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This week on the slack: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mpq/lesswrong_real_time_chat/
I recently laid myself out on train tracks but chickened out on getting struck by a train out of concern that train might be designed to mangle trespasses without killing them. My new antidepressants don't seem to be doing particularly anything, I don't enjoy basically anything and I feel hollow constantly. I just want to feel. And the thought that motivates most things I do creeps up and says: 'why don't you try something new? maybe it will change things?'. And I blindly follow that thought into a new dilemma. Later that night (incidentally, bi awareness ...
What Does the Future Hold for Kim Suozzi's Cryogenically Frozen Brain?
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/what-does-future-hold-kim-suozzis-cryogenically-frozen-brain
Where can one find information on the underlying causes of phenomena? I have noticed that most educational resources discuss superficial occurrences and trends but not their underlying causes. For example, this Wikipedia article discusses the happenings in the Somali Civil War but hardly discusses the underlying motivations of each side and why the war turned out how it did. Of course, such discussions are often opinionated and have no clear-cut answers, perhaps making Wikipedia a sub-optimal place for them.
I know LW might not be the best place to ask thi...
Possibly the most enthusiastic / impressive endorsement I've ever seen for a rationality-type book:
Every country should scrap a year or two of math education and require all citizens to read this book instead.
Jonathan Haidt praising Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking by Richard Nisbett
Anybody read the book? Do you agree with Haidt?
Very interesting paper: Eric Schwitzgebel, 1% Skepticism. What's the probability that some form of radical skepticism is correct? And can that have any practical ramifications?
Some interesting information about omega-3 in the diet: it seems that the Inuit (whose traditional diet includes huge amounts of omega-3) have genetic adaptations in their fatty acid metabolism.
[Link] Scott Adams' The Persuasion Reading List
Scott Adams' apparently has a his own version of the sequences and even has structured it into steps that bridge the inferential gap to the points he wants to get across. I notice that there is some self-promotion but overall it seems like a sensible list. What do you think?
What literature is available on who will be given moral consideration in a superintelligence's coherent extrapolated volition (CEV), and how much weight each agent will be given?
Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence mentions that it is an open problem as to whether AIs, non-human animals, currently deceased people, etc should be given moral consideration, and whether the values of those who aid in creating the superintelligence should be given more weight than that of others. However, Bostrom does not actually answer these questions, other than slightly advoca...
How Soylent and Oculus Could Fix The Prison System
here’s one way we could rebuild the prison system:
Step 1: Soylent
Step 2: Oculus Rift
Step 3: Health and hygiene
Step 4: A simulation that rewards good behavior
Step 5: Administration
Excerpt:
...Prisoners have cellmates and gym time and free time in the prison yard because solitary confinement makes you go nuts. You need human contact if you don’t want to pop out of prison a crazy person. The problem is these places are where all the violence happens.
However, you could take the fear factor out of prisons by s
I'm curious which of the two major political parties in the US (and left wing vs. right wing parties more generally) people think is most likely to reduce existential risk. My current view is that the Democrats (and parties of the left) are since they're more likely to favor policies which reduce the threat of climate change (a tail end existential risk and a potential destabilizing force) and are more likely to favor nuclear non-proliferation. However, I know my own opinions might be biased by the fact that I agree with left wing parties on most other less important issues. Which party do you think would do the most to reduce existential risk and how substantial do you think the difference is?
the two major political parties in the US (...) people think is most likely to reduce existential risk
No comment on the main question, but if you really care about an issue you should try like hell to prevent it from becoming a wedge issue. There's no longer any meaningful discussion of AGW in the US, because it's now a wedge issue. Even if you observe a huge correlation between political tribal affiliation and getting the "right answer", you should never point this out. Once people start to absorb their position on a topic into their self-image, they will never change their minds about it.
Answers to this are going to have to depend on politically sensitive judgements, I think, because most of the impact of politicians on existential risk will be indirect and involve things like the overall prosperity of the nation they're leading. Let's look at some classes of existential risk:
I would also add the Cuban Missile Crisis to the list of things to fear, where (as I perceive it) the Soviets thought the Americans would fold, and then the Americans escalated. Being tough but not being perceived as tough is a serious failure mode!
Two more ways of saying the same thing:
The success of a particular mainstream political party in the US is not a variable that noticeably affects existential risk. None of the parties would do much anything to reduce the existential risk.
Mu
Brave New World, Chapter 17:
ART, SCIENCE–you seem to have paid a fairly high price for your happiness," said the Savage, when they were alone. "Anything else?"
"Well, religion, of course," replied the Controller. "There used to be something called God–before the Nine Years' War. But I was forgetting; you know all about God, I suppose."
"Well …" The Savage hesitated. He would have liked to say something about solitude, about night, about the mesa lying pale under the moon, about the precipice, the plunge into shado...
I have a casual interest in religious conversion as an empirical psychological phenomenon. The philosopher William James makes the case for studying religious experience empirically in one of his books published over a century ago - The Varieties of Religious Experience - so the idea has circulated for quite a while.
I think we might have an example of an internet figure undergoing an Augustinian sort of spiritual crisis documented online, namely the pickup artist Roosh Valizadeh. Roosh has posted and said lately that he doesn't enjoy his sexual conquests a...
we have empirical evidence
No, we have only some correlations where obvious third factors (e.g. IQ) are involved. If you want to take this approach, just being black strongly "damages ... ability to form stable marriages".
It seems that "correlation != causation" hasn't been repeated enough X-/
P.S. Not to mention that "stable marriages" doesn't look like a terminal goal to me. If that's all you want, just forbid divorce.
Oh, I forgot to add to the post below another source of my science-fictional view of sexual relationships: Robert Ettinger's nonfiction book Man Into Superman, which I read at the impressionable age of 14 in 1974. Scroll down to page 68, "Transsex and Supersex":
http://www.cryonics.org/images/uploads/misc/ManIntoSuperman.pdf
Some Climatologists, such as James Hanson, believe that a runaway greenhouse effect large enough to potentially distinguish all life on earth is possible Obviously this is not a likely extinction event, but I believe it is still worth considerable resources to reduce its probability.
While little has been done legislatively to combat climate change, the Obama administration is pursuing regulatory action through the EPA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that will make the construction of new coal fire power plants very difficult.
Additionally, the administration has benefited alternative energy industries through subsidies (in large part through the initial stimulus). Some Republicans do support such subsidies, so admittedly the difference between parties isn't as stark on this point (though this may change with increasing polarization as described below).
Additionally polarization on climate change has increased in recent years. It's less and less likely that a Republican president would pursue policy aimed at substantially reducing green house gasses. They might also appoint a supreme court member who would rule against the regulations the EPA is attempting to implement now.
I don't think that the party who holds the presidency is the most important factor in whether we reduce carbon emissions, but it likely contributes.
The question is not whether they are persuing action but whether they are engaging in action that has a significant effect given the scale of the problem.