rationalnewsletter

Issue #102: Full List

What we do and don't know about Coronavirus: An ongoing up-to-date report. // ourworldindata.org

# Coronavirus

Coronavirus: Links, Speculation, Open Thread // Scott Alexander, 19 min Favorite

Coronavirus is Here // Zvi, 4 min

You've Been Exposed to COVID-19: What Do You Wish You Knew? // Elizabeth, 1 min

Covid-19: Things I'm Doing Differently // jkaufman, 2 min

If I interact with someone with nCov for an hour, how likely am I to get nCov? // Raemon, 1 min

What "Saving throws" does the world have against coronavirus? (And how plausible are they?) // Daniel Kokotajlo, 1 min

Is Coronavirus active in Summer? // Anton Lorenzen, 1 min

How did the Coronavirus Justified Practical Advice Thread Change Your Behavior, if at All? // Elizabeth, 1 min

How should I be thinking about the risk of air travel (re: Coronavirus)? // elityre, 1 min

How long does SARS-CoV-2 survive on copper surfaces // ChristianKl, 1 min

How are people tracking confirmed Coronavirus cases / Coronavirus deaths? // elityre, 1 min

When are immunostimulants/immunosuppressants likely to be helpful for COVID-19? // John_Maxwell, 1 min

Active Recovery // Rarity Rings, 1 min

Is there a better way to define groups for COVID-19 impact? // jmh, 1 min

What are sensible ways to screen event participants to reduce COVID-19 risk? // ChristianKl, 1 min

How hard would it be to attack coronavirus with CRISPR? // Donald Hobson, 1 min

Dealing with the left overs: COVID-19 // jmh, 1 min

SARS, MERS and COVID-19 // jmh, 1 min

Do 24-hour hand sanitizers actually work? // gilch, 1 min

Vouchers Fight Pandemics // Robin Hanson, 4 min

For Fast Escaped Pandemic, Max Infection Date Variance, Not Average // Robin Hanson, 2 min

Simple Sims On Pandemic Variance // Robin Hanson, 3 min

# Instrumental

Bleach // jkaufman, 3 min

How to fly safely right now? // Ben Pace, 1 min

Training Regime Day 16: Hamming Questions // Mark Xu, 2 min

# Epistemic

Credibility of the CDC on SARS-CoV-2 // Elizabeth, jimrandomh, 7 min

Epistemic standards for “Why did it take so long to invent X?” // jasoncrawford, 6 min

Effectiveness of Fever-Screening Will Decline // jimrandomh, 2 min

Post/Pre // Ouroborus, 1 min

A critical agential account of free will, causation, and physics // jessicata, 15 min

[reference post] Info cone // Mati_Roy, 1 min

Socratic Grilling // Scott Alexander, 5 min

# Ai

If I were a well-intentioned AI... IV: Mesa-optimising // Stuart_Armstrong, 7 min

My Updating Thoughts on AI policy // Ben Pace, 10 min

Robustness to fundamental uncertainty in AGI alignment // G Gordon Worley III, 8 min

A Proof Against Oracle AI // yamar69, 1 min

# Anthropic

What are the long-term risks of a catastrophic pandemic? // Matthew Barnett, 2 min

Anthropics over-simplified: it's about priors, not updates // Stuart_Armstrong, 1 min

Russian x-risks newsletter winter 2019-2020. // avturchin, 2 min

# Decision theory

Subjective implication decision theory in critical agentialism // jessicata, 6 min

Embedded vs. External Decision Problems // Chris_Leong, 2 min

# Math and cs

Interfaces as a Scarce Resource // johnswentworth, 14 min Favorite

Matrix Multiplication // MoritzG, 1 min

I don't understand Rice's Theorem and it's killing me // lc, 2 min

UML XIII: Online Learning and Clustering // Rafael Harth, 18 min

# Relationships

Weighting Attachment in Relationship Decisions // wolverdude, 5 min

# Community

An Open Letter To The Congregation Regarding The Upcoming Holiday // Zvi, 2 min

Blog Post Day Retrospective // Daniel Kokotajlo, 1 min

Coming Back to Biking // jkaufman, 1 min

Decaf vs. regular coffee self-experiment // NaiveTortoise, 5 min

Change Your Mind // Hivewired, 1 min

# Culture war

Motte/bailey doctrine is often a byproduct of distributed argumentation // Three-Monkey Mind, 2 min

Predictable Identities 26: Academic Identity // Jacob Falkovich, 1 min

The New Uncanny Valley // Contributor, 9 min

# Misc

Simulacra and Subjectivity // Benquo, 3 min

What does Solomonoff induction say about brain duplication/consciousness? // riceissa, 2 min

How can one measure their cognitive capacities during lucid dreaming? // Mati_Roy, 1 min

Any systems to rate more abstract things? // Long try, 1 min

# Podcasts

#72 - Toby Ord on the precipice and humanity's potential futures // The 80000 Hours team, 194 min

#71 - Ben Todd on the key ideas of 80,000 Hours // The 80000 Hours team, 177 min

#189 — Wealth & Happiness // Waking up with Sam Harris, 71 min

# Videos of the week

Can We Detect Neural Image Generators? // Two Minute Papers, 5 min