Apparently, in the days leading up to the Effective Altruism Summit, there was a conference on Artificial Intelligence keeping the research associates out of town. The source is my friend interning at the MIRI right now. So, anyway they might have been even busier than you thought. I hope this has cleared up now.
The whole subculture that is the new 'rationality movement' has some nodes, i.e., nodes, and subcultures, which are not included in this map of the Bay Area memespace. I'm sitting here at home with my friend Kytael, and we're brainstorming the following:
Is there an update on this issue? Representatives from nearly all the relevant organizations have stepped in, but what's been reported has done little to resolve my confusion on this issue, and I think of myself as divided on it as Mr. Hallquist originally was. Dr. MacAskill, Mr. O'Haigeartaigh, Ms. Salamon have all provided explanations for why they believe each of the organizations they're attached are the most deserving of funding. The problem is that this has done little to assuage my concern about which organization is in the most need of funds, and w...
If anything, I could use more information from the CEA, the FHI, and the GPP. Within effective altruism, there's a bit of a standard of expecting some transparency of the organizations, purportedly effective, which are supported. In terms of financial support, this would mean the open publishing of budgets. Based upon Mr. O'Heigeartaigh's report above, the FHI itself might be strapped for available time, among all its other core activities, to provide this sort of insight.
I recently started my career as an effective altruist earning to give by making my first big splash with a $1000 USD unrestricted donation to Givewell last month.
Uh, I've trawled through Wikipedia for the causes, and symptoms, of mental illnesses, and, according to my doctors (general practitioner, and psychiatrist), I've been good at identifying what I'm experiencing before I've gone to see them about it. The default case is that patients just go to the doctor, report their symptoms, answer questions about their lifestyle lately, and the doctors take care of diagnoses, and/or assigning treatment. I choose to believe that I have such clarity about my own mental processes because my doctors tell me how impressed the...
Scientists as community of humans should expect there research to return false positives sometimes, because that is what is going to happen, and they should publish those results. Scientists should also expect experiments to demonstrate that some of their hypotheses are just plain wrong. It seems to me replication is only not very useful if the replications of the experiment are likely prone to all the same crap that currently makes original experiments from social psychology not all that reliable. I don't have experience, or practical knowledge of the field, though, so I wouldn't know.
Insofar as it's appropriate to post only about a problem well-defined rather than having the complete solution to the problem, I consider this post to be of sufficient quality to deserve being posted in Main.
I figure I would do my due diligence for the sake of the community, or whatever, so I downvoted this post. Note that I'm a newer user of Less Wrong who isn't very familiar with Mr. Newsome's history of shenanigans on this website. So, I didn't have an automatic reaction to cringe, or something, when I encountered this piece. I downvoted this post based upon its own, singular lack of merit.
Mr. Newsome, here is some criticism I hope you appreciate.
Nothing about this first chapter here is enticing me to care about 'post-rationality', whatever that is. Eliezer...
Thanks for the criticism, you're the first person to give me useful advice. Honestly you probably put more effort into writing this comment than I put into writing my chapter. I really appreciate it. I'll keep a tab open for this comment next time I attempt to write some fiction.
Upvoted. My thoughts:
For full disclosure, I don't consider myself very successful in real life either, and my ambitions are also much higher than where I am now. This is a phenomenon that my friends from the Vancouver rationalist meetup have remarked upon. My hypothesis for this is that Less Wrong selects for a portion of people who are looking to jump-start their productivity to a new level of lifestyle, but mostly selects for intelligent but complacent nerds who want to learn to think about arguments better, and like reading blogs. Such behavioral tend
[WARNING: GOOEY PERSONAL DETAILS BELOW]
I became part of much of the meatspace rationalist community before I started more frequently using Less Wrong, so I integrate my personal experience into how I comment on here. That's not to mean that I use my personal anecdotes as evidence for advice for other users of this site; I know that would be stupid. However, if you check my user history on Less Wrong, you'll notice that I primarily use Less Wrong myself as a source for advice for myself (and my friends, too, who don't bother to post here, but I believe shou...
My friend kytael (not his real name, but his Less Wrong handle) has been on Less Wrong since 2010, has been a volunteer for the CFAR, and lived in the Bay Area for several months as part of the meatspace rationalist community there. For a couple of years, I was only a lurker on Less Wrong, and occasionally read some posts. I didn't bother to read the Sequences, but I already studied cognitive science, and I attended lots of meetups where the Sequences were discussed, so I understand much of the canon material of Less Wrong rationality, even if I wouldn't u...
Isn't there something inherently self-destructive about a website that teaches "winning"? I mean, when people start winning in their lives, they probably spend less time debating online...
If someone starts a startup, they have less time to debate online. If someone joins a rationalist community in their area, they also spend less time online, because they spend more time in personal interactions. Even if you just decide to exercise 10 minutes every day, and you succeed, that's 10 minutes less to spend online.
(I don't consider myself very successf...
In addition to my upvote, this comment is confirmation I, for one, would be interested in this.
I'd suggest just being slightly more suspicious of insulting arguments that make claims about your character sucking (immutably) than ones about the way you've laid out the plan.
It seems katydee may have made a mistake in choice of language here by conflating "yourself" with "your plans". To nitpick, it might better to consistently refer to the thing to be strawmanned as "your plan(s), and not use "you" at all. If one wants to generate an argument to point out flaws in their own plans, strawmanning yourself is like lau...
It doesn't seem like the webmasters, or administrators, of Less Wrong receive these requests as signals. Maybe try sending them a private message directly, unless the culture of Less Wrong already considers that inappropriate, or rude.
Does anyone understand how the mutant-cyborg monster image RationalWiki uses represents Less Wrong? I've never understood that.
It's a weird phenomenon, because even those lurkers with accounts who barely contribute might not state how they've not socially benefited from Less Wrong. However, I suspect the majority of people who mostly read Less Wrong, and are passive to insert themselves deeper into the community are the sorts of people who are also less likely to find social benefit from it. I mean, from my own experience, that of my friends, and the others commenting here, they took initiative upon themselves to at least , e.g., attend a meatspace Less Wrong meetup. This is more ...
Yeah, I'd second that. Someone could make a Google survey form, or comment thread poll, asking which users commenting here would be open to having their success stories published in some capacity, whether here on the blog, or a more widely shared piece of literature.
Mr. Hurford, I know you're a prominent writer within the effective altruist community, among other things (e.g., producing software, and open-source web, products, through running .impact). As someone who initially encountered effective altruism, and then Less Wrong, do you have a perspective on how, or how much, Less Wrong has amplified the success of effective altruism as a social movement within the last couple of years?
I'm curious if there is any other variables that might account for you not achieving what you hoped you might by connecting through Less Wrong. For example, many regular attendees of the Vancouver meetup have wanted to get great jobs, move into a house with their rationalist friends, or move to the Bay Area to be part of the central party. However, they haven't done much of this yet, despite having wanted to with other local rationalists for a couple of years. The fact that most of us are university students, or have only recently launched our careers, thr...
I figured upvotes in the monthly bragging thread would solely be a function of how much of a heap of utility can be demonstrated to be achieved. However, this is my second-most upvoted comment of all time, with the first-most upvoted being similar: a terse comment with just enough data to make it seem substantial, but is full of warm fuzzies. So, writing 'Yay! I'm winning!' for a mundane goal, like doing minimal exercise, might be at least as powerful as providing a long, and modest, explanation for doing something which signals much more greatness in real...
I bought a pedometer to track my steps, so I could achieve my goal of taking 10000 steps everyday, and have a motivation to go outside, and do some light exercise. This is from before I bought the pedometer when I was doing no regular exercise. I've met my goal of 10000 steps everyday for the last week since I bought the pedometer, so I've increased my goal to 12000 steps everyday.
Location: Vancouver, Canada
I was introduced to Less Wrong by a long-time friend who had been reading the website for about a year before I first visited it. Over time, I've generally become more integrated with the community. Now, a handful of my closest friends are ones I've met through the local meetup. Also, with related communities, the meetup does a lot to give presentations between people, and facilitate skill-sharing, and knowledge bases.
I know that several of my fellow meetup attendees also made great friends through the meetup. There has been at l...
I agree with you, so I've edited my comment a bit to account for your nitpick. See above. Thanks for making the point.
Yes, it's a joke.
Note: edited for grammar.
Disclosure: the following point is tangential to Givewell, and is more about start-ups.
It strikes me as paradoxical that users of Less Wrong, and the rationalist community, endorse founding a start-up as great 'rationality training', and view very successful entrepreneurs as paragons of rationality in the practical world, yet Paul Graham notes in his essays that it may often be only in hindsight that entrepreneurs can assess the strategies they implemented as good, such that they 'got lucky' with their success. 'Getting lucky', that is, maybe[1] implying ...
It could very well be phony information. My point is that I'm an absurd nerd, because Less Wrong, so I want to ground my beliefs as well as possible, but I'm very ambiguous about the issue of vegetarianism because there is so much noise about diets, and economics, and ethics, and aaahhh...
I gave a full explanation of my reasons for part-time vegetarianism above, but Lumifer's statement generally accounts fully for what I choose to eat.
+1 to his comment.
I identify as a flexitarian, meaning I'm a part-time vegetarian. When it's convenient, I will avoid eating meat. This is usually at restaurants, almost all of which in my city have a vegetarian, if not vegan, option on their menu, or when I'm cooking at home, and there is something in the fridge other than animal flesh, or byproducts, available. In this regard, my biggest 'vice' is that I don't make much effort to restrict my consumption of dairy products, since I'm under the impression that dairy products don't cause much harm to cattle relative to how mu...
Thanks for the information. In that case, I hope in the future there is another opportunity to ask what blogs are featured on the side panel. I don't know what anyone else is looking for, but as far as I'm concerned, I check these other rationality blogs as often as I check things posted directly to Less Wrong. I find Slate Star Codex, and Overcoming Bias, particularly interesting. Anyway, if other people gain similar such value from these other blogs, perhaps other blogs could be added in the future. I understand if each of us freely suggested what blogs ...
What's the process for selecting what 'rationality blogs' are featured in the sidebar? Is it selected by the administrators of the site?
I'm surprised some blogs of other users with lots of promoted posts here aren't featured as rationality blogs.
I'm wanting to apply to be a conversation notes writer at Givewell, as they have an open position for it. The application seems quite straightforward, but I'm wondering if there is anything I should consider, because I would love to be hired for this job.
Do you have any suggestions for how I could improve an application?
For the application, I must submit a practice transcription of a Givewell conversation. I'm wondering, specifically, if there are any textbooks, guides to style, or ways of writing I should consult in preparation. Obviously, I must write the transcription myself, and not plagiarize, or whatever.
Disclosure: my votes for the above poll are not anonymous. I want people to be aware of how I voted, because I state the following: my votes for this poll are limited to my perception of Less Wrong over only the last few months, as of the date of this comment, which is the period of time in which I have started checking Less Wrong on a semi-daily basis.
I know, I know...I tend to write in a superfluous, and long-winded manner. Like, longer than the above comment. It was about 20% longer, so I edited out the material that I didn't believe would actually clarify the questions I was asking, or that I believed wouldn't be at all valuable to adamzerner. I was at a lack of words other than 'edited for brevity'. In terms of writing, I believe I'm decent at getting my thoughts out of my head. However, my ability to write more compactly is a skill I need to improve upon, and I intend to do so.
Also, I aim to be qui...
Thanks.
While others have remarked that you're responding to a "Hollywood" conception of romance, I also want to point out that you aren't the only person who perceives romance this way. The surface perfection of romance is something people would like to signal about their relationships. Like, even in the cases where people are cheating on one another, or the relationship is falling apart, or mired by abuse, or conflict, they like to publicly signal that things are still going well, or at least not going horribly. If you searched for 'romance', or 'relat...
This made me laugh out loud a lot. I never expect that in a thread on Less Wrong. It was charming.
I just want to thank all of you, as both individuals, and as a community, for being a decent place for discourse. In the last few months, I've been actively engaging with Less Wrong more frequently. Prior to that, I mostly tried asking for opinions on an issue I wanted analyzed on my Facebook. On Facebook, there has been typically been one person writing something like 'ha, this is a strange question! [insert terrible joke'here]. Other than that, radio silence.
On Less Wrong, typical responses are people not thinking I'm weird because I want to analyze stuf...
I'm closer to personally experimenting with nicotine, so I'd like to gloss over these meta-analyses. I can access academic, and medical, journals myself, but I don't know which ones to search in. In which journal can I find this citation? (please and thanks).
If you try starting such a conversation, I suggest using more examples than you have thus far. If you don't feel comfortable providing personal anecdotes as examples, feel free to PM me. In that case, I'll start the conversation, because I do have anecdotes/examples I am willing to, and can, share.
"I like you a lot. You make me happy. But there's probably at least tens of thousands of people in the world that can provide me with what you're providing me. So you're replaceable, and if we broke up, I'd get over it after a few days/weeks and find someone else.
Mr. Zerner, a problem with your counter-argument is that you aren't actually going to meet the tens of thousands of hypothetical people who could satisfy all the same desires and needs as a current romantic partner is meeting. You won't even meet one hundred, or, like, thirty. If you're l...
Yeah, possibly. Anyway, I'll avoid these mistakes in the future.
Thanks for replying, TylerJay. Did you notice they became addictive immediately, or after a graduated period of use? If the latter, what was the frequency, or quantity, of your daily consumption of e-cigarettes? Is there anyway you believe one might be able to avoid addiction to e-cigarettes?
Gwern noted in his analysis of nicotine that to overcome dependency effects, the user could cycle between different nootropics they use. For example, a three day cycle of nicotine, then caffeine, then modafanil, then repeat and start over with nicotine.
Over the course of several months, I could trial different methods of consuming nicotine, i.e., patches, e-cigarettes, and gum. I would space each of these trials out over the course of several months because I wouldn't want each of the trials to be spaced too close together, and I wouldn't want to mess wit...
I believe I have a better ability to scrutinize my internal states. Like, when consuming alcohol, marijuana, or caffeine, more often than not I notice my subjective experience changing, i.e., I feel drunk/high/whatever. However, this might only be the case when I've taken greater, or stronger, doses of a given drug. If that is the case, it wouldn't be helpful. Perhaps if I have a history of needing to consume more of a drug for me to notice its affects, that could be net harmful, because I could be tempted to consume enough nicotine for me to notice its af...
Well, I'm currently an undergraduate, so I haven't started a career yet. For myself, personally, I would like to create a website in the future. Also, web design is useful in a wide variety of contexts. For coding, I'm not set on a career trajectory yet, but I may want to transition into one which would require a heavier use of information technology.
I've read on Less Wrong that learning how to code, or program, is a worthwhile skill to learn, even if one is not going on to become a computer programmer.
I don't know statistics very well, but I would like t...
Noted. I will update my voting behavior on this basis. Thanks.
I'm only age 22, and I don't have lots of life experience. So, I don't know how pleasing the rewards of such hardships would be, nor do I have a model of how much pain would go into this. However, reading through the scenarios seemed awful, so I rated my willingness to go through with them very low relative to the median response.
I'd be more interested in the same poll restricted to prime over the age of at least forty, asking along the lines of whether the rewards of hardship were so great they'd be willing to go through the pain again.