trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Time management and Do your tasks in a different order
by Elo — 2016-08-16T23:15:15.070Z

Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/time-management-and-do-your-tasks-in-a-different-order/

I have been trying out some (new for me) time management techniques. Various people tell me that they do this naturally, but I had to learn it manually.

This one involves:

noticing that you don't really know what you are doing right now.

looking up when and where is the next fixed appointment.

Calculating how long between now and then.

Working out what you want to do before the appointment.

Counting down the rest of the time and work out how much spare time you have.

In a worked example:

It's 8am and I don't really know what I have to do next.

I have a meeting at 12am.

that's 4 hours away

Before that meeting I want to:

check facebook

check my emails

Have breakfast

write a post

travel to the appointment

Shower and dress for the appointment

In time calculations that is:

check facebook - unknown

check my emails - I could spend 30mins on it.

Have breakfast - 15mins

write a post - 2 hours

Shower and dress for the appointment - 20mins

travel to the appointment - 20mins

Total: 3hrs 25mins + facebook time.

In this example; if my facebook time takes 35mins I have literally no wiggle room on my estimates. But more importantly - if I do my facebook time first - and then fail to stop at 35mins, it means that I will either be running late for the rest of the day OR I will have to cut something short. The old me would probably cut the last task in the list short. Which might mean running late to the appointment, and it might mean not finishing writing a post on that day, and leaving it as a draft.

Recently I have been trying out a new factor on this system. To change the order of the tasks. Some tasks have fixed lengths in time. Some tasks are more flexible. For example, the amount of time it takes to shower and get ready is relatively fixed in time. However the amount of time it takes to write a post can vary extensively.

With this in mind, I will change the order of the tasks. Where I used to have a shower last, just as I am rushing out - so that I am fresh clean and ready for a meeting (a great idea if I do say so myself). I will now do something like this:

Shower and dress for the appointment - 20mins

write a post - 2 hours

check my emails - I could spend 30mins on it.

Have breakfast - 15mins

Show

...
Meetup : Rationality Meetup Vienna
by Viliam — 2016-08-16T20:21:10.911Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Rationality Meetup Vienna

WHEN:
20 August 2016 03:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Kaisermühlenstraße 24

15:00 - 15:30 arrival and social time
15:30 official start with an introduction round
16:00 defining the topic(s) of the day (might be one big presentation or open microphone which means everyone can offer short talks or topics for discussion)
18:00 cleaning the room and then leaving for dinner
https://www.facebook.com/events/525225234355376/
google map shows a wrong place, the meetup is across the street from the train station Wien Stadlau (better instructions are on facebook)

Discussion article for the meetup : Rationality Meetup Vienna
Wicked Problems
by Elo — 2016-08-16T08:35:27.123Z

Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/wicked-problems/

Nothing is a wicked problem.

When I started researching problems and problem solving and solutions and meta-solving processes I stumbled across a wicked problem. This is from Wikipedia:

Rittel and Webber's 1973 formulation of wicked problems in social policy planning specified ten characteristics:[3][4]

There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.

Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good or bad.

There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.

Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.

Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.

Every wicked problem is essentially unique.

Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.

The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.

The social planner has no right to be wrong (i.e., planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).

Conklin later generalized the concept of problem wickedness to areas other than planning and policy. The defining characteristics are:

The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.

Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.

Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.

Every solution to a wicked problem is a 'one shot operation.'

Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.

Defeating a wicked problem

It took me a while to realise what a wicked problem was. It is evil. It's a challenge. It's a one-shot task that you don't really understand until you are attempting to solve it, and then you influence it by trying to solve it. It's wicked. And then I started paying attention to everything around me. And suddenly being a social human was a wicked problem. Every new interaction is not like the last ones, as soon as you enter the interaction it's too late; an...
The ladder of abstraction and giving examples 
by Elo — 2016-08-16T05:31:57.003Z

Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/examples/

When we talk about a concept or a point it's important to understand the ladder of abstraction. Covered before on lesswrong and in other places as advice for communicators on how to bridge a gap of knowledge.

Knowing, understanding and feeling the ladder of abstraction prevents things like this:

Speakers who bury audiences in an avalanche of data without providing the significance.

Speakers who discuss theories and ideals, completely detached from real-world practicalities.

When you talk to old and wise people, they will sometimes give you stories of their lives. "back in my day...". Seeing that in perspective is a good way to realise that might be people's way of shifting around the latter of abstraction. As an agenty-agent of agenty goodness - your job is to make sense of this occurrence. The ladder of abstraction is very powerful when used effectively and very frustrating when you find yourself on the wrong side of it.

The flipside to this example is when people talk at a highly theoretical level. I suspect this happens to philosophers, as well as hippies. They are very good at being able to tell you about the connections between things that are "energy" or "desire", but lack the grounding to explain how that applies to real life. I don't blame them. One day I will be able to think completely abstractly. Today is not that day. Since today is not that day, it is my duty and your's to ask and specify. To give the explanation of what the ladder of abstraction is, and then tell them you have no idea what they are talking about. Or as for the example above - ask them to go up a level in the ladder of abstraction. "If I were to learn something from your experiences - what would it be?".

Lesswrong doing it wrong

I care about adding the conceptual ladder of abstraction to the repertoire for a reason. LW'ers are very good at paying attention to details. A really powerful and important ability. After all - the fifth virtue is argument, the tenth is precision. If you can't be precise about what you are communication, you fail to value what we value.

Which is why it's great to see critical objections to what OP's provide as examples.

I...
Willpower Thermodynamics
by Fluttershy — 2016-08-16T03:00:58.263Z

Edit 2019: By the spark, was everything I wrote before mid-2018 idiotic? Apparently.

Content warning: a couple LWers apparently think that the concept of ego depletion—also known as willpower depletion—is a memetic hazard, though I find it helpful. Also, the material presented here won't fit everyone's experiences.

What happens if we assume that the idea of ego depletion is basically correct, and try to draw an analogy between thermodynamics and willpower?

Figure 1. Thermodynamics Picture

You probably remember seeing something like the above diagram in a chemistry class. The diagram shows how unstable, or how high in energy, the states that a material can pass through in a chemical reaction are. Here's what the abbreviations mean:

SM is the starting material.
TS1 and TS2 are the two transition states, which must be passed through to go from SM to EM1 or EM2.
EM1 and EM2 are the two possible end materials.

The valleys of both curves represent configurations a material may occupy at the start or end of a chemical reaction. Lower energy valleys are more stable. However, higher peaks can only be reliably crossed if energy is available from e.g. the temperature being sufficiently high.

The main takeaway from Figure 1 is that reactions which produce the most stable end materials, like ending material 2, from a given set of starting materials aren't always the reactions which are easiest to make happen.

Figure 2. Willpower Picture

We can draw a similar diagram to illustrate how much stress we lose while completing a relaxing activity. Here's what the abbreviations used in Figure 2 mean:

SM is your starting mood.
TS is your state of topmost stress, which depends on which activity you choose.
EM1 and EM2 are your two possible ending moods.

Above, the valley on the left represents how stressed you are before starting one of two possible relaxing activities. The peak in the middle represents how stressed you'll be when attempting to get the activity underway, and the valley on the right represents how stressed you'll be once you're done.

For the sake of simplification, let's say that stress is the opposite of willpower, such that losing stress means you gain willpower, and vice versa. For many people, there's a point at which it's very hard to take on additional stress or use more willpower, such that getting started on an activit...
Seeking Optimization of New Website "New Atheist Survival Kit," a go-to site for newly-made atheists
by Bound_up — 2016-08-16T01:03:40.784Z

I've put together a website, "New Atheist Survival Kit" at atheistkit.wordpress.com

The idea is to help new atheists come to terms with their change in belief, and also invite them to become more than atheists: rationalists.

And if it helps theists become atheists, too, and helps old atheists become rationalists, more the better.

The bare bones of it are all in place now. Once a few people have gone over it, for editing, and for advice about what to include, leave out, improve, re-organize, whatever, I'll ask a bunch of atheist and rationalist communities to write up their own blurb for us to include in a list of communities that we'll point people to in the "Atheist Communities" or "Thinker's Communities" sections on the main menu.

It includes my rough draft attempt to basically bring down the Metaethics sequence to a few thousand words and make it stylistically and conceptually accessible to a mass audience, which I could especially use some help with.

So, for now, I'm here to ask that anyone interested check it out, and message me any improvements they think worth making, from grammar and spelling all the way up to what content to include, or how to present things.

Thanks to all for any help.
Addendum to applicable advice
by Elo — 2016-08-16T00:59:26.007Z

Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/addendum-to-applicable-advice/
(part 1: http://bearlamp.com.au/applicable-advice/)

If you see advice in the wild and think somethings along the lines of "that can't work for me", that's a cached thought. It could be a true cached thought or it could be a false one. Some of these thoughts should be examined thoroughly and defeated.

If you can be any kind of person - being the kind of person that advice works for - is an amazing skill to have. This is hard. You need to examine the advice and decide how that advice happened to work, and then you need to modify yourself to make that advice applicable to you.

All too often in this life we think of ourselves as immutable. And our problems fixed, with the only hope of solving them to find a solution that works for the problem. I propose it's the other way around. All too often the solutions are immutable, we are malleable and the problems can be solved by applying known advice and known knowledge in ways that we need to think of and decide on.

Is it really the same problem if the problem isn't actually the problem any more, but rather the problem is a new method of applying a known solution to a known problem?

(what does this mean) Example: Dieting - is an easy example.

This week we have been talking about Calories in/Calories out. It's pretty obvious that CI/CO is true on a black-box system level. If food goes (calories in) in and work goes out (calories out - BMR, incidental exercise, purposeful exercise), that is what determines your weight. Ignoring the fact that drinking a litre of water is a faster way to gain weight than any other way I know of. And we know that weight is not literally health but a representation of what we consider healthy because it's the easiest way to track how much fat we store on our body (for a normal human who doesn't have massive bulk muscle mass).

CICO makes for terrible advice. On one level, yes. To modify the weight of our black box, we need to modify the weight going in and the weight going out so that it's not in the same feedback loop as it was (the one that caused the box to be fat). On one level CICO is exactly all the advice you need to change the weight of a black box (or a spherical...
European Soylent alternatives
by ChristianKl — 2016-08-15T20:22:47.263Z

A person at our local LW meetup (not active at LW.com) tested various Soylent alternatives that are available in Europe and wrote a post about them:
______________________
Over the course of the last three months, I've sampled parts of the
european Soylent alternatives to determine which ones would work for me
longterm.

- The prices are always for the standard option and might differ for
e.g. High Protein versions.
- The prices are always for the amount where you get the cheapest
marginal price (usually around a one month supply, i.e. 90 meals)
- Changing your diet to Soylent alternatives quickly leads to increased
flatulence for some time - I'd recommend a slow adoption.
- You can pay for all of them with Bitcoin.
- The list is sorted by overall awesomeness.

So here's my list of reviews:

Joylent:

Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7/10
Price: 5eu / day
Vegan option: Yes
Overall awesomeness: 8/10

This one is probably the european standard for nutritionally complete
meal replacements.

The texture is nice, the taste is somewhat sweet, the flavors aren't
very intensive.
They have an ok amount of different flavors but I reduced my orders to
Mango (+some Chocolate).

They offer a morning version with caffeine and a sports version with
more calories/protein.

They also offer Twennybars (similar to a cereal bar but each offers 1/5
of your daily needs), which everyone who tasted them really liked.
They're nice for those lazy times where you just don't feel like pouring
the powder, adding water and shaking before you get your meal.
They do cost 10eu per day, though.

I also like the general style. Every interaction with them was friendly,
fun and uncomplicated.

Veetal:

Taste: 8/10
Texture: 7/10
Price: 8.70 / day
Vegan option: Yes
Overall awesomeness: 8/10

This seems to be the "natural" option, apparently they add all those
healthy ingredients.

The texture is nice, the taste is sweeter than most, but not very sweet.
They don't offer flavors but the "base taste" is fine, it also works
well with some cocoa powder.

It's my favorite breakfast now and I had it ~54 of the last 60 days.
Would have been first place if not for the relatively high price.

Mana:

Taste: 6/10
Texture: 7/10
Price: 6.57 / day
Vegan option: Only Vegan
Overall awesomeness: 7/10

Mana is one of the very few choices that don't taste sweet but salty.
Among all the ones I've tried, it tastes the most simila...
Meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup: August
by Maelin — 2016-08-15T14:56:04.437Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup: August

WHEN:
19 August 2016 06:30:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
Bull & Bear Tavern, 347 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Australia 3000

This month's Social Meetup is on as scheduled!

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/595410943963246/

Social Meetups are casual get-togethers held on the third Friday of each month. They are informal events where we sit around and chat over a few drinks and a meal. Sometimes we will play games as well.

Where? Bull & Bear Tavern, 347 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

When? Friday 19th August, starting from 6:30pm. Start time is loose so show up whenever. We are usually there until about 11pm.

Dinner? The B&B serves reasonable pub food and we will usually share some wedges or similar. A few of us typically go for a late dinner after the event. Recently we've been going to Father's Office which offers late night a la carte dining at half price.

Contact? Any issues or questions, contact Chris on 0439471632.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne Social Meetup: August
Identity map
by turchin — 2016-08-15T11:29:06.145Z

“Identity” here refers to the question “will my copy be me, and if yes, on which conditions?” It results in several paradoxes which I will not repeat here, hoping that they are known to the reader.

Identity is one of the most complex problems, like safe AI or aging. It only appears be simple. It is complex because it has to answer the question: “Who is who?” in the universe, that is to create a trajectory in the space of all possible minds, connecting identical or continuous observer-moments. But such a trajectory would be of the same complexity as all space of possible minds, and that is very complex.

There have been several attempts to dismiss the complexity of the identity problem, like open individualism (I am everybody) or zero-individualism (I exist only now). But they do not prevent the existence of “practical identity” which I use when planning my tomorrow or when I am afraid of future pain.

The identity problem is also very important. If we (or AI) arrive at an incorrect solution, we will end up being replaced by p-zombies or just copies-which-are-not-me during a “great uploading”. It will be a very subtle end of the world.

The identity problem is also equivalent to the immortality problem. if I am able to describe “what is me”, I would know what I need to save forever. This has practical importance now, as I am collecting data for my digital immortality (I even created a startup about it and the map will be my main contribution to it. If I solve the identity problem I will be able to sell the solution as a service http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-transhumanist-records-everything-around-him-so-his-mind-will-live-forever)

So we need to know how much and what kind of information I should preserve in order to be resurrected by future AI. What information is enough to create a copy of me? And is information enough at all?

Moreover, the identity problem (IP) may be equivalent to the benevolent AI problem, because the first problem is, in a nutshell, “What is me” and the second is “What is good for me”. Regardless, the IP requires a solution of consciousness problem, and AI problem (that is solving the nature of intelligence) are somewhat similar topics.

I wrote 100+ pages trying to solve the IP, and became lost in the ocean of ideas. So I decided to ...
Avoiding collapse: Grand challenges for science and society to solve by 2050
by morganism — 2016-08-15T05:47:52.487Z

"We maintain that humanity’s grand challenge is solving the intertwined problems of human population growth and overconsumption, climate change, pollution, ecosystem destruction, disease spillovers, and extinction, in order to avoid environmental tipping points that would make human life more difficult and would irrevocably damage planetary life support systems."

pdf onsite

https://elementascience.org/articles/94
Meetup : Meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (VII)
by steven0461 — 2016-08-15T01:05:00.237Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (VII)

WHEN:
21 August 2016 03:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
438 Coleman Ave, San Jose, CA 95110

Update: It turns out I won't be able to attend. Sorry for the late notice. I can no longer guarantee that at least one other person will be present, and there won't be a coordination point unless someone else volunteers, but if you want, you can still show up and see if someone else is there at the parking lot.

You're invited to bring whatever you'd like to see at Park Day - balls, frisbees, food, etc. (Also, consider taking measures against the sun.) We'll carry a green blanket so you can recognize us. The idea is to gather outside near the listed address at the park entrance first, but probably walk elsewhere soon. If you can't find us or there's something else, please call me (Steven) at 510-6844565.

Discussion article for the meetup : Meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (VII)
Open Thread, Aug. 15. - Aug 21. 2016
by Elo — 2016-08-15T00:26:34.139Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting.
What is it like to understand advanced mathematics? 
by morganism — 2016-08-14T23:14:51.335Z

a Quora answer that is pretty interesting.

"But the quantitative and logical techniques you sharpen as a mathematician allow you to take many shortcuts that make learning other fields easier"

https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-understand-advanced-mathematics/answers/873950?srid=p6KQ&amp;share=1

and another

Intellectuals Are Freaks

the pool from which scholars, writers, and policy experts is drawn is already a small one. It is even more exclusive in practice, because the children of the rich and affluent are over-represented among those who go to college.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/005352-intellectuals-are-freaks/

he-he

http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/001258-today%E2%80%99s-tech-oligarchs-are-worse-robber-barons