This is an attempt to explicitly model what's going on in some small talk conversations. My hope is that at least one of these things will happen:

• There is a substantial flaw or missing element to my model that someone will point out.
• Many readers, who are bad at small talk because they don't see the point, will get better at it as a result of acquiring understanding.

Handshakes

I had some recent conversational failures online, that went roughly like this:

“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How are you?”
The end.

At first I got upset at the implicit rudeness of my conversation partner walking away and ignoring the question. But then I decided to get curious instead and posted a sample exchange (names omitted) on Facebook with a request for feedback. Unsurprisingly I learned more this way.

Some kind friends helped me troubleshoot the exchange, and in the process of figuring out how online conversation differs from in-person conversation, I realized what these things do in live conversation. They act as a kind of implicit communication protocol by which two parties negotiate how much interaction they’re willing to have.

Consider this live conversation:

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
The end.

No mystery here. Two people acknowledged one another’s physical presence, and then the interaction ended. This is bare-bones maintenance of your status as persons who can relate to one another socially. There is no intimacy, but at least there is acknowledgement of someone else’s existence. A day with “Hi” alone is less lonely than a day without it.

“Hi.”
“Hi, how’s it going?”
“Can’t complain. And you?”
“Life.”

This exchange establishes the parties as mutually sympathetic – the kind of people who would ask about each other’s emotional state – but still doesn’t get to real intimacy. It is basically just a drawn-out version of the example with just “Hi”. The exact character of the third and fourth line don’t matter much, as there is no real content. For this reason, it isn’t particularly rude to leave the question totally unanswered if you’re already rounding a corner – but if you’re in each other’s company for a longer period of time, you’re supposed to give at least a pro forma answer.

This kind of thing drives crazy the kind of people who actually want to know how someone is, because people often assume that the question is meant insincerely. I’m one of the people driven crazy. But this kind of mutual “bidding up” is important because sometimes people don’t want to have a conversation, and if you just launch into your complaint or story or whatever it is you may end up inadvertently cornering someone who doesn’t feel like listening to it.

You could ask them explicitly, but people sometimes feel uncomfortable turning down that kind of request. So the way to open a substantive topic of conversation is to leave a hint and let the other person decide whether to pick it up. So here are some examples of leaving a hint:

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Anything interesting this weekend?”
“Oh, did a few errands, caught up on some reading. See you later.”

This is a way to indicate interest in more than just a “Fine, how are you?” response. What happened here is that one party asked about the weekend, hoping to elicit specific information to generate a conversation. The other politely technically answered the question without any real information, declining the opportunity to talk about their life.

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Anything interesting happen over the weekend?”
“Oh, did a few errands, caught up on some reading.”
“Ugh, I was going to go to a game, but my basement flooded and I had to take care of that instead.”
“That’s tough.”
“Yeah.”
“See you around.”

Here, the person who first asked about the weekend didn’t get an engaged response, but got enough of a pro forma response to provide cover for an otherwise out of context complaint and bid for sympathy. The other person offered perfunctory sympathy, and ended the conversation.

Here’s a way for the recipient of a “How are you?” to make a bid for more conversation:

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Oh, my basement flooded over the weekend.”
“That’s tough.”
“Yeah.”
“See you around.”

So the person with the flooded basement provided a socially-appropriate snippet of information – enough to be a recognizable bid for sympathy, but little enough not to force the other person to choose between listening to a long complaint or rudely cutting off the conversation.

Here’s what it looks like if the other person accepts the bid:

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Oh, my basement flooded over the weekend.”
“Wow, that’s tough. Is the upstairs okay?”
“Yeah, but it’s a finished basement so I’m going to have to get a bunch of it redone because of water damage.”
“Ooh, that’s tough. Hey, if you need a contractor, I had a good experience with mine when I had my kitchen done.”
“Thanks, that would be a big help, can you email me their contact info?”

By asking a specific follow-up question the other person indicated that they wanted to hear more about the problem – which gave the person with the flooded basement permission not just to answer the question directly, but to volunteer additional information / complaints.

You can do the same thing with happy events, of course:

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“I’m getting excited for my big California vacation.”
“Oh really, where are you going?”
“We’re flying out to Los Angeles, and then we’re going to spend a few days there but then drive up to San Francisco, spend a day or two in town, then go hiking in the area.“
“Cool. I used to live in LA, let me know if you need any recommendations.”
“Thanks, I’ll come by after lunch?”

So what went wrong online? Here’s the conversation again so you don’t have to scroll back up:

“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How are you?”
The end.

Online, there are no external circumstances that demand a “Hi,” such as passing someone (especially someone you know) in the hallway or getting into an elevator.

If you import in-person conversational norms, the “Hi” is redundant – but instead online it can function as a query as to whether the other person is actually “present” and available for conversation. (You don’t want to start launching into a conversation just because someone’s status reads “available” only to find out they’re in the  middle of something else and don’t  have time to read what you wrote.)

Let’s say you’ve mutually said “Hi.” If you were conversing in person, the next thing to do would be to query for a basic status update, asking something like, “How are you?”. But “Hi” already did the work of “How are you?”. Somehow the norm of “How are you?” being a mostly insincere query doesn’t get erased, even though “Hi” does its work – so some people think you’re being bizarrely redundant. Others might actually tell you how they are.

To be safe, it’s best to open with a short question apropos to what you want to talk about – or, since it’s costless online and serves the same function as “Hi”, just start with “How are you?” as your opener.

What’s New?

I recently had occasion to explain to someone how to respond when someone asks “what’s new?”, and in the process, ended up explaining some stuff I hadn’t realized until the moment I tried to explain it. So I figured this might be a high-value thing to explain to others here on the blog.

Of course, sometimes “what’s new?” is just part of a passing handshake with no content – I covered that in the first section. But if you’re already in a context where you know you’re going to be having a conversation, you’re supposed to answer the question, otherwise you get conversations like this:

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“What’s new?”
“Not much. How about you?”
“Can’t complain.”
Awkward silence.

So I’m talking about cases where you actually have to answer the question.

The problem is that some people, when asked “What’s New?”, will try to think about when they last met the person asking, and all the events in their life since then, sorted from most to least momentous. This is understandably an overwhelming task.

The trick to responding correctly is to think of your conversational partner’s likely motives for asking. They are very unlikely to want a complete list. Nor do they necessarily want to know the thing in your life that happened that’s objectively most notable. Think about it – when’s the last time you wanted to know those things?

Instead, what’s most likely the case is that they want to have a conversation about a topic you are comfortable with, are interested in, and have something to say about. “What’s New?” is an offer they are making, to let you pick the life event you most feel like discussing at that time. So for example, if the dog is sick but you’d rather talk about a new book you’re reading, you get to talk about the book and you can completely fail to mention the dog. You’re not lying, you’re answering the question as intended.

Cross-posted on my personal blog.

In Keep Your Identity Small, Paul Graham argues against associating yourself with labels (i.e. “libertarian,” “feminist,” “gamer,” “American”) because labels constrain what you’ll let yourself believe. It’s a wonderful essay that’s led me to make concrete changes in my life. That said, it’s only about 90% correct. I have two issues with Graham’s argument; one is a semantic quibble, but it leads into the bigger issue, which is a tactic I’ve used to become a better person.

Graham talks about the importance of identity in determining beliefs. This isn’t quite the right framework. I’m a fanatical consequentialist, so I care what actions people take. Beliefs can constrain actions, but identity can also constrain actions directly.

To give a trivial example from the past week in which beliefs didn’t matter: I had a self-image as someone who didn’t wear jeans or t-shirts. As it happens, there are times when wearing jeans is completely fine, and when other people wore jeans in casual settings, I knew it was appropriate. Nevertheless, I wasn’t able to act on this belief because of my identity. (I finally realized this was silly, consciously discarded that useless bit of identity, and made a point of wearing jeans to a social event.)

Why is this distinction important? If we’re looking at identify from an action-centered framework, this recommends a different approach from Graham’s.

Do you want to constrain your beliefs? No; you want to go wherever the evidence pushes you. “If X is true, I desire to believe that X is true. If X is not true, I desire to believe that X is not true.” Identity will only get in the way.

Do you want to constrain your actions? Yes! Ten thousand times yes! Akrasia exists. Commitment devices are useful. Beeminder is successful. Identity is one of the most effective tools for the job, if you wield it deliberately.

I’ve cultivated an identity as a person who makes events happen. It took months to instill, but now, when I think “I wish people were doing X,” I instinctively start putting together a group to do X. This manifests in minor ways, like the tree-climbing expedition I put together at the Effective Altruism Summit, and in big ways, like the megameetup we held in Boston. If I hadn’t used my identity to motivate myself, neither of those things would’ve happened, and my life would be poorer.

Identity is powerful. Powerful things are dangerous, like backhoes and bandsaws. People use them anyway, because sometimes they’re the best tools for the job, and because safety precautions can minimize the danger.

Identity is hard to change. Identity can be difficult to notice. Identity has unintended consequences. Use this tool only after careful deliberation. What would this identity do to your actions? What would it do to your beliefs? What social consequences would it have? Can you do the same thing with a less dangerous tool? Think twice, and then think again, before you add to your identity. Most identities are a hindrance.

But please, don’t discard this tool just because some things might go wrong. If you are willful, and careful, and wise, then you can cultivate the identity of the person you always wanted to be.

My recent posts Robustness of Cost-Effectiveness and Effective Philanthropy and Earning to Give vs. Altruistic Career Choice Revisited concern optimal philanthropy, and I’ll be writing more posts about optimal philanthropy in the near future.

My use of examples from prosaic domains such as global health has given rise to some confusion, because some members of the Less Wrong community believe that existential risk reduction is by far the best target for optimal philanthropy, and also believe that effective philanthropy in the context of global health is very disanalogous to effective philanthropy in the context of x-risk reduction. For example, Eliezer wrote 

…talking about AMF [Against Malaria Foundation] in the same breath as x-risk just seems really odd. The key issues are going to be very different when you're trying to do something so near-term, established, without scary ambiguity, etc. as AMF.

I believe that studying the issues surrounding philanthropic opportunities in areas such as global health is in fact helpful for better understanding how to assess x-risk reduction opportunities. My reasons for thinking this don’t fit into a few sentences, and fully understanding them requires understanding some of my thoughts about more prosaic domains. So I’ll respond to Eliezer’s comment at a later date.

For now, I’ll just remark:

1. My discussion of prosaic philanthropic domains should not be interpreted as carrying the connotation that I think that they offer more promising philanthropic opportunities than x-risk reduction charities do (though in some cases I believe that they may be).
   
2.  I believe that the points that I raise in connection with prosaic philanthropic domains will eventually offer input that's helpful for thinking about optimal philanthropy within the astronomical waste framework.
   
3. My reason for restricting my discussion to prosaic philanthropic domains (in some posts) is to keep the discussion from become muddled by simultaneously considering of many orthogonal issues.

Note: I formerly worked as a research analyst at GiveWell. All views expressed are my own.

After trying to discover why the LW wiki “definition” of Reductionism appeared so biased, I concluded from the responses that it was never really intended as a definition of the Reductionist position itself, but as a summary of what is considered to be wrong with positions critical of Reductionism.

The argument goes like this. “Emergentism”, as the critical view is often called, points out the properties that emerge from a system when it is assembled from its elements, which do not themselves show such a property. From such considerations it points out various ways in which research programmes based on a reductionist approach may distort priorities and underestimate difficulties. So far, this is all a matter of degree and eventually each case must be settled on its merits. However, it gets philosophically sensitive when Emergentists claim that a Reductionist approach may be unable in principle to 'explain' certain emergent properties.

The reponse to this claim (I think) goes like this. (1) The explanatory power of a model is a function of its ingredients. (2) Reductionism includes all the ingredients that actually exist in the real world. Therefore (3) Emergentists must be treating the “emergent properties” as extra ingredients, thereby confusing the “map” with the “territory”. So Reductionism is defined by EY and others as not treating emergent properties as extra ingredients (in effect).

At this point it is important to distinguish “Mind theory” from other fields where Reductionism is debated. In this field, Reductionists apparently regard Emergentism as a form of disguised Vitalism/Dualism - if emergent properties can’t be explained by the physical ingredients, they must exist in some non-physical realm. However, Emergentism can apply equally well to everything from chess playing programs to gearbox vibrations, neither of which involve anything like mysterious spiritual substances, so this can hardly be the whole story. And in fact I would argue that the reverse is the case: Vitalists or “substance Dualists” are actually unconscious Reductionists as well: when they assume an extra ingredient is necessary to account for the things which they believe Physicalism cannot explain, they are still reducing a system to its ingredients. Emergentists by contrast reject premise (1) of the previous paragraph, that the explanatory power of a model is a function of its ingredients. Thus it seems to me that the real difference between Reductionists & Emergentists is a difference over the nature of explanation. So it seems worthwhile looking into some of the different things that can be meant by “explanation”.

For simplicity, let us illustrate this by the banal example of a brickwork bridge. The elements are the bricks and their relative positions. Our reductionist R points out that these are the only elements you need - after all, if you remove all the bricks there is nothing left - and so proposes to become an expert in bricks. Our (Physicalist) Emergentist E suggests that this won’t be of much use without a knowledge of the Arch (an emergent feature). R isn't stupid and agrees that this would be extremely useful but points out that if no expert in Arch Theory is to hand, given the very powerful computer available, such expertise isn’t strictly necessary: it's not an inherent requirement. Simply solving the force balance equations for each brick will establish whether a given structure will fall into the river. Isn’t that an explanation?

Not in my sense, says E, as to start with it doesn’t tell me how the bridge will be designed, only how an existing design will be analysed. So R explains that the computer will generate structures randomly until one is found that satisfies the requirements of equilibrium. When E enquires how stability will be checked. R replies that the force balance will be checked under all possible small deviations from the design position.

E isn’t satisfied. To claim understanding, R must be able to apply the results of the first design to new bridges of different span, but all (s)he can do is repeat the process again every time.

On the contrary, replies R, this being the age of Big Data, the computer can generate solutions in a large number of cases and then use pattern recognition software to extract rules that can be applied to new cases.

Ah, says E, but explaining these rules means hypothesing more general rules from which these rules can be derived, using appropriate Bayesian reasoning to confirm your hypothesis.

OK, replies R, my program has a heuristic feature that has passed the Turing Test. So anything you can do along these lines, it can do just as well.

So using R’s approach, explanation even in E’s most general sense can always be arrived at by a four-stage process: (1) construct a model using the basic elements applicable to the situation, (2) fill a substantial chunk of solution space, (3) use pattern recognition to extract pragmatic rules, (4) use hypothesis generation and testing to derive general principles from the rules. It may be a trivial illustration, but it seems to me that in a broad sense this sort of process must be applicable in almost any situation.

How should we interpret this conclusion? R would say that it proves that “explanation” can be arrived it using a Reductionist model. E would say it proves the inadequacy of Reductionism, since Reductionist steps (1) & (2) have to be supplemented by Integrationist steps (3) & (4): the rules found at step (3) are precisely “emergent features” of the solution space. Moreover, pattern recognition is not a closed-form process with repeatable results. (Is it?) On the other hand the patterns identified in solution space might well be derivable in closed form directly from higher-level characteristics of the system in question (such as constraints in the system).

I would say that the choice of interpretation is a matter of convention, though I own up that I find the Emergentist mind-set more helpful in the fields I have learnt something about. What really matters is a recognition of the huge difference between “providing a solution” and “generalising from solution space” as types of explanation. The “Emergentist” label is a reminder of that difference. But call yourself a “Reductionist” if you like so long as you acknowledge the difference.

It seems to me that the sort of argument sketched here provides useful pointers to help recognize when “Reductionism” becomes “Greedy Reductionism”(A). For example, consider the claim that mapping the Human Connectome will enable the workings of the brain to be explained. Clearly, the mapping is just step (1). Consider the size of the Connectome, and then consider the size of the solution space of its activity. That makes step (1) sound utterly trivial compared with step (2). This leaves the magnitude of steps (3) & (4) to be evaluated. That doesn’t mean the project won’t be extremely valuable, but it puts the time-frame of the claim to provide real “understanding” into a very different light, and underlines the continued value of working at other scales as well.

(A): See e.g. fubarobfusco's comment on my earlier discussion.

The chapter on judgment under uncertainty in the (excellent) new Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology has a handy little section on recent critiques of the "heuristics and biases" tradition. It also discusses problems with the somewhat-competing "fast and frugal heuristics" school of thought, but for now let me just quote the section on heuristics and biases (pp. 608-609):

The heuristics and biases program has been highly influential; however, some have argued that in recent years the influence, at least in psychology, has waned (McKenzie, 2005). This waning has been due in part to pointed critiques of the approach (e.g., Gigerenzer, 1996). This critique comprises two main arguments: (1) that by focusing mainly on coherence standards [e.g. their rationality given the subject's other beliefs, as contrasted with correspondence standards having to do with the real-world accuracy of a subject's beliefs] the approach ignores the role played by the environment or the context in which a judgment is made; and (2) that the explanations of phenomena via one-word labels such as availability, anchoring, and representativeness are vague, insufficient, and say nothing about the processes underlying judgment (see Kahneman, 2003; Kahneman & Tversky, 1996 for responses to this critique).

The accuracy of some of the heuristics proposed by Tversky and Kahneman can be compared to correspondence criteria (availability and anchoring). Thus, arguing that the tradition only uses the “narrow norms” (Gigerenzer, 1996) of coherence criteria is not strictly accurate (cf. Dunwoody, 2009). Nonetheless, responses in famous examples like the Linda problem can be reinterpreted as sensible rather than erroneous if one uses conversational or pragmatic norms rather than those derived from probability theory (Hilton, 1995). For example, Hertwig, Benz and Krauss (2008) asked participants which of the following two statements is more probable:

[X] The percentage of adolescent smokers in Germany decreases at least 15% from current levels by September 1, 2003.

[X&Y] The tobacco tax in Germany is increased by 5 cents per cigarette and the percentage of adolescent smokers in Germany decreases at least 15% from current levels by September 1, 2003.

According to the conjunction rule, [X&Y cannot be more probable than X] and yet the majority of participants ranked the statements in that order. However, when subsequently asked to rank order four statements in order of how well each one described their understanding of X&Y, there was an overwhelming tendency to rank statements like “X and therefore Y” or “X and X is the cause for Y” higher than the simple conjunction “X and Y.” Moreover, the minority of participants who did not commit the conjunction fallacy in the first judgment showed internal coherence by ranking “X and Y” as best describing their understanding in the second judgment.These results suggest that people adopt a causal understanding of the statements, in essence ranking the probability of X, given Y as more probable than X occurring alone. If so, then arguably the conjunction “error” is no longer incorrect. (See Moro, 2009 for extensive discussion of the reasons underlying the conjunction fallacy, including why “misunderstanding” cannot explain all instances of the fallacy.)

The “vagueness” argument can be illustrated by considering two related phenomena: the gambler’s fallacy and the hot-hand (Gigerenzer & Brighton, 2009). The gambler’s fallacy is the tendency for people to predict the opposite outcome after a run of the same outcome (e.g., predicting heads after a run of tails when flipping a fair coin); the hot-hand, in contrast, is the tendency to predict a run will continue (e.g., a player making a shot in basketball after a succession of baskets; Gilovich, Vallone, & Tversky, 1985). Ayton and Fischer (2004) pointed out that although these two behaviors are opposite - ending or continuing runs - they have both been explained via the label “representativeness.” In both cases a faulty concept of randomness leads people to expect short sections of a sequence to be “representative” of their generating process. In the case of the coin, people believe (erroneously) that long runs should not occur, so the opposite outcome is predicted; for the player, the presence of long runs rules out a random process so a continuation is predicted (Gilovich et al., 1985). The “representativeness” explanation is therefore incomplete without specifying a priori which of the opposing prior expectations will result. More important, representativeness alone does not explain why people have the misconception that random sequences should exhibit local representativeness when in reality they do not (Ayton & Fischer, 2004).

My thanks to MIRI intern Stephen Barnes for transcribing this text.

This is the second part of my Solstice Ritual mini-sequence. The introduction post is here.

-

Ritual is an interesting phenomenon to me. It can be fun, beautiful, profound, useful, and potentially dangerous.

Commenters from the previous article fell into two main camps - those who assumed I knew what I was doing and gave me the benefit of the doubt, and those who were afraid I was naively meddling with forces beyond my comprehension. This was a reasonable fear. In this article, I’ll outline why I think ritual is important, why it’s dangerous, why I’d like to develop a Aspiring-Rationalist Culture and what I mean by Aspiring-Rationalist culture.

Earlier this month, Metus did a post asking for LW-ers locations. I thought it would even more useful to have this information in visual format, so I created a Google map. You can access it on the website below. Unfortunately, I am terrible at this post-writing interface, so I can't get the image of the map to load onto here. You'll have to click the link to view it.

Original Post: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8sm/where_do_you_live_meetup_planners_want_to_know/

(If you haven't filled out the poll yet, please do it! If more people submit their location info, I'll add them to the map.)

• Link to the Map

These are only for US locations that had a 5-digit zip-code, or a city name. I may or may not map the other countries. If someone else wants to volunteer, send me a message, and I'll add you as a collaborator to the map, so you can edit.