trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Hazing as Counterfactual Mugging?
by SilasBarta — 2010-10-11T14:17:09.201Z

In the interest of making decision theory problems more relevant, I thought I'd propose a real-life version of counterfactual mugging. This is discussed in Drescher's Good and Real, and many places before. I will call it the Hazing Problem by comparison to this practice (possibly NSFW – this is hazing, folks, not Disneyland).

The problem involves a timewise sequence of agents who each decide whether to "haze" (abuse) the next agent. (They cannot impose any penalty on previous agent.) For all agents n, here is their preference ranking:

1) not be hazed by n-1

2) be hazed by n-1, and haze n+1

3) be hazed by n-1, do NOT haze n+1

or, less formally:

1) not be hazed

2) haze and be hazed

3) be hazed, but stop the practice

The problem is: you have been hazed by n-1. Should you haze n+1?

Like in counterfactual mugging, the average agent has lower utility by conditioning on having been hazed, no matter how big the utility difference between 2) and 3) is. Also, it involves you having to make a choice from within a "losing" part of the "branching", which has implications for the other branches.

You might object the choice of whether to haze is not random, as Omega’s coinflip is in CM; however, there are deterministic phrasings of CM, and your own epistemic limits blur the distinction.

UDT sees optimality in returning not-haze unconditionally. CDT reasons that its having been hazed is fixed, and so hazes. I *think* EDT would choose to haze because it would prefer to learn that, having been hazed, they hazed n+1, but I'm not sure about that.

I also think that TDT chooses not-haze, although this is questionable since I'm claiming this is isomorphic to CM. I would think TDT reasons that, "If n's regarded it as optimal to not haze despite having been hazed, then I would not be in a position of having been hazed, so I zero out the disutility of choosing not-haze."

Thoughts on the similarity and usefulness of the comparison?
The Dark Arts - Preamble
by Aurini — 2010-10-11T14:01:58.960Z

I’d like to tell you all a story.

Once upon a time I was working for a charity – a major charity – going door-to-door to raise money while pretending it wasn’t sales.

This story happened on my last day working there. I didn’t know that at the time; I wouldn’t find out until the following morning when my boss called me up to fire me, but I knew it was coming. For weeks I’d been fed up with the job, milking it for the last few dollars I could pull out, hating every minute of it but needing the money. The Sudden Career Readjustment would come as a relief.

So on that day, my last day, I was moving slowly. I knocked on one particular door and there was no response. I had little desire to walk to the next one, however, and there was an interesting spider who’d built its web below the doorbell. I tapped its belly with the tip of my pen, and it reacted with aggression – trying to envenom and ensnare the tip of my ballpoint. I must have been playing with it for a good minute or so when the door suddenly opened.

A distraught woman stood before me. After a brief period of Relating I launched into my pitch.“So you’re probably wondering why there’s a bald weirdo at your door? Actually I’m just coming around with Major Charity1 on an emergency campaign. You’ve heard of us, right? Brilliant! So obviously you’ve thought of getting involved, right? That’s awesome! You see, the reason I’m coming around is for these guys – some of our emergency cases...”2

I handed her the pictures of the Developing World Children (yeah, it was one of those charities). She took them, a wistful look on her face.

“Oh God, don’t show me these. I’m such a Rescuer.”

“Rescuer? Do you have a Rescue Dog?” [Where I’m from, abused animals brought into a new home are called ‘Rescue Dogs’.]

“No, I...”

“You mean your personality? You care about people, don’t you?&rdqu

...
Great Mathematicians on Math Competitions and "Genius"
by multifoliaterose — 2010-10-11T11:50:46.004Z

As I mentioned in Fields Medalists on School Mathematics, school mathematics usually gives a heavily distorted picture of mathematical practice. It's common for bright young people to participate in math competitions, an activity which is closer to that of mathematical practice. Unfortunately, while math competitions may be more representative of mathematical practice than school mathematics, math competitions are themselves greatly misleading. Furthermore, they've become tied to a misleading mythological conception of "genius." I've collected relevant quotations below.

Acknowledgment - I obtained some of these quotations from a collection of mathematician quotations compiled by my colleague Laurens Gunnarsen.

In a 2003 interview, Fields Medalist Terence Tao answered the question

What advice would you give to young people starting out in math (i.e. high school students and young researchers)?

by saying

Well, I guess they should be warned that their impressions of what professional mathematics is may be quite different from the reality. In elementary school I had the vague idea that professional mathematicians spent their time computing digits of pi, for instance, or perhaps devising and then solving Math Olympiad style problems.

In The Case against the Mathematical Tripos mathematician GH Hardy wrote

It has often been said that Tripos mathematics was a collection of elaborate futilities, and the accusation is broadly true. My own opinion is that this is the inevitable result, in a mathematical examination, of high standards and traditions. The examiner is not allowed to content himself with testing the competence and the knowledge of the candidates; his instructions are to provide a test of more than that, of initiative, imagination, and even of some sort of originality. And as there is only one test of originality in mathematics, namely the accomplishment of original work, and as it is useless to ask a youth of twenty-two to perform original research under examination conditions, the examination necessarily degenerates into a kind of game, and instruction for it into initiation into a series of stunts and tricks.

In The Map of My Life mathematician Goro Shimura wrote of his experience teaching at a cram school

I discovered that many of the exam problems were artificial and required some clever tricks. I avoided such types, and chose more straig

...
Great Mathematicians on Precocity, Speed and Math Competitions
by multifoliaterose — 2010-10-11T10:45:52.139Z

In a 2003 interview, Terence Tao answered the question

What advice would you give to young people starting out in math (i.e. high school students and young researchers)?

by saying

Well, I guess they should be warned that their impressions of what professional mathematics is may be quite different from the reality. In elementary school I had the vague idea that professional mathematicians spent their time computing digits of pi, for instance, or perhaps devising and then solving Math Olympiad style problems.

In The Case against the Mathematical Tripos mathematician GH Hardy wrote

It has often been said that Tripos mathematics was a collection of elaborate futilities, and the accusation is broadly true. My own opinion is that this is the inevitable result, in a mathematical examination, of high standards and traditions. The examiner is not allowed to content himself with testing the competence and the knowledge of the candidates; his instructions are to provide a test of more than that, of initiative, imagination, and even of some sort of originality. And as there is only one test of originality in mathematics, namely the accomplishment of original work, and as it is useless to ask a youth of twenty-two to perform original research under examination conditions, the examination necessarily degenerates into a kind of game, and instruction for it into initiation into a series of stunts and tricks.

In The Map of My Life mathematician Goro Shimura wrote of his experience teaching at a cram school

I discovered that many of the exam problems were artificial and required some clever tricks. I avoided such types, and chose more straightforward problems, which one could solve with standard techniques and basic knowledge. There is a competition called the Mathematical Olympic, in which a competitor is asked to solve some problems, which are difficult and of the type I avoided. Though such a competition may have its raison d’ˆetre, I think those younger people who are seriously interested in mathematics will lose nothing by ignoring it.

In his lecture at the 2001 International Mathematics Olympiad, Andrew Wiles said

Let me then welcome you not only to this event but also to the greater world of mathematics in what many of us believe is now a golden age. However let me also warn you — whatever the route you have taken so far, the real challenges of

...
Fields Medalists on School Mathematics
by multifoliaterose — 2010-10-11T10:06:25.516Z

Most people form their impressions of math from their school mathematics courses. The vast majority of school mathematics courses distort the nature of mathematical practice and so have led to widespread misconceptions about the nature of mathematical practice. There's a long history of high caliber mathematicians finding their experiences with school mathematics alienating or irrelevant. I think this should be better known. Here I've collected some relevant quotes.

I'd like to write some Less Wrong articles diffusing common misconceptions about mathematical practice but am not sure how to frame these hypothetical articles. I'd welcome any suggestions.

Acknowledgment - I obtained some of these quotations from a collection of mathematician quotations compiled by my colleague Laurens Gunnarsen.

In Reflections Around the Ramanujan Centenary Fields Medalist Atle Selberg said:

I have talked with many others who became mathematicians, about the mathematics they learned in school. Most of them were not particularly inspired by it but started reading on their own, outside of school by some accident or other, as I myself did.

In his autobiography Ferdinand Eisenstein wrote about how he found his primary school mathematical education tortuous:

During the first years [of elementary school] I acquired my education in the fundamentals: I still remember the torture of completing endless multiplication examples. From this, you might conclude, erroneously, that I lacked mathematical ability, merely because I showed little inclination for calculating. In fact the mechanical, always repetitive nature of the procedures annoyed me, and indeed, I am still disgusted with calculations lacking any purpose, while if there was something new to discover, requiring thought and reasoning, I would spare no pains.

There is some overlap between Eisenstein's early school experience and the experience that Fields Medalist William Thurston describes in his essay in Mariana Cook's book Mathematicians: An Outer View of the Inner World:

I've loved mathematics all my life, although I often doubted that mathematics would turn out to be my life's focus even when others thought it obvious. I hated much of what was taught as mathematics in my early schooling, and I often received poor grades. I now view many of these early lessons as anti-math: they actively tried to discour

...
Any LW-ers in Munich, Athens, or Israel?
by AnnaSalamon — 2010-10-11T06:56:01.092Z

Carl Shulman and I are in Munich until Oct 14, then in Athens for two days (until late night of the 16th), then in Israel for a couple months (with at least some time in both Tel Aviv and Jesusalem). Is there anyone in one of these cities that would like to meet for coffee and discussion?
Love and Rationality: Less Wrongers on OKCupid
by Relsqui — 2010-10-11T06:35:52.600Z

Last month, Will_Newsome started a thread about OKCupid, one of the major players among online dating sites--especially for the young-and-nerdy set, given their mathematical approach to matching. He opened it up for individual profile evaluation, which occurred, but so did a lot of fruitful meta-discussion about attraction in general and online dating mechanisms in particular. This post is a summary of the parts of that thread which specifically address the practical aspect of good profile editing and critique. (It also incorporates some ideas I had previously but hadn't collected yet.) A little of it is specific to OKCupid, but most of it can be applied to any dating site, and some to dating in general. I've cited points which came from single comments (i.e. not suggested by several people); if I missed one of yours, please comment with a link and I'll add the reference.

On OKTrends

"Wait a minute," I hear experienced OKCers cry. "Why reinvent the wheel of profile analysis? OKCupid already has a blog for just that, and it's called OKTrends."

OKTrends has its merits, but it also has one major flaw. Wei_Dai summed it up well by observing that OKTrends does not make "any effort to distinguish between correlation and causation," citing this post as an example. The reason for that is obvious: the first purpose of OKTrends is to bring traffic to OKCupid. It does this with entertaining content about racy subjects, and rigorous analysis comes (optimistically) second. Of course, datadataeverywhere added, that's exactly the Mythbusters formula. They're both junk food science, but it's also the only look at their data we're going to get, so I'll link a few relevant OKTrends posts in the appropriate sections.

How to Write a Good Profile

Okay, you've created your account and answered a few questions. Now it's time to summarize your whole personality, your appeal, and your worldview in ten little text boxes. Where to begin?

The obvious answer is to reply to the ten profile prompts with your answers to them. Don't fall for it! What you write in your profile, along with your picture, will be the whole sense of yourself you convey to other people. Do your favorite media selections and the fact that you need oxygen, water, food, shelter, and two other obvious things to live constitute 20% of your identity?

Concrete Advice #1: Don't just follow the prompts. Think about what you ...
Discuss: Have you experimented with Pavlovian conditioning?
by Will_Newsome — 2010-10-11T06:15:29.791Z

I want to do some quick-and-dirty productivity hacks, along the lines of this or this. My simplified methodology is something like this: at the end of every 20 minutes of hard-ish labor (like writing Less Wrong posts or taking over African countries), I will flip a coin. If the coin lands tails, I inhale 8 grams of delicious nitrous oxide and keep on working. If heads, I die a little inside, take a 5 minute emailhackernewsfacebookblitzchess break, and then start working again.

The reason I really expect this to work is because I get significantly more pleasure out of nitrous oxide than I do from orgasms. It's that good. If positive conditioning works at all, this stuff had better do it. I'm skeptical that something else like a gummy worm would really motivate me. Plus I'm not too keen on ingesting excessively large amounts of sugar.

Have others done similar experiments? Any ideas for an improved methodology? Anyone else interested in trying this with their own drug/candy of choice so we can pool our findings? I'd be very happy if people used this to finally bang out that one Less Wrong post they've been meaning to write.
Collecting and hoarding crap, useless information
by lionhearted (Sebastian Marshall) — 2010-10-10T21:05:51.331Z

I am realizing something that many, many intelligent people are guilty of - collecting and hoarding and accumulating crap, useless information. This is dangerous, because it feels like you're doing something useful, but you're not.

However, speaking personally - once I decide to start focusing and researching something systematically to get better at it, it gets harder to do. For instance, I taught myself statistics mostly using baseball stats. It was a fun, easy, harmless context to learn statistics.

I read lots of history and historical fiction. I read up lots on business and entrepreneurship. This is easy and fun and enjoyable.

But then, when I decide to really hone in, it becomes much harder. For instance, I'm doing some casual research on the history of insurgencies and asymmetrical warfare. This is the kind of thing I'd read all the time for fun, but now that I'm working on it systematically, it becomes a lot harder.

Likewise business and entrepreneurship - I read lots and lots on technology, financing, market research, marketing, etc. But now that I'm really nailing down one aspect for my next business, it becomes almost strenuous to work on that.

It's like... collecting and hoarding useless, unfocused information is for us what collecting and hoarding a bunch of useless consumer shit is for most people. I'd reckon that people that hang out here are smarter with money and less into buying junk, but, at least for me, I'm spending a lot of my time buying junk information.

Alright, back to reading about Tienanmen Square and Rome/Carthage and the Tet Offensive, and nailing down the buying criteria and budgets of the market I want to be in. Why it is so much easier to focus and collect crap mentally than to do it systematically on meaningful topics? Do you do this? I seriously doubt I'm the only one...
Discuss: Meta-Thinking Skills
by  — 2010-10-10T20:05:32.121Z

When do you go meta? When do you stop going meta?

In the video Q and A Eliezer offered some advice about this (the emphasis is mine):

I tend to focus on thinking, and it's only when my thinking gets stuck or I run into a particular problem that I will resort to meta-thinking. Unless it's a particular meta-skill that I already have, in which case I'll just execute it. For example, the meta-skill of trying to focus on the original problem. In one sense, a whole chunk of Less Wrong is more or less my meta-thinking skills.

I guess on reflection I would say that there is a lot of routine meta-thinking that I already know how to do, and I do without really thinking of it as meta-thinking. On the other hand original meta-thinking, which is the time consuming part, is something that I tend to resort to only when my current meta-thinking skills have broken down. And that's probably a reasonably exceptional circumstance, even though it's something of a comparative advantage and so I expect that I do it a bit more of it than average.

Even so, when I'm trying to work on an object-level problem at any given point I'm probably not doing original meta-level questioning about how to execute these meta-level skills. If I'm bogged down in writing something I may execute my existing meta-level skill of try to step back and look at this from a more abstract level. If that fails then I may have to think about what sort of abstract levels can you view this problem on, and similar problems as opposed to tasks, and in that sense go into original meta-level thinking mode. But one of those meta-level skills I would say is the notion that your meta-level problem comes from an object-level problem, and you're supposed to keep one eye on the object-level problem the whole time you're working on the meta-level.

In his discussion post "Are you doing what you should be doing?", Will_Newsome identified what seems to be an important guiding principle of meta-thinking:

Yay for going meta! I should repeat this process until going meta no longer produces time-saving results.

(where "time-saving results" can be replaced with "greater marginal utility" to obtain a form that is more generally applicable)

Some questions we could explore:

How can you identify when you are "stuck", and when going meta has greater marginal utility than continuing on your current level of thought?

How many levels of

...
Deep Structure Determinism
by magfrump — 2010-10-10T18:54:15.161Z

Sort of a response to: Collapse Postulate

Abstract: There are phenomena in mathematics where certain structures are distributed "at random;" that is, statistical statements can be made and probabilities can be used to predict the outcomes of certain totally deterministic calculations. These calculations have a deep underlying structure which leads a whole class of problems to behave in the same way statistically, in a way that appears random, while being entirely deterministic. If quantum probabilities worked in this way, it would not require collapse or superposition.

This is a post about physics, and I am not a physicist. I will reference a few technical details from my (extremely limited) research in mathematical physics, but they are not necessary to the fundamental concept. I am sure that I have seen similar ideas somewhere in the comments before, but searching the site for "random + determinism" didn't turn much up so if anyone recognizes it I would like to see other posts on the subject. However my primary purpose here is to expose the name "Deep Structure Determinism" that jasonmcdowell used for it when I explained it to him on the ride back from the Berkeley Meetup yesterday.

Again I am not a physicist; it could be that there is a one or two sentence explanation for why this is a useless theory--of course that won't stop the name "Deep Structure Determinism" from being aesthetically pleasing and appropriate.

For my undergraduate thesis in mathematics, I collected numerical evidence for a generalization of the Sato-Tate Conjecture. The conjecture states, roughly, that if you take the right set of polynomials, compute the number of solutions to them over finite fields, and scale by a consistent factor, these results will have a probability distribution that is precisely a semicircle.

The reason that this is the case has something to do with the solutions being symmetric (in the way that y=x2 if and only if y=(-x)2 is a symmetry of the first equation) and their group of symmetries being a circle. And stepping back one step, the conjecture more properly states that the numbers of solutions will be roots of a certain polynomial which will be the minimal polynomial of a random matrix in SU2.

That is at least as far as I follow the mathematics, if not further. However, it's far enough for me ...