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How do you conduct a personal study retreat? 2021-05-31T14:25:45.687Z

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Comment by Aay17ush on What are the best tools for recording predictions? · 2024-04-11T23:40:42.629Z · LW · GW

I'm surprised fatebook.io isn't an answer here. I had in the past tried a bunch of personal prediction tools and felt dis-satisfied. Either because of the complexity, UI, or something else. Anyways, I've been using fatebook for a couple weeks now and loving it.

More info: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yS3d46m23wRKDQobt/introducing-fatebook-the-fastest-way-to-make-and-track 

Comment by Aay17ush on Announcing Apollo Research · 2023-05-30T20:29:48.489Z · LW · GW

Good luck! :)

Comment by Aay17ush on Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down by Eliezer Yudkowsky · 2023-04-01T20:43:36.826Z · LW · GW

The way you use intelligence is different from how many people here using that word mean it. 
Check this out (for a partial understanding of what they mean): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aiQabnugDhcrFtr9n/the-power-of-intelligence

Comment by Aay17ush on Truthseeking processes tend to be frame-invariant · 2023-03-21T11:55:49.396Z · LW · GW

Interesting! I've recently been thinking a bunch about "narratives" (frames) and how strongly they shape how/what we think. Making it much harder to see "the" truth since changing the narrative changes things quite a bit.

I'm curious if anyone has an example of how they would go about applying frame-invariance to rationality.

Comment by Aay17ush on Ritual as the only tool for overwriting values and goals · 2023-01-04T17:03:38.687Z · LW · GW

These kinds of explorations (unusual and truth-seeking) are why I love lesswrong :)

Comment by Aay17ush on Models Don't "Get Reward" · 2022-12-30T11:25:34.142Z · LW · GW

I've found the post "Reward is not the optimization target" quite confusing. This post cleared the concept up for me. Especially the selection framing and example. Thank you!

Comment by Aay17ush on Why Aren't There More Schelling Holidays? · 2022-11-04T11:52:31.133Z · LW · GW

Finland too (and I expect quite a few other EU countries to do so as well)

Comment by Aay17ush on A daily routine I do for my AI safety research work · 2022-07-20T09:38:41.348Z · LW · GW

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/lists/1185207859728076800 AGI Safety core by JJ (From AI Safety Support)

Comment by Aay17ush on Approach to Screen Time · 2022-04-18T08:40:47.133Z · LW · GW

Lily: If I was a parent I would change the fifteen minutes to ten minutes. Screen time is kind of bad for kids. I also like having an hour and a half for movies, but I think maybe it's a bit much?

haha that’s so sweet! :D

Comment by Aay17ush on What is the most significant way you have changed your mind in the last year? · 2022-04-14T19:57:28.790Z · LW · GW

Tldr: Love used to be in short supply (for self and others). Read Replacing guilt and tried improv + metta meditation. Now it is in big supply and has lead to significant positive changes in my actions.

I have always been in a single-player and critical mindset, optimizing everything for me. Thinking about what would be a nice thing to do for others (and empathizing with their feelings) hardly ever popped into my awareness. 

Over the last year, 

  • Replacing guilt made me realize I didn't need negative thoughts to motivate me. This led me to incrementally decrease my self-criticism and learn to treat myself as I would a close friend.
  • Improv acting made me realize on a gut level that everyone has their own subjective experience that feels as true to them as mine feels to myself. This led me to get out of my head and be with the person.
  • Metta meditation made me realize I can learn to love others and myself far more than I do. A consequence is that deeply loving someone makes it really unlikely to have a bad social experience with them. Problems such as awkwardness, feeling judged, bad conversations, etc just die off and you actively start having very enjoyable social experiences. I'm surprised no self-help book talks about this.

 

Obviously, the process involved a lot more ups and downs than suggested here. But these are the three big factors I feel comfortable abstracting to that capture the fundamental changes.

I'm incredibly thankful to lesswrong and the wider rationality movement for the mentals tools it provides. My 2020 self would not have predicted this :)

Comment by Aay17ush on Does the rationalist community have a membership funnel? · 2022-04-12T20:13:38.992Z · LW · GW

I assume EA student groups have a decent amount of rationalists in them (30%?), so the two categories are not as easily separable. And thus it's not as bad as it sounds for rationalists.

Comment by Aay17ush on AMA Conjecture, A New Alignment Startup · 2022-04-09T12:43:36.518Z · LW · GW

Will you be approachable for incubating less experienced people (for example student interns), or do you not want to take that overhead right now?

Comment by Aay17ush on AMA Conjecture, A New Alignment Startup · 2022-04-09T12:43:20.297Z · LW · GW

What is the reasoning behind non-disclosure by default? It seems opposite to what EleutherAI does.

Comment by Aay17ush on We Are Conjecture, A New Alignment Research Startup · 2022-04-08T15:18:27.513Z · LW · GW

This is lovely! I’ve a couple questions (will post them in the AMA as well if this is not a good place to ask)

  1. What is the reasoning behind non-disclosure by default? It seems opposite to what EleutherAI does.

  2. Will you be approachable for incubating less experienced people (for example student interns), or do you not want to take that overhead right now?

Comment by Aay17ush on Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation · 2022-02-19T22:21:29.895Z · LW · GW

Metta (loving-kindness) meditation would be an example practice that tries to focus attention on actively loving others in order to get better at it over time. 

I don't have time to currently point out to concrete research backing it up, but it's been often discussed positively on Lesswrong and the EA Forum and I have had surprisingly good results from it. In my experience though, it has quite a quick feedback loop so trying it out might be the most efficient way of testing it. The Waking up app by Sam Harris is a good starting point.

Comment by Aay17ush on Third Time: a better way to work · 2022-01-08T09:35:27.171Z · LW · GW

This is a great idea! I'm gonna try it out. It fixes quite a lot of things with existing systems, as you point out.

I'm curious though, since when have you been experimenting with it and how has it been? I'm assuming it went well, but I am interested to know more about the details in your process (setbacks, changes, etc) and expect it'll be helpful for others experimenting with this as well :)

Comment by Aay17ush on I Really Don't Understand Eliezer Yudkowsky's Position on Consciousness · 2021-10-29T16:41:40.967Z · LW · GW

I've often thought about this, and this is the conclusion I've reached.

There would need to be some criteria that separates morality from immorality. Given that, consciousness (ie self-modelling) seems like the best criteria given our current knowledge. Obviously, there are gaps (like the comatose patient you mention), but we currently do not have a better metric to latch on to.

Comment by Aay17ush on The Best Software For Every Need · 2021-09-11T09:48:42.272Z · LW · GW

I put my laptop on a box on top of my desk and use an external keyboard and mouse to operate it.

Comment by Aay17ush on LessWrong is providing feedback and proofreading on drafts as a service · 2021-09-07T05:33:54.557Z · LW · GW

Love this initiative! I do have a question though. It seems that people with 100+ karma have most likely figured out how to write publicly with a decent quality. So this service would simply be a bonus for them.

Isn't it more important to enable this service for lurkers/readers on Lesswrong who haven't yet written many posts due to the reasons you've mentioned?

Disclaimer: I don't have 100+ karma and haven't written a lot outside as well - just privately in my note taking app.

Comment by Aay17ush on Idea: Give the Nobel peace prize to institution designers · 2021-06-22T13:42:13.662Z · LW · GW

Thanks for writing this! While reading the post, I was also thinking that this heuristic of building better systems is useful for deciding what to work on in our career as well.

Comment by Aay17ush on AGI safety from first principles: Superintelligence · 2021-03-27T21:12:54.223Z · LW · GW

Disclosure: I am new to AI Alignment, and have picked this as my first reading to dive in to.

However, most possibilities for such crucial features, including this one, could be recreated in artificial training environments and in artificial neural networks.

I don't understand how you arrive at this conclusion. Is there some paper/reasoning you could point me to that backs this? Would be helpful.

Also, is this anologous to saying "We can simulate environments that can give rise to features such as general intelligence? " (Making sure I'm not misinterpreting)

Comment by Aay17ush on Babble Challenge: 50 Ways to Overcome Impostor Syndrome · 2021-03-21T11:17:39.137Z · LW · GW

My biggest reasoning for not babbling is imposter syndrome. So there's no better exercise than this to start babbling :)

  1. Read a book on imposter syndrome.
  2. Meditate
  3. Talk to someone
  4. Cut yourself some slack
  5. Read about babble!
  6. Ignore it and publish the result anyway
  7. Look at your past achievements
  8. Do a poll on twitter asking how many people get imposter syndrome
  9. Sleep
  10. Go do something you know you're amazing at
  11. Write about your feelings - writing therapy
  12. Enjoy it until you have it.
  13. Get a coloring book and color inside the lines. That's hard!
  14. Cook something delicious
  15. Listen to some motivational/self-help speaker for some short-term boost
  16. Go for a walk
  17. Do some intense workout
  18. Laugh at yourself
  19. Take some time off and have some fun
  20. Take a crazy cold shower or better yet, an ice bath
  21. Watch batman take on the Justice League
  22. Help someone less fortunate than you
  23. Dance
  24. Take it out on a punching bag
  25. Do some kindness meditation
  26. Maintain a streak of how many times you overcome imposter syndrome
  27. Break it down to identify the underlying reasons, and solve them one by one.
  28. Join the army.
  29. Do something you think you can't do.
  30. Go for a therapy session
  31. Get out of your room and surround yourself with nature
  32. Watch an uplifting movie
  33. Have sex
  34. Go to a coffee-place and chill out
  35. Go for a hike
  36. Pick something else, and come back to your current activity later.
  37. Pray to god
  38. Talk to yourself and increase your self-confidence
  39. Ask someone to take a look at your paper - you'll probably hear that it's not that bad.
  40. Hangout with someone
  41. Sit by a river/lake/sea
  42. Play with some animals (puppies?)
  43. Talk to someone who you know is an imposter
  44. Act like a real imposter and fake something. You'll realize you weren't being an imposter earlier.
  45. Read psychology
  46. Buy a block of cheese and slowly enjoy it to its fullest
  47. Do a r/roastme
  48. Sing your favourite songs
  49. Go to a language club of your native language - feel like a king.
  50. Don't do anything. Sit there and notice when that feeling passes away.
Comment by Aay17ush on Unnecessary Boredom Bias · 2021-03-21T10:25:47.309Z · LW · GW

I've been thinking about this too, and I agree with your conclusion. The way I think about boredom is that since we (or the environment) block off external stimulation, our mind is forced to internally stimulate us (assuming that we have a constant need for stimulation).

Initially, as you mentioned, this leads to remembering small tasks and worries that have been on our mind. But after exhausting that reserve, it has no option except to stimulate us with things we haven't been thinking about consciously, i.e - creative thoughts.

I've been failing to implement boredom as a habit, the closest achievement being meditation. The failures have been mostly due to finding new excuses and persuading myself not to do it "right now". But am curious to know how you've changed your actions after this.