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In­tel­lec­tual Progress (So­ciety-Level)

TagLast edit: 8 Sep 2020 21:04 UTC by abramdemski

Intellectual Progress is the progressive accumulation of knowledge. Questions include How is intellectual progress made? and How do we make more? Intellectual Progress (Individual-Level) and the Scholarship & Learning tag is focused on the learning and research of individuals. In contrast, Intellectual Progress (Society-Level) is about how we, humanity, collectively make progress on important questions. What broader conditions, institutions, and technologies enable progress?

Also related to: Progress Studies, Practice & Philosophy of Science

[TO-DO: link Science tag(s)]

On Solv­ing Prob­lems Be­fore They Ap­pear: The Weird Episte­molo­gies of Alignment

adamShimi11 Oct 2021 8:20 UTC
110 points
10 comments15 min readLW link

[An­swer] Why wasn’t sci­ence in­vented in China?

Ruby23 Apr 2019 21:47 UTC
95 points
46 comments21 min readLW link1 review

Episte­molog­i­cal Fram­ing for AI Align­ment Research

adamShimi8 Mar 2021 22:05 UTC
58 points
7 comments9 min readLW link

How to an­a­lyze progress, stag­na­tion, and low-hang­ing fruit

jasoncrawford15 Jun 2020 21:02 UTC
42 points
9 comments4 min readLW link
(rootsofprogress.org)

In­tel­lec­tual Progress In­side and Out­side Academia

Ben Pace2 Sep 2017 23:08 UTC
40 points
5 comments14 min readLW link

Pre­dic­tion Mar­kets for Science

Vaniver2 Jan 2023 17:55 UTC
27 points
7 comments5 min readLW link

The Fu­ture of Science

Richard_Ngo28 Jul 2020 2:43 UTC
21 points
2 comments7 min readLW link

Study­ing Early Stage Science: Re­search Pro­gram Introduction

habryka17 Jan 2020 22:12 UTC
32 points
1 comment15 min readLW link
(medium.com)

The Coper­ni­can Revolu­tion from the Inside

jacobjacob1 Nov 2017 10:51 UTC
123 points
46 comments19 min readLW link

[Question] Which sci­en­tific dis­cov­ery was most ahead of its time?

Richard_Ngo16 May 2019 12:58 UTC
38 points
14 comments1 min readLW link

Is the rate of sci­en­tific progress slow­ing down? (by Tyler Cowen and Ben South­wood)

Ben Pace2 Dec 2019 3:45 UTC
49 points
6 comments1 min readLW link
(docs.google.com)

[Question] How do we iden­tify bot­tle­necks to sci­en­tific and tech­nolog­i­cal progress?

NaiveTortoise31 Dec 2018 20:21 UTC
31 points
12 comments2 min readLW link

How to Find the Fron­tiers of Knowledge

Samo Burja30 Oct 2020 10:50 UTC
60 points
1 comment9 min readLW link
(medium.com)

Why Aca­demic Papers Are A Ter­rible Dis­cus­sion Forum

alyssavance20 Jun 2012 18:15 UTC
44 points
53 comments6 min readLW link

On the Loss and Preser­va­tion of Knowledge

Samo Burja8 Mar 2018 18:40 UTC
71 points
21 comments10 min readLW link
(medium.com)

[Question] How of­ten are new ideas dis­cov­ered in old pa­pers?

TurnTrout26 Jul 2019 1:00 UTC
23 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

MATS Models

johnswentworth9 Jul 2022 0:14 UTC
87 points
5 comments16 min readLW link

For progress to be by ac­cu­mu­la­tion and not by ran­dom walk, read great books

MichaelVassar2 Mar 2010 8:11 UTC
83 points
117 comments3 min readLW link

What’s Wrong with So­cial Science and How to Fix It: Reflec­tions After Read­ing 2578 Papers

habryka12 Sep 2020 1:46 UTC
107 points
22 comments2 min readLW link
(fantasticanachronism.com)

Pro­duc­tive Mis­takes, Not Perfect Answers

adamShimi7 Apr 2022 16:41 UTC
100 points
11 comments6 min readLW link

Epistemic Arte­facts of (con­cep­tual) AI al­ign­ment research

19 Aug 2022 17:18 UTC
31 points
1 comment5 min readLW link

Paper read­ing as a Cargo Cult

jem-mosig7 Aug 2022 7:50 UTC
70 points
10 comments5 min readLW link

[Question] What makes peo­ple in­tel­lec­tu­ally ac­tive?

abramdemski29 Dec 2018 22:29 UTC
121 points
72 comments1 min readLW link

The effi­ciency of prizes

lukeprog3 Apr 2012 21:45 UTC
39 points
18 comments2 min readLW link

Pas­teur’s quadrant

jasoncrawford5 Jun 2020 17:47 UTC
36 points
2 comments5 min readLW link
(rootsofprogress.org)

Shut­tling be­tween sci­ence and invention

jasoncrawford27 May 2020 21:25 UTC
61 points
1 comment6 min readLW link1 review
(rootsofprogress.org)

The YouTube Revolu­tion in Knowl­edge Transfer

Samo Burja17 Sep 2019 20:10 UTC
68 points
7 comments4 min readLW link
(medium.com)

Why ev­ery­thing might have taken so long

KatjaGrace1 Jan 2018 1:00 UTC
113 points
16 comments3 min readLW link1 review
(meteuphoric.wordpress.com)

Is Science Slow­ing Down?

Scott Alexander27 Nov 2018 3:30 UTC
127 points
77 comments9 min readLW link1 review
(slatestarcodex.com)

Some ex­am­ples of tech­nol­ogy timelines

NunoSempere27 Mar 2020 18:13 UTC
24 points
0 comments16 min readLW link

Epistemic stan­dards for “Why did it take so long to in­vent X?”

jasoncrawford2 Mar 2020 18:58 UTC
90 points
16 comments6 min readLW link
(rootsofprogress.org)

Why did ev­ery­thing take so long?

KatjaGrace29 Dec 2017 1:00 UTC
34 points
17 comments1 min readLW link
(meteuphoric.wordpress.com)

How to Diver­sify Con­cep­tual Align­ment: the Model Be­hind Refine

adamShimi20 Jul 2022 10:44 UTC
87 points
11 comments8 min readLW link

Quick look: ap­pli­ca­tions of chaos theory

18 Aug 2024 15:00 UTC
79 points
51 comments8 min readLW link
(acesounderglass.com)

AI do­ing philos­o­phy = AI gen­er­at­ing hands?

Wei Dai15 Jan 2024 9:04 UTC
46 points
22 comments1 min readLW link

Don’t sleep on Co­or­di­na­tion Takeoffs

trevor27 Jan 2024 19:55 UTC
62 points
24 comments5 min readLW link

Some (prob­le­matic) aes­thet­ics of what con­sti­tutes good work in academia

Steven Byrnes11 Mar 2024 17:47 UTC
147 points
12 comments12 min readLW link

How do we know that “good re­search” is good? (aka “di­rect eval­u­a­tion” vs “eigen-eval­u­a­tion”)

Ruby19 Jul 2024 0:31 UTC
49 points
21 comments6 min readLW link

A Defense of Peer Review

22 Oct 2024 16:16 UTC
23 points
1 comment22 min readLW link
(www.asimov.press)

The Me­dian Re­searcher Problem

johnswentworth2 Nov 2024 20:16 UTC
164 points
69 comments1 min readLW link

United We Align: Har­ness­ing Col­lec­tive Hu­man In­tel­li­gence for AI Align­ment Progress

Shoshannah Tekofsky20 Apr 2023 23:19 UTC
41 points
13 comments25 min readLW link

The Just World Hypothesis

michael_vassar29 Oct 2017 6:03 UTC
17 points
9 comments3 min readLW link

Start Un­der the Streetlight, then Push into the Shadows

lukeprog24 Jun 2013 0:49 UTC
52 points
29 comments8 min readLW link

Char­ac­ter­iz­ing Real-World Agents as a Re­search Meta-Strategy

johnswentworth8 Oct 2019 15:32 UTC
29 points
4 comments5 min readLW link

De­liber­ate and spon­ta­neous creativity

Kaj_Sotala29 Mar 2009 19:45 UTC
28 points
30 comments4 min readLW link

LW2.0: Tech­nol­ogy Plat­form for In­tel­lec­tual Progress

Ruby19 Jun 2019 20:25 UTC
31 points
5 comments7 min readLW link

LW2.0: Com­mu­nity, Cul­ture, and In­tel­lec­tual Progress

Ruby19 Jun 2019 20:25 UTC
27 points
2 comments6 min readLW link

Mee­tups as In­sti­tu­tions for In­tel­lec­tual Progress

mingyuan17 Sep 2019 5:23 UTC
91 points
26 comments7 min readLW link

Mus­ings on LessWrong Peer Review

Raemon18 Mar 2018 21:47 UTC
47 points
23 comments5 min readLW link

On the im­por­tance of Less Wrong, or an­other sin­gle con­ver­sa­tional locus

AnnaSalamon27 Nov 2016 17:13 UTC
176 points
365 comments4 min readLW link

Learn­ing To Love Scien­tific Consensus

Scott Alexander2 Sep 2017 8:44 UTC
30 points
1 comment19 min readLW link

The Ba­co­nian Method (Novum Or­ganum Book 1: 93-107)

Francis Bacon10 Oct 2019 18:54 UTC
28 points
1 comment11 min readLW link

A brief his­tory of computers

Adam Zerner19 Jul 2023 2:59 UTC
72 points
18 comments33 min readLW link

1960: The Year The Sin­gu­lar­ity Was Cancelled

Scott Alexander23 Apr 2019 1:30 UTC
104 points
15 comments11 min readLW link1 review
(slatestarcodex.com)

Po­ten­tial fac­tors in Bell Labs’ in­tel­lec­tual progress, Pt. 1

Ruby12 Feb 2021 19:26 UTC
50 points
6 comments8 min readLW link

[Question] Sugges­tions of posts on the AF to review

adamShimi16 Feb 2021 12:40 UTC
56 points
20 comments1 min readLW link

Re­view of “Fun with +12 OOMs of Com­pute”

28 Mar 2021 14:55 UTC
65 points
21 comments8 min readLW link1 review

Les­sons from “The Book of My Life”

bmgarfinkel6 Jan 2021 22:40 UTC
114 points
3 comments16 min readLW link
(benmgarfinkel.wordpress.com)

Look­ing Deeper at Deconfusion

adamShimi13 Jun 2021 21:29 UTC
62 points
13 comments15 min readLW link

[Question] Why not more small, in­tense re­search teams?

eg5 Aug 2021 11:57 UTC
19 points
9 comments1 min readLW link

Com­bin­ing two posts: Blank­face (Scott Aa) and Is Science Slow­ing Down? (Scott Al)

William Gasarch9 Aug 2021 17:37 UTC
10 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

How can we in­crease the fre­quency of rare in­sights?

MichaelDickens19 Apr 2021 22:54 UTC
19 points
10 comments5 min readLW link

Grav­ity Turn

alkjash16 Aug 2021 19:20 UTC
219 points
21 comments5 min readLW link1 review
(radimentary.wordpress.com)

Blind Spots in Science and Culture

rogersbacon2 Sep 2021 0:02 UTC
7 points
3 comments15 min readLW link

Pri­ori­ti­za­tion Re­search for Ad­vanc­ing Wis­dom and Intelligence

ozziegooen18 Oct 2021 22:28 UTC
49 points
8 comments5 min readLW link
(forum.effectivealtruism.org)

An anal­ogy as the mid­wife of thermodynamics

adamShimi16 Feb 2022 21:34 UTC
30 points
10 comments7 min readLW link

Be­com­ing Stronger as Episte­mol­o­gist: Introduction

adamShimi15 Feb 2022 6:15 UTC
30 points
2 comments4 min readLW link

What The Foucault

adamShimi19 Feb 2022 22:48 UTC
39 points
6 comments3 min readLW link

The Art and Science of In­tu­ition Pumping

adamShimi22 Feb 2022 0:18 UTC
26 points
3 comments9 min readLW link

Re­plac­ing Nat­u­ral Interpretations

adamShimi16 Mar 2022 13:05 UTC
19 points
0 comments7 min readLW link

What do paradigm shifts look like?

leogao16 Mar 2022 19:17 UTC
18 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

On Con­text And People

Jan19 Mar 2022 23:38 UTC
7 points
0 comments10 min readLW link
(universalprior.substack.com)

Distributed blind re­view site for papers

Jonas Kgomo21 Apr 2022 22:51 UTC
2 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

In­tu­itions about solv­ing hard problems

Richard_Ngo25 Apr 2022 15:29 UTC
105 points
23 comments6 min readLW link

An aca­demic jour­nal is just a Twit­ter feed

David Hugh-Jones27 May 2022 11:14 UTC
13 points
4 comments2 min readLW link
(wyclif.substack.com)

Episte­molog­i­cal Vigilance for Alignment

adamShimi6 Jun 2022 0:27 UTC
66 points
11 comments10 min readLW link

Levels of Pluralism

adamShimi27 Jul 2022 9:35 UTC
37 points
0 comments14 min readLW link

[Question] What are some Works that might be use­ful but are difficult, so for­got­ten?

TekhneMakre9 Aug 2022 2:22 UTC
10 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

Please (re)ex­plain your per­sonal jargon

Nathan Helm-Burger22 Aug 2022 14:30 UTC
23 points
4 comments4 min readLW link

Method­olog­i­cal Ther­apy: An Agenda For Tack­ling Re­search Bottlenecks

22 Sep 2022 18:41 UTC
54 points
6 comments9 min readLW link

Blog posts as epistemic trust builders

Adam Zerner27 Sep 2020 1:47 UTC
18 points
7 comments2 min readLW link

Open Prob­lems Create Paradigms

johnswentworth9 Nov 2020 20:04 UTC
50 points
5 comments2 min readLW link

[Question] Is LW mak­ing progress?

zulupineapple24 Aug 2019 0:32 UTC
21 points
11 comments1 min readLW link

Peter Thiel warns of up­com­ing (and cur­rent) stagnation

SilasBarta4 Oct 2011 17:30 UTC
36 points
121 comments2 min readLW link

When An­thro­po­mor­phism Be­came Stupid

Eliezer Yudkowsky16 Aug 2008 23:43 UTC
56 points
12 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] What do you think should be in­cluded in a se­ries about con­cep­tual me­dia?

Polytopos31 Dec 2020 1:40 UTC
2 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

Paradigms and The­ory Choice in AI: Adap­tivity, Econ­omy and Control

particlemania28 Aug 2023 22:19 UTC
4 points
0 comments16 min readLW link

Pre­serv­ing our her­i­tage: Build­ing a move­ment and a knowl­edge ark for cur­rent and fu­ture generations

rnk829 Nov 2023 19:20 UTC
0 points
5 comments12 min readLW link

Build­ing Some­thing Smarter

Eliezer Yudkowsky2 Nov 2008 17:00 UTC
26 points
57 comments4 min readLW link

If Van der Waals was a neu­ral network

George3d628 Jan 2020 18:38 UTC
18 points
3 comments11 min readLW link
(blog.cerebralab.com)

That You’d Tell All Your Friends

Eliezer Yudkowsky1 Mar 2009 12:04 UTC
8 points
53 comments1 min readLW link

An­tag­o­nis­tic AI

Xybermancer1 Mar 2024 18:50 UTC
−8 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

[Question] The tech left behind

Leafcraft12 Mar 2019 14:47 UTC
25 points
22 comments1 min readLW link

Kevin Sim­ler’s “Go­ing Crit­i­cal”

habryka16 May 2019 4:36 UTC
56 points
1 comment1 min readLW link
(www.meltingasphalt.com)

Chat­bots as a Publi­ca­tion Format

derek shiller30 Dec 2022 14:11 UTC
6 points
6 comments4 min readLW link

Cul­tural accumulation

KatjaGrace6 Dec 2020 6:20 UTC
93 points
53 comments3 min readLW link
(meteuphoric.com)

How to co­or­di­nate de­spite our bi­ases? - tldr

Ryo 18 Apr 2024 15:03 UTC
3 points
2 comments3 min readLW link
(medium.com)

Align­ment’s phlo­gis­ton

Eleni Angelou18 Aug 2022 22:27 UTC
10 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

Why Academia is Mostly Not Truth-Seeking

Zero Contradictions16 Oct 2024 19:14 UTC
−6 points
6 comments1 min readLW link
(thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com)

Is Progress Real?

rogersbacon10 Jan 2023 17:42 UTC
5 points
14 comments14 min readLW link
(www.secretorum.life)

Miss­ing fore­cast­ing tools: from cat­a­logs to a new kind of pre­dic­tion market

MichaelLatowicki29 Mar 2023 9:55 UTC
14 points
3 comments5 min readLW link

Your posts should be on arXiv

JanB25 Aug 2022 10:35 UTC
155 points
44 comments3 min readLW link

Values Darwinism

pchvykov22 Jan 2024 10:44 UTC
11 points
13 comments3 min readLW link

Where Utopias Go Wrong, or: The Four Lit­tle Planets

ExCeph27 May 2022 1:24 UTC
15 points
0 comments11 min readLW link
(ginnungagapfoundation.wordpress.com)

Why Weren’t Hot Air Bal­loons In­vented Sooner?

Lost Futures18 Oct 2022 0:41 UTC
115 points
52 comments6 min readLW link
(lostfutures.substack.com)

A con­cep­tual pre­cur­sor to to­day’s lan­guage ma­chines [Shan­non]

Bill Benzon15 Nov 2023 13:50 UTC
24 points
6 comments2 min readLW link

Pro­lifer­at­ing Education

Haris Rashid20 Dec 2022 19:22 UTC
−1 points
2 comments5 min readLW link
(www.harisrab.com)
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