trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Large introductory science classes
by VipulNaik — 2013-09-15T03:38:08.674Z

The undergraduate course experience at a number of colleges and universities across the world includes introductory science classes. Some colleges require only science-based majors (including sciences and engineering) to take the introductory science classes, whereas others require students majoring in all subjects to take at least some introductory science classes. All my examples are drawn from the United States, but the questions that I raise are of general interest, and I'm interesting in hearing about people's thoughts based on their experiences studying or teaching at the undergraduate level, regardless of geographic location.

I want to focus on one particular type of introductory science class: the large introductory science class. I'll identify the three key features of the courses I'm talking about:

The class size is large: Classes with more than 75 students would qualify as "large" in my view, whereas classes with fewer than 50 students. The 50-75 range is more ambiguous, and may depend a lot on how the course is run.

The class is an introductory general requirement class: I'm thinking of classes that first-year college students (freshmen) are generally prepared to take and would take if they have adequate prior preparation and do not intend to major in the subject. I'm excluding Honors classes here (though Honors classes are anyway rarely that large).

The class is a science or math class: I'm including physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, computer science, geology, and astronomy here.

I'm interested in the following questions:

What has been your overall experience with large introductory science classes as a student, a TA, or a professor? My general impression is that evaluations of these classes generally run more negative compared to other classes, but I hardly have access to a representative sample.

To what extent did your experience (as a student) with large introductory science classes influence your decision regarding career, major, minor, and future elective classes? For instance, did a bad large intro calc class turn you off math? Did a great intro chem class make you decide to minor in chemistry?

Did your large introductory science class make use of modern technological aids such as clickers or online discussion forums? If so, how did these affect your course experience?

PS1: Here are a few links I get by Googling for large introd...
Help MIRI run its Oxford UK workshop in November
by lukeprog — 2013-09-15T03:13:36.553Z

This November 23-29, MIRI is running its first European research workshop, at Oxford University.

We need somebody familiar with Oxford UK to (1) help us locate and secure lodging for the workshop participants ahead of time, (2) order food for delivery during the workshop, and (3) generally handle on-the-ground logistics.

Apply here for the chance to:

Work with, and hang out with, MIRI staff.

Spend some time (during breaks) with the workshop participants.

Help MIRI work towards its goals.

You can either volunteer to help us for free, or indicate how much you'd need to be paid per hour to take the job.
College courses versus LessWrong
by VipulNaik — 2013-09-15T00:45:34.682Z

Compared to many of the people reading this, I've not participated extensively on LessWrong. In fact, I created my account only about a week ago. That said, I have read many LessWrong articles by contributors such as Eliezer, Jonah, Yvain, Gwern, and many others (if I missed you, my apologies). I wouldn't say it was a huge transformative experience. But I have probably learned a bit more from LessWrong than I learned sitting in on a class by Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker on human capital (without formally registering for the class or doing the coursework). I've learned more of value from LessWrong than all the MIT OpenCourseWare lectures I've consumed. There are a few online experiences, such as reading EconLog, that have been more educational for me than LessWrong, but I can count these on the fingers of one hand.

Some of my friends have claimed that reading LessWrong systematically (and perhaps participating in the comments and attempting to write posts) would generate more value for an undergraduate than a typical core college class (with the possible exception of technical classes specific to the person's major or area of specialization). I'm curious about whether readers agree with this assessment. Do you feel, for instance, that LessWrong provided you with more valuable human capital than your introductory general chemistry sequence? What about comparing LessWrong with an undergraduate "intro to philosophy" class? Or an undergraduate intro class on the history of economic thought? At what percentile would you rank LessWrong relative to your college classes?

A second related question is whether there's a possibility of building a college course -- or college-like course, perhaps a MOOC -- specifically revolving around mastery of the content in LessWrong (perhaps starting with the Sequences). Would such a college course be possible to design in principle? How would such a college course compare with core requirements for undergraduates today?
[link] "The Survival of Humanity"
by Pablo — 2013-09-14T15:19:37.300Z

The Survival of Humanity, by Lawrence Rifkin (September 13, 2013). Some excerpts:

An existential catastrophe would obliterate or severely limit the existence of all future humanity.

As defined by Nick Bostrom at Oxford University, an existential catastrophe is one which extinguishes Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently destroys a substantial part of its potential. As such it must be considered a harm of unfathomable magnitude, far beyond tragedy affecting those alive at the time. Because such risks jeopardize the entire future of humankind and conscious life, even relatively small probabilities, especially when seen statistically over a long period of time, may become significant in the extreme. It would follow that if such risks are non-trivial, the importance of existential catastrophes dramatically eclipse most of the social and political issues that commonly ignite our passions and tend to get our blood boiling today. [...]

One would think that if we are mobilized to fight for issues that affect a relatively small number of people, we would have an even stronger moral and social emotional motivation to prevent potential catastrophes that could kill or incapacitate the entire human population. But there are significant psychological barriers to overcome. People who would be emotionally crushed just hearing about a tortured child or animal may not register even the slightest emotional response when contemplating the idea that all human life may one day become extinct. As Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote, “The challenge of existential risks to rationality is that, the catastrophes being so huge, people snap into a different mode of thinking.” [...]

Here is a partial list of suggestion worthy of consideration. The idea here is not to advocate for some extreme survivalist or “Chicken Little” mentality, but rather to use reason, foresight, and judgment about how best to protect our future.

Create a larger worldwide stockpile of grains and other food reserves.

Support and prioritize global measures to detect, prevent, and halt emerging pandemic infectious diseases, such as the WHO’s The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.

Invest in technologies to discover and deflect large asteroids and comets on a deadly collision course with our planet.

Consider banning the synthesis and public publication of the genome sequence

...
Meetup : Atlanta Lesswrong September Meetup (2nd of 2)
by Nova_Division — 2013-09-14T09:21:40.971Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Atlanta Lesswrong September Meetup (2nd of 2)

WHEN:
28 September 2013 06:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
2388 Lawrenceville Hwy. Apt L. Decatur, GA 30033

Come join us for the second meetup for the month of September! We'll be doing our normal eclectic mix of self-improvement brainstorming, educational mini-presentations, structured discussion, unstructured discussion, and social fun and games times!

Please contact me if you have cat allergies, as our meeting space has cats. Incredibly cute cats.

And check out ATLesswrong's facebook group, if you haven't already: https://www.facebook.com/groups/100137206844878/
where you can connect with Atlanta Lesswrongers and suggest a topics for discussion at this meetup!

Discussion article for the meetup : Atlanta Lesswrong September Meetup (2nd of 2)
Notes on Brainwashing & 'Cults'
by gwern — 2013-09-13T20:49:51.412Z

“Brainwashing”, as popularly understood, does not exist or is of almost zero effectiveness. The belief stems from American panic over Communism post-Korean War combined with fear of new religions and sensationalized incidents; in practice, “cults” have retention rates in the single percentage point range and ceased to be an issue decades ago. Typically, a conversion sticks because an organization provides value to its members.

Some old SIAI work of mine. Researching this was very difficult because the relevant religious studies area, while apparently completely repudiating most public beliefs about the subject (eg. the effectiveness of brainwashing, how damaging cults are, how large they are, whether that’s even a meaningful category which can be distinguished from mainstream religions rather than a hidden inference - a claim, I will note, which is much more plausible when you consider how abusive Scientology is to its members as compared to how abusive the Catholic Church has been etc), prefer to publish their research in book form, which makes it very hard to review any of it. Some of the key citation were papers - but the cult panic was so long ago that most of them are not online or have been digitized! I recently added some cites and realized I had not touched the draft in a year; so while this collection of notes is not really up to my preferred standards, I’m simply posting it for what it’s worth. (One lesson to take away from this is that controlling uploaded human brains will not be nearly as simple & easy as applying classic ‘brainwashing’ strategies - because those don’t actually work.)

Reading through the literature and especially the law review articles (courts flirted disconcertingly much with licensing kidnapping and abandoning free speech), I was reminded very heavily - and not in a good way - of the War on Terror.

Old American POW studies:

Clark et al 1981 Destructive Cult Conversion: Theory, Research and Practice

Lifton 1961 Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism

Ross & Langone 1988 Cults: What Parents Should Know

Schein, Schneier & Barker 1961 Coercive Persuasion

Singer 1978, 1979 “Therapy with Ex-cult Members” Journal of the National Association of Private Psychiatric Hospitals; “Coming Out of the Cults”, Psychology Today

Started the m...
New LW Meetup: Phoenix
by FrankAdamek — 2013-09-13T15:58:35.332Z

This summary was posted to LessWrong main on September 6th. The following week's summary is here.

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

Phoenix Tuesday Lunch Group: 10 September 2013 12:00PM

Other irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Atlanta Lesswrong September Meetup (1st of 2): 08 September 2013 06:00PM
Helsinki Meetup: 08 September 2013 03:00PM
LessWrong Israel September meetup: 12 September 2013 08:00PM
Rutgers New Brunswick: 08 September 2013 02:00PM
Saskatoon: Zendo!: 07 September 2013 01:00PM
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois: 08 September 2013 02:00PM
Zagreb Meetup: 07 September 2013 05:00PM

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:

[Salt Lake City] Fall Equinox: Festival of Heroes: 21 September 2013 03:00PM
[Washington DC] Robin Hanson visits to talk about prediction markets: 08 September 2013 03:00PM
Washington, DC: Goals: 31 August 2014 03:00PM
West LA—What, Exactly, Is a Person?: 11 September 2013 07:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge UK, Columbus, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Mountain View, New York, Research Triangle NC, Salt Lake City, Seattle, 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 will continue to be posted on the front page every Friday. These will be an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in the next weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll now also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts will be moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up.

Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!

If you check Less Wrong irregu...
Please share your reading habits/techniques/strategies 
by Torello — 2013-09-13T13:41:53.584Z

I'm looking to build up a “tool-box” of strategies/techniques/habits for reading non-fiction effectively and efficiently. I'm looking for methods to help me retain concepts, locate main ideas, make connections, etc.

If anyone has posted about this topic previously, please link to the post.

Please point to relevant resources that have worked for you; additionally please describe skills/systems that you've developed personally.

An example of a useful comment I got posting in an open thread, from Jayson_Virissimo

“As I read textbooks, I summarize the most important concepts (along with doing the exercises, if there are any) and write them in a notebook and then later (less than a week) enter the notes into Anki as cloze-delete flashcards. I don't have an objective measure of retention, but I believe that it has vastly improved relative to when I would simply read the book.”

Here is an example of an existing resource that I found useful:

http://violentmetaphors.com/2013/08/25/how-to-read-and-understand-a-scientific-paper-2/

Here are some questions/prompts that may spur your thinking:

Describe the setting where you read.

Do you schedule reading time? How?

How do you decide what to read next?

Do you write notes by hand, on a computer?

Do you wear noise-canceling headphones?

Do you skim texts?

Do you reread texts?

How often do you reread “foundational” texts, or texts that shifted your paradigm?

How often do you decide not to finish a book?

I may do a series of posts on this in discussion, and if other users find it interesting/useful I may eventually make it into a post for the main page.
[LINK] Behind the Shock Machine: book reexamining Milgram obedience experiments
by DanArmak — 2013-09-13T13:20:44.900Z

There's a book called Behind the Shock Machine by psychologist Gina Perry, published just a week ago, which investigates the original Milgram obedience experiments. I haven't read it, but I've read a summary / editorial published in the Pacific Standard.

Of course, the editorial is in some measure designed to provoke outrage, generate click-throughs, and leave readers biased against Milgram. I don't trust the editorial to report unbiased truth. If anyone has read the book, what do you think about it?

Key quote from the editorial:

Perry also caught Milgram cooking his data. In his articles, Milgram stressed the uniformity of his procedures, hoping to appear as scientific as possible. By his account, each time a subject protested or expressed doubt about continuing, the experimenter would employ a set series of four counter-prompts. If, after the fourth prompt (“You have no other choice, teacher; you must go on”), the subject still refused to continue, the experiment would be called to a halt, and the subject counted as “disobedient.” But on the audiotapes in the Yale archives, Perry heard Milgram’s experimenter improvising, roaming further and further off script, coaxing or, depending on your point of view, coercing participants into continuing. Inconsistency in the standards meant that the line between obedience and disobedience was shifting from subject to subject, and from variation to variation—and that the famous 65 percent compliance rate had less to do with human nature than with arbitrary semantic distinctions.

The wrinkles in Milgram’s research kept revealing themselves. Perhaps most damningly, after Perry tracked down one of Milgram’s research analysts, she found reason to believe that most of his subjects had actually seen through the deception. They knew, in other words, that they were taking part in a low-stakes charade.
Meetup : West LA—Talk Like a Pirate Day
by OpenThreadGuy — 2013-09-13T10:20:56.601Z

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA—Talk Like a Pirate Day

WHEN:
18 September 2013 07:00:00AM (-0700)

WHERE:
10850 West Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064, USA

How to get in: Go to the Westside Tavern in the upstairs Wine Bar (wee swashbucklers be welcome), in th' Westside Pavillion on the second floor, by the movie theaters. The sign thar say: "Lounge".

Parking is free for 3 hours, or longer if ye be a scurvy dog.

Discussion: Ahoy! This week be a special convening. In celerberation of the world-renowned Talk Like a Pirate Day, we'll be forgoin' the usual manner o'speech, and adoptin a manner more befittin a lawless captain or squire on the high seas of yestercentury. Arrr, thar be nothin ter tickle a man's fancy more'n pretendin toward adventure n romance n camaraderie and what have ye. That's why we be announcin this meetin', rather than keepin it below-decks, as 'twer, as we bin doin fer half th' meetups. (Yar.)

Recommended readins:

Yo Ho Ho, and a Bottle of Rum

What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?

An economic analysis of typical emotional transactions occurring in the moments before and during an impending death

All for Me Grog

Against Ninjas 1

Against Ninjas 2

Pyrats

MooBeard

Sailors' Language: A Collection of Sea-Terms and their Definitions

A priori exposure ter "Less Wrong" not even be recommended this time.

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA—Talk Like a Pirate Day
Meetup : Moscow: Yet Another Meetup
by Yuu — 2013-09-13T06:07:14.438Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: Yet Another Meetup

WHEN:
15 September 2013 04:00:00PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Russia, Moscow, ulitsa L'va Tolstogo 16

Please use the following guide to get to the meetup: link. You need the second revolving door near the swing or just look for group of geek-looking people. We will meet you at 16:00 inside.

Main topics:

Applied rationality exercise: fungibility.

Discussion and short presentations.

Game session.

If you are going for the first time, you can fill this one minute form (in Russian), to share your contact information. You can also use personal messages here, or drop a message at lw@lesswrong.ru to contact me for any reason.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: Yet Another Meetup
Meetup : Washington DC fun and games meetup
by rocurley — 2013-09-13T05:54:20.462Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC fun and games meetup

WHEN:
15 September 2013 03:00:00AM (-0400)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC 20001, USA

We'll be meeting to hang out and play games.

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC fun and games meetup
Meetup : Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Games/Discussion
by Mestroyer — 2013-09-13T03:33:08.874Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Games/Discussion

WHEN:
15 September 2013 02:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Illini Union North Lounge 1401 W Green St Urbana, IL 61801

Moving to the North Lounge because last time the South Lounge was unexpectedly scheduled for a private event, but the North Lounge is (as far as I know) always public. I will have Wits and Wagers, Zendo, and Pandemic. Cross posted on the mailing list.

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Games/Discussion
Meetup : Applied Rationality Talks: Thinking in Bayes
by Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)  — 2013-09-13T01:52:45.751Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Applied Rationality Talks: Thinking in Bayes

WHEN:
26 September 2013 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Royal Oak 161 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa, ON

This is the second in a series of talks on CFAR and Less Wrong rationality topics offered to the Ottawa Skeptics meetup group. The format will be a fifteen-minute talk followed by drinks and structured discussion.

Discussion article for the meetup : Applied Rationality Talks: Thinking in Bayes
Games for Rationalists
by Gunnar_Zarncke — 2013-09-12T17:41:25.880Z

Follow-up to: Fun and Games with Cognitive Biases

Related to: Rationality Games & Apps Brainstorming, Rationality and Video Games

Answering: Designing serious games - a request for help

Games on Lesswrong

Rational games or game ideas have been discussed or mentioned on lesswrong a few times:

Designing serious games - a request for help proposes to apply games for the rational cause. Fun and Games with Cognitive Biases plays (on a meta level) with concepts. Rationality Games & Apps Brainstorming urges for such games. Rationality and Video Games provides an example. Taboo is explicitly mentioned in http://lesswrong.com/lw/nu/taboo_your_words/. Doing this with scientific concepts could make for a nice casual game at a LW meetup. http://lesswrong.com/lw/3h/why_our_kind_cant_cooperate/ generallly urges for community building mechanism – and (social) games address this. A game that has been discussed extensively on lesswrong is Diplomacy

Introduction

I like to play games that are challenging and intellectually demanding. But I don't like to learn games that will gain nothing except the fun of learning and playing the game.

Games for rationalists should not only be fun. They should also train or teach something beyond the game. Games that don't are parasitic memes.

This post describe areas of rational thought addressed by games. By rationality I mean the LW view.

I list games suitable for getting acquainted with rational thinking. I list areas underrepresented by games and I give an elaborate example of a game suitable to such an area. I propose trying to invent games for these areas and sketch possible strategies.

To repeat I don't mean games that are just played frequently by rationalists or usually considered entertaining by rationalists (though they may). I mean games to train rationalists. Serious Games. To make it easy and fun to become a rationalist (or at least support such a cause).

Games supporting the acquisition of literacy and numeracy are out of scope here even though these are preconditions for more demanding concepts (and games). Also mostly out of scope are social and activity games (though these are be relevant to efficient group building) and games with a focus on motor ability (though such may make spatial or dynamical concepts more clear).

Outline

I mot

...