Wild Moral Dilemmas

17 sixes_and_sevens 12 May 2015 12:56PM

[CW: This post talks about personal experience of moral dilemmas. I can see how some people might be distressed by thinking about this.]

Have you ever had to decide between pushing a fat person onto some train tracks or letting five other people get hit by a train? Maybe you have a more exciting commute than I do, but for me it's just never come up.

In spite of this, I'm unusually prepared for a trolley problem, in a way I'm not prepared for, say, being offered a high-paying job at an unquantifiably-evil company. Similarly, if a friend asked me to lie to another friend about something important to them, I probably wouldn't carry out a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis. It seems that I'm happy to adopt consequentialist policy, but when it comes to personal quandaries where I have to decide for myself, I start asking myself about what sort of person this decision makes me. What's more, I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad heuristic in a social context.

It's also noteworthy (to me, at least) that I rarely experience moral dilemmas. They just don't happen all that often. I like to think I have a reasonably coherent moral framework, but do I really need one? Do I just lead a very morally-inert life? Or have abstruse thought experiments in moral philosophy equipped me with broader principles under which would-be moral dilemmas are resolved before they reach my conscious deliberation?

To make sure I'm not giving too much weight to my own experiences, I thought I'd put a few questions to a wider audience:

- What kind of moral dilemmas do you actually encounter?

- Do you have any thoughts on how much moral judgement you have to exercise in your daily life? Do you think this is a typical amount?

- Do you have any examples of pedestrian moral dilemmas to which you've applied abstract moral reasoning? How did that work out?

- Do you have any examples of personal moral dilemmas on a Trolley Problem scale that nonetheless happened?

The Username/password anonymous account is, as always, available.

Meetup : London: Presentation and Performance Games

2 sixes_and_sevens 20 April 2015 04:23PM

Discussion article for the meetup : London: Presentation and Performance Games

WHEN: 26 April 2015 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, London

Hey you!

Yes, you!

Do you like games? Do you like being awesome? Then you'll LOVE Presentation and Performance Games!

Starting at 2pm, the plan is to spend a couple of hours on a bunch of activities loosely related to being the focus of a group of people. We'll then declare victory and descend into anarchy. Anarchy may involve sitting around and talking, or may involve more games if we want.

You're also welcome to come along and not participate in these games, or just hang out and talk about abstruse moral dilemmas, or bitcoin fanfic, or how much measure you anticipate having when you simulate winning the lottery or whatever.

We'll be making the most of this unreasonably good weather by having the meetup at Lincoln's Inn Fields, just around the corner from the regular venue. We'll be in the north-west quadrant of the green. If you have trouble finding us, call 07887 718458. If the weather is bad, we'll fall back to the Shakespeare's Head.

Discussion article for the meetup : London: Presentation and Performance Games

What have we learned from meetups?

17 sixes_and_sevens 30 March 2015 01:27PM

We've been running regular, well-attended Less Wrong meetups in London for a few years now, (and irregular, badly-attended ones for even longer than that). In this time, I'd like to think we've learned a few things about having good conversations, but there are probably plenty of areas where we could make gains. Given the number of Less Wrong meetups around the world, it's worth attempting some sort of meetup cross-pollination. It's possible that we've all been solving each other's problems. It's also good to have a central location to make observations and queries about topics of interest, and it's likely people have such observations and queries on this topic.

So, what have you learned from attending or running Less Wrong meetups? Here are a few questions to get the ball rolling:

 

  • What do you suppose are the dominant positive outcomes of your meetups?
  • What problems do you encounter with discussions involving [x] people? How have you attempted to remedy them?
  • Do you have any systems or procedures in place for making sure people are having the sorts of conversations they want to have?
  • Have you developed or consciously adopted any non-mainstream social norms, taboos or rituals? How are those working out?
  • How do Less Wrong meetups differ from other similar gatherings you've been involved with? Are there any special needs idiosyncratic to this demographic?
  • Are there any activities that you've found work particularly well or particularly poorly for meetups? Do you have examples of runaway successes or spectacular failures?
  • Are there any activities you'd like to try, but haven't managed to pull off yet? What's stopping you?

 

If you have other specific questions you'd like answered, you're encouraged to ask them in comments. Any other observations, anecdotes or suggestions on this general topic are also welcome and encouraged.

Meetup : London Newcomers-Are-Especially-Welcome Meetup, March 29th

1 sixes_and_sevens 18 March 2015 11:02PM

Discussion article for the meetup : London Newcomers-Are-Especially-Welcome Meetup, March 29th

WHEN: 29 March 2015 01:00:00PM (+0000)

WHERE: Holborn, London

We recently had an HP:MoR wrap party in London which had a lot of attendees we'd never met before, with varying degrees of familiarity with Less Wrong. The next London Less Wrong meetup will therefore officially be the Newcomers Are Especially Welcome Meetup. If you live in or near London, and you've thought about coming to the Less Wrong meetups but have never gotten round to it, you should definitely come to this one. We would love to meet you.

The venue is the Shakespeare's Head near Holborn tube station, from 2pm. We'll normally have some sign attesting to the group's identity, and usually try to get one of the large circular tables near the back of the pub. If you get lost, ring or text 07887 718458.

About London LessWrong:

We're currently running meetups every other Sunday, and tend to get between 5 and 15 attendees. Most of our meetups default to unstructured social discussion on LessWrongy subjects, though we occasionally have special topics, events or activities. Sometimes we play games.

We have a Google Group and a Facebook group where we plan and discuss stuff. We would be extraordinarily pleased if you joined them.

Discussion article for the meetup : London Newcomers-Are-Especially-Welcome Meetup, March 29th

Meetup : London Social - Time and Space - February 1st

1 sixes_and_sevens 25 January 2015 09:48PM

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - Time and Space - February 1st

WHEN: 01 February 2015 02:00:00PM (+0000)

WHERE: Holborn, London

The next London meetup will be Sunday February 1st from 2pm.

The (soft) discussion topic is "time and space". Interpret this how you will. Have a think about what interesting stuff springs to mind when you hear "time and space", be it computational complexity or Elon Musk or sci-fi tropes. Don't worry if you can't think of any related interesting stuff, as we'll probably end up talking about something else anyway.

The venue is the Shakespeare's Head near Holborn tube station. We'll generally have some sign attesting to the group's identity, and usually try to get one of the large circular tables near the back of the pub. If you get lost, ring or text 07887 718458.

About London LessWrong:

We're currently running meetups every other Sunday, and tend to get between 5 and 15 attendees. Most of our meetups default to unstructured social discussion on LessWrongy subjects, though we occasionally have special topics, events or activities. Sometimes we play games.

We have a Google Group and a Facebook group where we plan and discuss stuff. We would be extraordinarily pleased if you joined them.

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - Time and Space - February 1st

Weird Alliances

7 sixes_and_sevens 24 October 2014 12:33PM

In the recent discussion on supplements, I commented on how weird an alliance health stores are. They cater for clientèle with widely divergent beliefs about how their merchandise works, such as New Agers vs. biohackers. In some cases, they cater for groups with object-level disputes about their merchandise. I imagine vegans are stoked to have somewhere to buy dairy-free facsimiles of everyday foods, but they're entering into an implicit bargain with that body-builder who's walking out of the door with two kilos of whey protein.

In the case of health stores, their clientèle have a common interest which the store is satisfying: either putting esoteric substances into their bodies, or keeping commonplace substances out of their bodies. This need is enough for people to hold their noses as they put their cash down.

(I don't actually know how [my flimsy straw-man model of], say, homoeopathy advocates feel about health stores. For me, it feels like wandering into enemy territory.)

I've been thinking lately about "allies" in the social justice sense of the word: marginalised groups who have unaligned object-level interests but aligned meta-interests. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transfolk and [miscellaneous gender-people] may have very different object-level interests, but a very strong common meta-interest relating to the social and legal status of sexual identities. They may also be marginalised along different axes, allowing for some sort of trade I don't have a good piece of terminology for. The LGBT([A-Z]).* community is an alliance. Not being part of this community, I'm hesitant to speculate on how much of a weird alliance it is, but it looks at least a little bit weird.

This has led me to think about Less Wrong as a community, in particular the following two questions:

 

To what extent is Less Wrong a weird alliance?

On paper, we're all here to help refine the art of human rationality, but in practice, we have a bunch of different object-level interests and common meta-interests in terms of getting things done well (i.e. "winning"). I explicitly dislike PUA, but I'll have a civil and productive discussion about anki decks with someone who has PUA-stuff as an object-level interest.

 

Is there scope for weird, differently-marginalised trade?

Less Wrong celebrates deviant behaviour, ostensibly as a search process for useful life-enhancing interventions, but also because we just seem to like weird stuff and have complicated relationships with social norms. Lots of other groups like weird stuff and have complicated relationships with social norms as well. Is this a common meta-interest we can somehow promote with them?

Meetup : London Social - October 26th

1 sixes_and_sevens 20 October 2014 12:20PM

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - October 26th

WHEN: 26 October 2014 03:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Holborn, London

The next London meetup will be Sunday October 26th from 2pm. No topic or special activity. Just turn up and talk about what interests you.

The venue is the Shakespeare's Head near Holborn tube station. We'll generally have some sign attesting to the group's identity, and usually try to get one of the large circular tables near the back of the pub.

About London LessWrong:

We're currently running meetups every other Sunday, and tend to get between 5 and 15 attendees. Most of our meetups default to unstructured social discussion on LessWrongy subjects, though we occasionally have special topics, events or activities. Sometimes we play games.

We have a Google Group and a Facebook group where we plan and discuss stuff. We would be extraordinarily pleased if you joined them.

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - October 26th

Meetup : London Social - October 12th - Productivity Show & Tell

1 sixes_and_sevens 05 October 2014 10:26PM

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - October 12th - Productivity Show & Tell

WHEN: 12 October 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Holborn, London

The next London meetup will be Sunday, October 12th from 2pm. We'll have the soft topic of productivity enhancement. Bring your experiences, tips, tricks, abortive efforts, apps, subcontracted labour and tales of woe. If you've got anything in particular you'd like to talk about, or put to the group, we'd love to hear about it.

The venue is the Shakespeare's Head near Holborn tube station. We'll generally have some sign attesting to the group's identity, and usually try to get one of the large circular tables near the back of the pub.

About London LessWrong:

We're currently running meetups every other Sunday, and tend to get between 5 and 15 attendees. Most of our meetups default to unstructured social discussion on LessWrongy subjects, though we occasionally have special topics, events or activities. Sometimes we play games.

We have a Google Group and a Facebook group where we plan and discuss stuff. We would be extraordinarily pleased if you joined them.

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - October 12th - Productivity Show & Tell

Meetup : London Social - August 24th

1 sixes_and_sevens 18 August 2014 04:37PM

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - August 24th

WHEN: 24 August 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Holborn, London

The next London meetup will be Sunday, August 24th. This will be a social meetup with no special content. Come along and discuss all the weird LessWrongy stuff you can't get away with in polite company.

The venue is the Shakespeare's Head near Holborn tube station. We'll generally have some sign attesting to the group's identity, and usually try to get one of the large circular tables near the back of the pub.

About London LessWrong:

We're currently running meetups every other Sunday, and tend to get between 5 and 15 attendees. Most of our meetups default to unstructured social discussion on LessWrongy subjects, though we occasionally have special topics, events or activities. Sometimes we play games.

We have a Google Group and a Facebook group where we plan and discuss stuff. We would be extraordinarily pleased if you joined them.

Discussion article for the meetup : London Social - August 24th

Meetup : London - Index Funds and Other Fun Stuff

2 sixes_and_sevens 01 August 2014 01:52PM

Discussion article for the meetup : London - Index Funds and Other Fun Stuff

WHEN: 10 August 2014 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE: Shakespeare's Head, Holborn, WC2B 6BG

The next London meetup will be on Sunday August 10th, from 2pm at the Shakespeare's Head in Holborn.

Several regulars have expressed an interest in setting up passive investment in an index fund. Towards the beginning of the meetup, I'll be presenting a short how-to on index fund investments and answering questions on the subject. (I have no broader finance and investment expertise, but did a lot of research into UK index tracker products a few years ago, which I'm happy to share).

This obviously isn't everybody's discussion topic of choice, but there's room for simultaneous discussion on another table, so come along anyway even if you're not interested in index funds, and talk about unicorns / sci-fi plausibility / infinite torture scenarios, etc. instead. The whole thing will probably revert to unstructured discussion after the first hour or so. We normally have some sort of sign identifying us as a LessWrong meetup, and typically try to get one or more of the large round tables near the back of the pub. If you can't find us, call or text 07887 718458.

About London LessWrong:

We're currently running meetups every other Sunday, and tend to get between 5 and 15 attendees. Most of our meetups default to unstructured social discussion on LessWrongy subjects, though we occasionally have special topics, events or activities. Sometimes we play games.

We have a Google Group and a Facebook group where we plan and discuss stuff. We would be extraordinarily pleased if you joined them.

Discussion article for the meetup : London - Index Funds and Other Fun Stuff

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