trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : Vancouver Open Discussion
by eggman — 2013-08-01T09:43:06.142Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver Open Discussion

WHEN:
03 August 2013 02:34:17AM (-0700)

WHERE:
2505 W Broadway, Vancouver, BC

We're having our usual meetup on Saturday. We're looking to expand the breadth of our meetup, so we'll be fielding suggestions and discussion for new activities to try. Otherwise, we don't have any plans, so feel free to drop in and start a discussion about whatever you feel like!

If you're there first, please put up a paper sign that says 'Less Wrong/Rationality Meetup', as last week we had trouble with newcomers who couldn't find us.

Whether you're a regular, you haven't been in six months, or this is your first time, we'd love to see you there. The meetup is at 1530 at Benny's Bagels on Broadway.

And if you haven't already done so, join the mailing list

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver Open Discussion
RapGenius + Sequences = ?
by Alexandros — 2013-08-01T06:04:57.281Z

I recently saw Ashton Kutcher's annotation of a speech by Steve Jobs on RapGenius. For those that haven't heard of it, RapGenius is a content annotation platform, where the "Rap" part is purely incidental.

The format seems quite interesting, so I wondered what the LessWrong community could do if allowed to annotate popular articles (or other texts like MIRI publications) in the same way.

To experiment, I created a RapGenius page for Tsuyoku Naritai and started with an annotation.

Feel free to add other annotations etc. and let's see if we can do something interesting with the medium.

Note: If Eliezer/LW/MIRI have an issue with the wholesale copying of the text, let me know and I will remove as much of it as I can (RG doesn't allow removal of text that has been annotated if the annotation is not removed as well)
Common Task Time Estimation Repository
by Arkanj3l — 2013-08-01T00:21:20.906Z

Related: Repository Repository

It would be cool if we had a repository for the Outside/calibrated view for how long commonplace tasks take. This way we can help one another get around the planning fallacy to a certain degree. Nothing beats direct measurement, but we can possibly save energy if enough evidence comes in to make us suspect that the time a certain task takes doesn't vary.

I could update this thread as more contribute. Depending on the variety of tasks, categories could be created and an index can be compiled. Observe.

Chores

Washing Dishes: 30 mins

Doing Laundry: 1 hour including drying

Rationality

Average LessWrong Post: 3 minutes

"Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions": 4 hours

Misc.

...: ...

... and so on.
Q for GiveWell: What is GiveDirectly's mechanism of action?
by Eliezer Yudkowsky — 2013-07-31T20:02:30.245Z

I first wrote up the following post, then happened to run into Holden Karnofsky in person and asked him a much-shortened form of the question verbally. My attempt to recount Holden's verbal reply is also given further below. I was moderately impressed by Holden's response because I had not thought of it when listing out possible replies, but I don't understand yet why Holden's response should be true. Since GiveWell has recently posted about objections to GiveDirectly and replies, I decided to go ahead and post this now.

A question for GiveWell:

Your current #2 top-rated charity is GiveDirectly, which gives one-time gifts of $1000 over 9 months, directly to poor recipients in Kenya via M-PESA.

Givewell tries for high standards of evidence of efficacy and cost-effectiveness. As I understand it, you don't just want the charity to be arguably cost effective, you want a very high probability that the charity is cost-effective.

The main evidence I've seen cited for direct giving is that the recipients who received the $1000 are then substantially better off 9 months later compared to people who aren't.

While I can imagine arguments that could repair the obvious objection to this reasoning, I haven't seen yet how the resulting evidence about cost-effectiveness could rise again to the epistemic standards one would expect of Givewell's #2 evidence-based charity.

The obvious objection is as follows: Suppose the Kenyan government simply printed new shillings and handed out $1000 of such shillings to the same recipients targeted by GiveDirectly. Although the recipients would be better off than non-recipients, this might not reflect any improvement in net utility in Kenya because no new resources were created by printing the money.

There are of course obvious replies to this obvious objection:

(1) Because the shillings handed out by GiveDirectly are purchased on the foreign currency exchange market using U. S. dollars, and would otherwise have been spent in Kenya in other ways, we should not expect any inflation of the shilling, and should expect an increase in Kenyan consumption of foreign goods corresponding to the increased price of shillings implied by GiveDirectly adding their marginal demand to the auction and thereby raising the marginal price of all shillings sold. The primary mechanism of action by which GiveDirectly be...
Mutual Worth without default point (but with potential threats)
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2013-07-31T09:52:08.323Z

Though I planned to avoid posting anything more until well after baby, I found this refinement to MWBS yesterday, so I'm posting it while Miriam sleeps during a pause in contractions.

The mutual worth bargaining solution was built from the idea that the true value of a trade is having your utility function access the decision points of the other player. This gave the idea of utopia points: what happens when you are granted complete control over the other person's decisions. This gave a natural 1 to normalise your utility function. But the 0 point is chosen according to a default point. This is arbitrary, and breaks the symmetry between the top and bottom point of the normalisation.

We'd also want normalisations that function well when players have no idea what their opponents will be. This includes not knowing what their utility functions will be. Can we model what a 'generic' opposing utility function would be?

It's tricky, in general, to know what 'value' to put on an opponent's utility function. It's unclear what kind of utilities would you like to see them have? That's because game theory comes into play, with Nash equilibriums, multiple solution concepts, bargaining and threats: there is no universal default to the result of a game between two agents. There are two situations, however, that are respectively better and worse than all others: the situation where your opponent shares your exact utility function, and the situations where they have the negative of that (they're essentially your 'anti-agent').

If your opponent shares your utility function, then there is a clear ideal outcome: act as if you and the opponent were the same person, acting to maximise your joint utility. This is the utopia point for MWBS, which can be standardised to take value 1.

If your opponent has the negative of your utility, then the game is zero-sum: any gain to you is a loss to your opponent, and there is no possibility for mutually pleasing compromise. But zero-sum games also have a single canonical outcome! For zero-sum games, the concepts of Nash equilibrium, minimax, and maximin are all equivalent (and are generally mixed outcomes). The game has a single defined value: each player can guarantee they get as much utility as that value, and the other player can guarantee that they get no more.

It seems natural to normalise that point to -1 (0 would be equivalent, but -1 feels m...
Internet Research (with tangent on intelligence analysis and collapse)
by Arkanj3l — 2013-07-31T04:58:40.069Z

Want to save time? Skip down to "I'm looking to compile a thread on Internet Research"!

Opinionated Preamble:

There is a lot of high level thinking on Less Wrong, which is great. It's done wonders to structure and optimize my own decisions. I think the political and futurology-related issues that Less Wrong cover can sometimes get out of sync with the reality and injustices of events in the immediate world. There are comprehensive treatments of how medical science is failing, or how academia cannot give unbiased results, and this is the milieu of programmers and philosophers in the middle-to-upper-class of the planet. I at least believe that this circle of awareness can be expanded, even if it's treading into mind-killing territory. If anything I want to give people a near-mode sense of the stakes aside from x-risk: all in all the x-risk scenarios I've seen Less Wrong fear the most, kill humanity somewhat instantly. A slower descent into violence and poverty is to me much more horrifying, because I might have to live in it and I don't know how. In a matter of fact, I have no idea of how to predict it.

This is one reason why I'm drawn to the Intelligence Operations performed by the military and crime units, among other things. Intelligence product delivery is about raw and immediate *fact*, and there is a lot of it. The problems featured in IntelOps are one of the few things rationality is good for - highly uncertain scenarios with one-off executions and messy or noisy feedback. Facts get lost in translation as messages are passed through, and of course the feeding and receiving fake facts are all a part of the job - but nevertheless, knowing *everything* *everywhere* is in the job description, and some form of rationality became a necessity.

It gets ugly. The demand for these kinds of skills often lie in industries that are highly competitive, violent, and illegal. I believe that once a close look is taken on how force and power is applied in practice then there isn't any pretending anymore that human evils are an accident.

Open Source Intelligence, or "OSINT", is the mining of data and facts from public information databases, news articles, codebases, journals. Although the amount of classified data dwarfs the unclassified, the size and scope of the unclassified is responsible for a majority of intelligence reports - and thus is involved in the great majori...
Meetup : [Boston] Goal Factoring
by Ben_LandauTaylor — 2013-07-30T21:16:12.077Z

Discussion article for the meetup : [Boston] Goal Factoring

WHEN:
04 August 2013 02:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
25 Ames St, Cambridge, MA

Meetup event page

Goal factoring is a method for figuring out why you do the things you do, and for evaluating different ways of achieving the same ends. This lesson is based on material developed by the Center for Applied Rationality and Leverage Research.

Cambridge/Boston-area Less Wrong meetups are every Sunday at 2pm in MIT's building 66 at 25 Ames St, room 156. Room number subject to change based on availability; signs will be posted with the actual room number.

Our default schedule is as follows:

—Phase 1: Arrival, greetings, unstructured conversation.

—Phase 2: The headline event. This starts promptly at 2:30, and lasts 30-60 minutes.

—Phase 3: Further discussion. We'll explore the ideas raised in phase 2, often in smaller groups.

—Phase 4: Dinner. It's about a ten minute walk to the usual restaurant.

Discussion article for the meetup : [Boston] Goal Factoring
A thought on the value of "rationality" as a value
by D_Alex — 2013-07-30T09:27:14.981Z

I read an interesting article today: ["Your app makes me fat"](http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat). Key quote:

"Researchers were astonished by a pile of experiments that led to one bizzare conclusion: Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources."

Now, when we tell people to behave rationally, we often tend to ask them to consider short term sacrifices for long term gains and act to maximise the overall "utility"; to run through a process of evaluation and taking action that uses up both cognitive processing and willpower at once.

I observed on many occasions that it is easy to make the "right' choice when you value the fact that you are trying to live your life in the right manner. The nice feels that you get when making the right choice compensate for the willpower expended in taking the corresponding actions.

And perhaps this is the value of "rationality" as a value.
Freakonomics Study Investigates Decision-Making and Estimated Prior Probabilities
by telms — 2013-07-30T04:08:01.527Z

The Freakonomics web site is currently conducting online research that appears, to this properly hypothesis-blinded participant, to be investigating decision-making and estimated prior probability of success. You can participate yourself at http://www.freakonomics.com/experiments/.

The study asks the participant to choose a yes/no decision that they would be willing to commit to making on the basis of a random coin toss. (Well, actually, the random decay of an atomic nucleus, but they use coin flip graphics.) In my case, the only decision I was willing to make on such a random basis is something with very low risks: namely, the decision whether or not to quit twisting my hair. I accepted the obligation to change my behavior based on a coin toss, and the coin toss says I gotta change.

Breaking a habit of such long standing will be difficult. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, and all that, so when they asked how LIKELY I thought it would be that my hair-twisting habit would stick despite my best efforts to get rid of it, I estimated 90%. Yet I also claimed that I WILL PROBABLY (not certainly, but probably) conquer the habit.

Yes, I recognize the dissonance between these two statements. It intrigues me. Is it perhaps the intent of the experiment to create explicit, conscious, cognitive dissonance like this in some participants, and see what difference it makes to outcomes?

They could easily have phrased the odds question in the inverse form. They COULD have asked how likely I thought it was that I would SUCCEED in achieving my goal. That would align neatly with my statement of commitment and yield no dissonance. I could make the usual biased assumptions that strength of willpower is the same as odds of success, and over-estimate those success odds accordingly.

I don't actually know that the study cares about this, but this is what I would care about if I were the researchers.

The Freakonomics people will be following up over time by email. They're also checking on me through a friend, so there is every possibility that they expect to see an interaction between social involvement in the decision's outcome and the presence of cognitive dissonance, which is believed to drive SOCIAL behavior more strongly than it drives personal decisions kept to oneself.
I'm posting this to increase my social commitment, of course. I also posted on Facebook. I...
Leveling up...
by RobertChange — 2013-07-29T21:38:41.929Z

I just figured out how to use the local banking system and I will be able for the first time to pay my rent from my actual salary received in this country (as opposed to savings from my previous life). Also I always hated shopping for groceries and now I can do it without much pain, because I've found a way that works for me. As I reflect on this, an expression comes to my mind: "leveling up." I don't have the same problems any more which I used to have. I grow and face new challenges.

Did you, fellow rationalists and transhumanists, ever have that feeling? Any particular accomplishments, big or small, that made you feel you're advancing? No matter fast or slow, in big steps or tiny, but firmly forward!?

I'm thrilled to read your stories!
Optimize Your Settings
by katydee — 2013-07-29T21:10:02.906Z

Related to: The Good News of Situationist Psychology

Perhaps the most significant teaching social psychology has to offer is that most of our behaviors are determined by situational factors inherent to our settings, not by our personal qualities.[1]

Some consider this depressing-- for instance, the Milgram experiments in obedience to authority and Stanford prison experiment are often cited as examples of how settings can cause otherwise-good people to participate in and even support unethical and dangerous behavior. However, as lukeprog points out in The Good News of Situationist Psychology, this principle can also be considered uplifting. After all, if our settings have such an effect on our behavior, they are thus a powerful tool that we can employ to make ourselves more effective.[2]

Changing Your Physical Settings

One relatively easy place to start making such changes is in your personal life. I have found that great productivity increases can be gained through relatively minor changes in lifestyle-- or even seemingly-trivial matters such as the position of physical (or sometimes digital) objects in your environment!

For instance, I recently noticed a tendency in myself to "wake up" and then waste the next twenty or thirty minutes aimlessly browsing the Internet on my laptop in bed before actually getting up and eating breakfast, showering, going to work, etc. Since I value time, especially morning time, substantially, I decided that action should be taken to avoid this.

At first, I figured that once I had noticed the problem I could simply apply willpower and avoid it, but this proved less than effective-- it turns out that my willpower is not at its strongest when I first wake up and am still a little groggy![3] I then decided to apply the principles of situational psychology to the situation. The most obvious setting contributing to the problem was that I was using an alarm app on my computer to wake up in the morning, and turning off this alarm caused me to interact with the computer.

So I picked up an IKEA alarm clock, turned off my alarm app, and moved my computer to the kitchen instead of my room-- problem solved. In my new settings, browsing in bed was outright ridiculous-- I'd have to wake up, go downstairs to the kitchen, pick up my computer, and bring it back up to my room with me. Not a likely course of events!

Changing Your Mental Setti...
Meetup : Durham/RTLW HPMoR discussion, ch. 79-81
by therufs — 2013-07-29T19:19:34.038Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham/RTLW HPMoR discussion, ch. 79-81

WHEN:
10 August 2013 12:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
726 Rigsbee Avenue, Durham NC, 27701

Discussion of HPMoR 79-81 will occur at Fullsteam on Saturday 8/10.

We'll gather around 12 and discuss from 12:30 til 2, or whenever we run out of things to say (whichever comes first.)

Feel free to bring non-brewery comestibles (i.e., coffee and lunch/brunch/breakfast.)

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham/RTLW HPMoR discussion, ch. 79-81
[link] Book review: Mindmelding: Consciousness, Neuroscience, and the Mind’s Privacy
by Kaj_Sotala — 2013-07-29T13:47:55.320Z

http://kajsotala.fi/2013/07/book-review-mindmelding-consciousness-neuroscience-and-the-minds-privacy/

I review William Hirstein's book Mindmelding: Consciousness, Neuroscience, and the Mind’s Privacy, which he proposes a way of connecting the brains of two different people together so that when person A has a conscious experience, person B may also have the same experience. In particular, I compare it to my and Harri Valpola's earlier paper Coalescing Minds, in which we argued that it would be possible to join the brains of two people together in such a way that they'd become a single mind.

Fortunately, it turns out that the book and the paper are actually rather nicely complementary. To briefly summarize the main differences, we intentionally skimmed over many neuroscientific details in order to establish mindmelding as a possible future trend, while Hirstein extensively covers the neuroscience but is mostly interested in mindmelding as a thought experiment. We seek to predict a possible future trend, while Hirstein seeks to argue a philosophical position: Hirstein focuses on philosophical implications while we focus on societal implications. Hirstein talks extensively about the possibility of one person perceiving another’s mental states while both remaining distinct individuals, while we mainly discuss the possibility of two distinct individuals coalescing together into one.

I expect that LW readers might be particularly interested in some of the possible implications of Hirstein's argument, which he himself didn't discuss in the book, but which I speculated on in the review:

Most obviously, if another person’s conscious states could be recorded and replayed, it would open the doors for using this as entertainment. Were it the case that you couldn’t just record and replay anyone’s conscious experience, but learning to correctly interpret the data from another brain would require time and practice, then individual method actors capable of immersing themselves in a wide variety of emotional states might become the new movie stars. Once your brain learned to interpret their conscious states, you could follow them in a wide variety of movie-equivalents, with new actors being hampered by the fact that learning to interpret the conscious states of someone who had only appeared in one or two productions wouldn

...
Rationality Quotes from people associated with LessWrong
by ChristianKl — 2013-07-29T13:19:32.677Z

The other rationality quotes thread operates under the rule:

Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, Overcoming Bias, or HPMoR.

Lately it seems that every MIRI or CFAR employee is excempt from being quoted.

As there are still interesting quotes that happen on LessWrong, Overcoming Bias, HPMoR and MIRI/CFAR employee in general, I think it makes sense to open this thread to provide a place for those quotes.
Valuing Sentience: Can They Suffer?
by jefftk — 2013-07-29T12:39:04.481Z

In the recent discussions here about the value of animals several people have argued that what matters is "sentience", or the ability to feel. This goes back to at least Bentham with "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

Is "can they feel pain" or "can they feel pleasure" really the right question, though? Let's say we research the biological correlates of pleasure until we understand how to make a compact and efficient network of neurons that constantly experiences maximum pleasure. Because we've thrown out nearly everything else a brain does, this has the potential for orders of magnitude more sentience per gram of neurons than anything currently existing. A group of altruists intend to create a "happy neuron farm" of these: is this valuable? How valuable?

(Or say a supervillian is creating a "sad neuron farm". How important is it that we stop them? Does it matter at all?)