There is a severe methodological problem here. The appropriate point of comparison is not between artists and the general population, but between artists and others whose social standing is not negatively impacted by drug use. The latter group, which includes much of the poor but also plenty of upper-middle class people in California, seem to have much higher rates of drug use than American Average Person.

That would likely explain the entire problem. As to historically significant alcoholics, my impression has been that drinking problems were more severe (much more) in the past.

This depends on whether the problem is the basic complexity of modeling a neural network or learning how to do it. If the former, then we may be looking at a long time. But if it's the latter, then we really just need more attempts, successful or not, to learn from and a framework which allows a leap in understanding could arrive.

Subjective worlds must be causally closed; they cannot transmit information to other worlds since that would break the principle that each world is subjective. As such, there can be no subjective reality: if subjective reality were true, causal closure would demand that your observations about the world are semantically equivalent to a world in which you are alone as an observer.

For example, imagine that we lived in Minecraft, which has a procedurally generated world. We use a seed (say "404") to kick off the algorithm. But say instead that we use a seed and the username of the player. Is World 404 different for each user?

No; there is no "World 404", there is World 404-TheatreAddict and World 404-Hyena and so on. The reason is that the function we use to generate the world takes two variables, seed and username, to work. A world can only be defined by this pair and has no existence independent of it. Naturally, this world is causally closed; my playing does not effect yours, you will never see my buildings nor will you ever send me angry messages about burning down 16 chunks of forest.

While this world is trivially objective, all objections to a subjectivity thesis are trivial because it is trivially untrue or unprovable. Every attempt to prove it will require a condition, like causal closure, which collapses it to a special case of objective reality. The simplest of these is the resolution to the subjective proposition itself, independent of worlds: if everything is subjective, that principle itself is objective.

From the "relevant link":

"Participants' conformity was measured by how much they wished to conform to social expectations and be seen in a positive light, known as 'social desirability'. They completed a standardised measure and were also asked about their attitude towards paying tax. People who score highly on social desirability are more likely to conform, for example by paying tax, and agree with others. The researchers expected that they would be more likely to co-operate as well."

Properly, they are not measuring conformity. What they have done is asked people to signal whether they want to be identified as a "member in good standing". This seems like an excellent way to generate an error because it also selects for people who have an incentive to be seen this way. People who are not particularly good at working with others or who lack competence will need to signal group identity more. This could explain why "conformists" appear to be worse at cooperating.

The opening is really bad and the essay is poorly organized. Do you have an outline of where you want this to go?

While this does not really lend itself to much genetic replication

I agree.

meme spread should accelerate

The problem is that this is one out of uncountable equally plausible stories that, if true, explains a tiny effect on a meme's spread that varies in direction depending on the story. The effect of offspring's eventual financial success on this sort of child-raising meme's spread is negligible. Isolating it and finding the direction doesn't tell me about the important factors behind such memes.

Consider a separate possibility...we should prefer this explanation; because it does not rely on stories LessWrongians may find aggrandizing...it is less likely that we will be accepting this narrative through bias.

I'm going to say there are four general problems with that, giving me one chance to be right and many to be wrong. Privileging the hypothesis, reversed stupidity is not intelligence, cultish countercultishness, the tragedy of group selectionism.

we should prefer this explanation

I'm not sure what it is that is (or is not) being explained. Phlogiston had fire, for example. There needs to be an unexplained phenomenon, or one has a fake fake explanation.

I disagree:

1. Autism has come up several times as a possibly-relevant topic for this site.
2. We like interesting science journal articles
3. There is a lot in the popular consciousness lately linking Autism/geekiness/rationality, so it is effectively on-topic.

I will submit two things first: (1) Jackson Pollock paintings are excellent, that you don't like them just demonstrates you're not in their audience; (2) the normal way for Burning Man to change someone's life completely is through drug use.

Over the course of my art history degree, not once did anyone insist I had to like any work. I had to recognize its importance--either as inspiration others drew on or as an exemplar of some type--but never actually be attached to any of the work. I think this tendency to demand others like a work is unserious. But this is where I wonder about the work "like" is doing.

I'm not a fan of Bouguereau, for example, but I actually "like" his work in the sense that I often trot it out when I need an example of late academic painting. In fact, he might actually be my most-referenced artist and I admit that, while I wouldn't hang any of it on my wall, I have a certain affinity for his work borne entirely of my distaste for it. I think you should consider this possibility: experts "like" a work in this sense--it is useful to them in explanation--but not in the "hang it on my wall" sense but others posture using the term but not really understanding what is meant by the expert.

Naturally, I think the posturers are fairly useless and have since my seminar days.

Consider a separate possibility: competition and opportunity abounds in urban areas, placing additional value on intelligence and skill acquisition. Since there is nothing which can be done about intelligence, really, focusing on skill acquisition is a better strategy. Parents who believe very thoroughly in the nurture argument may be much more willing to invest heavily in their child's education, expecting far greater benefits than are actually possible. Because the perceived value of success is higher it succeeds more often in the face of discounting.

In this case, the false belief is highly adaptive socially, with people adhering to it acquiring better positions in society. While this does not really lend itself to much genetic replication, meme spread should accelerate. I think that, prima facie, we should prefer this explanation; because it does not rely on stories LessWrongians may find aggrandizing, it is less likely that we will be accepting this narrative through bias.

A number of people are motivated to be vegan or vegetarian by the conditions under which factory-farm animals live. For example, Julia Galef in this podcast.