Open Thread April 25 - May 1, 2016

Eugine. Eugine.

A week or two ago I linked to a new orbital dynamics paper indicating that there is strong evidence that the inner moons and rings of Saturn are only ~100 megayears old rather than being primordial to the solar system.

Here is a talk at the SETI institute by the scientist who did the research. Fascinating stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHZZK8smWFo

When I'm honest with myself about the three aspects of April 2016 LW that interest me most, the list that emerges is this (in no particular order):

• Eugine Noir's Sock Puppet Army and the 'Stop Eugine' movement made up of mods and laypeople that fights against it.
• Gleb and his international team of Meat Puppets and their friendly efforts to popularize rationality despite all the angry criticism he receives from the post-apocalyptic LW dwellers.
• The link to Star Slate Codex and whether or not it's a post title I recognize and have therefore already read.

I'm pretty sure the new users flame (p=0.8) and torch2 (p=0.9) are both Eugine.

Just a random thought:

I realized that Twitter hashtags may be the next step in evolution of the thought-terminating clichés. You no longer have to even spell out the cliché; you merely include a reference.

Even outside of Twitter: I think the clichés used to be full sentences; now people simply use a keyword, or an abbreviation. What does this "shortening of thought-terminating clichés" mean? Are people becoming more mindkilled? Or is the world simply more tightly connected, so it is easier to synchronize globally on a meaning of a keyword?

To explain what I mean, the oldest form of the thought-terminating clichés is proverbs. They are usually full sentences, and sometimes you are able to deduce the meaning of the sentence from the sentence itself. Imagine someone who never heard that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". I believe that person, upon hearing the proverb, would still be likely to deduce that apples are believed to be beneficial for the health. (Or maybe this is an illusion of transparency, and they could equally well deduce that apples magically repel doctors the same way garlic repels vampires.)

On the other hand, when you think about modern clichés such as "nice guy" -- at the beginning there were a few internet articles explaining what is the supposed new meaning of these words, but now it is assumed that everyone knows, so it is used without an explanation, and the person who sees this usage for the first time could become quite confused. Similarly without context it is difficult to explain why "all lives matter" is supposed to be racist, etc.

So maybe the difference is that the old thought-terminating clichés were supposed to sound like an explanation, but the new ones are used as signals of being internet-savvy; it's precisely the lack of explanatory power that makes them costly signals.

What non-english content do you consume?

I want to try out a new system I came up with: a 'trickle' system, with some kind of interesting, but short text landing in my email box(/or comparable) each day, the words the text uses automatically compared to the list of words I already know, and the disjunction automatically queried from wiktionary and made into one sided flashcards. (reason being: I realized I cared for receptive abilities, but not so much for being able to express my thoughts in a different language. If it was a free action, great, but I feel like it usually is not.) And these words learned BEFORE reading the text. (as to avoid having too many breaks in the flow)

What does your working-stack look like? In what order do you do tasks, what lists, notifications, alerts etc - do you check?

I am currently unhappy with my stack's order of operations, I am quite sure I can just re-order it but I before I try I thought I would see what everyone else is doing.

Please answer before checking my stack so that I don't influence your response.

Mine looks like this (in ROT13 d3coder ):

• Crefbany guvatf - v.r. V arrq gb crr, V nz fyrrcl, V nz uhatel.
• FZF (hfhnyyl fubeg).
• Cubar nafjrevat znpuvar zrffntrf.
• Bgure bayvar zrffntrf.
• Pnyraqne riragf (hfhnyyl whfg erzvaqref).
• Snprobbx zrffratre.
• Yrffjebat.
• Snprobbx srrq.
• Yrffjebat Fynpx (bsgra va beqre bs fubegrfg rkcrpgrq pbzcyrgvba).
• Bgure fynpxf.
• Rznvyf.
• abgrobbx gnfxf (cncre obbx), Vapyhqvat oenvafgbezvat vqrnf.
• Culfvpny gnfxf v.r. fubccvat, gvqlvat, yrnivat gur ubhfr sbe aba-pnyraqne ernfbaf.

Like a number of people I browse LW by using the "recentposts" URL to avoid missing anything new. However in the sidebar it appears that "recent comments" and "recent posts" only seem to show those in Main/Promoted. With the move away from the use of Main, does this need to be fixed? Or is it not worth the effort given dwindling comment levels here and the eventual shift to a LW2.0?

According to this guy, there are no Kardeshev Type 3 civs out there.

He doesn't seem to address the galactic quenching question, just uses a complete collection scenario

Type III Societies (Apparently) Do Not Exist

http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.07844

Oh, and don't use the "more than the atoms than in the universe" analogy lightly

http://norvig.com/atoms.html

The first legal ruling for an AI or robot may be in the pipe, and it was filed by the DoJ. this may set a precedent for an AI to have legal standing, as the ruling is filed against an electronic device.

United States of America v. Apple MacPro Computer, et al

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160428/07395434297/so-much-fifth-amendment-man-jailed-seven-months-not-turning-over-password.shtml

What are some non-flashcard-style memorization techniques? I'm learning a menu as part of my job as a waiter and it feels more like trial and error. My main problem is that I can't remember the stuff at all.

I've come up with a "open answers" system that I don't really know if it can work. Let's say we have x number of things on the system, like item1, item2, item3...item(x). We also have y number of meals (which vary on the number of ingredients) and so you need to fill in the blanks, like this:

Meal 1: _ _ _ _ (underscores should be here but the "you'll never get what you see" comment system hates them)

This has the advantage of being visible which I personally like. It's also pretty simple and doesn't really require reading much beyond "fill in the blanks". It removes the disorder of "x number of things" and instead moves the question to "where should item(x) belong to?".

My only significant issue with this is that it's a trial and error thing - which I personally dislike because that's how I play chess, and most of my games end up in a loss which disappoints me and makes me think trial and error is meh, but hey I'm just one person, let's not get into typical mind fallacy here.

Another spammer here.

I watched "Eye in the Sky" this past week, and ended up having a large argument with a friend after.

Story follows the UK Army following most-wanted terrorists in Kenya using a drone in the sky. They follow them into a house where they start preparing suicide vests. Plan turns into a remote drone strike, but the pilot keeps delaying as there is a young girl outside the house.

Essentially, a story line similar to the trolley problem - do you (potentially) save 1 innocent girl's life, or potentially watch terrorists attack a crowded place (film estimated 80 deaths).

I found it really hard to sympathise with the "wait and save girl" argument - the moral conflict here is fairly small, and could have been made worse in the film. Friend disagreed saying what they did was wrong.

Am I missing something?

Here's a nice article about the video game Super Hexagon, and how playing it seems to affect your perception of time.

I can attest to the same experience. It took me about a week to beat the game (the last level looks like this) and somehow my brain has learned to slow down everything on the screen. I can even control it consciously, make it look fast one second and slow the next. How the hell? No idea.

(Before you ask, I'm not one of those crazy fast gamers. I'm 33 and have never played fast games before. Also I've measured my reaction time and it's slower than average.)

Can we learn to slow down time at other tasks, if we train them in a way that resembles Super Hexagon gameplay? Has anyone researched this?

Question:

You could imagine much simpler universes than ours. Why don't we live in the simplest possible universe?

My answer:

Simpler universes are more likely, but complex universes vastly outnumber simple ones.

Question:

How complicated should we expect our universe to be? How many bits of information should we expect it takes to describe our universe?

My answer:

The entropy of a Solomonoff prior.

Question I have now:

How does one estimate the entropy of a Solomonoff distribution? And is the answer in line with how many bits of it takes to encode the laws of physics?

Science of Relationship blog summary pt. 1

The following notes are designed to be useful without having to follow the links I read through somewhere like 10 pages of the Science of Relationship blog, and the first page of their facebook page and clicked on any interesting links. Then, I disregarded that which isn’t directly supported by the study, and those studies with very small sample size, or that didn’t replicate. The remainder are reported here and in subsequent posts:

For the 144 speed daters, Vacharkulksemsuk says, "expansiveness (open body language) nearly doubles chances of getting a yes to see each other again." there’s enough dopamine triggered by sexual activity to actually make a person fall in love with their partner Virgins are stigmatised Avoidants are moralise against privacy violations, the anxious moralise against potential infidelity non symbolic gift giving is bad for relationships surprise gifts are bad, gifts specifically on a partner’s wish list are good Principle 1: Give Experiences, Not Stuff, Principle 2: Give the Gift of Anticipation, Principle 3: Focus on Giving Quantity + 'we’ve got you covered. In previous articles, some of the best gifts for your relationship are ones that announce your relationship to the world, erotic photos, or simply exactly what your partner asked for' Don’t think you’re relationship material? two studies which found that relationships where there was self-expansion and self-pruning increased one’s willingness to be accommodating toward a partner, forgive a partner, and sacrifice for a partner. In contrast, self-adulteration and self-contraction increases thoughts about breaking up, attention to mate alternatives, and seeking revenge against a partner. we may have an intuitive ability to sense other’s cheating ways based on a few minutes from a video Are they looking for lust or love? When deciding whether a given photo portrayed love, male and female participants focused on the faces depicted in the photos, but very little attention was paid to the individuals’ and couples’ bodies. In contrast, when looking for signs of lust, both males and females generally focused more on the bodies in the photos. The researchers suggest this work could inform interventions for therapists who want to identify how couple members view each other. What’s marriage material? For example, in one study researchers asked women what they were looking for in a partner.3 The women indicated that they were looking for someone who was financially stable, willing to commit, and emotionally secure. Unfortunately, the women in the study felt like they knew very few people in their community who fit the bill. As a result, they said that they would rather be on their own than make a mistake and marry the wrong person. Getting married only to later get divorced is a fear that many people share three types of social influence predict adolescent sexual behavior: peer pressure, thinking your friends approve (injunctive norms)and thinking your friends are doing it (descriptive norms) >The research team3 combined the results from 58 independent studies conducted between 1980 and 2012, including almost 70,000 adolescents from 24 countries, using a statistical technique known as meta-analysis...Of the three types of social influence, descriptive norms had the largest association with adolescent sexual behavior. Injunctive norms were the next best predictor of teenage sex, and peer pressure was the weakest. So normalness > normativity > normalisation

So the next time your beloved shares a personal success, remember that a heartfelt “congratulations!” goes a long way towards fanning those warm feelings that sustain relationship happiness.

In terms of general personality traits (e.g., openness to new experiences, neuroticism), online and offline daters are not significantly different from each other.1

Two Is Stronger Than One: Shared Chocolate eating is More Intense . The article generalises to shared experiences, but that’s insubstantiated.

A classic study from the 60s on in-person dating found that a date’s hot body/face predicted romantic attraction more than personality traits, intelligence, popularity/charisma, mental health, and self-esteem.2More recent “speed-dating” research shows similar results; beauty mattered more than political attitudes, preferred hobbies, values/ethics, and even attachment security.3 Perhaps unsurprisingly, some results from OKCupid’s data crunching show similar findings.

Online dating exists as a business to turn a profit. It sounds like a cynical perspective to take, but the online dating website/app companies aren’t 100% enthusiastic about you finding a successful relationship, because if you do, then they lose a customer.

It isn’t surprising that a person’s self-esteem may affect how she or he approaches flirting. When the risk of being rejected is high, men with high self-esteem use more direct techniques than those with low self-esteem, perhaps because they’re less concerned with how being shot down may affect them. However, men with low self-esteem are bolder and use more obvious approaches than men with high self-esteem when the target is clearly interested and rejection risk is low. This may be because encountering a sure thing is one of the only contexts in which a guy with low self-esteem feels safe making advances, so he has to make it count.

When rejection risk is low for women, they’re more direct regardless of their self-esteem. Women traditionally initiate relationships less often than men, so when the chance arises perhaps women decide to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Of course it is also possible that women are using the technique that they know works better when men try to flirt with them.

When it comes to flirting technique the research is pretty clear: while subtlety is more likely to protect the flirter’s self-esteem, if you really want to get your message across, direct is best. A study asked college students about the most effective ways to show interest in someone. Both men and women agreed that subtle flirting was less likely to get the job done, and that the best approach would be a direct “Do you want to go to dinner with me?”

Regarding the EugeneNier fiasco, what if we were to require new users to submit a link to a Facebook/LinkedIn account or have a current active user vouch that the new account is real?

Suprising academia

• Experts believe the absence of laws against tobacco industry corporate social responsibility destabilises tobacco control efforts

Music from my housemates!

Birdy - Words as weapons

John Legend - Tonight (Best You Ever Had) ft. Ludacris

Some Japanese/Chinese song

テレサテン・時の流れに身をまかせ

天空之城 木吉他演奏曲

Dirty Dike - Hold my hands - Not from my housemates, but from the loudspeaker of a teenage looking patient at a mental health outpatient unit.

Lil wayne Office theme

Dream journal

about a week ago I dreamed I had sex with my mom and last night I dreamed my mom had a dick (non-sexual) and my alcoholic narcissistic uncle was making fun of her (almost said him)/me. Wtf.

Notes from today's appointment with my social worker Jenna

• People (esp. males) aren’t actually staring me down. Even if they are, it doesn’t matter
• I assumed my social worker only helps cause she ‘has to’ rather than ‘wants to’. According to one of the Relationship Science blog articles, that’s a sure fire indicator of avoidant attachment thinking
• I feel a power differentia whenever I’m around someone who hasn’t been open and vulnerable around me and I have. However, being able to be vulnerable like that is really a strength.
• My strategy to deal with anxious things is avoid them. If I’m avoiding, I’m probably anxious
• Be responsve not reactive, that’s mindfulness
• My goal is to learn from pat abd present experiences how to imtive my relationship, rather than from the theory of that field.
• Meet peope with zest, have zest, don't play hard to get, according to the psychlogy today long term relations article
• Direct pickup lines dominate as openers, according to the Relationship Science blog articles
• Am I just interested in health to one up my bro?
• “I feel comfortable depending on relationships partners” - people with secure Attachment agree with that statement. I don’t. Get to that.

Insight: personality

Depressive Narcissist

The Sadistic Narcissist

Narcissist's Sadistic Inner Judge

Everyday people's quotes

you can have a dream, but don't expect it to come true - my housemate 'A'

'Get out of my way or I will literally kill you with the knife in the breast pocket of the shirt im wearing' the writing on my sister's custom ordered shirt

personal development

What It’s Like To Not Love Your Body

Feeling Lonely?. >If you're single, doesn't mean you're not in a relationship - you're just focussing on your most important relationship, the relationship with yourself....being lonely is a mindset, not a situation.

Next time you're in transit, walking, whatever, you might like to try not to look at people to see if it will drain your will-power.

Reframe log

• browsing Reddit is dumb .

• Your Nature is Unconditional Happiness

• You cannot create happiness; you can only reveal the happiness that is already inside of you. Your very nature is unconditional happiness.

• Things I learned from a men's fitness magazine (jan 2016): (1) first 3 bites of food taste get then it's all over. So, when you give into temptation proportion appropriately (2) wearing suits at work improves your career prospects (3) hungry women pick up on less romantic cues

• Despite how great hiring sex is, I would probably have more fun spending the equivelant amount going to a concert like this. Now I don't feel like I'm supressing my desire, just choosing the most pleasant options in life.

• The whole universe culminates in my subjective personal experience. What a unifying thought.

• I'm tired of all these fucgurls

• can you share tips for how I can improve my relationship with myself? no my handsome friend, you already know how to love. I know that because there are people on this planet already enjoying your love every single day. All you gotta do, is point some of that love. Be nice to yourself, compliment yourself, trust yourself. Make time for yourself, act as if you are your own best friend...it is tricky to execute...'you do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself.'

• Let’s Just Say I’m Frankenstein’s Monster, and I’m Looking for My Creato

• Magneto, I love that quote!

• So I finally overcame my habit of checking out people,compulsively thanks to the wisdom of realising relationships are about compromise, hard work, and growth, rather than love at first site, and dramatic vulnerability.

• When I feeling like looking up dumb stuff on youtube, instead I'll look up this

Fun and silliness

HYDRAULIC PRESS CRUSHING HIPPO CRUSHING WATERMELON. Bear emoticon: ʕ·͡ᴥ·ʔ YESSSS hippo eats a watermelon THIS IS SO SATISFYING

Rapongi!

housework

I tried using wheat vinegar apple flavour from a Korean store to get rid of the lint in my wash, but it didn't work.

A professor insists that our maps are quite unlike the territory and that evolution is to blame.

Seems to be right up LW's alley :-)

So Eugine Neir has been downvoting my posts heavily, preventing me from getting useful feedback on the posts. So I'd like some thoughts from others on whether this post would better go on the Outreach thread, or on Discussion. The Outreach thread is for stuff that does not have potential for good discussion, but is just about successful outreach. I posted that in Discussion because it seems like it had potential for an interesting discussion. Indeed, it did have a number of non-Eugine comments, where people seemed interested in talking about the topic at hand.

Please leave comments, as downvotes are not good indications due to Eugine's potential intervention.