Abstract:

The current research explores the effect of anger on hypothesis confirmation — the propensity to seek information that confirms rather than disconfirms one’s opinion. We argue that the moving against action tendency associated with anger leads angry individuals to seek out disconfirming evidence, attenuating the confirmation bias. We test this hypothesis in two studies of experimentally-primed anger and sadness on the selective exposure to hypothesis confirming and disconfirming information. In Study 1, participants in the angry condition were more likely to choose disconfirming information than those in the sad or neutral condition when given the opportunity to read about a controversial social issue. Study 2 measured participants’ opinions and information selection about the 2008 Presidential Election and the desire to ‘move against’ a person or object. Participants in the angry condition reported a greater tendency to oppose a person or object, and this tendency led them to select more disconfirming information.

When I was going through the sequences, I often found that reading about a fallacy in passing, like when it was hyperlinked in the middle of a sentence, was more really helped me get the idea.  

I know that on the wiki, there is a feature were you can see all the trackbacks to a page.  

Is there a way to do this for non-wiki pages? This could be useful even for non-LW pages. 

Why was the FOOM debate not conducted using any debate tools? Perhaps that would enable agreement theorems to actually work and the debate to be resolved. Would someone want to go through the debate and try to organize it?

Discussion article for the meetup : Is there anybody from Indianapolis here?

Discussion article for the meetup : Is there anybody from Indianapolis here?

If you were a utilitarian, then why would you want to risk creating an AGI that had the potential to be an existential risk, when you could eliminate all suffering with the advent of WBE (whole brain emulation) and hence virtual reality (or digital alteration of your source code) and hence utopia? Wouldn't you want to try to prevent AI research and just promote WBE research? Or is it that AGI is more likely to come before WBE and so we should focus our efforts on making sure that the AGI is friendly? Or maybe uploading isn't possible for technological or philosophical reasons (substrate dependence)? 
Is there a link to a discussion on this that I'm missing out on?

problem: I've read arguments for WBE, but I can't find any against. 

Most people agree that WBE is the first step to FAI (EDIT: I mean to say that if we were going to try to build AGI in the safest way possible, WBE would be the first step. I did not mean to imply that I thought WBE would come before AGI). I've read a significant portion of Bostrom's WBE roadmap. My question is, are there any good arguments against the feasibility of WBE? A quick google search did not turn up anything other than 

 This video. Given that many people consider the scenario in which WBE comes before AGI, to be safer than the converse, shouldn't we be talking about this more? What probability do you guys assign to the likelihood that WBE comes before AGI?

Bostrom's WBE roadmap details what technological advancement is needed to get towards WBE:

Different required technologies have different support and drivers for development. Computers are developed independently of any emulation goal, driven by mass market forces and the need for special high performance hardware. Moore’s law and related exponential trends appear likely to continue some distance into the future, and the feedback loops powering them are unlikely to rapidly disappear (see further discussion in Appendix B: Computer Performance Development). There is independent (and often sizeable) investment into computer games, virtual reality, physics simulation and medical simulations. Like computers, these fields produce their own revenue streams and do not require WBE‐specific or scientific encouragement.

A large number of the other technologies, such as microscopy, image processing, and computational neuroscience are driven by research and niche applications. This means less funding, more variability of the funding, and dependence on smaller groups developing them. Scanning technologies are tied to how much money there is in research (including brain emulation research) unless medical or other applications can be found. Validation techniques are not widely used in neuroscience yet, but could (and should) become standard as systems biology becomes more common and widely applied.  

 

Finally there are a few areas relatively specific to WBE: large‐scale neuroscience, physical handling of large amounts of tissue blocks, achieving high scanning volumes, measuring functional information from the images, automated identification of cell types, synapses, connectivity and parameters. These areas are the ones that need most support in order to enable WBE.  The latter group is also the hardest to forecast, since it has weak drivers and a small number of researchers. The first group is easier to extrapolate by using current trends, with the assumption that they remain unbroken sufficiently far into the future. 

Implications for those trying to accelerate the future:

Because much of the technological requirements are going to be driven by business-as-usual funding and standard application, anybody who wants to help bring about WBE faster (and hence FAI) should focus on either donating towards the niche applications that won't receive a lot of funding otherwise, or try to become a researcher in those areas (but what good would becoming a researcher be if there's no funding?). Also, how probable is it that once the business-as-usual technologies become more advanced, more government/corporate funding will go towards the niche applications? 

As a continuation of the original Welcome thread (if you haven't gone there, go there fist) I think we need a separate introduction thread for highschoolers. 

Who: As a demographic, I think that we can probably be characterized by:

1. Our newness to LW.
2. Our uncertainty about which college or career to choose.
3. (if we are in a public school) Looking for ways to game the system (because we're not learning much in it).
4. Our potential to make a huge impact (the best advantage is an early start).
5. An lack of face to face interaction with intellectual people. 

Why: I can think of several things this could help highschoolers with. 

1. See where you stack up compared to others your age (We're probably all big fish in small ponds. At least I am. Let's get an idea of what the big pond is like). 
2. Make friends with people like you. 
3. Consider college and career ideas you hadn't considered before. 
4. Perhaps find people to apply with for the Thiel Fellowship.
5. Find a chavruta to go through the sequences with you.

What: Tell us the following:

1. How old/what year are you?
2. How have you tried to enhance your education beyond what's normally offered at schools?
3. How many rationalist/philosophical people are at your school/family? 
4. What careers/schools are you considering?
5. Are you going to apply for a Thiel Fellowship?
6. EDIT: link to your old "introduce yourself" post. 

If you're not in highschool, tell us what you would have told your old highschool self.