rationalnewsletter

Issue #91

Both liberals and conservatives endorse the belief that life is a zero-sum game when it suits their worldview. // advances.sciencemag.org

# Instrumental

How time tracking can help you prioritize // lynettebye, 6 min

Internal empowerment, over internal alignment // TekhneMakre, 3 min

# Epistemic

Backpropagating Facts into Aesthetics // Raemon, 11 min Favorite

[Part 1] Amplifying generalist research via forecasting – Models of impact and challenges // jacobjacob, ozziegooen, Elizabeth, NunoSempere, bgold, 20 min

How’s that Epistemic Spot Check Project Coming? // Elizabeth, 5 min

Is Causality in the Map or the Territory? // johnswentworth, 3 min

Polio and the controversy over randomized clinical trials // jasoncrawford, 3 min

# Ai

2019 AI Alignment Literature Review and Charity Comparison // Larks, 78 min

Inductive biases stick around // evhub, 3 min

Clarifying Power-Seeking and Instrumental Convergence // TurnTrout, 3 min

A dilemma for prosaic AI alignment // Daniel Kokotajlo, 3 min

Sections 1 & 2: Introduction, Strategy and Governance // JesseClifton, 16 min

# Meta-ethics

[ACC] When During Fetal Development Does Abortion Become Morally Wrong? // Scott Alexander, 21 min

# Longevity

[ACC] Should Gene Editing Technologies Be Used In Humans? // Scott Alexander, 20 min

# Anthropic

[ACC] Should We Colonize Space To Mitigate X-Risk? // Scott Alexander, 15 min

# Decision theory

T-Shaped Organizations // Vaniver, 2 min

The Counterfactual Prisoner's Dilemma // Chris_Leong, 3 min

Taxi Industry Regulation, Deregulation, and Reregulation: The Paradox of Market Failure // Orborde, 1 min

Counterfactual Mugging: Why should you pay? // Chris_Leong, 3 min

# Math and cs

Understanding Machine Learning (I) // sil ver, 14 min

Neural networks as non-leaky mathematical abstraction // George, 9 min

Counterfactual Induction // Diffractor, 8 min

On the role of abstraction in mathematics and the natural sciences // Faustus2, 2 min

Counterfactual Induction (Algorithm Sketch, Fixpoint proof) // Diffractor, 10 min

# Books

The Neuroscience of Anxiety // digital_carver, 1 min

# Ea

One Million Dollars // jkaufman, 1 min

Voluntourism // jkaufman, 1 min

# Community

We run the Center for Applied Rationality, AMA // AnnaSalamon, 1 min

CFAR: Progress Report & Future Plans // Adam Scholl, 8 min

Boston Solstice 2019 Retrospective // jkaufman, 4 min

Big Community Solstice // jkaufman, 2 min

# Culture war

Domestic Cozy: 10 // Venkatesh Rao, 4 min Favorite

Against Premature Abstraction of Political Issues // Wei_Dai, 3 min

Free Speech and Triskaidekaphobic Calculators: A Reply to Hubinger on the Relevance of Public Online Discussion to Existential Risk // Zack_M_Davis, 2 min

Might Disagreement Fade Like Violence? // Robin Hanson, 3 min

# Misc

Approval Extraction Advertised as Production // Benquo, 23 min

Should We Still Fly? // jkaufman, 1 min

A parable in the style of Invisible Cities // Daniel Kokotajlo, 1 min

Old and New Saw Blades // jkaufman, 1 min

To Be Decided #4 // Ian David Moss, 4 min

# Podcasts

100 – The Live Episode (pt1) // The Bayesian Conspiracy, 91 min

#67 - David Chalmers on the nature and ethics of consciousness // The 80000 Hours team, 281 min

#179 — The Unquiet Mind // Waking up with Sam Harris, 33 min

# Videos of the week

How we can turn the tide on climate | Christiana Figueres and Chris Anderson // TED, 65 min