LessWrong 2.0 Reader

I'd say that atheism had already set the "conservatives not welcome" baseline way back when, and this resulted in the community norms evolving accordingly. Granted, these days the trans stuff is more salient, but the reason it flourished here even more than in other tech-adjacent spaces has much to do with that early baseline.

Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson have both said that the intellectual case for atheism is strong, and both remain very popular on the right.

Sure, but somebody admitting that certainly isn't the modal conservative.

Children of Men (2006) comes to mind: a movie about a small group of people in a dying world who have the means to benefit humanity and provide hope for the future but can't agree on next steps. (The story is more nuanced but these bits seem relevant to rationality).

Upon further reflection: that big 3 lab soft nationalization scenario I speculated about will happen only if the recommendations end up being implemented with a minimum degree of competence. That is far from guaranteed to happen. Another possible implementation (which at this point I would not be all that surprised if it ended up happening) is "the Executive picks just one lab for some dumb political reason, hands them a ton of money under a vague contract, and then fails to provide any significant oversight".

The answer to this is that we'd rely on instrumental convergence to help us out, combined with adding more data/creating error-correcting mechanisms to prevent value drift from being a problem.

I love this very much, so I turned it into a poem, that I think could be lyrics for a song (using tunes like "Amazing Grace" or "House if the Rising Sun") for people like the Bayesian Choir or occasions like the Secular Solstice.

https://sevensecularsermons.org/the-twelve-virtues-of-rationality

Maybe the part about the nameless virtue should be a chorus repeated after each of the first eleven, instead of a tinal stanza, to remind that this one is before the others, and because songs with choruses are good?

Cool, ty for (characteristically) thoughtful engagement.

I am still intuitively skeptical about a bunch of your numbers but now it's the sort of feeling which I would also have if you were just reasoning more clearly than me about this stuff (that is, people who reason more clearly tend to be able to notice ways that interventions could be surprisingly high-leverage in confusing domains).

Have you had any p(doom) updates since then or is it still around 5%?

[I] suspect [vaccines] (or antibiotics) account for the majority of the value provided by the medical system

Though I agree that vaccines and antibiotics are extraordinarily beneficial and cost-effective interventions, I suspect you're missing essential value fountains in our medical system. Two that come to mind are surgery and emergency medicine.

I've spoken to several surgeons about their work, and they all said that one of the great things about their job is seeing the immediate and obvious benefits to patients. (Of course, surgery wouldn't be nearly as effective without antibiotics, so potentially, this smuggles something in.)

Emergency medicine also provides a lot of benefits. Someone was going to die from bleeding, and we sewed them up. Boom! We avoid a $2.5 million loss. Accidental deaths would be much higher in the US without emergency medicine personnel.

Another one to look into would be perinatal care. I haven't examined it, but I suspect it adds billions or trillions to the US economy by producing humans with a higher baseline health and capacity.

I agree. The best advertisement for having kids is to see other people having kids. Not only because people instinctively copy others, but also because you can ask the parents the things you are curious about, or you can try to babysit their kids to get an idea what it would be like to have your own kids.

Also, the more places are parent-friendly, the less costly it is to become a parent. If your friends mostly socialize in loud places with lots of alcohol, starting a family will make you socially isolated, because you would not want to bring your kids to places like that. If instead your friends meet at a park, you can keep your social life and bring your kids along with you.

If many people meet at the same place, it can make sense to have a room specifically for kids, at least with some paper and crayons, so that the kids can play there and leave their parents alone for a moment. Also, one big box where people can bring toys they no longer need at home.

Kinda a stretch, but Groundhog Day is about someone becoming stronger [? · GW]. Also just a great film.