rationalnewsletter

Issue #85: Full List

Social networks play an important role in productivity growth by facilitating diffusion of ideas across individuals and firms. // ourworldindata.org

# Instrumental

A mechanistic model of meditation // Kaj_Sotala, 25 min Favorite

# Epistemic

Building Intuitions On Non-Empirical Arguments In Science // Scott Alexander, 13 min

Picture Frames, Window Frames and Frameworks // Raemon, 8 min

[Question] When Do Unlikely Events Should Be Questioned? // NSegall, 1 min

# Ai

But exactly how complex and fragile? // KatjaGrace, 3 min

Uber Self-Driving Crash // jkaufman, 3 min

The Credit Assignment Problem // abramdemski, 12 min

AI Alignment Research Overview (by Jacob Steinhardt) // Ben Pace, 8 min

Will transparency help catch deception? Perhaps not // Matthew Barnett, 8 min

Will transparency help catch deception? // Matthew Barnett, 8 min

“embedded self-justification,” or something like that // nostalgebraist, 6 min

Neural nets as a model for how humans make and understand visual art // Owain_Evans, 2 min

More variations on pseudo-alignment // evhub, 3 min

What AI safety problems need solving for safe AI research assistants? // John_Maxwell, 1 min

New evidence on popular perception of "AI" risk // eg, 1 min

# Meta-ethics

Multiple Moralities // Liam Goddard, 5 min

# Anthropic

Ways that China is surpassing the US // Wei_Dai, 2 min

# Decision theory

Total horse takeover // KatjaGrace, 7 min Favorite

Meetup Notes: Ole Peters on ergodicity // Orborde, 5 min

Judgment, Punishment, and the Information-Suppression Field // Benquo, 4 min

Pricing externalities is not necessarily economically efficient // Orborde, 1 min

Levers error // TekhneMakre, 2 min

# Math and cs

[Math] Proofs vs. documentation vs. "it's trivial" // aaq, 3 min

# Books

Book Review: Design Principles of Biological Circuits // johnswentworth, 14 min

Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel // Chris_Leong, 5 min

A First Sketch of the Nature of Heat (Novum Organum Book 2: 15-25) // Francis Bacon, 29 min

# Ea

Self policing for self doubt // KatjaGrace, 3 min

# Community

Catalyst: a collaborative biosecurity summit // epiphi, 1 min

# Culture war

Politics is work and work needs breaks // KatjaGrace, 3 min

Drug Policy // jkaufman, 1 min

Predictable Identities: 20 – Self and Other Labeling // Jacob Falkovich, 1 min

Domestic Cozy: 9 // Venkatesh Rao, 5 min

# Misc

Skill and leverage // KatjaGrace, 2 min

Elon Musk is wrong: Robotaxis are stupid. We need standardized rented autonomous tugs to move customized owned unpowered wagons. // chaosmage, 2 min

Lite Blocking // jkaufman, 1 min

Personal quality experimentation // KatjaGrace, 1 min

Normative reductionism // KatjaGrace, 1 min

For the metaphors // KatjaGrace, 1 min

An Introduction to Decision Modeling // Ian David Moss, 9 min

Reference Classes for Randomness // sil ver, 2 min

Units of Action // ryan_b, 1 min

To Be Decided #2 // Ian David Moss, 3 min

Randomness vs. Ignorance // sil ver, 1 min

Where should I ask this particular kind of question? // Long try, 1 min

What would happen if all the water on Earth were accumulated into spheres & drop on the surface? // Long try, 1 min

# Podcasts

97 – Oops, We Accidentally Over Two Hours of Feedback // The Bayesian Conspiracy, 147 min

#174 — Life & Mind // Waking up with Sam Harris, 116 min

# Rational fiction

Samsara // Scott Alexander, 18 min

# Videos of the week

How we're using DNA tech to help farmers fight crop diseases | Laura Boykin // TED, 12 min