LessWrong 2.0 Reader

The idea that either A, B or something in between has to be right is for many political issues wrong. It's possible that both A and B are wrong. I don't see why would would start with a different assumption.

For most issues, you are not required to have an opinion and it's often better to focus your energies on issues where you have unique insight or power to affect the issue than focusing on national level political issues where you have neither unique insight nor power to influence them in a meaningful way.

Foreign actors will attempt to push people on twitter/reddit/etc. towards either (1) or (5), even if the answer is really (3) for them. Everyone I interact with is either partially influenced by these actors or discusses their opinions with people who are influenced by these actors.

Why do you consider it better to be manipulated by domestic actors than foreign actors? Why does it matter whether the actors are foreign?

There is! It is now posted! Sorry about the delay.

Does "highest status" here mean highest expertise in a domain generally agreed by people in that domain, and/or education level, and/or privileged schools, and/or from more economically powerful countries etc? It is also good to note that sometimes the "status" is dynamic, and may or may not imply anything causal with their decision making or choice on priorities.

One scenario is "higher status" might correlates with better resources to achieve those statuses, and a possibility thus that they haven't experienced or they are not subject to many near-term harms. In other words, it is not really about the difference between "average" and "high status"'s people's intelligence, but more about what kind of world they are exposed to. 

I do think it is good to hear all different perspectives to stay curious/open-minded. 

edit: I just saw Dragon nicely listed two potential reasons, with scenario 2 mentioning something similar with my comment here. But something slightly specific in my thinking, is that these choices made by "average" and "high status" people may or may not be conscious, but rather from the experience from their lives and the world they are exposed to.

I have similar tastes, but, some additional gears:

• I think all day, these days. Even if I'm trying to have interesting, purposeful conversations with people who also want that, it is useful to have sorts of things to talk about that let some parts of my brain relax (while using other parts of my brain I don't use as much)
• on the margin, you can do an intense intellectual conversation, but still make it funnier, or with more opportunity for people to contribute.

up to a linear transformation

shouldn't it be positive linear transformation

I enjoy reading any kind of cogent fiction on LW, but this one is a bit too undeveloped for my tastes. Perhaps be more explicit about what Myrkina sees in the discussion which relates to our world?
You don't have to always spell earth-shattering revelations out loud (in fact it's best to let the readers reach the correct conclusion by themselves imo), but there needs to be enough narrative tension to make the conclusion inevitable; as it stands, it feels like I can just meh my way out of thinking more than 30s on what the revelation might be, the same way Tralith does.

I am so thrilled! Daylight saving time got me to experience (kind of) the sleeping beauty problem first hand.

Last night we in Sweden changed our clocks back one hour at 03.00 to 02.00 and went from “summertime” to the dreaded “wintertime”. It’s dreaded because we know what follows with it, ice storms and polar bears in the streets... 

Anyways, I woke up in the middle of the night and I reached for my phone to check what time it was. It was 02.50. Then it struck me. Am I experiencing the first 02.50 or the second 02.50 this night, i.e. have I first slept to 03, then the clock have changed back to 02 (which it automatically does on the phone) and then slept until 02.50 the new time or am I on the first 02.50 and in 10 minutes at 03 the clock will switchback to 02? 

It was a very dizzying thought. I could not for my life say either or. There was nothing in the dark that could give me any indication weather I was experiencing the first or the second 02.50. Then with my thoughts spinning I slowly waited for the clock on my phone to turn 03. When it did, it did not go back to 02, I had experienced the second 02.50 that night.

They made it so the sociopath at the top of the pyramid was the kind that’s clever and myopic and numerate and invested in the status quo

The word "myopic" seems out of place in this list of positive descriptors, especially contrasted with crazed gloryhounds. Was this supposed to be "farsighted"?

Well, there are different opinions on the possibility of reconstructing a person. Some people here would agree with you. I am afraid that there will not be enough evidence left to reconstruct the person, even if we had all their writings, and we usually don't have even that.

I did talk with Geoff Anders about this. He told me that there's no legal agreement between CEA and Leverage. However, there are Leverage employees that are ex-CEA and thus bound by legal agreement. Geoff himself said, that he would consider it positive for the information to be public but he would not want to pick another fight with CEA by publically talking about what happened.