Hi! I'd like the minimum amount of karma needed to make a post about the Bay Area Solstice. [Edit: Now that I have it, disregard that message. Thank you, and that's why this post has this amount of karma.]

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There might be an alien civilization building stuff in its solar system.

If this turns out to be aliens rather than a low-probability astronomical event, does it imply that getting out into space is a lot harder than it sounds?

Drats, foiled again!

KUALA LUMPUR: The police have declared the international "Love and Sex with Robots" conference, scheduled to be held in Iskandar Malaysia, as illegal.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the organiser of the event has been warned not to proceed with the event that was supposed to be held from Nov 16 to 19.

"It's already an offence in Malaysia to have anal sex, what more intercourse with robots. Don't try to be ridiculous," he said at the press conference at the Sime Darby Convention Centre on Tuesday.

He added that there was "nothing scientific about having sex with machines."

Any tips on eliciting good, honest personal feedback? I just got a rejection from a position I wanted and will have a call with the headhunter tomorrow. I'd like to extract something useful information out of it. Any tips of good question formulations?

E.g. in a survey I ask instead of "Do you use X?" the question "In the past 3 months how many times did you use X?" to get a less biased answer.

Any good questions/ideas?

The first answer here is pretty good, though doesn't quite apply for my situation: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-way-to-ask-for-personal-feedback-from-friends-and-coworkers-on-your-strengths-and-weaknesses

Thank you!

Wetware basis for IQ. Abstract (emphasis mine):

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies typically collapse data from many subjects, but brain functional organization varies between individuals. Here we establish that this individual variability is both robust and reliable, using data from the Human Connectome Project to demonstrate that functional connectivity profiles act as a 'fingerprint' that can accurately identify subjects from a large group. Identification was successful across scan sessions and even between task and rest conditions, indicating that an individual's connectivity profile is intrinsic, and can be used to distinguish that individual regardless of how the brain is engaged during imaging. Characteristic connectivity patterns were distributed throughout the brain, but the frontoparietal network emerged as most distinctive. Furthermore, we show that connectivity profiles predict levels of fluid intelligence: the same networks that were most discriminating of individuals were also most predictive of cognitive behavior. Results indicate the potential to draw inferences about single subjects on the basis of functional connectivity fMRI.

I was just rereading Three Worlds Collide today and noticed that my feelings about the ending have changed over the last few years. It used to be obvious to me that the "status quo" ending was better. Now I feel that the "super happy" ending is better, and it's not just a matter of feelings - it's somehow axiomatically better, based on what I know about decision theory.

Namely, the story says that the super happies are smarter and understand humanity's utility function better, and also that they are moral and wouldn't offer a deal unless it was beneficial according to both utility functions being merged (not just according to their value of happiness). Under these conditions, accepting the deal seems like the right thing to do.

I'm new here. Been lurking occasionally for a few weeks. I have finally signed up. On principle should I avoid voting? (For the time being?)

I'm contemplating a discussion post on this topic, but first I'll float it here, since there's a high chance that I'm just being really stupid.

I'm abysmally unsuccessful at using anything like Bayesian reasoning in real life.

I don't think it's because I'm doing anything fundamentally wrong. Maybe what I'm doing wrong is attempting to think of these things in a Bayesian way in the first place.

Let's use a concrete example. I bought a house. My prior probability that any given household appliance or fixture will break and/or need maintenance in a given month ... (read more)

Hi! Semi-new lurker here. What is the current etiquette on necroing? I didn't find any official ettiquette guide.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.0348

Calculating Levenshtein distance may be unoptimizable.

Mulling the Fermi paradox and escape velocity-- the higher a species' home planet's escape velocity, the harder it is to get off the planet. I think there's an escape velocity which is so high that chemical rocket fuels just don't have enough energy.

I have no idea whether there's a plausible relationship between the likelihood of technological species and the escape velocity of their planet, except that I doubt that there'd be intelligent life on planets without atmosphere. Or am I being too parochial?

Thoughts about technological species and escape velocity?

Blowing the whistle on the uc berkeley mathematics department

This remark that I should align more with department standards has been the resounding theme of my time at Berkeley, and Arthur Ogus's comment in the April 18th, 2014 memo was not an isolated slip. On September 22nd, 2013 he wrote in an email "But I do think it that it [sic] is very important that you not deviate too far from the department norms." On November 12th, 2014 he wrote "I hope that, on the basis of our conversation, you can further adjust to the norms of our department

Recently I sent a message to an old friend who had stopped talking to me a while ago. I asked if he was done ignoring me and he said something along the lines of 'you're temperamental, clearly delusional and gullible which is something I can live without'. Now, I was wondering about how I could improve on with respect to their impressions socially, since I am doing well currently in managing them with respect to personal wellbeing. I'd like to step past how his comments are hurtful, and recognise better how my behaviour may have hurt and continues to hurt people I know, and what I can do to improve. All tips welcome.

The Flash player for the video of Max Tegmark and Nick Bostrom speaking at the UN is super annoying. Anyone know how to extract the raw video file so I can watch it more conveniently? Thanks!

I've lost my curiosity. I have noticed that over the course of the last year, I have become significantly less curious. I no longer feel the need to know anything unless I need it, I don't understand how it is possible to desire knowledge for the sake of knowledge (even though the past me definitely did), I generally find myself unable to empathize with knowledge-seekers and the virtue of curiosity. That worries me a lot, because if you asked me two years earlier, I would have named curiosity as my main characteristic and the desire for knowledge my main d... (read more)

I'm rather frustrated that there's not a guide to being generally healthier that uses probabilities and payoffs and such to convince readers that they should bother to do any specific activity, or adopt any specific intervention to make themselves healthier. Health information is so disorganized-- which is fine for the cutting edge stuff, but for stuff that many people get that we've known how to treat for a while, such as cavities, acid reflux, and so on, I feel like it should be way the buck easier to find detailed info on how much certain activities inc... (read more)

I've been reading about the difficult problem of building an intelligent agent A that can prove a more intelligent version of itself, A', will behave according to A's values. It made me start wondering: what does it mean when a person "proves" something to themselves or others? Is it the mental state change that's important? The external manipulation of symbols?

Link: Maybe You Don't Need 8 Hours of Sleep After All

Three hunter-gatherer and hunter-farmer groups -- the Hadza in Tanzania, San in Namibia, and Tsimane in Bolivia, who live roughly the same lifestyle humans did in the Paleolithic were observed and it was concluded that our ancient ancestors may not have slept nearly as much we thought - despite being healthy.

Any ideas why these tribes might need less sleep?

At least two major classes of existential risk, AI and physics experiments, are areas where a lot of math can come into play. In the case of AI, this is understanding whether hard take-offs are possible or likely and whether an AI can be provably Friendly. In the case of physics experiments, the issues connected to are analysis that the experiments are safe.

In both these cases, little attention is made to the precise axiomatic system being used for the results. Should this be concerning? If for example some sort of result about Friendliness is proven rigo... (read more)

Why isn't there a good way of doing symbolic math on a computer?

I want to brush up on my probability theory. I hate using a pen and paper, I lose them, they get damaged, and my handwriting is slow and messy.

In my mind I can envisage a simple symbolic math editor with keyboard shortcuts for common symbols, that would allow you to edit nice, neat latex style equations, as easily as I can edit text. Markdown would be acceptable as long as I can see the equation in it's pretty form next to it. This doesn't seem to exist. Python based symbolic math systems, lik... (read more)

What areas of mathematics do I need to learn if I want to specialize in formal epistemology?

Inspired by an interview answer given by Thiel to Ferris, I ask:

1. How can you become less competitor in order that You become more successful?
2. Who are the smartest people you talk to on an ongoing basis and do you learn from them?

I've been doing a version of intermittent fasting in which I eat one meal per day for around three months now, and I've lost a lot of weight. However, I've been having acid reflux (minus the heartburn) for slightly longer than this, and despite having been on a strong dose of generic Proton Pump Inhibitor for the last two and a half months, I'm still suffering quite a bit. It also seems like eating a lot at once can exacerbate acid reflux, so I'm considering going back to a regular diet for a while to see what happens. Maybe I'll try eating exactly twice a day, first. Since it seems like intermittent fasting is somewhat common here, has anyone else had similar issues?