trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Link: White House wants your advice on space exploration
by polymathwannabe — 2014-10-18T14:32:43.597Z

"The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is planning ahead — way ahead. The agency wants you to email ideas for how "the Administration, the private sector, philanthropists, the research community and storytellers" can develop "massless" space exploration and a robust civilization beyond Earth."

This is beautiful.

"We are running out of adventures [...] the mountains have all been climbed, the continents explored, and the romance of sailing away on a tall ship to undiscovered islands is no more. What will fire the imaginations of the next generation?"

http://io9.com/white-house-seeks-advice-on-bootstrapping-a-solar-syst-1647619795
Meetup : Perth, Australia: Discussion: How to be happy
by  — 2014-10-18T09:23:54.444Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Perth, Australia: Discussion: How to be happy

WHEN:
04 November 2014 06:00:00PM (+0800)

WHERE:
Sync Labs, 6/663 Newcastle Street, Leederville, Australia

Happiness is pretty great, and fortunately there's scientific research on the subject. lukeprog read a lot of this research and summarised it in How to Be Happy.

Come make some tea and discuss the article! We'll raise questions like:

What's important for happiness? What isn't? (Spoiler: money isn't, once you're over the poverty line.)

Do any of lukeprog's conclusions seem wrong? Do any seem surprising?

Have you ever done any of the things lukeprog recommends for becoming happier – such as becoming more extroverted, or switching to more fulfilling work? What effect did it have on your happiness?

You can RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/Perth-Less-Wrong/events/214179922/

The entrance to Sync Labs is between Cranked and Niche. Don't trust Google Maps!

Discussion article for the meetup : Perth, Australia: Discussion: How to be happy
Meetup : Washington D.C. - Mini Talks
by RobinZ — 2014-10-17T19:16:42.193Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington D.C. - Mini Talks

WHEN:
19 October 2014 03:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery

We will be meeting in the Kogod Courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery (8th and F Sts or 8th and G Sts NW, go straight past the information desk from either entrance) to take turns presenting ~10-20 minute lectures on random topics. As usual, we will congregate between 3:00 to 3:30, begin giving talks at 3:30, and continue as long as people are interested or until closing, whichever comes first.

If you need to show up late or leave early, that's fine. Let us know if you want to take a turn behind the notional podium before/at/after a specific time, or if there are any special materials you want to have.

Upcoming meetups:

Oct. 26: Create & Complete (bring projects, get help and social support as you work on them)

Nov. 2: Fun & Games (bring games, play games, converse, socialize, or any combination thereof)

Nov. 9: To Be Announced (to be summarized)

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington D.C. - Mini Talks
New LW Meetup: Bangalore
by FrankAdamek — 2014-10-17T16:06:53.960Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on October 10th. The following week's summary is here.

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

Bangalore Meetup: 14 November 2014 04:15PM
Hasselt Meetup: Brussels moves to Hasselt this month!: 11 October 2014 01:00PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Atlanta Beginning of October Meetup - Productive Arguments: 12 October 2014 07:00PM
Bratislava: 20 October 2014 06:00PM
Denver Area Meetup: 15 October 2014 06:00PM
Houston, TX: 18 October 2014 02:00PM
Portland, OR: Improv for Rationalists: 18 October 2014 01:00PM
Urbana-Champaign: Noticing continued, Creativity: 12 October 2014 02:00PM
Utrecht: Artificial Intelligence: 19 October 2014 02:00PM
Utrecht: Climate Change: 02 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:

Austin, TX: 11 October 2025 01:30PM
Canberra: Contrarianism: 11 October 2014 06:00PM
London Social - October 12th - Productivity Show & Tell: 12 October 2014 02:00PM
Moscow Meetup: Practical rationality: 12 October 2014 02:00PM
Sydney Meetup - October: 22 October 2014 06:30PM
Washington, D.C.: To-Do List Hacking: 12 October 2014 03:00PM
Vienna: 18 October 2014 03:00PM

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 ov...
Group Rationality Diary, October 16-31
by therufs — 2014-10-17T15:56:31.115Z

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for October 16-31.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Previous diary: October 1-15

Rationality diaries archive
Gordon Irlam on the BEGuide
by KatjaGrace — 2014-10-17T01:39:10.000Z

This post summarizes a conversation which was part of the Cause Prioritization Shallow, all parts of which are available here. Previously in this series, conversations with Owen Cotton-Barratt, Paul Christiano, and Paul Penley.

Participants

Gordon Irlam: Philanthropist and Founder of Back of the Envelope Guide to Philanthropy

Katja Grace: Research Assistant, Machine Intelligence Research Institute

Notes

This is a summary of points made by Gordon Irlam during an interview with Katja on March 4th 2014. The summary was made by an anonymous author.

The Basics

The Back of the Envelope Guide to Philanthropy (BEGuide) is a one-man project that aims to quantify the impact of philanthropic causes and share information, helping philanthropists to prioritise spending in a way that delivers the highest value for money.

Gordon Irlam has been running the BEGuide for about 10 years and estimates that he’s spent between 200 and 600 hours on it in total, working on it in short sprees whenever promising new information catches his attention.

Gordon chooses which causes to investigate by gut instinct, looking at anything that he feels might turn out to be worthwhile. Almost every cause that he’s evaluated has turned out to promise a positive net impact.

Work normally begins with a seed in a newspaper article or radio program and grows within a few hours to an evaluation that can be published on the BEGuide website.

Gordon also runs the Gordon R Irlam Charitable Foundation and his work on the BEGuide is now the basis for around 99% of that foundation’s spending, around $200,000 annually in coming years.

What Gets Done

Gordon does no original research, but spends his time compiling available information and processing it to get results for the BEGuide.

Gordon considers this kind of work important, and laments that academic researchers get funded to go out and get information, but once they write a paper on it, seldom manage to direct it anywhere that it can be compared to other papers, so the knowledge doesn’t come into use and the papers are quickly forgotten.

Uploading the work to the BEGuide also takes time, but almost all of Gordon’s effort goes into the research. He muses that it would take a lot of time if he were ever to update the website, which currently has a simple design.

Gordon continues to update the BEGuide as new information emerges, both adding new causes and revising th

...
Crossing the History-Lessons Threshold
by lionhearted (Sebastian Marshall) — 2014-10-17T00:17:42.822Z

(1)

Around 2009, I embarked on being a serious amateur historian. I wouldn't have called it that at the time, but since then, I've basically nonstop studied various histories.

The payoffs of history come slow at first, and then fast. History is often written as a series of isolated events, and events are rarely put in total context. You can easily draw a straight line from Napoleon's invasions of the fragmented German principalities to how Bismarck and Moltke were able to unify a German Confederation under Prussian rule a few decades later; from there, it's a straight line to World War I due to great power rivalry; the Treaty of Versailles is easily understood in retrospect by historical French/German enmity; this gives rise to World War II.

That series of events is hard enough to truly get one's mind around, not just in abstract academic terms, but in actually getting a feel of how and why the actors did what they did, which shaped the outcomes that built the world.

And that's only the start of it: once you can flesh out the rest of the map, history starts coming brilliantly alive.

Without Prime Minister Stolypin's assassination in 1911, likely the Bolsheviks don't succeed in Russia; without that, Stalin is not at the helm when the Nazis invade.

On the other side of the Black Sea, in 1918, the Ottoman Empire is having terms worse than the Treaty of Versailles imposed on it -- until Mustafa Kemal leads the Turkish War of Independence, building one of the most stable states in the Middle East. Turkey, following Kemal's skill at governance and diplomacy, is able to (with great difficulty) stay neutral in World War II, not be absorbed by the Soviets, and not have its government taken over by hard-line Muslims.

This was not-at-all an obvious course of events. Without Kemal, Turkey almost certainly becomes crippled under the Treaty of Sevres, and eventually likely winds up as a member of the Axis during World War II, or gets absorbed as another Soviet/Warsaw Pact satellite state.

The chain of events goes on and on. There is an eminently clear chain of events from Martin Luther at Worms in 1521 to the American Revolution. Meanwhile, the non-success the Lord Protectorate and Commonwealth of England turned out less promising than was hoped -- ironically, arguably predisposing England to being less sympathetic to greater democracy. But the colonies were shielded f...
What false beliefs have you held and why were you wrong?
by Punoxysm — 2014-10-16T17:58:34.638Z

What is something you used to believe, preferably something concrete with direct or implied predictions, that you now know was dead wrong. Was your belief rational given what you knew and could know back then, or was it irrational, and why?

Edit: I feel like some of these are getting a bit glib and political. Please try to explain what false assumptions or biases were underlying your beliefs - be introspective - this is LW after all.
Meetup : Urbana-Champaign: Stoicism, anthropics
by Manfred — 2014-10-16T13:21:36.037Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign: Stoicism, anthropics

WHEN:
19 October 2014 02:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
206 S Cedar St, Urbana IL

If you want to read up on Stoicism, check out the encyclopedia of philosophy entry.

For anthropics, see a recent discussion here.

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign: Stoicism, anthropics
Fighting Mosquitos
by ChristianKl — 2014-10-16T11:53:21.960Z

According to Louie Helm eradicating a species of mosquitoes could be done for as little as a few million dollar.

I don't have a few million dollar lying around so I can't spend my own money to do it. On the other hand, I think that on average every German citizen would be quite willing to pay 1€ per year to rid Germany of mosquitoes that bite humans.

That means it's a problem of public action. The German government should spend 80 million Euro to rid Germany of Mosquitos. That's an order of magnitude higher than the numbers quoted by Louie Helm).

The same goes basically for every country or state with mosquitos.

How could we get a government to do this without spending too much money ourselves? The straight forward way is writing a petition. We could host a website and simultaneously post a petition to every relevant parliament on earth.

How do we get attention for the petition? Facebook. People don't like Mosquitos and should be willing to file an internet petition to get rid of them. I would believe this to spread virally. The idea seems interesting enough to get journalists to write articles about it.

Bonus points:

After we have eradicated human biting mosquitoes from our homelands it's quite straightforward to export the technology to Africa.

Does anyone see any issues with that plan?
Meetup : **MelbLW: October Social Meetup**
by MelbourneLW — 2014-10-15T22:44:58.714Z

Discussion article for the meetup : **MelbLW: October Social Meetup**

WHEN:
17 October 2014 06:30:00PM (+0800)

WHERE:
Alchemist's Refuge, 328 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne

October's social meetup is scheduled for this Friday (17th October) as usual. This month, we will be returning to Alchemist's Refuge.
Our social meetups are relaxed, informal events where we chat and often play games. The start and finish times are very loose - people will be coming and going throughout the night, so don't worry if you are coming later or have to leave early.

Where? Alchemist's Refuge, 328 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne - near the corner of Queen St, downstairs from Games Laboratory (note: last month's announcement incorrectly listed the address as Lt Collins St, don't be fooled!)

When? From 6:30pm until late, Friday October 17th

Contact? If you have any questions, just text or call Richard on 0421231789

Dinner? There are a number of take-away places nearby that deliver to Alchemist's Refuge. It is also quite likely that a group of us will go to Stalactites for late night souvlakis after Refuge closes at about 11pm.

Games? Alchemist's Refuge do allow board games and they also have a number that can be borrowed for a minor fee. Ask around and you'll easily find some others to join you!

To organise similar events, please send an email to melbournelw@gmail.com

Discussion article for the meetup : **MelbLW: October Social Meetup**
Meetup : Canberra: Would I Lie To You?
by DanielFilan — 2014-10-15T13:44:23.453Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra: Would I Lie To You?

WHEN:
24 October 2014 06:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
108 North Road, Acton, ACT

Would I Lie to You is a British comedy panel show where participants tell stories which may be true or a lie. We will watch some (randomly selected) episodes, and give our probabilities of each story being true or false. At the end, I will log-score the results, and the winner will receive eternal pride. As always, vegan snacks will be provided.

General meetup info:

If you use Facebook, please join our group.

Structured meetups are held on the second Saturday and fourth Friday of each month from 6 pm until late in the CSIT building, room N101.

Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra: Would I Lie To You?
How to write an academic paper, according to me
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2014-10-15T12:29:02.681Z

Disclaimer: this is entirely a personal viewpoint, formed by a few years of publication in a few academic fields. EDIT: Many of the comments are very worth reading as well.

Having recently finished a very rushed submission (turns out you can write a novel paper in a day and half, if you're willing to sacrifice quality and sanity), I've been thinking about how academic papers are structured - and more importantly, how they should be structured.

It seems to me that the key is to consider the audience. Or, more precisely, to consider the audiences - because different people will read you paper to different depths, and you should cater to all of them. An example of this is the "inverted pyramid" structure for many news articles - start with the salient facts, then the most important details, then fill in the other details. The idea is to ensure that a reader who stops reading at any point (which happens often) will nevertheless have got the most complete impression that it was possible to convey in the bit that they did read.

So, with that model in mind, lets consider the different levels of audience for a general academic paper (of course, some papers just can't fit into this mould, but many can):

Title readers

The least important audience. An interesting title may draw casual browsers in, but those likely aren't very valuable readers. Most people encountering an academic article will either be looking for it, or will have had it referred to them from some source. They will likely read more of it. So the main role of the title is to not put off these readers, and to clarify what the paper is about, and what field it belongs in. Witty titles are perfectly acceptable, as long as it fulfils those criteria. So in-jokes for the whole academic field are perfectly acceptable, in-jokes for a narrow subfield are not - unless you're not aiming beyond that subfield.

Abstract readers

The most important audience of all. Most people reading a paper will only read the abstract, and will then proceed to dismiss the paper or accept it and move on. The abstract thus plays three roles:

It presents the paper's results. The abstract must be crystal-clear on what the paper says; abstract readers must be able to describe the results correctly.

It establishes the credibility of the result. It can do this by briefly outlying the methods used, and by its general tone

...
Meetup : Boston Meetup - New Location
by Anders_H — 2014-10-15T04:39:13.533Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Boston Meetup - New Location

WHEN:
19 October 2014 03:30:37PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Harvard Science Center Room 109, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA 02138

IMPORTANT LOCATION CHANGE!

Rather than meeting at MIT or at the Citadel, we'll be meeting at Harvard this week. Specifically, room 109 of the Science Center.
Harvard Science Center 1 Oxford Street Cambridge MA 02138 Room 109
Ron will be speaking about active trading and financial options. This will discuss economics and markets more than our previous talk about personal finance.

Cambridge/Boston-area Less Wrong meetups start at 3:30pm, and have an alternating location:

1st Sunday meetups are at Citadel in Porter Sq, at 98 Elm St, apt 1, Somerville.

3rd Sunday meetups are 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.
(We also have last Wednesday meetups at Citadel at 7pm.)
Our default schedule is as follows:

—Phase 1: Arrival, greetings, unstructured conversation.
—Phase 2: The headline event. This starts promptly at 4pm, 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.

Discussion article for the meetup : Boston Meetup - New Location
What math is essential to the art of rationality?
by Capla — 2014-10-15T02:44:54.054Z

I have started to put together a sort of curriculum for learning the subjects that lend themselves to rationality. It includes things like experimental methodology and cognitive psychology (obviously), along with "support disciplines" like computer science and economics. I think (though maybe I'm wrong) that mathematics is one of the most important things to understand.

Eliezer said in the simple math of everything:

It seems to me that there's a substantial advantage in knowing the drop-dead basic fundamental embarrassingly simple mathematics in as many different subjects as you can manage. Not, necessarily, the high-falutin' complicated damn math that appears in the latest journal articles. Not unless you plan to become a professional in the field. But for people who can read calculus, and sometimes just plain algebra, the drop-dead basic mathematics of a field may not take that long to learn. And it's likely to change your outlook on life more than the math-free popularizations or the highly technical math.

I want to have access to outlook-changing insights. So, what math do I need to know? What are the generally applicable mathematical principles that are most worth learning? The above quote seems to indicate at least calculus, and everyone is a fan of Bayesian statistics (which I know little about).

Secondarily, what are some of the most important of that "drop-dead basic fundamental embarrassingly simple mathematics" from different fields? What fields are mathematically based, other than physics and evolutionary biology, and economics?

What is the most important math for an educated person to be familiar with?

As someone who took an honors calculus class in high school, liked it, and did alright in the class, but who has probably forgotten most of it by now and needs to relearn it, how should I go about learning that math?