rationalnewsletter

Issue #190

As with most traits, individual differences in sleep patterns are partly heritable (i.e., partly due to differences in genes). As with many traits, the heritability of sleep patterns increases with age, while the effect of the home environment fades. // academic.oup.com

# Coronavirus

Where did the 5 micron number come from? Nowhere good. [Wired.com] // pktechgirl, 1 min Favorite

Covid 11/11: Winter and Effective Treatments Are Coming // Zvi, 15 min

Coordination Skills I Wish I Had For the Pandemic // Raemon, 8 min

Is there a clearly laid-out write-up of the case to drop Covid precautions? // AspiringRationalist, 1 min

It's Ok to Dance Again // jkaufman, 1 min

# Instrumental

Preprint is out! 100,000 lumens to treat seasonal affective disorder // Fabienne, 1 min

Worth checking your stock trading skills // at_the_zoo, 4 min

Self-education best practices // sean-mcaneny, 1 min

# Epistemic

Steelman solitaire: how to take playing devil's advocate to the next level // ea247, 6 min

Investigating Fabrication // BrienneYudkowsky, 18 min

Average probabilities, not log odds // AlexMennen, 6 min

Excerpts from Veyne's "Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?" // RobbBB, 19 min

# Ai

Discussion with Eliezer Yudkowsky on AGI interventions // RobbBB, 42 min

Why I'm excited about Redwood Research's current project // paulfchristiano, 8 min

Comments on Carlsmith's “Is power-seeking AI an existential risk?” // So8res, 49 min

What exactly is GPT-3's base objective? // daniel-kokotajlo, 2 min

How do we become confident in the safety of a machine learning system? // evhub, 39 min

# Meta-ethics

Erase Button // Astor, 1 min

# Anthropic

Robin Hanson's Grabby Aliens model explained - part 2 // Writer, 16 min Favorite

You Don't Need Anthropics To Do Science // dadadarren, 2 min

# Decision theory

A Brief Introduction to Container Logistics // Vitor, 13 min

Relaxation-Based Search, From Everyday Life To Unfamiliar Territory // johnswentworth, 10 min

[linkpost] Crypto Cities // mike_hawke, 1 min

A Defense of Functional Decision Theory // Heighn, 12 min

How much of the supply-chain issues are due to monetary policy? // ChristianKl, 1 min

# Community

Transcript for Geoff Anders and Anna Salamon's Oct. 23 conversation // RobbBB, 68 min

Jumping into Web3 // Venkatesh Rao, 1 min

# Culture war

Highlights From The Comments On Orban // Scott Alexander, 28 min

# Misc

Sci-Hub sued in India // Connor_Flexman, 9 min

There Meat Come A Scandal... // NicholasKross, 3 min

Against the idea that physical limits are set in stone // samuel-shadrach, 2 min

Secrets Of The Great Families // Scott Alexander, 14 min

Model City Monday 11/8/21 // Scott Alexander, 13 min

# Videos of the week

Virtual Reality Fluid Drawing Is Here! ? // Two Minute Papers, 5 min