rationalnewsletter

Issue #139

CS researchers are concerned about the ethics of work in facial recognition // www.nature.com

# Coronavirus

Covid 11/19: Don’t Do Stupid Things // Zvi, 29 min

I made an N95-level mask at home, and you can too // billmei, 9 min

How the Moderna vaccine works, and a note about mRNA vaccines // jean-nassar, 1 min

Thanksgiving and Covid // jkaufman, 3 min

Comparing Covid and Tobacco // rockthecasbah, 1 min

# Instrumental

Spend twice as much effort every time you attempt to solve a problem // Jsevillamol, 2 min

Working in Virtual Reality: A Review // ozziegooen, 7 min

Zen and Rationality: Skillful Means // gworley, 2 min

Inadequacy is not completely irrational // devansh-khandekar, 1 min

# Epistemic

Beware Experiments Without Evaluation // Davis_Kingsley, 1 min

Anatomy of a Gear // johnswentworth, 8 min

Epistemic Progress // ozziegooen, 6 min

Simpson's paradox and the tyranny of strata // dynomight, 4 min

Why is there a "clogged drainpipe" effect in idea generation? // jacobjacob, 2 min

# Ai

Some AI research areas and their relevance to existential safety // Andrew_Critch, 51 min

AGI Predictions // Amandango, 4 min

Inner Alignment in Salt-Starved Rats // steve2152, 12 min

Persuasion Tools: AI takeover without AGI or agency? // daniel-kokotajlo, 11 min

Should we postpone AGI until we reach safety? // otto-barten, 3 min

# Meta-ethics

Normativity // abramdemski, 10 min

Notes on Loyalty // David_Gross, 9 min

Notes on Honor // David_Gross, 9 min

Notes on Prudence // David_Gross, 5 min

# Anthropic

Solomonoff Induction and Sleeping Beauty // ike, 2 min

# Decision theory

Thoughts on Voting Methods // abramdemski, 6 min

Extortion beats brinksmanship, but the audience matters // Stuart_Armstrong, 5 min

UDT might not pay a Counterfactual Mugger // winwonce, 2 min

# Math and cs

The central limit theorem in terms of convolutions // maxwell-peterson, 4 min

Examples of Measures // maxwell-peterson, 3 min

Range and Forecasting Accuracy // niplav, 25 min

# Books

Sunzi's《Methods of War》- Introduction // lsusr, 1 min

Sunzi's《Methods of War》- War // lsusr, 1 min

# Ea

How do you evaluate whether a $500 donation to a project that you know well is a good idea? // ChristianKl, 1 min

# Community

Embedded Interactive Predictions on LessWrong // Amandango, 1 min

The Darwin Game - Rounds 21-500 // lsusr, 1 min

Rationalists from the UK -- what are your thoughts on Dominic Cummings? // Davis_Kingsley, 1 min

The Darwin Game - Rounds 10 to 20 // lsusr, 1 min

# Culture war

2020 Election: Prediction Markets versus Polling/Modeling Assessment and Postmortem // Zvi, 25 min

Centrists Outside The Overton Window // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Misc

Writing to think // adamzerner, 6 min

What would a world of widespread statistical numeracy look like? // Pontor, 1 min

Easy Conspiracy Tests // Robin Hanson, 1 min

The Real Problem // Robin Hanson, 1 min

# Podcasts

EP94 Shahin Farshchi on Self-Driving Tech // The Jim Rutt Show, 80 min

c20: Novel Worlds Pitch Session // Constellation, 83 min

Currents 019: Alexander Beiner on Indigenous Narcissism // The Jim Rutt Show, 60 min

124 – Longevity // The Bayesian Conspiracy, 128 min

EP93 Brent Cooper on Critique, Consensus & Politics // The Jim Rutt Show, 86 min

# Videos of the week

Near-Perfect Virtual Hands For Virtual Reality! ? // Two Minute Papers, 4 min