trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
From Capuchins to AI's, Setting an Agenda for the Study of Cultural Cooperation (Part2)
by diegocaleiro — 2013-06-28T10:20:48.519Z

Today's writings are shaded dark green, the rest was also in Part1.

This is a multi-purpose essay-on-the-making, it is being written aiming at the following goals 1) Mandatory essay writing at the end of a semester studying "Cognitive Ethology: Culture in Human and Non-Human Animals" 2) Drafting something that can later on be published in a journal that deals with cultural evolution, hopefully inclining people in the area to glance at future oriented research, i.e. FAI and global coordination 3) Publishing it in Lesswrong and 4) Ultimately Saving the World, as everything should. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in the way most likely to save the World.

Since many of my writings are frequently too long for Lesswrong, I'll publish this in a sequence-like form made of self-contained chunks. My deadline is Sunday, so I'll probably post daily, editing/creating the new sessions based on previous commentary.

Abstract: The study of cultural evolution has drawn much of its momentum from academic areas far removed from human and animal psychology, specially regarding the evolution of cooperation. Game theoretic results and parental investment theory come from economics, kin selection models from biology, and an ever growing amount of models describing the process of cultural evolution in general, and the evolution of altruism in particular come from mathematics. Even from Artificial Intelligence interest has been cast on how to create agents that can communicate, imitate and cooperate. In this article I begin to tackle the 'why?' question. By trying to retrospectively make sense of the convergence of all these fields, I contend that further refinements in these fields should be directed towards understanding how to create environmental incentives fostering cooperation.

We need systems that are wiser than we are. We need institutions and cultural norms that make us better than we tend to be. It seems to me that the greatest challenge we now face is to build them. - Sam Harris, 2013, The Power Of Bad Incentives

1) Introduction

2) Cultures evolve

Culture is perhaps the most remarkable outcome of the evolutionary algorithm (Dennett, 1996) so far. It is the cradle of most things we consider humane - that is, typically human and valuable - and it surrounds our lives to the point that we may be thought of as creatures made of culture even more than crea

...
Common failure modes in habit formation
by RomeoStevens — 2013-06-28T05:28:46.321Z

In one project, 256 members of a health-insurance plan were invited to classes stressing the importance of exercise. Half the participants received an extra lesson on the theories of habit formation (the structure of the habit loop) and were asked to identify cues and rewards that might help them develop exercise routines.

The results were dramatic. Over the next four months, those participants who deliberately identified cues and rewards spent twice as much time exercising as their peers. Other studies have yielded similar results.

-"Lifestyle Intervention by Self-Regulation of Action (LISA)" study by Stadler, Oettinger and Gollwitzer 2005.

I don't think this topic needs a huge introduction. Most of us have tried, at some point, to establish a new routine only to have it crash and burn. We came up with and discussed some of the more obvious failure modes at last week's southbay meetup, which generated the material here. It would be awesome to further refine this. Particularly, some overarching ontology of failure modes would be useful for turning them into a more mentally compact checklist. So feedback on how this material can be organized and presented better is most welcome.

Failure is Always Failure

"I would have succeeded if it weren't for those meddling kids!" The "perfect plan" that you can't actually execute on is not the perfect plan. Take responsibility for the failure and figure out what's really going on.

Mental cue: Bad news is good news.

Negative Reinforcement

Taking responsibility for failure doesn't mean beating yourself up over it. If you have bad feelings every time you think about habit X due to past failures you are only reinforcing the act of not thinking about habit X. Failure means you are aware that something went wrong, which means you can improve.

Mental cue: The process failed, so fix the process. Failure and iteration is part of good processes.

Perfectionism

That a good process will yield good results doesn't mean we should fall prey to paralysis by analysis. It also doesn't mean we should give up and go back to the drawing board every time we experience a bump in the road. People commonly engage in visualizing a perfect version of themselves, who obviously wouldn't have failed. This is frustrating, demotivating, and possibly what is going on with the planning fallacy. Notice when you are construc...
A total life checklist
by  — 2013-06-27T23:59:20.715Z

I came up with an idea today: I think it would be useful to have a list of everything that a typical person ought to do. After all, there is quite a lot of stuff that a typical person ought to do; how else is a person supposed to remember it all?

Here's what I've come up with so far:

Health

Eating well.

Exercising regularly.

Mitigating common risks in everyday life (e.g. wearing a seat belt while driving).

Other everyday health stuff (e.g. not sitting down eight hours a day).

Visiting a doctor, a dentist, and (if necessary) an optometrist on a regular basis.

Being familiar with common health problems and what to do about them.

Being able to recognize medical emergencies and react appropriately.

Maintaining mental health (see also: pretty much this entire list).

Money

Educating oneself in career-related skills.

Getting a job and/or becoming self-employed.

Networking (see also: interpersonal interaction).

Investing one's savings appropriately.

Altruism

Donating to charity.

Volunteering for charity.

Doing favors for friends.

Interpersonal interaction

Developing and maintaining relationships with other people: friendly, romantic, family, others?

Discussion of useful topics.

Recreation

Hobbies, finding ways to enjoy yourself. (I'm not sure how to expand on this one.)

Responsibilities

Any responsibilities one has signed up for.

Productivity

Developing and maintaining one's ability to get stuff done. (Kinda vague, this one.)

Maintaining a list of what needs to be done.

Making good decisions about what to do. In particular, which of the items on this list to focus on and how to accomplish them.

Skills

Developing the skills one needs to carry out these tasks effectively, through education, experience, and discussion.

Anyone have any suggestions for additions or improvements?

edit 1: some suggestions by Rain and aelephant
[META] Make poll results accessible to people who have not voted
by sp4233 — 2013-06-27T22:15:03.465Z

As far as I can see, the only way to see the results of a poll is to vote in it. If for whatever reason I don't want to participate in a poll whose results I am interested in, I vote randomly. Of the ~10 other LWers I know, at least 2 do the same. For the sake of accurate results, please let people see poll results without having to vote (and ideally without having to log in).

Response to obvious argument against: You can restrict people from (voting after they have seen the results).
Public Service Announcement Collection
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2013-06-27T17:20:10.823Z

P/S/A: There are single sentences which can create life-changing amounts of difference.

P/S/A: If you're not sure whether or not you've ever had an orgasm, it means you haven't had one, a condition known as primary anorgasmia which is 90% treatable by cognitive-behavioral therapy.

P/S/A: The people telling you to expect above-trend inflation when the Federal Reserve started printing money a few years back, disagreed with the market forecasts, disagreed with standard economics, turned out to be actually wrong in reality, and were wrong for reasonably fundamental reasons so don't buy gold when they tell you to.

P/S/A: There are many many more submissive/masochistic men in the world than there are dominant/sadistic women, so if you are a woman who feels a strong temptation to command men and inflict pain on them, and you want a large harem of men serving your every need, it will suffice to state this fact anywhere on the Internet and you will have fifty applications by the next morning.

P/S/A: Most of the personal-finance-advice industry is parasitic and/or self-deluded, and it's generally agreed on by economic theory and experimental measurement that an index fund will deliver the best returns you can get without huge amounts of effort.

P/S/A: If you are smart and underemployed, you can very quickly check to see if you are a natural computer programmer by pulling up a page of Python source code and seeing whether it looks like it makes natural sense, and if this is the case you can teach yourself to program very quickly and get a much higher-paying job even without formal credentials.
Meetup : Melbourne LW Outing: Astronomy evening in Eltham, Saturday 29th June, 5:30pm
by BraydenM — 2013-06-27T15:17:13.411Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne LW Outing: Astronomy evening in Eltham, Saturday 29th June, 5:30pm

WHEN:
29 June 2013 05:30:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
54 Scenic Crescent Eltham North Victoria Australia

This event replaces the cancelled rock climbing event.

Come to my place this Saturday 29th June at sunset for an casual evening of astronomy. I will host a tour of the solar system and the cosmos from 5:30pm to late. We should be able to see Venus, the Milky Way and Magellenic clouds, the rings and moons of Saturn, and a bunch of nebulae and clusters. There is a 30% chance of cloud cover according to http://www.skippysky.com.au/Australia/ and http://weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;q=melbourne, so we will have backup plans if it clouds over. We have a big house so if you want to bring food to cook for dinner and/or a sleeping bag and gear to stay the night then feel free. Plenty of car parking at the top of the driveway, and use a GPS to avoid getting lost. If coming by public transport call my mobile and I'll pick you up from Eltham train station. Guests can stay until 8:30am Sunday morning. Please call me on 0407943917 for last minute RSVPs, or for directions.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne LW Outing: Astronomy evening in Eltham, Saturday 29th June, 5:30pm
James Martin's death
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2013-06-27T11:57:56.464Z

From the Martin School website:

Dr James Martin 1933 - 2013

It is with great sadness that the Oxford Martin School has learned of the death of our Founder, Dr James Martin.

James Martin was an inspiration to millions – an extraordinary intellect, with wide-ranging interests, boundless energy and an unwavering commitment to addressing the greatest challenges facing humanity. For 25 years Martin was the highest-selling author of books on computing and related technology. He wrote a record 104 books, many of which have been seminal in their field, and was renowned for his electrifying lectures about the future. He was a Pulitzer nominee for his book The Wired Society.

James Martin was a passionate advocate of the power of ideas, and provided the largest benefaction to the University of Oxford in its 900-year history in order to create the Oxford Martin School. Professor Andrew Hamilton, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, said “James Martin was a true visionary whose exceptional generosity established the Oxford Martin School, allowing researchers from across the disciplines to work together on the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing humanity. His impact will be felt for generations to come, as through the School he has enabled researchers to address the biggest questions of the 21st century.”

The School is his permanent legacy and a fitting tribute – a flourishing, vibrant community of the world’s leading minds, coming together to change the world for the better. He enjoyed the excitement and happy atmosphere of the School, and his kind and unfailingly courteous manner was greatly appreciated by all who spent time with him. The Director of the School, Professor Ian Goldin, said “The Oxford Martin School embodies Jim’s concern for humanity, his creativity, his curiosity, and his optimism. Jim provided not only the founding vision, but was intimately involved with the School and our many programmes. We have lost a towering intellect, guiding visionary and a wonderful close friend.”

25th June 2013

On a personal note, I met James Martin a couple of times, and he was always interested in pushing the boundaries of our knowledge and predictive power, and helping the human race. Without him, there would have been no FHI. We've lost a great contributor.
From Capuchins to AI's, Setting an Agenda for the Study of Cultural Cooperation (Part1)
by diegocaleiro — 2013-06-27T06:08:30.001Z

This is a multi-purpose essay-on-the-making, it is being written aiming at the following goals 1) Mandatory essay writing at the end of a semester studying "Cognitive Ethology: Culture in Human and Non-Human Animals" 2) Drafting something that can later on be published in a journal that deals with cultural evolution, hopefully inclining people in the area to glance at future oriented research, i.e. FAI and global coordination 3) Publishing it in Lesswrong and 4) Ultimately Saving the World, as everything should. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in the way most likely to save the World.

Since many of my writings are frequently too long for Lesswrong, I'll publish this in a sequence-like form made of self-contained chunks. My deadline is Sunday, so I'll probably post daily, editing/creating the new sessions based on previous commentary.

Abstract: The study of cultural evolution has drawn much of its momentum from academic areas far removed from human and animal psychology, specially regarding the evolution of cooperation. Game theoretic results and parental investment theory come from economics, kin selection models from biology, and an ever growing amount of models describing the process of cultural evolution in general, and the evolution of altruism in particular come from mathematics. Even from Artificial Intelligence interest has been cast on how to create agents that can communicate, imitate and cooperate. In this article I begin to tackle the 'why?' question. By trying to retrospectively make sense of the convergence of all these fields, I contend that further refinements in these fields should be directed towards understanding how to create environmental incentives fostering cooperation.

We need systems that are wiser than we are. We need institutions and cultural norms that make us better than we tend to be. It seems to me that the greatest challenge we now face is to build them. - Sam Harris, 2013, The Power Of Bad Incentives

1) Introduction

2) Cultures evolve

Culture is perhaps the most remarkable outcome of the evolutionary algorithm (Dennett, 1996) so far. It is the cradle of most things we consider humane - that is, typically human and valuable - and it surrounds our lives to the point that we may be thought of as creatures made of culture even more than creatures of bone and flesh (Hofstadter, 2007; Dennett, 1992). The appeara...
Bad Concepts Repository
by moridinamael — 2013-06-27T03:16:14.136Z

We recently established a successful Useful Concepts Repository. It got me thinking about all the useless or actively harmful concepts I had carried around for in some cases most of my life before seeing them for what they were. Then it occurred to me that I probably still have some poisonous concepts lurking in my mind, and I thought creating this thread might be one way to discover what they are.

I'll start us off with one simple example: The Bohr model of the atom as it is taught in school is a dangerous thing to keep in your head for too long. I graduated from high school believing that it was basically a correct physical representation of atoms. (And I went to a *good* high school.) Some may say that the Bohr model serves a useful role as a lie-to-children to bridge understanding to the true physics, but if so, why do so many adults still think atoms look like concentric circular orbits of electrons around a nucleus?

There's one hallmark of truly bad concepts: they actively work against correct induction. Thinking in terms of the Bohr model actively prevents you from understanding molecular bonding and, really, everything about how an atom can serve as a functional piece of a real thing like a protein or a diamond.

Bad concepts don't have to be scientific. Religion is held to be a pretty harmful concept around here. There are certain political theories which might qualify, except I expect that one man's harmful political concept is another man's core value system, so as usual we should probably stay away from politics. But I welcome input as fuzzy as common folk advice you receive that turned out to be really costly.
A Ketogenic Diet as an Effective Cancer Treatment?
by  — 2013-06-26T22:40:23.597Z

Yesterday, my mother (not a rationalist) told me that she had recently heard somewhere (most likely on a popular television program) that, as simple as it sounds, an effective cancer treatment is cutting back on glucose intake. According to her story, cancer cells can only efficiently use glucose as fuel, and will be unable to multiply (or will starve, or something like that) if you don't consume any. Meanwhile, normal cells can convert other forms of energy into glucose inside their membranes, and then will continue functioning normally.

My first two thoughts:

Reality just can't be that nice.

Hey, wait a second, doesn't the body just convert everything into glucose before it's released into the bloodstream, anyways?

So I did some Googling and I found out that what my mother was referring to is called a ketogenic diet (from Wikipedia):

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates. Normally, the carbohydrates contained in food are converted into glucose, which is then transported around the body and is particularly important in fuelling brain function. However, if there is very little carbohydrate in the diet, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies. The ketone bodies pass into the brain and replace glucose as an energy source. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood, a state known as ketosis, leads to a reduction in the frequency of epileptic seizures.

So, prima facie, my second objection was dealt with. More Googling led me to discover these two references to what my mother had mentioned:

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/one-healthy-day-at-a-time/entry/ketogenic-diet-effective-against-metastatic-cancer

The paper mentioned in the blog post, "The Ketogenic Diet and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Prolong Survival in Mice with Systemic Metastatic Cancer".

According to the paper:

Abnormal energy metabolism is a consistent feature of most tumor cells across all tissue types [14]. In the 1930 s, Otto Warburg observed that all cancers expressed high rates of fermentation in the presence of oxygen [15]. This feature, known as The Warburg Effect, is linked to mitochondrial dysfunction and genetic mutations within the cancer cell [14], [16],

...
Nick Beckstead: On the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future
by Paul Crowley — 2013-06-26T13:17:54.357Z

Nick Beckstead: On the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future

ABSTRACT: In slogan form, the thesis of this dissertation is that shaping the far future is overwhelmingly important. More precisely, I argue that:

Main Thesis: From a global perspective, what matters most (in expectation) is that we do what is best (in expectation) for the general trajectory along which our descendants develop over the coming millions of years or longer.

The first chapter introduces some key concepts, clarifies the main thesis, and outlines what follows in later chapters. Some of the key concepts include: existential risk, the world's development trajectory, proximate benefits and ripple effects, speeding up development, trajectory changes, and the distinction between broad and targeted attempts to shape the far future. The second chapter is a defense of some methodological assumptions for developing normative theories which makes my thesis more plausible. In the third chapter, I introduce and begin to defend some key empirical and normative assumptions which, if true, strongly support my main thesis. In the fourth and fifth chapters, I argue against two of the strongest objections to my arguments. These objections come from population ethics, and are based on Person-Affecting Views and views according to which additional lives have diminishing marginal value. I argue that these views face extreme difficulties and cannot plausibly be used to rebut my arguments. In the sixth and seventh chapters, I discuss a decision-theoretic paradox which is relevant to my arguments. The simplest plausible theoretical assumptions which support my main thesis imply a view I call fanaticism, according to which any non-zero probability of an infinitely good outcome, no matter how small, is better than any probability of a finitely good outcome. I argue that denying fanaticism is inconsistent with other normative principles that seem very obvious, so that we are faced with a paradox. I have no solution to the paradox; I instead argue that we should continue to use our inconsistent principles, but we should use them tastefully. We should do this because, currently, we know of no consistent set of principles which does better.

[If there's already been a discussion post about this, my apologies, I couldn't find it.]
Meetup : London Practical - Sunday 7th July
by Leonhart — 2013-06-26T09:05:10.904Z

Discussion article for the meetup : London Practical - Sunday 7th July

WHEN: 07 July 2013 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Shakespeare's Head, London WC2B 6BG

One of our fortnightly meetups. This is going to be a practical session (we are alternating practical/social), which means there will be at least one valiant attempt at a small-group exercise & guided discussion.

The intention for today is to practice doing Fermi Estimates.

Please be there for 2pm if you can. We can accommodate later arrivals, but we will be starting promptly.

The venue is the Shakespeare's Head by Holborn tube station. Turn left out of the station exit and it's <100m on your left.

We also have a Google Group.

Discussion article for the meetup : London Practical - Sunday 7th July
Meetup : Israel LW meetup
by DanArmak — 2013-06-25T15:44:39.851Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel LW meetup

WHEN: 04 July 2013 08:00:00PM (+0300)

WHERE: 7 Menachem Begin st., Ramat-Gan 52681, Israel

(Gibor Sport House, 15th floor.)

The Israel Less Wrong group is meeting again. We haven't chosen the subject of the meeting yet (I will update the post when we do). The discussion is ongoing in our Google Group.

I want to say thank you again to Cat from CFAR, and Gal Hochberg, for organizing the previous meetup six weeks ago and catalyzing the reboot of LW Israel!

The location is in the offices of a company called Visionmap.

The exact time given is provisional. Please follow the discussion in the group for updates.

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel LW meetup