trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Taking chances with dinner
by KatjaGrace — 2011-07-22T20:11:38.000Z

Splitting up restaurant bills is annoying.

Good friends often avoid this cost by one of them paying for both one time and the other doing it next time, or better yet, by not keeping track of whose turn it is and it evening out in the long term.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s harder to do this with lesser friends and non-friends who one doesn’t anticipate many meals with because one expects to be exploited by a continual stream of free-riders who never offer to pay, or to have to always pay to show everyone that you are not one of those free-riders, or some other annoying equilibrium.

There is an easy way around this. Flip a coin. Whoever loses pays the whole bill.

Why don’t people do this?

Here are some possible reasons, partly inspired by conversations with friends:

They don’t think of it

Coins have been around a long time.

It’s hard to have a coin that both people agree is random

One person flips and the other calls it?

They are risk averse

Meals are a relatively small cost that people pay extremely often. They should expect a pretty fair distribution in the long run. If the concern is having to pay for fifty people at once when your income is not huge, either restrict the practice to smaller groups or keep the option of opting out open.

Using a randomising method such as a coin displays distrust, which is rude, but not using one would be costly because you don’t actually trust people

A coin could also display your own intention to be fair. And it doesn’t seem like such a big signal of distrust – I would not be offended if someone offered this deal.

Buying meals for others is a friendly and meaningful gesture – being forced to do it upon losing a bet sullies that ideal somehow

Maybe – I don’t know how this would work

Asking makes you look weird

This is an all purpose reason for not doing anything differently. But sometimes people do change social norms – what was special about those times?

Sharing in the bill feels like contributing to something alongside others, which is a better feeling than paying all of it against your will, or than not contributing at all.

Maybe – I feel pretty indifferent about the whole emotional experience personally.

There are many inconvenient small payments that seem like they could be improved by paying a larger amount occasionally with some small probability. Yet I haven&...
Meetup : *Monthly* Berkeley Meetup
by FrankAdamek — 2011-07-22T19:46:04.518Z

Discussion article for the meetup : *Monthly* Berkeley Meetup

WHEN:
30 July 2011 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
2128 Oxford Street, Berkeley, CA 94704

The monthly meetup will gather at the usual Oxford St Starbucks, and from there we'll move to the outside area at the Free Speech Cafe. The cafe is located in Moffitt Library; you reach the outside eating and study area by passing through the cafe.

If you'd like a map to the cafe, see: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=free+speech+cafe+berkeley&cid=1554368450041925603

Discussion article for the meetup : *Monthly* Berkeley Meetup
Credit card that donates to SIAI.
by Alexei — 2011-07-22T18:30:35.207Z

Luke posted about this on SIAI blog. Essentially, you can get a credit card with cash-back rewards program that automatically donates money to Singularity Institute.

This seems to me like a dream come true. Am I missing something? Are there any catches? Is there a better rewards program, which I can use to save more money, so I can donate more money to SIAI?
Meetup : Less Wrong in Sydney
by Oklord — 2011-07-22T16:15:45.098Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong in Sydney

WHEN:
04 August 2011 07:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
The Promenade, King Street Wharf, Sydney NSW 2000

Exact location is King Street Brewhouse, which is up for negotiation given dietary needs. Hey all, figured it's about time to try and Less wrong meet up again. Attendance was good last time, but perhaps some sort of focus would have been better. Hence, i suppose a Basics of rationality discourse might be good, alongside some practical application stories. Or if it turns out we are all amateurs, practical application plans! I'll be wearing a white suit jacket and reading something horrid behind a less wrong sign from 6:30 till 8:00 regardless of circumstances.

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong in Sydney
Scott Aaronson's lecture on free will 
by Dr_Manhattan — 2011-07-22T15:30:22.368Z

http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec18.html

Am I missing something or is the thinking methodology surprisingly sub-par here? Has anyone else read it?

"So today we're going to ask -- and hopefully answer -- this question of whether there's free will or not. If you want to know where I stand, I'll tell you: I believe in free will. Why? Well, the neurons in my brain just fire in such a way that my mouth opens and I say I have free will. What choice do I have?"
Sensory modality for code
by Manfred — 2011-07-22T04:49:13.107Z

This post is inspired by Chimera wanting to talk about "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence."

In the paper, Eliezer mentions giving a seed AI a sensory modality for code. And I think it'll be fun to figure out just what that means.

Code is a pretty simple environment compared to the cool stuff humans can do with sight and hearing, so I'd like to start by giving a picture of a totally different sensory modality in a simple environment - vision in robot soccer.

The example system described in this paper can be used to find and track ball and robot movement during a soccer match. For simplicity, let's imagine that the AI is just looking down at the field from above using a single camera. The camera is sending it a bunch of signals, but it's not sensory modality yet because it's not integrated with the rest of the AI. At least the following tasks needed to be implemented as part of the program before the AI can see:

Finding unusual pixels quickly.

Finding shapes of the same color in the picture.

Use object properties (what the tops of the robots look like) to collect shapes into physical objects.

Use a mapping between the picture and real space to get real space coordinates of objects.

Correlate with previous positions and motion to track objects and figure out which is which.

This work seems a lot like compression - it takes a big hunk of image data and turns it into a petite morsel of robot locations and orientations. But evaluated as compression, it's awful, since so much information, like the texture of the robots, gets discarded. Rather than calling it compression, it's more like translation from the language of images to the language the AI thinks in. The AI doesn't need to think about the exact texture of the robots, and so the sensory modality doesn't pass it on.

So how do we do something like that with code? We want something that takes raw code as an input and outputs a language for the AI to think about code in. Additionally, as mentioned in LOGI, this language can be used by the AI to imagine code, so it should contain the necessary ideas. It should discard a lot of low-level information, like the vision system extracting the coordinates and allowing the AI to ignore the texture. It might also shuffle the information around to keep track of fu...
How To Copy Less Wrong Design
by diegocaleiro — 2011-07-21T23:21:58.857Z

Suppose you speak a different native tongue and you want to create a Less Wrong similar blog in your language, to produce rationalists who eventually will join Less Wrong (say when the costs of reading in english fall beneath their utility functions expected gain from switching blogs)

Can you pluck that out without being a programmer?

I want to do this but don't know how to go about doing it. Is it as easy as creating a blog in a random blog website? Are the owners OK with that? Can you send me info on how to do it, how much space is required etc...?

The features I'm most interested in are the "create your account" "comment" and "get upvoted". Those seem to be responsible for part of the unusual fidelity of readers.
[SEQ RERUN] One Argument Against An Army
by MinibearRex — 2011-07-21T19:09:54.057Z

Title: [SEQ RERUN] One Argument Against An Army Tags: sequence_reruns Today's post, One Argument Against An Army was originally published on 15 August 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

It is tempting to weigh each counterargument by itself against all supporting arguments. No single counterargument can overwhelm all the supporting arguments, so you easily conclude that your theory was right. Indeed, as you win this kind of battle over and over again, you feel ever more confident in your theory. But, in fact, you are just rehearsing already-known evidence in favor of your view.

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 Update Yourself Incrementally, 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.
Less Wrong in Other Languages
by diegocaleiro — 2011-07-21T18:14:45.694Z

Less Wrong is a great blog.

Not all people feel at ease with the english language.

I recently noticed that Brazilians are almost not available in this rationalist community.

This sucks, even if it has cultural explanations. So I decided on writing a similar blog model in portuguese (eventually also translating the most important sequences, but let's not get ahead of time). If it is a language barrier issue, this might help.

Less Wrong design is great, and even though there may be more addictive systems than the karma one, karma is a great one.

So I wondered if it is possible and easy for a non-computer programmer to copy the website design, writing a portuguese version of it, climbing mount rational, and eventually leading people here (since, obviously, learning english is one of the most important rational goals of a 21st century human). Maybe it is not possible because it needs editing in formal languages, maybe because it is not allowed.

But saving the time of building it seems worth a shot. How should I proceed?
Free (old) scientific papers [Link]
by JackEmpty — 2011-07-21T16:22:58.558Z

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6554331/Papers_from_Philosophical_Transactions_of_the_Royal_Society__fro

Greg Maxwell is torrenting 33Gib of public domain JSTOR documents that were behind paywalls.

What's your take on this, ethically, legally, etc?

ETA: More on this: http://gigaom.com/2011/07/21/pirate-bay-jstor/
[Link] "Upload", a video-conference between a girl and her dead grandfather
by pre — 2011-07-21T11:47:47.681Z

I made a video last month, which when I mentioned in another thread someone said I should post as a top level discussion.

It's just a ten minute zero-budget thing I wrote in which a girl has a video conference with her dead and backed-up-then-uploaded grandfather. Intended as the first in a series, but later episodes will only get produced if donations come. Later episodes talk more about AI's failures and the political situation with unrest from the living demanding the dead shouldn't have their jobs etc.

Anyway, watch it here if you like, I'd be happy to hear what y'all think :)
Bayesian Conspiracy @ Burning Man 2011
by Kevin — 2011-07-21T05:16:24.565Z

Edit: 8/27

After a beautiful jaunt to the fertile delta of Ephemerisle, the Bayesian Conspiracy is returning to the much less forgiving environs of Burning Man in 2011. We have been placed in the Playagon village at 3:55 and E.G -- I think the F road is obstructed by Playagon village, and we will be right about where F would be. Time Colony is at 4:00.

This year, we are asking for $300 dues from campers. Creating a non-capitalist utopian society with communal shelter, good food, water, kitchen, some air conditioning, and not even close to all of the comforts of home is quite expensive for a first time theme camp -- I myself am participating at the sponsorship level of $1000.

We had a total of 30 slots that are now mostly filled. We have 3 tickets available now. If you're interested, please email me at kfischer &! gmail (* com and let me know as soon as possible.

For those that would like to camp nearby but prefer a more DIY experience, there will likely be unreserved camping space just across the road from us.

Previous discussions:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/4qi/less_wrong_at_burning_man_2011/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2mp/burning_man_meetup_bayes_camp/
Meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday July 27
by JGWeissman — 2011-07-21T00:21:50.728Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday July 27

WHEN:
27 July 2011 06:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
4187 Campus Dr, University Center, Irvine, CA 92612

This continues the weekly meetups in Irvine. As always the meetup at the outdoor food court in the University Center near UCI, from 6:00 to 8:00 (or whenever we actually decide to leave). Look for the sign with naive neural classifiers for bleggs and rubes. See also the email group and calendar for the Southern California Meetup Group

Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday July 27
Meetup : Biweekly Sunday Seattle meetup: talking about identity
by jsalvatier — 2011-07-20T23:24:12.252Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Biweekly Sunday Seattle meetup: talking about identity

WHEN:
24 July 2011 04:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
414 50th St NE, Seattle, WA

The biweekly meetup is happening at the regular place and time:

Whether people tried out the procrastination material and whether they found it useful

Watching the short cartoon To Be, which is about the philosophical difficulties of intuitive conceptions of identity. It's short and funny. We'll have some discussion about identity after this.

We will be ordering take out again, so please bring some cash if you would like to eat.

The official end of the meetup will be 6:30pm, but people are welcome to stay and hang out after that.

I still intend to do a rejection therapy meetup, but the weather has been too unpredictable I think.

Discussion article for the meetup : Biweekly Sunday Seattle meetup: talking about identity
Cheap signaling
by KatjaGrace — 2011-07-20T21:36:14.000Z

Image by J. Paxon Reyes via Flickr

If all this stuff people do is for signaling, wouldn’t it be great if we could find ways of doing it more cheaply? At first glance, this sentiment seems a naive error; the whole point of paying a lot for a box of chocolates is to say you were willing to pay a lot. ‘Costly signaling’ is inherently costly.

But wait. In a signaling model, Type A people can be distinguished from Type B people because they do something that is too expensive for Type B people. One reason this action can be worthwhile for Type As and not for Type Bs is because type As have more to gain by it. A man who really loves his girlfriend cares more about showing her than man who is less smitten. A box of chocolates costs the same to both men, but hopefully only the first will buy it.

But there is another reason an action may be worthwhile for As and not for Bs: the cost is higher for type Bs. Relating some intimate gossip about a famous person is a good signal that you are in close with them because it is expensive for an ignorant person to fake, but very cheap for you to send.

Directly revealing your type can be thought of as an instance of this. Taking off your shirt to reveal your handsome muscles is extremely cheap if you have handsome muscles under your shirt and extremely expensive if you do not.

This kind of signaling can be very cheap. It only needs to be expensive for the kinds of people who don’t do it. And since they don’t do it, that cost is not realised. Whereas in the first kind of case I described (exemplified by chocolates), signaling must be relatively expensive. People of different types each have to pay more than the type below them cares enough to pay. i.e. what the person below thew would gain by being mistaken for the type above.

Cases of the second type, like gossip, are not always cheap. Sometimes it is cheaper for the type who sends the signal to send it, but they still have to pay quite a lot before they shake off the other type. If education is for signaling, it seems it is at least partly like this. University is much easier for smart, conscientious people, but if it were only a week long a lot of others would still put in the extra effort.

There can also be outside costs. For instance talking often works the second way. It is extremely cheap to honestly signal that you are an accountant by saying R...
Working memory and driving
by eugman — 2011-07-20T10:55:00.581Z

I've been trying to learn how to drive and unfortunately I suck at it. Some combination of a stressful teacher and hyperfocusing have made it very difficult to learn. My biggest problem is with the multitasking aspect. Remembering to put on the turn signal while stopping and and checking my speed and watching out for other cars, etc. It's difficult for me, I forget or miss things. One thing I was considering may possibly help is using dual n-back to boost my working memory. Does anyone have any thoughts on the likely effectiveness of this?
Tendencies in reflective equilibrium
by Scott Alexander — 2011-07-20T10:38:25.517Z

Consider a case, not too different from what has been shown to happen in reality, where we ask Bob what sounds like a fair punishment for a homeless man who steals $1,000, and he answers ten years. Suppose we wait until Bob has forgotten that we ever asked the first question, and then ask him what sounds like a fair punishment for a hedge fund manager who steals $1,000,000, and he says five years. Maybe we even wait until he forgets the whole affair, and then ask him the same questions again with the same answers, confirming that these are stable preferences.
If we now confront Bob with both numbers together, informing him that he supported a ten year sentence for stealing $1,000 and a five year sentence for stealing $1,000,000, a couple of things might happen. He could say "Yeah, I genuinely believe poor people deserve greater penalties than rich people." But more likely he says "Oh, I guess I was prejudiced." Then if we ask him the same question again, he comes up with two numbers that follow the expected mathematical relationship and punish the greater theft with more jail time.
Bob isn't working off of some predefined algorithm for determining punishment, like "jail time = (10 * amount stolen)/net worth". I don't know if anyone knows exactly what Bob is doing, but at a stab, he's seeing how many unpleasant feelings get generated by imagining the crime, then proposing a jail sentence that activates about an equal amount of unpleasant feelings. If the thought of a homeless man makes images of crime more readily available and so increases the unpleasant feelings, things won't go well for the homeless man. If you're really hungry, that probably won't help either.
So just like nothing automatically synchronizes the intention to study a foreign language and the behavior of studying it, so nothing automatically synchronizes thoughts about punishing the theft of $1000 and punishing the theft of $1000000.
Of course, there is something that non-automatically does it. After all, in order to elicit this strange behavior from Bob, we had to wait until he forgot about the first answer. Otherwise, he would have noticed and quickly adjusted his answers to make sense.
We probably could represent Bob's tendencies as an equation and call it a preference. Maybe it would be a long equation with terms for net worth of criminal, amount stolen, how much food Bob's eaten in the past ...
Secrets of the eliminati
by Scott Alexander — 2011-07-20T10:15:45.086Z

Anyone who does not believe mental states are ontologically fundamental - ie anyone who denies the reality of something like a soul - has two choices about where to go next. They can try reducing mental states to smaller components, or they can stop talking about them entirely.
In a utility-maximizing AI, mental states can be reduced to smaller components. The AI will have goals, and those goals, upon closer examination, will be lines in a computer program.
But in the blue-minimizing robot, its "goal" isn't even a line in its program. There's nothing that looks remotely like a goal in its programming, and goals appear only when you make rough generalizations from its behavior in limited cases.

Philosophers are still very much arguing about whether this applies to humans; the two schools call themselves reductionists and eliminativists (with a third school of wishy-washy half-and-half people calling themselves revisionists). Reductionists want to reduce things like goals and preferences to the appropriate neurons in the brain; eliminativists want to prove that humans, like the blue-minimizing robot, don't have anything of the sort until you start looking at high level abstractions.

I took a similar tack asking ksvanhorn's question in yesterday's post - how can you get a more accurate picture of what your true preferences are? I said:

I don't think there are true preferences. In one situation you have one tendency, in another situation you have another tendency, and "preference" is what it looks like when you try to categorize tendencies. But categorization is a passive and not an active process: if every day of the week I eat dinner at 6, I can generalize to say "I prefer to eat dinner at 6", but it would be non-explanatory to say that a preference toward dinner at 6 caused my behavior on each day. I think the best way to salvage preferences is to consider them as tendencies currently in reflective equilibrium.

A more practical example: when people discuss cryonics or anti-aging, the following argument usually comes up in one form or another: if you were in a burning building, you would try pretty hard to get out. Therefore, you must strongly dislike death and want to avoid it. But if you strongly dislike death and want to avoid it, you must be lying when you say you accept death as a natural part of life and think it's crass and selfish to try to cheat the Rea...
[SEQ RERUN] Update Yourself Incrementally
by MinibearRex — 2011-07-20T04:22:17.555Z

Title: [SEQ RERUN] Update Yourself Incrementally Tags: sequence_reruns Today's post, Update Yourself Incrementally was originally published on 14 August 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Many people think that you must abandon a belief if you admit any counterevidence. Instead, change your belief by small increments. Acknowledge small pieces of counterevidence by shifting your belief down a little. Supporting evidence will follow if your belief is true. "Won't you lose debates if you concede any counterarguments?" Rationality is not for winning debates; it is for deciding which side to join.

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 Conservation of Expected Evidence, 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.