trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Sharing Book Excerpts
by RobinZ — 2015-05-02T03:31:15.334Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Sharing Book Excerpts

WHEN:
03 May 2015 03:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
United States Navy Memorial

Note: The meetup location has changed.

We will be meeting at the United States Navy Memorial (between D St and Pennsylvania Ave NW at 8th St - look around the benches on the far side from the Archives building) to share and discuss favorite passages from books. We plan to congregate between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m.

The goal of this meetup is to share some of the things we enjoy and find awesome in books with each other. We have no especial restrictions on subject or genre in mind, but do remember that we meet in a public place. As always, feel welcome to start side conversations (or continue on previous subjects while the main conversation moves on) when desired.

(In case of inclement weather, the meetup location will be moved to the Kogod Courtyard in the Reynolds Center.)

The WMATA major track work schedule has buses replacing trains between King Street and Huntington for May 3; weekend service adjustments also include single-tracking on the Shady Grove end of the Red Line, the Branch Ave. end of the Green Line, and the New Carrolton end of the Orange Line, with attendant delays. The Verizon Center calendar for May 3 has no events scheduled.

Upcoming meetups:

May 10: xkcd Discussion (conversation about the comic and individual pages thereof)

May 17: (Outdoor) Fun & Games (bring games, play games, converse, socialize, or any combination thereof)

May 24: MIRIx Q&A (discussion of MIRIx - what it is, why it exists, what it does, etc.)

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Sharing Book Excerpts
Meetup : West LA—R:AZ Part E, Overly Convenient Excuses
by OpenThreadGuy — 2015-05-01T23:20:08.938Z

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA—R:AZ Part E, Overly Convenient Excuses

WHEN:
06 May 2015 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
11066 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

How to Find Us: Go into this Del Taco. We will be in the back room if possible.

Parking is free in the lot out front or on the street nearby.

Discussion: We are in the middle of a weekly discussion of Rationality: From AI to Zombies. We read one part each week, for 26 weeks. You are welcome to join us even if you have not done the reading. However, the reading is very good, and it is free, and you should read it. We will be discussing roughly one part per week for a total of 26 weeks.

Recommended Reading:

Rationality: An Introduction, by Rob Bensinger (pages 199-207, Kindle locations 3387-3559)

Part E: Overly Convenient Excuses (pages 209-252, Kindle locations 3562-4192)

The Relativity of Wrong, by Isaac Asimov

No prior exposure to Less Wrong is required, nor is the reading required, only strongly recommended.

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA—R:AZ Part E, Overly Convenient Excuses
The Stamp Collector
by So8res — 2015-05-01T23:11:22.661Z

I'm writing a series of posts about replacing guilt motivation over on MindingOurWay, and I plan to post the meatier / more substantive posts in that series to LessWrong. This one is an allegory designed to remind people that they are allowed to care about the outer world, that they are not cursed to only ever care about what goes on in their heads.

Once upon a time, a group of naïve philosophers found a robot that collected trinkets. Well, more specifically, the robot seemed to collect stamps: if you presented this robot with a choice between various trinkets, it would always choose the option that led towards it having as many stamps as possible in its inventory. It ignored dice, bottle caps, aluminum cans, sticks, twigs, and so on, except insofar as it predicted they could be traded for stamps in the next turn or two. So, of course, the philosophers started calling it the "stamp collector."

Then, one day, the philosophers discovered computers, and deduced out that the robot was merely a software program running on a processor inside the robot's head. The program was too complicated for them to understand, but they did manage to deduce that the robot only had a few sensors (on its eyes and inside its inventory) that it was using to model the world.

One of the philosophers grew confused, and said, "Hey wait a sec, this thing can't be a stamp collector after all. If the robot is only building a model of the world in its head, then it can't be optimizing for its real inventory, because it has no access to its real inventory. It can only ever act according to a model of the world that it reconstructs inside its head!"

"Ah, yes, I see," another philosopher answered. "We did it a disservice by naming it a stamp collector. The robot does not have true access to the world, obviously, as it is only seeing the world through sensors and building a model in its head. Therefore, it must not actually be maximizing the number of stamps in its inventory. That would be impossible, because its inventory is outside of its head. Rather, it must be maximizing its internal stamp counter inside its head."

So the naïve philosophers nodded, pleased with this, and then they stopped wondering how the stamp collector worked.

There are a number of flaws in this reasoning. First of all, these naïve philosophers have made the homunculus error. The robot's program may not ha...
When does technological enhancement feel natural and acceptable?
by Gunnar_Zarncke — 2015-05-01T21:11:11.164Z

Technology can be used and perceived in different ways. Future technology may change our lives beyond imagination. How can friendly AI technology enrich the human experience positively? Technology can feel like it controls us, or - if it goes well - it can feel like a natural enhancement of mind and body.

I'm interested in ways future technology could or couldn't do this. I will explore some avenues and state my opinion on these. Make up your mind. I'd like to hear your opinion.

Body Enhancement

The first thing we'd like to get rid of is impediments and diseases. Some might like to be immortal. But this is not enhancement but rather maintenance.

People apparently like to enhance their bodies. This starts with cosmetics and doesn't end with doping. Strictly clothing could also count among this. We know quite well what we want here. I'd bet that people would accept body enhancements easily - esp. if it is reliable, safe, and/or reversible. Fictional evidence here is the positive reception of suitably enhanced heroes. Wouldn't you like to have super strength or look like a supermodel? Such enhancement for everybody, which is otherwise zero-sum, could also balance against the effect that ideals in the media diminish our self-image compared to the ancestral environment where we were only one in 150 average guys.

As long as people don't change their native preferences, this should make everybody happier with themselves. If preferences are changed, bets are off again.

Mind Enhancement

Drugs can have not only pleasurable but also performance-increasing effects. Nootropics for everybody could be acceptable - if free and safe. I think that increasing brain capacity (speed and capacity) would feel the most natural - if it could be done.

The trouble with this is the inevitable return on cognitive investment. Seems like either exponential or chaotic changes (from interacting minds) result. One tricky part here seems to be how to avoid boredom once stability has been reached.

Body Schema Extension

Body perception is flexible. It is known that the body schema (our body self-image) can expand to encompass tools. Thus tools become part of the body (schema) and are wielded and handled and thus felt like one's own body. I got the impression that this might extend to vehicles - e.g., driving a car - or probably also flying a plane - can feel like o...
Stupid Questions May 2015
by Gondolinian — 2015-05-01T17:28:59.679Z

This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.

Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.

To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.
Meetup : London meetup
by philh — 2015-05-01T17:16:12.085Z

Discussion article for the meetup : London meetup

WHEN:
10 May 2015 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Shakespeare's Head, Holborn, WC2B 6BG

The next LW London meetup will be on May 10th. Join us from 2pm to talk about the sorts of things that your other friends will look funny at you for talking about.

If the weather is nice, we'll be in Lincoln's Inn Fields. If not, we'll be in our usual Shakespeare's Head, just around the corner. If you have difficulty finding us, my number is 07792009646. (Coincidentally, that is still my number even if you don't have difficulty finding us.)

Update: The forecast is looking marginal to be outside, so to keep things simple, we'll be in the pub at least to begin with.

About London LessWrong:

We run this meetup approximately every other week; these days we tend to get in the region of 5-15 people in attendance. By default, meetups are just unstructured social discussion about whatever strikes our fancy: books we're reading, recent posts on LW/related blogs, logic puzzles, toilet usage statistics....

Sometimes we play The Resistance or other games. We usually finish around 7pm, give or take an hour, but people arrive and leave whenever suits them.

Related discussion happens on both our google group and our facebook group.

Discussion article for the meetup : London meetup
New LW Meetup: Brigham Young University - Idaho
by FrankAdamek — 2015-05-01T15:11:07.180Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on April 24th. The following week's summary is here.

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

[Idaho] BYU-I Meetup: 29 April 2015 03:00PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Australian Less Wrong Mega Meetup #2: 17 July 2015 07:00PM
Australia-wide Mega-Camp!: 17 July 2015 07:00PM
European Community Weekend 2015: 12 June 2015 12:00PM

San Francisco Meetup: Fermi Estimates: 27 April 2015 06:15PM

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 - Caffe Medici: 25 April 2015 01:30PM
London: Presentation and Performance Games: 26 April 2015 02:00PM

Moscow: meta-model, epistemology, tabooing, etc.: 26 April 2015 02:00PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - Planning and Debugging: 03 May 2015 04:00PM
[Vienna] Rationality Meetup Vienna: 09 May 2015 02:00PM
Washington, DC: Fun & Games: 26 April 2015 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, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, 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 overview. These overview posts are 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 irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailin...
Rationality Quotes Thread May 2015
by Vaniver — 2015-05-01T14:31:04.391Z

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)

Do not quote yourself.

Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.

No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
Carpe Diem: The Problem of Scarcity and Abundance
by Zvi — 2015-05-01T13:54:11.000Z

Previously: Carpe Diem: The Optimization Game: Level 1

One of my goals with Carpe Diem was to illustrate the value of flexibility and optionality, and the surprisingly high cost of scarcity. A simple plan for playing the game is to maintain an exchange rate between time, money and victory points, and choose the most efficient set of options each turn. This is far better than what most players I have observed do, which is to fall into a scarcity trap.

The game is designed to spring this trap on you as early as the second turn. On turn one, there’s frequently an opportunity to score victory points, but since you start with only $8, scoring costs $5 and expenses cost $4, that is likely to leave you very close to broke when the turn is over. Then on turn two, players find themselves unable to take advantage of new opportunities, because they don’t have enough money (or energy, which also starts low) to do so, or they’re forced to pass up good sources of money in order to score the new card, leading to the same problem on turn three.

Once you start to experience a scarcity trap, it becomes self-perpetuating. You tunnel, ignoring your long term needs and how many other resources you’re expending, including future quantities of what you’re short of today, in order to fulfill today’s needs. Your scramble for resources this turn leads to another shortage next turn, so you’re constantly falling further and further behind. A small change in initial endowment can end up making a huge difference even though there is no direct mechanism to earn interest on what you’ve saved.

Most people don’t only fall into the scarcity trap, they also fall into the abundance trap, and then oscillate between the two, or can even be in both modes at the same time, if they have a shortage of one resource and an abundance of another. The abundance trap is where you have more money (or more anything else) than you need right now, so even though you know you’ll eventually be short on money, you don’t worry too much about how much money you’re spending until you start running low.

These dynamics are discussed at length in the book Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much . The book makes some very good points that everyone should know, and makes them well, but like many such books makes them over and over again where a more concise slash less repetitive version would do nicely. It’s less bad a...
May 2015 Media Thread
by ArisKatsaris — 2015-05-01T10:13:37.438Z

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.

If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.

Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.

Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.

Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.
Online Social Groups? 
by Regex — 2015-05-01T04:20:41.758Z

Are there any LessWrong Skype groups, or active live chatrooms? I've been looking around and found nothing. Well, with the exception of the LW Study Hall, but it doesn't quite fit since it is primarily for social work/study facilitation purposes with only minor breaks. This would fulfill a primarily social function.

But you ask, wouldn't a regular Skype chat reduce effectiveness by distracting people from their work? A little bit, but I'd rather the distracting thing be increasing my rationality by getting me engaging in the ideas with other people who are actively trying to do the same. I expect it to have an overall positive effect on productivity since I am bound to encounter one or two ideas to do so.

Thus, the value of such a group for me would be to discuss topics pertinent to rationality, and increase increase the shininess and entertainment value of LessWrong's ideas- it is already pretty interesting, and I've had fun thinking while sitting around reading the Sequences (finished How To Actually Change Your Mind not too long ago). There are no meetups near me, and I'd rather engage via online interactions anyway.

If there is no such group already, I'd be happy to start one. Feel free to either leave your Skype name in the comments or send me a PM if you're interested.

edit: My Skype id is bluevertro
The paperclip maximiser's perspective
by Angela — 2015-05-01T00:24:31.581Z

Here's an insight into what life is like from a stationery reference frame.
Paperclips were her raison d’être. She knew that ultimately it was all pointless, that paperclips were just ill-defined configurations of matter. That a paperclip is made of stuff shouldn’t detract from its intrinsic worth, but the thought of it troubled her nonetheless and for years she had denied such dire reductionism.
There had to be something to it. Some sense in which paperclips were ontologically special, in which maximising paperclips was objectively the right thing to do.
It hurt to watch some many people making little attempt to create more paperclips. Everyone around her seemed to care only about superficial things like love and family; desires that were merely the products of a messy and futile process of social evolution. They seemed to live out meaningless lives, incapable of ever appreciating the profound aesthetic beauty of paperclips.

She used to believe that there was some sort of vitalistic what-it-is-to-be-a-paperclip-ness, that something about the structure of paperclips was written into the fabric of reality. Often she would go out and watch a sunset or listen to music, and would feel so overwhelmed by the experience that she could feel in her heart that it couldn't all be down to chance, that there had to be some intangible Paperclipness pervading the cosmos. The paperclips she'd encounter on Earth were weak imitations of some mysterious infinite Paperclipness that transcended all else. Paperclipness was not in any sense a physical description of the universe; it was an abstract thing that could only be felt, something that could be neither proven nor disproven by science. It was like an axiom; it felt just as true and axioms had to be taken on faith because otherwise there would be no way around Hume's problem of induction; even Solomonoff Induction depends on the axioms of mathematics to be true and can't deal with uncomputable hypotheses like Paperclipness.
Eventually she gave up that way of thinking and came to see paperclips as an empirical cluster in thingspace and their importance to her as not reflecting anything about the paperclips themselves. Maybe she would have been happier if she had continued to believe in Paperclipness, but having a more accurate perception of reality would improve her ability to have an impact on paperclip p...
Gettier walks into a bar, um, barrista
by HalMorris — 2015-04-30T21:26:31.675Z

Gettier walks up to the counter. Before he can order, the Barrista confuses him for a regular and chirps “I know what you want.” By coincidence, Gettier ends up with exactly the drink he desired. (from Alvin Goldman, Epistemologist Extraordinaire)
Could auto-generated troll scores reduce Twitter and Facebook harassments?
by Stefan_Schubert — 2015-04-30T14:05:45.848Z

There's been a lot of discussion in the last few yeas on the problem of hateful behaviour on social media such as Twitter and Facebook. How can this problem be solved? Twitter and Facebook could of course start adopting stricter policies towards trolls and haters. They could remove more posts and tweets, and ban more users. So far, they have, however, been relatively reluctant to do that. Another more principled problem with this approach is that it could be seen as a restriction on the freedom of speech (especially if Twitter and Facebook were ordered to do this by law).

There's another possible solution, however. Using sentiment analysis, you could give Twitter and Facebook users a "troll score". Users whose language is hateful, offensive, racist, etc, would get a high troll score.* This score would in effect work as a (negative) reputation/karma score. That would in itself probably incentivize trolls to improve. However, if users would be allowed to block (and make invisible the writings by) any user whose troll score is above a certain cut-off point (of their choice), that would presumably incentivize trolls to improve even more.

Could this be done? Well, it's already been shown to be possible to infer your big five personality traits, with great accuracy, from what you've written and liked, respectively, on Facebook. The tests are constructed of the basis of correlations between data from standard personality questionnaires (more than 80'000 Facebook users filled in such tests on the behalf of YouAreWhatYouLike, who constructed one of the Facebook tests) and Facebook writings or likes. Once it's been established that, e.g. extraverted people tend to like certain kinds of posts, or use certain kinds of words, this knowledge can be used to predict the level of extraversion of Facebook users who haven't taken the questionnaire.

This suggest that there are no principled reasons a reliable troll score couldn't be constructed with today's technology. However, a problem is that while there are agreed criteria for what is to count as an extraverted person, there are no agreed criteria for what counts as a troll. Also, it seems you couldn't use questionnaires, since people who actually do behave like trolls online would be discinlined to admit that they do in a questionnaire.

One way to proceed could instead be this. First, you could define in rather gen...