trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Time-Binding
by Viliam — 2015-08-14T17:38:03.686Z

(I started reading Alfred Korzybski, the famous 20th century rationalist. Instead of the more famous Science and Sanity I started with Manhood of Humanity, which was written first, because I expected it to be more simple, and possibly to provide a context necessary for the later book. I will post my re-telling of the book in shorter parts, to make writing and discussion easier. This post is approximately the first 1/4 of the book.)

The central question of Manhood of Humanity is: "What is a human?" Answering this question correctly could help us design a civilization allowing the fullest human development. Failure to answer this question correctly will repeat the cycle of revolutions and wars.

We should aim to answer this question precisely, using the best ways of thinking typically seen in exact sciences -- as opposed to verbal metaphysics and tribal fights often seen in social sciences. We should make our "science of human" more predictive, which will likely also make it progress faster.

According to Korzybski, the unique quality of humans is what he calls "time-binding", described as "the capacity of an individual or a generation to begin where the former left off". The science itself is a glorious example of time-binding. On the other hand we can observe the worst failures in psychiatrical cases. This is a scale of our ability to adjust to facts and reality, and the normal people are somewhere in between.

Let Korzybski speak for himself:

If we succeed in finding the laws of human nature, all the rest will be a comparatively easy task - the ethical, social, economic and political status of Man should be in accord with the laws of his nature; then civilization will be a human civilization - a permanent and peaceful one - not before.

[...] if we humans radically misconceive the nature of man - if we regard man as being something which he is not, whether it be something higher than man or lower - we thereby commit an error so fundamental and far reaching as to produce every manner of confusion and disaster in individual life, in community life and in the life of the race.

Humanity must know the natural laws for humans, otherwise humans will not create the conditions and the customs that regulate human activities which will make it possible for them to have the most favorable circumstances for the fullest human development in life [...]

However, not ev...
When there are too few people to donate money to
by  — 2015-08-14T17:05:51.542Z

Just a comment on how some people decide the money/time allocation problem when helping their charity of choice. I almost posted it to the open thread, but it is longish, so I posted it here.

1. The ordinary hour.

When I read about the lawyer working at the soup kitchen instead of spending another hour at his paying job, I keep thinking, 'how cute these choices are. There are so many lawyers already, and so many kitchens, the guy can hardly say he's on the front-line... he found a way to occupy an evening, less depressing than watching the news.' (If anybody can just pay others to fill in, why doesn't the kitchen already hire help? If it did, surely the lawyer would one day donate money. Charities don't work like clocks, the need for extra funds would arise eventually.)

If the lawyer doesn't come at all, and other people don't come, the kitchen won't work. Even if a handful keeps coming, they won't hold out for long. I have seen it happen. High turnover rates are ok if new volunteers keep stumbling in, but when you come out in full force of five or three, you get this feeling. Like you're the Last Fools on Mars.

And then you all quit.

And then you don't start again. And then you never learn the effect of not contributing anything, and will be discouraged from donating to any cause, because this will be your new default setting. So even if the lawyer allocates one evening for manual labour, he already benefits the cause by being there, which is more than just his personal warm fuzzies.

2. That one hour which you really shouldn't have missed.

Sometimes, asking people to donate money is difficult because you would lose too much by being seen as for-profit, and asking people to donate time is difficult because you have to be absolutely sure they will follow orders. And then the lawyer who comes out of his own volition is worth very much.

Our NGO's hazy mission was protection of wild nature. One of traditional ways to do it is by focussing on specific species, or groups of species. Operation 'Snowdrop' is an umbrella covering prohibition of trade in endangered plants; it starts around late January and closes around late June, but it peaks around February 14 and March 8, the black days of mass destruction.

Now, the problem with people buying endangered plants can be attacked from different angles.

One is educating them. Writing to militsia (police) was the most targe...
New LW Meetup: Turku
by FrankAdamek — 2015-08-14T14:55:32.650Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on August 7th. The following week's summary is here.

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

Turku: 08 August 2015 03:00PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Ann Arbor meetup: 22 August 2015 02:00AM
Australia-wide Online Hangout - August: 09 August 2015 07:30PM
Frankfurt Meetup: 13 August 2015 06:30PM
Munich LessWrong Meetup August: Correctness Heuristics: 15 August 2015 07:48PM
San Francisco Meetup: Excerpts from good writing: 10 August 2015 06:15PM
Scotland August meetup: 09 August 2015 02:00PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

Austin, TX - Caffe Medici: 08 August 2015 01:30PM
Canberra: Guilt: 08 August 2015 06:00PM
Moscow LW lecture centre meetup: 09 August 2015 03:00PM
Sydney Meetup - August: 26 August 2015 06:30PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - September: 06 September 2015 04:00PM
Sydney Meetup - September: 23 September 2015 06:30PM
Vienna: 15 August 2015 03:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Fun and Games: 09 August 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 ...
Politics: an undervalued opportunity to change the world?
by wubbles — 2015-08-14T03:45:47.283Z

It might seem odd to call politics undervalued. But if we want to think about how to improve matters for millions of people, it's clear that effective governance and institutions which promote human flourishing are extremely valuable. One example is the Jin dynasty: in between the end of the Han dynasty and the rise of the Jin, the Chinese population dropped by 4/5ths. The wars immortalized in Romance of the Three Kingdoms ere the deadliest before WWII. The existence of any halfway competent central power would have spared millions of people.

Closer to home housing policies in the Bay Area force the poorest in society to spend vast sums to keep a roof over their head. Poor educational opportunities reduce the ultimate earning potential of millions. In some cases, such as pollution controls, the costs of poor policies are measured in lives.

Many people enter politics, and competition is tough. But many opportunities exist that are frequently underexploited, such as school boards, transportation boards, and down-ticket positions with considerable power. Often these positions are dominated by people without an understanding of the issue, and subject to heavy lobbying from those who are directly involved. Occasionally important policies are made in relative obscurity: who here knew about the raisin price controls before it came before the Supreme Court?

There are many ways in which politics might be affected. One is through political theorizing. Robert Bork's The Antitrust Paradox influence a generation of judges and policymakers, leading to a radically different antitrust policy in the US, which benefited consumers. Milton Friedman was the handmaiden of a major shift in economic policy in the US. On the other end Sayyid Qutb has been blamed for the rise of Islamism, which has made life a great deal less pleasant for many people around the world. However, the returns on political theory are extremely uncertain: many works of political philosophy go ignored.

Another is through political organizing. Here the model is the Social Democratic parties of yore, which had profound effects on the social institutions of the countries in which they operated. To the extent the poorest in Europe are better off because of these parties, this work directly improved people's lives. Unfortunately, there is good reason to suspect this is much less doable today.

A third is through ...
Less Wrong EBook Creator
by ScottL — 2015-08-13T21:17:01.215Z

I read a lot on my kindle and I noticed that some of the sequences aren’t available in book form. Also, the ones that are mostly only have the posts. I personally want them to also include some of the high ranking comments and summaries. So, that is why I wrote this tool to automatically create books from a set of posts. It creates the book based on the information you give it in an excel file. The excel file contains:

Post information

Book name

Sequence name

Title

Link

Summary description

Sequence information

Name

Summary

Book information

Name

Summary

The only compulsory component is the link to the post.

I have used the tool to create books for Living Luminously, No-Nonsense Metaethics, Rationality: From AI to Zombies, Benito's Guide and more. You can see them in the examples folder in this github link. The tool just creates epub books you can use calibre or a similar tool to convert it to another format.

Below is an FAQ on how to use it. If you have any other questions, let me know.

FAQ:

How can I quickly get the tool running?

Download the tool from this dropbox link. Copy the jar and the lib folder and then run.

You can use the xlsx files in the examples folder at this github link for input.

You can use the lesswrong.html file in the resources folder at this github link for a cover page. If someone wants to create a better cover page, then I will update it.

How does it work?

The below image is an example of the program running.

Descriptions of each of the configurable options are below:

Output File Location - this is where the epub file will be saved

Input Data - this is where the excel file that you want to use as input can be found. The excel file should be in a specific format. You can see examples in the Examples folder in the github location for the format.

Cover page - this is the location of any html file that you want to use as a cover page. Any image files that this html file uses should be in the same folder.

Include comments - this is used to determine whether comments should be included or not

Include children comments >= threshold - this determines whether you only want top posts that are greater or equal to the threshold or whether you want to include children posts that are greater or equal to this threshold as well.

...
Meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Fun and Games
by rocurley — 2015-08-13T04:58:11.279Z

Discussion article for the meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Fun and Games

WHEN:
17 August 2015 06:15:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
1390 Market St. San Francisco

We'll be meeting to hang out and play board games at my apartment (our normal place doesn't reliably have tables). Please bring your own games: I have Dominion, Ticket to Ride, and Avalon. You can call 301-458-0764 to be let in.

Discussion article for the meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Fun and Games
Mental Calibration for Bayesian Updates?
by  — 2015-08-13T04:46:03.979Z

Hey all,

After reading "How to Measure Anything" I've experimented a bit with calibration training and using his calibration tools, and after being convinced by his data on the usefulness of calibration in forecasting for the real world, have seen a big update in my own calibration.

I'm wondering if anybody knows of similar tools and studies on calibration of Bayesian updating. Broadly,I imagine it would look like:

1. Using the tools and calibration methods I already use to figure out how the feeling of "correctness" of my prior correlates to a numerical value.

2. Using similar (but probably not identical) tools to figure out how "convincing" the new data feels correlates to specific numbers.

3. Calibrating these two numbers to bayes theorom, such that I know approximately how much to update the original feeling to reflect the new information

4. Using mmenomic or visualization techniques to pair the new feeling with the belief, so that next time I remembered the belief, I'd feel the slightly different calibration.

Anyways, I'm curious if anyone has experimented with these processes, if there's any research on it, or it has been previously experimented with on lesswrong. I'd definitely like to lock down a similar procedure for myself.

I should note that many times, I already do this naturally... but my guess is I systematically over and under update the feeling based on confirmation bias. I'd like to recalibrate my recalibration :).
Rationality Reading Group: Part G: Against Rationalization
by Gram_Stone — 2015-08-12T22:09:42.072Z

This is part of a semi-monthly reading group on Eliezer Yudkowsky's ebook, Rationality: From AI to Zombies. For more information about the group, see the announcement post.

Welcome to the Rationality reading group. This fortnight we discuss Part G: Against Rationalization (pp. 293-339). This post summarizes each article of the sequence, linking to the original LessWrong post where available.

G. Against Rationalization

67. Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People - Learning common biases won't help you obtain truth if you only use this knowledge to attack beliefs you don't like. Discussions about biases need to first do no harm by emphasizing motivated cognition, the sophistication effect, and dysrationalia, although even knowledge of these can backfire.

68. Update Yourself Incrementally - 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.

69. One Argument Against An Army - 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.

70. The Bottom Line - If you first write at the bottom of a sheet of paper, “And therefore, the sky is green!”, it does not matter what arguments you write above it afterward; the conclusion is already written, and it is already correct or already wrong.

71. What Evidence Filtered Evidence? - Someone tells you only the evidence that they want you to hear. Are you helpless? Forced to update your beliefs until you reach their position? No, you also have to take into account what they could have told you but didn't.

72. Rationalization - Rationality works forward from evidence to conclusions. Rationalizati...
Ideas on growth of the community
by Lu93 — 2015-08-12T18:45:52.210Z

TLDR: I had idea to apply some tools I learned on coursera to our community in order to grow it better. I wanted to start some organized thinking about goals our community has, and offer some materials for people who are eager to work on it, but are maybe lost or need ideas.

Yesterday I did a course on coursera.org. It's called "Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses, Part I". (I play lectures often at x2.5 so I can do 5 weeks course in one day)

Though this course seems obvious, it'd say pretty worth 3 hours, so look it up. (It's hard to say how much is hindsight and how much is actually too easy and basic) I got some ideas sorted, and I saw the tools. I'm not an expert now, obviously, but at least i can see when things are done in unprofessional manner, and it can help you understand what follows.

When growing anything (company, community, ...) you have different options. You should not opt for everything, because you will be spread thin. You should grow with measure, so that people can follow, and so that you can do it right. This is the essence of the course. Rest is focused on ways of growing.

This was informative part of this article. Rest is some thoughts that just came to my mind that I would like to share. Hopefully I inspire some of you, and start some organized thinking about this community.

This community is some kind of organization, and it has a goal. To be precise, it probably has two goals, as I see it:

to make existing members more rational

to get more members.

Note that second focus is to grow.

I will just plainly write down some claims this course made:

In order to grow:

your people need to grow (as persons, to get more skills, to learn).

you need to create more processes regarding customers, in order to preserve good service

you often need better organization (to regulate processes inside the company)

you need to focus

you need a plan

if you need to stop the fire, stop the fire which has the greatest impact, and make a process out of it, so that people can do it on their own afterwards

1. I guess no-one is against this. After all, we are all here to grow.

2. My guess is that our customers could be defined as new members. So, first steps someone makes here are responsibility of this organization. After, when they get into rationality more, when they start working on themselves, they become employees. That's a...
[LINK] The Bayesian Second Law of Thermodynamics
by Shmi — 2015-08-12T16:52:48.556Z

Sean Carroll et al. posted a preprint with the above title. Sean also has a discussion of it in his blog.

While I am a physicist by training, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics is not my strong suit, and I hope someone with expertise in the area can give their perspective on the paper. For now, here is my summary, apologies for any potential errors:

There is a tension between different definitions of entropy: Boltzmann entropy, which counts macroscopically indistinguishable microstates always increases, except for extremely rare decreases. Gibbs/Shannon entropy, which counts our knowledge of a system, can decrease if an observer examines the system and learns something new about it. Jaynes had a paper on that topic, Eliezer discussed this in the Sequences, and spxtr recently wrote a post about it. Now Carroll and collaborators propose the "Bayesian Second Law" that quantifies this decrease in Gibbs/Shannon entropy due to a measurement:

[...] we derive the Bayesian Second Law of Thermodynamics, which relates the original (un-updated) distribution at initial and final times to the updated distribution at initial and final times. That relationship makes use of the cross entropy between two distributions [...]

[...] the Bayesian Second Law (BSL) tells us that this lack of knowledge — the amount we would learn on average by being told the exact state of the system, given that we were using the un-updated distribution — is always larger at the end of the experiment than at the beginning (up to corrections because the system may be emitting heat)

This last point seems to resolve the tension between the two definitions of entropy, and has applications to non-equilibrium processes, where an observer is replaced with an outcome of some natural process, such as RNA self-assembly.
Meetup : Less Wrong NH Meet-up
by Tuk — 2015-08-12T00:48:01.458Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong NH Meet-up

WHEN:
25 August 2015 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
269 Pearl St, Manchester NH 03104

The third NH meet-up is Tuesday, 8/25, in Manchester, NH at 7 pm at a private residence. Light refreshments will be provided.

Have you read Rationality: from AI to Zombies, or any of the Sequences on Less Wrong? Maybe you're just a fan of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Come hang out with us and discuss optimization of whatever it is you want to optimize.

This meeting's agenda:

System 1 and System 2 - Brief overview

Using your Inner Simulator

Trigger Action Planning

Relax and socialize

You may want to bring a notebook.

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong NH Meet-up
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Mini Talks
by RobinZ — 2015-08-11T23:01:00.313Z

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

WHEN:
16 August 2015 03:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery

Cross-posted from mailing list. As usual, gather in the courtyard from 3:00 to 3:30 p.m. to start at 3:30.

We'll be meeting to give and listen to short, 10-15 min. talks on whatever miscellaneous things people want to share.

Upcoming Meetups:

Aug 23: Chesterton's Fence

Aug 30: Fun and Games (outdoors maybe)

Sep 6: What If

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Mini Talks
Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015
by polymathwannabe — 2015-08-11T13:24:37.868Z

This thread is intended to provide a space for 'crazy' ideas. Ideas that spontaneously come to mind (and feel great), ideas you long wanted to tell but never found the place and time for and also for ideas you think should be obvious and simple - but nobody ever mentions them.

This thread itself is such an idea. Or rather the tangent of such an idea which I post below as a seed for this thread.

Rules for this thread:

Each crazy idea goes into its own top level comment and may be commented there.

Voting should be based primarily on how original the idea is.

Meta discussion of the thread should go to the top level comment intended for that purpose.

If this should become a regular thread I suggest the following :

Use "Crazy Ideas Thread" in the title.

Copy the rules.

Add the tag "crazy_idea".

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

Add a second top-level comment with an initial crazy idea to start participation.
Meetup : Less Wrong NH Meet-up
by Lachouette — 2015-08-10T16:50:03.041Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong NH Meet-up

WHEN:
11 August 2015 07:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
269 Pearl St., Manchester, NH

(Posting this for a friend because he can't comment)

The second NH meet-up is this Tuesday, 8/11, in Manchester, NH at 7 pm at a private residence. Light refreshments will be provided.

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong NH Meet-up