rationalnewsletter

Issue #203

Apparently, deep learning models can tell male from female eyeballs with 87% accuracy but no one knows why. // www.nature.com

# Coronavirus

Convoy Continued // Zvi, 19 min

Covid 2/17/22: Coasting Downwards // Zvi, 34 min

Bazant: An alternate covid calculator // pktechgirl, 2 min

# Instrumental

Observations about writing and commenting on the internet // dynomight, 13 min

A scheme for sampling durable goods first-hand before making a purchase // riceissa, 2 min

Have you noticed costs of being anticipatory? // Jack Ryan, 1 min

Analog rewritable tablet // NormanPerlmutter, 1 min

Productivity Notes I // matto, 5 min

# Epistemic

12 interesting things I learned studying the discovery of nature's laws // Benito, 10 min Favorite

The metaphor you want is "color blindness," not "blind spot." // Duncan_Sabien, 3 min

Monks of Magnitude // Duncan_Sabien, 5 min

Rock is Strong // Zvi, 32 min

The Territory // BrienneYudkowsky, 6 min

# Ai

Why I'm co-founding Aligned AI // Stuart_Armstrong, 3 min

Compute Trends Across Three eras of Machine Learning // Jsevillamol, 2 min

Implications of automated ontology identification // alexflint, 28 min

REPL's: a type signature for agents // scottviteri, 2 min

What Does The Natural Abstraction Framework Say About ELK? // johnswentworth, 7 min

# Meta-ethics

Some thoughts on vegetarianism and veganism // ricraz, 4 min

Defending One-Dimensional Ethics // HoldenKarnofsky, 20 min

Is veganism morally correct? // FinalFormal2, 1 min

# Longevity

Why Doesn’t Healthcare Improve Health? // George3d6, 14 min Favorite

Love and Longevity // Josh Mitteldorf, 5 min

# Anthropic

Simulation arguments // joekc, 80 min

# Decision theory

Non-Fungible Costs // hawk-ebia, 3 min

Mechanism design / queueing theory for government to sell visas // RyanCarey, 1 min

# Math and cs

Epsilon is not a probability, it's a cop-out // shminux, 1 min

Abstractions as Redundant Information // johnswentworth, 18 min

A compilation of misuses of statistics // younes-kamel, 15 min

# Books

Book review: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism // ricraz, 5 min

Book Review: Sadly, Porn // Scott Alexander, 47 min

# Community

Twitter thread on postrationalists // elityre, 5 min

Losing My Religion // Robin Hanson, 3 min

# Culture war

Why The Increase In LGBTQ Population? // blackstampede, 1 min

# Misc

Whence the sexes? // ricraz, 3 min

Why you are psychologically screwed up // Alleged Wisdom, 11 min

The innocent self // ricraz, 3 min

Abundance and scarcity; working forwards and working backwards // quinn-dougherty, 9 min

How do you think about mildly technical people trying to advance science and technology? // [email protected], 1 min

# Podcasts

#121 - Matthew Yglesias on avoiding the pundit's fallacy and how much military intervention can be used for good // , 184 min

Trailer For Bonus Aella // The Bayesian Conspiracy, 2 min

# Rational fiction

Luna Lovegood and the Fidelius Curse - Part 7 // lsusr, 1 min

# Videos of the week

The Russian Economy Is On Pace To Lose $7.3 Trillion... // Logically Answered, 11 min