Hey everyone! I'm Birdy, and currently in my second-to last-year of Germany's equivalent of high school.

I've discovered LessWrong only about two months ago, after I saw someone mention HPMOR in their "top-ten-lifechanger-books ever"-list in a reddit thread. Needless to say, I was really confused and curious, because what crazy kind of fanfiction permanently affects people's lives? So I looked it up online, and started reading. I stumbled upon LessWrong shortly after, while going down the rationality-rabbithole a bit further. And so, here I am, and genuinely believe that discovering this place is one of the greatest things to happen to me so far.

Arriving here felt like seeing sense in the world for the first time; my parents and brother aren't involved in science or academics at all (unless you count the "alternative medicine" and pseudo-science my mum regularly gets from facebook). I genuinely wasn't aware there even was a place like LessWrong, or that discussions could even be so civil, reasonable and informative.

I know I still have a lot to learn, even more to un-learn, but I'm looking forward to the journey. Two months already made me notice countless small, positive changes in the way I think and see myself and the world. (The only troublesome side effect: school has become much less tolerable as a whole. I'm truly trying to get through it with top grades, but now that I see how much time I waste there, it's much harder to try and be interested in the actual material...)

When I was fourteen, I decided to become a politician; mostly out of frustration with where the world is headed, and how little I could to prevent it. I'm still very much interested in trying to help save the world from going to hell in the next few decades, but I'm very uncertain as to whether or not my current job aspirations are really the best way to reach that goal.

Regardless; I'm very glad to be here, and excited to contribute in whichever way I can.

Hello there! I'm Kaloyan ("Kalo") and I recently joined LessWrong. I was reminded of the platform's existence in an episode of the Your Undivided Attention podcast. I actually first found the site a couple of years ago (can't even remember how -- searching for Zettelkasten content perhaps?), but did not get involved because I found it very overwhelming. In fact, I still do -- there is so much content, on so many topics I believe to be important, that it feels impossible to become a part of the community. I realize that's just my little voice of worry talking, so now I'm on a mission to prove myself wrong, starting with this post.

I was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria and recently graduated from the University of Southampton (UK) with a BSc in Computer Science. After working on my dissertation in my final year, I was inspired to further my research into complex networks and evolutionary game theory, which is what I am doing right now. I am also applying for PhDs and Masters in Europe, hoping to move to a new country soon.

Other than that, I spend a lot of time working on my personal development and the quality of my work. I enjoy experimenting with my productivity, I feel in my element when working to understand and explain complex topics, and I'm just starting to dip my toes into some popular philosophy. I enjoy writing and want to become a better communicator (I've started off by writing on Medium).

Now before I go, here's a flurry of random facts: I did Kung Fu for two years, I am addicted to in love with green tea, the best shows I've seen in the past few years are Dark and Lupin, I have started my own company that failed silently, and if I wasn't doing research I'd become a data artist.

Looking forward to taking part in the conversations on LessWrong. See you in the comments!

Greetings, LWers!

I've finally found the time made up my mind to write this, so here I am.

I've noticed that many new members have stumbled upon the rationalist community because of HPMOR. As I never read fanfiction sites (or sites talking about fanfiction sites), my case was quite different. For some reason I distinctly remember the ridiculously long chain of links that brought me here, so I'll post the whole list just to give an idea of how long it can take to realize the existence of a site like LessWrong:

1. Search for insights about the P=NP conjecture during my PhD.
2. Find the P-versus-NP page, a very good summary that also links to this excellent post by Scott Aaronson.
3. Start reading Scott Aaronson's blog.
4. Scott Aaronson mentions Unsong (in this post).
5. Start reading Unsong.
6. Return reading Scott Aaronson's blog.
7. Scott Aaronson dedicate this post to the infamous NYT article about Scott Alexander.
8. Fail to realize that Scott Alexander is the author of Unsong.
9. Scott Aaronson directly quote I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup (in this post).
10. Follow the link and read my first SSC post.
11. Start reading SSC from some top posts.
12. Still fail to realize that Scott Alexander is the author of Unsong.
13. Finally notice the "Scott also writes Unsong" note in the about page.
14. Continue reading SSC.
15. SSC mentions LessWrong.
16. Finally land on LW frontpage.
17. Start reading the Sequences.
18. Start reading the Codex.
19. Start reading HPMOR (directly from LW).
20. Finally sign up (after several months of lurking).

I'm not sure about which conclusion we can draw from this. Maybe that wondering about P=NP has a small chance of making you a better rationalist. Maybe that you can spend more than one year following a computer scientist professor who declares himself on the fringes of the “rationalist movement” without realizing that a rationalist movement even exists (in my defense, I started reading Shtetl-Optimized in mid-2019, and I didn't exactly dig through the older posts... still, it took me more than one year to finally land on LW). In hindsight, many posts from Scott Aaronson are quite obviously related to rationalist concepts. For example, I first learned about the classical paperclip maximizer from Shtetl-Optimized (here), but even googling "paperclip maximizer" I didn't land on the rationalist blogosphere. I just learned the paperclip maximizer classical description. It may be worth mentions that after reading the relevant Wikipedia entry, my first thought was "an amoral paperclip maximizer can fit perfectly into my Planescape campaign", which indicates that maybe I'm a bit too much addicted to D&D.

Hi! I'm Helaman Wilson, I'm living in New Zealand with my physicist father, almost-graduated-molecular-biologist mother, and six of my seven siblings.

I've been homeschooled as in "given support, guidance, and library access" for essentially my entire life, which currently clocks in at nearly twenty two years from birth. I've also been raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and, having done my best to honestly weigh the evidence for its' doctrine-as-I-understand-it, find myself a firm believer.

I found the Rational meta-community via the TvTropes>HPMOR chain, but mostly stayed peripheral due to Reddit's TOS, the lack of fiction community on LessWrong, and somewhat-borne-out concerns that I would not actually be accepted here. I was an active participant in Marked for Death, but left over GMing disagreements about two years in.

My biggest present concern with LessWrong as a community is the Karma system, which is not only one-dimensional, but not even a specific axis. I don't mind one-dimensional praise, but I hate inarticulate criticism. Deeply awful feeling. I always try to give my best effort, you know?

If you want to place me elsewhere, it's almost always a variant of Horatio Von Becker, or LordVonBecker on Giant in the Playground, due to the shorter character limit.

I would like if there was a well-researched LessWrong post on the pros and cons of different contraceptives. - Same deal with a good post on how to treat or prevent urinary tract infection, although I'm less excited about that.

• I'd be willing to pay some from my private money for this to get done. Maybe up to £1000? Open to considering higher amounts.
• It would mostly be a public service as I'm kind of fine with my current contraception. So, I'm also looking for people to chip in (either to offer more money or just to take some of the monetary burden off me!)

Examples of content that I would like to see included:

• Clarity on the contraception and depression question. e.g. apparently theory says that hormonal IUDs should give you less depression risk than pills, but in empirical studies it looks like it's the other way around? Can I trust the studies?
• Some perspective on the trade-offs involved. E.g. maybe I can choose between a 5% increased chance of depression vs. a 100% increased chance of blood clots. But maybe basically no one gets blood clots anyway, and then I'd rather take the increased blood clot risk! But because the medical system cares more about death than me, my doctor will never recommend me the blood clot one, or something like that.
• If there wasn't already a post on this (but I think there is), info on that it's totally fine to *not* take 7 day pill breaks every months, but that you can just take the pill all the time. (Although I think it might be recommended to take a short break every X months)
• Some realistic outlook on how much pain and effects on menstruation I should expect
• Various potential benefits from contraceptives aside from contraception
• On the UTI side: Is the cranberry stuff a myth or is it a myth that it's a myth or is it a myth that it's a myth that it's a myth?

Alternatively: If there actually already are really good resources on this topic out there, please let me know!

Hello! I've been lurking for a little while but finally decided to create an account. Mostly because I had questions. But before I ask them, my name is Max, I'm 18 years old and I want to do science for living. I haven't decided yet what exact area is the most appealing to me, but one of those that I really like is theoretical astronomy (not sure if I spelled it right, since English isn't my native language). I came here from the hpmor podcast and I'm really glad that I have discovered this community of like-minded people, thanks to you. So, to my questions. One of them is - what are the posts here? Like, are they just random user's thoughts or some scientific articles, both? I've read "humans are not automatically strategic" or something like that and the post that it was referring to, from that I've got the idea that people here are exchanging their thoughts on certain subjects, trying to learn more about them. But still I don't exactly understand how posts work, like some of them are pinned and recommend, some aren't. Anyway, if you could explain how things work around here, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you all once again.

Hi!

I'm Daniel. I'm living in Japan and currently working on a SaaS as a CTO of a startup. I have a blockchain background as well. Specifically, I used to develop smart contracts on Ethereum. Which kind of let me to this community. I found this community through the podcast show Rationally Speaking, which I  found when Vitalik Buterin (co-founder of Ethereum) was on it.

I’m a self-taught programmer so I don’t have experience in academia but I would like to be involved in this community and academia in general.  

I'm interested in a lot of topics that are talked about in this community, but I would especially like to learn more about how academia works, and what the dynamics are like in the context of the relation to startups, scientific/technological evolution, and evolution of society in general.
I was born in Canada and moved to Japan when I was one year old, so I'm looking forward to being involved with the LW community in Japan as well!

Are we going to be doing Petrov Day this year? I don't see anything currently about it here.

I'm trying to find an article on lesswrong? I swear I read but can't find via google.

It was a different analogy around Chesterton's fence where the town comes together to discuss a recently erected lamp post. Everyone is unhappy for different reasons. Some people want it to be taller and brighter some people want it to be shorter and dimmer and some people want it removed so they can do evil things in the dark. Then a monk appears and tells everyone what they need to do is think about what it means to have light. 

Then a mob forms, tears the light post down, someone gets stabbed maybe or robbed. And then everyone has to sit there and think about what happened, and what it means to have light, but now they have to do it in the dark.

Did I dream this up? I can't find it anywhere.

Hi, 

I discovered LessWrong last week, coming across a link to this post by @johnswentworth; Core Pathways of Aging - LessWrong It was sent to me by a kind stranger on the lifespan discord, where I was looking for science based methods of increasing healthy lifespan.

So far I have found the field of longevity extremely difficult to navigate. Research papers, commercial interests and anecdotal evidence are mixed togheter in one big bowl.  Everyone is selling a book, youtube channel, podcast or supplement.  

It reminds me of walking down a street of resteaurants with barkers trying to entice entice passersby (usually tourists) to come in to dine. As one could expect, the food is overly priced and of poor quality. 

The excellent text by johnswentworth led me to read a lot more of the articles posted on lesswrong and I truly enjoy the calm, rational and intelligent texts. To search for the truth, admitting when one is in doubt and stribing to be objective. 

Truly a fresh breath of air in my badly polluted environment. 

I intend to use this site for self-improvement, especially english language and try to learn methods for solving complex problems and process-optimization in the factory where I work. 

Thank you all. 

Some readers might have noticed that “Rough notes on the Sam Altman Q&A: GPT and AGI” is not currently on the site. The LW team has taken it down as a default while we and the author can decide whether it should be posted or not, given that maybe Sam requested that things like this not be shared and we generally ought to respect such requests.

There are a few important principles in conflict around the publishing of this post. I'm trying to figure out where the balance lies. Ideally I’d write up the current state of my thinking, but doing so is proving to be equivalent to reaching the final state of my thinking, so it’ll have to wait a bit longer.

Question on LW norms: When do you strongly upvote your own comments? Never? Always? If you're very confident in the comment? If you think the comment is particularly valuable? If the comment was time-consuming to write?

I remember someone (Paul Christiano, I think?) commenting somewhere on LessWrong, saying that Ian Goodfellow got the first GAN working the on the same day that he had the idea, with a link to an article.

Does anyone happen to remember that comment, or have a link to that article?

Any chance we could get a "book review" icon to decorate post titles in lists so that people don't feel they need to flag them with "[book review]..."? This could be based on the presence of the "book review" tag.

Hello, I would like to ask whether there is any summary/discussion of necessary/sufficient criteria according to which a reason for whatever (belief, action, goal, ...) is sufficient. If not, I would like to discuss it.