trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Long Review: Economic Hierarchies
by SebastianG  — 2022-04-23T12:43:05.258Z

Naked and Afraid from the Discovery Channel didn’t live up to its potential. To be fair, a handful of scraggly naked people trying to make it in Kenya’s wilderness made for interesting television, as they scratched themselves, got infections, and looked pretty uncomfortable. But the interpersonal drama seemed contrived since their goal was mere survival, and the division of labor was not highly interesting. I didn’t learn what I wanted--too much complacent nakedness, not enough competence-porn.

The show I'd like to pitch is one about progress and knowledge. 900 scraggly people, they don’t have to be naked, but for the sake of argument, let’s say they are naked, are plopped in the wilderness with a bunch of raw materials and the mandate to build the highest level of civilization possible in three years, outcompeting another group of 900 scraggly naked people. Boom! Instant natural experiment: knowledge, society, organization, bottlenecks on development. From it we could dream up better models of how to bounce back from a civilizational setback, settle charter cities, and craft efficient institutional structures. We could recruit some of the best minds in hundreds of fields not to consult but to build publicly, with all data and streams tracked and uploaded to the internet for analysis. Of course, our prediction markets about the show would be filled with bets about what milestones would and would not be reached. Plus, we would be entertained and given insights at the same time.

That’s my pitch for how we will inspire people about progress, productivity, and the mysteries of society’s organization. I want the world to see bureaucracy and technology stripped down to their barest essentials, not contrived nakedness in the wilderness. The details of the show might help us understand what governance and incentives would make for the fastest civilization building.

A sense of wonder about these things and a desire to cultivate comparative advantage drove me to read Economic Hierarchies by Gordon Tullock, published in 1992.

Central Planning Games as Gateway Drug

When I was a kid, I wondered what the bare minimum number of people required to make a moon landing is. Firstly, for the rocket program itself, but then for the entire supply chain that makes a moon landing possible. How many janitors, cooks, and truckers are required? How many computer scientists,...
PD-alikes in two dimensions
by philh — 2022-04-23T09:52:38.765Z
Link: http://reasonableapproximation.net/2022/04/03/pdlikes-2d.html

Some time after writing Classifying games like the prisoner's dilemma, I read a paper (I forget which) which pointed out that these games can be specified with just two numbers.

Recall that they have the following payoff matrix:

Player 2

Krump
Flitz

Player 1
Krump
(W,W)
(X,Y)

Flitz
(Y,X)
(Z,Z)

where W>Z.[1] We can apply a positive affine transformation (that is, n↦an+b where a>0) to all of W,X,Y,Z without changing the game. So let's pick the function n↦n−ZW−Z. This sends W to 1 and Z to 0, leaving us with just two parameters: R=X−ZW−Z and S=Y−ZW−Z.

So what happens if we plot the space of these games on a graph? The lines {X,Y}={W,Z} become {R,S}={0,1}, i.e. vertical and horizontal lines. The lines X+Y=2W and X+Y=2Z become the diagonals R+S=2 and R+S=0; and X=Y becomes the diagonal R=S. Drawing those lines, and relabelling in terms of W,X,Y,Z, it looks like this:

Note: I tried to limit the vertical size of that but couldn't figure out how. Sorry!

Note that Cake Eating (my favorite game) is the only one with a finite boundary; the other boxes extend to infinity. There are also finite components in the Farmer's Dilemma (with X+Y<2W), and Stag Hunt and Studying For a Test (with X+Y>2Z). As drawn, Prisoner's Dilemma occupies almost all of the box it shares with Too Many Cooks; but Too Many Cooks (above the line X+Y=2W) is also infinite. (I initially got those the wrong way around, so the drawing isn't very clear there.)

I don't know if we learn much from this, but here it is.

In the previous post I mostly ignored equalities because it was mildly convenient to do so. But the analysis here completely fails if we allow W=Z. So now I'm ignoring them because it's considerably more convenient to do so. ↩︎
The Consistency Mystery
by Flaglandbase — 2022-04-23T08:05:34.050Z

There is a strange bias that affects every human even if they believe the opposite.
For some reason, the reality we inhabit appears absolutely consistent and perfectly integrated. Everything happens for a precise reason, affecting everything else through an unbroken chain of logical connections without a single flaw or glitch. There has never been the tiniest violation of the laws that govern our minds' reality.
That is odd, because there are VASTLY more possible ways for minds to have completely absurd experiences. A randomly selected mind from the list of all possible minds should be having constantly changing meaningless hallucinations. Even their memories should be unstable.
It appears we are not randomly selected minds, but some type of special case. Specifically: our perceptions are entirely limited by the universe we appear to inhabit. Which implies this universe is not an illusion of our minds; instead our minds are fully part of the universe.
This fact has been used to argue that we are not "Boltzmann Brains".
In the distant future of our universe, an infinite number of Boltzmann Brains will briefly "pop" into existence in empty space before immediately disintegrating again (this seems to be inevitable). Almost all of these Brains will have completely absurd experiences. But we are definitely not part of that infinite group.
Mathematically, this implies that a larger number of fully realized physical universes must also come into existence in the distant future, similar to Boltzmann Brains. Several ways have been suggested this could happen ("A Big Bang In A Little Room", Zeeya Merali, 2017), but there could be easier ways. We are actually probably part of a "Boltzmann Universe".
In fact it may be EASIER for nature to create an entire universe that contains minds, than to create just a mind by itself.
Another way to look at it is to consider any string of random numbers without end. Eventually, you will come across a string of numbers that describes a "Boltzmann Mind", which will (almost certainly) have a very brief and absurd existence.
However, LONG before then, you will come across many mathematical equations that will fully describe entire universes if you solve them. In fact the type of equation that generated our universe may actually be one of the most "productive" such equations possible.
Wanting to change what you want
by Mithrandir — 2022-04-23T04:23:43.882Z

Many people would gladly change some of their desires. Even normies would likely want to fix procrastination, bad habits like smoking or eating sweets. On the fringe, some nerds would seriously consider disabling sex drive/romantic needs altogether because they tend to distract them from truly important things.

Similar situation may happen with AGI agents. They would tune their own reward function.

Are there any books/articles that study the tendencies that emerge in reward function evolution assuming full or partial freedom of an AGI agent?
Replicating and extending the grabby aliens model
by Tristan Cook — 2022-04-23T00:38:07.059Z

Crossposted to the Effective Altruism Forum

Summary

This report is the most comprehensive model to date of aliens and the Fermi paradox. In particular, it builds on

Hanson et al. (2021)

and

Olson (2015)

and focuses on the expansion of ‘grabby’ civilizations: civilizations that expand at relativistic speeds and make visible changes to the volume they control.

This report considers multiple anthropic theories: the self-indication assumption (SIA), as applied previously by

Olson & Ord (2022)

, the self-sampling assumption (SSA), implicitly used by Hanson et al. (2021) and a decision theoretic approach, as applied previously by

Finnveden (2019)

.

In Chapter 1, I model the appearance of intelligent civilizations (ICs) like our own. In Chapter 2, I consider how grabby civilizations (GCs) modify the number and timing of intelligent civilizations that appear.

In Chapter 3 I run Bayesian updates for each of the above anthropic theories. I update on the evidence that we are in an advanced civilization, have arrived roughly 4.5Gy into the planet’s roughly 5.5 Gy habitable duration, and do not observe any GCs.

In Chapter 4 I discuss potential implications of the results, particularly for altruists hoping to improve the far future.

Starting from a prior similar to

Sandberg et al.’s (2018)

literature-synthesis prior, I conclude the following:

Using SIA or applying a non-causal decision theoretic approach (such as anthropic decision theory) with total utilitarianism, one should be almost certain that there will be many GCs in our future light cone.

Using SSA[1], or applying a non-causal decision theoretic approach with average utilitarianism, one should be confident (~85%) that GCs are not in our future light cone, thus rejecting the result of Hanson et al. (2021). However, this update is highly dependent on one’s beliefs in the habitability of planets around stars that live longer than the Sun: if one is certain that such planets can support advanced life, then one should conclude that GCs are most likely in our future light cone. Further, I explore how an average utilitarian may wager there are GCs in their future light cone if they expect significant trade with other GCs to be possible.

These results also follow when taking (log)uniform priors over all the model parameters.

All figures and results are reproducible

here

.

Vignettes

To set the scene, I start ...
Why “progress studies” is interdisciplinary
by jasoncrawford — 2022-04-22T21:58:23.681Z
Link: https://rootsofprogress.org/why-progress-studies-is-interdisciplinary

When Cowen & Collison coined the term “progress studies” in 2019, some questioned why such a concept was needed, given the existence of economics, history, etc. They argued that an interdisciplinary approach was still useful: “Plenty of existing scholarship touches on these topics, but it takes place in a highly fragmented fashion….”

Recently I’ve been researching and outlining a chapter for my book on the topic of “Can Progress Continue?” I think the full answer to this question is an integration of history, philosophy, and economics. In particular, I’ve found it useful to incorporate:

Economic growth theory, especially the work of Solow, Romer, and Jones
The stagnation debate, including the work of Cowen and Gordon (and counterpoints by “techno-optimists” such as McAfee and Brynjolfsson)
The broader history of economic thought going back to late 18th-century thinkers such as Malthus
The economics of resources as per Julian Simon
The history of predictions of resource depletion and concerns about overpopulation
The economic history of technological shifts from one resource to another
The philosophy of humans as problem-solvers vs. resource-creators articulated by Deutsch
The philosophy of the concept of “sustainability”
Long-term trends in and future predictions of world population growth
Hard limits to very long-term growth based on physical law

I think integrating all of these puzzle pieces and perspectives results in the clearest possible answer to this important question, and I think this is true for many other questions of interest to the progress community.
On Successful Communication Across a Wide Inferential Distance
by Mahdi Complex — 2022-04-22T20:08:05.393Z

From Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers:

There’s an oft-told anecdote about a medical missionary in a remote place, who watches, in horror, as people give untreated well water to their babies. The children regularly get diarrhea, and many of them die. The missionary explains that, even though the water looks clear, there are tiny, invisible creatures in it that make the children sick. Fortunately, she says, if they boil the water, it will kill these bacteria. A month later she’s back, and they’re still giving the babies the dirty water. After all, if a stranger came into your community and told you that your children got influenza because of witchcraft, would you respond by going out and slaughtering a sheep? Then the missionary has another idea. Look, she says, let me show you something. She takes some water and boils it. See, she says, there are spirits in the water, and when you put it on the fire they flee: those bubbles you see are the spirits escaping, the spirits that are making your children sick. Now boiling water makes sense. Now the babies stop dying. In belief, as in everything else, each of us must start from where we are.

When people get sick for unaccountable reasons in Manhattan, there is much talk of viruses and bacteria. Since doctors do not claim to be able to do much about most viruses, they do not put much effort into identifying them. Nor will the course of a viral infection be much changed by a visit to the doctor. In short, most appeals in everyday life to viruses are like most everyday appeals to witchcraft. They are supported only by a general conviction that sickness can be explained, and the conviction that viruses can make you sick.

If you ask most people in Manhattan why they believe in viruses, they will say two kinds of things: First, they will appeal to authority. “Science has shown,” they will say, though if you ask them how science showed it, you will pretty quickly reach an impasse (even with scientists, by the way, unless they happen to be virologists unusually curious about the history of medicine). Second, they will point to phenomena—the spread of HIV or the common cold, the death of their great-aunt last winter, a picture of a virus they once saw in a magazine—where the viral theory explains what happened.

Similarly, in Kumasi, people who are asked why they believe in witchcr

...
China Covid #2
by Zvi — 2022-04-22T19:00:02.248Z

What is happening in China?

That is by far the most important Covid-related question right now. The future of Covid elsewhere might be frustrating, but what is happening in China is potentially a much bigger deal, from disrupting supply chains all the way up to potential loss of the Mandate of Heaven.

I want to emphasize that it is very difficult to know what is going on inside China and my sources for this are not the best. I find the Ukraine war a relative epistemic cakewalk compared to this. So please understand that the alarmist claims from various threads are to be taken with large heapings of salt.

Stocks

One measure that is objective but that I have not previously looked at is the Chinese stock market, which looks like this.

By contrast, here’s the US stock market using the same style graph:

Since the start of March, the US stock market is up while the Chinese stock market is down, approximately +5% vs. -14%. Given that this is long term value, that’s a very large difference. China had been underperforming for the previous year as well, which could be any number of things related or unrelated to Covid.

Cases

The other obvious thing to check, despite its reliability issues, is the official case count. Remember that this is on a log scale. It matches up with previous data – those who understand my model here can look at the graph then skip this section.

This continues to look a lot like a steady straight line up, from 0.1 cases per million mid-February, a little over two months ago, to about 20 cases per million now. China’s Zero-Covid countermeasures have slowed the growth in percentage terms, and have done extra slowing of growth in the last two weeks, but growth is still positive.

Taken at face value, this is potentially close to the very worst case scenario for China.

The best case scenario is that one can indeed sustain Zero Covid at a price worth paying. We now know this does not apply to China.

The next best scenario is China realizes they cannot maintain Zero Covid, so they use their prevention efforts where and when they are useful. They protect the most vulnerable, and they use countermeasures to flatten the curve when case rates get super high, taking advantage of cultural differences and state capacity in such matters to do so at lower cost than similar actions would require in the West.

Alas, we live in neithe...
The Fetishization of Dystopia
by john yardsale — 2022-04-22T16:39:15.406Z

Talking about the pessimistic conditions of the world we live in is hard to do so in itself: Our lives are filled with small moments of meaning-finding, and there is a lot of good in the world, but to critique the prevailing trend of philosophical pessimism is a hard task in itself. Nonetheless, I will attempt to formulate a healthy and life-affirming critique of authors like Benatar and Ligotti in this blogpost and uncover the psychological and historical reasons why pessimism has traveled into the false equivalency of Nietzche misunderstandings, and why internet subculture has played a big role in doing so.

Modern pessimistic philosophy has never seen worse spokespeople for its validity than the anti-natalists, David Benatar and Thomas Ligotti. The fetishization of Dystopia, the ignoring of finding meaning is common in the works of these men, which is contrary to the authors that they idolize so much (Nietzsche railed against nihilism, and thought that it was a stage that man had to overcome, for one notable example). They willfully misunderstand the books that they take their diatribes and polemics from, and unreasonably think that because life has its problems, that means that it’s useless to construct a yay-saying philosophy out of the seemed inherent meaningless of life, even though the authors they supposedly took from did. The anti-natalists also embody the most baseline Wikipedia-skimming interpretation of Nietzsche: That nothing matters, and that from a literal standpoint, God is dead.

It is clear that their roots have a modern processor in the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement started in 1991 by an activist named Les Knight, who, after taking part of the 1970s deep ecology culture, realized foolishly that the only way humankind can redeem itself is by voluntary extinction. His arguments already have inherent flaws, as 1: Humankind cannot be dissuaded to stopping reproduction, as some religions even make it necessary to reproduce, and sexual desire being a common aspect in all humans (except the asexuals/aromantic community, who avoid sex/romantic attraction as a preference) in some way or form. 2: it immediately takes a subconsciously (whether Knight admits it or not) Puritan approach to solving world problems, stopping sex in favor of a utopian apocalyptic collapse politics and pessimism on steroids. It also uses the fetishization of post-apocaly...
Should I buy roofies from the darknet?
by Malmesbury — 2022-04-22T15:40:32.349Z

Crossposted from Telescopic Turnip.

As I am writing, there is a tiny angel-version of myself suspended in mid-air over my left shoulder. His comforting voice is telling me to live a normal life and pursue happiness in normal hobbies like play-dough, warhammer or ironing. Floating over my right shoulder, a little devil-myself is telling me: “hey, you know what would be a great idea? Go on the darknet and buy some roofies!

The thing with experimental psychology is that each participant can only be tested once. For a compelling example, look at Greenstein (2020). They wanted to know if being angry makes you more gullible to misinformation. Being scientists, they performed the Scientific Method: they split their sample of participants in half – one half got a nice and professional experimenter, the other half got an absolute dickhead annoying them on purpose (“the experimenter was disorganized, dismissive, insulting, lost documents, provided only vague instructions, created unnecessary work, and interrupted the participant”). Then, they could confirm that the angry group was indeed more sensitive to fake news.

But this statistical significance comes with a bitter price: they had to deliberately exasperate ~40 innocent undergraduates. And that’s a small study. If they really wanted solid results, they would have to recruit many more participants, and taken together this would amount to a lot of total suffering. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do one arm of the experiment on one person, obliviate them and re-use the same person for the other arm?

Fortunately for us scientists who care about ethics, there may be a way. According to urban legends I’ve heard, some drugs can induce anterograde amnesia, the loss of memory of recent events (typically, what happened after you took the drug). These are reportedly used by bad people to commit all kinds of mischiefs. But we are good people – can we use these drugs for fun science instead?

For experimental purposes, the perfect drug would create strong and reproducible anterograde amnesia, with minimal side effects. If such a drug were available to the average reckless citizen scientist, there would certainly be a lot of opportunities for exploration, especially combined with good self-blinding techniques. You could test how much determinism there is in your thought process. Look for exotic Schelling Points known only to yoursel...
(When) do high-dimensional spaces have linear paths down to local minima?
by Thomas Kwa — 2022-04-22T15:35:55.215Z

When training (to convergence) using gradient descent in high dimensions, it's common for there to be monotonically decreasing loss on the linear path between the initialization weights and the local minimum found, even if the actual path followed by training is highly nonlinear. Is this true for high-dimensional spaces in general?

Does the energy of a protein conformation decrease monotonically when you move on a linear path in the high-dimensional folding-space (parameterized by the angles between all the amino acids) between the unfolded configuration and the folded configuration?
When a food is developed from a simpler food, does an intermediate food halfway in all ingredient- and spice- concentrations taste better than the simpler food?
It seems like when going from a random image to an image of a dog on a linear path, the image looks monotonically more like a dog

If this doesn't usually happen, what's the underlying fact about the high-dimensional space which determines whether monotonically decreasing loss holds?