rationalnewsletter

Issue #127

The upside of gossip: People are more generous when they believe others may talk about them, either positively or negatively. // drive.google.com

# Coronavirus

microCOVID.org: A tool to estimate COVID risk from common activities // catherio, 1 min

Covid 8/27: The Fall of the CDC // Zvi, 15 min

Current guidance for COVID-19 self-care? // knite, 1 min

Why hasn't there been research on the effectiveness of zinc for Covid-19? // rudi-c, 1 min

# Instrumental

Meaningful Rest // neel-nanda-1, 5 min

Zibbaldone With It All // Randomini, 3 min

Charting Is Mostly Superstition // gilch, 10 min

My guide to lifelogging // matthew-barnett, 8 min

How to set up foot pedals // jkaufman, 1 min

# Epistemic

Maybe Lying Can't Exist?! // Zack_M_Davis, 6 min

"Good judgement" and its components // owencb, 4 min

Excusing a Failure to Adjust // potato, 1 min

What is the interpretation of the do() operator? // Bunthut, 1 min

# Ai

Learning human preferences: black-box, white-box, and structured white-box access // Stuart_Armstrong, 7 min

A trick for Safer GPT-N // Razied, 2 min

How hard would it be to change GPT-3 in a way that allows audio? // ChristianKl, 1 min

Safe Scrambling? // Hoagy, 1 min

# Meta-ethics

Postel’s Principle as Moral Aphorism // evan-huus, 5 min

# Longevity

The Case for Human Genetic Engineering // GeneSmith, 15 min Favorite

# Anthropic

Sim Argument Confidence // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Decision theory

Introduction To The Infra-Bayesianism Sequence // Diffractor, 16 min

nostalgebraist: Recursive Goodhart's Law // Kaj_Sotala, 1 min

Split-a-Dollar Game // sustrik, 2 min

Is there a possibility of being subjected to eternal torture by aliens? // onevoyager, 2 min

Investment is a useful societal mechanism for getting new things made. Stock trading shares some functionality with investment, but seems very very inefficient, at that? // MakoYass, 1 min

# Math and cs

Mathematical Inconsistency in Solomonoff Induction? // curi, 2 min

Pong from pixels without reading "Pong from Pixels" // naimenz, 9 min

Basic Inframeasure Theory // Diffractor, 38 min

Belief Functions And Decision Theory // Diffractor, 55 min

WebBundles and URL Randomization // jkaufman, 3 min

# Books

Notes on "The Anthropology of Childhood" // juliawise, 55 min Favorite

Russell’s Human Compatible // Robin Hanson, 7 min

Notes: Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee // Venkatesh Rao, 1 min

# Community

On Suddenly Not Being Able to Work // Jacobian, 4 min

Thoughts on Neuralink update? // NoUsernameSelected, 1 min

Socially-distanced outdoor Petrov Day ceremonial manual // jchan, 1 min

SlateStarCodex Online Meetup: Dr David Manheim on Cooperation for AI // JoshuaFox, 1 min

# Misc

[Geo: California/Bay Area] Mini-Research of 2020 Fire Situation // Ruby, 7 min

Are We Right about How Effective Mockery Is? // potato, 9 min

How to teach things well // neel-nanda-1, 17 min

19th-century progress studies // jasoncrawford, 4 min

Empathetic vs Intrinsic Oof // potato, 4 min

# Podcasts

Global issues beyond 80,000 Hours’ current priorities (Article) // The 80000 Hours team, 32 min

c12: Our Character Cannot Be Satisfied // Constellation, 75 min

EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories // The Jim Rutt Show, 107 min

EP74 Daniel Christian Wahl on Regeneration Dynamics // The Jim Rutt Show, 105 min

118 – Guns, Germs, and Guns (except the Germs are actually More Guns) // The Bayesian Conspiracy, 128 min

# Rational fiction

When can Fiction Change the World? // timothy-underwood-1, 14 min

# Videos of the week

A new stock exchange focused on the long-term | Michelle Greene // TED, 18 min