trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Call for participation - Centre for Organisational Rationality
by  — 2013-04-04T18:59:58.126Z

Or something like that1. As per this article on Control Markets I am looking to experiment with them. This requires an organization of some sort. This post is my first step to the creation of the organization.

My skills are in technology and not UI or people particularly. So I have mainly been doing what I know2, working around my day job.

So I decided it probably wasn't the best path, I was likely to get distracted and lose focus by myself. So other people would be useful.

There are three rough ways this can be attempted:

Try and create a swanky high profile website to spark interest: Get a co-founder type person/team. Stay stealthy and make a nice web app for managing funge for a charity based on exploring control marketers using personal funds to start with, get on social media. Raise money from donations to maintain infrastructure, refine the web app and possibly fund academic research on control markets when people can try it out for themselves. This webapp can then be open sourced for other people to use.

Get the theory started: Start a small organization with volunteer Actors and bootstrap using a google spread sheet to record funge transfers and bids, initially, and then use lessons learnt from that process to inform the design of a webapp. Leading to

Get someone who regularly wants to talk about control markets, just to keep focus.

So what is possible with people from lesswrong? And which would people advise? Or is there a different way to attack this problem.

I've thought about kickstarter, but I don't think it is within the ToS. Also I would want a decent demo/visuals before trying this style of thing.

I suppose there is also.

Create a webapp. Sell it as the next big thing for management consultants. But this is so far outside my comfort zone, I don't know I could do it.

1 I would want to use a kitty for a logo if we went with this name. This is probably why I shouldn't be allowed to make these sorts of decisions.

2 I've been noodling around with a django backend using tastypie to make a restful API, I was thinking about using AngularJS on the client (which I would need to learn). Still needs a lot of work. I also have a bad habit of wanting to make it highly available/scalable and other such things that aren't appropriate at this point.
[Link] Son of low-hanging fruit
by GLaDOS — 2013-04-04T12:43:03.601Z

Related: Thick and Thin, Loss of local knowledge affecting intellectual trends

An entry I found in the archives on Gregory Cochran's and Henry Harpending's blog West Hunter.

In yet another example of long-delayed discovery, forms of high-altitude lightning were observed for at least a century before becoming officially real (as opposed to really real).

Some thunderstorms manage to generate blue jets shooting out of their thunderheads, or glowing red rings and associated tentacles around 70 kilometers up. C T R Wilson predicted this long ago, back in the 1920s. He had a simple model that gets you started.

You see, you can think of the thunderstorm, after a ground discharge, as a vertical dipole. Its electrical field drops as the cube of altitude. The threshold voltage for atmospheric breakdown is proportional to pressure, while pressure drops exponentially with altitude: and as everyone knows, a negative exponential drops faster than any power.

The curves must cross. Electrical breakdown occurs. Weird lightning, way above the clouds.

As I said, people reported sprites at least a hundred years ago, and they have probably been observed occasionally since the dawn of time. However, they’re far easier to see if you’re above the clouds – pilots often do.

Pilots also learned not to talk about it, because nobody listened. Military and commercial pilots have to pass periodic medical exams known as ‘flight physicals’, and there was a suspicion that reporting glowing red cephalopods in the sky might interfere with that. Generally, you had to see the things that were officially real (whether they were really real or not), and only those things.

Sprites became real when someone recorded one by accident on a fast camera in 1989. Since then it’s turned into a real subject, full of strangeness: turns out that thunderstorms sometimes generate gamma-rays and even antimatter.

Presumably we’ve gotten over all that ignoring your lying eyes stuff by now.

May you tell others what you see. (~_^)
[Link] Diversity and Academic Open Mindedness 
by GLaDOS — 2013-04-04T12:31:10.064Z

Related: Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream, Admitting to Bias, The Ideological Turing Test

David Friedman writes on his blog.

I had an interesting recent conversation with a fellow academic that I think worth a blog post. It started with my commenting that I thought support for "diversity" in the sense in which the term is usually used in the academic context—having students or faculty from particular groups, in particular blacks but also, in some contexts, gays, perhaps hispanics, perhaps women—in practice anticorrelated with support for the sort of diversity, diversity of ideas, that ought to matter to a university.

I offered my standard example. Imagine that a university department has an opening and is down to two or three well qualified candidates. They learn that one of them is an articulate supporter of South African Apartheid. Does the chance of hiring him go up or down? If the university is actually committed to intellectual diversity, the chance should go up—it is, after all, a position that neither faculty nor students are likely to have been exposed to. In fact, in any university I am familiar with, it would go sharply down.

The response was that that he considered himself very open minded, getting along with people across the political spectrum, but that that position was so obviously beyond the bounds of reasonable discourse that refusing to hire the candidate was the correct response.

The question I should have asked and didn't was whether he had ever been exposed to an intelligent and articulate defense of apartheid. Having spent my life in the same general environment—American academia—as he spent his, I think the odds are pretty high that he had not been. If so, he was in the position of a judge who, having heard the case for the prosecution, convicted the defendant without bothering to hear the defense. Worse still, he was not only concluding that the position was wrong—we all have limited time and energy, and so must often reach such conclusions on an inadequate basis—he was concluding it with a level of certainty so high that he was willing to rule out the possibility that the argument on the other side might be worth listening to.

An alternative question I might have put to him was whether he could make the argument for apartheid about as well as a

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Meetup : Mountain View: Board Game Night
by fiddlemath — 2013-04-04T06:33:39.313Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Mountain View: Board Game Night

WHEN:
09 April 2013 07:30:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
278 Castro St, Mountain View, CA

It's been four whole weeks since we last played board games! How has this happened!?

The Quixey office has quite a few board games, so we won't be short, but you're more than welcome to bring anything else you might like to play. I will ensure that both Zendo and The Resistance are available. :)

If you're in the San Francisco Bay area and reading this, consider joining the Bay Area Less Wrong mailing list.
Regular meetups in Mountain View and Berkeley are announced and discussed there, and other events of interest to the local community.

Entering the Quixeyplex: Our doors will be locked in the evening, and it's not always the case that someone's watching them for passerby. If you need to be let in, you can call me at 608.698.2959.

Discussion article for the meetup : Mountain View: Board Game Night
[SEQ RERUN] Can Humanism Match Religion's Output?
by MinibearRex — 2013-04-04T05:40:08.789Z

Today's post, Can Humanism Match Religion's Output? was originally published on 27 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Anyone with a simple and obvious charitable project - responding with food and shelter to a tidal wave in Thailand, say - would be better off by far pleading with the Pope to mobilize the Catholics, rather than with Richard Dawkins to mobilize the atheists. For so long as this is true, any increase in atheism at the expense of Catholicism will be something of a hollow victory, regardless of all other benefits. Can no rationalist match the motivation that comes from the irrational fear of Hell? Or does the real story have more to do with the motivating power of physically meeting others who share your cause, and group norms of participating?

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 Your Price for Joining, 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.
A Call for Constant Vigilance
by katydee — 2013-04-03T09:52:06.181Z

Related to: What Do We Mean By "Rationality?"

Rationality has many facets, both relatively simple and quite complex. As a result, it can often be hard to determine what aspects of rationality you should or shouldn't stress.

An extremely basic and abstract model of how rationality works might look a little something like this:

Collect evidence about your environment from various sources

Update your model of reality based on evidence collected (optimizing the updating process is more or less what we know as epistemic rationality)

Act in accordance with what your model of reality indicates is best for achieving your goals (optimizing the actions you take is more or less what we know as instrumental rationality)

Repeat continually forever

A lot of thought, both on LessWrong and within the academic literature on heuristics and biases, has gone into improving epistemic rationality, and while improving instrumental rationality was less of a focus at first, recently the community has been focusing more on it. On the other hand, improving your ability to collect evidence has been relatively neglected-- hence the (in-progress as of this writing) Situational Awareness sequence.

But most neglected of all has been the last step, "repeat continually forever." This sounds like a trivial instruction but is in fact highly important to emphasize. All your skills and training and techniques mean nothing if you don't use them, and unfortunately there are many reasons that you might not use your skills.

You might be offended, angry, hurt, or otherwise emotionally compromised. Similarly, you might be sleepy, inebriated, hungry, or otherwise physically compromised. You might be overconfident in your ability to handle a certain type of problem or situation, and hence not bother to think of other ways that might work better.[1] You might simply not bother to apply your skills because you don't think they're necessary, missing out on potential gains that you don't see at a glance-- or maybe even don't know exist. All in all, there are many times in which you may be missing out on the benefits that your skills can provide.

It may therefore be worthwhile to occasionally check whether or not you are actually applying your skills. Further, try to make this sort of check a habit, especially when encountering circumstances where people would typically be less than rational. If

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Meetup : Durham: Luminosity (New location!)
by evand — 2013-04-03T03:03:28.992Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham: Luminosity (New location!)

WHEN:
11 April 2013 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Cocoa Cinnamon, 420 W Geer St, Durham, NC

We'll discuss the start of the Luminosity sequence by Alicorn: how and why to know what's going on inside your own head.
Suggested reading:

Living luminously is the intro to the sequence.

You Are Likely To Be Eaten By A Grue

Let There Be Light

The background material linked from these articles may be helpful as well; wikiwalk as you deem appropriate.
We'll meet at our usual 7:00 to say hello, get coffee, chat, and wait for latecomers. On-topic discussion will start at 7:30.

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham: Luminosity (New location!)
Meetup : Durham HPMoR Discussion, chapters 51-55
by evand — 2013-04-03T02:56:22.161Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham HPMoR Discussion, chapters 51-55

WHEN:
06 April 2013 12:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Fullsteam, 726 Rigsbee Ave, Durham, NC

We'll get together to discuss Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapters 51-55. Also known as the first portion of the Stanford Prison Experiment section. As always, we'll be happy to summarize the chapters if you haven't read all of them, haven't read them recently enough, etc.

Come join us for food, beverages, rationality, philosophy, and general awesomeness. Food can be found at the food trucks by the farmer's market or outside Fullsteam; coffee can be found at Cocoa Cinnamon and possibly the farmer's market.

We'll start gathering around 12, and on-topic discussion will start at 12:30; that should give everyone enough time to settle in and eat their food and such (which, btw, you're welcome to bring to Fullsteam).

If you need directions, parking advice, transportation help, etc., please email the RTLW list.

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham HPMoR Discussion, chapters 51-55
[SEQ RERUN] Your Price for Joining
by MinibearRex — 2013-04-03T02:45:39.608Z

Today's post, Your Price for Joining was originally published on 26 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

The game-theoretical puzzle of the Ultimatum game has its reflection in a real-world dilemma: How much do you demand that an existing group adjust toward you, before you will adjust toward it? Our hunter-gatherer instincts will be tuned to groups of 40 with very minimal administrative demands and equal participation, meaning that we underestimate the inertia of larger and more specialized groups and demand too much before joining them. In other groups this resistance can be overcome by affective death spirals and conformity, but rationalists think themselves too good for this - with the result that people in the nonconformist cluster often set their joining prices way way way too high, like an 50-way split with each player demanding 20% of the money. Nonconformists need to move in the direction of joining groups more easily, even in the face of annoyances and apparent unresponsiveness. If an issue isn't worth personally fixing by however much effort it takes, it's not worth a refusal to contribute.

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 Sacred Mundane, 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.
Meetup : Buffalo Meetup at UB
by StonesOnCanvas — 2013-04-02T20:10:49.222Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Buffalo Meetup at UB

WHEN:
07 April 2013 04:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Capen Cafe, Buffalo, NY

Place: Meet at the Capen Cafe (its on the ground floor of Capen Hall below the Capen Library). We may decide to move into a classroom (31 Capen worked pretty well last time). In case you're unfamiliar with UB and can't find us, Contact me at 716-341-9042

We'll kick the meeting off with ASK LESS WRONG. Think of something in your everyday life that's bothering you and we'll help you smooth it out. Purpose: increase the fun in each others' lives through the magic of friendship. Secondary purpose: train ourselves to notice things that are suboptimal and view them as problems that can be solved.

The main part of the meeting will be a RATIONAL DEBATE. (I totally got this idea from another meetup group.)

I'll be chairing, so don't worry about keeping track of this vast list of meta stuff - that's my job. It'll go something like this:

In a conventional debate, you win by sounding more plausible than the other person. In a rational debate, you win if and only if you end up believing the truth. This makes it a cooperative game - it's possible for everyone to win or for everyone to lose. (Incidentally it also means you don't actually know whether you've won or not).

Initially, each person answers the question separately, choosing how they wish to frame their answer. If people come up with very different ways of framing the question, we will take each one in turn and try to approach the question from that direction. (The point of this is to avoid fighting over the framing of the discussion and instead address the issues directly).

I'll keep track of structural stuff - different ways of framing the question, agreed subtopics of discussion, and binary chopping to find points of disagreement (which involves lists of statements and verbally how plausible we each think they are).

If you didn't attend the meetup on combat reflexes, I'd strongly recommend reading what we covered that day: http://www.meetup.com/Less-Wrong-Buffalo/pages/Combat_Reflexes_%28Meetup_Jan24%29

When arguing against something, construct a steel man first - rephrase the opposing argument in your own words, making it as strong and plausible as you can, before you try and defeat it.

Be bold and specific - make s

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Journalist's piece about predicting AI
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2013-04-02T14:49:34.108Z

Here's a piece by Mark Piesing in Wired UK about the difficulty and challenges in predicting AI. It covers a lot of our (Stuart Armstrong, Kaj Sotala and Seán Óh Éigeartaigh) research into AI prediction, along with Robin Hanson's response. It will hopefully cause people to look more deeply into our work, as published online, in the Pilsen Beyond AI conference proceedings, and forthcoming as "The errors, insights and lessons of famous AI predictions and what they mean for the future".
Differential reproduction for men and women.
by NancyLebovitz — 2013-04-02T11:48:28.650Z

There's an idea I've seen a number of times that 80% of women have had descendants, but only 40% of men. A little research tracked it back to this, but the speech doesn't have a cite and I haven't found a source.

The reproduction rates for men and women (possibly for the whole history of the species) seems like the sort of thing which could be found out, but I'd like more solid information.
Meetup : Moscow, Applied Rationality for beginners
by Yuu — 2013-04-02T08:06:30.751Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, Applied Rationality for beginners

WHEN:
10 April 2013 07:00:00PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Russia, Moscow, naberezhnaya Luzhnetskaya 2/4 строение 17

This is the first meetup on weekdays. It will have the same practical part as 14th April meetup, so you can choose which one to attend. If you are going for the first time, please fill this one minute form (in Russian), to register for the gathering.

We will meet you in the office 444. You need metal door with number 17 (building number) near it. Enter and follow white labels “Neúron” until you will get to office 444. We will start at 19:00, so please come in advance. Meetup will take 2-2.5 hours.

Main topics:

Applied Rationality, introduction.

Applied Rationality, practice.

You can also use personal messages here, or drop a message at lw@lesswrong.ru to contact me for any reason.

Reports from previous sessions can be found here, in Russian, now with photos.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, Applied Rationality for beginners
Meetup : Moscow, Applied Rationality, take two
by Yuu — 2013-04-02T07:39:12.403Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, Applied Rationality, take two

WHEN:
14 April 2013 04:00:00PM (+0400)

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

This is regular Sunday gathering, it will have the same practical part as 10th April meetup.

Please use the following guide to get to the meetup: link. You need the second revolving door with the sign “Yandex Money” in Russian. We will meet you at 15:45 MSK with “LW” sign. And we will also check the entrance at 16:00 and 16:15, so please do not be late.

Main topics:

Applied Rationality, useful aspects.

Applied Rationality, practice.

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.

Reports from previous sessions can be found here, in Russian, now with photos.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, Applied Rationality, take two
[SEQ RERUN] The Sacred Mundane
by MinibearRex — 2013-04-02T05:37:35.867Z

Today's post, The Sacred Mundane was originally published on 25 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

There are a lot of bad habits of thought that have developed to defend religious and spiritual experience. They aren't worth saving, even if we discard the original lie. Let's just admit that we were wrong, and enjoy the universe that's actually here.

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 On Things that are Awesome, 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.