LessWrong 2.0 Reader

Eh. feels wrong to me. Specifically, this argument feels over-complicated.

As best I can tell, the predominant mode of science in replication-crisis affected fields is that they do causal inference by sampling from noisy posteriors. 

The predominant mode of science in non-replication-crisis affected fields is that they don't do this or do this less. 

Most of the time it seems like science is conducted like that in those fields because they have to. Can you come up with a better way of doing Psychology research? Science in hard fields is hard is definitely a less sexy hypothesis, but it seems obviously true? 

Doesn’t matter, because HPMOR is engaging enough on a chapter-by-chapter basis.  I read lots of books when I was a kid when I didn’t understand the overarching plot.  As long as I had a reasonable expectation that cool stuff would happen in the next chapter, I’d keep reading.  I read “Stand On Zanzibar” repeatedly as a child, and didn’t understand the plot until I reread it as an adult last year.  Same with the detective novel “A Deadly Shade of Gold”.  I read it for the fistfights, snappy dialogue, and insights into adult life.  The plot was lost on me.

Thank you for the in-depth thoughts!

Thank you!

It was a joke :) I had been warned by my friends that the joke was either only mildly funny or just entirely confusing. But I personally found it hilarious so kept it in. Sorry for my idiosyncratic sense of humor ;)

I agree about the punchline. Chef's kiss post

Thanks!

But I've heard that many people do a lot of thinking about negative outcomes, too.…

FWIW my answer is “involuntary attention” as discussed in Valence §3.3.5 [LW · GW] (it also came up in §6.5.2.1 of this series [LW · GW]).

If I look at my shoe and (voluntarily) pay attention to it, my subsequent thoughts are constrained to be somehow “about” my shoe. This constraint isn’t fully constraining—I might be putting my shoe into different contexts, or thinking about my shoe while humming a song to myself, etc.

By analogy, if I’m anxious, then my subsequent thoughts are (involuntarily) constrained to be somehow “about” the interoceptive feeling of anxiety. Again, this constraint isn’t fully constraining—I might be putting the feeling of anxiety into the context of how everyone hates me, or into the context of how my health is going downhill, or whatever else, and I could be doing both those things while simultaneously zipping up my coat and humming a song, etc.

Anxiety is just one example; I think there’s likewise involuntary attention associated with feeling itchy, feeling in pain, angry, etc.

Good list!

I personally really like Scott Alexander's Presidential Platform, it hits the hilarious-but-also-almost-works spot so perfectly. He also has many Bay Area house party stories in addition to the one you link (you can find a bunch (all?) linked at the top of this post). He also has this one from a long time ago, which has one of the best punchlines I've read.

Thanks for advertising my work, but alas, I think that's much more depressing than this one.

Could make for a good Barbie <> Oppenheimer combo though?

Agreed! Transformative AI is hard to visualise, and concrete stories / scenarios feel very lacking (in both disasters and positive visions, but especially in positive visions [LW · GW]).

I like when people try to do this - for example, Richard Ngo has a bunch here [? · GW], and Daniel Kokotajlo has his near-prophetic scenario here [LW · GW]. I've previously tried to do it here [LW · GW] (going out with a whimper leading to Bostrom's "disneyland without children" is one of the most poetic disasters imaginable - great setting for a story), and have a bunch more ideas I hope to get to.

But overall: the LessWrong bubble has a high emphasis on radical AI futures, and an enormous amount of fiction in its canon (HPMOR, Unsong, Planecrash). I keep being surprised that so few people combine those things.

I'm curious about the part where You wrote: "You could raise awareness for Leukemia, Dyslexia, or Estonia." 
Estonia is a country. Leukemia and Dyslexia are not countries. Was it a typo? Or did you actually want to raise awareness about Estonia? 

(I'm from Estonia myself)  

Nice article though, thanks!