trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Sunk Cost Fallacy
by Z_M_Davis — 2009-04-12T17:30:52.592Z

Related to: Just Lose Hope Already, The Allais Paradox, Cached Selves

In economics we have this concept of sunk costs, referring to costs that have already been incurred, but which cannot be recouped. Sunk cost fallacy refers to the fallacy of honoring sunk costs, which decision-theoretically should just be ignored. The canonical example goes something like this: you have purchased a nonrefundable movie ticket in advance. (For the nitpickers in the audience, I will also specify that the ticket is nontransferable and that you weren't planning on meeting anyone.) When the night of the show comes, you notice that you don't actually feel like going out, and would actually enjoy yourself more at home. Do you go to the movie anyway?

A lot of people say yes, to avoid wasting the ticket. But on further consideration, it would seem that these people are simply getting it wrong. The ticket is a sunk cost: it's already paid for, and you can't do anything with it but go to the movie. But we've stipulated that you don't want to go to the movie. The theater owners don't care whether you go; they already have their money. The other theater-goers, insofar as they can be said to have a preference, would actually rather you stayed home, making the theater marginally less crowded. If you go to the movie to satisfy your intuition about not wasting the ticket, you're not actually helping anyone. Of course, you're entitled to your values, if not your belief. If you really do place terminal value on using something because you've paid for it, well, fine, I guess. But we should all try to notice exactly what it is we're doing, in case it turns out to not be what we want. Please, think it through.

Dearest reader, if you're now about to scrap your intuition against wasting things, I implore you: don't! The moral of the parable of the movie ticket is not that waste is okay; it's that you should implement your waste-reduction interventions at a time when they can actually help. If you can anticipate your enthusiasm waning on the night of the show, don't purchase the nonrefundable ticket in the first place!

You can view ignoring sunk costs as a sort of backwards perspective on the principle of the bottom line. The bottom line tells us that a decision can only be justified by its true causes; any arguments that come strictly afterwards don't count; if it just happens to all turn out for the ...
Awful Austrians
by Swimmy — 2009-04-12T06:06:39.990Z

Response to: The uniquely awful example of theism

Why is theism such an ever-present example of irrationality in this community? I think ciphergoth overstates the case. Even theism is not completely immune to evidence, as the acceptance of, say, evolution by so many denominations over time will testify. Theism is a useful whipping boy because it needs no introduction.

But I think the case is overstated for another reason. There are terrible epistemologies out there that are just as bad as theism's. Allow me to tell you a tale, of how I gave up my religion and my association with a school of economics at the same time.

I grew up in a southern Presbyterian church in the U.S. While I was taught standard pseudo-evidential defenses for belief, such as "creation science" and standard critiques of evolution, my church was stringently anti-evidentialist. Their preferred apologetic was something called presuppositionalism. It's certainly a minority apologetic among major defenders of Christianity today, especially compared to the cosmological or morality arguments. But it's a particularly rigorous attempt to defend beliefs against evidence nonetheless.

Presuppositionalism (in some forms) hangs on the problem of induction. We cannot ultimately justify any of our beliefs without first making some assumptions, otherwise we end in solipsism. Christianity, then, justifies itself not on evidence, but on internal consistency. It is ok for an argument to be ultimately circular, because all arguments are ultimately circular. Christianity alone maintains perfect worldview consistency when examined through this lens, and is therefore correct.

Since I've spent a lot of time thinking about this--it can take a considerable effort to change one's mind, after all--I can imagine innumerable things wrong with it, but they're not the focus of this entry. First, I just want to note how close it is to a kind of intro-level Bayesian understanding. Bayesians admit that we must have priors, that it's indeed nonsense to think we can even have an argument with one who doesn't. We must ultimately admit that certain justifications are going to be either recursive or based on priors. We believe that we should update our priors based on evidence, but there's nothing in the math that tells us we can't start with a prior for some position of 0% or 100%. (There is something in the math that tells us such...
How Much Thought
by jimrandomh — 2009-04-12T04:56:40.773Z

We have many built in heuristics, and most of them are trouble. The absurdity heuristic makes us reject reasonable things out of hand, so we should take the time to fully understand things that seem absurd at first. Some of our beliefs are not reasoned, but inherited; we should sniff those out and discard them. We repeat cached thoughts, so we should clear and rethink them. The affect heuristic is a tricky one; to work around it, we have to take the outside view. Everything we see and do primes us, so for really important decisions, we should never leave our rooms. We fail to attribute agency to things which should have it, like opinions, so if less drastic means don't work, we should modify English to make ourseves do so.

All of these articles bear the same message, the same message that can be easily found in the subtext of every book, treatise and example of rationality. Think more. Look for the third alternative. Challenge your deeply held beliefs. Drive through semantic stop signs. Prepare a line of retreat. If you don't understand, you should make an extraordinary effort. When you do find cause to change your beliefs, complete a checklist, run a script and follow a ritual. Recheck your answers, because thinking helps; more thought is always better.

The problem is, there's only a limited amount of time in each day. To spend more time thinking about something, we must spend less time on something else. The more we think about each topic, the fewer topics we have time to think about at all. Rationalism gives us a long list of extra things to think about, and angles to think about them from, without guidance on where or how much to apply them. This can make us overthink some things and disastrously underthink others. Our worst mistakes are not those where our thoughts went astray, but those we failed to think about at all. The time between when we learn rationality techniques and when we learn where to apply them is the valley.

Reason, like time and money, is a resource. There are many complex definitions of reason, but I will use a simple one: reason is time spent thinking. We mainly use our reason to make decisions and answer questions; if we do it right, the more reason we spend, the more likely our answer will be correct.. We might question this analogy on the basis that we can't directly control our thoughts, but then, many people can't directly control ...
Less Wrong IRC meetup, going soon
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2009-04-11T18:53:48.155Z

Reminder: Less Wrong will be having a meetup on Saturday at 7pm UTC (convert to other time zones), in the #lesswrong IRC channel on Freenode. If all goes well, this will be a recurring event. If you haven't used IRC before, Mibbit provides a web-based client you can use.

(It's my understanding that this works out to 12pm Pacific or 3pm Eastern, i.e. in about 7 minutes from the time of this posting. I'll delete this post after the meeting is over - comments to main post only, please.)
Maybe theism is wrong
by infotropism — 2009-04-11T16:53:29.690Z

(This is meant as an entirely rewritten version of the original post. It is still long, but hopefully clearer.)

Theism is often bashed. Part of that bashing is gratuitous and undeserved. Some people therefore feel compelled to defend theism. Their defence of theism goes further than just putting the record straight though. It attempts to show how theism can be a good thing, or right. That is probably going too far.

I would argue several points. And for that I will be using the most idealistic vision of religion I can conjure, keeping in mind that real world examples may not be as utopian. My intended conclusion is that fairness and tolerance are a necessary and humane means to the end of helping people, which cannot, however, be used to justify as right something that is ultimately wrong.

Theism is indeed a good thing, on short and mid term, both for individuals and society, as it holds certain benefits.Such as helping people stick together in close knit communities, helping people life a more virtuous life by giving themselves incentives to do so, helping them feel better when life feels unbearable or meaningless.

Another point is that theism also possesses deep similarities with science, and uses optimally rational arguments and induction. Optimally, that is, insofar as the premises of theism allow; those premises, what we could call their priors are, for instance, in Christianity, to be found in the Bible.

Finally, I also wanted to draw on further similarities between religion and secular groups of people. Atheism, humanism, transhumanism, even rationalism as we know it on LW. These similarities lie in the objectives which any of those groups honestly strives to attain. Those goals are, for instance, truth, the welfare of human beings, and their betterment.

Within the world view of each of those groups, each is indeed doing its best to achieve those ends. One of catholicism's final beacon, used to guide people's life path, can be roughly said to be "what action should I take that will make me more able to love others, and myself" for instance. This, involves understanding, and following the word of God, as love and morality is understood to emanate from that source.

And so the Bible, is supposed to hold those absolute truths, not so much in a straightforward, explained way, but rather in the same way that the observable universe is supposed ...
Twelve Virtues booklet printing?
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2009-04-11T14:40:10.521Z

For a while now, I've been using a laser printer to print out a couple of hundred copies of the Twelve Virtues of Rationality (in its printable pamphlet version) and taking them with me to conferences, talks, and science fiction conventions. Cut, staple in the middle (using a large-sized, measuring stapler), and fold. This method is very cheap, probably something like ten cents a copy for ink and paper. But it produces crappy-looking pamphlets.

Does anyone know of a way of cheaply printing small 16-page pamphlets? Take a look at the pamphlet to see the current size. I would really like to see the pamphlets stack well so I can plump down 50 of them without the tower falling over, which is the main problem with the staple-and-fold method. But even more important is that they be cheap, considering the quantities in which I hand these out for free. Something conducive to a professional-looking cover (i.e. allowing for the top sheet to be glossy or a higher quality of paper) would also be nice, again cost permitting.

If I can find a good solution I'll also go ahead and get the pamphlet graphically redesigned before printing, of course, and include some more direct proselytizing material for Less Wrong on the back cover.

I've looked around online, but all the print shops I've seen have been way too expensive for giving away 200 copies per convention - even by myself, much less getting other people to do it on a routine basis. Does anyone know how to get this done cheaply? A minimum order of 10,000 for $1000 would be quite acceptable - I expect at that price I could ship some boxes to other LWers.
Too much feedback can be a bad thing
by Kaj_Sotala — 2009-04-11T14:05:18.306Z

Didn't have the time to read the article itself, but based on the abstract, this certainly sounds relevant for LW:

Recent advances in information technology make it possible for decision makers to track information in real-time and obtain frequent feedback on their decisions. From a normative sense, an increase in the frequency of feedback and the ability to make changes should lead to enhanced performance as decision makers are able to respond more quickly to changes in the environment and see the consequences of their actions. At the same time, there is reason to believe that more frequent feedback can sometimes lead to declines in performance. Across four inventory management experiments, we find that in environments characterized by random noise more frequent feedback on previous decisions leads to declines in performance. Receiving more frequent feedback leads to excessive focus on and more systematic processing of more recent data as well as a failure to adequately compare information across multiple time periods.

Hat tip to the BPS Resarch Digest.

ETA: Some other relevant studies from the same site, don't remember which ones have been covered here already:

Threat of terrorism boosts people's self-esteem

The "too much choice" problem isn't as straightforward as you'd think

Forget everything you thought you knew about Phineas Gage, Kitty Genovese, Little Albert, and other classic psychological tales
Toxic Truth
by MichaelHoward — 2009-04-11T11:25:16.530Z

For those who haven't heard about this yet, I thought this would be a good way to show the potentially insidious effect of biased, one-sided analysis and presentation of evidence under ulterior motives, and the importance of seeking out counter-arguments before accepting a point, even when the evidence being presented to support that point is true.

"[DHMO] has been a part of nature longer than we have; what gives us the right to eliminate it?" - Pro-DHMO web site.

DHMO (hydroxilic acid), commonly found in excised tumors and lesions of terminal lung and throat cancer patients, is a compound known to occur in second hand tobacco smoke. Prolonged exposure in solid form causes severe tissue damage, and a proven link has been established between inhalation of DHMO (even in small quantities) and several deaths, including many young children whose parents were heavy smokers.
It's also used as a solvent during the synthesis of cocaine, in certain forms of particularly cruel and unnecessary animal research, and has been traced to the distribution process of several cases of pesticides causing genetic damage and birth defects. But there are huge political and financial incentives to continue using the compound.
There have been efforts across the world to ban DHMO - an Australian MP has announced a campaign to ban it internationally - but little progress. Several online petitions to the British prime minister on this subject have been rejected. The executive director of the public body that operates Louisville Waterfront Park was actually criticised for posting warning signs on a public fountain that was found to contain DHMO. Jacqui Dean, New Zealand National Party MP was simily told "I seriously doubt that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs would want to spend any time evaluating that substance".

If you haven't guessed why, re-read my first sentence then click here.
HT the Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide.

[Edit to clarify point:] I'm not saying truth is in any way bad. Truth rocks. I'm reminding you truth is *not sufficient*. When they're given treacherously or used recklessly, truth is as toxic as hydroxilic acid.

Follow-up to: Comment in The Forbidden Post.
Maybe Theism Is OK -- Part 2
by byrnema — 2009-04-11T06:32:50.408Z

In response to: The uniquely awful example of theism

And Maybe Theism Is OK

Finally, I think I understand where gim and others are coming from when they made statements that I thought represented overly intolerant views of religious belief. I think that a good summary of the source of the initial difference in opinion is that while many people in this group have the purpose to eliminate all sources of irrationality, I would like to pick and choose which sources of irrationality I have in the optimization of a different problem: general life-hacking.

Probably many people in this group believe that the best life-hack would be to eliminate irrationality. But I'm pretty sure this depends on the person (not everyone is suited for X-rationality), and I'm pretty sure -- though not certain -- that my best life-hack would include some irrationality.

Since my goals are different than that of this forum, many of my views are not relevant here, and there is no need to debate them.

Instead, I would like to present two arguments (1,2) for why it could be rational to hold an irrational belief, and two arguments (3,4) as to why someone could be more accepting of the existence of irrational beliefs (i.e., why not to hate it).

(1) It could be rational to hold an irrational belief if you are aware of your irrational belief and choose to hold it because it is grafted to components of your personality/ psyche that are valuable to you. For example, you may find that

eschewing your religious beliefs makes you feel depressed and you are unable to work productively

your ability to control unwanted impulses is tied with a moral conscience that is inextricably tied with beliefs about God.

ability to perform a certain artistic activity that you enjoy is compartmentalized with spiritual beliefs

I imagine these situations would be the result of an organically developing mind that has made several errors and is possibly unstable. But until we have a full understanding of mental processes/psychology/the physiology of emotions, we cannot expect a rational person to just "tough it out" to optimize rationality while his life falls apart.

Later added: This argument has since been described better, with a better emphasis, with [this comment.](http://lesswrong.com/lw/aq/how_much_thought/6zp)

(2) It could be rational to hold an irrational belief if you choose to hold it because you would like t...
Missed Distinctions
by jimrandomh — 2009-04-11T03:15:40.595Z

When we lump unlike things together, it confuses us and opens holes in our theories. I'm not normally one to read about diets, dieting advice, or anything of that sort, but in today's article about the Shangri-La Diet, I saw an important distinction that no one's talked about. Something Eliezer said in the comments struck me as odd:

a skipped meal you wouldn't notice would have me dizzy when I stand up

And a few posts later,

I can starve or think, not both at the same time.

Reading these, I thought, that's not what being hungry like feels like for me. But while being hungry doesn't feel like that, those descriptions were nonetheless familiar. And then it hit me.

He wasn't describing the symptoms of hunger. He was describing the symptoms of hypoglycemia, more commonly known as low blood sugar. Blood sugar is one of the main systems responsible for regulating appetite, so for most people, having low blood sugar and being hungry are one and the same. The main focus of the Atkins diet, for example, is reducing swings in blood sugar, thereby reducing appetite. The Shangri-La diet seems like it would have a similar effect.

Being diabetic (the kind caused by immunology, not the kind caused by diet), I monitor and control my blood sugar, so I have ample opportunities to observe how it affects my eating habits and how I feel. Like most insulin-dependent diabetics, I have been trained with a fairly detailed model of blood sugar, how it's affected by food and insulin, and procedures to follow if it's too high or low. The standard procedure for low blood sugar, taught to all diabetics, is to test blood sugar, eat exactly 15g (60 calories) of sugar, wait 15 minutes, then test again. In practice, I have sometimes responded to hypoglycemia, not with 15g of sugar as the procedure specifies, but with 15g of sugar, immediately followed by a thousand plus calories of binge eating - basically, as much food as I could shove down in the time between when I first started eating, and when my blood sugar returned to normal (about ten minutes). This behavior is common among people on diets stricter than they can handle. For me, someone not on a diet, with a mostly full stomach, it's downright odd. Or is it?

Being hungry is not the same as having low blood sugar. Hypoglycaemia feels like extreme hunger (plus a few other symptoms), but while extreme hunger takes a lot of food to get r...
Is masochism necessary?
by PhilGoetz — 2009-04-10T23:48:35.000Z

Followup to Stuck in the middle with Bruce:

Bruce is a description of masochistic personality disorder. Bruce's dysfunctional behavior may or may not be related to sexual masochism [safe for work], which is demonized by most people in America. Yet there are ordinary, socially-accepted behaviors that seem partly masochistic to me:

Eating spicy food

Listening to the music of Anton Webern or Alban Berg (not trying to be funny; this is very serious)

Listening to music turned up so loud that it hurts

Fiction

Movies, especially horror movies

Roller coasters

Saunas

Enjoying exercise

Being Bruce

Question 1: Can you list more?

Question 2: Doubtless some of the behaviors I listed have completely different explanations, some of which might not involve masochism at all. Which do you think involve enjoying pain? Can you cluster them by causal mechanism?

Question 3: When we find ourselves acting masochistically, should we try to "correct" it? Or is it part of a healthy human's nature? If so, what's the evolutionary-psych explanation? (I was surprised not to find any evo-psych explanations for masochism on the web; or even any general theory of masochism that tried to unite two different behaviors. All I found were the ideas that sexual masochism is caused by bad childhood models of love, and that masochistic personality is caused by other, unspecified bad experiences. No suggestion that masochism is part of our normal pleasure mechanism.)

Some hypotheses:

Evolution implemented "need to explore" (in the "exploration/exploitation" sense) as pleasure in new experiences, and adaptation to any particular often-repeated stimulus. This could result in seeking ever-higher levels of stimulation, even above the pain threshold. (This could affect a culture as well as an organism, giving the progression Vivaldi -> Bach -> Mozart -> Beethoven -> Wagner -> Stravinsky -> Berg -> screw it, let's invent rock and roll and start over. My original belief was that this progression was caused by people trying to signal sophistication, rather than by honest enjoyment of music. But maybe some people <DELETION of "jaded"> honestly enjoy Berg.)

We have a "pain thermostat" to get us to explore / prevent us from being too cowardly, and modern life leaves us below our set point. (Is masochism

...