(Trigger warnings: mention of rape, harassment, and hostile criticism of Less Wrong.)

A lesson on politics as mindkiller —

There's a thread on Greta Christina's FTB blog about standards of evidence in discussions of rape and harassment. One of her arguments:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But claims of sexual harassment, abuse, assault, and rape are not extraordinary. They are depressingly ordinary. So the level of evidence we should need to believe a claim about sexual harassment, abuse, assault, or rape is substantially lower than the level of evidence we should need to believe a claim about, say, Bigfoot.

This is straight Bayes — since the prior for rape is higher than the prior for Bigfoot, it requires less evidence to raise our credence above 0.5 in any given case of a claimed occurrence. In the comments, one person points out the connection to Bayes, in part remarking:

“Bayesian updating” is a good method for using evidence rationally to change your mind. If someone requires extraordinary evidence to believe a depressingly common event, they are not being rational.

In response, another commenter, apparently triggered by the mention of Bayes, goes on a ... (read more)

Given all the concerns about replication in psychology, it's good to see that at least the most important studies get replicated: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. ;)

I've decided to live less on the internet (a.k.a. the world's most popular superstimulus) and more in real life. I pledge to give $75 to MIRI if I make any more posts on this account or on my reddit account before the date of October 13 (two months from now).

On a related note, I was thinking about how to solve the problem of the constant temptation to waste time on the internet. For most superstimuli, the correct action is to cut yourself off completely, but that's not really an option at all here. Even disregarding the fact that it would be devastatingly impractical in today's world, the internet is an instant connection to all the information in the world, making it incredibly useful. Ideally one would use the internet purely instrumentally - you would have an idea of what you want to do, open up the browser, do it, then close the browser.

To that end, I have an idea for a Chrome extension. You would open up the browser, and a pop-up would appear prompting you to type in your reason for using the internet today. Then, your reason would be written in big black letters at the top of the page while you're browsing, and only go away when you close Chrome. This would force you to rem... (read more)

Two roads diverged in a woods, and I
Stepped on the one less traveled by
Yet stopped, and pulled back with a cry
For all those other passers-by
Who had this road declined to try
Might have a cause I knew not why
What dire truths might that imply?
I feared that road might make me die.
And so with caution to comply
I wrung my hands and paced nearby
My questions finding no reply
Until a traveller passed nigh
With stronger step and focused eye
I bid the untouched road goodbye
And followed fast my new ally.
The difference made I'll never know
'Till down that other path you go.

I couldn't find a place to mention this sort of thing at the wiki, so I'm mentioning it here.

The search box should be near the top of the page.

It's one of the most valuable things on a lot of websites, especially wikis, and I don't want to have to look for it.

What are the relative merits of using one's real name vs. a pseudonym here?

When I first started reading LessWrong, I was working in an industry obsessed with maintaining very mainstream appearances, so I chose to go with a pseudonym. I have since changed industries and have no intention of going back, so my original reason for using a pseudonym is probably irrelevant now.

I searched and it doesn't look like anyone has discussed this criticism of LW yet. It's rather condescending but might still be of interest to some: http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html

Does anyone have any opinions on this paper? [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.4913.pdf]

It is a proof of Bell's Inequality using counterfactual language. The idea is to explore links between counterfactual causal reasoning and quantum mechanics. Since these are both central topics on Less Wrong, I'm guessing there are people on this website who might be interested.

I don't have any background in Quantum Mechanics, so I cannot evaluate the paper myself, but I know two of the authors and have very high regard for their intelligence.

Does anybody think that there might be another common metaethical theory to go along w/ deontology, consequentialism, and virtue? I think it's only rarely codified, usu. used implicitly or as a folk theory, in which morality consists of bettering ones own faction and defeating opposing factions, and as far as I can see it's most common in radical politics of all stripes. Is this distinguishable from very myopic consequentialism or mere selfishness?

I often write things out to make them clear in my own mind. This works particularly well for detailed planning. Just as some people "don't know what they think until they hear themselves say it", I don't know what I think until I write it down. (Fast typing is an invaluable skill.)

Sometimes I use the same approach to work out what I think, know or believe about a subject. I write a sort of evolving essay laying out what I think or know.

And now I wonder: how much of that is true for other people? For instance, when Eliezer set out to write the Seq... (read more)

Idle curiosity / possibility of post being deleted:

At one point in LessWrong's past (some time in the last year, I think), I seem to recall replying to a post regarding matters of a basilisk nature. I believe that the post I replied to was along these lines:

Given that the information has been leaked, what is the point of continuing to post discussions of this matter?

I believe my response was long the lines of:

I hate to use silly reflective humor, but given that the information has been leaked, what is the point of censoring discussions of this matter

Problem:

• Attractive commentary is insightful and pithy, but forums do not accumulate pith. Forums bloat with redundant observations, misread remarks, and misunderstanding replies unless the community aggressively cull those comments.
• Having your comment dismissed is unwelcoming and hurtful. Even if we know that downvotes shouldn't be hurtful, they are.

Inspiration:

This thread.

Proposal:

Dismiss comment button

Bob writes a comment that doesn't carry its weight. Alice, a LW reader, can choose to up-vote, down-vote, or Dismiss Bob's comment. Dismiss advise... (read more)

I'm a CFAR alumnus looking to learn how to code for the very first time. When I met Luke Muehlhauser, he said that as far as skills go, coding is very good for learning quickly whether one is good at it or not. He said that Less Wrong has some resources for learning and assessing my own natural talent or skill for coding, and he told me to come here to find it.

So, where or what is this resource which will assess my own coding skills with tight feedback loops? Please and thanks.

I've set up a prediction tracking system for personal use. I'm assigning confidence levels to each prediction so I can check for areas of under- or over-confidence.

My question: If I predicted X, and my confidence in X changes, will it distort the assessment of my overall calibration curve if I make a new prediction about X at the new confidence level, keep the old prediction, and score both predictions later? Is that the "right" way to do this?

More generally, if my confidence in X fluctuates over time, does it matter at all what criterion I use ... (read more)

Just a few questions for some of you:

• Running simulations with sentient beings is generally accepted as bad here at LW; yes or no?

• If you assign a high probability of reality being simulated, does it follow that most people with our experiences are simulated sentient beings?

I don't have an opinion yet, but I find the combination of answering yes to both questions, extremely unsettling. It's like the whole universe conspires against your values. Surprisingly, each idea encountered by itself doesn't seem to too bad. It's when simultaneously being agai... (read more)

I've decided to start a blog, and I kind of like the name "Tin Vulcan", but I suspect that would be bad PR. Thoughts? (I don't intend it to be themed, but I would expect most of the posts to be LW-relevant.)

(Name origins: Fbzr pbzovangvba bs "orggre guna n fgenj ihypna" naq gur Gva Jbbqzna.)

I've heard the idea of adaptive screen brightness mentioned here a few times. I know fluxgui in Linux that does it. and seems that windows 7 and 8 come equipped. My windows is XP in one of my computers, how do I get it to lose brightness automatically during late hours?

Socks: Traditionally I've worn holeproof explorers. Last time I went shopping for new socks, I wanted to try something new but was overwhelmed by choice and ended up picking some that turned out to be rather bad. My holeproofs and the newer ones are both coming to the end of their lives, and I'll need to replace them all soon. Where should I go to learn about what types of sock would be best?

A quick google for best socks or optimal socks leads me to lots of shops, and pages for sports socks, and pages for sock fashion, but nothing about picking out a comfo... (read more)

Does anyone have a working definition of "forgiveness"? Given that definition, do you find it to be a useful thing to do?

There was a recent post or comment about making scientific journal articles more interesting by imagining the descriptions (of chemical interactions?) as being GIGANTIC SPECIAL EFFECTS. Anyone remember it well enough to give a link?

Does anyone else has problems with the appearance of Lesswrong? My account is somehow at the bottom of the site and the text of some posts transgresses the white background. I noticed the problem about 2 days ago. I didn't change my browser (Safari) or something else. Here are 2 screenshots:

http://i.imgur.com/OO5UHPX.png http://i.imgur.com/0Il8TeJ.png