trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Ottawa LW Meetup: Thursday April 28, 7:00pm (ADDED: Bayes study group satellite meeting)
by Cyan — 2011-04-21T21:35:31.080Z

Less Wrong meeting:

Date: Thursday April 28, 7:00pm until at least 9:00pm.

Venue: 347 Preston St., cafe seating behind the security desk.

Bayes study group: Anyone in the region interested in learning how to do Bayesian statistics is welcome to join us. High school algebra and calculus are the prerequisites for Bayes, but if you don't know them, I'll be happy to teach them to you.

Date: Tuesday April 26, 9:00pm to 10:00pm.

Venue: 347 Preston St., cafe seating behind the security desk.
[SEQ RERUN] ...What's a bias, again?
by Dorikka — 2011-04-21T19:18:16.923Z

Today's post, ...What's a bias, again? was originally published on 27 November 2006. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Biases are obstacles to truth seeking caused by one's own mental machinery.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Why truth? And... 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 here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Reading Nonfiction Selectively
by Vaniver — 2011-04-21T18:52:13.827Z

This post is intended to be conversational. I'm noticing something about myself and changing it; take it for what you will.

I read quickly; about two and a half times as fast as I read it aloud. A more useful number might be a page a minute, but that's obviously subject to massive uncertainty. I've also read a lot of books in my life- many of them were fiction, but for the last several years it's been mostly nonfiction.

I have the feeling that I should read every word of a book. That's only half-true; as far as I can tell, I often don't read every word of a paragraph. But glancing at a paragraph and guessing its meaning is a far cry from writing off a lump of text as not worth my time. I suspect that's a habit from fiction reading- every paragraph is there because it's pleasant or it advances the story, and the story is far more valuable as a whole than as a series of disconnected events. But with nonfiction reading, the value of different paragraphs is massively variable. A Conflict of Visions, for example, is a massively insightful and valuable book. But I got the feeling when I read it that there was a lot of repetition and reiteration; to me, the first two chapters (35 pages) had about 90% of the value of the book (263 pages). If I had known to just read those pages and stop, I could have gotten 90% of the value for 13% of the time, and saved myself almost four hours.

(As an aside, I suspect this is one of the reasons blogs posts can be so valuable- many ideas only need a few pages to express, and books simply cannot be 30 pages long. Either you don't publish it, or you extend it to ten times the size.)

And yet, it is hard to take advantage of this. I'm familiar with the 80/20 principle (and, with the case of A Conflict of Visions, it was more extreme at 90/13) but there's the fear that I'll miss some gem, or won't fully understand the ideas if I don't read all the pieces. And so I do read many of my nonfiction books cover to cover. But the main thing I'm cultivating is a willingness to skip, not just words in a sentence, but paragraphs, pages, or even chapters. The main test I'm using is whether or not I want to read the sentence I'm reading right now. If I feel the least bit of disinterest, I flip ahead. (If I find I missed something, I can always flip back, and at this stage I suspect I'm so ignorant of my interest that if I've noticed my disinterest, it'...
Publishing industry contacts, anyone?
by Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)  — 2011-04-21T14:53:05.925Z

I finished a novel last September, did most of the editing over Christmas, and have been procrastinating ever since. My novel has significant rationalist themes and would probably be of interest to a number of people here. Below is a plot synopsis. If you would be interesting in reading it, send me a private message with your email address and I can email you the Word file. I am still acceptiong editing suggestions.

Also, if anyone has suggestions as to where I could submit it, that would be very helpful.

Plot Synopsis: After the Flood

Ten-year-old Ash lives with a band of orphans in the flooded remains of a 21st-century city, where they live by diving for salvage in submerged buildings and trading it to adults in the mainland city. One day, when she watches a stranger attempting to climb the Wall, a mysterious and impregnable structure in the flooded city, he is injured and she saves his life. He claims that there are people living in the Wall, people who still have the knowledge and power that were lost during the long-ago flood.

Armed with her determination and cunning mind, Ash manages to break into the Wall and obtain medicine for the boy's sister, who is dying of tuberculosis. In the mainland city, however, the boy's parents are captured by the Church of Candles, which controls the city, and executed for their attempt to use the old knowledge.

Six years later, now a young adult apprenticed to a herb-woman on the outskirts of the city, Ash meets the brother and sister again and continues searching for the truth about the flood and the city's past.
Looking for companies affiliated with transhumanism
by  — 2011-04-21T06:28:56.928Z

I want to make a list of companies that are affiliated with transhumanism. I'm looking for companies pursuing transhumanist goals (ex: VR, gene sequencing) or built by transhumanists themselves (ex: arguably Elon Musk).

What places do you know of? Which look like cool places to work? Extra points if you've worked there.

Aside from my personal reasons for seeking those companies (internships, research for future projects), I think a list of transhumanist companies will be a good thing to keep around for other future endeavors.

Also: The Seasteading Institute, SIAI, BioCurious, etc are all incredibly cool, but I'm not looking for non-profits.

My list so far:

The obvious ones to start with are anything connected with Peter Thiel and the Founders' Fund.

Tesla Motors and SpaceX are projects of Elon Musk. Tesla Motors is making electric cars and SpaceX is chasing private space flight.

Luke Nosek, who worked on PayPal with Elon Musk, has started a company called Halcyon Molecular and is also connected with Pathway Genomics. The first does gene sequencing, the second offers personal genetics reports.

Novamente LLC is working on "intelligent virtual agents for virtual worlds, computer games, and simulations." Ben Goertzel leads it.

What am I missing?
How can I make money?
by Goobahman — 2011-04-21T02:37:59.986Z

Hey everyone,

I'd like too see if I can utilize the rational powers of Less Wrong

Currently I work full time. Am well paid for my age. Have approximately $20,000 AU in savings.

My spouse is in uni. Will finish this year and begin working next year. But currently I am supporting our household.

I have recently concluded that $20k is too much to be sitting idle, and the rational thing to do would be to find a way of putting those savings to work in some fashion. But how?

What would be the best way of utilizing these finances in terms of self-development and/or monetary return?

A few things to consider:

a) My skillset at the moment is limited, but I am eager to learn anything.

b) I only desire money in that it enables me to carry out many plans that would be difficult otherwise.

c) Relationships are far more important to me than money, however money is still pretty high up there.

I come to Less Wrong because it is the only community whose advice I would trust. The rest of the internet as many scammers, most friends and family feel threatened by the idea of investment/new things etc. Also they just aren't as rational as Less Wrong.

I would be so appreciative of any advice given.

Also anyone in the same boat?
Things That Shouldn't Need Pointing Out
by Alicorn — 2011-04-21T01:13:35.570Z

Today I learned that you can toast marshmallows in the oven.

By "learned", I mean "I read a recipe which included as a step toasting marshmallows in the oven". I didn't have to try it out to realize that this would obviously work. It was plain as soon as I heard the idea. And it shouldn't have needed pointing out. I know how ovens work. I am familiar with the marshmallow species of food. I love roasted marshmallows while hating them in most other forms and often occurrently lament the difficulty of arranging open flames over which one may safely toast them. I routinely try new things in the kitchen to get results I want.

And yet I read it, and was surprised. And so were the people I reported this finding to. It needed pointing out.

What other facts need pointing out, although they are plain on inspection? What is the pattern behind these facts and a good way to find more?
A Problem with Human Intuition about Conventional Statistics:
by Kai-o-logos — 2011-04-20T23:41:02.332Z

As an aspiring scientist, I hold the Truth above all. As Hodgell once said, "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be." But what if the thing that is holding our pursuit of the Truth back is our own system? I will share an example of an argument I overheard between a theist and an atheist once - showing an instance where human intuition might fail us.

*General Transcript*

Atheist: Prove to me that God exists!

Theist: He obviously exists – can’t you see that plants growing, humans thinking, [insert laundry list here], is all His work?

Atheist: Those can easily be explained by evolutionary mechanisms!

Theist: Well prove to me that God doesn’t exist!

Atheist: I don’t have to! There may be an invisible pink unicorn baby flying around my head, there is probably not. I can’t prove that there is no unicorn, that doesn’t mean it exists!

Theist: That’s just complete reductio ad ridiculo, you could do infrared, polaroid, uv, vacuum scans, and if nothing appears it is statistically unlikely that the unicorn exists! But God is something metaphysical, you can’t do that with Him!

Atheist: Well Nietzsche killed metaphysics when he killed God. God is dead!

Theist: That is just words without argument. Can you actually…..

As one can see, the biggest problem is determining burden of proof. Statistically speaking, this is much like the problem of defining the null hypothesis.

A theist would define: H0 : God exists. Ha: God does not exist.

An atheist would define: H0: God does not exist. Ha God does exist.

Both conclude that there is no significant evidence hinting at Ha over H­0. Furthermore, and this is key, they both accept the null hypothesis. The correct statistical term for the proper conclusion if insignificant evidence exists for the acceptance of the alternate hypothesis is that one fails to reject the null hypothesis. However, human intuition fails to grasp this concept, and think in black and white, and instead we tend to accept the null hypothesis.

This is not so much a problem with statistics as it is with human intuition. Statistics usually take this form becaus

...
Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2011-04-20T21:13:07.106Z

(At the suggestion and request of Tom McCabe, I'm posting the essay that I sent to the New York LW group after my first visit there, and before the second visit:)

Having some kind of global rationalist community come into existence seems like a quite extremely good idea. The NYLW group is the forerunner of that, the first group of LW-style rationalists to form a real community, and to confront the challenges involved in staying on track while growing as a community.

"Stay on track toward what?" you ask, and my best shot at describing the vision is as follows:

"Through rationality we shall become awesome, and invent and test systematic methods for making people awesome, and plot to optimize everything in sight, and the more fun we have the more people will want to join us."

(That last part is something I only realized was Really Important after visiting New York.)

Michael Vassar says he's worried that you might be losing track of the "rationality" and "world optimization" parts of this - that people might be wondering what sort of benefit "rationality" delivers as opposed to, say, paleo dieting. (Note - less worried about this now that I've met the group in person. -EY.)

I admit that the original Less Wrong sequences did not heavily emphasize the benefits for everyday life (as opposed to solving ridiculously hard scientific problems). This is something I plan to fix with my forthcoming book - along with the problem where the key info is scattered over six hundred blog posts that only truly dedicated people and/or serious procrastinators can find the time to read.

But I really don't think the whole rationality/fun association you've got going - my congratulations on pulling that off, by the way, it's damned impressive - is something that can (let alone should) be untangled. Most groups of people capable of becoming enthusiastic about strange new nonconformist ways of living their lives would have started trying to read each other's auras by now. Rationality is the master lifehack which distinguishes which other lifehacks to use.

The way an LW-rationality meetup usually gets started is that there is a joy of being around reasonable people - a joy that comes, in a very direct way, from those people caring about what's true and what's effective, and being able to reflect on ...
[SEQ RERUN] Why truth? And...
by Alexandros — 2011-04-20T19:20:55.178Z

Today's post, Why truth? And... was originally published on 27 November 2006. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Why should we seek truth? Pure curiosity is an emotion, but not therefore irrational. Instrumental value is another reason, with the advantage of giving an outside verification criterion. A third reason is conceiving of truth as a moral duty, but this might invite moralizing about "proper" modes of thinking that don't work. Still, we need to figure out how to think properly. That means avoiding biases, for which see the next post.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was The Martial Art of Rationality, 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 here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Official Less Wrong Redesign: Call for Suggestions 
by Louie — 2011-04-20T17:56:53.152Z

In the next month, the administrators of Less Wrong are going to sit down with a professional designer to tweak the site design. But before they do, now is your chance to make suggestions that will guide their redesign efforts.

How can we improve the Less Wrong user experience? What features aren’t working? What features don’t exist? What would you change about the layout, templates, images, navigation, comment nesting, post/comment editing, side-bars, RSS feeds, color schemes, etc? Do you have specific CSS or HTML changes you'd make to improve load time, SEO, or other valuable metrics?

The rules for this thread are:

One suggestion per comment.

Upvote all comments you’d like to see implemented.

BUT DON’T JUMP TO THE COMMENTS JUST YET: Take a few minutes to collect your thoughts and write down your own ideas before reading others’ suggestions. Less contamination = more unique ideas + better feature coverage!

Thanks for your help!
Evaluating weather forecast accuracy: an interview with Eric Floehr
by Johnicholas — 2011-04-20T17:51:13.493Z

Eric Floehr has a business that "holds a mirror up" to weather forecasters, and aggregates and evaluates forecasters for weather forecast consumers. Rationalists interested in improving our societies truth orientation might be mildly interested.

http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/04/12/weather-forecast-accuracy/
No, Seriously. Just Try It.
by lukeprog — 2011-04-20T16:11:10.085Z

In Scientific Self-Help, I explained that huge sections of the self-help industry pay little or no attention to the scientific data on self-help. Partly, this is because self-help products are usually written to sell, not to help.

Another reason for this is that there are huge gaps in our scientific knowledge about self-help. Unlike electrons, humans are complex beings and very different from each other.

When considering a self-help goal, it may be helpful to at least start with methods that have been scientifically demonstrated to work on a large number of people. On the other hand, there are so many gaps in our knowledge that it's definitely worth just trying things to see what works for you. This point has been recently emphasized by atucker in Go Try Things, Don't Fear Failure, and Just Try It: Quantity Trumps Quality. Also see: Use the Try Harder, Luke and Break Your Habits: Be More Empirical.

Self-experimenters like Tim Ferris and Seth Roberts are masters of the Just Try It method.

To cure his insomnia, Seth Roberts tried exercise, calcium supplements, and adjusting the lamps near his bed. In the end what worked was delaying his breakfast until 11am. Within a week, his insomnia was gone. Three months later he tried eating at 7am again, and the insomnia returned.

No controlled scientific study says that delaying breakfast until 11am will cure insomnia. For most insomniacs, it probably won't work. That's why it's important to Just Try It. In a way, you are a special snowflake, and the only way to figure out what works for you is to Just Try It. Controlled scientific studies are, pardon my language, a godsend - but you can't wait for busy scientists to decode your personal psychology. You're going to have to do that yourself.

Roberts did the same with dieting, trying an endless combination of things and weighing himself constantly. He found that drinking unflavored fructose water between meals did the trick, and he lost 35 pounds. Later, he discovered that a few teaspoonfuls of flavorless vegetable oil worked just as well.

See How to Run a Successful Self-Experiment and Quantified Self for ideas.

When to try, when to not try

Of course, there are some things you shouldn't "just try." Physically dangerous things should not be tried on a whim. Financially dangerous options deserve much forethought.

B...
Is it possible to build a safe oracle AI?
by Karl — 2011-04-20T12:54:55.934Z

It seem to me possible to create a safe oracle AI.

Suppose that you have a sequence predictor which is a good approximation of Solomonoff induction but which run in reasonable time. This sequence predictor can potentially be really useful (for example, predict future siai publications from past siai publications then proceed to read the article which give a complete account of Friendliness theory...) and is not dangerous in itself.

The question, of course, is how to obtain such a thing.

The trick rely on the concept of program predictor. A program predictor is a function which predict, more or less accurately, the output of the program (note that when we refer to a program we refer to a program without side effect that just calculate an output.) it take as it's input but within reasonable time. If you have a very accurate program predictor then you can obviously use it to gain a good approximation of Solomonoff induction which run in reasonable time.

But of course, this just displace the problem: how do you get such an accurate program predictor?

Well, suppose you have a program predictor which is good enough to be improved on. Then, you use it to predict the program of less than N bits of length (with N sufficiently big of course) which maximize a utility function which measure how accurate the output of that program is as a program predictor given that it generate this output in less than T steps (where T is a reasonable number given the hardware you have access to). Then you run that program. Check the accuracy of the obtained program predictor. If insufficient repeat the process. You should eventually obtain a very accurate program predictor. QED.

So we've reduced our problem to the problem of creating a program predictor good enough to be improved upon. That should be possible. In particular, it is related to the problem of logical uncertainty. If we can get a passable understanding of logical uncertainty it should be possible to build such a program predictor using it. Thus a minimal understanding of logical uncertainty should be sufficient to obtain agi. In fact even without such understanding, it may be possible to patch together such a program predictor...
[SEQ RERUN] The Martial Art of Rationality
by Unnamed — 2011-04-19T19:41:19.699Z

Today's post, The Martial Art of Rationality was originally published on November 22, 2006. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Rationality is the martial art of the mind, building on universally human machinery. But developing rationality is more difficult than developing physical martial arts. One reason is because rationality skill is harder to verify. In recent decades, scientific fields like heuristics and biases, Bayesian probability theory, evolutionary psychology, and social psychology have given us a theoretical body of work on which to build the martial art of rationality. It remains to develop and especially to communicate techniques that apply this theoretical work introspectively to our own minds.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. It is the first post in the series; the introductory post was here, 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 here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.