trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Did EDT get it right all along? Introducing yet another medical Newcomb problem
by Johannes Treutlein — 2017-01-24T11:43:21.453Z

One of the main arguments given against Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) is that it would “one-box” in medical Newcomb problems. Whether this is the winning action has been a hotly debated issue on LessWrong. A majority, including experts in the area such as Eliezer Yudkowsky and Wei Dai, seem to think that one should two-box (See e.g. Yudkowsky 2010, p.67). Others have tried to argue in favor of EDT by claiming that the winning action would be to one-box, or by offering reasons why EDT would in some cases two-box after all. In this blog post, I want to argue that EDT gets it right: one-boxing is the correct action in medical Newcomb problems. I introduce a new thought experiment, the Coin Flip Creation problem, in which I believe the winning move is to one-box. This new problem is structurally similar to other medical Newcomb problems such as the Smoking Lesion, though it might elicit the intuition to one-box even in people who would two-box in some of the other problems. I discuss both how EDT and other decision theories would reason in the problem and why people’s intuitions might diverge in different formulations of medical Newcomb problems.

Two kinds of Newcomblike problems

There are two different kinds of Newcomblike problems. In Newcomb’s original paradox, both EDT and Logical Decision Theories (LDT), such as Timeless Decision Theory (TDT) would one-box and therefore, unlike CDT, win $1 million. In medical Newcomb problems, EDT’s and LDT’s decisions diverge. This is because in the latter, a (physical) causal node that isn’t itself a decision algorithm influences both the current world state and our decisions – resulting in a correlation between action and environment but, unlike the original Newcomb, no “logical” causation.

It’s often unclear exactly how a causal node can exert influence on our decisions. Does it change our decision theory, utility function, or the information available to us? In the case of the Smoking Lesion problem, it seems plausible that it’s our utility function that is being influenced. But then it seems that as soon as we observe our utility function (“notice a tickle”; see Eells 1982), we lose “evidential power” (Almond 2010a, p.39), i.e. there’s nothing new to learn about our health by acting a certain way if we already know our utility function. In any case, as long as we don’t know and therefore still have the evidential po...
Strategic Thinking: Paradigm Selection
by katydee — 2017-01-24T06:24:42.727Z

Perhaps the most important concept in strategy is the importance of operating within the right paradigm. It is extremely important to orient towards the right style or the right doctrine before you begin implementing your plan - that could be "no known doctrine, we'll have to improvise", but if it is you need to know that! If you choose the wrong basic procedure or style, you will end up refining a plan or method that ultimately can't get you to where you want to, and you will likely find it difficult to escape.

This is one of the Big Deep Concepts that seem to crop up all over the place. A few examples:

In software development, one form of this error is known as "premature optimization," where you focus on optimizing existing processes before you consider whether those processes are really what the final version of your system needs. If those processes end up getting cut, you've wasted a bunch of time; if you end up avoiding "wasting work" by keeping these processes, the sunk cost fallacy may have blocked you from implementing superior architecture.

In the military, a common mistake of this type leads to "fighting the last war" - the tendency of military planners and weapons designers to create strategies and weapon systems that would be optimal for fighting a repeat of the previous big war, only to find that paradigm shifts have rendered these methods obsolete. For instance, many tanks used early in World War II had been designed based on the trench warfare conditions of World War I and proved extremely ineffective in the more mobile style of warfare that actually developed.

In competitive gaming, this explains what David Sirlin calls "scrubs" - players who play by their own made-up rules rather than the true ones, and thus find themselves unprepared to play against people without the same constraints. It isn't that the scrub is a fundamentally bad or incompetent player - it's just that they've chosen the wrong paradigm, one that greatly limits their ability when they come into contact with the real world.

This same limitation is present in almost every field that I have seen, and considering it is critical. Before you begin investing heavily in a project, you should ask yourself whether this is really the right paradigm to accomplish your goals. Overinvesting in the wrong paradigm has a doubly pernicious effect - not only are your immediat...
Metrics to evaluate a Presidency
by ArisC — 2017-01-24T01:02:21.629Z

I got lots of helpful comments in my first post, so I'll try a second: I want to develop a list of criteria by which to evaluate a presidency. Coming up with criteria and metrics on the economy is pretty easy, but I'd like to ask for suggestions on proxies for evaluating:

Racial relations;

Gender equality;

Impact on free trade / protectionism;

Education;

Any other significant factor that would determine whether a president is successful.

Note: a few people have pointed out that the president is restrained by senators and congressmen etc - I realise that; but if we are willing to admit that presidents do have some effect in society, we should be prepared to measure them.

Thanks!

A.
Meetup : [Metro Detroit / Ann Arbor], Michigan
by excinera — 2017-01-23T19:35:33.674Z

Discussion article for the meetup : [Metro Detroit / Ann Arbor], Michigan

WHEN:
28 January 2017 04:20:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
2065 Commerce Blvd. #327 Ann Arbor, Michigan

The Ann Arbor Area Amalgam of Rationalist-Adjacent Anthropoids is having our biweekly* meetup this Saturday (2017 January 28) at
2065 Commerce Blvd. #327
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
4:00 PM - "whenevs"
"If you can read this sentence, you're invited. If someone told you about it, you're invited. If someone re-posted it somewhere else and you read it, you're invited. (Feel free to repost, mention, or link to this announcement anywhere you think people will be interested.) No level of expertise is required. Do not worry if you don't think you're interesting enough. You're much more interesting than you think you are. Even if you're not, you're invited anyway. "
(We have a community website at http://memeware.org/A4RA2 with detailed information on this meetup and a calendar of future events, as well as directions and other stuff! Wow!)
The mailing list post for this meetup is also archived on Google Groups.
In addition to the website and mailing list, we have an IRC channel at irc://irc.freenode.net/a4ra2 (click for in-browser chat), where someone is usually around and paying attention if you want to ask any questions, or see if someone can give you a ride, or shitpost, or whatever.
* Once every two weeks, not twice a week

Discussion article for the meetup : [Metro Detroit / Ann Arbor], Michigan
Open thread, Jan. 23 - Jan. 29, 2017
by MrMind — 2017-01-23T07:41:31.185Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting.
Evaluating Moral Theories
by ArisC — 2017-01-23T05:04:07.146Z

I would like to use my first post to expand on a framework I introduced in the Welcome thread for evaluating moral theories, and to request your feedback.

This thesis rests on the fact that a moral theory is a tool for helping us make choices. Starting from this premise, I believe that a moral theory needs to meet three criteria for it to be acceptable:

a) Its comprising principles must be non-contradictory. I think this is pretty self evident: if a theory consists of a number of principles that contradict each other, there will be situations where the theory will suggest contradictory actions - hence failing its purpose as a tool to enable choice making.

b) Its comprising principles must be non-arbitrary as far as possible. What I mean by this is that the principles must be derived logically from facts on which everyone agrees. Otherwise, if a moral theory rests on an arbitrary and subjective principle, the theory's advocates will never be able to convince people who do not share that principle of their theory's validity.

c) If the principles of the moral theory are taken to their logical conclusion, they must not lead to a society that the theory's proponents themselves would consider dystopian.

Note that my premise (i.e. that a moral theory is supposed to help us make choices) necessitates that the theory is not vague. So saying that a utilitarian system, using some magical measurement of utility, is a good moral theory is pointless in my view.

However, I want to draw a distinction between morality at the social level and morality at the personal level. The former refers to a moral system whose proponents believe should apply to the whole world; the latter, to the principles by which people live their private lives. The three criteria I listed should only be used to evaluate morality at the social level: if you want to impose your principles over every single human, you'd better make sure they are non-contradictory, acceptable by everyone and won't mess up the world.

Morality at the personal level is different: if you are using your principles to determine your actions only, it's fine if these principles are arbitrary. If lying makes you feel uncomfortable, I think it's fair enough for you to value honesty as a principle, even if you cannot provide a very rational justification.

Finally, one final comment: I believe there are some moral issues which cau...
Strategies for coalitions in unit-sum games
by jessicata — 2017-01-23T04:20:31.000Z

I'm going to formalize some ideas related to my previous post about pursuing convergent instrumental goals without good priors and prove theorems about how much power a coalition can guarantee. The upshot is that, while non-majority coalitions can't guarantee controlling a non-negligible fraction of the expected power, majority coalitions can guarantee controlling a large fraction of the expected power.

**

In a unit-sum game:

there is some unknown environmental variable X∈X. (In my previous posts, this would be the color of the sun)

each of n players submits an action Ai∈A (we could consider different action sets for each player but it doesn't matter)

player i gets si(X,A1,...,An) shares, where si satisfies:

Non-negativity: si(X,A1,...,An)≥0

Unit sum: ∑ni=1si(X,A1,...,An)=1

A unit-sum game is symmetric if, for any permutation
p:{1,...,n}→{1,...,n}, we have si(x,a1,...,an)=sp(i)(a,ap(1),...,ap(n)).

A coalition in a unit-sum game is a set of players. If c⊆{1,...,n} is a coalition, then
a policy for that coalition π:ΔAc is a distribution assigning an action to each player in that coalition.
We will assume that there are coalitions c1,...,cm such that each player appears in exactly one coalition.

We will consider the expected amount of shares a coalition will get, based on the coalitions' policies. Specifically, define
rj(x,π1,...,πm):=∑a1∈A,...,an∈A⎛⎝m∏j′=1πj′(acj′)⎞⎠∑i∈cjsi(x,a1,...,an)
where acj′:Acj′ specifies the actions for the players in the coalition cj′.
In general, my goal in proving theorems will be to guarantee a high rj value for a coalition regardless of x.

A coalition containing a majority (>50%) of the players can, in some cases, gain an arbitrarily high fraction of the shares:

Theorem 1: For any ϵ>0 and n>0, there exists a symmetric unit-sum game with n players in which any coalition controlling a majority of the players can get at least 1−ϵ expected shares.

Proof: Fix ϵ>0, n>0. Let k be such that 1/k≤ϵ. Define the set of actions A:={1,...,k}. Define si to split the shares evenly among players who give the action that the majority players chose (with ties being resolved towards lower actions). The variable X is unused. Clearly, this unit-sum game is symmetric.

Let cj be a majority coalition. Consider the following policy for the coalition: select an action uniformly at random and have everyone take that action.

...
Polling Thread January 2017
by Gunnar_Zarncke — 2017-01-22T23:26:15.964Z

One next installment of the Polling Thread.

The Polling thread seems to have fallen out of regular use but I will use it shamelessly to post one of few polls. To make it a bit more useful and in line with the current use of LW I suggest that you post links to interesting polls outside of LW.

This is your chance to ask your multiple choice question you always wanted to throw in. Get qualified numeric feedback to your comments. Post fun polls.

These use to be the rules:

Each poll (or link to a poll) goes into its own top level comment and may be commented there.

You must should at least vote all polls that were posted earlier than your own. This ensures participation in all polls and also limits the total number of polls. You may of course vote without posting a poll.

Your poll should include a 'don't know' option (to avoid conflict with 2). I don't know whether we need to add a troll catch option here but we will see.

If you don't know how to make a poll in a comment look at the Poll Markup Help.

This is a somewhat regular thread. If it is successful I may post again. Or you may. In that case do the following :

Use "Polling Thread" in the title.

Copy the rules.

Add the tag "poll".

Link to this Thread or a previous Thread.

Create a top-level comment saying 'Discussion of this thread goes here; all other top-level comments should be polls or similar'

Add a second top-level comment with an initial poll to start participation.
Meetup : Denver Area LW February Meetup
by PonchoPal — 2017-01-22T07:33:08.938Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Denver Area LW February Meetup

WHEN:
07 February 2017 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
4955 South Ulster Street #103, Denver, CO

Darcy's Pub. We should be in the back room.

Join us to socialize and discuss Rationalist topics! We usually have semi-separate groups divided by topic. Individuals are encouraged to move between small-group discussions as their interest dictates.

Discussion article for the meetup : Denver Area LW February Meetup
Meetup : Denver Area LW February Meetup
by PonchoPal — 2017-01-22T07:29:35.855Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Denver Area LW February Meetup

WHEN:
07 February 2017 07:00:00AM (-0700)

WHERE:
4955 South Ulster Street #103, Denver, CO

Join us to socialize and discuss Rationalist topics! We usually have semi-separate groups divided by topic. Individuals are encouraged to move between small-group discussions as their interest dictates.

We should be in the back room

Discussion article for the meetup : Denver Area LW February Meetup
Meetup : First Bogota, Colombia Meetup
by jpulgarin — 2017-01-22T06:02:48.464Z

Discussion article for the meetup : First Bogota, Colombia Meetup

WHEN:
28 January 2017 06:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Starbucks Zona G

I'm visiting Bogota for the weekend (currently live in Medellin), and it would be awesome to meet other LW readers!

I will have a copy of 'Quantum Computing Since Democritus' at my table for easy identification, and commit to being at Starbucks until 7pm even if nobody shows up.

Discussion article for the meetup : First Bogota, Colombia Meetup
Projects-in-Progress Thread
by  — 2017-01-21T05:11:32.723Z

From Raemon's Project Hufflepuff thread, I thought it might be helpful for there to be a periodical check-in thread where people can post about their projects in the spirit of cooperation. This is the first one. If it goes well, maybe we can make it a monthly thing.

If you're looking for a quick proofread, trial users, a reference to a person in a specific field, or something else related to a project-in-progress this is the place to put it. Otherwise, if you think you're working on something cool the community might like to hear about, I guess it goes here too.
In Defense of the Obvious
by  — 2017-01-21T03:06:23.932Z

[Cross-posed from blog]

My brain does this thing where it shuts off when I experience some warning signs. A lot of these have to do with my identity or personal beliefs, which go off when I believe my tribe is being attacked. I don’t think I’ll go as far as to say that all brain shutoffs are bad (which feels like a Cleaving Statement), but there’s another type of warning sign I’ve recently noticed: Dismissing The Obvious.

Just because a statement is tautological or obvious does not mean it is useless.

Here are some examples:

“If you want to get all of your tasks done everyday, be sure to make a to-do list and a schedule! That way, you can keep track of what you’ve done/need to do!”

My brain’s response: <doesn’t even quite register the points> “Whatever, this doesn’t sound interesting.” <pattern-matches it as “boring advice stuff" that "isn't groundbreaking”>.

In actuality: The advice still stands, even if it’s self-evident and obvious. People who make to-do lists have a better idea of what they need to get done. It’s still useful to know, if you care about getting stuff done!

“If you want to exercise more, you should probably exercise more. Then, you’d become the type of person who exercises more, and then you’d exercise more.”

OR

“If you have more energy, then you’re more energetic, which means you have more energy to do things.”

My brain’s response: “Those conclusions follow each other, by definition! There’s nothing here that I don’t know!” <scoffs>

...
0.999...=1: Another Rationality Litmus Test
by shev — 2017-01-21T02:16:10.969Z

People seemed to like my post from yesterday about infinite summations and how to rationally react to a mathematical argument you're not equipped to validate, so here's another in the same vein that highlights a different way your reasoning can go.

(It's probably not quite as juicy of an example as yesterday's, but it is one that I'm equipped to write about today so I figure it's worth it.)

This example is somewhat more widely known and a bit more elementary. I won't be surprised if most people already know the 'solution'. But the point of writing about it is not to explain the math - it's to talk about "how you should feel" about the problem, and how to rationally approach rectifying it with your existing mental model. If you already know the solution, try to pretend or think back to when you didn't. I think it was initially surprising to most people, whenever you learned it.

The claim: that 1 = 0.999... repeating (infinite 9s). (I haven't found an easy way to put a bar over the last 9, so I'm using ellipses throughout.)

The questionable proof:

x = 0.9999...
10x = 9.9999... (everyone knows multiplying by ten moves the decimal over one place)
10x-x = 9.9999... - 0.9999....
9x = 9
x = 1

People's response when they first see this is usually: wait, what? an infinite series of 9s equals 1? no way, they're obviously different.

The litmus test is this: what do you think a rational person should do when confronted with this argument? How do you approach it? Should you accept the seemingly plausible argument, or reject it (as with yesterday's example) as "no way, it's more likely that we're somehow talking about different objects and it's hidden inside the notation"?

Or are there other ways you can proceed to get more information on your own?

One of the things I want to highlight here is related to the nature of mathematics.

I think people have a tendency to think that, if they are not well-trained students of mathematics (at least at the collegiate level), then rigor or precision involving numbers is out of their reach. I think this is definitely not the case: you should not be afraid to attempt to be precise with numbers even if you only know high school algebra, and you should especially not be afraid to demand precision, even if you don't know the correct way to implement it.

Particularly, I'd like to emphasize that mathematics as a mental discipline (as oppo...
Meetup : Baltimore / UMBC Weekly Meetup
by iarwain1 — 2017-01-20T18:26:40.696Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore / UMBC Weekly Meetup

WHEN:
22 January 2017 08:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Performing Arts and Humanities Bldg Room 456, 1000 Hilltop Cir, Baltimore, MD 21250

Meeting is on 4th floor of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. Permit parking designations do not apply on weekends, so park pretty much wherever you want.

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore / UMBC Weekly Meetup
The Art is Long and Nerdy
by Jacob Falkovich — 2017-01-20T17:49:19.000Z

Nerdeviations

If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine. – Jim Barksdale

This blog started with a mathematical analysis of what this blog should be about, and a promise to explain why p-values aren’t part of that analysis. 14 months later, I’m bringing Putanumonit full circle by doing a mathematical analysis of what this post should be about, and explaining in detail why p-values suck.

In case you were worried (or hopeful), bringing the blog full circle doesn’t mean it’s ending. I plan to keep going in a straight line after closing the circle, which should make the entire blog look like the digit 6.

A couple of weeks ago I asked my readers for some greatness-enhancing feedback via survey and email. A lot of the readers who emailed me think that they are much bigger math geeks than the other readers who emailed me, which is pretty funny. But one reader actually proved it by putting a num on it:

I am a huge math nerd, so my interests and knowledge when it comes to this sort of thing are probably at least four standard deviations from the mean of humanity, and at least two from your reader base. – Eliana

Eliana’s email is wonderful for two reasons:

It says “the mean of humanity” where most people would say “most people”.

It makes an explicit, testable prediction: that my readers are 2 standard deviations math-nerdier than the mean of the human species.

If math-nerdiness is normally distributed, at +2 SDs my average reader is math-nerdier than 97.7% of humanity. Did you know that math is teens’ favorite subject in high school, year in year out? If normal humans admit (at least in anonymous surveys) to love studying math, surely my readers are on board as well.

Yep. If I was worried about making Putanumonit too math-nerdy, now I’m worried that it’s not going far enough for my readers. Last week I wrote a post about eating fish and my commenters responded with detailed analysis, math jokes, mental calculation tricks and extensions to famous math puzzles. I feel a bit inadequate, my favorite subjects in school were gym and French.

What’s the point?

The only metrics that entrepreneurs should invest energy in collecting are those that help them make decisions. Unfortunately, the majority of data available in off-the-shelf analytics pack

...