All of iconreforged's Comments + Replies

I totally agree. Shared decks encourage a lot of SRS vices.

But, given that they exist and that people are going to use them, is there a way to raise the quality of a shared deck significantly above the average? You can page through the shared decks on Anki's shared decks page and dredge up extremely low quality. If you look at the repository of decks by LW users, the average quality is much better, but could still be improved.

I propose that the MIRI courses are valuable, and that people learning them could benefit from Anki decks. I think the best way to make these Anki decks is a wiki-style collaborative effort.

Exactly the right avenue. Unfortunately, Anki typically uses its own idiosyncratic data format that's not very handy for this kind of thing, but it's possible to export and import decks to text, as it turns out.

The issue with this is that if you're months into studying a deck and you'd like to merge edits from other contributors, I'm not certain that you simultaneously import the edits and keep all of your progress.

Even so, the text deck route has the most promise as far as I can tell.

I think that Quantified Mind provides some high-value tests. So long as you're willing to sit down and take a test, you can get data on:

• Reaction Time
• Visuo-spacial memory
• Executive Function
• Working Memory
• Verbal learning
• Motor function

Also, looking at what Gwern tracks, it seems helpful to have long-run data on subjective mood and energy. I randomly sample myself on that with PACO. PACO can allow you to poll yourself on any kind of thing you can imagine, like whether you're sitting, standing, or walking, or whether you're in public or private.

Edit: A... (read more)

So, as I've heard Mike Munger explain it, fairness is evolution's solution to the equilibrium outcome selection problem. "Solution to the what?" you ask. This would be easy to explain if you're familiar with the Edgeworth box.

In a simplified economy consisting of two people and two goods, where the two people have some combination of different tastes and different initial baskets of things. Suppose that you have 20 oranges and 5 apples, and that I have 3 oranges and 30 apples, and that we each prefer more even numbers of fruits than either extrem... (read more)

Does anyone know of a way to collaboratively manage a flashcard deck in Anki or Mnemosyne? Barring that, what are my options so far as making it so?

Even if only two people are working on the same deck, the network effects of sharing cards makes the card-making process much cheaper. Each can edit the cards made by the other, they can divide the effort between the two of them, and they reap the benefit of insightful cards they might not have made themselves.

Does anyone else here have bizarre/hacky writing habits?

I discovered Amphetype, a learn-to-type application that allows you to type passages from anything that you get as a text file. But I've started to use it to randomly sample excerpts from my own writing. The process of re-typing it word for word makes me actually re-process it, mentally speaking, and I often find myself compelled to actually re-write something upon having re-typed it.

Something similar that I've had positive results with is to print out a draft, open a new file, and make myself transcribe the new draft to a new file.

I was about to post a comment that said the same!

True. It seems like the great-papers avenue is being pursued full-steam these days with MIRI, but I wonder if they're going to run out of low-hanging fruit to publish, or if mainstream academia is going to drag their heels replying to them.

Well, yes, there is going to be some inevitable crap, but the purpose of signalling is so that you could impress a much larger pool of people. So it might not be much help for gossip journalists, but it might help with the marginal professional ethicist, mathematician, or public figure. In that area, you might get some additional "Anybody who can do that must be damn impressive.". Does the additional damn-impressive outweigh the cost? I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

I'm not certain that getting a degree now counts as the traditional route. Also, I don't think that an additional degree is particularly damaging to his image. People aren't going to lose interest in FAI if he sells out and gets a traditional degree. Or they are and I have no idea what kind of people are involved.

Impressing Thiel is independent of a future degree or not, because he's already impressed. Where's the next billionaire going to come from, and will they coincidentally also be as contrarian as Thiel? Maybe MIRI doesn't need another billionaire, but I don't think they'd turn one away.

Eddie has some math talent. He can invest some time, money, and effort C to get a degree, which allows other people to discern that he has a higher probability of having that math talent. This higher probability confers some benefit in that other people will more readily take his advice in mathematical matters, or talk with him about his math.

The fun twist is that Eddie lives in a society with many other individuals with varying degrees of math talent, each of whom can expend C to get a degree and the associated benefits. People with almost no mathematical... (read more)

Even if you know that signaling is stupid, it doesn't escape the cost of not signaling.

It's a longstanding trope that Eliezer gets a lot of flack for having no formal education. Formal education is not the only way to gain knowledge, but it is a way of signaling knowledge, and it's not very easy to fake (Not so easy to fake that it falls apart as a credential on its own). Has anyone toyed around with the idea of sending him off to get a math degree somewhere? He might learn something, and if not it's a breezy recap of what he already knows. He comes out t... (read more)

Am I mistaken, or is this a case of Coasian bargaining?

I attended a talk by Julian Savulescu today, and I'm typing up some notes for a discussion-level post.

On the form, there is a question about Nicotine Usage. Is nicotine usage being conflated with smoking here?

Vs V'z guvaxvat pbeerpgyl, lneqf hfrq gb or ragveryl qveg, fhpu gung vs lbh fcevaxyrq gur lneq jvgu jngre, lbh pbhyq nibvq evfvat qhfg.

A very small number of people read LW, and a fraction of those people are going to apply any status hacks. Only a small number of people are going to apply status hacks, and they are the people who are diligent enough to research and implement them.

Posting such hacks is not going to push everyone to universally adopt them and return everyone to the previous status quo.

I was excited to program this myself and you beat me to it!

Thanks! This will beat doing the random draw by hand.

Also, reading here, I get the sense that this isn't the first time minocycline has been used to aid sober decision making.

Scientists think the drug may clear the brain of distractions like, in this case, arousal, to improve focus for making rational decisions. And these scientists aren’t the first to show that the antibiotic has effects other than getting rid of zits. Other studies have demonstrated that minocycline can improve patients’ focus on social cues, encourage sober decision making and improve the symptoms associated with schizophrenia and depre

All right, where can I commit time-sensitive monetary rewards to those working on this? I'd like to see it done by next week, and I'd like to see it by about $50.

Did you ever look into this more?

Where do you get your jokes? I thought of this myself, but I only have a few, and I'm not sure where to find more.

Seconded. I'd love a decent incremental reading capability.

I watched an awesome movie, and now I'm coasting in far mode. I really like being in far mode, but is this useful? What if I don't want to lose my awesome-movie high?

Are there some things that far mode is especially good for? Should I be managing finances in this state? Reading a textbook? Is far mode instrumentally valuable in any way? Or should I make the unfortunate transition back to near mode?