(1+s), not s, is the fitness; s=0.03, not 1.03.

I'm a semifinalist for the MA365 mission (a one year simulation of Mars exploration). We now need to do a video to answer some questions such as "Why Mars? Why do you think we should go there?" (see my answer below). The Mars Society will chose 18 finalists that will be split in 3 teams. In august 2014, they (we?) will go to Devon Island during two weeks and they will pick the best team. This team of 6 will then do a simulation of Mars exploration during 365 days starting in July 2015. You can contribute to the project by giving money (in exchange for gifts) in the indiegogo campaign: this will help us to buy better equipment.

my answer to "Why Mars? Why do you think we should go there?" or as asked in the post "Why this project and not others?" (note: I would like to hear your answers too)

I think space exploration in general has a lot of benefits: it improves our understanding of the history of our solar system and it pushes us to develop new technologies that often become useful on Earth. I think the next step in space exploration is to send humans to Mars because it's probably the easiest and most interesting planet to explore in our solar system because it has some similarity with the Earth. I also think that sending humans to Mars will inspire more people to go study in science and technology, which will in turn improve humans' well being and life expectancy. Finally, I think that if we succeed to colonize Mars, it will be a good fallback position in case of an existential catastrophe happening on Earth.

I think the first manned mission to Mars will probably be in the next decade, so we need to prepare ourselves. For example, Inspiration Mars (www.inspirationmars.org‎) wants to send a couple to fly within 100 miles of Mars in 2018; Mars One (www.mars-one.com) wants to start sending humans to Mars in 2024 and let them there indefinitely. The USA, the Russian and the European space agencies are also planning manned missions to Mars relatively soon. So the research done by The Mars Society, such as this mission, will be really useful to all of these organisations.

A gene conveying a 3% fitness advantage, spreading through a population of 100,000, would require an average of 768 generations to reach universality in the gene pool.

Generations to fixation = 2 ln(N) / s = 2 ln(100000)/1.03 = 22.36 != 768

I'm confused.

Yes. I'm "ASL IV" level. I'm conversationally expressive, less so receptive.

Do you have interest in collaborating on Anki decks? I'm thinking video clips with English glosses. I'd also love a ASL/English dictionary that was searchable by handshape, body location, movement, etc.

Music Thread

As I mentioned to you when you asked on PredictionBook, look to the media threads. These are threads specifically intended for the purpose you want: to find/share media, including podcasts/audiobooks.

I also would like to reiterate what I said on PredictionBook: I don't think PredictionBook is really meant for this kind of question. Asking it here is fine, even good. It gives us a chance to direct you to the correct place without clogging up PredictionBook with nonpredictions.

What transhumanist and/or rationalist podcast/audiobook do you prefer beside hpmor which I just finished and really liked!!