trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[SEQ RERUN] Universal Law
by badger — 2011-06-05T13:23:30.136Z

Today's post, Universal Law was originally published on April 29, 2007. A summary (from the LW wiki):

In our everyday lives, we are accustomed to rules with exceptions, but the basic laws of the universe apply everywhere without exception. Apparent violations exist only in our models, not in reality.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments of the original post).
This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Universal Fire, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki, or creating exercises. Go here for more details, or to discuss the Sequence Reruns.
Ask LW: Why no reproductive human cloning?
by Will_Newsome — 2011-06-05T11:57:16.123Z

From what I can tell human cloning for the purpose of, ya know, actually cloning a person in the Dolly sense, is legal in many parts of the United States. It looks hard to pull off but without conceptual problems. Seems likely that after the first few clones are born there'll be a huge backlash and it will get banned forever. My impression is that whoever does it first would get a lot of money and tons of media attention that would be useful for getting funding for some other biotech venture. They'd get extra publicity if they put a eugenics spin on it too, which I haven't seen anyone talking about from my few Google searches. I also haven't seen anything about a combination of cloning and genome design/tweaking of various kinds, for research or for creating less-misoptimized humans; I'm not at all familiar with the science/tech there, is there a reason no one thinks it's promising? I can't find a decent blog that covers any of the related topics.

Who's familiar with this dormant technology and its social situation? Are there good blogs that cover it? What parts of the picture am I missing?
Irvine Meetup Tuesday June 21
by JGWeissman — 2011-06-05T00:26:23.450Z

There are some adjustments to the weekly meetups in Irvine:

The meetup for June 15th is cancelled because the regular attendees are on vacation that week.

The following week, the meetup will be Tuesday June 21, instead of Wednesday. We expect special guests Alicorn and Yvain to attend.

Normal weekly meetups on Wednesdays will resume on June 29th.

All meetups are from 6:00 to 8:001 at the outdoor food court near the UCI Campus, at Campus and Bridge. Look for me with sign showing a diagram of a naive neural classifier of bleggs and rubes.

To see all scheduled meetups in Southern California, see the calendar. To get announcements by email, join the email group.

1. The end time is very soft. Once as we got up to leave around 11:20, someone remarked "This is how we do 6 to 8."
Hidden philosophical progress
by KatjaGrace — 2011-06-04T18:50:31.000Z

Bertrand Russell:

If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences…this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton’s great work was called ‘the mathematical principles of natural philosophy’. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

I often hear this selection effect explanation for the apparently small number of resolved problems that philosophy can boast. I don’t think it necessarily lessens this criticism of philosophy however. It matters whether the methods that were successful at providing insights in what were to become fields like psychology and astronomy – those which brought definite answers within reach – were methods presently included in philosophy. If they were not, then the fact that the word ‘philosophy’ has come to apply to a smaller set of methods which haven’t been successful does not particularly suggest that such methods will become successful in that way*. If they were the same methods, then that is more promising.

I don’t know which of these is the case. I also don’t actually know how many resolved problems philosophy has. If you do, feel free to tell me. I start a PhD in philosophy in the Autumn, and haven’t officially studied it before, so I am curious about its merits.

*Note that collecting resolved problems is only one way philosophy might be valuable. Russell po...
[SEQ RERUN] Universal Fire
by badger — 2011-06-04T15:10:46.106Z

Today's post, Universal Fire was originally published on April 27, 2007. A summary (from the LW wiki):

You can't change just one thing in the world and expect the rest to continue working as before.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments of the original post).
This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Feeling Rational, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki, or creating exercises. Go here for more details, or to discuss the Sequence Reruns.
Job Search Advice
by zntneo — 2011-06-04T06:37:45.779Z

Some background about me. I currently live in seaside,ca. Have a bs in psychology and an A.A.S in information technology network administration. I currently am a cashier at a gas station but want to find a better job for many reasons. I want a job that will fulfill my high need for analytical thought(high in need for cognition if you know what that means) and problem solving and that hopefully maximizes the amount of time i can be with my wife (who is in the military and "works" 7-3. I am pretty new to the job search thing because i spent 6 years in college with the same job as basically a system admin. (note of worry about all jobs have already developed carpal tunnel and had surgery and my symptoms may be returning

also i'd like to add some interests of mine. During college I was active in my atheist group (after i became one) and have been a pretty big activist since starting college. I try to be as involved as i can think to be in the skeptical/atheist/lesswrong community.

So my question is given this information what are the best methods/ resources to help me in my job search. What i have been doing is applying online using multiple job banks but have not even landed a interview for anything related to computers I tried looking my self but was overwhelmed by what seemed to be contradictory messages. Any help i can get will be appreciated.

Edit:Thanks to advice from nickernst i will break down the above to a more manageable set of questions

what types of jobs will i enjoy that i would have a chance at given my background

related to one is there anything i could add that would let me get a job that i will really love

what jobs are avaiable to me

what would you suggest for the "process" of job searching to increase the likelihood of interviews

What are some common failure modes of people in the same situation?
[LINK] Wondermark comic talks about "carpe diem" vs. "think more"
by Document — 2011-06-04T04:15:35.877Z

Comic here.

I feel like I'm likely to hear that it's a false dichotomy, but if so I haven't successfully dissolved it. (I'm not sure I actually had a concise name for it before; now that I do I should start saving comments about it.)

Edit: Ability to react may be related, possibly applying on shorter timescales.
[LINK] "Straight and crooked thinking," by Robert H. Thouless
by hairyfigment — 2011-06-04T02:46:07.975Z

This book from 1930 or so (PDF) seems chiefly concerned with describing ways thinking can go wrong. The author does not seem to know much of Bayes, but his book appears largely sound. It ends with practical suggestions for dealing with various "dishonest tricks" -- though the list assumes these tricks come from someone other than the reader -- and an imaginary conversation between advocates of different political views who all exhibit flawed thinking. People who sympathize with one side or another can get practice taking apart a bad argument for that side.

Found via recommendation from Answers in Genes.
LW/OB Rationality Quotes, June 2011
by David_Gerard — 2011-06-03T16:32:16.552Z

I saw this article and thought "ah, that's what's been missing." There's many a bon mot posted here that's outside the domain of the usual rationality quotes thread. Overcoming Bias seems still to be excluded from those too, even if the two blogs have diverged.

So:

This is a thread for posting any interesting rationality-related quotes you've seen on LW/OB.

Please post all quotes separately (so that they can be voted up/down separately) unless they are strongly related/ordered.

Do not quote yourself.

Do not post quotes that are NOT comments/posts on LW/OB - there is a separate thread for this.

No more than 5 quotes per person per thread, please.

(You may care to check the previous posts for duplicates.)
[SEQ RERUN] Feeling Rational
by badger — 2011-06-03T13:28:49.867Z

Today's post, Feeling Rational was originally published on April 26, 2007. A summary (from the LW wiki):

Strong emotions can be rational. A rational belief that something good happened leads to rational happiness. But your emotions ought not to change your beliefs about events that do not depend causally on your emotions.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments of the original post).
This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Consolidated Nature of Morality Thread, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki, or creating exercises. Go here for more details, or to discuss the Sequence Reruns.
Should a rationalist be concerned about habitat loss/biodiversity loss?
by InquilineKea — 2011-06-03T12:25:27.635Z

It's an interesting question that I'm pondering.

Now, while I do question the intellectual honesty of this blog, I'll link to it anyways, since the evidence does seem interesting, at the very least: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/19/species-extinction-hype-fundamentally-flawed/

It does seem that environmentalism can mimic some qualities of religion (I know, since I used to be an environmentalist myself). As such, it can cause many extremely intelligent people to reject evidence that goes against their worldview.

Furthermore, it's also possible that computational chemistry may soon be our primary agent for drug discovery, rather than discovering more biological compounds in certain ecosystems (that being said, drug discovery is entirely different from drug synthesis, and discovering a gene that codes for a particular protein and splicing it into an E Coli bacterium is going to be far easier than anything computational chemistry can do in the near future).

With that all being said, what now? I do believe that there is something of value that does get lost as habitat gets destroyed. But it's hard to quantify value in these cases. Certain animals, like crows, chimpanzees, orcas, and elephants, are cognitively advanced enough to have their own cultures. If one of their subcultures get destroyed (which can be done without a fullscale extinction), then is anything valuable that gets lost? (besides value for scientific research that has potential to be applicable elsewhere?) And is it more important to worry about these separate cultures, as compared to worrying about different subspecies of the same animal? Certainly, we're now beginning to discover novel social networks in dolphins and crows. But most of these animals are not at risk of extinction, and even the chimpanzees and bonobos will only get extinct in the wild (at the very worst). There are other less advanced animals that have a higher risk of permanent extinction.

What we're prone to systematically underestimating, of course, is the possible permanent loss of micro-organisms. And of novel biological structures (and networks) that may be contained within them.
What would you do with infinite willpower?
by D_Malik — 2011-06-03T12:22:34.601Z

For the past few years my willpower has been steadily increasing. If it lasts and I use it to accomplish something noteworthy, I might write a post about it.

Anyway, what should a rational preference utilitarian with infinite willpower do? Assume that there are no negative effects (unhappiness, stress) with using this willpower, and that they can control their emotions at will.

Clearly they should work a lot more, not spend time on recreation (movies, TV, games), stand instead of sitting, etc..

What else? Should they listen to music? Should they keep their muscles flexed 24/7 ? What should they learn, where would they have the most relative advantage? How much time would be worth spending on social interaction?

I can figure out these things on my own, but those questions are important and good ideas are very valuable.
Is it repugnant?
by KatjaGrace — 2011-06-03T04:13:00.000Z

Derek Parfit‘s ‘Repugnant Conclusion‘ is that for any world of extremely happy and fulfilled people, there is a better world which contains a much larger number of people whose lives are only just worth living. This is a hard to avoid consequence of ethical theories where more of whatever makes life worth living is better. It’s more complicated than that, but population ethicists have had a hard time finding a theory that avoids the repugnant conclusion without implying other crazy seeming things.

Parfit originally pointed out that people whose lives are barely worth living could be living lives of constant very low value, or their lives could have huge highs and lows. He asked us to focus on the first. I’m curious whether normal intuitions differ if we focus on a different form of ‘barely worth living’.

Consider an enormous and very rich civilization. Its members appreciate every detail of their lives very sensitively, and their lives are dramatic. They each regularly experience soaring elation, deep contentment and overpowering sensory pleasure. They are keenly ambitious, and almost always achieve their dreams. Everyone is successful and appreciated, and they are all extremely pleased about that. But these people are also subject to deep depressions, and are easily overcome by fear, rage or jealousy. Sometimes they lie awake at night anguished about their insignificance in the universe and their impending deaths. If they don’t achieve what they hoped they can become overwhelmed by guilt, insecurity, and hurt pride. They soon bounce back, but live is slight fear of those emotions. They also have excruciating migraine headaches when they work too hard. All up, the positives in each person’s action packed life just outweigh the negatives.

Now suppose there is a choice to have a small world of people who only appreciate the pleasures, or a much much larger world like that described above. Perhaps it turns out that the overly pleasured people are unable to be made productive for instance, so we can choose a short future with a large number of people enjoying idle bliss with our saved up resources, or an indefinitely long future with an incredibly much larger number of productive people each enjoying small net positives. How crazy does it seem to prefer the latter at some level of extreme size?

...
real life sample: why am I so scarred of roller coasters
by MartinB — 2011-06-02T22:34:45.038Z

I currently visit a theme park with some friends. There I noticed that I am highly afraid of rides that involve heights and fast moving like roller coasters. We rode a few of them, and of course nothing happened, as it is supposed to be a lot of fun. But for me it is more like a constant situation with fear of falling.

Empirically I know that the park has been around for a while, that very few accidents happen, and that there is no particular reason to actually be afraid. The park makes its money by offering its rides to many visitors, and they really seem to know what they are doing. So why am I afraid? In the past I ONCE had an issue with my non-standard height being a minor problem. But I routinely check the size of other visitors, and the rides seem to be designed in a one-size-fits-all-unisex way that works for all shapes and forms there are.

I am also somewhat afraid of heights in general, which for the most part serves me pretty well. Should I turn that off while in a theme park? Is it reasonable to not ride the roller coaster?

There is probably a design principle in rides that elicits strong reactions in the user. And I am not sure if I would want to self modify to actually enjoy the ride. But being afraid seems also pretty useless. It is not rational.

Comments?
Reminder: London meetup, Sunday 5th June 2pm, Cargo Shoreditch
by taryneast — 2011-06-02T21:48:48.949Z

Next non-official London meetup is scheduled for this Sunday at Cargo:

83 Rivington Street,
Shoreditch,
London,
EC2A 3AY

http://www.cargo-london.com/

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/clubs/cargo-review-14298.html

Google map

As always, we'll have a picture of an extra-swirly paperclip on the table so you can find us.

See you there :)
About addition and truth
by RolfAndreassen — 2011-06-02T20:34:42.693Z

This is intended to explore a a thought I had, rather than making any particular argument about truth.

The canonical example of a thing which is true without any obvious physical referent is the statement 2+2=4. It is true about fingers, sheep, particles, and galaxies; but intuitively it does not seem that any of those truths encapsulates the full meaning of the statement. Moreover, it certainly seems that there is nothing anyone could do to make the statement untrue; it seems that it would have to hold in any universe whatsoever.

Now my thought: How do we know that the physical universe operates on this sort of arithmetic, and not arithmetic modulo some obscenely large number? Suppose we repeat the experiment that convinces us 2+2=4 (and let's note that babies are presumably not born knowing this; they learn it by counting on their fingers, even if they do so at too young an age to express it in words), but with much larger integers. Perhaps we might find that, when we take 3^^^^3 particles, and add 1, we are left with 3^^^^3 particles without any awareness that any particles have disappeared. And what is more, if we take three sets of 3^^^^3 particles, and measure their mass separately and then together, we find that we get the same mass. After some long sequence of such experiments, perhaps we might convince ourselves that physics actually operates on integer arithmetic modulo 3^^^^3. (Which would be unexpected in that the physics we know operates on complex numbers, not integers, but perhaps that's an approximation to some fantastically-finegrained two-dimensional integer grid.)

What would this mean, if anything, for the truth of such statements as 2+2=4? It seems that it would then be a contingent truth, not a universal one; that there could in principle exist a universe whose physics operated on arithmetic modulo 3, so that 2+2=1. (Presumably such a universe would not have any sentient beings in it.) What if 2+2=4 is an observed fact about our universe on the same order as the electromagnetic constant or the speed of light?
Edinburgh LW meetup Saturday 4th of June, 2pm
by Elias_Kunnas — 2011-06-02T17:03:20.400Z

Another meetup at the Delhi cafe on Saturday at 2pm (67 Nicolson Street - see http://goo.gl/Wwws0).
No set topic really this time, though suggestions are welcome (for now and for the long-term). Not sure what kind of things would work best in maintaining interest in these...
I would personally be somewhat interest in the mindfulness practice as well discussing the somewhat associated recent post by Kaj Sotala.
I will have the book on the Flow with me:
How exactly do you convince people that "experts" aren't the best people to consult?
by InquilineKea — 2011-06-02T16:24:14.154Z

Frankly, it's a question that I've been dealing with for a long time, and that has caused very tense relationships between myself and the educational+medical establishments.

And it has damaged/destroyed several of my friendships too. Frankly, I trust sites like Imminst over so-called "expert advice", and I generally find that I have a much better command of the research literature than any of the experts I consult (see http://www.citeulike.org/user/InquilineKea to see a list of research papers I've read - it's a small fraction of all of them, of course).

For all that matters, there hasn't even been a study showing the efficacy of most "expert advice". Many people who do it their own way may fail, of course, but most of them don't go deep into the research journals (and are consequently prone to falling for pseudoscience).

Just see the debate at http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hptkc/are_animal_products_bad_for_you/, for example.