_Sotala — 2012-03-02T15:20:23.582Z

Here on LW, we know that if you want to do the most good, you shouldn't diversify your charitable giving. If a specific charity makes the best use of your money, then you should assign your whole charitable budget to that organization. In the unlikely case that you're a millionaire and the recipient couldn't make full use of all your donations, then sure, diversify. But most people couldn't donate that much even if they wanted to. Also, if you're trying to buy yourself a warm fuzzy feeling, diversification will help. But then you're not trying to do the most good, you're trying to make yourself feel good, and you'd do well to have separate budgets for those two.

We also know about scope insensitivity - when three groups of subjects were asked how much they'd pay to save 2000 / 20000 / 200000 migrating birds from drowning in oil, they answered $80, $78, and $88, respectively. "How much do I value it if 20,000 birds are saved from drowning in oil" is a hard question, and we're unsure of what to compare it with. So we substitute the question into an easier and clearer one - "how much emotion do I feel when I think about birds drowning in oil". And that question doesn't take the number of birds into account, so the number gets mostly ignored.

So diversification and scope insensitivity are two biases that people have, and which affect charitable giving. What others are there?

According to Baron & Szymanska (2010), there are a number of heuristics involved in giving that lead to various biases. Diversification we are already familiar with. The others are Evaluability, Average vs. Marginal Benefit, Prominence, Identifiability, and Voluntary vs. Tax.

The general principle of Evaluability has been discussed on LW before, though not in a charitable context. This one is directly related to scope insensitivity, since both involve it being difficult to judge whether or not a charitable cause is a worthy one. Suppose that you need to choose between two charities, one of them dedicated to malaria prevention and the other dedicated to treating parasitic worm infections. Which one is a more worthy cause? Or should you instead donate to something else entirely?

Presuming that you don't happen to know about GiveWell's reports about the two charities and haven't studied the topic, you probably have no idea of which one is better. But you still need to make a decision, so you loo...
Meetup : Brussels meetup
by Axel — 2012-03-02T13:55:27.639Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Brussels meetup

WHEN:
17 March 2012 11:15:00AM (+0100)

WHERE:
Museum of Natural Sciences Rue Vautier 29 B-1000 Brussels

The last meetup was a success and we'll make this one even better. If you couldn't make the previous meetup consider dropping by.
(getting there: http://www.naturalsciences.be/information/visitor/access)

Discussion article for the meetup : Brussels meetup
Meetup : Sydney - Core sequences
by Oklord — 2012-03-02T12:51:33.661Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney - Core sequences

WHEN:
13 March 2012 06:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
22 the promenade sydney

Hey everybody. Deep inside the king street brewery, we'll be hopefully coming to a discussion of the core sequences, as suggested at the last meeting. Plus general hanging about!

We have a FB group set up - just search Less wrong Sydney, or PM.

Dates, as always are fungible.

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney - Core sequences
How do you notice when you're procrastinating?
by Alex_Altair — 2012-03-02T09:25:08.917Z

I'm going to steal Anna's idea and change it to the instrumental side of rationality. In Luke's algorithm for beating procrastination, Step 1 is to Notice You Are Procrastinating. I'm not so sure this is easy. For me, the knowledge sort of fades in and out without being explicitly grabbed by my consciousness. If I actually held onto that fact, the moment that I was evading a task, and made it clear to myself that I was doing the sub-optimal, and the consequences involved, I think it would go a long way towards getting me to actually get things done.

What do you use to catch it? How do you notice you're procrastinating? Leave your ideas below (one idea per comment), and upvote the comments that you either: (a) use; or (b) will now try using.
How do you notice when you're rationalizing?
by AnnaSalamon — 2012-03-02T07:28:21.698Z

How do you notice when you're rationalizing? Like, what *actually* tips you off, in real life?

I've listed my cues below; please add your own (one idea per comment), and upvote the comments that you either: (a) use; or (b) will now try using.

I'll be using this list in a trial rationality seminar on Wednesday; it also sounds useful in general.
[SEQ RERUN] Fake Reductionism
by MinibearRex — 2012-03-02T05:15:54.878Z

Today's post, Fake Reductionism was originally published on 17 March 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

There is a very great distinction between being able to see where the rainbow comes from, and playing around with prisms to confirm it, and maybe making a rainbow yourself by spraying water droplets, versus some dour-faced philosopher just telling you, "No, there's nothing special about the rainbow. Didn't you hear? Scientists have explained it away. Just something to do with raindrops or whatever. Nothing to be excited about." I think this distinction probably accounts for a hell of a lot of the deadly existential emptiness that supposedly accompanies scientific reductionism.

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 Explaining vs. Explaining Away, 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.
Cashing Out Cognitive Biases as Behavior
by gwern — 2012-03-02T04:57:40.767Z

We believe cognitive biases and susceptibility lead to bad decisions and suboptimal performance. I’d like to look at 2 interesting studies:

Parker & Fischhoff 2005: “Decision-making competence: External validation through an individual-differences approach”

compiled a number of questions for 7 cognitive biases and then asked questions about impulsiveness, number of sexual partners, etc to their 110 18–19 year olds, who also supplied some IQ, education, and thinking style metrics. The components for their ‘DMC’ battery:

Consistency in risk perception

Recognizing social norms

Resistance to sunk costs

Resistance to framing

Applying decision rules

Path independence

Under/overconfidence

Bruine de Bruin et al 2007: “Individual Differences in Adult Decision-Making Competence”

They used the DMC as well, but also developed what we might call a 34-item index of bad decisions (the DOI): ever bought clothes you never wore, rented a movie you didn’t watch, get expelled, file for bankruptcy, forfeit your driver’s license, miss an airplane, bounced a check, drink until you vomited, etc. (pg 18–19 full list). The subjects were 360 18–88 year olds (average 48), with many of the same metrics gathered (education/IQ/thinking style).

Before continuing further, it might be interesting to write down what you expect the results to be. Controlling for IQ eliminates all interesting correlations? A few of the fallacies correlated, or all, or none? Education increases, decreases, or doesn’t affect susceptibility? Fallacy susceptibility correlates strongly with risky behavior, >0.5? Correlates strongly with the DOI results, >0.5? Less for either? And so on.

Are we done? Good, but first I’d like to discuss why I was reading these papers: I recently received my copy of Keith Stanovich’s 2010 book, Rationality & The Reflective Mind. (It cost a cool $50 because I couldn’t find anyone who would pirate the ebook version from Oxford Scholarship Online. So it goes.) It’s fairly interesting - I’m going to have to edit my DNB FAQ based on chapter 3 - and presents a two-process model of IQ and rationality, arguing that lack of reflection or meta-cognition explains why IQ tests can accurately measure IQ but still fail to correlate as much as one would expect with performanc...
The Singularity Institute is hiring remote HTML / WordPress workers!
by lukeprog — 2012-03-02T03:57:09.560Z

The Singularity Institute needs to hire remote HTML & WordPress workers. (For example, we need to move dozens of Singularity Summit talk transcripts to our new WordPress site and fix any formatting errors that result from that move.) This requires basic knowledge of HTML and WordPress.

Pay is hourly and starts at $12/hr but that will rise if the product is good. You must be available to work at least 20 hrs/week to be considered.

Perks:

Work from home, with flexible hours.

Age and credentials are irrelevant; only the product matters.

If you're interested, apply here.
The Singularity Institute is hiring remote editors!
by lukeprog — 2012-03-02T03:31:47.862Z

The Singularity Institute needs to hire remote editors. You don't need to be able to conquer the blank page or write good content, you just need to be able to polish completed 2nd drafts of articles and suggest small fixes to wording when ideas are slightly wrong or ambiguous. The work will usually consist in adding dozens of comments to a Google doc or Word doc.

Pay is hourly and starts at $14/hr but that will rise if the product is good. You must be available to work at least 20 hrs/week to be considered.

Perks:

Work from home, with flexible hours.

Age and credentials are irrelevant; only the product matters.

Get paid to see early copies of (and contribute to) articles on things you're probably interested in already.

If you're interested, apply here. My assistant Denise will send you an example of the editing quality we want, and also an un-commented article for you to provide feedback on as an unpaid trial task. If your deliverable is good enough, I'll hire you.
Art vs. science
by PhilGoetz — 2012-03-01T23:09:51.062Z

It struck me this morning that a key feature that distinguishes art from science is that art is studied in the context of the artist, while science is not. When you learn calculus, mechanics, or optics, you don't read Newton. Science has content that can be abstracted out of one context - including the context of its creation - and studied and used in other contexts. This is a defining characteristic. Whereas art can't be easily removed from its context - one could argue art is context. When we study art, we study the original work by a single artist, to get that artist's vision.

(This isn't a defining characteristic of art - it wasn't true until the twelfth century, when writers and artists began signing their works. In ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages in Europe, the content, subject, or purpose of art was considered primary, in the same way that the content of science is today. "Homer's" Iliad was a collaborative project, in which many authors (presumably) agreed that the story was the important thing, not one author's vision of it, and (also presumably) added to it in much the way that science is cumulative today. Medieval art generally glorified the church or the state.)

However, because this is the way western society views art today, we can use this as a test. Is it art or science? Well, is its teaching organized around the creators, or around the content?

Philosophy and linguistics are somewhere between art and science by this test. So is symbolic AI, while data mining is pure science.
Status and Changing your Mind
by jefftk — 2012-03-01T19:02:39.214Z

When you hear powerful evidence or arguments that should get you to revise your beliefs, not only do all sorts of cognitive biases fight the changes but so do the social factors of status and face saving. Perhaps I've long been a vocal proponent of X which implies Y, and you show me that Y isn't always true. It's very hard to just straight up admit "ok, I'm not a hardcore Xist anymore." There's a status loss in letting yourself be convinced.

For a long time I thought that I was stronger than this, that saving face only mattered as much as I let it matter. I wish I could freely admit when I've been convinced, but I often can't manage to. [1] Instead I'll finish a conversation defending my earlier beliefs and only later start acting on my new ones.

After a discussion where someone didn't admit to any change of mind, I'll often see them later having changed their behavior. So now if I'm trying to persuade someone I don't focus on securing verbal agreement. Instead I just try to be as convincing as possible, and notice if they come around later. [2]

(I also posted this on my blog)

[1] This is not a helpful trait: I'd like other people to let me know when I'm wrong or when they have evidence I'm not considering, but if they never get the satisfaction of knowing they've convinced me they may just feel like they've wasted their time, and not try in the future. So I'm working on it.

[2] Keeping people from feeling personally invested in one side or the other of an argument is probably also helpful: I understand discussions are much more likely to convince bystanders than participants.
Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists (DC, March 13)
by PhilGoetz — 2012-03-01T18:25:48.431Z

I've never been to a Rumi Forum event, but the topic (how individuals or groups abandon extremist groups and ideologies) and the key question (whether to try to change behavior or beliefs) are relevent to LessWrong.

Rumi Forum presents: "Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists", with Angel M. Rabasa, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation
Wednesday March 13th, 2012
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
at Rumi Forum, 1150 17th Street NW, Suite 408, Washington, D.C. 20036
Free and open to the public (registration required)
Light lunch will be served
Please Click to RSVP
Considerable effort has been devoted to understanding the process of violent Islamist radicalization, but far less research has explored the equally important process of deradicalization, or how individuals or groups abandon extremist groups and ideologies. Proactive measures to prevent vulnerable individuals from radicalizing and to rehabilitate those who have already embraced extremism have been implemented, to varying degrees, in several Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and European countries. A key question is whether the objective of these programs should be disengagement (a change in behavior) or deradicalization (a change in beliefs) of militants.
Rabasa will discuss the findings of the RAND monograph, Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists. The study analyzes deradicalization and counter-radicalization programs in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe assesses the strengths and weaknesses of these programs, and makes recommendations to governments on ways to promote and accelerate processes of deradicalization.
Dr. Angel M. Rabasa is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He has written extensively about extremism, terrorism, and insurgency. He is the lead author of The Lessons of Mumbai (2009); Radical islam in East Africa (2009); The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey (2008); Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks (2007); Building Moderate Muslim Networks (2007); Beyond al-Qaeda, Part 1: The Global Jihadist Movement and Part 2: The Outer Rings of the Terrorist Universe (2006); and The Muslim World After 9/11 (2004). He has completed the research on patterns of Islamist radicalization and terrorism in Europe, and is currently working on a project on deradicalization of Islamist extremists.
Other works include the international institute for Strate...
March 2012 Media Thread
by RobertLumley — 2012-03-01T15:10:02.923Z

There was a recent discussion considering the idea of a monthly Book (later expanded to movies, links, etc) thread. The poll was pretty unanimous that this was A Good Idea (tm). The past two threads have had a decent amount of activity, so let's keep going.
Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing!

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting; this is a thread for sharing subjective experiences, and people should feel comfortable posting their personal opinion without fearing a karma backlash. If you disagree with a person's recommendation, please post a comment to that effect.

If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.

Please use the comment trees, which I was apparently too dumb to do.
[SEQ RERUN] Explaining vs. Explaining Away
by MinibearRex — 2012-03-01T03:37:45.606Z

Today's post, Explaining vs. Explaining Away was originally published on 17 March 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Apparently "the mere touch of cold philosophy", i.e., the truth, has destroyed haunts in the air, gnomes in the mine, and rainbows. This calls to mind a rather different bit of verse:

One of these things

Is not like the others

One of these things

Doesn't belong

The air has been emptied of its haunts, and the mine de-gnomed—but the rainbow is still there!

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 Reductionism, 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.
Meetup : Houston Meetup - 3/4
by Cog — 2012-03-01T02:04:45.775Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Houston Meetup - 3/4

WHEN:
04 March 2012 12:00:00PM (-0600)

WHERE:
2010 Commerce St, Houston, TX 77002, USA

The Houston Less Wrong meet up group will reconvene this Sunday at 12:00PM at the local hackerspace. We'll be going over the third chapter of ET Jayne's "The Logic of Science" and working out the problems. Afterwards, many of us will be going rock climbing at a local gym.

Communal breakfast food is usually available, but bring in some cash for the tip jar to compensate the hackerspace.

Discussion article for the meetup : Houston Meetup - 3/4
Singularity-oriented Sci-Fi collection to be published [link]
by Dr_Manhattan — 2012-02-29T16:39:40.714Z

Sorry for the blogspammy link, it's the best summary I found.

http://upcoming4.me/media-news/book-news/item/8768-contents-of-digital-rapture-the-singularity-anthology-announced

Of interest is apparent inclusion of Nick Bostrom in the collection (not sure if it's his sci-fi or philo work)
Another problem with CDT, involving Bell's Theorem
by lukeprog — 2012-02-29T15:59:39.750Z

Cavalcanti (2010) describes another problem with causal decision theory:

I apply some of the lessons from quantum theory, in particular from Bell’s theorem, to a debate on the foundations of decision theory and causation. By tracing a formal analogy between the basic assumptions of causal decision theory (CDT)—which was developed partly in response to Newcomb’s problem—and those of a local hidden variable theory in the context of quantum mechanics, I show that an agent who acts according to CDT and gives any nonzero credence to some possible causal interpretations underlying quantum phenomena should bet against quantum mechanics in some feasible game scenarios involving entangled systems, no matter what evidence they acquire. As a consequence, either the most accepted version of decision theory is wrong, or it provides a practical distinction, in terms of the prescribed behaviour of rational agents, between some metaphysical hypotheses regarding the causal structure underlying quantum mechanics.
'Utility maximization generalized'
by lukeprog — 2012-02-29T15:43:24.216Z

Paul Weirich's "Utility Maximization Generalized" (2008) may be of interest to those studying utility maximization in the context of non-ideal agents:

Theories of rationality advance principles that diff er in topic, scope, and assumptions. A typical version of the principle of utility maximization formulates a standard rather than a procedure for decisions, evaluates decisions comprehensively, and relies on idealizations. I generalize the principle by removing some idealizations and making adjustments for their absence. The generalizations accommodate agents who have incomplete probability and utility assignments and are imperfectly rational. Th ey also accommodate decision problems with unstable comparisons of options.
[SEQ RERUN] Reductionism
by MinibearRex — 2012-02-29T01:11:21.707Z

Today's post, Reductionism was originally published on 16 March 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

We build models of the universe that have many different levels of description. But so far as anyone has been able to determine, the universe itself has only the single level of fundamental physics - reality doesn't explicitly compute protons, only quarks.

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 Qualitatively Confused, 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.
Meetup : Vancouver!
by  — 2012-02-29T00:17:19.278Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver!

WHEN:
04 March 2012 02:00:00PM (-0800)

WHERE:
Vancouver!

We've been meeting every week for a few months, but there are only a few of us. If you live in or near vancouver, you should come out and participate in our adventures.

Sundays at 1400 has been the rule, venue is my house. Details and address are on the list: http://groups.google.com/group/vancouver-rationalists.

We need more people and more ideas and more points of view, so please err on the side of coming out at least once.

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver!