Open thread, Nov. 30 - Dec. 06, 2015

I request the attention of a moderator to the wiki editing war that began a week ago between Gleb_Tsipursky and VoiceofRa, regarding the article on Intentional Insights. So far. VoiceofRa has deleted it twice, and Gleb_Tsipursky has restored it twice.

Due to the way the editing to remove the page was done, to see the full editing history it is necessary to look also at the pseudo-article titled Delete.

I do not care whether there is an article on Intentional Insights or not, but I do care about standards for editing the wiki.

For those of you who always wanted to know what is it like to put your head in a particle accelerator when it's turned on...

On 13 July 1978, Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of the largest Soviet particle accelerator, the U-70 synchrotron, when the safety mechanisms failed. Bugorski was leaning over the equipment when he stuck his head in the path of the 76 GeV proton beam. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns" but did not feel any pain.

The left half of Bugorski's face swelled up beyond recognition and, over the next several days, started peeling off, revealing the path that the proton beam (moving near the speed of light) had burned through parts of his face, his bone and the brain tissue underneath. However, Bugorski survived and even completed his Ph.D. There was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity, but the fatigue of mental work increased markedly. Bugorski completely lost hearing in the left ear and only a constant, unpleasant internal noise remained. The left half of his face was paralyzed due to the destruction of nerves. He was able to function well, except for the fact that he had occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures.

Bugorski continued to work in science and held the post of coordinator of physics experiments. In 1996, he applied unsuccessfully for disabled status to receive his free epilepsy medication. Bugorski showed interest in making himself available for study to Western researchers but could not afford to leave Protvino.

A paper.

Abstract:

Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief). Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more conventionally profound (e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g., “Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements. These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity.

I'm not sure what the best way is to add new data to an old debate - going back to post in the original thread means that only one person will see it - so I thought I'd post it here.

Anyway, the new data pertains to my previous debates with VoiceOfRa over gay rights and fertility rate. I just found out that Singapore bans male homosexuality (but lesbianism is legal) but women have only 1.29 children each, while similar countries Hong Kong and Japan have legal homosexuality, and fertility rates of 1.3 and 1.41.

Now, obviously three countries are not statistically significant, and it could be that if Singapore would have an even lower birth rate if they legalised homosexuality. But it still seems unlikely that it would have much impact, if any, and for someone who cares a lot about increasing the birth rate, sexuality is a distraction from the issue that careers are higher status than raising children.

Here's drawing your attention to this year's Effective Altruism Survey, which was recently released and which Peter Hurford linked to in LessWrong Main. As he says there:

This is a survey of all EAs to learn about the movement and how it can improve. The data collected in the survey is used to help EA groups improve and grow EA. Data is also used to populate the map of EAs, create new EA meetup groups, and create EA Profiles and the EA Donation Registry.

If you are an EA or otherwise familiar with the community, we hope you will take it using this link. All results will be anonymised and made publicly available to members of the EA community. As an added bonus, one random survey taker will be selected to win a $250 donation to their favorite charity.

Take the EA Survey

When will be the next LessWrong census and who will run it?

I've occasionally seen lists of peoples favorite sequences articles or similar but is there any inverse? Articles or parts of sequences on lesswrong which contain errors or which are probably misleading or poorly written that anyone would like to point to?

There is a LW post about rational home buying.But how to rationally buy a car?

It seems to me lately that commute time is actually pretty comfortably spent thinking on problems which require 'holding off on proposing solutions' (I don't drive.) I used to misspend it by going over stuff in circles, but now I actually look forward to it and compose lists of things I have to do/buy/wash etc. (also, I spend far less of it belowground, which is still - years after I moved - a palpable relief.) I had tried listening to podcasts, but it made my ears hurt after a while, and simply 'disconnecting' during 'stupid commute' made me disgruntled. Apparently thinking doesn't feel too bad!:)

Can somebody point out text books or other sources that lead to an increased understanding of how to influence more than one person (the books I know address only 1:1, or presentations)? There are books on how to run successful businesses, etc, but is there overarching knowledge that includes successful states, parties, NGOs, religions, other social groups (would also be of interest for how to best spread rationality...). In the Yvain framework: given the Moloch as a taken, what are good resources that describe how to optimally influence the Moloch with many self-interested agents and for example its inherent game-theoretic problems as long as AI is not up to the task?

How to build a better PhD

There are too many PhD students for too few academic jobs — but with imagination, the problem could be solved.

https://blog.todoist.com/2015/11/30/ultimate-guide-personal-productivity-methods/

this seems like a good list of productive systems that I know sound reasonable. Worth looking over them and considering them for yourself.

I am interested in an analysis of words/day or letters/day published in the LW forums over time (as comments, separately to posts). Can someone point me in the direction of accessing the full database of comments in easy manual-hackity analyseable format - a csv or something... Or can someone else with that access make a graph of characters published/day.

My intention is to approximate a value for characters/time or words/time (i.e. typing speed) to grasp an understand of how much approximate "human-equivalent" time is spent on the forums, and how it has changed over the period of the existence of the forum.

How to gather like-minded enthusiasts together?

How do you go about finding people who share your goals and are willing to cooperate with you on working to attain those goals? I haven't been very successful with this so far. It seems that there should be thousands of people around the world who think like me yet I've only been able to find a few.

For various reasons, I don't listen to podcasts. Is there any reasonable way to get a text version of a podcast when none has been provided? (Pretend I'm totally deaf.)

'My father had one job in his life, I've had six in mine, my kids will have six at the same time'

In the ‘gig’ or ‘sharing’ economy, say the experts, we will do lots of different jobs as technology releases us from the nine to five. But it may also bring anxiety, insecurity and low wages

User behaviour: Websites and apps are designed for compulsion, even addiction. Should the net be regulated like drugs or casinos?

When I go online, I feel like one of B F Skinner’s white Carneaux pigeons. Those pigeons spent the pivotal hours of their lives in boxes, obsessively pecking small pieces of Plexiglas. In doing so, they helped Skinner, a psychology researcher at Harvard, map certain behavioural principles that apply, with eerie precision, to the design of 21st‑century digital experiences.

Have updated: my list of common human goals article.

now includes: Improve the tools available - sharpen the axe, write a new app that can do the thing you want, invent systems that work for you. prepare for when the rest of the work comes along.

in the sense of, making a good workplace; sharpening the tools; knolling), and more...

What people have done which has helped them when they had no hope Check out the livejournal link-- it's also got good comments

This is very specifically a discussion for personal accounts, not advice.

I'm willing to be that a formal study would turn up much the same sort of thing-- what helped was very varied-- even contradictory between one person and another, though with some overlap.

Iterating Grace, a curious little art book.

Subtitle: Heartfelt Wisdom and Disruptive Truths from Silicon Valley's Top Venture Capitalists. But it's really about being trampled by llamas.

Who are the equivalents of olympic champions for soft/social skills? What occupations do they usually hold?

I am aware of a show format in America, in which a host invites a guest to a news show, and chats with them. I would assume that would require them to be able to hit up a conversation with pretty much anyone.

Or the insurance salesman signing a deal in well over the majority of the cases.

... or the cult leader.

What is the present day equivalent of the Byzantine courtier managing to turn friendships into grudges, and making lovers stab each other in the back?

Or generally, the best performers in the cynical management of people so they further their goals?

I would like to know who are the creme, and most importantly, the occupations which select for such abilities (this in hope of there existing textbooks/playbooks/workshops titled Handbook of /Occupation/ from which allows one to acquire these skills.)

I am most interested in the first (being able to hit up a conversation with anyone, from truck driver to scientist, and continue to do so for a reasonable time)

I recall Kaj_Sotala writing up about a friend of his, who was able to do pretty much that, and his drawing a mind-map of conversation topics, and generally, that conversation is just like anything else: you ought to put effort into it, prepare if you want better outcomes, and anything which goes for any complex activity, so goes for this. On the IRC channel when there was talk about AI box experiments, ridiculously long pre-prepared scripts were mentioned. Debate teams also do this

Any other (play/hand)books i should check out? This seems like a search query which would result in too much red herrings, so I am writing here first hoping you guys have a better understanding around this area.

I request the attention of a moderator to the wiki editing war that began a week ago between Gleb_Tsipursky and VoiceofRa, regarding the article on Intentional Insights. So far. VoiceofRa has deleted it twice, and Gleb_Tsipursky has restored it twice.

Due to the way the editing to remove the page was done, to see the full editing history it is necessary to look also at the pseudo-article titled Delete.

I do not care whether there is an article on Intentional Insights or not, but I do care about standards for editing the wiki.

I just started gathering some intelligence from potential competitors in entering a 'new industry'. Looks like there is basically just 1 major competitor. Just discovered they got a multimillion dollar government grant! I feel it's so unfair, and cheated. How can I compete or be a value adding collaborator at another stage of the value chain now! Anyone have experience applying for government grants as a startup - including for startups that aren't internet based?

Is there any correlation between facial recognition and computer-driven cars? Just a strange idea inspired by this article that got into my head, along with a cached knowledge of software recognition performing roughly similar to humans and because it's cached knowledge I'm not sure how reliable it is. Anyone more familiar with this?

I'm making a comparison between facial recognition and recognition of everything else, and I'm not sure how good it is, although it's fundamentally focusing on the same thing.

tl:dr if human recognition =+- software recognition how can computer-driven cars be safer?