rationalnewsletter

Issue #192

Superfluous apologies (apologizing for stuff you aren't responsible for: "sorry about traffic") are a powerful way to build trust & benevolence. When strangers were approached to lend their cellphone, only 9% did, but 47% did after a superfluous apology. // www.hbs.edu

# Coronavirus

Omicron Variant Post #1: We’re F***ed, It’s Never Over // Zvi, 22 min

Rapid Increase of Highly Mutated B.1.1.529 Strain in South Africa // dawangy, 1 min

Paxlovid Remains Illegal: 11/24 Update // Zvi, 8 min

Covid 11/25: Another Thanksgiving // Zvi, 26 min

Why don't our vaccines get updated to the delta spike protein? // ChristianKl, 1 min

# Instrumental

Almost everyone should be less afraid of lawsuits // alyssavance, 5 min

# Epistemic

Split and Commit // Duncan_Sabien, 8 min

Frame Control // Aella, 28 min

Why do you need the story? // George3d6, 5 min

Even if you're right, you're wrong // DanielFilan, 1 min

Argument Foreplay // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Ai

AI Safety Needs Great Engineers // andyljones, 4 min

AI Tracker: monitoring current and near-future risks from superscale models // Edouard Harris, 4 min

Potential Alignment mental tool: Keeping track of the types // donald-hobson, 2 min

I currently translate AGI-related texts to Russian. Is that useful? // Tapatakt, 1 min

[linkpost] Acquisition of Chess Knowledge in AlphaZero // quintin-pope, 1 min

# Meta-ethics

Eat the cute animals instead // andrew-vlahos, 1 min

Tentative Anger // adamzerner, 6 min

Morally underdefined situations can be deadly // Stuart_Armstrong, 2 min

# Anthropic

Integrating Three Models of (Human) Cognition // jbkjr, 39 min

How common are abiogenesis events? // Dach, 1 min

# Decision theory

Vitalik: Cryptoeconomics and X-Risk Researchers Should Listen to Each Other More // EmersonSpartz, 6 min

First Strike and Second Strike // lsusr, 1 min

Coordinating the Unequal Treaties // lsusr, 2 min

Slightly advanced decision theory 102: Four reasons not to be a (naive) utility maximizer // jan-2, 18 min

# Math and cs

A Bayesian Aggregation Paradox // Jsevillamol, 7 min

Laplace's rule of succession // ege-erdil, 8 min

Comment on "Deception as Cooperation" // Zack_M_Davis, 8 min

Finding the Central Limit Theorem in Bayes' rule // maxwell-peterson, 4 min

Base Rates and Reference Classes // jsteinhardt, 5 min

# Misc

The Meta-Puzzle // DanielFilan, 3 min

Why Study Physics? // johnswentworth, 3 min

Kriorus update: full bodies patients were moved to the new location in Tver // avturchin, 1 min

Giving Up On T-Mobile // jkaufman, 2 min

What’s the weirdest way to win this game? // adam-scherlis, 1 min

# Podcasts

EP148 Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing // The Jim Rutt Show, 72 min

# Videos of the week

How A NYTimes Reporter Collects Royalties From Hundreds of Musicians // Benn Jordan, 20 min