If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
Pearl has a new book out: Causal Inference in Statistics: A Primer (with Glymour and Jewell also as authors), already available on Kindle and paperback coming out the 26th. You can find the Table of Contents and chapter previews here.
At 150 pages, 4 chapters, and with homework exercises, this looks like the introductory causality work that I've wanted to exist for a few years.
I recently attended a 10 day intensive Vipassana meditation retreat. Would a write-up of the experience be something LWers are interested in as an article for discussion?
I had minimal to moderate experience in meditation before this but now feel much more comfortable with it. I can see potential rationality relevance through,
* Discipline
* Concentration
* Emotion and habit regulation
* Seeing reality as it is
If there is interest then I would appreciate it if someone is willing to look over a draft of the article for me as I haven't written for LW before.
I just attended one too! I am composing a post on this, about halfway done. I'd be interested in a collaboration where we both talk about our experiences, though I would like to see what you think. My post is laden with my own interpretations. Send me a message if you want to discuss once you have your outline down
A cautionary statement about betting on your beliefs from Tyler Cowen:
Bryan Caplan is pleased that he has won his bet with me, about whether unemployment will fall under five percent. ... The Benthamite side of me will pay Bryan gladly, as I don’t think I’ve ever had a ten dollar expenditure of mine produce such a boost in the utility of another person.
That said, I think this episode is a good example of what is wrong with betting on ideas. Betting tends to lock people into positions, gets them rooting for one outcome over another, it makes the denouement of the bet about the relative status of the people in question, and it produces a celebratory mindset in the victor. That lowers the quality of dialogue and also introspection, just as political campaigns lower the quality of various ideas — too much emphasis on the candidates and the competition.
Seems like a problem that could be solved by making more bets.
If you only make one bet, you have either 0% or 100% success rate, and neither reflects how good you actually are.
Yes. I can understand feeling locked in if you only make 1 bet every few years and it's extremely high profile, and you make it part of your identity. But I can't imagine feeling like that in any of my IEM or GJP trades (or even my PB predictions!), since I was taking positions in a number of markets and could regularly back off or take the other side when the price changed to something I disagreed with; there you are encouraged to disidentify with trades as much as possible and take an outside view where you're just making one of many calibrated predictions.
This is definitely a flaw of rare high-stakes high-transaction-cost interpersonal betting: they're good for calling 'bullshit!' but not so good for less charged broader aggregation and elicitation of views. This is something PB is good at, and a distributed prediction market might be even better at.
I just got the weirdest piece of direct messaging spam from a 0 karma account:
Hi good day. My boss is interested on donating to MIRI's project and he is wondering if he could send money through you and you donate to miri through your company and thus accelertaing the value created. He wants to use "match donations" as a way of donating thats why he is looking for people in companies like you. I want to discuss more about this so if you could see this message please give me a reply. Thank you!
I'm not sure exactly what the scam is in the above,...
Likely a scam whereby he transfers money and then tells you to transfer some money back to him. Afterwards the first transaction get's flagged as fraud and you lose the money from the first transaction.
On the betting market PredictIt you can by a contract for 38 cents that pays $1 if the Democratic party doesn't win the next U.S. presidential election. This seems like an amazingly good bet. (I have 1158 shares) Do others who follow U.S. politics agree that the chance of the Democrats not winning the election is well above 38%?
I haven't reviewed the slack posts recently; I wanted to briefly say that there are 250 people who have joined now. They are not all active; but still it's going strong.
I think my girlfriend needs psychiatric help - she has visual hallucinations and other symptoms I've promised to keep confidential. She doesn't want to see a psychiatrist, as she and her family attribute her symptoms to supernatual causes; they believe that the "spirits" she sees actually exist. (Another family member - not a blood relative - also has psychiatric symptoms that are being treated and managed.) I really don't want to go into further details because one time I promised not to tell my psychiatrist about her issues and then told him an...
It's going to be hard on you and worse on her if you stay together and you can't respect her beliefs and behaviors. Best outcome is to have a confrontation and get her some help, second best is for her to reject you and your help directly enough for you to get out. Worst is to silently allow her to hurt herself and blame yourself about it.
Also, you should decide in advance what you'll put up with, and set some lines you won't cross. It's very easy for this to gradually get worse and worse and you'll feel trapped by previous acceptance.
Building story, seeking comments
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XcgNwELHCU-r7GuYUgDNDDIviThd8Y7Bdto_kMIcmlI/edit
I'm most of the way done putting together a design-doc for a story, and could use some feedback to help make sure no idiot balls are being held. Please feel free to go over what I've pinned down so far, and to comment there or here.
Seen on MR: the Conspira-Sea Cruise, through the eyes of a skeptical journalist. (It's exactly what it sounds like: a 7-day cruise for believers in conspiracy theories.)
What is the central claim in Buddhism?
...In Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāḷi) are the five functions or aspects that constitute the sentient being. In English, these five aspects are known as the five aggregates. The five aggregates are: material form, feelings, perception, volition (sometimes translated as mental formations), and sensory consciousness. Considering that the five aggregates continuously arise and cease within our moment-to-moment experience, the Buddha teaches that nothing among them is really
Yvain's 2016 nootropics survey has opened: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DFP4bSS00i_zQJ3nlw8KJxhUJjmrH9DA8cq0BsQciOc/viewform
The previous survey's data & results: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/16/nootropics-survey-results-and-analysis/
Seeking socio-econo-political organizing methods
How many useful ways are there for an uploaded mind, an em, to organize copies of itself to maximize the accuracy of their final predictions?
The few that I've been able to think of:
Why does GiveWell prefer dalys to qalys?
If GiveWell cared more about QALY's than DALY's, would their recommendations be different?
Is there an argument that society undervalues and/or underfunded paternalistic preventative health interventions for the wrong reasons? Is there a compelling reason that normal market forces will not solve the task of preventative health?
Should I be an organ donor? Should I tell others to be donors? Should you be a donor?
Two studies report on the QALY impact of organ donation in the Cost Effectiveness Analysis Registry. Whiting et al (2004) Canadian study reports that kidney transplantation alone results in a gain of 1.99 QALYs over a 20-year time compared with waiting on dialysis. Kontodimopoulos and Niakis's (2008) Greek study reports a 16.11-4.37=11.74 and 16.11-3.94=12.17 for the Lifelong QALY difference for hemiodialysis and peritoneal dialysis respectively against renal replacement t...
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.
In general, hypothesis testing is overrated and hypothesis generation is underrated
An interesting discussion -- in the comments -- about meta-uncertainty or probabilities of probabilities. I say it's turtles all the way down :-)
Just to orient my exposition, which one do you prefer: the long or the short explanation?
The longer one:
"Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are models of computation that simulate the way the neural tissue in animals computes.
Neural tissue is made up by a large number of interconnected neurons: each neuron is a cell which has numerous locations, called synapses, that receive the electrochemical signals of hundred or thousands of other neurons. When the combined potential of all those rises above a certain threshold, a chemical transmissions is initiated...
Why do people spend much, much more time worrying about their retirement plans than the intelligence explosion if they are a similar distance in the future? I understand that people spend less time worrying about the intelligence explosion than what would be socially optimal because the vast majority of its benefits will be in the very far future, which people care little about. However, it seems probable that the intelligence explosion will still have a substantial effect on many people in the near-ish future (within the next 100 years). Yet, hardly anyone worries about it. Why?
Tonight I was feeling really depressed. Then I thought I would feel better if I donated to GiveDirectly, in the knowledge that their research supports improvements in psychological distress for the recipient population. Maybe regular donation could be tested for treatment for low mood? If that was the case, maybe governments would subsidise it just like they do other psychiatric interventions.
The correlates of war dataset. Now discussions about military interventions can go beyond our interventions, single case examples and personal reference experiences.
Would anyone be willing to look at humanitarian interventions from an effective altruism angle? Since the Open Philanthropy Project doesn't even have a shallow investigation of the topic, donors, researchers and advocates might be missing quite an important cause.
If someone is anti-consumerism, pro-animal welfare and pro-internationalism where do they belong, politically?
...Although popular opinion believes that Prohibition failed, it succeeded in cutting overall alcohol consumption in halfduring the 1920s, and consumption remained below pre-Prohibition levels until the 1940s, suggesting that Prohibition did socialize a significant proportion of the population in temperate habits, at least temporarily. Some researchers contend that its political failure is attributable more to a changing historical context than to characteristics of the law itself. Criticism remains that Prohibition led to unintended consequences such as the
http://www.metaculus.com/questions/ seems to be a good successor to predictionbook. Does anybody know who's responsible for it?
A US based philanthropic organisation is very keen to fund me for something here in Australia. They have a shit-tonne of money. Though, it's not in a uncertain effectiveness cause error (GiveWell says they aren't ready release their OPP report on it yet). It's stressful pitching this opportunity for career capital against the impact I could have putting my time and resources in an 'effective' cause area. If I assume effectiveness will become increasingly valued in the world, taking their funds (which isn't even diverting it from better causes since it's ca...
I'm thinking a bit about AI safety lately as I'm considering writing about it for one of my college classes.
I'm hardly heavy into AI safety research and so expect flaws and mistaken assumptions in these ideas. I would be grateful for corrections.
An AI told to make people smile tiles the world with smiley faces but an AI told to do what humans would want it to do might still get it wrong eg. Failed Utopia #4-2 . However, wouldn't it research further and correct itself (and before that, have care to not do something un-correctable)? Reasoning as follows: l
Interpersonal
- Socialize with close others.
- Associate with happy people.
- Give the people around you opportunities to be generous. Ask them for favors.
- Be actively kind (and occasionaly reminisce about your recent acts of kindness).
Whenever I used to think of nationalising industries, I would think of industries relating to critical infrastructure or 'prestige industries'. Reading the following threw my intuitions overboard!
A tobacco industry buy-out
...In the current model, the tobacco industry has a corporate mission of selling unhealthy products so as to profit its shareholders. Its aims and purposes are intrinsically misaligned with the public good and will ever remain so. However, if the tobacco industry were nationalised, with the intent of winding down operations, the interests
Raising for Effective Giving did it for Poker Players. Could this kinda outreach be done with any profession?
I'm trying to live by Selgiman's PERMA positive psychology heuristic.
...The question that Seligman seems to have borrowed from Aristotle is: What is the good that we choose for its own sake rather than because it makes a contribution to something else that we value? Aristotle’s answer was happiness. Aristotle also asked another question: What is the good that when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing? I think he meant: What is it that makes life meaningful? Again, Aristotle’s answer is happiness. But, what Aristotle meant by happiness was mo
The most ''authoritative'' study on the relationship between mobile phone use and cancer is industry funded, and both meta-analyses, case-study and the IARC warn of the dangers of mobile phone use, while most government guidelines are rather complacent on the issue, and refer to the authority of the industry-funded study
...Mobile phones use electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range (450–2100 MHz). Other digital wireless systems, such as data communication networks, produce similar radiation.
In 2011, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
Interesting thoughts this week
Are there handy references (like an app) that can output the following, given a particularly growing region, rather than have me have to look it all up individually? Crop, Soil, Harvest season, Sunlight, Pest control, Sowing season, Water and Spacing?
*
Of all DSM conditions, I reckon people with scrupolosity would have the worst insight (self awareness). Moreso than those with chronic pyschotic disorders. Too bad there's no literature on the topic. It's probably because it's so hard to identify scrupulotes, both because of that...
Are there handy references (like an app) that can output the following, given a particularly growing region, rather than have me have to look it all up individually? Crop, Soil, Harvest season, Sunlight, Pest control, Sowing season, Water and Spacing?
Available evidence suggests that limiting access to alcohol on campus through campus-wide bans may decrease the frequency of alcohol use and heavy drinking, but may not reduce binge drinking (Wechsler 2001a)
Do you think universities should ban, or at least restrict funding to alcohol consumption on campuses?
Dagon's points are very good. There's another aspect as well:
Tobacco import and distribution (and in some cases, production) are already nationalized in many countries, especially in the EU. National governments try to impose artificial scarcity (winding down operations, tax increases, fixed pricing), and this makes the statistics look better - officially monitored tobacco sales decrease.
Artificial scarcity cannot last: a black market of RYO tobacco, and home-made cigarettes of dubious origin is always ready to serve customer demands. In the end, the health effects of nationalizing the tobacco industry, and winding down operations, can easily be negative.
Australia has a track record of doing a better job of enforcing bans than other countries. It's a island.