Open Thread, Feb. 27 - March 5, 2017

Did you have an alternative to eat after the first serving? Like, some vegetables or fruit? Maybe a switch from pasta-2 to an apple would be easier than from pasta-2 to nothing.

Try a precommitment like "after eating pasta, I will eat an apple... and maybe a second serving of pasta afterwards, if I will still feel like it".

(This requires buying a lot of apples in advance.)

Relevant.

And I go through lots of apples if I'm still hungry (or I just have a not-hungry-but-want-to-eat mood going) after I'm done with dinner and it works for me in the same way people are describing below.

If you want to be serious, buy a food scale and measure all of your food and eat at a specific calorie target every day, the weight loss will be linear to your target weight and then maintain. This means you'll have to keep it up forever. You can eat whatever you want as long as you hit the target. Processed food that has nutrition labels are also applicable to this method. In regards to not eat more, it depends where you eat. At home, you cook the amount you need, in processed restaurants with nutrition labels you order as much as you need.

Forget buffets and fancy restaurants. Unless if you maybe fast for 24 hours after or have a well-kept habit to keep this up. That means for example approximating how much you overate and subtract it from next days calories, you'll learn as you train by measuring food.

Much respect for being able to update on a topic that obviously means so much to you. Also, thanks for sharing the news.

I don't like the word cult, having had some direct and indirect experiences I know how much things can become impacting, so I won't use the word in the context of the community you're talking about.
That said, most of the pseudoscientific groups that coalesce around a charismatic figure undergo, sooner or later, an evaporative cooling. This is a term first applied to communities by Yudkowsky, intended to mean that whenever reality disproves the leader, some member will leave, but the most fervent follower will remain with stronger beliefs. The more life disproves the common core identity of the group, the more those remain will be hardened into believing it despite all the contrary evidence.
It has happened for your group much sooner than I anticipated, but still I salute your spark of scepticism.

There are a few around the world. There is also the accelerator project in the works.

Yeah. One of the most well-known ones in the Bay Area is a rationalist group house called Event Horizon. I don't live there, but maybe someone more familiar can chime in?

It's easier to explain things in terms of over-arching narratives - if some movement with some well-defined and explicit ideology was responsible for Trump, it becomes easier to explain his appeal, and it makes us feel like we are able to more easily make predictions about Trump and his support base. This relieves some anxiety - maybe we didn't win, but at least we have a good model of our enemy. And our narrative might be such that it says we will be able to win in the future. As long as we keep trying, staying on the morally right side according to this narrative, and so forth.

A lot of liberals, I think, were quite unsettled by the Trump phenomenon, and so part of that reaction was to turn to quasi-conspiracy type thinking, where you posit that there is this huge, but largely silent mass of people with a coherent right-wing, racist, nationalist ideology. The reason to turn to that type of thinking is largely the same for conspiracy-type thinking in general. It's actually more comforting to believe that the world is this highly predictable place, even if you are literally powerless within it.

The truth though, is that most voters do not have a coherent ideology, most vote on a small number of issues they hold to be most important, and their viewpoints might be very malleable and susceptible to the biases of various informational sources. This makes it harder to predict outcomes, because the things that are easier to measure become less valuable. We don't have a good model that predicts which issues people believe the most strongly in, what things would change peoples' opinions, or even just what kind of personality would appeal to the largest number of people.

Now this is where human behavior gets strange. When our predictions fail in a big way, this is usually evidence that our model needs to be updated in the direction of more complexity. Yes, sometimes we over-complicate things (like when we try to force the data to fit a theory by adding a lot of exceptions), but in general our models of the universe, as they gain in scope, and in explanatory power, gain in complexity. But most people, when they find out that they were really really wrong, seem to update in the opposite direction. Oh, a loud-mouthed, lying, sexist, bad-hair, anti-intellectual, guy-with-horrible-opinions-about-everything just won the election? I guess that means half the country are virulent racists!

At the same time there's a pretense in the media that Trump voters (who might be 100 as large in numbers) automatically belong to either of those categories.

This* seems obviously false. Do you have any evidence for this?

For instance, 81% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump. From my background in that community and many discussions with current members, I can tell you there are many reasons they voted for Trump...almost none of them overlap with anything I know of the neoreactionary or alt-right movements.

Edit - The idea there is a "pretense in the media seems as false as the claim itself. Outlets I watch/read often note the Trump constituency is diverse.

I would expect that there isn't a market where people pay for this.

Students in need of research ideas are bachelor's and master's thesis are the major demographic that needs research ideas. I'm not sure whether professors usually have enough research ideas in your domain to hand out to their students.

Generally I think of self-critique as one of the best paths toward becoming stronger and more correct. If the critique itself isn't that good, then helping to refine it does actually help the seeker to make better use of the critique.

I certainly prefer self-critique over other-critique, and really do NOT want outgroup-critique to be part of our normal behaviors. I wouldn't want to give up more expository or theoretically exploratory posts, but I don't think they're exclusive.

With downvoting disabled, we have lost one channel to guide the mix of posts we accept, but it was always a relatively coarse tool. Just failing to upvote and not commenting on posts that don't interest you is likely almost as effective.

Tegmarks mathematical multiverse goes beyond quantum physics. It posits (infinitely) many universes with wildly different rules. Some of them have quantum physics, some of them have (something that on surface resembles) classical physics, some of them have a rectangular grid with simple rules, etc.

MWI is about one specific universe we live in, which seems to be governed by a specific set of rules, although there is a possibility that some "constants" in those rules are actually not as constant as they may seem locally. But still, it would be generally the same system of rules everywhere, only with locally different parameters.

Back to the fine-tuning argument, MWI is a response to "is it not a magical coincidence that Earth happens to have the right distance from the Sun?", the theories about locally different physical 'constants' are a response to "is it not a magical coincidence that the constants have the right value, so that e.g. matter can exist?", and the Tegmark multiverse is a response to "is it not a magical coincidence that the laws of physics are flexible enough to allow you all the previously mentioned excuses?".

The problem is that "quantum mechanics" is not really a theory. It's a framework, or a language if you will. There's a classical quantum mechanics, there's a semi-classical quantum mechanics, there's quantum field theory, there are various unified field theories, and so on. All of them, although they are very different, can be called quantum mechanics and be the subject of different interpretations.
Classical quantum mechanics does not predict different cosmological constants. Semi-classical might, for example, for the value of the inflaton. Other theories might have different derivations altogether.

No, MWI does not have varying constants. Cosmological inflation seems to be about a changing cosmological constant. I think "eternal inflation" is an elaboration emphasizing more variation of the parameters.

Added: No, that's not quite right. Inflation is the pretty much empirical claim that the cosmological constant has changed. That strongly implies that other parameters can change. But do they change enough in interesting ways? Chaotic/eternal inflation is a dynamic theory about how the cosmological constant changes. It implies that the universe is very big, so the other parameters have room to run wild.

There ought to be one fundamental set of rules. This fundamental set of rules may or may not shake out into different local sets of rules. Assuming that these local rulesets arise from aspects of quantum state, then MWI is capable of realizing an arbitrarily large number of them.

String Theory, for instance, has a mindbogglingly large number of wildly varying possible local rulesets - 'compactifications'. So, if String Theory is correct, then yes, this is taken care of unless the number of compactifications yielding rules even vaguely like ours is unexpectedly small.

Aligned with what Dagon said, there is no particular incentive driving for it to be otherwise.

Somewhat more cynically, I have observed that it is very much to the professor's advantage to be able to credibly assert that you are "still N months away from graduating", where N is whatever number they feel like using in that moment to manipulate you to whatever ends they wish. Maybe they want to dissuade you from taking an internship. Maybe they want you to focus more on your research and less on your courses. Regardless, it seems the universal state is that the academic adviser will push back on your stated graduation date objectives, and since the entire system is designed around inhibiting any kind of firm commitment to a graduation plan, they can always win the argument.

For me, a lot of the panic came from the unreasonable number of documents that needed to be filed with certain gaps of time between them, such that you need to have document A signed and filed several months before being permitted to submit document B, and then document C could only be filed if document B was accepted, but it took an uncertain amount of time for that to happen, and meanwhile the deadline for graduation is approaching, etc.

Answer 1: Moloch likes it this way - no participant thinks it's the best plan, but everyone is afraid that making it easier and more certain will reduce their power.

Answer 2: It's a powerful signal and in order to remain so it must be costly. If it weren't so difficult and uncertain (leading to stress and panic), it wouldn't signal as well.

exclusively the ones that are not in the book? I am not aware of any lists, you can try the wiki and see if anything is there. this might help https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong/All_Articles

if someone gives the probability of 20% that B will win, and 80% that A will win, why do they say 'polls were wrong' 'predictions were wrong' if it turns out that B won?

If that's a single someone, saying "he was wrong" is not quite correct.

However if a hundred someones gave these probabilities, it would be reasonable to say "forecasts were wrong" (note the plural).

There is a newer copy in a less ancient Welcome Thread already.

Can you explain, in your view, what Trump did to get a lot of attention that another huge celebrity could not do?

From my view, he seemed to get lots of headlines just for being a celebrity and running for POTUS simultaneously.

Not unlike OJ made headlines for being a celeb and being on trial for murder at the same time.

P.S. On a bit more serious note, media told you Trump is a narcissistic airhead. He went on to win the election. You drew the conclusion that any narcissistic airhead can become POTUS. That was the wrong conclusion to draw. The right conclusion is that the media lied to you.

...or that certain narcissistic airheads could become POTUS but not necessarily all of them?

The right conclusion is that the media lied to you.

Meh, that depends. One can access many unfiltered Trump's media: his Twitter account, for example; his live speeches, and so on.
On one hand, media lie (or more charitably, distort) all the time, but unless one is placing his faith on one and only one channel, by weighted averaging different media sources and accessing unfiltered streams, one can arrive to a pretty accurate assessment.
My main point is that we are far from helpless in forming a correct opinion about the world that we live in.

Trump is pretty clearly narcissistic. People just don't actually care as long as said person is wearing their tribal colors.

What the media was wrong about is how much people cared.

LOL

Like at the correspondents dinner where Obama, et al mocked Trump's chops for/chances of being president?

Or all through out the 18 months leading up to last Nov?

How'd that work out for the LOLers?

Competent Manager

Hm. What sort of skills do you think this involves? Confidence? The ability to motivate & communicate ideas clearly?

KIM KARDASHIAN FOR PRESIDENT!!!

I don't think this is as likely as somebody like Beyonce, Ellen, Justin Timberlake—someone who has displayed intelligence and charisma.

It's about the a) simplicity of voting, b1) the power of name recognition and b2) social media, c) the two party system that ensures a relatively close contest, and d) tribalism that kills minds and makes Evangelicals vote for a guy who brags about grabbing women by their genitals at 81%

Kanye West would be MUCH more entertaining in this scenario X-D

Elon Musk? He's definitely a celebrity in some sense, if not an entertainer, and he at least carries the full list of adjectives you laid out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2020#Speculative_candidates_2

Could a mega celeb win the U.S. Presidency?

Of course. Celebrity and POTUS-y go hand in hand since the beginning of time. Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Trump...

This was probably Aella, who took LSD every week for ten months.

I'm not finding the poetry on a quick scan of aellagirl.com but it rings a bell with me too. It might also be on aellagirl.tumblr.com (which, be warned, has a fair amount of NSFW images).

Maybe it was too hard.

Here's another problem that might be easier. Make an O(n log n) sorting algorithm that's simple, stable, and in place. Today you can only get two out of three (merge sort isn't in place, heap sort isn't stable, and block sort isn't simple).

I haven't been following these threads, so I didn't even realize they were weekly. I'll take a look.

Just get in the shower :-)

What should I add?

Psychoactive chemicals :-P

I have two problems with it:

I am too addicted to computer, so I am become extremely bored without it - that is why I can't meditate

I have somekind of chronic fatigue and it is not easy to motivate myself to do something - after I spent all my willpower on some computer related projects like writing articles or browsing blogs.

Any non-trivial advise?

Two other things that seem to work well for me:

• Short (10-15 min) meditation sessions just to see what's in my head.

• Walking / moving around / being outside / letting my mind wander throughout the walk.

What about an hour meditation and 30 min in assistance of this practice? If you have time, watch this video about self-inquiry I'm sorry there is no transcript available.