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Thanks for your work in creating the survey, and for LesserWrong. I shared the link to the survey in our meet-up group, and hope many people will contribute.
I agree, and I think we can already observe the consequences: For example, since exchange traded funds have become more popular, their number increased from 276 to 3.906, and not all of them are passively managed any more. I don't know about the situation in the US, but in Germany, one of the largest direct banks incentivizes buying ETFs that are indexing risky underlying things (for example, one ETF follows the development of pension-funds in emerging markets). It does so by having lower trading costs for incentivized funds.
I think on a private level, one can still find index funds that are actually useful. On a global level, there are some worries that ETFs might contribute to a potential future crisis.
Yes, that's correct. This is why I stated market knowledge is neccessary - if you decide to buy a plan where this kind of energy is supported, you don't reach your goal of heightening the production of renewable energy. The first paragraph was intended as an intro that shows the pit falls. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
You can do so, but it takes market knowledge to find such a plan. There are several plans that offer 100% renewable energy, usually certified in some way (example: http://www.tuev-nord.de/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-7251F8DB-F18E650D/tng_de/kriterienkatalog-oekostrom.pdf). The certified electricity is usually from hydroelectric power plants which are already 100% depreciated and don't get any surplus from the renewable energy levy.
However, there are some plans (for example http://www.gruenerstromlabel.de/english/) that come at a higher price, but also pay for installing new renewable power.
To answer the OP question: I'm not an EA-specialist, but I think that depends on your goals. If you agree with the version of utilitarianism that most EAs hold, buying the cheapest mix and donating the difference to GiveWell is best. If the goal of promoting renewable energy in your country is of similar importance as improving living conditions in developing countries, you should find out if in your country, solutions which actually cause investment in green energy exist and then buy those (the most effective solution would probably be to buy 100% renewable energy from depreciated hydroelectric plants and directly invest the difference in cost to higher-quality labels in green energy projects, but I assume this option isn't available to you).
Done. Skipped the digit ration questions to not put off answering the rest.
I do not think that this is true for the majority of players.
I probably should have emphasized the "partly". Of course, other factors also played a role in its demise, but they did try to gain footing in other European countries rather late.
Concerning Xing: Yes, you're right, this went very differently. It would be interesting to compare the LinkedIn/Xing and Facebook/StudiVZ situations to find out the differences and commonalities, but to do so in detail is beyond the scope of a comment, I think.
Case in point: before Facebook became large in Germany, there was a carbon copy called StudiVZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ). It lost out partly because it came chronologically after Facebook - it wasn't able to map connections to people outside of Germany well, which Facebook could.
I first wanted to comment on 5, because I had previously read that having children reduces happiness. Interestingly, when searching a link (because I couldn't remember where I had read it), I found this source (http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2012-013.pdf) that corrobates your specific expectation: children lead to higher happiness for older, better educated parents.
I'm a European, and the thought that geographical Europe might be meant didn't even occur to me,since in most of my daily interactions (media consumed, small talk, etc.), "Europe" is used interchangeably with "European Union". Teaches me to read such survey questions more thoroughly.
I want to congratulate you on how well you integrated the many suggestions you got, I see many improvements compared to the 2012 (for example, the introductory text convinced me to take the survey right away, when I was one of those who put it off last year).
Restart doing sport regularly. I started going to the gym one year ago, with the goal of 3 times per week. I reached an average of about 1 time per week, but with a very uneven distribution - i.e. 1 week 3 times, then two weeks nothing. Since July, I didn't have any regular exercise. At the last less wrong meetup, I set the goal to go to the gym 1/week and do the 7 minute workout twice per week. That was on the 22nd. In the first week after setting the goal, I didn't succeed. This week, I did the 7 minute workout once.
Till the next meetup (27th October), read chapter one of "Good and Real" by Gary L. Drescher. I haven't started yet, but am a fast reader and hope to do it this week-end.
I don't know how to phrase it best so it fits here, but I feel it does, because it complicates my life regularly and therefore is pretty major: Not sticking to very beneficial routines that I know to be highly useful for my overall functionality in the short term and neccessary in the long term.
I know that I am happier and better-functioning when I regularly make journal entries and meditate. I am more productive at work, and I have more energy in my free time for other projects. Yet, I'm in a cycle where, when everything is going very well, I neglect both activities. Everything continues to go well for a while, then I get unbalanced, less energetic and overall less happy and productive, and only then do I remember that I already know what I can do to improve my situation.
For example, I neglected journal-writing and meditation in the past three month, which was a critical time because this left me with little energy to learn for a test (I'm currently doing a second M.Sc. to improve my chances of entering the economic sector I'm especially interested in). It won't have any unalterable consequences yet - if I fail on Friday, I can repeat the test next year, without having to study longer than intended - but it will make things more difficult and time-intensive next year, because I will have to prepare for the repeat tests as well as the tests scheduled for next semester. And I fear it's only a matter of time till this leads to bigger consequences (Seriously affecting job performance, for example).
I hope you don't mind if I don't answer your actual question, but wouldn't it be a better option to sleep before taking your mom into bed, so you have sleep from 10 PM to 5 AM? What you're currently doing seems to equate to night-shifts, which are really bad for health, AFAIK. It would also help solving your problem of finding something social to do, I guess - that should be a lot easier in the evening.
The points you noticed confused me as well. My (very strong) gut reaction was that obviously Dumbledore is behind it all - he is the one with most control about the wards, and he is the one who gives both the readers and the participants of the meeting the information tha the wards point to the Defense professor as culprit. Also, the line about the heir triggered a mental alarm.
As I said, this was a gut reaction, and it has been quite some time since I read the rest of the story - this is just based on chapters 90 to 94, and the general impression I got from the story so far that this Dumbledore is definitely very different from canon Dumbledore.
I notice that I'm confused.
The example that I would have liked to bring up was Germany's stance on the Nord Stream project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream), which serves as a direct supply with russian natural gas independent of transit countries. In Germany, the support for this project by Schröder was widely perceived as a result of his relationship to Putin and his plans after leaving politics (he is head of the shareholder's committee). I assumed this project is clearly against German national interest, since it creates an even stronger dependence on russian natural gas than the dependence already existing right now. I assumed that Merkel's worse personal relationship with Putin and her not benefitting personally from this project would have lead to a stance that is more in line with Germany's interest in energy independence. Indeed, she has voiced that opinion - for example, advocating a LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Middle-East/Jan/10/Merkel-says-Germany-should-lessen-dependence-on-Russian-energy.ashx#axzz2Ww9dAIzo). However, when it comes to actions, she consistently supported Nord Stream and sabotaged alternatives.
I'm a bit sceptical about T4HW, since the numbers in this blog post (http://thehackensack.blogspot.de/2009/10/how-much-was-tim-ferriss-really-making.html) imply he exaggerated very, very much (although 4.000 $/month still alllows a comfortable living).
I think internal dynamics play a greater role than you assume. Personalities do matter in politics. To take a current example, while little has changed about the facts between Russia and Germany of today, the relationship between those two nations has changed a lot after Merkel succeeded Schröder as chancelor, simply because Putin and Merkel don't work as well together on a personal level as Schröder and Putin did.
Your attempt at an explanation is interesting, but to my knowledge, doesn't fit the facts. The nations weren't unwilling to ally with Germany, in contrary, the German Emperor didn't want to maintain the alliances that had been created by Bismarck. For example, Russia wanted to renew the Reinsurance Treaty in 1890 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinsurance_Treaty), but Germany didn't.
At a $20k income, $700 is a non-trivial expenditure. In Germany, online-services that aid in buying clothes exist (for example, www.outfittery.de). This might be a good compromise between best advice and cost-efficiency.
Thanks - I planned to take a closer look because of the rest of his strategies and lifestyle, but lacked the time. Another reason not to postpone that :-)
I would definitely read the sequence. I'm especially interested in How Tos on Investment - the free advice specifically about Investment on Mr. Money Mustache boils down to "Index Funds" and "Here are a bunch of books I read on the topic" as far as I could tell from my admittedly short visits to the site.
If you found (a) co-author(s) in Germany, I would buy the Germany-specific country edition if it's not ridiculously expensive.
Of course they do. I interpreted the word "position" in that context to mean your values, not the way they are reflected by reality. It was a misunderstanding on my part.
What do you mean when you say that your position may change in the future without notice? I would have thought this to be something one has a relatively stable position on. Isn't it rather unikely that you suddenly become a monogamous person and lose your interest in dominance play?
I have been largely satisfied with my work output lately, but improvement never hurts. Does anybody have experience using the Pomodoro Technique in an office setting? I think it looks useful, but actually implementing it and sitting at the workplace with a rather obvious timer (and the way wikipedia describes the technique, obvious stimuli like the ticking and ringing of the timer are part of the method) warrant explanation and may be considered slightly weird.
Hi Yvain,
please state a definite end date next year. Filling out the survey didn't have a really high priority for me, but knowing that I had "about a month" made me put it off. Had I known that the last possible day was the 26th of November, I probably would have fit it in sometime in between other stuff.
I would very much like to see an abstract at the beginning of this article. It is interesting, but rather long, and when the Game of Life example started, I was kind of lost what the intention of the article is supposed to be. I admit that I haven't read the post this is a follow-up to, but given that one of the largest criticism for the sequences is their inaccessibility to newcomers, there might be room for improvement in this new series of posts.
Could someone please point out some examples of trolling to me? I find this discussion surprising because I perceived the trolling rate as low to non-existent. Perhaps I've frequented the wrong threads.
I was a member of a Tibetan Buddhist group for about 3 years. I didn't feel very comfortable for the last half year. I don't think I can accurately sum up all my experiences, but the part that is relevant to this discussion:
- Local groups strive for harmony and affection via common activities and lots of physical contact (hugging etc.). This isn't quite as formalized as you propose, but still a deliberate part of the group structure.
- This does work rather fast, and raises happiness (for a time for me, indefinitely for others).
- Unfortunately, this also made it emotionally unpleasant for me to voice dissent/argue when I disagreed with something, especially when it was about something where I was the minority.
- As a consequence, today I prefer to develop such bonds slowly.
I'm not sure how this applies to your proposed structure, but I fear that it's implementation may lead to the above, simply because people like the same things you do. You do not need to force them to participate (neither was I), but they do so out of their own free will. The negative consequence I described may still happen, if many people adopt your rules and develop Affection for a large group of people they don't know well quickly.
I'm really, really uncomfortable with formalizing these aspects of social behavior. I prefer affection and love to emerge slowly and naturally. Although it is absolutely opposite of your intentions, and I recognize that fact, I'm still very strongly reminded of Love Bombing. Your concept just transmits a really phyggish vibe for me.
This post in no way is meant to be a criticism (I don't see why your rules shouldn't work), I just wanted to express the emotions that emerged when reading your post - which seem kind of important, given the topic.
Some more background: We're a small enterprise (boss, six employees, secretary, two trainees). Except our secretary and the trainees, everybody has an academic degree. We did try to institute that as a rule, but only me and one person working from home office consistently do so. The person working from home office is also, at the moment, very busy because of some deadlines, so I can't ask him to proofread. The others do proofread, but don't ask for proofreading in return, which makes asking low-status. They are either better at proofreading than I am or make less mistakes in the first place.
In fact, I fear the underlying problem is that I am not able to concentrate well, so my work is more error prone. Making as little mistakes as possible in the first place would obviously be the best solution, but I have even less of an idea how to achieve that, given my current abilities and work conditions.
Possible, but that reflects on my performance if they do indeed find mistakes I could have corrected. The goal is to eliminate most of the stuff myself so I don't waste my co-workers time.
I need advice on proof reading. Specifically:
How can I effectively read through 10-20 page reports, searching for spelling, formatting and similar mistakes?
and, more importantly, how can I effectively check calculations and tables done in excel for errors?
What I'm looking for is some kind of method to do those tasks. Currently, I try to check my results, but it is hard for me not just to glaze over the finished work - I'm familiar with it and it is hard for me to read a familiar text/table/calculation thoroughly.
Does anybody know how one can improve in this respect?
Yep, that's it. Thank you!
There was a thread a while ago where somebody converted probabilities via logarithms to numbers, so it's easier to use conditional probabilities. Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark it. Doe snaybody know which thread I'm talking about?
OK... Now I'm off reading Rathmann and Hutter on Solomonoff Induction. I don't think I can continue discussing the current posts without knowing what exactly EY is talking about on more than the superficial level given on the german wikipedia or LukeProgs unfinished intro. If anyone has suggestions where to find the same information in a more condensed format (70 pages isn't an hour-read through for me, exactly), please tell me.
So your parents are aware of the problem? Is there any way to discuss your problem locally? Message boards aren't really helpful for this kind of thing, IME. For very mild depressions, talking to your school's guidance counselor may be sufficient. If it isn't, he may at least be able to help persuade your parents that you need treatment (should that be the case).
1) Even in Muggle society, there are women who work close to their normal capacity despite pregnancy up to shortly before birth. 2) The physiological consequences after birth can probably be healed by magic. 3) Voldemort might also enjoy causing her psychological pain by having her become attached to the child she will bear and then taking it away from her afterwards. He continued torturing her well after he already had her total loyalty, so this might just be another way to do so.
Science is built around the assumption that you're too stupid and self-deceiving to just use Solomonoff induction. After all, if it was that simple, we wouldn't need a social process of science... right?
Seeing how often overconfidence bias is brought up as a problem, and how the rationality camps etc. are implemented to battle this bias, among others, this assumption doesn't seem to be a bad starting point.
Yes, your interpretation makes more sense. When the teacher said "Assume,..." I noticed that I don't share that assumption, and decided to comment on this. I missed the part about how the student decided how to think - which supports the implication you saw.
Just jumping into the Seq Rerun right now, so I missedall the stuff that came before. It might just reflect badly on my intelligence, but it usually takes me more than five minutes for an original thought. Maybe I have different standards about what constitutes originality.
I also think there's enough scarcity in science. The people who work in academia find plenty of open questions, and try to answer them. I don't deny that peer review, grant seeking etc. play a certain role, but most of the people working in academia that I met genuinely care about their research more than about status.
How many people did you look at to get this general impression of the general impression? Unfortunately, I don't have any comparison because both the site and the person seem to be largely unknown in Germany. I can only speak for myself - I didn't get this impression. Sure, there are some fringe ideas, but the discussion contains tons of stuff not the slightest related to Eliezer Yudkowsky or his opinions.
Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.
The template XiXiDu used to contact the AI researchers seemed respectful and not at all belittling. I haven't read the interviews themselves yet, but just looking at the one with Brandon Rohrer, his comment
This is an entertaining survey. I appreciate the specificity with which you've worded some of the questions. I don't have a defensible or scientific answer to any of the questions, but I've included some answers below that are wild-ass guesses. You got some good and thoughtful responses. I've been enjoying reading them. Thanks for compiling them.
doesn't sound like he feels belittled by XiXiDu.
Also, I perceived your question as tension-starter, because whatever XiXiDu's faults or virtues, he does seem to respect the opinion of non-LW-researchers more than the average LW-member. I'm not here that often, but I assume that if I noticed that, somebody with a substantially higher Karma would have also noticed that. That makes me think there is a chance that your question wasn't meant as a serious inquiry, but as an attack - which XiXiDu answered to in kind.
Concerning the application of rationality in one's own life: In the mini-camp thread, Brandon Reinhart gives a very detailed summary of how he improved using the methods taught there (here). I'm sure the material that is taught in the camps can be found somewhere on the site.
However, the masses of material are hard to comb through, and my google-fu wasn't sufficient to identify the relevant ones. Can anyone point me to sequences that teach that kind of stuff?
Should you take into account the possibility that the chicken was just something transfigured before increasing the probability of Dumbledore being a Sadist?
What does the Acronym KTD stand for? A quick google search for acronyms lead me here: http://www.acronymgeek.com/KTD,
but this doesn't really help....
Hi! This is basically a question about sloppiness. I've recently noticed that I tend not to correct reports I do as part of my work sufficiently, I recently sent one to a coworker/supervisor and he criticised it for having too many careless mistakes. I then remembered that the supervisor for my diploma thesis had the same criticism. It may be connected to overconfidence bias - I noticed that when finishing work, it doesn't occur to me to double-check, I just assume I didn't make any mistakes.
Is there any hack that could help me to consistently remember avoiding this behavior pattern? I think I now know where the problem lies, but I don't know how to apply that knowledge to effectively avoid this behavior - it's usually just in retrospect that I notice I shouldn't have submitted something yet.
If it is, you should rewrite that article. I never got the impression that she was there was something fundamentally wrong about her, I just got the impression that you had different goals than she had. In your article, it sounds as if you knew her for quite some time before she wanted marriage - you mention that you deconverted simultaneously, and this process took you about two years, as you describe in your article on that topic. I think it isn't irrational to want more commitment from your partner after a two-year relationship. "Sarah", on the other hand, pressed eugman for a lot more.
I conceed that it is reasonable within the constraints of the thought experiment. However, I think it should be noted that this will never be more than a thought experiment and that if real world numbers and real world problems are used, it becomes less clear cut, and the intuition of going against the 50 years torture is a good starting point in some cases.
My experience totally differs, most relationships in my circle of acquaintances and my family were formed because of preexisting common interests/hobbies/whatever that are shared by the two eventual partners. ("People who play tennis together", "People who finished college at the same school in the same year", "People frequently attending events of the same fraternity", etc.). Yes, it's not totally random, but the subsets you get are still likely to contain people with very different personalities, attitudes and interests. I admit that this is only from my own observations, and that this is perhaps caused by cultural and environmental differences (I'm from a moderately traditional german family).
But assuming for the moment your model is correct, Lukeprog would still have to smother his attraction to the many woman who aren't polyamourous. So it doesn't really help in that respect, does it?