Posts

The recent banality of rationality (and effective altruism) 2023-01-27T01:19:00.643Z
Pondering the paucity of volcanic profanity post Pompeii perusal 2022-09-01T09:29:40.122Z
I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help 2022-07-09T06:58:48.688Z
Smoking cigarettes in airplanes made the airplanes safer? 2022-03-15T17:03:34.250Z
Bear Surprise Freedom Network 2022-03-12T10:15:36.107Z
Why isn't there more rationalist punk rock? 2021-11-03T01:06:34.586Z
Voting for people harms people 2021-10-28T08:29:13.075Z
A lost 80s/90s metaphor: playing the demo 2021-09-02T08:45:41.019Z
A reasonable debate about Ivermectin 2021-07-27T22:31:46.160Z
Is there a theoretical upper limit on the R0 of Covid variants? 2021-07-26T06:53:04.540Z
Anyone have experience with metabolic network modelling that would be willing to help me out? 2021-06-14T22:40:33.647Z
The value of low-conscientiousness people on teams 2021-06-14T02:06:25.504Z
What's your peace plan? 2021-05-26T23:26:42.146Z
It's like poetry, they rhyme: Lanier and Yudkowsky, Glen and Scott 2021-05-20T18:48:53.537Z
Is Ray Kurzweil's prediction accuracy still being tracked? 2021-05-20T00:06:45.690Z
CraigMichael's Shortform 2021-05-12T04:20:17.767Z
Social host liability 2021-05-09T07:24:32.844Z
Is there a mu-like term that means something like "why is this any of my business?" 2021-04-06T07:47:20.516Z
Apollo Creed problems and Clubber Lang problems -- framing, and how to address the latter? 2021-03-14T01:29:33.414Z
Semaglutide is cool, but no one wants to talk about b. animalis ssp. lactis? 2021-02-15T09:50:30.979Z
Mini thoughts on mintheism 2021-01-11T05:14:59.524Z

Comments

Comment by CraigMichael on My Objections to "We’re All Gonna Die with Eliezer Yudkowsky" · 2023-04-02T22:47:34.441Z · LW · GW

We've done some things to combat that,

Are this visible at the typical user level? 

Comment by CraigMichael on Bankless Podcast: 159 - We’re All Gonna Die with Eliezer Yudkowsky · 2023-02-24T12:01:26.713Z · LW · GW

Of course you can, you just have to make the first set of wolves very small. 

Comment by CraigMichael on Bankless Podcast: 159 - We’re All Gonna Die with Eliezer Yudkowsky · 2023-02-24T10:03:56.867Z · LW · GW

Imagine fiancéespace (or fiancéspace) - as in the space of romantic partners that would marry you (assuming you're not married and you want to be). You can imagine "drawing" from that space, but once you draw nearly all of the work is still ahead of you. Someone that was initially "friendly" wouldn't necessarily stay that way, and someone that was unfriendly wouldn't necessarily stay that way. It's like asking "how do you make sure a human mind stays friendly to you forever?" We can't solve that with our lowly ape minds, and I'm not sure that we'd want to. The closest solution to that I know if with humans is Williams syndrome, and we probably wouldn't want an AGI with an analogous handicap. The relationship cultured overtime with other minds is more important in many respects the the initial conditions of the other minds. 

Maybe dogs are the better metaphor.  We want AGIs to be like very smart Labradors. Random, "feral," AGIs may be more like wolves. So if we made them so they could be "selectively bred" using something like a genetic algorithm? Select for more Lab-y and less Wolf-y traits.

If a Labrador was like 10 or 100 times smarter than it's owner, would it still be mostly nice most of the time? I would hope so. Maybe the first AGI works like Garm->Fenrir in God of War (spoiler, sorry). 

Just thinking out loud a bit...

Comment by CraigMichael on The recent banality of rationality (and effective altruism) · 2023-02-08T18:34:34.231Z · LW · GW

IMO, I think the rationality project/LW is handling these crises far better than EA is doing.

I'm not really sure if they're separable at this point? There's so much overlap and cross-posting, it seems like they have the same blood supply.

Comment by CraigMichael on The recent banality of rationality (and effective altruism) · 2023-02-08T18:28:46.826Z · LW · GW

Huh... thought I would get disagreement, but not for that reason. Thanks for the feedback. I was trying not to use terms that would appear in searches like FTX, Nick Bostrom or Max Tegmark. I did link to relevant posts where I thought it would be unclear.

Comment by CraigMichael on The recent banality of rationality (and effective altruism) · 2023-02-08T18:27:34.424Z · LW · GW

Was trying not to specifically mention FTX, Nick Bostrom or Max Tegmark. I wanted to keep the audience to people who were familiar with it and not people Googling the topics who were off-forum and not EA or rationalist types. 

I tried to make that clear in the introduction. 

Comment by CraigMichael on On Cooking With Gas · 2023-01-13T22:46:29.558Z · LW · GW

It was intended to be tonge-in-cheek, but okay, point taken. 

Comment by CraigMichael on On Cooking With Gas · 2023-01-13T15:01:58.534Z · LW · GW

Even among my Twitter followers, quite a few want to ban gas stoves, with a strong partisan effect.

To be fair, you phrased this as “new construction” in the Twitter poll.

I would like to see them throttled (perhaps not banned but discouraged) in new residential construction, not in existing residential dwellings. Then it sort of works like alcohol licenses in Colorado. They can be inherited but it’s hard to get new ones (approvals in this case, not the actual stoves).

That goes against some other libertarian leanings I have, but I’m intrigued by the scarcity it would create/maintain. I think it would improve/keep urban character. Gas stoves have character and if you just let anyone have them, they’ll lose their je ne sais quoi. I like that they pair well with old neighborhoods and wood floors. I don’t want the suburbs to mimic that and cheapen it—to their own detriment. Being a suburb that’s poorly attempting to mimic urbanity is just ugly and is a bad substitute for coming up with novel ideas.

I know this sounds strange, but Denver suburbs have this trend where they have these little pockets that try to create an artificial sense of urbanity—including urban restaurants opening franchises—in these fugazi pockets of inorganic city, but with massive parking lots and no sense of walkability. It’s just gross. It’s tacky and it’s poor taste.

Commercially, I’m okay with new and existing restaurants using them.

Comment by CraigMichael on Be less scared of overconfidence · 2022-12-18T21:52:42.902Z · LW · GW

Am with you very much here. Recently decided that I need to start doing this more often. Negative karma isn't really negative karma if you've learned something from the experience.

Comment by CraigMichael on Thinking About Mastodon · 2022-11-08T05:13:03.075Z · LW · GW

"Successful" is an odd concept with it comes to social media. Most people would call Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc, successful. I think that's like saying oxycontin is successful, or McDonalds is successful, or Doritos is successful.  It depends on the point of view you're looking at it from.

There's an argument to be made that it's better to influence a small number of people profoundly, then influence a large number of people negligibly (as you might do on larger networks, where any influence you might have will be almost entirely washed away by whatever is more viral). In fact, that's why I'm on LessWrong, the scale is more apt.

Comment by CraigMichael on Thinking About Mastodon · 2022-11-08T05:08:54.376Z · LW · GW

I considered self-hosting, but an email server is already more complex than I want to manage and a Mastodon server is much more so.

I have no affiliation here, but there's lots of places like masto.host where you can pay to host your own instance. Sure, someone running your VM might do something awful. But... that's cloud hosting. 

Comment by CraigMichael on Thinking About Mastodon · 2022-11-08T05:06:25.117Z · LW · GW

I will vouch for the admin of linuxrocks.online, been on their for years (and other than some unfortunate downtime), it's been solid (in the drama-free sense). 

Comment by CraigMichael on Open Letter Against Reckless Nuclear Escalation and Use · 2022-11-03T23:26:45.238Z · LW · GW

I’m wondering why not just call for mutual disarmament under IAEA supervision? There’s an old, but now very relevant episode of 80000 hours with Daniel Ellsberg;

https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/daniel-ellsberg-doomsday-machines/

I didn’t keep the time stamps, but he gets in to the approximate number of warheads a state should need as a deterrent, and says it's probably not more than 100.

Luisa Rodriguez has an excellent post on the EA forum with fairly current estimates of the downstream effects of a nuclear exchange between US and Russia with the 2019 arsenal. She estimates a US-Russian nuclear exchange would result in a 5.1 to 58 Tg of schmutz entering the atmosphere, best guess is 31 Tg. (A NATO-Russia exchange would likey be more since would also involve France and the UK.)

31 Tg would put us in a "nuclear autum" but would be very close to a nuclear winter, just another couple Tg from a full NATO-Russia exchange would likely put us on the winter part of the sigmoid curve. (LW isn't letting post images in the comment like it usually does, but relevant graphs are in the paper).

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pMsnCieusmYqGW26W/how-bad-would-nuclear-winter-caused-by-a-us-russia-nuclear#December_19__2019_Update

Taking Statista’s numbers and assuming the megatons about average out
Russia (5,977), USA (5,428), China (350), France (290), United Kingdom (225), Pakistan (165), India (160), Israel (90), North Korea (20).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264435/number-of-nuclear-warheads-worldwide/

Let’s say we capped everyone at 100, there’s less than 900 warheads in the world, we’re well under nuclear winter if the exchange is between two states. Even if the US and Russia just come down to 350 for parity with China, we’ve still substantially reduced the risk.

The ultimate recklessness I see here is that we haven’t discussed mutual nuclear disarmament in earnest as part of this war. When are we going to have a better opportunity? And if Putin is asked and he does anything other than enthusiastically agree, doesn’t that tell us everything we need to know?

Comment by CraigMichael on Weekly Roundup #3 · 2022-10-31T06:29:12.933Z · LW · GW

Posted three examples that I thought to screencap when they occurred, but if I tracked everything there would be hundreds. https://twitter.com/craigtalbert/status/1586952770170388481?s=20&t=8BtJYArZ9wtMJrJQK2IR4g

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-14T06:34:55.051Z · LW · GW

I can't say for certain, but my hunch is that you're dead on here.

Comment by CraigMichael on Russia has Invaded Ukraine · 2022-10-14T06:29:46.643Z · LW · GW

You were ahead of the curve here.

Comment by CraigMichael on When should you relocate to mitigate the risk of dying in a nuclear war? · 2022-10-14T06:02:57.316Z · LW · GW

Yeah... if this happens everyone will have to make their own choices. I may or may not regret mine. Sometimes I feel like the old man here. Like I'm not sure if you were around the Internet when it was a little more wild west. Sites with content like this (CW: euthanasia) were more common. I don't want to be macabre or maudlin or put ideas in anyone's head, but I thought about keeping some of the proven materials to implement that at my disposal given current events... But with the acceleration of things recently, it's like there's a pep in my step that I don't remember feeling before. If there is a fight against Neo-Eurasianism (CW: novel left- and right-wing memetic miscegenation), I feel like it's worth fighting against. If most people die and I survive, I feel like I have a duty to the future. Maybe you could call it a kind of Longtermism. 

That being said, pep isn't a reason to paint the devil on the wall. I really don't want people I love to die. I don't want innocent people to die. It could just be a happy death spiral and I don't want to get carried away with it.

Anyway, that's probably more self-disclosure than anyone signed up for. :)

Comment by CraigMichael on When should you relocate to mitigate the risk of dying in a nuclear war? · 2022-10-14T01:25:21.791Z · LW · GW

You booby trap your house? What if some kids stumble in or something 50 years from now?

Comment by CraigMichael on When should you relocate to mitigate the risk of dying in a nuclear war? · 2022-10-14T01:19:52.244Z · LW · GW

Luisa says Rodriguez says a US-Russia exchange is 5.1 to 58 Tg of schmutz in the atmosphere. Her best guess is 31 Tg.  A NATO-Russia exchange would be larger. Important figures below. 31 Tg puts us on the edge of "nuclear autumn." Full scale NATO-Russia is probably nuclear winter.

 

Comment by CraigMichael on When should you relocate to mitigate the risk of dying in a nuclear war? · 2022-10-14T01:05:29.546Z · LW · GW

But even if I did survive, that Hatchet-style life doesn't sound very good.

Maybe. Maybe it will be the first time you really feel alive and some of the most exhilarating moments of your life. It's better to wear out than to rust out, as our grandparents used to say. 

In general humans suck at affective forecasting, so don't discount this so quickly.

I, for one, want to see what happens. Even if it sucks. Even if it's horrible. Even if most of the people I know and love are dead. I believe in humanity, and maybe I don't make 1/2 copies of my genes but my species survives.

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-12T18:29:11.507Z · LW · GW

These are interesting thoughts.

I know this is CNN, but the source (Robert Baer) seems solid. https://youtu.be/7ZgBSYZb-gk

He says putin used information from Russian spy in the CIA to blackmail Yeltsin.

If we discovered any of them currently active, I wonder if we could deliberately feed them bits of misinformation to steer Putin one way or another?

Or maybe if the undiscovered spies could become something like ironic double agents on their own if the spies are against escalation? On their own imitative they steer things towards de-escalation? Or maybe defect at the last moment to try and stop escalation?

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-11T11:32:51.643Z · LW · GW

Have you “mentally wargamed” the CIA/MI6 option? Who would replace him? Would they be better or worse? How would Russian citizens respond? Is there anything like an automated event that is suppressed daily by Putin while he is alive but that would be triggered if he dies?

Since you seem to have thought a lot of this through:

Do you have thoughts on the possibility of pre-existing weapons caches in the US or Europe that could be activated remotely by Russia? (Nuclear, chemical, biological, etc)?

Similarly, it seems that every few years we discover Russians spies in the US, so the probability is high there’s some in the US active now. In the event of a war, would they act like a sleeper cell? Would kinds of things might they do?

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-11T10:21:18.806Z · LW · GW

Marginally Compelling had a great podcast episode with Josh Centers back in March of this year on surviving a nuclear attack. https://polimath.substack.com/p/get-ready-for-nuclear-war-with-josh#details

I haven’t seen it mentioned, so I’m mentioning it.

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-11T10:19:39.443Z · LW · GW

Even with massive air strikes? Couldn’t they just carpet bomb any Ukrainian military position?

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-11T00:34:41.533Z · LW · GW

I enjoyed reading this silver-lining comment. :)

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-11T00:23:47.794Z · LW · GW

It feels less irreversible today.

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-11T00:15:13.781Z · LW · GW

Thanks. Was feeling crazy for a moment.

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-10T08:21:19.871Z · LW · GW

Had this same thought. Seems worthy of discussion.

Interesting blog post that some of Russia’s most recent nuclear tech may not work well and may be motivated more to bargain with than to use.

https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208662/hypersonic-glide-vehicles-what-are-they-good-for/

EDIT: Similar points made here: https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/russias-massively-powerful-nukes-are-strategic-duds/

both posts are prior to Ukraine invasion.

I think it would be a mistake to believe that everything in Russia’s nuclear arsenal is 100% working order.

Sounds there’s some amount of Potemkin bombs.

Comment by CraigMichael on AMC's animated series "Pantheon" is relevant to our interests · 2022-10-10T07:02:23.829Z · LW · GW

I suppose this is a reason to keep my AMC+ subscription. Better Call Saul was pretty good, but I didn’t use it for anything else.

Comment by CraigMichael on Book summary: Unlocking the Emotional Brain · 2022-10-10T03:34:45.246Z · LW · GW

Did you finish reading it?

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-10T01:05:26.053Z · LW · GW

EDIT: Removed "nuclear arsenal not working because Russia didn't bother to maintain them" as I don't find that especially likely on reflection.

 

What reflection changed your probability here? The probability here seems non-zero to me, and maybe likely. 
 

EDIT: not sure what the down votes are about. Curious as to what made you change your mind.

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-10T00:49:01.108Z · LW · GW

Careful about assigning anything a 100% probability.

Comment by CraigMichael on Why I think there's a one-in-six chance of an imminent global nuclear war · 2022-10-10T00:40:52.290Z · LW · GW

There's potential paths that this model doesn't include. I have to believe that the Five Eyes have done some amount of work to find ways to hamstring Russias nuclear capabilities (I recall stories that "we" were able to sabotage chips in in the supply chain for Iraq's missiles, for example).  Meaning, there's a chance Russia does some kind of nuclear launch and it's horribly botched for one reason or another.  Their own incompetence, supply chain sabotage, etc. They may, then, be reluctant to launch another.

I don't know what a reasonable prior is to set on this. Much has been made of the out-dated technology the US has to manage our own nuclear arsenal, and we spend an awful lot more on our military than Russia does. Who really knows what they're capable of here? So far, they haven't accurately estimated their own military strength.

There are probably other outcomes we haven't thought of. 1/6 seems high, but I take the point that we could be underestimating the threat here. 

EDIT: Will take that this is an unpopular opinion, but not sure why?

Comment by CraigMichael on Lakewood, CO – ACX Meetups Everywhere 2022 · 2022-10-05T21:50:59.726Z · LW · GW

I may have RSVP'd yes here but forgot this was Yom Kippur. Sorry guys, family plans tonight. 

Comment by CraigMichael on Covid 9/29/22: The Jones Act Waver · 2022-10-03T19:19:41.242Z · LW · GW

There can be no clearer proof of the abuse of an emergency than extending it after publicly declaring that it is over.

 

I disagree. The pandemic is over in the sense that we've learned to live with the virus.  The pandemic is not over in the sense that the social and economic consequences are still with us. So there's a sense in which I can get it.

Comment by CraigMichael on [Link] Reason: the God that fails, but we keep socially promoting…. · 2022-09-22T18:03:29.470Z · LW · GW

I know this is old—do you have your research here on lifting and testosterone?

Comment by CraigMichael on [LINK] Soylent crowdfunding · 2022-09-22T17:46:19.604Z · LW · GW

Made it really hard for me to poop normally.

Comment by CraigMichael on [LINK] Soylent crowdfunding · 2022-09-22T17:41:53.341Z · LW · GW

It’s also given via IV, which means bioavailability via digestion wouldn’t apply.

Comment by CraigMichael on Which LessWrong content would you like recorded into audio/podcast form? · 2022-09-13T08:43:14.255Z · LW · GW

Searching for this on Audible now and not finding it.

Comment by CraigMichael on Which LessWrong content would you like recorded into audio/podcast form? · 2022-09-13T08:41:25.349Z · LW · GW

Personally, I’d prefer no alignment posts unless they’re useful summaries, or “here’s how to get up to speed on AI alignment.” With the alignment content, even with a comp sci background, it’s like I’m jumping in to The Chronicles of Amber 3/4ths of the way in to the book. I just don’t know what’s going on.

Comment by CraigMichael on Carbondale, CO – ACX Meetups Everywhere 2022 · 2022-09-03T18:32:35.136Z · LW · GW

Won’t make it up from Denver. Sorry man, but love that area of the state.

Comment by CraigMichael on ACX Schelling meetup · 2022-09-01T06:01:31.119Z · LW · GW

That's a nice back patio.

Comment by CraigMichael on Carbondale, CO – ACX Meetups Everywhere 2022 · 2022-09-01T06:00:23.563Z · LW · GW

Any issues with bringing my dog?

Comment by CraigMichael on I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help · 2022-07-11T19:57:17.074Z · LW · GW

Okay, yeah, that's a really good point. I'm going to go for 100% compliance with whatever advice I get. I'll put it on my calendar and set a reminder and I'll make sure they know I'm doing this.

Going to look for another TMJ specialist, and based the other comments here likely an osteopath and orthopedist.

Comment by CraigMichael on I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help · 2022-07-11T18:18:09.429Z · LW · GW

I hadn't heard of this before, thank you! 

Comment by CraigMichael on I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help · 2022-07-11T18:17:08.293Z · LW · GW

Thanks for this! I'll ask my PCP the next time I see him (hopefully soon here). 

Comment by CraigMichael on I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help · 2022-07-11T18:15:22.695Z · LW · GW

I switched jobs recently, and it is stressful. So there's that. But with the kind of pain and stuff it feels like it has to be more than just stress, although stress could for sure have been a distal cause.

Comment by CraigMichael on I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help · 2022-07-11T18:13:44.119Z · LW · GW

Do you feel unusually fatigued / sleep deprived? Frequent headaches? mental fog? worse at concentrating lately? short temper?

 

I've had sleep issues since a traumatic event around 2012. Short temper, yes, but mostly because I'm worried about this and it's kind of exhausting. Not many headaches to speak of. Concentrating has been an issue, but I think that's because my body feels weird and it's distracting. 

It could be, though. I'll discuss it with my PCP next time I see him. It's mostly a diagnosis of exclusion, yeah?

Comment by CraigMichael on I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help · 2022-07-11T18:09:56.262Z · LW · GW

With only Google-knowledge of jaw anatomy, I don't think it's a lymph node, but I could be wrong. Feeling it now (it's better than when I posted originally, but is still fairly sore) it's feels like it's right on the masseter muscle. 

Looking at the image, it's not near the lymph nodes identified. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325947#what-are-they

Feels like it's right on the masseter as shown mid-article here:

http://cioffredi.com/tmd/

And thank you for posting! Every idea is a good one for me here in terms of feeling less hopeless. 

Comment by CraigMichael on I’ve become a medical mystery and I don’t know how to effectively get help · 2022-07-11T18:03:38.098Z · LW · GW

I've been a Wikipedia editor with various degrees of activity for... checking now... wow... 16 years. I'm somewhat unresolved about the cadre of editors that work on all things "alternative medicine" there (mostly people with the userbox linked here). My current model is that they're not granular enough about various degrees of alternative, it's too binary the way they  Like  there's currently two buckets on Wikipedia (alternative and not-alternative) there should be a few buckets: 

(1) evidence decidedly against--it's been studied and was found to be categorically harmful.

(2) evidence mixed--it's been studied and is a mix of helpful, harmful, or neutral.

(3) evidence low--it's been studied and evidence exists but is low on the hierarchy.

(4) literally no evidence--there's only mechanistic speculation or hypotheses put out by various people, but it's never been tested.

(5) good evidence exists--multiple large RCTs, meta-analysis, etc.

There are probably other relevant categories, but I think those would be an improvement.