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All of mkf's Comments + Replies

If there was one element of statistical literacy that you could magically implant in every head, what would it be?
mkf20

One possible answer, related to the concept of calibration, is this: it means that it rained in 70% of the cases when you predicted 70% chance of rain.

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0Lumifer
You've defined your calibration with respect to predicting rain. But I am not interested in calibration, I'm interested in the weather tomorrow. Does the probability of rain tomorrow even exist?
A Strange Argument about the potential Importance of Multiverse Theory
mkf10

I don't think I have anything valuable to add on the object level, but: the way you introduce Christian Madsen at the end of your post doesn't really sound encouraging with regard to cooperation with you. You guys should work on a better elevator pitch.

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1mako yass
You might be right about that. (For the record, I didn't write Christian's bio. To be completely honest, it was written more to reduce the chance of him ever getting mythologized than it was to sell the project. I did not write this to spread the idea. More than anything, I wrote this hoping it'd find its way to someone who could break it, then fade away.)
"The Difference Between Medicine and Poison is Dosage" Shirts and Bags
mkf100

Sorry to be blunt, but I find them simply ugly. This many fonts and effects make text hard to read and look like someone's first engagement with MS Word when they were 12.

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1Gleb_Tsipursky
Thanks for that feedback, really helpful - appreciate the bluntness :-) I'll take that feedback back to our designer.
Open thread, Oct. 26 - Nov. 01, 2015
mkf30

The All-Nighter Experiment: What Worked and What Didn't

"I spent a week researching the best advice I could find from seasoned bankers, "Hackathon" sleep doctors, and the military elite. Then I stayed up all-night and experimented on myself, trying the techniques and figuring out what worked and what didn't.

Even though I'm self-employed and I set my own "deadlines", I still chose to stay up for 36 hours straight. I don't know if that makes me crazy, or dedicated, or maybe crazy dedicated... probably just crazy.

This post contains the... (read more)

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3Richard_Kennaway
Just take a modafinil in the evening.
Deliberate Grad School
mkf40

PhD programs in mathematics, statistics, philosophy, and theoretical computer science tend to give you a great deal of free time and flexibility, provided you can pass the various qualifying exams without too much studying.

Economics also has good opinion among the EA/rationality crowd:

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Is Scott Alexander bad at math?
mkf30

Mostly his self-description, like here.

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0Kenny
Thanks. A great quote from the link: I would guess myself that someone able to write the game theory sequences he wrote is someone able to fit all of the relevant concepts together like LEGOs.
May 2015 Media Thread
mkf10

Recent sequence on mathematical ability and Scott A. being bad at math (or is he?) reminded me of this short story (possibly nonfiction), which I recommend: Bad At Math by Alone a.k.a. The Last Psychiatrist. http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/03/bad_at_math.html

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Stupid Questions May 2015
mkf140

By the way, it is one of the best examples I've seen of quick, practical gains from reading LW: the ability to sort out problems like this.

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Viliam100

This. After reading the Sequences, many things that seemed like "important complicated questions" before are now reclassified as "obvious confusions in thinking".

Even before reading Sequences I was already kinda supsicious that something is wrong when the long debates on such questions do not lead to meaningful answers, despite the questions do not contain any difficult math or any experimentally expensive facts. But I couldn't transform this suspicion into an explanation of what exactly was wrong; so I didn't feel certain about it myse... (read more)

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Stupid Questions May 2015
mkf40

Could you elaborate?

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6IlyaShpitser
Sure. I am not an MD, but this is my view as an outsider: the medical profession is quite conservative, and people that publish medical papers have an incentive to publish "fast and loose," and not necessarily be very careful (because hey you can just write another paper later if a better method comes along!) ---------------------------------------- Because medicine deals with people, you often can't do random treatment assignment in your studies (for ethical reasons), so you often have evidence in the form of observational data, where you have a ton of confounding of various types. Causal inference can help people make use of observational data properly. This is important -- most data we have is observational. And if you are not careful, you are going to get garbage from it. For example, there was a fairly recent paper by Robins et al. that basically showed that their way of adjusting for confounding in observational data was correct because they reproduced a result found in an RCT. There is room both for people to go to graduate school and work on new methods for properly dealing with observational data for drawing causal conclusions, and for popularizers. Popularizing this stuff is a lot of what Pearl does, and is also partly the purpose of Hernan's and Robin's new book: https://www.facebook.com/causalinference ---------------------------------------- Full disclosure: obviously this is my area, so I am going to say that. So don't take my word for it :).
Truth is holistic
mkf30

You should definitely post it as a top-level post in Main.

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Open Thread, Apr. 06 - Apr. 12, 2015
mkf40

Why exactly did Eliezer stop writing here and started writing his new articles (on intelligent characters in fiction, angel investing etc.) on Facebook or Tumblr instead?

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1ChristianKl
There are probably multiple reasons. One that I remember him giving was that on Facebook he can simply ban people he doesn't like in a way that he can't here.
1Viliam
The nature of feedback was his explanation if I remember correctly. More friendly reactions on other places. Also, on his private pages he can simply remove any reactions he dislikes without worrying and debating about whether he is abusing his powers. I think that LessWrong does not feel for Eliezer anymore like "just me and my friends" (unlike e.g. Facebook), but more like a public place where he is judged, and where people are waiting like hungry sharks (my metaphor, not his) to get some contrarian points by finding some flaw in something he wrote. (Also the online bullying on RationalWiki about "basilisk", where he will be forever criticized for removing some comments years ago. If he removes comments from his Facebook page, there will probably be much less drama; maybe.) Simply, people are behaving less friendly towards Eliezer on LessWrong, and more friendly at other places... so, you know.
-5hairyfigment
Open Thread, Feb. 2 - Feb 8, 2015
mkf30

What's LessWrong's collective mind's opinion on efficient markets hypothesis? From Facebook feed I vaguely recall Eliezer being its supporter, it also appeared in some of the Sequences. On the other hand, there is a post published here called A guide to rational investing, which states that "the EMH is now the noble lie of the economics profession".

I have a well-read layman's understanding of both the hypothesis and various arguments for and agains it and would like to know what this community's opinion is.

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0alienist
The so-called "weak efficient market hypothesis" is more-or-less correct. The "strong efficient market hypothesis" falls apart once you attempt to taboo "efficient". Another way to phrase this is that in some strict sense market "inefficiencies" exist, finding them is a hard problem. (The general case of this problem is NP-hard.)
1emr
While we're here: How do real-world incentive structures interact with the EMH? In the same way that "No one was ever fired for buying IBM", is it true that "No one was ever fired for selling when everyone else was"? And would that mean someone without these external social incentives will have an edge on the market? For example, what about a rule like "put money into an index fund whenever the market went down for X consecutive days and everyone is sufficiently gloomy"?
2[anonymous]
My family has been investing for as far back as anyone can remember, and consistently beating the market for as far back as anyone can remember. Hell, my mother compares herself to the indices -- which makes perfect sense: if you're not beating the S&P 500, you may as well just buy whatever is on that. She's not buying whatever is on that. We have methods that have been handed down for as far back as anyone can remember, supplemented by the books that back up our methods, some of which are about exploiting systemic holes in the way large funds work -- relative legibility, inability of large funds to invest in small companies, etc. So no. (Disclaimer: I haven't invested at all because I don't have the money to. Once I have a regular and sufficiently large income, I plan to stick it in an index fund until I've joined an investment club, spent several years studying the methods, etc., and only start picking stocks after that.)
fubarobfusco130

False: There are no $20 bills lying on the ground because someone would have picked them up already.

True: If there are a lot of people scanning the ground with high-powered money detectors, you are not going to find enough $20 bills with your naked eye to make a living on.

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3Ander
I don't believe in the strong form of the efficient market hypothesis. (I agree with some weaker versions of it). If all humans made all investing decisions from a perfectly rational state, then the efficient market hypothesis would probably hold true, but in reality people sometimes become either overly confident or overly fearful, creating opportunities to exploit them by being more rational. That said, in order to beat the market you must be better than the average participant (which is a high bar), and you must be enough better that you overcome trading fees. This is similar to playing poker, you must be significantly better than the average of the other players at the table in order to beat both them and the rake. For the average person, the advice to simply buy index funds with a portion of every paycheck is the advice that will bring them the most utility, and one could be considered to be doing them a service by convincing them that the efficient market hypothesis was true, even if it isn't.
2Salemicus
As Lumifer says, the truth value of the EMH depends on the exact formulation, and there are several variations even within the typical 'strong/semi-strong/weak' divisions. But let me put it this way - I don't take people who argue against the weak-form EMH seriously, unless they own a yacht.
0Lumifer
It's debated occasionally. I don't think there is a consensus on LW. It might be useful for you to distinguish various forms of EMH (e.g. strong, semi-strong, and weak). Many people hold different opinions about different forms.
Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015
mkf-10

Why exactly would you like to avoid paying someone for hosting? It seems like a good candidate for a service to be outsourced.

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0Alsadius
I enjoy developing skills in assorted fields, and my finances are tighter than I'd like at the moment.