rationalnewsletter

Issue #254

Historical lead records hint that no ancient civilization reached the tech level the Phoenicians had in 1000 BC // astralcodexten.substack.com

# Instrumental

My Experience With Loving Kindness Meditation // maia, 3 min

Fighting without hope // akash-wasil, 4 min

Ways to prepare to a vastly new world? // jorge-velez, 1 min

Ethical and incentive-compatible way to share finances with partner when you both work? // andre-popovitch, 2 min

Quick note: blackout curtains/luminators might be *causing* your circadian problems // Adhiraj, 1 min

# Epistemic

Learn the mathematical structure, not the conceptual structure // adam-shai, 2 min

Beginning to feel like a conspiracy theorist // andreas-gravrok, 1 min

Sacred Talk // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Ai

The Waluigi Effect (mega-post) // strawberry calm, 18 min

AI: Practical Advice for the Worried // Zvi, 19 min

$20 Million in NSF Grants for Safety Research // dan-hendrycks, 1 min

Comments on OpenAI's "Planning for AGI and beyond" // So8res, 15 min

What does Bing Chat tell us about AI risk? // HoldenKarnofsky, 2 min

# Meta-ethics

Respect Chesterton-Schelling Fences // shminux, 1 min

# Longevity

(Cryonics) can I be frozen before being near-death? // hollowing, 1 min

# Anthropic

Some Variants of Sleeping Beauty // Sylvester Kollin, 9 min

To MIRI-style folk, you can't simulate the universe from the beginning // lahwran, 3 min

Against Ice Age Civilizations // Scott Alexander, 6 min

# Decision theory

Fertility Rate Roundup #1 // Zvi, 13 min

What is the fertility rate? // Thomas Sepulchre, 5 min

# Books

Reflections on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance // BrienneYudkowsky, 36 min

# Community

Enemies vs Malefactors // So8res

# Misc

"Rationalist Discourse" Is Like "Physicist Motors" // Zack_M_Davis, 11 min

Why I’m not into the Free Energy Principle // steve2152, 10 min

Contract Fraud // jkaufman, 1 min

Sunlight is yellow parallel rays plus blue isotropic light // thomas-kehrenberg, 2 min

# Podcasts

Transcript: Yudkowsky on Bankless follow-up Q&A // vonk, 35 min

The Birth and Death of Sydney — The Bayesian Conspiracy Podcast // moridinamael, 1 min

EP 180 Lynne Kiesling on the Electrical Grid // The Jim Rutt Show, 80 min

Currents 083: Joscha Bach on Synthetic Intelligence // The Jim Rutt Show, 76 min

182 – The Birth and Death of Sydney (Bing AI) // The Bayesian Conspiracy, 96 min

# Rational fiction

The Parable of the King and the Random Process // moridinamael, 6 min