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Sam Harris' TED talk on AGI existential risk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZhGkKFH1x0&feature=youtu.be
ETA: It's been taken down, probably so TED can upload it on their own channel. Here's the audio in the meantime: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5xcnhOBS2UhZXpyaW9YR3hHU1k
Being around here has made me think that I know everything interesting about the world and suppressed my excitement and joy from many minor things I could do. I also feel like my sense of wonder diminished. As I write this, I am a little unhappy, and in a period of depression, but I had similar feelings, if less intense, even before this period.
I was wondering whether you have any advice on how to restore this; or even better, how to "forget" as much rationality and transhumanism as possible (if not actually forgetting, then at least "to think and feel as I did before I read the Sequences")?
Transposon Theory Of Aging, some more support.
"As cells get older, prior studies have shown, tightly wound heterochromatin wrapping that typically imprisons transposons becomes looser, allowing them to slip out of their positions in chromosomes and move to new ones, disrupting normal cell function. Meanwhile, scientists have shown that potentially related interventions, such as restricting calories or manipulating certain genes, can demonstrably lengthen lifespans in laboratory animals."
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/a_transposon_theory_of_aging-180287
report at PNAS, but link not provided.
Time to rebuild a library
My 5 terabyte harddrive went poof this morning, and silly me hadn't bought data-recovery insurance. Fortunately, I still have other copies of all my important data, and it'll just take a while to download everything else I'd been collecting.
Which brings up the question: What info do you feel it's important to have offline copies of, gathered from the whole gosh-dang internet? A recent copy of Wikipedia and the Project Gutenberg DVD are the obvious starting places... which other info do you think pays the rent of its storage space?
KIC 8462852 models that fit Kepler observations quite well
"I have proposed a type of model that is mathematically simple and, with slight variations, is able to produce excellent fits for all the major brightness drops observed in Tabby's star. If this is the correct type of model — its goodness of fit is highly encouraging — the following hypotheses should be considered:
1) Tabby's star has one ore more partially constructed Niven Rings. All partial rings are likely in the same orbital plane and possibly the same orbit.
2) Tabby's star hosts a Dyson Sw...
Long-term consequences of observing an expanding cosmological civilization.
"What sort of boundary forms between their expanding domains, and how does the presence of one limit the ambitions of another? "
"If a domain is visible at the time one embarks on expansion, there exists an optimum value for the "practical speed limit," and if the speed limit is much higher than optimal, one's future will be severely limited. In the case of two visible domains, it is possible to be "trapped" by them if the practical speed limit is h...
The Neural Network Zoo
A visual characterization of most neural models, with brief descriptions.
Four Basic Personality Types Identified: Pessimistic; Optimistic; Envious And Trusting
A study on human behavior has revealed that 90% of the population can be classified into four basic personality types: Optimistic, Pessimistic, Trusting and Envious. However, the latter of the four types, Envious, is the most common, with 30% compared to 20% for each of the other groups.
http://www.science20.com/print/180407
Well, well, where have we seen this before? Looks like it's not just an altruism gene....
Is the NEET lifestyle of welfare more pleasant for the individual than a working life?
Genetic Engineering to Clash With Evolution, (gene drive modeling)
But wild populations may resist gene drives in unpredictable ways. “We know from past experiences that mosquitoes, especially the malaria mosquitoes, have such peculiar biology and behavior,” Those mosquitoes are much more resilient than we make them. And engineering them will prove more difficult than we think.” In fact, such unpredictability could likely be found in any species.
"Nonhomologous end joining is a recipe for resistance. Because the CRISPR system is designed to locate a spe...
So, I was trying to figure out exactly what Socrates was doing, and think I figured it out. But it made me realize I don't know how induction (deriving from inductive reasoning) works.
Socratic questioning:
You take someone's claim, induce(derive by inductive reasoning) a general principle, deduct a different claim from the same principle, disprove the new example, this disproves the general principle, which leaves the original claim unsupported. Repeat until they run out of principles, which leaves their claim ultimately unsupported.
But if someone says we s...
What does Lesswrong think of this video? What Is God? - Leo Becomes Absolute Infinity (Aka God) - All Of Reality Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VNoe5tn3tg
I also wonder: What do you think of subjective experience?
If much effort should be invested in the initial search for hypotheses/explanations, before they are weighed against each other, then how come there are apparently so few cases where more than two major hypotheses are proposed?
I mean, I don't know much about the history of physics, but I do remember being surprised by the (relatively) many models of the Structure of the Atom we heard about in chronological order. And there used to be lots more Trees of Life, back in the XIXth century. But I cannot, on the fly, think of crazy-but-who-knows things of today (well, except for the Search for Ancestors of Angiosperms, it just goes on).
Phil Metzger on building space industry arXiv
Isaac Arthur on Self Replicating Machines and Technological Singularity
Has anyone here had associations/subjective feelings about subjects of study? (Probably in high school, where the range of subjects is wide and students' attitudes depend on the teachers' images, to some degree.) I tended to like algebra, because solving equations and the like reminded me of gradual shifts of attention in yoga-style exercise - flowing, ordered and always seeking the point of balance. Geometry, I took for a much more "masculine" discipline, a form of exercise in endurance, and was not fond of it. Of course, calculus messed things up...:)
Have you ever had a moment where they could not directly recall something, but you could recall it indirectly, if you were given a list of words with the correct one in it?
I'm going to try this for myself with Anki, but I'm curious if anyone else ever had this. Something like the information is stored, but cannot be retrieved.
For example: "What is the ___ word?"
1) Right 2) Code 3) Missing 4) Test
Any of those don't seem inappropriate, but option (3) should be the correct answer.
If animals lead more happy than unhappy lives on the margin is eating them marginally good because incentivising further production? If they live unhappy lives is eating them marginally good because it expedites their good, on the margin
What's the best ways to upgrade my defence mechanisms from immature splitting and projection in addition to seeing a psychologist?
Do some people here agree with the 'prime directive' approach in general? I think its not very good myself, for the same reasons one might contact and exchange ideas with tribes that have no knowledge about the rest of the world.
A lot of things have you confused the territory being the map.
For example, that you exist, is a map.
That there is a being there, creature of some kind, it's a map.
That you have a brain.
Every. Single. Word. Is A Map.
What is the territory?
Become silent of all thoughts, without using thoughts to manipulate or lie, neither using thoughts not to manipulate or lie.
You think you are in control, thus the flow of life doesn't flow effortlessly. :)
But it's fine to let go, and be present in this moment, where there, you are, the territory, which is arational.
There w...
I think that'll be worth at least a Discussion post when you publish it, for those of us who don't keep track of every comment. :)
(Will you be including OvercomingBias?)
Yes if I finish it I will make a discussion post for it. I didn't plan on including overcoming bias, but that could be done.
If you put 4 spaces before it you can make it a codeblock which should fix it:
... (read more)