trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Things to consider when optimizing: Commuting, Transportation
by  — 2014-11-10T17:44:42.352Z

Previous topics:

Sleep

[This is] a series of discussion posts, where each post is of the form "Let's brainstorm things you might consider when optimizing X", where X is something like sleep, exercise, commuting, studying, etc. Think of it like a specialized repository.
In the spirit of try more things, the direct benefit is to provide insights like "Oh, I never realized that BLAH is a knob I can fiddle. This gives me an idea of how I might change BLAH given my particular circumstances. I will try this and see what happens!"
The indirect benefit is to practice instrumental rationality using the "toy problem" provided by a general prompt.
Accordingly, participation could be in many forms:
* Pointers to scientific research
* General directions to consider
* Personal experience
* Boring advice
* Intersections with other community ideas, biases
* Cost-benefit, value-of-information analysis
* Related questions
* Other musings, thoughts, speculation, links, theories, etc.

This post is on commuting and transportation.
My third-of-life crisis
by polymathwannabe — 2014-11-10T15:28:36.043Z

I've been wanting to post this for a while, but it always felt too embarrassing. I've contributed next to nothing to this community, and I'm sure you have better problems to work on than my third-of-life crisis. However, the kind of problems I'm facing may require more brainpower than my meatspace friends can muster. Here I go.
I live in Colombia, where your connections have more weight than your talent. But I'm not sure about my talent anymore. Until I finished high school I had always been a stellar student and everyone told me I was headed for a great future. Then I represented my province in a national spelling contest and had my first contact with an actual city and with other students who were as smart as me. After the contest ended, I tried to maneuver my parents into letting me stay at the city, but they would have none of it. After an unabashedly overextended stay with my aunts, I eventually was sent back to the small pond.
My parents and I disagreed seriously about my choice of career, primarily in that they took for granted that the choice wasn't even mine. Because my older brother appeared to have happily accepted his assigned path in business management, I was forced to do the same, even though it held absolutely no interest for me. But I wasn't very sure myself about what exactly I wanted, so I wasn't able to effectively defend my opposition. Another factor was that in the late 1990s the Colombian army was still allowed to recruit minors, and it's a compulsory draft, and the only legal way to avoid it was to be studying something---anything. My brother did spend one year at the army, but at least the entire family agreed that I would break if sent there. No other options were explored. With my school scores I might have obtained a scholarship, but I didn't know how to do it, whom to ask. My parents held complete control over my life.
So began the worst eight years of my life. Eight because the only university my parents could afford was terribly mismanaged and was paralyzed by strikes and protests every semester. I was deeply depressed and suicidal during most of that time, and only the good friends I met there kept my mood high enough to want to keep going. After I filed some legal paperwork and paid a fee to be finally spared the threat from the draft, it didn't occur to any of us that I didn't have a reason to be in that university anymore. Non...
Meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social, Board Games
by DanArmak — 2014-11-10T14:00:51.188Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social, Board Games

WHEN:
11 November 2014 07:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Yigal Alon Street 98, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

We're going to have a meetup on Thursday, August 7th at Google Israel's offices, Electra Tower, 98 Yigal Alon st., Tel Aviv.

Note: the meetups are being moved from Thursday nights to Tuesday nights; we'll probably finalize the schedule at this meetup. We're still meeting every two weeks.

This time we're going to have a social meetup! We'll be socializing and playing games.

We'll start the meetup at 19:00, and we'll go on as much as we like to. Feel free to come a little bit later, as there is no agenda.

We'll meet at the 29th floor of the building (Note: Not the 34th where Google Campus is). If you arrive and can't find your way around, call Anatoly who is very graciously hosting us at 054-245-1060, or Daniel at 054-7576480.

Things that might happen:
- You'll trade cool ideas with cool people from the Israel LW community.
- You'll discover kindred spirits who agree with you about one/two boxing.
- You'll kick someone's ass (and teach them how you did it) at some awesome boardgame
- You'll discover how to build a friendly AGI running on cold fusion (well probably not)
- You'll discuss interesting AI topics with new friends!

Things that will happen for sure:
- You'll get to hang out with awesome people and have fun!

If you have any questions feel free to email the LW-IL mailing list. See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social, Board Games
Open thread, Nov. 10 - Nov. 16, 2014
by MrMind — 2014-11-10T08:32:41.114Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), 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 be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
Minerva Project: the future of higher education?
by Natha — 2014-11-10T05:59:47.564Z

Right now, the inaugural class of Minerva Schools at KGI (part of the Claremont Colleges) is finishing up its first semester of college. I use the word "college" here loosely: there are no lecture halls, no libraries, no fraternities, no old stone buildings, no sports fields, no tenure... Furthermore, Minerva operates for profit (which may raise eyebrows), but appeals to a decidedly different demographic than DeVry etc; billed as the first "online Ivy", it relies on a proprietary online platform to apply pedagogical best practices. Has anyone heard of this before?

The Minerva Project's instructional innovations are what's really exciting. There are no lectures. There are no introductory classes. (There are MOOCs for that! "Do your freshman year at home.") Students meet for seminar-based online classes which are designed to inculcate "habits of mind"; professors use a live, interactive video platform to teach classes, which tracks students' progress and can individualize instruction. The seminars are active and intense; to quote from a recent (Sept. 2014) Atlantic article,

"The subject of the class ...was inductive reasoning. [The professor] began by polling us on our understanding of the reading, a Nature article about the sudden depletion of North Atlantic cod in the early 1990s. He asked us which of four possible interpretations of the article was the most accurate. In an ordinary undergraduate seminar, this might have been an occasion for timid silence... But the Minerva class extended no refuge for the timid, nor privilege for the garrulous. Within seconds, every student had to provide an answer, and [the professor] displayed our choices so that we could be called upon to defend them. [The professor] led the class like a benevolent dictator, subjecting us to pop quizzes, cold calls, and pedagogical tactics that during an in-the-flesh seminar would have taken precious minutes of class time to arrange."

It sounds to me like Minerva is actually making a solid effort to apply evidence-based instructional techniques that are rarely ever given a chance. There are boatloads of sound, reproducible experiments that tell us how people learn and what teachers can do to improve learning, but in practice they are almost wholly ignored. To take just one example, spaced repetition and the testing effect are built into the seminar platform: students have a po...
A List of Nuances
by abramdemski — 2014-11-10T05:02:20.712Z

Abram Demski and Grognor

Much of rationality is pattern-matching. An article on lesswrong might point out a thing to look for. Noticing this thing changes your reasoning in some way. This essay is a list of things to look for. These things are all associated, but the reader should take care not to lump them together. Each dichotomy is distinct, and although the brain will tend to abstract them into some sort of yin/yang correlated mush, in reality they have a more complicated structure; some things may be similar, but if possible, try to focus on the complex interrelationships.

Map vs. Territory

Eliezer’s sequences use this as a jump-off point for discussion of rationality.
Many thinking mistakes are map vs. territory confusions.

A map and territory mistake is a mix-up of seeming vs being.
Humans need frequent reminders that we are not omniscient.

Cached Thoughts

vs. Thinking

This document is a list of cached thoughts.

Clusters vs. Properties

These words could be used in different ways, but the distinction I want to point at is that of labels we put on things vs actual differences in things.
The

mind projection fallacy

is the fallacy of thinking a mental category (a “cluster”) is an actual property things have.

If we see something as good for one reason, we are likely to attribute other good properties to it, as if it had inherent goodness. This is called the halo effect. (If we see something as bad and infer other bad properties as a result, it is referred to as the reverse-halo effect.)

Categories are inference applicability heuristics; ruling X an instance of Y without expecting novel inferences is cargo cult classification

.

Syntax vs. Semantics

The syntax is the physical instantiation of the map. The semantics is the way we are meant to read the map; that is, the intended relationship to the territory.

Semantics vs. Pragmatics

The semantics is the literal contents of a message, whereas the pragmatics is the intended result of conveying the message.

An example of a message with no semantics and only pragmatics is a command, such as “Stop!”.
Almost no messages lack pragmatics, and for good reason. However, if you seek truth in a discussion, it is important to foster a willingness to say things with less pragmatic baggage.
Usually when we say things, we do so with some “point” which is beyond the semantics of our statement. The point is usually to build up or knock down s

...
Open Thread: What are your important insights or aha! moments?
by Emile — 2014-11-09T22:56:57.754Z

Sometimes our minds suddenly "click" and we see a topic in a new light. Or sometimes we think we understand an idea, think it's stupid and ignore attempts to explain it ("yeah, I already know that"), until we suddenly realize that our understanding was wrong.

This kind of insight is supposedly hard to transmit, but it might be worth a try!

So, what kind of important and valuable insights do you wish you had earlier? Could you try to explain briefly what led to the insight, in a way that might help others get it?
Meetup : Utrecht: Game Theory
by immasix — 2014-11-09T15:09:46.032Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Utrecht: Game Theory

WHEN:
30 November 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
La Place, Utrecht, Rijnkade 5

Please note that the location has been changed.
For details, see meetup.com: http://www.meetup.com/LWEANL/events/218834660/, which is supposed to be up-to-date.

Discussion article for the meetup : Utrecht: Game Theory
Getting a new medical diagnostic to market
by oge — 2014-11-09T03:46:39.592Z

Hey hey,

A friend and I are developing a test for antibacterial resistant infections using fluorescent dyeing that is 10 times faster than existing tests. We want to know what the process is for getting clinical laboratories to adopt our product as a standard test. This information would help us customize our prototype and pitches towards the relevant parties.

Anyone got ideas?
Meetup : regular meetup - Significant things I have gotten wrong
by Elo — 2014-11-08T10:35:13.030Z

Discussion article for the meetup : regular meetup - Significant things I have gotten wrong

WHEN:
26 November 2014 06:30:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
565 george st, sydney

Regular location - City of Sydney RSL
Regular time.
Topic: Significant things I have gotten wrong
description: Significant things I have gotten wrong.
Everyone has gotten things wrong. The more embarrassing or painful the better, including "things I have changed my mind about" and "mistakes I have made which had consequences"
We all make mistakes, but its not often we specifically gather and try to learn from many mistakes at once.
For this event; try to bring one or two mistakes that you can explain including a suggestion to someone else about why or how you might avoid it in the future.

See you there!

https://www.facebook.com/events/660387670743249/?notif_t=plan_user_joined

Discussion article for the meetup : regular meetup - Significant things I have gotten wrong
more on predicting agents
by sbenthall — 2014-11-08T06:43:33.036Z

Suppose you want to predict the behavior of an agent. I stand corrected. To make the prediction, as a predictor you need:

observations of the agent

the capacity to model the agent to a sufficient degree of accuracy

"Sufficient accuracy" here is a threshold on, for example, KL divergence or perhaps some measure that depends on utilities of predictions in the more complex case.

When we talk about the intelligence of a system, or the relative intelligence between agents, one way to think of that is the ability for one agent to predict another.

Consider a game where an agent, A, acts on the basis of an arbitrarily chosen polynomial function of degree k. A predictor, P, can observe A and build predictive models of it. Predictor P has the capacity to represent predictive models that are polynomial functions of degree j.

If j > k, then predictor P will in principal be able to predict A with perfect accuracy. If j < k, then there most of the time be cases where P predicts inaccurately. If we say (just for the sake of argument) that perfect predictive accuracy is the test for sufficient capacity, we could say that in the j < k case P does not have sufficient capacity to represent A.

When we talk about the relative intelligence between agents in an adversarial context, this is one way to think about the problem. One way that an agent can have a decisive strategic advantage over another is if it has the capacity to predict the other agent and not vice-versa.

The expressive power of the model space available to P is only one of the ways in which P might have or not have capacity to predict A. If we imagine the prediction game extended in time, then the computational speed of P--what functions it can compute within what span of real time--relative to the computational speed of A could be a factor.

Note that these are ways of thinking about the relative intelligence between agents that do not have anything explicitly to do with "optimization power" or a utility function over outcomes. It is merely about the capacity of agents to represent each other.

One nice thing about representing intelligence in this way is that it does not require an agent's utility function to be stable. In fact, it would be strange for an agent that became more intelligent to have a stable utility function, because the range of possible utility functions available to a more inte...
MIRI Research Guide
by So8res — 2014-11-07T19:11:13.209Z

We've recently published a guide to MIRI's research on MIRI's website. It overviews some of the major open problems in FAI research, and provides reading lists for those who want to get familiar with MIRI's technical agenda.

This guide updates and replaces the MIRI course list that started me on the path of becoming a MIRI researcher over a year ago. Many thanks to Louie Helm, who wrote the previous version.

This guide is a bit more focused than the old course list, and points you not only towards prerequisite textbooks but also towards a number of relevant papers and technical reports in something approximating the "appropriate order." By following this guide, you can get yourself pretty close to the cutting edge of our technical research (barring some results that we haven't written up yet). If you intend to embark on that quest, you are invited to let me know; I can provide both guidance and encouragement along the way.

I've reproduced the guide below. The canonical version is at intelligence.org/research-guide, and I intend to keep that version up to date. This post will not be kept current.

Finally, a note on content: the guide below discusses a number of FAI research subfields. The goal is to overview, rather than motivate, those subfields. These sketches are not intended to carry any arguments. Rather, they attempt to convey our current conclusions to readers who are already extending us significant charity. We're hard at work producing a number of documents describing why we think these particular subfields are important. (The first was released a few weeks ago, the rest should be published over the next two months.) In the meantime, please understand that the research guide is not able nor intended to provide strong motivation for these particular problems.

Friendly AI theory currently isn't about implementation, it's about figuring out how to ask the right questions. Even if we had unlimited finite computing resources and a solid understanding of general intelligence, we still wouldn't know how to specify a system that would reliably have a positive impact during and after an intelligence explosion. Such is the state of our ignorance.

For now, MIRI's research program aims to develop solutions that assume access to unbounded finite computing power, not because unbounded solutions are feasible, but in the hope that these solut

...
Rationality Quotes November 2014 
by elharo — 2014-11-07T19:07:11.917Z

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)

Do not quote yourself.

Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.

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

Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
Weekly LW Meetups
by FrankAdamek — 2014-11-07T17:21:52.389Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on October 31st. The following week's summary is here.

New meetups (or meetups with a hiatus of more than a year) are happening in:

Bangalore Meetup: 08 November 2014 04:15PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Atlanta Beginning of November Meetup - Rationality: 01 November 2014 07:00PM
Bath, UK: Agreement, practical meetups, and report from last meetup: 02 November 2014 02:00PM
Columbus Rationality: 03 November 2014 08:30PM
East Coast Solstice Megameetup: 20 December 2014 03:00PM
European Community Weekend 2015: 12 June 2015 12:00PM
Michigan Meetup 11/9: 09 November 2014 03:00PM
Perth, Australia: Discussion: How to be happy: 04 November 2014 06:00PM
Saint Petersburg meetup - "the lonely one": 31 October 2014 08:00PM
Urbana-Champaign: Fun and Games: 02 November 2014 03:00PM
Utrecht: Climate Change: 02 November 2014 03:00PM
Utrecht: Game theory: 16 November 2014 03:00PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

Canberra: Econ 101 and its Discontents: 08 November 2014 06:00PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - Focused-grit and TAPs: 02 November 2014 04:00PM
Vienna: 22 November 2014 03:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Fun & Games: 02 November 2014 04:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Cambridge UK, Canberra, Columbus, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, Mountain View, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, Seattle, Sydney, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, Waterloo, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers.

If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, build community, and have fun!

In addition to the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, a meetup overview is posted on the front page every Friday. These are an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in upcoming weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly ove...
Unemployment explanations
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2014-11-07T17:12:06.572Z

When I knew nothing of economics, unemployment wasn't mysterious. People wanted a job, and couldn't get one - well, people often want stuff they can't get. Nothing strange there, just one of those things.

Then I learnt some simple economics, and it became more mysterious. The employment market is a market, with the salary being the price. Why doesn't this market clear? Why doesn't the price (salary) simply adjust, and then everyone gets a job? It seemed profoundly mysterious that this didn't happen.

I've been gradually introducing myself to more economics (mostly indirectly) and I've encountered a lot of explanations for this perpetual market failure. Thus the mystery of unemployment is, if not resolved, at least somewhat explained. Since I would really have enjoyed reading a collection of unemployment explanations when I was initially puzzled (almost any explanation of unemployment you read in the press is worthless) I thought I'd do this for others. So here is my (entirely personal and idiosyncratic) summary of the main explanations I've encountered.

Classical explanations: not a problem

The "revealed preferences" idea holds that we can't establish what people want from what they say, but only from observing their actions and their choices. So if people are not getting jobs, maybe they don't really want them? Or maybe they don't want them, given government unemployment insurance?

I should note that whatever you think of this explanation, it argues that unemployment is not an economic problem. It views the unemployed as happily and rationally choosing not to work, which thus suits their preferences better and thus is of higher economic value (neglecting, of course, the cost of providing unemployment insurance).

Classical explanations: market interference

If a market fails to clear, the first step is to look at outside interventions that may be preventing it from doing so. Trade unions and governments are typical candidates for this. Trade unions engage in collective bargaining, requiring that employers pay their workers a certain minimum level (in terms of salary, safety, or working conditions). This raises the price of employees above the market clearing level, and thus causes a shortage of jobs.

Similarly, governments can set minimum wages, regulate who is allowed to work in certain professions, and tax employers or employees (the difference is no...