Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
Would you say there's an implicit norm in LW Discussion of not posting links to private LessWrong diaspora or rationalist-adjacent blogs?
I feel like if I started posting links to every new and/or relevant SSC or Ribbonfarm post as top-level Discussion topics, I would get downvoted pretty bad. But I think using LW Discussion as a sort of LW Diaspora Link Aggregator would be one of the best ways to "save" it.
One of the lessons of the diaspora is that lots of people want to say and discuss sort-of-rationalist-y things or at least discuss mundane or political topics in a sort-of-rationalist-y way. As far as I can tell, in order to actually find what all these rationalist-adjacent people are saying, you would have to read like twenty different blogs.
I personally wouldn't mind a more Hacker News style for LW Discussion, with a heavy focus on links to outside content. Because frankly, we're not generating enough content locally anymore.
I'm essentially just floating this idea for now. If it's positively received, I might take it upon myself to start posting links.
I pretty regularly post links as comments in the Open Thread.
The current norm in LW is to have few but meaty top-level posts. I think if we start to just post links, that would change the character of LW considerably, going in the Reddit/HN direction. I don't know if that would be a good thing.
It seems to me, despite talk of change, LW is staying essentially the same... and thereby struggling at an accelerating rate to be a place for useful content.
My current modus operandi for LW is to use the LW favorite I have in place to (1) Check SSC and the other "Rationality Blogs" on the side bar, and then (2) peruse discussion (and sometimes comment) if there isn't a new post at SSC, et al that commands my attention. I wonder if other LWers do the same? I wonder what percentage of LW traffic is "secondary" in a way similar to what I've described?
I like your suggestion because it is a radical change that might work. And it's bad to do nothing if what you are doing seems to be on a trajectory of death.
At some point, during a "how can we make LW better" post on here, I mentioned making LW a de facto "hub" for the rationality blogosphere since it's increasingly not anything else. I'm now re-saying that and seconding your idea. There could still be original content... but there is nowhere close to enough original content coming in right now to justify LW as a standalone site.
My current modus operandi for LW is to use the LW favorite I have in place to (1) Check SSC and the other "Rationality Blogs" on the side bar, and then (2) peruse discussion (and sometimes comment) if there isn't a new post at SSC, et al that commands my attention. I wonder if other LWers do the same? I wonder what percentage of LW traffic is "secondary" in a way similar to what I've described?
As a a data point, this is exactly how I've been using LessWrong for at least the last year. One of the reasons I more frequently comment in open threads is because we can have less idle conversations like this one as well :P
I think that LW as is set up now is not good for links; you need to click on the post, and then click again. I think that LW should have reddit-style linkposts, where there's a link and then another url for the comments. (The relevant github issue.)
Rob Bensinger published Library of Scott Alexandria, his summary/"Sequences" of the historically best posts from Scott (according to Rob, that is). Scott seems to pursue or write on topics with a common thread between them in cycles of a few months. This can be observed in the "top posts" section of his blog. Sometimes I forget a blog exists for a few months, so I don't read it, but when I do read diaspora/rationality-adjacent blogs, I consider the reading personally valuable. I'd appreciate LessWrong users sharing pieces from their favourite blogs that they believe would also appeal to many users here. So, to make a top-level post linking to several articles from one author once in a while, sharing their best recent posts which would be relevant to LessWrong's interests, seems reasonable. I agree making a top-level post for any one or all links from a separate blog would be too much, and that this implicit norm should continue to exist.
I think today the norm is providing a short summary of the link target. (If I must click on the link to find out why you linked it, that's almost guaranteed downvote.)
But I could imagine having a "subreddit" consisting of links only, where the norm would be different.
And of course, links to lower-quality articles can still be downvoted.
CGP Grey has read Bostrom's Superintelligence.
Transcript of the relevant section:
Q: What do you consider the biggest threat to humanity?
A: Last Q&A video I mentioned opinions and how to change them. The hardest changes are the ones where you're invested in the idea, and I've been a techno-optimist 100% all of my life, but [Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies] put a real asterisk on that in a way I didn't want. And now Artificial Intelligence is on my near term threat list in a deeply unwelcome way. But it would be self-delusional to ignore a convincing argument because I don't want it to be true.
I like this how this response describes motivated cognition, the difficulty of changing your mind and the Litany of Gendlin.
He also apparently discusses this topic on his podcast, and links to the amazon page for the book in the description of the video.
Grey's video about technological unemployment was pretty big when it came out, and it seemed to me at the time that he wasn't too far off of realising that there were other implications of increasing AI capability that were rather plausible as well, so it's cool to see that it happened.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/nfk/lesswrong_2016_survey/
Friendly weekly reminder that the survey is up and you should take it.
[LINK]
There seems like some relevant stuff this week:
Katie Cohen, a member of the rationality community in the Bay Area, and her daughter, are beneficiaries of fundraiser anonymously hosted by one (or more) of their friends, and they've fallen on some hard times. I don't know them, but Rob Bensinger vouched on social media he is friends with everyone involved, including the anonymous fundraiser.
Seems like there are lots of good links and corrections from the previous links post this week, so check it out if you found yourself reading lots of SSC links this week.
Scott is moving back to the Bay Area next year, and is looking for doctors from the area to talk to about setting himself up with a job as a psychiatrist.
The moon may be why earth has a magnetic field. If it takes a big moon to have a life-protecting magnetic field, this presumably affects the Fermi paradox.
EY arguing that a UFAI threat is worth considering -- as a response to Bryan Caplan's scepticism about it. I think it's a repost from Facebook, though.
ETA: Caplan's response to EY's points. EY answers in the comments.
If you don't have a good primary care doctor or are generally looking to trade money for health, and live in the Bay Area, Phoenix, Boston, NY, Chicago, or Washington DC, I'd recommend considering signing up for One Medical Group, which is a service that provides members with access to a network of competent primary doctors, as well as providing other benefits. They do charge patients a $150 yearly membership fee in additional to charging co-pays similar to what you'd pay at any other primary care physician's office, but in return for this, they hire more competent doctors, employ a large support staff that can nudge you to take care of outstanding health concerns, and are generally good at talking you into taking preventative measures to safeguard your health.
(My only incentive for posting this is that I want LessWrongers to be healthy. My reasoning is roughly that if you're willing to spend money on cryonics, then you'd probably be willing to spend money on quality preventative healthcare, too).
Added: I benefited quite a bit from signing up with them for the specific reason that the fact that so many of their doctors and staff are so kind nudged me to be less afraid of going to the doctor. This made it easier for me to take preventative steps toward being healthier in general.
I'm a One Medical member. The single biggest draw for me is that you can get appointments the same or next day with little or no waiting time -- where my old primary care doctor was usually booked solid for two weeks or more, by which point I'd either have naturally gotten over whatever I wanted to see him for, or have been driven to an expensive urgent care clinic full of other sick people.
They don't bother with the traditional kabuki dance where a nurse ushers you in and takes your vitals and then you wait around for fifteen minutes before the actual doctor shows, either -- you see a doctor immediately about whatever you came in for, and you're usually in and out in twenty minutes. It's so much better of a workflow that I'm astonished it hasn't been more widely adopted.
That said, they don't play particularly nice with my current insurance, so do your homework.
What do LessWrongers think of terror management theory? It has it's roots in Freudian psychoanalysis, but it seems to be getting more and more evidence supporting it (here's a 2010 literature review)
Imagine a case of existential risk, in which humanity needs to collectively make a gamble.
We prove that at least one of 16 possible choices guarantees survival, but we don't know which one.
Question: can we acquire a quantum random number that is guaranteed to be independent from anything else?
I.e. such that the whole world is provably guaranteed to enter quantum superposition of all possible outcomes, and we provably survive in 1/16th of the worlds?
I'm assuming MWI, but noticing that NOT every source of "randomness" implies different branches.
Some things may, or may not, be interconnected in ways we don't see, and can't detect. (E.g. it's been shown that humans can learn to flip coins predictably etc.)
My point is to provably, with as high confidence as we require split the world into different branches, as opposed to having a pretty good chance but we don't know exactly how good of creating different branches.
Mnemotechnics
Time Ferris's recent podcsat with Carl Shurmann had a quote of a quote that stuck with me: 'the good shit sticks', said by a writer when questioned on how he remembers good thoughts when he's constantly blackout drunk. That kind of 'memory optimism' as I call it seems a great way to mitigate memory doubt disorder which I'd guess is more common among skeptics, rationalist and other purveyors of doubt.
Innovation in education
Do your alma matta have anything resembling a academic decisions tribunal and administrative decisions tribunal?
We should establish an ‘academic teaching and administration tribunal’ to provide independent oversight on teaching quality and administrative decisions such as decisions whether or not to answer a particular student enquiry to which students,fellow staff and any other whistleblower can anonymously refer matters with less fear of repercussion. Sometimes, matters are too small to seek higher order intervention, like the coordinator of your degree, when a subject coordinator messes up. However, these little problems can have a serious impact on the student, too. Right now, the only independent redress are courts of law with nothing in between.
Webapp ideas
Service that will 'publish all emails to my website or through an external service' if my account becomes inactive, say due to death or missing. I know I can have my account data shared with trusted contacts, but how about a service?
Service to sustain webpage maintenance after death without others maintaining it
google login bot to login to gmail account every 8 months so it doesn’t get deleted...say if you do cryonics..
job application service (will apply for jobs on your behalf) that doesn’t have a super unprofessional page or lots of spelling mistakes on their website and customer service
Other ideas
Personal development
I'm not satisfied with my personality, relationships and I don't have a clear sense of the way I make meaning from the world. So, I'll read the wikipedia page on meaning, npd and bpd which I think I have, and follow radical, formulaic process oriented apporaches to how I relate to people from no onwards.
I reckon it's the stress of university bringing on the recent tanking in my mood.
On the flip side, I get the positive emotions, engagement, relationships (sorta) and achievement parts of the PERMA model of human flourishing downpat, and have staved off enduring depression and anxiety disorder traits for a while, not to mention psychosis.
New roommates
Familiarity licenses others with freedom of action, and deprives the familiar with freedom from inteference.
How much people want to "take care of cute children but only for a few hours" might be a (very?) bad predictor of how good they are at taking care of children.
~~~
I think gmail just doesn't cut it if you want to store your information reliably while you are vitrified for many years. Also, why in the world would you protect your old e-mails, of all things?
volunteer staffed childcare
childcare is a lucrative business already; there is probably nothing (short of administration work) stopping an existing childcare business taking on volunteers (talking about the most easy way to make this happen by slightly modifying the existing world). But I don't know of many (any) people willing to do that kind of thing.
Volunteers are a tricky business too. As is duty of care towards children, in more than just the assumed privacy, protection, but also in the direction of positive stimulating environment (which becomes more difficult to prove when relying on volunteers)
I'm not able to see the post Ultimate List of Irrational Nonsense on my Discussion/New/ page even though I have enabled the options to show posts that have extremely negative vote counts (-100) while signed in. I made a request in the past about not displaying those types of posts for people who are not signed in. I'm not sure if that's related to this or not.
It's not the karma: I can see Gleb's post on Brussels with a lower score and a lower %, but not that post. (When not logged in I can't see the Brussels post.) Probably it was "deleted." That is a state where the permalink continues to work, but the post does not appear on various indices. I think that if the author or moderator wants to break the permalink, they have to click "ban." Deleting an account does not delete all the posts, at least in the past.
uh, except this guy is unethical and i'm unsure what avenue to pursue to minimize the risk of future injury to other people. since i know him the best, i'm relatively sure he does not need support nor will accept it. he is not being "manipulated" he is just straightforwardly unethical.
there's no way this retard would accept treatment >_>.