Bi-Weekly Rational Feed

Five Recommended Articles You Might Have Missed:

The Four Blind Men The Elephant And Alan Kay by Meredith Paterson (Status 451) - Managing technical teams. Taking a new perspective is worth 90 IQ points. Getting better enemies. Guerrilla action.

Vast Empirical Literature by Marginal REVOLUTION—Tyler’s 10 thoughts on approaching fields with large literatures. He is critical of Noah’s “two paper rule” and recommends alot of reading.

Notes From The Hufflepuff Unconference (Part 1) by Raemon (lesswrong) - Goal: Improve at: “social skills, empathy, and working together, sticking with things that need sticking with”. The article is a detailed breakdown of the unconference including: Ray’s Introductory Speech, a long list of what people want to improve on, the lightning talks, the 4 breakout sessions, proposed solutions, further plans, and closing words. Links to conference notes are included for many sections.

Antipsychotics Might Cause Cognitive Impairment by Sarah Constantin (Otium) - A harrowing personal account of losing abstract thinking ability on Risperdal. The author conducts a literature review, and concludes with some personal advice about taking medication.

Dwelling In Possibility by Sarah Constantin (Otium) - Leadership. Confidence in the face of the uncertainty and imperfection. Losing yourself when you try to step back and facilitate.

Scott:

Those Modern Pathologies by Scott Alexander—You can argue X is a modern pathology for almost any value of X. Scott demonstrates this by repeated example. Among other things “Aristotelian theory of virtue” and “Homer’s Odyssey” get pathologized.

The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project by Scott Alexander—Ashkenazi Jewish Intelligence. An explanation of Hungarian dominance in physics and science in the mid 1900s.

Classified Ads Thread by Scott Alexander—Open thread where people post ads. People are promoting their websites and some of them are posting actual job ads among other things.

Open Thread 76 by Scott Alexander—Bi-weekly Open thread.

Postmarketing Surveillance Is Good And Normal by Scott Alexander—Scott shows why a recent Scientific American study does not imply the FDA is too risky.

Epilogue by Scott Alexander (Unsong) - All’s Whale that Ends Whale.

Polyamory Is Not Polygyny by Scott Alexander—A quick review of how polyamory actually function in the rationalist community.

Bail Out by Scott Alexander—“About a fifth of the incarcerated population – the top of the orange slice, in this graph – are listed as “not convicted”. These are mostly people who haven’t gotten bail. Some are too much of a risk. But about 40% just can’t afford to pay.”

Rationalist:

Strong Men Are Socialist Reports A Study That Previously Reported The Opposite by Jacob Falkovich (Put A Number On It!) - Defense Against the Dark Statistical Arts. Jacob provides detailed commentary on a popular study and shows that the studies dataset can be used to support the opposite conclusion, with p = 0.0086.

Highly Advanced Tulpamancy 101 For Beginners by H i v e w i r e d—Application of lesswrong theory to the concept of the self. In particular the author applies “How an Algorithm Feels from the Inside” and “Map and Territory”. Hive then goes into the details of creating and interacting with tulpas. “A tulpa is an autonomous entity existing within the brain of a “host”. They are distinct from the host in that they possess their own personality, opinions, and actions”

Existential Risk From Ai Without An Intelligence by Alex Mennen (lesswrong) - Reasons why an intelligence explosion might not occur and reasons why we might have a problem anyway.

Dragon Army Theory Charter (30min Read) by Duncan Sabien (lesswrong) - A detailed plan for an ambitious military style rationalist house. The major goals include self-improvement, high quality group projects and the creation of a group with absolute trust in one another. The leader of the house is the curriculum director and head of product at CFAR.

The Story Of Our Life by H i v e w i r e d—The authors explain their pre-rationalist life and connection to the community. They then argue the rationalist community should take better care of one another. “Venture Rationalism”.

Don’t Believe in God by Tyler Cowen—Seven arguments for not believing in God. Among them: Lack of Bayesianism among believers, the degree to which people follow their family religion and the fundamental weirdness of reality.

The Four Blind Men The Elephant And Alan Kay by Meredith Paterson (Status 451) - Managing technical teams. Taking a new perspective is worth 90 IQ points. Getting better enemies. Guerrilla action.

Qualia Computing At Consciousness Hacking June 7th 2017 by Qualia Computing—Qualia computing will present in San Fransisco on June 7th at Consciousness Hacking. The event description is detailed and should give readers a good intro to Qualia Computing’s goals. The author’s research goal is to create a mathematical theory of pain/pleasure and be able to measure these directly from brain data.

Is Silicon Valley Real by Ben Hoffman (Compass Rose) - The old culture of Silicon Valley is mostly gone, replaced by something overpriced and materialist. Ben check’s the details of Scott Alexander’s list of six noble startups and finds only two in SV proper.

Why Is Harry Potter So Popular by Ozy (Thing of Things) - Ozy discusses a paper on song popularity in an artificial music market. Social dynamics had a big impact on song ratings. “Normal popularity is easily explicable by quality. Stupid, wild, amazing popularity is due to luck.”

Design A Better Chess by Robin Hanson—Can we design a game that promotes even more useful honesty than chess? A link to Hanson’s review of Gary Kasparov’s book is included.

Deserving Truth 2 by Andrew Critch—How the author’s values changed over time. Originally he tried to maximize his own positive sensory experiences. The things he cared about began to include more things, starting with his GF’s experiences and values. He eventually rejects “homo-economus” thinking.

A Theory Of Hypocrisy by João Eira (Lettuce be Cereal) - Hypocrisy evolved as a way to solve free rider problems. “It pays to be a free rider. If no one finds out”

Building Community Institution In Five Hours a Week by Particular Virtue—Eight pieces of advice for running a successful meetup. The author and zir partner have been running lesswrong events for five years.

Dwelling In Possibility by Sarah Constantin (Otium) - Leadership. Confidence in the face of the uncertainty and imperfection. Losing yourself when you try to step back and facilitate.

Ai Safety Three Human Problems And One Ai Issue by Stuart Armstrong (lesswrong) - Humans have poor predictions, don’t know their values and aren’t agents. Ai might be very powerful. A graph of which problems many Ai risk solutions target.

Recovering From Failure by mindlevelup—Avoid negative spirals, figure out why you failed, List of questions to ask yourself. Strategies → Generate good alternatives, metacognitive affordances.

Review The Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean by Aceso Under Glass—Positive review. Author learned alot. Speculation on a better way to teach Science.

Principia Qualia Part 2: Valence by Qualia Computing—A mathematical theory of valence (what makes experience feel good or bad). Speculative but the authors make concrete predictions. Music plays a heavy role.

Im Not Seaing It by Robin Hanson—Arguments against seasteading.

EA:

One of the more positive surprises by GiveDirectly—Links post. Eight articles on Give Directly, Cash Transfer and Basic Income.

Returns Functions And Funding Gaps by the Center for Effective Altruism (EA forum) - Links to CEA’s explanation of what “returns functions” are and how using them compares to “funding gap” model. They give some arguments why returns functions are a superior model.

Online Google Hangout On Approaches To by whpearson (lesswrong) - Community meeting to discuss Ai risk. Will use “Optimal Brainstorming Theory”. Currently early stage. Sign up and vote on what times you are available.

Expected Value Estimates We Cautiously Took by The Oxford Prioritization Project (EA forum) - Details of how the four bayesian probability models were compared to produce a final decision. Some discussion of how assumptions affect the final result. Actual code is included.

Four Quantitative Models Aggregation And Final by The Oxford Prioritization Project (EA forum) − 80K hours, MIRI, Good Foods Institute and StrongMinds were considered. Decisions were made using concrete Bayesian EV calculations. Links to the four models are included.

Peer to Peer Aid: Cash in the News by GiveDirectly − 8 Links about GiveDirectly, cash transfer and basic income.

The Value Of Money Going To Different Groups by The Center for Effective Altruism—“It is well known that an extra dollar is worth less when you have more money. This paper describes the way economists typically model that effect, using that to compare the effectiveness of different interventions. It takes remittances as a particular case study.”

Politics and Economics:

Study Of The Week Better And Worse Ways To Attack Entrance Exams by Freddie deBoer—Freddie’s description of four forms of “test validity”. The SAT and ACT are predictive of college grades, one should criticize them from other angles. Freddie briefly gives his socialist critique.

How To Destroy Civilization by Zvi Moshowitz—A parable about the game “Advanced Civilization”. The difficulties of building a coalition to lock out bad actor. Donald Trump. [Extremely Partisan]

Trust Assimilation by Bryan Caplan—Data on how much immigrants and their children trust other people. How predictive is the trust level of their ancestral country. Caplan reviews papers and crunches the numbers himself.

There Are Bots, Look Around by Renee DiResta (ribbonfarm) - High frequency trading disrupted finance. Now algorithms and bots are disrupting the marketplace of ideas. What can finance’s past teach us about politics’ future?

The Behavioral Economics of Paperwork by Bryan Caplan—Vast Numbers of students miss financial aid because they don’t fill out paperwork. Caplan explores the economic implications of the fact that “Humans hate filling out paperwork. As a result, objectively small paperwork costs plausibly have huge behavioral response”.

The Nimby Challenge by Noah Smith—Smith Argues makes an economic counterargument to the claims that building more housing wouldn’t lower prices. Noah includes 6 lessons for engaging with NIMBYs.

Study Of The Week What Actually Helps Poor Students: Human Beings by Freddie deBoer—Personal feedback, tutoring and small group instruction had the largest positive effect. Includes Freddie’s explanation of meta-analysis.

Vast Empirical Literature by Marginal REVOLUTION—Tyler’s 10 thoughts on approaching fields with large literatures. He is critical of Noah’s “two paper rule” and recommends alot of reading.

Impact Housing Price Restrictions by Marginal REVOLUTION—Link to a job market paper on the economic effects of housing regulation.

Me On Anarcho Capitalism by Bryan Caplan—Bryan is interviewed on the Rubin Report about Ancap.

Campbells Law And The Inevitability Of School Fraud by Freddie deBoer—Rampant Grade Inflation. Lowered standards. Campbell’s law says that once you base policy on a metric that metric will always start being gamed

Nimbys Economic Theories: Sorry Not Sorry by Phil (Gelman’s Blog) - Gelman got a huge amount of criticism on his post on whether building more housing will lower prices in the Bay. He responds to some of the criticism here. Long for Gelman.

Links 8 by Artir (Nintil) - Link Post. Physics, Technology, Philosophy, Economics, Psychology and Misc.

Arguing About How The World Should Burn by Sonya Mann ribbonfarm—Two different ways to decide who to exclude. One focuses on process the other on content. Scott Alexander and Nate Soares are quoted. Heavily [Culture War].

Seeing Like A State by Bayesian Investor—A quick review of “Seeing like a state”.

Whats Up With Minimum Wage by Sarah Constantin (Otium) - A quick review of the literature on the minimum wage. Some possible explanations for why raising it not reduce unemployment.

Misc:

Entirely Too Many Pieces Of Unsolicited Advice To Young Writer Types by Feddie deBoer—Advice about not working for free, getting paid, interacting with editors, why ‘Strunk and White’ is awful, and taking writing seriously.

Conversations On Consciousness by H i v e w i r e d—The author is a plural system. Their hope is to introduce plurality by doing the following: “First, we’re each going to describe our own personal experiences, from our own perspectives, and then we’re going to discuss where we might find ourselves within the larger narrative regarding consciousness.”

Notes On Debugging Clojure Code by Eli Bendersky—Dealing with Clojure’s cryptic exceptions, Finding which form an exception comes from, Trails and Logging, Deeper tracing inside cond forms

How to Think Scientifically About Scientists’ Proposals for Fixing Science by Andrew Gelman—Gelman asks how to scientifically evaluate proposals to fix science. He considers educational, statistical, research practice and institutional reforms. Excerpts from an article Gelman wrote, the full paper is linked.

Call for Volunteers who Want to Exercize by Aceso Under Glass—Author is looking for volunteers who want to treat their anxiety or mood disorder with exercise.

Learning Deep Learning the Easy Way with Keras (lesswrong) - Articles showing the power of neural networks. Discussion of ML frameworks. Resources for learning.

Unsong of Unsongs by Scott Aaronson—Aaronson went to the Unsong wrap party. A quick review of Unsong. Aaronson talks about how Scott Alexander defended him with untitled.

2016 Spending by Mr. Money Mustache—Full details of last year’s budget. Spending broken down by category.

Amusement:

And Another Physics Problem by protokol2020 - Two Planets. Which has a higher average surface temperature.

A mysterious jogger by Jacob Falkovich (Put A Number On It!) - A mysterious jogger. Very short fiction.

Podcast:

Persuasion And Control by Waking Up with Sam Harris—“surveillance capitalism, the Trump campaign’s use of Facebook, AI-enabled marketing, the health of the press, Wikileaks, ransomware attacks, and other topics.”

Raj Chetty: Inequality, Mobility and the American Dream by Conversations with Tyler—“As far as I can tell, this is the only coverage of Chetty that covers his entire life and career, including his upbringing, his early life, and the evolution of his career, not to mention his taste in music”

Is Trump’s incompetence saving us from his illiberalism? by The Ezra Klein Show—Political Scientist Yascha Mounk. “What Mounk found is that the consensus we thought existed on behalf of democracy and democratic norms is weakening.”

The Moral Complexity Of Genetics by Waking Up with Sam Harris—“Sam talks with Siddhartha Mukherjee about the human desire to understand and manipulate heredity, the genius of Gregor Mendel, the ethics of altering our genes, the future of genetic medicine, patent issues in genetic research, controversies about race and intelligence, and other topics.”

Ester Perel by The Tim Ferriss—The Relationship Episode: Sex, Love, Polyamory, Marriage, and More

Lane Pritchett by Econtalk—Growth, and Experiments

Meta Learning by Tim Ferriss—Education, accelerated learning, and my mentors. Conversation with Charles Best the founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org

Bryan Stevenson On Why The Opposite Of Poverty Isn’t Wealth by The Ezra Klein Show—Founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Justice for the wrongly convicted on Death Row.