Open Thread November 2018

A very successful crowdfunding for printing HPMoR has happened in Russia. 21k books are going to be printed: some of them will go to public/university libraries, some to gifted students. More good HPMoR related news are coming from Russia, but too early to announce them.

A couple days ago I unfollowed everyone on Facebook, now my news feed is completely empty. (Still friends with everyone though, and still using messenger and events.) So far it feels great! If anyone wants to wean themselves off Facebook and needs an actionable first step, this is it.

Now I'm thinking about what kind of online persona I want to create next. Facebook's focus on real world identities was kind of a stopper for my self-expression, as I'm only realizing now. Reddit has pseudonyms, but it's also a bit restrictive because you have to stay on topic for each subreddit. Similar for LW. (Though I do write a lot, both here and on Reddit, and not going to stop.) The old LiveJournal was great, but now it's dead and everyone on my feed has stopped posting in like 2013. Maybe Tumblr? There I'll be free to write day-to-day stuff colored with a certain persona, which is what I want. What other nice places exist?

Suggestion: a new “Welcome to Less Wrong!” thread for introductions and so forth. (Which should be sticky’d, at least for a while.)

This sort of thing [LW · GW] is good, but probably shouldn’t be its own post. This old welcome thread [LW · GW] got two thousand comments (the most of any post in all of Less Wrong history), and other welcome threads [? · GW] have also been popular; it seems to me that this would be a good way to ease some more people into contributing.

Has anyone studied linguistics and then gone on to learn another language? Was it any easier?

I have just read in The Horse, The Wheel and Language that Hopi grammar requires specifying how you know the information (first hand, second hand, or eternal truth); it occupies a similar level of importance to tenses and plurals in English. This made me think that maybe taking a tour of linguistics and picking up a language with complementary structure might be a useful tool for clarifying thinking.

I have not invented a "new style," composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from "this" method or "that" method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see "ourselves". . . Jeet Kune Do is not an organized institution that one can be a member of. Either you understand or you don't, and that is that. There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way. Jeet Kune Do is simply the direct expression of one's feelings with the minimum of movements and energy. The closer to the true way of Kung Fu, the less wastage of expression there is. Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive. Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back.

- Bruce Lee

Suppose Hypothetically that I had a brilliant AI idea, (I haven't) I don't know much about AI strategy or arms races, Im not quite sure what follows from this idea, but I have reason to suspect that made building a powerful AI much easier. Naturally I don't want to share this Idea if its dangerous. If I specify too exactly what the implications are, people could work backwards to the idea. People knowing the idea exists could be bad if it encourages them to entice the idea out of me. I suggest it would be useful to make some sort of dangerous AI idea decision tree, and/ or helpline.

For a concrete example, what would you do if you had discovered a linear time AIXI?

Do we see a lot of finance activity with a strategic goal in mind? I know activist investors are a thing, but most of the examples I am familiar with are traditional issues like human rights, environment, etc. or patsies for a larger profit motive, like when Gazprom takes out an energy startup.

It might make more sense for me to ask "are we seeing more or different strategic goals pursued via finance operations, as the finance industry grows?"

How do I report a top-level post to the moderators? I see a kebab menu for comments, but I don't see anything like that for top-level posts, neither on the front page nor on the post page. The specific situation is that there currently seem to be multiple spam posts in the “all posts” queue, but I'd also like to know how to do this in general for future reference.

Suggestion: the current month’s Open Thread should be sticky’d.

(Not much more to say about this one, seems obvious to me; any reason not to do this? It would be much more convenient!)

In the post editor, is there any way to use markdown or HTML instead of rich text? (For example, to superscript footnotes, or centre-align text.)

How bright should my monitor be? Has anybody looked more into the issue of optimizing monitor settings and has a strong opinion on what they should be for a programmer?

In the future there will be dragons