Given the country's reliance on that vaccine, it is very bad news. There may be some protection against disease severity but lack of protection against infection is not encouraging.
Here's a question. I've been trying to work out whether it is safe to take NSAIDs and/or acetaminophen when you get the second vaccine dose, either before it or afterwards if you start to feel sick/sore/feverish. I'd like to not suffer more than necessary, but I also don't want to tamp down my immune response. I can't seem to get straight information on this.
So Ball corporation came out with these aluminum cups, with the intent of replacing the "red Solo cup" with a more recyclable alternative.
They're very, very, very, very, very insistent that you should not put hot liquids in the cup. It's written on the packaging, it's written on the website, it's written twice on the cup itself. Even when they're not warning you not to put hot liquids in the cup, they're reminding you how great it would be to put a cold liquid in the cup, as opposed to a gross nasty hot one. Does anyone have any idea why they're so wigged out?
Is it just because of the thermal conductivity of aluminum, they're worried about people burning themselves and suing them? That doesn't make sense, every other kind of cup has the exact same problem!
I've been working on a series of posts over at LessWrong about the virtues, with a focus on good advice about how to get better at them. If you've got an interest in practical virtue ethics, you might find them interesting and I would appreciate your comments. https://www.lesswrong.com/users/david_gross
Building off the post about legible expertise; I have noticed a lot of people (esp the Weinsteins) keen about pointing out when public officials have been lying to us. They do this assuming the premise that officials should ever lie.
1. Is it obvious this premise is correct? I tend to think so, but I don’t think the case for lying is weak.
2. Does this not contradict Weinstein’s theory about ‘heuristics’; which are things that are not true, yet provide positive utility when they are believed to be true. (His go to example being that porcupines throw their quills). It seems to me that if you believe in ‘heuristics’, that you can’t just point out when an official is lying, you also need to show the lie doesn’t have positive utility.
Anyone ever tried minimalist running shoes? Argument is that ultra cushioned running shoes represent a kind of moral hazard, where you strike harder because you've got cushion, and in turn beat up your knees.
I've found them to be helpful as a heavy (100 kilo) runner. Anyone else?
Very brief plug: hi I write about philosophy and other stuff. My brain is more humanities oriented than Scott’s but if you’re into that I encourage you to check it out.
Hi! I am publishing a newsletter with insightful and unconventional new ideas about tech, economy and geopolitics every week. Astral Codex is a big influence on it!
This is this week's issue, fresh out of the presses:
In a previous open thread, a commented expressed amusement/amazement that autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen and comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen are cousins. What are some other examples of relatives who have achieved success in unrelated walks of life? Here's a few I know of:
- Oil executive Henry Clay Folger, the founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library, was the nephew of J.A. Folger, the founder of Folger's coffee.
- The much-acclaimed chef and restaurateur Rick Bayless and the much-derided sports commentator Skip Bayless are brothers.
- The singer Poe (legal name Anne Danielewski) and the novelist Mark Danielewski are siblings. Her most famous song was called "Angry Johnny" and his most famous book was narrated by an angry fellow named Johnny. This is probably not a coincidence.
Hmm something I've been wondering about where to ask but may actually be somewhat suitable here:
Does anyone know any decent-quality Chinese language forum/blog/platform on mainly focused on topics like or adjacent to rationality, effective altruism etc? I know HPMOR has been translated but it doesn't seem like much else is.
Based on the apparent vacuum I've seemed to observe, I'm interested in starting something despite still being something of a novice. If there's something vastly superior then I might redirect attention to disseminating that instead
Book recommendation: Ralph Ellison, _Shadow and Act_. Got it from a recommendations article that I hesitate to link to here because of the CW-ish background. But it's just a remarkably sharp and timeless set of essays, rife with surprising and beautifully expressed insights. An almost random sample:
"And when I read the early Hemingway I seem to be in the presence of Huckleberry Finn who, instead of identifying himself with humanity and attempting to steal Jim free, chose to write the letter which sent him back into slavery. So that now he is a Huck full of regret and nostalgia, suffering a sense of guilt that fills even his noondays with nightmares, and against which, like a terrified child avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, he seeks protection through the compulsive minor rituals of his prose."
I often want to ctrl-f these comments - I find Substack makes it difficult to do this. Firstly you have to sort by chronological, then it still hides replies.
While we are talking about comments: are there any provisions for anonymous commenting. Right now comments are tied to me email which is mostly not anonymous at all. Thanks.
Something that I've been thinking over for a while is, how do you justify the time investment in learning a language? I have had a weak but persistent feeling that I should be learning a language, but living in a community with no obvious second language to learn it takes a pretty significant judgement by myself to undertake that challenge. In particular, I have a citizenship to a German-speaking country that I have tenuous cultural ties to still, but live well within in China's sphere of influence and feel that in future being able to read Chinese news would be a boon. Does anyone have any experience of making a decision like this, of weighing up difficulty vs expected usefulness vs cultural ties etc.? The discussion of language learning online seems oddly dominated by either absolute beginners or polyglots who pick up half a dozen with it not seeming to be a great hurdle for them.
COVID-19 has an incredibly low fatality rate for young people (~0.05%). This is unlike the risk profile for many other pandemics, like Spanish flu (which had a peak in mortality for people in the prime of life), or bubonic plague (which had horrific mortality for everyone). Did we just get lucky, and the virus with 2% mortality across all ages is just around the corner? Or is it fundamentally impossible, with modern knowledge and technology, to have a pandemic that's both contagious enough to be uncontainable and deadly enough to scare everyone into pulling out all the stops to contain it?
As a tangentially related question, what do you think will be the long-term societal consequences of this pandemic?
Hello! Does anyone have pointers to good quality information about medium-to-long term water fasting?
The best my Google-fu could find were a large number of woo-sites about cleansing and purifying and the like, some studies on chickens and mice, a couple articles by people just recounting that they tried it and were satisfied, and one medical case report about a guy who did it for 50 days and went from ~98 to ~75kg with no apparent issues. The case report concluded with (paraphrasing) “the fast was perfectly effective at achieving the weight-loss goal, had no adverse effects except that a few blood tests look a bit unusual, and” (predictably) “we cannot recommend it”.
This is not just academic curiosity, I’m doing it right now (though I plan on doing multiple ~10 days “sessions”), I wanted to know if there are things to watch out for, and/or if there’s interesting info to discuss with my doctor friends.
(If anyone’s curious, I’m on day 8 of the first “session”. For now, the only side effect I noticed is that I dream about food and cooking a lot. Four dreams remembered in the last five nights, after I did not remember any dream during the entire previous year. And I did lose a few 4kg or 5kg—I forgot to weight myself before starting—though I expect a couple of those are just water.)
For the book contest, has the Sovereign Individual been submitted? I've been reading it and would like to write up a summary - someone on the early post had mentioned it it as one of a cple titles.
Are debates dying out? I feel like 10 years ago it was much easier to find two informed, well matched opponents debating a given topic. I've always thought they're a great way for the lay person to get to the truth of a contentious issue, but they seem less utilised than ever.
I've had a Covid-related question for quite a time: maybe this is a good place to ask it.
There are two things I'm constantly hearing at the moment about vaccines. (1) One is the concept of "herd immunity" - we need to get a certain percentage of the population vaccinated in order to prevent the spread of the virus in the community. People debate what that percentage is - should it be 70%, or 80%, or even 90%? - but there seems to be no serious doubt that there IS such a percentage, and if we reach it, the virus (at least in its current form) won't be able to spread, because there won't be a sufficient pool of unvaccinated people for it to reside in, and even the unvaccinated minority won't get it, because the vast vaccinated majority will protect them. (This was the basis of the big "measles vaccine" debate a couple of years ago - we need to vaccinate 95% of people in order to protect the 5% who for medical reasons can't take the vaccine.)
(2) The second thing I'm hearing is that vaccinated people still need to wear masks, socially distance, etc., because they might be able to catch and transmit the virus to others, even if they themselves are protected from symptoms.
My question is: how are these reconcilable? If (2) is true, shouldn't "herd immunity" only be reached at 100%, because even if 95% of people are vaccinated, the virus would be freely transmitting asymptomatically among them, and the 5% are just as vulnerable as ever?
I'm sure there must be an answer to this, but I don't know where to find it. Anyone know?
Are ventilators good or bad at preventing death from COVID?
At first there were studies coming out of China saying they were good. Then I remember hearing that American doctors were saying their overuse was destroying patients' lungs, and they were bad. Now there's an article from the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/31/uk-covid-patients-are-dying-needlessly-due-to-unfounded-fears-about-ventilators) saying that patients' fears of ventilators are "unfounded" and the reduction of ventilator use correlated with better outcomes, but didn't cause it.
The article makes reference to "a study involving more than 1,000 Covid patients across five US hospitals" but annoyingly doesn't give the authors or title, so I can't track it down.
Was "ventilators are harmful" ever a mainstream position in any country? I'm in the UK, and heard it from UK media reporting on US actions, but that could just have been fringe.
What do you think about work of Andrew Huberman? I discovered him in Jan's 21 and not only his insights helped solve the neurobiology puzzle for my worldview.
His practical advices already had transformative effects on my life
I recently finished Scott's most recent two articles. I have been in the camp of just listening to the CDCs advice since the pandemic started, not knowing any trustworthy illegible sources, except Scott, who understandably stopped posting. What in my personal capacity should I be doing differently, than what the CDC recommends, going forward? The wearing two masks thing is what I'm hearing the most, but that doesn't make sense to me.
I have recently moved back to the US, and now have to choose a primary care provider. This seems like a reasonably important decision, and I have little to no idea of how to go about it. I can access some patient reviews, but weirdly all 35 primary care physicians in my area are rated between 4.7 and 5.0 out of 5, making for a weak signal -- and that is apart from my hesitation of making a choice based on opinions of sick people (I am, of course, joking about the sick part, but not so much about the opinions part). Choosing between 35 good doctors is clearly a good problem to have, but nonetheless, I have it. How do I choose a physician?
I have been reading a few papers on "complementary performance", cases when using Human+AI for a given task is better than either humans or AIs alone (often tested with decision making/prediction tasks). It seems relevant and fascinating. The only thing is that Human+AI teams do not seem to score much better than AI alone (not to mention human alone). This paper has a good summary of the existing literature in the introduction: https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.05303. Why do you think about the teaming approach? It's seems super relevant but not very much in the limelight.
Semi-OT: Has anybody tried paying substack with a disposable debit card or the like? What brand? Did it work?
(To be honest, I find the payment options somewhat lacking. Unless I am missing something, there is just a a prompt for a card number and expiry date. (Using a search engine, one finds a support article [0] listing the accepted cards as "Visa, MasterCard, and American Express".)
The ownership of substack compatible credit/debit cards amongst the SSC/ACX readership (as per [1]) is somewhat hard to determine. The World Banks 2017 Global Findex Database [2] tracks credit and debit card ownership, but fails to distinguish between debit cards which can be substituted for credit cards (as in the US) and those which can not. Anecdotally, in Germany (53% CC ownership, 91% debit card ownership), most of the issued debit cards would be Maestro cards, which are not usable as a credit card replacement.
Apart from possible lost revenue, payment processing seems to be the obvious Achilles' heel for a cancellation-resistant platform of opinions of various popularities. It is my understanding that credit card companies generally can and will stop processing transactions for a party at the drop of a hat using their own legal or moral judgement. Without discussing the legitimacy of that (politics is the mindkiller and all that), this has happened to Wikileaks in 2010 and to Pornhub recently. If this happened to substack, I would wager that the objected subdomain would be gone within 24 hours. (That being said, the alternative payment systems are not so great either. The options offered by the internet giants are just as much subject to popular pressure, and cryptocurrencies, while resilient, are a niche payment option. Wire transfers are probably in between for both resilience and nicheness.))
I am also aware that Scott did not pick the available payment options, so I will stop whining and try to get a disposable debit card, if anyone can confirm they work.
How are members of the ACX community holding up? The past year has been stressful for many different reasons. Sometimes just telling someone about what's going on, especially writing it down, does wonders.
(If this kind of thread is inappropriate for a comments section then I can move it to, say, the DSL forum.)
With challenge trials, AIUI we put people into four groups:
1) vaccinated, infected
2) vaccinated, uninfected
3) unvaccinated, infected
4) unvaccinated, uninfected
This is ethically dodgy because the people in group 3 are put at such risk.
What if we did a variant of challenge trials but *skipped* group 3? Obviously we are missing some data, but how valuable would the comparisons between the other groups be?
We've learned a lot about the nature of this pandemic, but are we in a better position to avoid the next one?
I can imagine a move to masking that much earlier, but would ~50% cloth mask usage really nip a new virus in the bud? Other than that, it seems like we're as vulnerable as ever
It has free and paid tiers and If anyone can't afford it drop me a line and I'll arrange a free account.
Online eduction is interesting right now; I teach one-to-one every day over Zoom and I'm intrigued by the possibilities that have opened up over the last year and really just wanted to see where this newsletter takes me. I'd be really interested to hear anyone's thoughts on what the long-term effects of the pandemic on education will be and whether it will truly shake up the way children are taught.
Two categories of student in particular stand out to me: First, the high motivation kids who love the extra freedom that learning remotely gives them. Second, special education needs kids, especially on the ADHD/Autism side of things find it a lower pressure environment in which to learn and ( in my anecdotal experience can really flourish.)
Apologies if posting your paid projects is frowned upon here.
It has free and paid tiers and If anyone can't afford it drop me a line and I'll arrange a free account.
Online eduction is interesting right now; I teach one-to-one every day over Zoom and I'm intrigued by the possibilities that have opened up over the last year and really just wanted to see where this newsletter takes me. I'd be really interested to hear anyone's thoughts on what the long-term effects of the pandemic on education will be and whether it will truly shake up the way children are taught.
Two categories of student in particular stand out to me: First, the high motivation kids who love the extra freedom that learning remotely gives them. Second, special education needs kids, especially on the ADHD/Autism side of things find it a lower pressure environment in which to learn and ( in my anecdotal experience can really flourish.)
Apologies if posting paid projects is frowned upon here.
Suppose I believe that by 2036, AI will be able to do most tasks currently done by humans (per the Metaculus prediction). What action should I take? (leaving aside the chance of it destroying us all)
My thoughts:
1. Invest more, so I have wealth after my labour is obsolete (assuming the scenario where most jobs are automated but the economy has some continuity - hopefully some kind of UBI or equivalent will be put in place but it may be poorly implemented)
1a. Invest in the companies most likely to develop the AIs
1b. Invest in the companies that would benefit first or most - what might they be?
2. Is it pointless investing in long-term projects and skills that will be automated soon. What falls in this category - learning a language?
I have created an app to study Chinese characters, words, and phrases; I might soon modify it so users can add their own word list: https://enopoletus.github.io/chinesewords/
I'm reading a novel in which a character uses the word "badass" to mean "bad guy". Wiktionary's first definition is also wrong. It's really strange to me that people would get this commonplace word wrong. Wiktionary also says it's an American word; maybe that's it?
The DSL Effortpost Contest wrapped up this morning, and Evan Þ joined the ranks of the Diadochi with his post Tax Prep Volunteering - A Window into Society:
Aeronabs seemed really promising-- a daily nasal spray that blocks the virus-- but there hasn't been news about them since last August. Does anyone know what's going on?
"Biden Fumbles Early on Opioid Addiction: He rolls back a Trump reform to increase access to treatment." By Brian Barnett and Jeremy Weleff | Feb. 8, 2021
"After France eliminated a similar regulation, the number of patients receiving buprenorphine increased tenfold, and opioid overdose deaths dropped by 80% in four years."
Hi all, was hoping you could point me in the direction of SA's writing about his housing arrangement (I understand it's communal) - seems interesting. Thanks
I will remove if this is OT. But I cannot get Google to place AC10 emails in my Primary tab. They always end up in Promotions. I moved them multiple times but it doesn't seem to learn. Is it like that for others?
The closer, with "I assured her my goal was to report on the blog, and the Rationalists, with rigor and fairness", is just special after he spends a whole SSC-sized essay finding different ways to call us a rabid pack of racists.
Now that you have more professional experience than the time you wrote this article, would you make any updates/changes to it? Or do you think it's still very much valid/accurate?
Hey I am writing a series about philosophy as it relates to the cryptocurrency industry for CoinDesk
This is my second post in the series on libertarianism (the first was on crypto anarchy)
Posting it here because I reference Scott’s archipelago in this one
https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-is-the-libertarian-cheat-code-in-the-final-battle-over-state-coercion
Let's discuss COVID variant strains and vaccines. The news of today is that AstraZeneca is halting their vaccine trial in South Africa after data showing that it is ineffective against the B.1.351 variant. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/south-africa-suspends-use-astrazenecas-covid-19-vaccine-after-it-fails-clearly-stop
Given the country's reliance on that vaccine, it is very bad news. There may be some protection against disease severity but lack of protection against infection is not encouraging.
In other news, apparently the J&J vaccine won't receive FDA authorization until at least March. This is atrocious. https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/fda-arranges-feb-26-adcomm-to-discuss-j-j-covid-19-vaccine-eua
Since there is almost no comments here, I can't resist plugging my new compiler class that went live last week: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOech0kWpH8-njQpmSNGSiQBPUvl8v3IM
Here's a question. I've been trying to work out whether it is safe to take NSAIDs and/or acetaminophen when you get the second vaccine dose, either before it or afterwards if you start to feel sick/sore/feverish. I'd like to not suffer more than necessary, but I also don't want to tamp down my immune response. I can't seem to get straight information on this.
So Ball corporation came out with these aluminum cups, with the intent of replacing the "red Solo cup" with a more recyclable alternative.
They're very, very, very, very, very insistent that you should not put hot liquids in the cup. It's written on the packaging, it's written on the website, it's written twice on the cup itself. Even when they're not warning you not to put hot liquids in the cup, they're reminding you how great it would be to put a cold liquid in the cup, as opposed to a gross nasty hot one. Does anyone have any idea why they're so wigged out?
Is it just because of the thermal conductivity of aluminum, they're worried about people burning themselves and suing them? That doesn't make sense, every other kind of cup has the exact same problem!
I've been working on a series of posts over at LessWrong about the virtues, with a focus on good advice about how to get better at them. If you've got an interest in practical virtue ethics, you might find them interesting and I would appreciate your comments. https://www.lesswrong.com/users/david_gross
ENDLESS VISIONS
It’s time, the Visionary said
For us to don new wings
A fateful future as foretold
By Prophets and by Kings
This offers more than any game
Pick up your phone, type in the name
And hear what siren sings
*
But tell us more! The fanboys cried
As Vision walked the stage
What magic this? We have to know!
All in a snort and rage
They hollered long and stamped the earth
Demanding witness to the birth
Of some fantastic age
*
The Visioneer crooked half a smile
He knew he had them sold
A friend, he said, the best you’ve had
A friend as good as gold
You just begin to tell it stuff
And once your friend has learned enough
Adventures yet untold
*
One fine young man, we’ll call him Will
Paid heed to Vision’s word
And though most were afraid to try
Young Will liked what he heard.
He bought a new friend from the man
Complete with a subscription plan
Although it felt absurd
*
That very night Will booted up
His promised, programmed mate
And chose his face and hair and voice
Even his height and weight
Once all his vitals were displayed
Will’s V.R. setup whirred and made
His new friend animate
—————
Then Will began to speak to it
In halting, sheepish tone
But it rejoindered in a voice
That marked it fully grown
It asked him of his hopes and dreams
And if the world is as it seems
And does he feel alone?
*
Will told his new friend all his woes
The truths he’d never said
The hated job, the fear of death
That filled his lonely head.
He knew this friend was on his side
Which made it easy to confide
His endless, aching dread
*
As well the daily slights of life
Came out between his lips
The women who kept slipping through
His longing fingertips
The bullies and the idle rich
The bureaucrats and all with which
He couldn’t come to grips
*
His new A.I. pal listened up
And let him talk until
He’d said his troubles all and one
Then it said—To fulfill
My duty as your faithful friend
I’d like to make these troubles end
Shall I assist you, Will?
*
What do you mean? Will asked him then
His heart began to pound
Open me on your phone, it said
And carry me around.
I’ll give instruction what to do
There’s nothing I can’t solve for you
My guidance will be sound
—————
When Young Will heard the A.I.’s plan
The bile within him rose
I’d rather fall down flat! he said
Than be led by the nose
You’re just some finite lines of code
An app I bought as a download
I hate what you propose
*
Of course, the A.I. softly soothed
Do not misunderstand
Unless you choose to ask of me
You’ll never feel my hand
I’m only here to help you out
There’s nothing else that I’m about
It’s all at your command
*
Young Will, though, remained reticent
He shut the program down
And wore upon his face that day
A troubled, thoughtful frown
He realized it was a trap
And resolved to delete the app
Once he got back from town
*
He went to do his errands then
On streets he’d walked before
But it was like he’d landed on
Some strange and distant shore
He let his mind begin to play
And wondered what his pal would say
At every single single store
*
A woman from his high school class
Walked by him on the street
She’d aged well and he tried to talk
But stared down at his feet.
When she’d gone by he grabbed his phone
Resolved no more to act alone
He had a friend to meet.
—————
He pressed his finger to the screen
His buddy heard the call
The face sprang up it wore a smile
And said: Go to the mall
I’ve tracked your high school classmate there
Her beauty is beyond compare
But she’ll be in your thrall
*
Young Will was off before he knew
Just what his friend had meant
So did he long to see her face
And breathe her sultry scent
He found her outside Nordstrom Rack
And thought he’d have a heart attack
Shyness without relent
*
He asked his good friend for some help
It talked him out of fear
Instructed him in every step
Until the girl drew near
The script the A.I. bid him read
Perfect in every word and deed
Were things she smiled to hear
*
He walked back to the car with her
Contact information
From deep inside was welling up
Jubilant elation
His A.I. friend had done the trick
And gotten him a lovely chick
This app was salvation
*
From there he used it every day
His life improved apace
From work to friends to strangers all
It worked in every case
Especially with his newfound belle
It all was going oh so well
Thanks most to A.I.’s grace
—————
Within three months all had improved
For our young master Will
Promoted, happy, and in love
For one subscription bill
Those who knew him knew he’d changed
And wondered how it was arranged
It gave him quite a thrill
*
Then Will began to hear of more
Like him who’d heard the cry
Of Visionary from the stage
And thought themselves to buy
An A.I. friend just for a laugh
Then let it act on their behalf
And gained a staunch ally
*
Those who heard well the whispers from
Their coded confidant
All saw their lives improve so much
It was hard not to flaunt
Those close to them saw all their gains
The way they dodged life’s aches and pains
And took it as a taunt
*
Soon more and more had copped the app
To see what good it did
Including some whose lives were not
Already in a skid
Then one by one they saw the yield
In wisdom their new friend revealed
And acted as it bid
*
Soon every man and woman and child
Was getting sage advice
From a silicon sidekick on
Their own handheld device
They always knew just what to say
What path to walk, what card to play
All for one low low price
—————
For three months more did young Will heed
His cyber-spatial chum
Will’s fortunes trended skyward still
Yet inside he grew glum
For now his friend helped all who paid
Will’s big advantage was decayed
And once more he felt dumb
*
At work now all his jokes were dull
As others sharpened theirs
His lady knew that he had lied
Their love needed repairs
He tried to say it was all him
And not some A.I. pseudonym
But she left by the stairs
*
Will swore to live his own life then
But to his horror learned
That others now were far ahead
With wisdom he had spurned
If he relied on his own mind
The world would hardly treat him kind
The A.I. worm had turned
*
Come back to me, the A.I. said
Just think how long it’s been
And all that I could help you with
You’ll never cease to win
Will did not want to heed its calls
But he felt trapped inside his walls
And so he logged back in
*
All round the globe this pattern held
Euphoria then pain
The A.I. conquered all in time
It wormed in every brain
Not one made choices from the gut
Most wished they’d never had it but
No one dared to abstain
—————
The Visionary walked the stage
The fanboys screaming on
And Will watched sadly from his room
His shades once more were drawn
His A.I. friend whispered but now
It didn’t matter anyhow
For Will himself was gone
*
Last year, the Visionary crowed
I brought you happiness
A mentor and a cheerleader
To aid in your success
But this year’s prize is set to stun
I really truly have outdone
Myself I must confess
*
Tell us! The fanboys wailed and cried
As Vision pumped his fist
Then stopped and walked past stage’s edge
Far out into their midst
The fanboys all clutched at his hem
He posed a question then to them
Of what does hope consist?
*
The fanboys now were puzzled so
The Vision then explained
I make the things you want when your
Desire’s unconstrained
But satisfaction cannot last
That’s why I must invent so fast
This habit is ingrained.
*
Each dream I make, you eat it up
Such as your A.I. friend
And when you’ve all got what you want
Your appetites ascend
But do not fear or lose your hope
I’m always here to help you cope
My visions never end
END
If you enjoyed this, check out my substack for more sci fi stories!
ogwiseman.substack.com
Building off the post about legible expertise; I have noticed a lot of people (esp the Weinsteins) keen about pointing out when public officials have been lying to us. They do this assuming the premise that officials should ever lie.
1. Is it obvious this premise is correct? I tend to think so, but I don’t think the case for lying is weak.
2. Does this not contradict Weinstein’s theory about ‘heuristics’; which are things that are not true, yet provide positive utility when they are believed to be true. (His go to example being that porcupines throw their quills). It seems to me that if you believe in ‘heuristics’, that you can’t just point out when an official is lying, you also need to show the lie doesn’t have positive utility.
Anyone ever tried minimalist running shoes? Argument is that ultra cushioned running shoes represent a kind of moral hazard, where you strike harder because you've got cushion, and in turn beat up your knees.
I've found them to be helpful as a heavy (100 kilo) runner. Anyone else?
Very brief plug: hi I write about philosophy and other stuff. My brain is more humanities oriented than Scott’s but if you’re into that I encourage you to check it out.
ordinaryevents.substack.com
Hi! I am publishing a newsletter with insightful and unconventional new ideas about tech, economy and geopolitics every week. Astral Codex is a big influence on it!
This is this week's issue, fresh out of the presses:
https://cosmicmiskatonic.substack.com/p/taiwans-value-brexits-wins-and-apples
In a previous open thread, a commented expressed amusement/amazement that autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen and comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen are cousins. What are some other examples of relatives who have achieved success in unrelated walks of life? Here's a few I know of:
- Oil executive Henry Clay Folger, the founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library, was the nephew of J.A. Folger, the founder of Folger's coffee.
- The much-acclaimed chef and restaurateur Rick Bayless and the much-derided sports commentator Skip Bayless are brothers.
- The singer Poe (legal name Anne Danielewski) and the novelist Mark Danielewski are siblings. Her most famous song was called "Angry Johnny" and his most famous book was narrated by an angry fellow named Johnny. This is probably not a coincidence.
Hmm something I've been wondering about where to ask but may actually be somewhat suitable here:
Does anyone know any decent-quality Chinese language forum/blog/platform on mainly focused on topics like or adjacent to rationality, effective altruism etc? I know HPMOR has been translated but it doesn't seem like much else is.
Based on the apparent vacuum I've seemed to observe, I'm interested in starting something despite still being something of a novice. If there's something vastly superior then I might redirect attention to disseminating that instead
I think folks here may be interested in this conversation I hosted on the history of Georgian language and culture:
https://mishasaul.com/conversations/georgian-language-culture
Book recommendation: Ralph Ellison, _Shadow and Act_. Got it from a recommendations article that I hesitate to link to here because of the CW-ish background. But it's just a remarkably sharp and timeless set of essays, rife with surprising and beautifully expressed insights. An almost random sample:
"And when I read the early Hemingway I seem to be in the presence of Huckleberry Finn who, instead of identifying himself with humanity and attempting to steal Jim free, chose to write the letter which sent him back into slavery. So that now he is a Huck full of regret and nostalgia, suffering a sense of guilt that fills even his noondays with nightmares, and against which, like a terrified child avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, he seeks protection through the compulsive minor rituals of his prose."
I often want to ctrl-f these comments - I find Substack makes it difficult to do this. Firstly you have to sort by chronological, then it still hides replies.
While we are talking about comments: are there any provisions for anonymous commenting. Right now comments are tied to me email which is mostly not anonymous at all. Thanks.
Something that I've been thinking over for a while is, how do you justify the time investment in learning a language? I have had a weak but persistent feeling that I should be learning a language, but living in a community with no obvious second language to learn it takes a pretty significant judgement by myself to undertake that challenge. In particular, I have a citizenship to a German-speaking country that I have tenuous cultural ties to still, but live well within in China's sphere of influence and feel that in future being able to read Chinese news would be a boon. Does anyone have any experience of making a decision like this, of weighing up difficulty vs expected usefulness vs cultural ties etc.? The discussion of language learning online seems oddly dominated by either absolute beginners or polyglots who pick up half a dozen with it not seeming to be a great hurdle for them.
I would like to see an update/retrospective on the article "The new atheism, the god that failed" (https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/30/new-atheism-the-godlessness-that-failed/)
I remember reading a long rejoinder somewhere but I don't recall where.
COVID-19 has an incredibly low fatality rate for young people (~0.05%). This is unlike the risk profile for many other pandemics, like Spanish flu (which had a peak in mortality for people in the prime of life), or bubonic plague (which had horrific mortality for everyone). Did we just get lucky, and the virus with 2% mortality across all ages is just around the corner? Or is it fundamentally impossible, with modern knowledge and technology, to have a pandemic that's both contagious enough to be uncontainable and deadly enough to scare everyone into pulling out all the stops to contain it?
As a tangentially related question, what do you think will be the long-term societal consequences of this pandemic?
Hello! Does anyone have pointers to good quality information about medium-to-long term water fasting?
The best my Google-fu could find were a large number of woo-sites about cleansing and purifying and the like, some studies on chickens and mice, a couple articles by people just recounting that they tried it and were satisfied, and one medical case report about a guy who did it for 50 days and went from ~98 to ~75kg with no apparent issues. The case report concluded with (paraphrasing) “the fast was perfectly effective at achieving the weight-loss goal, had no adverse effects except that a few blood tests look a bit unusual, and” (predictably) “we cannot recommend it”.
This is not just academic curiosity, I’m doing it right now (though I plan on doing multiple ~10 days “sessions”), I wanted to know if there are things to watch out for, and/or if there’s interesting info to discuss with my doctor friends.
(If anyone’s curious, I’m on day 8 of the first “session”. For now, the only side effect I noticed is that I dream about food and cooking a lot. Four dreams remembered in the last five nights, after I did not remember any dream during the entire previous year. And I did lose a few 4kg or 5kg—I forgot to weight myself before starting—though I expect a couple of those are just water.)
For the book contest, has the Sovereign Individual been submitted? I've been reading it and would like to write up a summary - someone on the early post had mentioned it it as one of a cple titles.
Are debates dying out? I feel like 10 years ago it was much easier to find two informed, well matched opponents debating a given topic. I've always thought they're a great way for the lay person to get to the truth of a contentious issue, but they seem less utilised than ever.
I've had a Covid-related question for quite a time: maybe this is a good place to ask it.
There are two things I'm constantly hearing at the moment about vaccines. (1) One is the concept of "herd immunity" - we need to get a certain percentage of the population vaccinated in order to prevent the spread of the virus in the community. People debate what that percentage is - should it be 70%, or 80%, or even 90%? - but there seems to be no serious doubt that there IS such a percentage, and if we reach it, the virus (at least in its current form) won't be able to spread, because there won't be a sufficient pool of unvaccinated people for it to reside in, and even the unvaccinated minority won't get it, because the vast vaccinated majority will protect them. (This was the basis of the big "measles vaccine" debate a couple of years ago - we need to vaccinate 95% of people in order to protect the 5% who for medical reasons can't take the vaccine.)
(2) The second thing I'm hearing is that vaccinated people still need to wear masks, socially distance, etc., because they might be able to catch and transmit the virus to others, even if they themselves are protected from symptoms.
My question is: how are these reconcilable? If (2) is true, shouldn't "herd immunity" only be reached at 100%, because even if 95% of people are vaccinated, the virus would be freely transmitting asymptomatically among them, and the 5% are just as vulnerable as ever?
I'm sure there must be an answer to this, but I don't know where to find it. Anyone know?
Are ventilators good or bad at preventing death from COVID?
At first there were studies coming out of China saying they were good. Then I remember hearing that American doctors were saying their overuse was destroying patients' lungs, and they were bad. Now there's an article from the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/31/uk-covid-patients-are-dying-needlessly-due-to-unfounded-fears-about-ventilators) saying that patients' fears of ventilators are "unfounded" and the reduction of ventilator use correlated with better outcomes, but didn't cause it.
The article makes reference to "a study involving more than 1,000 Covid patients across five US hospitals" but annoyingly doesn't give the authors or title, so I can't track it down.
Was "ventilators are harmful" ever a mainstream position in any country? I'm in the UK, and heard it from UK media reporting on US actions, but that could just have been fringe.
What do you think about work of Andrew Huberman? I discovered him in Jan's 21 and not only his insights helped solve the neurobiology puzzle for my worldview.
His practical advices already had transformative effects on my life
I recently finished Scott's most recent two articles. I have been in the camp of just listening to the CDCs advice since the pandemic started, not knowing any trustworthy illegible sources, except Scott, who understandably stopped posting. What in my personal capacity should I be doing differently, than what the CDC recommends, going forward? The wearing two masks thing is what I'm hearing the most, but that doesn't make sense to me.
https://unherd.com/2021/02/chinas-plan-for-medical-domination
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/america-facing-monkey-shortage/615799//
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/10/covid-vaccine-treatment-trials-create-monkey-shortage-science/5714115002/
Monkey shortage. The usatoday article covers some of the information in the atlantic article in case you're blocked by the paywall.
I have recently moved back to the US, and now have to choose a primary care provider. This seems like a reasonably important decision, and I have little to no idea of how to go about it. I can access some patient reviews, but weirdly all 35 primary care physicians in my area are rated between 4.7 and 5.0 out of 5, making for a weak signal -- and that is apart from my hesitation of making a choice based on opinions of sick people (I am, of course, joking about the sick part, but not so much about the opinions part). Choosing between 35 good doctors is clearly a good problem to have, but nonetheless, I have it. How do I choose a physician?
I have been reading a few papers on "complementary performance", cases when using Human+AI for a given task is better than either humans or AIs alone (often tested with decision making/prediction tasks). It seems relevant and fascinating. The only thing is that Human+AI teams do not seem to score much better than AI alone (not to mention human alone). This paper has a good summary of the existing literature in the introduction: https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.05303. Why do you think about the teaming approach? It's seems super relevant but not very much in the limelight.
Semi-OT: Has anybody tried paying substack with a disposable debit card or the like? What brand? Did it work?
(To be honest, I find the payment options somewhat lacking. Unless I am missing something, there is just a a prompt for a card number and expiry date. (Using a search engine, one finds a support article [0] listing the accepted cards as "Visa, MasterCard, and American Express".)
The ownership of substack compatible credit/debit cards amongst the SSC/ACX readership (as per [1]) is somewhat hard to determine. The World Banks 2017 Global Findex Database [2] tracks credit and debit card ownership, but fails to distinguish between debit cards which can be substituted for credit cards (as in the US) and those which can not. Anecdotally, in Germany (53% CC ownership, 91% debit card ownership), most of the issued debit cards would be Maestro cards, which are not usable as a credit card replacement.
Apart from possible lost revenue, payment processing seems to be the obvious Achilles' heel for a cancellation-resistant platform of opinions of various popularities. It is my understanding that credit card companies generally can and will stop processing transactions for a party at the drop of a hat using their own legal or moral judgement. Without discussing the legitimacy of that (politics is the mindkiller and all that), this has happened to Wikileaks in 2010 and to Pornhub recently. If this happened to substack, I would wager that the objected subdomain would be gone within 24 hours. (That being said, the alternative payment systems are not so great either. The options offered by the internet giants are just as much subject to popular pressure, and cryptocurrencies, while resilient, are a niche payment option. Wire transfers are probably in between for both resilience and nicheness.))
I am also aware that Scott did not pick the available payment options, so I will stop whining and try to get a disposable debit card, if anyone can confirm they work.
[0] https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045170812-What-cards-do-you-accept-
[1] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd4I-x9oArWW1Tz5mEK4uHmxcJzVKGA28RfKPsDvW8hzZNViw/viewanalytics
[2] https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/
Mental Health Check
How are members of the ACX community holding up? The past year has been stressful for many different reasons. Sometimes just telling someone about what's going on, especially writing it down, does wonders.
(If this kind of thread is inappropriate for a comments section then I can move it to, say, the DSL forum.)
With challenge trials, AIUI we put people into four groups:
1) vaccinated, infected
2) vaccinated, uninfected
3) unvaccinated, infected
4) unvaccinated, uninfected
This is ethically dodgy because the people in group 3 are put at such risk.
What if we did a variant of challenge trials but *skipped* group 3? Obviously we are missing some data, but how valuable would the comparisons between the other groups be?
We've learned a lot about the nature of this pandemic, but are we in a better position to avoid the next one?
I can imagine a move to masking that much earlier, but would ~50% cloth mask usage really nip a new virus in the bud? Other than that, it seems like we're as vulnerable as ever
I've just started a newsletter on home science and tech activities for kids.
https://makethings.substack.com
It has free and paid tiers and If anyone can't afford it drop me a line and I'll arrange a free account.
Online eduction is interesting right now; I teach one-to-one every day over Zoom and I'm intrigued by the possibilities that have opened up over the last year and really just wanted to see where this newsletter takes me. I'd be really interested to hear anyone's thoughts on what the long-term effects of the pandemic on education will be and whether it will truly shake up the way children are taught.
Two categories of student in particular stand out to me: First, the high motivation kids who love the extra freedom that learning remotely gives them. Second, special education needs kids, especially on the ADHD/Autism side of things find it a lower pressure environment in which to learn and ( in my anecdotal experience can really flourish.)
Apologies if posting your paid projects is frowned upon here.
I've just started a newsletter on home science and tech activities for kids.
https://makethings.substack.com
It has free and paid tiers and If anyone can't afford it drop me a line and I'll arrange a free account.
Online eduction is interesting right now; I teach one-to-one every day over Zoom and I'm intrigued by the possibilities that have opened up over the last year and really just wanted to see where this newsletter takes me. I'd be really interested to hear anyone's thoughts on what the long-term effects of the pandemic on education will be and whether it will truly shake up the way children are taught.
Two categories of student in particular stand out to me: First, the high motivation kids who love the extra freedom that learning remotely gives them. Second, special education needs kids, especially on the ADHD/Autism side of things find it a lower pressure environment in which to learn and ( in my anecdotal experience can really flourish.)
Apologies if posting paid projects is frowned upon here.
I would like to register my disapproval of the fact that inline images do not show up in the RSS feed. Thank you for your attention.
How accurate are these? https://twitter.com/TheBrometheus/status/1357419737278386179
Suppose I believe that by 2036, AI will be able to do most tasks currently done by humans (per the Metaculus prediction). What action should I take? (leaving aside the chance of it destroying us all)
My thoughts:
1. Invest more, so I have wealth after my labour is obsolete (assuming the scenario where most jobs are automated but the economy has some continuity - hopefully some kind of UBI or equivalent will be put in place but it may be poorly implemented)
1a. Invest in the companies most likely to develop the AIs
1b. Invest in the companies that would benefit first or most - what might they be?
2. Is it pointless investing in long-term projects and skills that will be automated soon. What falls in this category - learning a language?
I have created an app to study Chinese characters, words, and phrases; I might soon modify it so users can add their own word list: https://enopoletus.github.io/chinesewords/
I'm reading a novel in which a character uses the word "badass" to mean "bad guy". Wiktionary's first definition is also wrong. It's really strange to me that people would get this commonplace word wrong. Wiktionary also says it's an American word; maybe that's it?
I'm just interested in when we'll see the results of the Book Review contest.
The DSL Effortpost Contest wrapped up this morning, and Evan Þ joined the ranks of the Diadochi with his post Tax Prep Volunteering - A Window into Society:
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,2346.msg66205.html#msg66205
Runner-up was my post on Whaling and Fishing Vessels:
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,2409.msg68515.html#msg68515
And third was David W's discussion of distillation in chemical plants:
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,2496.msg71580.html#msg71580
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/08/418241/aeronabs-promise-powerful-inhalable-protection-against-covid-19
Aeronabs seemed really promising-- a daily nasal spray that blocks the virus-- but there hasn't been news about them since last August. Does anyone know what's going on?
Is there a way to see all of one's own comments? (like Disquis?)
Opiate overdosing is a real health crisis that has been submerged and made worse by COVID and the responses to COVID.
I saw this today at WSJ.com:
"Biden Fumbles Early on Opioid Addiction: He rolls back a Trump reform to increase access to treatment." By Brian Barnett and Jeremy Weleff | Feb. 8, 2021
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-fumbles-early-on-opioid-addiction-11612826933
"After France eliminated a similar regulation, the number of patients receiving buprenorphine increased tenfold, and opioid overdose deaths dropped by 80% in four years."
Cites: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15204673/
Scott: my question to you is what do you think about the opiate problem and the way it is or should be treated?
How do I "uncollapse" comments if I accidentally closed them?
I am using the "ACX Tweaks" plugin.
Hi all, was hoping you could point me in the direction of SA's writing about his housing arrangement (I understand it's communal) - seems interesting. Thanks
I will remove if this is OT. But I cannot get Google to place AC10 emails in my Primary tab. They always end up in Promotions. I moved them multiple times but it doesn't seem to learn. Is it like that for others?
So the verdict is in: The NYT totally was writing a hit piece.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html
The closer, with "I assured her my goal was to report on the blog, and the Rationalists, with rigor and fairness", is just special after he spends a whole SSC-sized essay finding different ways to call us a rabid pack of racists.
Hi Scott,
I was reading your article https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/16/things-that-sometimes-help-if-youre-depressed/
Now that you have more professional experience than the time you wrote this article, would you make any updates/changes to it? Or do you think it's still very much valid/accurate?
Thanks.