Similar to a game of The Sims the characters actions are chosen in advance.

A string of actions were your last action effects the next one and were actions are cancelled out and changed. 

Your next action is to prepare a meal. You walk to the kitchen to start preparing the meal when you open the fridge and notice you don't have any food. The action is now cancelled and replaced with "Go to the store to buy food". 

India vs. Pakistan: the nuclear option is dangerously close, and nobody seems to want to prevent it

http://qz.com/541502/a-nuclear-war-between-india-and-pakistan-is-a-very-real-possibility/

Over the last few days I've been reviewing the evidence for EA charity recommendations. Based on my personal experience alone, the community seems to be comprehensively inept, poor at marketing, extremely insular, methodologically unsophisticated but meticulous, transparent and well-intentioned. I currently hold the belief that EA movement building does more harm than good and that is requires significant rebranding and shifts in its informal leadership or to die out before it damages the reputation of the rationalist community and our capacity to cooperate with communities that share mutual interests.

It's one thing to be ineffective and know it. It's another thing to be ineffective and not know it. It's yet another thing to be ineffective, not know it, yet champion effectiveness and make a claim to moral superiority.

In case you missed the memo deworming is controversial, GiveWell doesn't engage with the meat of the debate, and my investigations of the EA community's spaces suggests that it's not at all known. I've even briefly posted about it elsewhere on LessWrong to see if there was unspoken knowledge about it, but it seems not. Given that it's the hot topic in mainstream development studies and related academic communities, I'm aghast at how irresponsive 'we' are.

What's actionable for us here. If you're looking for a high reliability effective altruism prospect, do not donate to SCI or Evidence Action. And by extension, do not donate to EA organisations to donate to these groups, including GiveWell. I am assuming you will use those funds more wisely instead, say buying healthier food for yourself.

For who don't to review the links for a more comprehensive analyses from Cochrane and GiveWell, here is one summary of the debate recommended in the Cochrane article:

Last month there was another battle in an ongoing dispute between economists and epidemiologists over the merits of mass deworming. In brief, economists claim there is clear evidence that cheap deworming interventions have large effects on welfare via increased education and ultimately job opportunities. It’s a best buy development intervention. Epidemiologists claim that although worms are widespread and can cause illnesses sometimes, the evidence of important links to health is weak and knock-on effects of deworming to education seem implausible. As stated by Garner “the belief that deworming will impact substantially on economic development seems delusional when you look at the results of reliable controlled trials.”

Aside: Framing this debate as one between economists and epidemiologists captures some of the dynamic of what has unfortunately been called the “worm wars” but it is a caricature. The dispute is not just between economists and epidemiologists. For an earlier round of this see this discussion here, involving health scientists on both sides. Note also that the WHO advocates deworming campaigns.

So. Deworming: good for educational outcomes or not?

On their side, epidemiologists point to 45 studies that are jointly analyzed in Cochrane reports. Among these they see few high quality studies on school attendance in particular, with a recent report concluding that they “do not know if there is an effect on school attendance (very low quality evidence).” Indeed they also see surprisingly few health benefits. One randomized control trial included one million Indian students and found little evidence of impact on health outcomes. Much bigger than all other trials combined; such results raise questions for them about the possibility of strong downstream effects. Economists question the relevance of this result and other studies in the Cochrane review.

On their side, the chief weapon in the economists’ arsenal has for some time been a paper from 2004 on a study of deworming in West Kenya by Ted Miguel and Michael Kremer, two leading development economists that have had an enormous impact on the quality of research in their field. In this paper, Miguel and Kremer (henceforth MK) claimed to show strong effects of deworming on school attendance not just for kids in treated schools but also for the kids in untreated schools nearby. More recently a set of new papers focusing on longer term impacts, some building on this study, have been added to this arsenal. In addition, on their side, economists have a few things that do not depend on the evidence at all: determination, sway, and the moral high ground. After all, who could be against deworming kids?

 

---

 

Additional criticisms of GiveWelL charities: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mo0/open_thread_aug_24_aug_30/cp8h

The kind of work I think EA's should be focussing on http://lesswrong.com/lw/mld/genosets/cnys AND

http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mk2/lets_pour_some_chlorine_into_the_mosquito_gene/

The problem with MIRI: http://lesswrong.com/lw/cr7/proposal_for_open_problems_in_friendly_ai/cm2j

I am opening this thread to test the hypothesis that SuperIntelligence is plausible but that Whole-Brain Emulations would most likely become obsolete before they were even possible.

Further, given the ability to do so, entities which were near to being Whole-Brain Emulations would rapidly choose to cease to be near Whole-Brain Emulations and move on to become something else.

I'll let people fire back with discussion and references before presenting more evidence.  My hope is to turn this thread into something publishable in the end.

I found a website called Happier Human. It's about how to become and stay happier. I've trawled through it. Here are the best posts in my opinion:

[Meditate]. Don't [worry/overthink/fantasise/compare]. [Disregard desire]. [Motivate]. [Exercise gratitude]. [Don’t have kids].

[Buy many small gifts]. [Trade some happiness for productivity]. [Set] [happiness goals]

If you've found any other happiness interventions on any website, please share them.

If you like this orange you must like that orange.  Well, maybe.  Tastes change, and maybe I already had an orange a little while ago, and maybe I'm not in the mood while someone else would be glad to have it, so it doesn't follow that because I liked this orange I must like that orange.

Comparing oranges and oranges seems like a set of two objects, but it's really four.  There's you, there's the orange, there's the other orange, and there's the perceived relation between you and the two oranges.  When it's just you and the oranges, things usually find a simple way work themselves out.

But when someone else comes into the room it's seldom oranges and oranges.   Other people are ever ready to tell you what you like.  If you like this orange you must like that apple, because they're both fruit.  Nah, can't stand apples unless they are baked.  It doesn't matter that they are both fruit, I don't care for apples.  Then the helping helpers will infer the inverse.  If you like this orange you can't like that apple.  Watch me - I'll like an apple just to spite you, or choke it down because there aren't any oranges to be had.

The nonsense comparisons just get more nonsensical.  If you like this orange you must like that color orange, you must!  That's the way it's always gone!  Well, I say if you like this orange you must like that porcupine.  See how silly it sounds?  As long as someone sees that fourth object in the set, a connection between the two things and you, they will hard-sell you that the orange and the very-not-orange are fully fungible.

That fourth object in the set, the perceived relation between the other three, gets its power from being invisible and assumed.  The assumption of relations in the set overpowers all the other objects in the set.  If you like this orange you are an orange-ist, because there's (a) you (b) the orange (c) your liking of the orange and (d) anybody that likes that orange is an orange-ist, that's the relation between you and the orange caused by your liking it.  The invisible fourth object in the set, the assumption of a relation, is now a stand-in for you.  You are no longer a person who in one place, in one time, in one way, liked an orange.  You are are an orange-ist.

If you are friends with that guy / read that book, and that guy / book exposed that idea, and that whole other guy with that idea did that thing, then you did that thing!  The four step process of replacing the man with a mannequin is the start of superstition.  Religion is realized in the replacement of the representation for the real.  Hard to believe that belief is so beleaguered but right here on this very planet in this very year there are nations where if you draw the wrong cartoon, read the wrong poem, or question the wrong answer, you go to prison.  Or worse.

Here's how they make the rotten trolly run.  If you said this one thing this one time then you believe - no, you are - this other thing.  A clergyman is not only a clergyman, they are a Good Person.  Good People do Good Deeds, and if the clergyman doesn't do good deeds, or if he does bad deeds, well, he's still a Good Person.  All four stations of Goodnessity are there: the clergyman, the Good Deeds clergymen are associated with, Good Deeds associated with Good People, and halleluia! clergymen are Good People.  And oh my but the four stations of Badnessism are there as well.  If you tell that one joke then you're a Bad Person.  That joke has the Bad Word in it, Bad People use that Bad Word, Bad People do Bad Deeds, so you did a Bad Deed!

It's four things. You, that thing you like, another thing and the proposed connection between the things. That connection is presented as more important than you.  The evidence shows that nothing is more to me than myself.  I'd not be here to tell you if this was not the case.  What other people think and do about me has its influences, but I don't confuse that with right or wrong or especially not Rights and Sins.  Egoism is the school of thought closest to my own, and that association draws from my own luster.

The pressure to be packed in a package deal comes in many forms.  Don't like too many kinds of art or music, be part of a scene.  Don't hold political or philosophical views, be a member of a party or a school.  Don't be online, be in a social network.  And most of all don't have a yen for truth, beauty and strength - be spiritual.

When the crowd crowns you with a trait, you're trapped.  To be identified as a whole by one of your parts is cutting.  Oh you're a massage therapist?  I have this pinch in my back.  You're a car mechanic?  You know, my car is just outside.  You do stand-up?  Tell me a joke, funny guy.  I heard you're a porn star, is that right?  Let's see those tits.  So you're a professional wrestler, eh?  I like that other wrestler better, the nice guy.  In every variation we are made out to be not ourselves but the thing other people think you are.  Man, that dude's a racist.  Heil hitler, you cartoon-drawer!  Her over there, she has a suicidal level of self-hatred and is an active enemy of all women.  She quit her job to be a mom when she was in her 20s.  There's something just creepy about that family down the hall, they're always happy.  Yeah, they're Mormons.  Fake vegan meat supports the aesthetic of carnivore culture.  No one more intolerant than the loud champions of toleration, no one more ready to divide than the unifiers of diversity.

In the United States, a slave knew he had a place: that of a slave.  In India, an Untouchable knew he had a place: that of an Untouchable.  The modern moral minders, starting with Stalin onward, developed a different delineator.  If you are seen to stray too far from the approved set of beliefs, you have no place.  You are to be stripped of your job, your career, your credentials, your home and your money.  The Good Guys in the White Hats are ever vigilant for any infraction.  Call them the improperatzzi.  What a remarkable coincidence that the virtue they advocate is the same as the group they are a member of.

I can't say I judge all men in all moments anew.  I've also decided to not ask you to do so.  That sounds too much like work.  I don't have the time or energy, much less the inclination, to always cast aside generalities, stereotypes, and biases.  In this very essay I may lump a whole spectrum of people I disagree with into the base categories of liars and fools.  But you and I both know some people are just jerks, and some people are solid citizens.  I'm a member of some groups, a friend of others.  Everyone I don't like has me in common.  If it suits me I'll give you a chance, but maybe I'm busy or angry that day and you're just going be hidden behind what I think of you based on some other thing at some other time.  You'll live.  My opinion isn't even all that important to me.

The troubles come when people decide that those who are different aren't to live.  Except for liars and fools, everyone on the planet knows that the Religion of Peace currently holds the title belt for murdering those who think or act differently than they do.  I keep hearing that there's a majority of Muslims who aren't like that, but I also keep not hearing about what they are doing to enlighten their brothers and sisters who keep misunderstanding Islam in the same way, century after century.  Maybe the numbers are there for the majority to reform the minority, but let's see some action.  A sound public shaming is a good start, and in this regard I do my part.  But again - I limit myself to that most pathetic and un-magical of all activities, writing, when I disagree.  The beheaders, the child-rapers, the enslavers, the kidnappers, the hijackers, the perpetually grieved - the Muslims - not so much.

There's no controversy, only a nontroversy.  A man can like music by ADULT. and Mildred Bailey.  A man can know a great deal about far right politics without being of the far right.  A man can be interested in beliefs about UFOs without believing in UFOs.  The scolds and the bullies secretly know this but don't want you in on their game.  They know what is bad for other people because they've seen the evidence - but somehow, they saw the evidence and didn't suffer from the exposure.  They are good enough to tell you what's good for you, but you aren't.  No thank you, you pinch-faced busybodies, I'll decide for myself what I like and do and think and believe.  I'll even take my lumps for the luxury.

The heart wants what the heart wants.  So does the groin.  I've made up a name for those who think otherwise: quantisexual.  A quantisexual is deeply invested in quantifying sex.  Who can have sex with who, what the arrangement is named, who shares that name and who doesn't.  Who is doing it right, who is doing it right but for the wrong reasons, who is doing it all wrong.  Not satisfied with the real-life cooties you can get from sex, a quantisexual invents forms of ritual contamination and cleanliness.  If you have even one stray thought about your own sex, you're bisexual.  If you're bisexual then you're queer.  If you're queer then you have to support all the other queers in all their queeriosities.  Even if you don't have sex at all there's a whole slew of cooties you can accessorize yourself with like 'cis' and 'demisexual' and 'asexual.'  The name for a thing becomes more important than the thing itself, like sheets being more sexy than what goes on between them.  The alphabet soup of alt-sex has more rules and restrictions than the Roman Catholic Church.  Quantisexuality is a fetish.  Hip hip hooray if you were born that way or if, by pretending it's your thing, you get to join the right in-groups.  Sex will go on without your names for it.

Standing at the rich banquet of life, far too many go with a cuisine they've been gifted by someone not even alive to share the meal.  Only these foods go together, and only in this order, and in this amount.  Not because to do otherwise leads to sickness or death, but because, well, other people might... see...  See what?  Me getting a few of these and a few of those, concerned less than they, enjoying more than they.  You do go on if you must keep kosher, hold halal and avoid fish on Friday.  All the more for me, pal, or maybe I'll just have a bite and be done.  What we do and like isn't limited to one item from column A and two items from column B.  Life is not a family meal or a package deal.  Beliefs and interests are all a big mess and probably not very important, so pull them together in a way that makes sense to you.  Just don't insist I sign on to your supper club.

The thing you like is the thing you like.  You didn't used to like it, and maybe you won't like it later.  You don't have to explain or understand it.  You don't have to get my approval for it.  If it stops working for you, you stop working for it.  Move on, and I'll be doing the same.

- Trevor Blake is the author of Confessions of a Failed Egoist.

Actually, the title is a sensationalist lie designed to attract attention. I have no proof. Obviously. I'm not a mathematician. But if I did, it would go something like the following. 

Step 1: Assume that there are ultimate laws of physics governing everything in the world. Say, the wave function of the Universe, whose knowledge allows one to know the Multiverse, as it was, is or will be. Or some other set of laws. 

Step 2: Write these laws as a mathematically consistent formal system representing something akin to the Tegmark Level IV Ultimate ensemble.

Step 3: By Godel's incompleteness, there are some theorems in this formal system that cannot be proven.

Step 4: By construction, these theorems correspond to physical laws whose origins must forever remain a mystery to those inside the Multiverse, because they are a part of it.

Step 5: The consistency of our Multiverse can be proven in a formal system which describes physical laws of a larger world, in which our Multiverse is a small part of, essentially a simulation.

Step 6: Since we cannot determine the origins of our own physics, we cannot figure out a way to break out of our simulation. 

On the bright side, there is a Corollary:  Every level above us is also a simulation, so we are not alone!

This post was originally a link post to

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/fcc-chairman-mocks-industry-claims-that-customers-dont-need-faster-internet/

together with an instruction to read the article before proceeding, and then the following text rot13'd:

I believe this article is a nice rationality test. Did you notice that you were reading a debate over a definition and try to figure out what the purpose of the classification was? Or did you get carried away in the condemnation of the hated telecoms? If you noticed, how long did it take you?

 

I'm open to feedback on whether this test was worthwhile and also on whether I could have presented it better. There's a tradeoff here where explaining the post's value to Less Wrong undermines that value. Had I put "Rationality Test" in the title, I could have avoided the appearance of posting an inappropriate article but made the test weaker.

As you can see from the comments here, it didn't work very well.

I'm mostly editing this now because the apparent outrage-bait link in the discussion section was a bit of a nuisance, but I'll take the chance to list what I've learned:

• Not many LWers are susceptible to this genre of outrage-bait. That is, they don't have the intended gut reaction in the first place, so this didn't test whether they overcame it.
• The only commenter who admits having had said reaction immediately and effortlessly accounted for the fact that the debate was over a definition. This suggests the test was on the easy side, even for those eligible. (Unless a bunch of people failed and didn't comment, but I doubt that)
• Most commenters did not indicate finding it obvious that this was a test. The sort of misdirection I employed is quite viable.
• Feedback on the idea of the test is mixed. People don't seem to mind the concept of being misdirected, but (if I read the top comment correctly) being put through the experience of an outrage-bait link was annoying and the test didn't offer enough value to justify that.

Green Martians and Blue Martians have one thing in common: They both derive a tremendous amount of utility from tickling humans behind the ears, using their soft, feathery tentacles.  In fact, the utility that they derive from this is so intense that most scientists believe at some time in the recent evolutionary past, there must have been a large selection pressure directed at ensuring that Martians were motivated to tickle humans.

There are numerous differences between Green and Blue Martians. One of those differences is that whereas the feathery tentacles of Green Martians contain stinging hairs similar to nettles, the analogous anatomic part of the Blue Martian contains a safe drug with an euphoric effect. Therefore, humans who are tickled by green martians experience a moderate stinging pain, whereas those who are tickled by blue martians experience mild to moderate pleasure.

Human ethicists have long struggled to come up with a coherent ethical theory that determines whether tickling humans is morally acceptable.  Some have suggested that tickling humans behind the ear is ethically permissible if and only if you are a blue martian.  However, many other thinkers are worried that this line of thinking results in an unjust world, where the ethics of an act is determined by characteristics of the Martian that they cannot be held responsible for.

However, human ethicists are not very familiar with Martian physiology, and the situation is actually even more complicated than they suspect. In fact, all Martians are born Green.  They can shed their green shell and become blue Martians only after they have perfected the art of tickling humans with their feathery tentacles. All Martians aspire to one day become blue, but the amount of practicing it takes to reach perfection is highly variable - some martians reach perfection at their first attempt, whereas others keep trying their whole life without making any discernible progress. Therefore, if the ethical code says that green martians are prohibited from tickling humans, ethical Martians will be unable to reach their full potential in life, and will be stuck as Green Martians forever. Under this ethical code, only unethical Martians will be able to metamorphose.  

Making the situation even more complicated, is the fact that a group of recently metamorphosed Blue Martians are vocally spreading information on the internet about tickling techniques. These techniques are sometimes effective, but if used imperfectly they increase the sting of the stinging hairs fourfold. Importantly, it seems that part of the reason some young Green Martians are naturally better ticklers and therefore metamorphose earlier, is that they intuitively understand these techniques, and are able to apply them without increasing the sting of their tentacles.  Moreover,  while the tickling technique has empirical support, the theory behind it relies heavily on speculation about human evolutionary history that may not be true, and which is offensive to humans. 

This raises a number of additional ethical questions: Is it unethical for a Green Martian to attempt to metamorphose?  Does this depend on whether they believe themselves to be fast or slow learners? Should only the small subset of Martians who intuitively understand the tickling techniques be allowed to use them? Is spreading explicit information about the techniques unethical? 

 (Note : This parable is obviously an allegory for something.   Discussing whether the allegory is valid is interesting, but will lead to mindkill.   I would prefer if the discussion could stay focused on the Martians, so that we can discuss the ethics of a hypothetical scenario that may not be relevant in real life.  I am genuinely confused about the ethics of this, and I think this can lead to an interesting question regardless of whether it is applicable to humans)

Our optimization process sucks.

Every now and then someone makes up a thread concerning the optimization of LW, we have a nice discussion, one or the other idea gets a number of upvotes, sometimes quite a lot, but in the end, nothing happens.

What's more, it is predictable that nothing will happen, which kills the motivation to contribute.

• The LW staff (those who hold the authority to implement major changes!) needs to commit a considerable amount of time for the optimization of LW. If necessary, hire someone and make his main job LW optimization.
• The people contributing to optimization threads need to get serious feedback from the staff. It is just frustrating to feel that those who are in charge of implementing changes will not even take the time to think my arguments through.

It is just a tragic waste to put so much time and effort into LW, and about nothing into optimizing it.