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Some People Are Smarter Than You
| 451 wordsAlice proposes a plan. Bob points out a flaw in the plan. However, Alice had already considered that flaw and thinks the plan is good despite the flaw (maybe the flaw doesn’t exist, maybe the second-best plan has an even worse flaw, etc.) If Bob thought for a few minutes,...
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Coincidences are Improbable
| 373 wordsAda Palmer: events which are improbable and proximal are likely to have a causal link I usually feel fine after eating food. One day, I decided to try a new dish at a restaurant. Afterward, my stomach is upset. I suspect that the new dish caused my stomachache. How justified...
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Be Reliable
| 543 wordsIf a person is reliable, you can predict what they will do, and you believe those actions will be good. A reliable employee will show up to work on time and do their job well. A reliable employer will not fire you without advanced notice, engage in unethical business practice,...
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Definitions and Examples of Simulacra Levels
| 543 wordsSimulacrum levels are an important framework for thinking about the world. Better explanations have been written by better people on better websites. This post is a collection of definitions and examples. All those without attributions are my own. Definitions Baudrillard It is the reflection of a profound reality. It masks...
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Be Specific About Your Career
| 420 wordsAlice is trying to maximize the impact of her career. She is deciding between biosecurity research and building the effective altruism community (meta-EA). As far as she can tell, her fit is about the same for both paths. She attempts to decide between them by zooming out. What cause has...
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Money Can't (Easily) Buy Talent
| 3574 wordsKey Takeaways Arguments for earning to give (EtG) as an impactful career have a simplified conception of the market for talent. Assuming a functioning market, I argue there are many forces pushing the price of talent upwards. I also argue that the market for talent is dysfunctional and buying talent...
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Interpolate Claims (Un)charitably
| 438 wordsThe principle of charity requires interpreting the speaker’s claims in the strongest possible light. This principle is ambiguous. If I say “money can’t buy happiness,” the truest version is vacuous: “there is no way to convert money directly into happiness”. More nuanced notions of strength are context-dependent; “strongest possible light”...
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The First Sample Gives the Most Information
| 453 wordsI originally heard this point made by Ben Pace in Episode 126 of the Bayesian Conspiracy Podcast. Ben claimed that he learned this from the book How to Measure Anything, but I think I identified the relevant section, and this point wasn’t made explicitly. Suppose that I came up to...
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Defusing AGI Danger
| 2807 wordsCrossposted from the AI Alignment Forum. May contain more technical jargon than usual. This represents thinking about AGI safety done under mentorship by Evan Hubinger. Thanks also to Buck Shlegeris, Noa Nabeshima, Thomas Kwa, Sydney Von Arx and Jack Ryan for helpful discussion and comments. tl;dr A common perspective to...
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Chain Breaking
| 3126 wordsThis is a rationality technique I’ve been experimenting with. Thank you to Jack Ryan, Thomas Kwa, Sydney Von Arx, Noa Nabeshima, and Kyle Scott for helping me refine the method. Algorithm Pick something that has happened before that you would prefer not to happen again. Examples include: not exercising, not...