rationalnewsletter

Issue #187

Subtleties of studying social media and teenagers: Large-scale, long-term study mostly gives the all-clear as regards the dangers of intensive social media use for adolescents; however, clarifies some key risks indicators. // www.sciencedirect.com

# Coronavirus

How much should you update on a COVID test result? // mayleaf, 10 min

Covid 10/21: Rogan vs. Gupta // Zvi, 24 min

Coordination Motivation: The Pandemic // Raemon, 4 min

Rapid Antigen Tests for COVID // Tornus, 9 min

# Instrumental

Your Time Might Be More Valuable Than You Think // mark-xu, 7 min

What's Stopping You? // neel-nanda-1, 21 min

30-ish focusing tips // Raymond D, 6 min

[Update] Without a phone for 10 days // benjamin-spiegel, 2 min

Experimenting with Android Digital Wellbeing // yair-halberstadt, 3 min

# Epistemic

Lies, Damn Lies, and Fabricated Options // Duncan_Sabien, 16 min Favorite

Causal vs Predictive Models, and the Causal Taboo // Hazard, 2 min

Epistemic Strategies of Selection Theorems // adamShimi, 12 min

Predictive Categories Make Bad Causal Variables // Hazard, 8 min

How to deal with unknown probability distributions? // samuel-shadrach, 2 min

# Ai

Boring machine learning is where it's at // George3d6, 4 min

Truthful AI: Developing and governing AI that does not lie // Owain_Evans, 11 min

My ML Scaling bibliography // gwern

Inference cost limits the impact of ever larger models // SoerenMind, 2 min

[Prediction] We are in an Algorithmic Overhang, Part 2 // lsusr, 2 min

# Longevity

Quick Look: Altitude and Child Development // pktechgirl, 3 min

# Anthropic

How Do Aliens Differ? // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Decision theory

Humans are the universal economic bottleneck // Dach, 2 min

Are people here still looking for crypto tips? // samuel-shadrach, 1 min

Where are the quick, easy wins? // Barry_Cotter, 2 min

What Makes Stuff Rot? // Robin Hanson, 1 min

Mediocratopia: 12 // Venkatesh Rao, 1 min

# Books

Book review: Lost Connections by Johann Hari // maia, 12 min

Book Review: The Ethics of What We Eat // Jonah_O, 13 min

Book Review: 'Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House' // TranscendetalIdealist, 18 min

[Book Review] "Suffering-focused Ethics" by Magnus Vinding // KStub, 30 min

# Ea

Prioritization Research for Advancing Wisdom and Intelligence // ozziegooen, 5 min

# Community

Petrov Day Retrospective: 2021 // Ruby, 11 min

Listen to top LessWrong posts with The Nonlinear Library // ea247, 9 min

Successful Mentoring on Parenting, Arranged Through LessWrong // supposedlyfun, 8 min

An Idea for a More Communal Petrov Day in 2022 // Benito, 2 min

# Culture war

Explaining Capitalism Harder // jkaufman, 1 min

NATO: Cognitive Warfare Project // ChristianKl, 1 min

Are Political Freedoms a Fluke? // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Misc

I Don’t Know How To Count That Low // pktechgirl, 3 min

Scout Mindset and Latter-Day Saint Apostasy // Erich_Grunewald, 21 min

In the shadow of the Great War // jasoncrawford, 1 min

Emergent modularity and safety // ricraz, 4 min

Chilling Effects // Scott Alexander, 11 min

# Podcasts

#114 - Maha Rehman on working with governments to rapidly deliver masks to millions of people // , 102 min

We just put up a new compilation of ten core episodes of the show // , 3 min

#113 - Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India // , 125 min

c33: Outline Part 1 // Constellation, 80 min

EP144 John Vervaeke Part 2: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis // The Jim Rutt Show, 116 min

# Videos of the week

[Linkpost] Hormone-disrupting plastics and reproductive health // Self-Embedded Agent, 1 min

How I learned to love pseudoscience // Sabine Hossenfelder, 13 min