Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# An Open Letter to the Monastic Academy and community members

I am sharing a link here so that this account is locatable to members of this community from which the Monastic Academy actively recruits. This account describes my personal experiences, observations of organizational practices and misconduct, and knowledge of other accounts of ongoing negligence, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse which have been present over the past 10 years. This account is not written in the style or language commonly used in this community. If choose to comment please exercise mindfulness regarding the highly sensitive and complex nature of this information. My hope is that this information and perspective will be helpful to a least one person in this community in making better informed decisions about how to engage with the risks of training and/or associating with the Monastic Academy. 

To read more you can visit this link:  [https://medium.com/@shekinahalegra/dear-monastic-academy-and-community-members-49c25d9646a4](https://medium.com/@shekinahalegra/dear-monastic-academy-and-community-members-49c25d9646a4)
# Subway Slides

Here is the current layout of [Davis Square station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_station_(MBTA)):

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-layout.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-layout-big.png)

If you're coming in from the primary headhouse, on the right, your path is really indirect:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-station-path.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-station-path-big.png)

I think the solution is clear:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-station-slide.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-station-slide-big.png)

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-slide-path.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-slide-path-big.png)

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-slide-photo.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/davis-slide-photo-big.png)

Put a fare gate at the top, or switch the entire MBTA to industry best practice proof-of-payment.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100237729744522)*
# Blog Respectably

The best way to learn how to write is to take classes. The best way to take classes is via a university degree. I earned my master's in blogging at the University of Pens.

Besides teaching you how to write, a university provides necessary credentials. You wouldn't be reading this post if I weren't for my degree in the subject. But the most important reason for taking classes in writing is what it teaches you not to do.

A blogger's most important responsibility is to never offend anyone. The most reliable way to avoid offending people is to hide your work from them. The perfect writer never publishes anything. Self-censorship is the best censorship because it is self-censorship quiet. Liberty thrives in secrets and silence. Freedom is founded on fear.

If unsure who to fear, look for a sense of humor because humor blurs the lines between "us" and "them". "We" are right; "they" are wrong. Blurring the lines between "us" and "them" equals blurring the lines between truth and falsehood. Cultivate anger and hatred instead because anger and hatred make clear the lines between "us" and "them".

Blogging is bad for your mental health. When you write things people will tell you you are wrong. They will sometimes be right which is bad for your self-esteem. If you want to maximize your self-worth then you must never allow it to collide with reality.

Another preemptive measure you can take against [haters](https://www.lsusr.com/blog/haters.html) is getting lots of people on your side. Pick a moderate majority position backed by people who perceive themselves to be radical, oppressed and disenfranchised.

No matter how mainstream the position your endorse, there will always be people who oppose you. The solution is to never endorse a position. Criticize only. Poke holes in the arguments of writers foolish enough to stand for something. Like guerrillas, you should harass the enemy without ever holding intellectual territory of your own. Dialogue is a contest of attrition. Demoralize your critics.

If you must endorse a position then quote respectable people. If you're right then the position is your own. If you're wrong then position is the quotee's.
# Important ML systems from before 2012?

I am the main coordinator of a group studying trends in Machine Learning.

Together, we are building a [public dataset](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AAIebjNsnJj_uKALHbXNfn3_YsT6sHXtCU0q7OIPuc4/edit#gid=0) annotating milestone ML systems between 1950 and today. You can read more about our work [here](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/GzoWcYibWYwJva8aL/parameter-counts-in-machine-learning).

Our curation of papers is quite sparse before 2012, so we are keen on more suggestions of papers before then!

This will be very useful, specially in the context of understanding how big of a deal was the advent of Deep Learning.

The papers we are interested are those which fall in **at least one** of this categories:  
 

*   Highly cited (>1000 citations as a rule of thumb, eg *Understanding the difficulty of training deep feedforward neural networks*)
*   Historical importance (eg an early paper experiment with RL would count, like *Some studies in machine learning using the game of checkers*)
*   Paper that pushes forward the SotA (eg *The BellKor 2008 Solution to the Netflix Prize* )
*   Deployed in an important context (eg a ML system that was deployed in a popular search engine, like Netflix's *Cinematch*)

Any suggestions?
# Universal counterargument against “badness of death” is wrong

All the usually offered counterarguments to the idea that death is evil boil down to one universal counterargument:

*If there is no death, then there will be a bad phenomenon X (overpopulation, cessation of progress, eternal dictatorship, boredom), therefore, death is necessary.*

However, this universal counterargument does not work:

1.  The counter-argument does not tell us that death is not evil. He tells us that, from the point of view of altruism, there are situations when death is necessary, for example, it is supposedly needed to combat overpopulation.
2.  The counter-argument does not deny the evil of death. It talks about the collision of the value "not to die" and some other value Y (progress, the good of mankind), and then argues that the second value is more important.
3.  If there is a way to achieve the value of Y without people dying, then death is not needed.

For example, if at the birth, each person is granted so many resources that it will be possible to provide her with resources for entire endless life, then overpopulation will cease to be a problem. Overpopulation is only a problem because of the clash between the idea of ​​finite resources and the prospect of exponential proliferation.

The counterargument also does not work because it is not central. The negative X phenomenon can persist even if death continues. Lack of progress, eternal dictatorship, overpopulation and degradation are possible in societies where people have short life expectancy.
# Elevated Air Purifier Cubes

I've been [a](https://www.jefftk.com/p/comparing-options-for-safer-events) [big](https://www.jefftk.com/p/covid-christmas) [proponent](https://www.jefftk.com/p/ea-dinner-covid-logistics) of [box fan air purifier cubes](https://cleanarair.com/), but they are bulky and fragile. If your ceiling is 8ft+, elevating them is an attractive option:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/elevated-purification-cube-1.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/elevated-purification-cube-1-big.jpg)

I made two of these for my dad's house this afternoon. The goal is for them to be out-of-the-way, and easy to turn on any time he has visitors.

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/elevated-purification-cube-2.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/elevated-purification-cube-2-big.jpg)

The only heavy part is the box fan, since the rest of the cube is filters and tape, so the goal is to make sure the fan is well supported and not going to tip over. I used an angle bracket and a short length of wood to make a shelf under each fan, and then taped the fan to the shelf and wall. The filters are also taped to the wall. When taking them down I'll probably need to use a small amount of spackle for the holes, and touch up the paint if the tape takes some paint off, which it probably will. If I wanted to avoid having to tape anything to the wall I could have used two angle-bracket shelves each.

With an 8' ceiling you would want to have the cube flush against the ceiling, which gets you a tight-but-probably-ok 6'3" of clearance and three sides for filters. If your ceiling is taller, like these ones were, you can have a fourth filter on top while still maintaining reasonable clearance.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100237929015182)*
# Should I delay having children to take advantage of polygenic screening?

I would like to know whether I should delay having children to take advantage of polygenic screening technology. I imagine this could be valuable for other aspiring parents to know as well, and would (probably) have positive externality for aspiring parents to know this. Might also be useful info for grant-makers in the space.

Related: [Welcome Polygenically Screened Babies](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/welcome-polygenically-screened-babies)

EtA: If you're interested in helping with related research in any way or just interested in being kept up-to-date with related research (at a low frequency / high-value), you can PM me.
# Business Writing Example #2

After [Business Writing Example #1](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BFvCKqmnGDxdztaK2/business-writing-example-1), the customer sent an inquiry to my friend.

> Please check possibilities to my inquiry form attachment. Please confirm prices and lead time too. Please also pay attention on weight of batteries.
>
> We don't have any storage space at the moment. There is a rollover and more than 40 containers arrive almost at once.

My friend wrote the following response.

> Many thanks for your reply.
>
> We fully understand your warehouse pressure. You can confirm the order this week, because the lead time might be 45 days, which it will arrive you around or after the Spring Festival. This timeline will not occupy your storage space. How do you think please?
>
> Look forward to having your feedback, thank you.

My friend's English is adequate. Her tone is fine. She is perfectly friendly. The problem with my friend's message this time is it fails to answer the customer's questions.

The customer asked for the following information:
- Prices
- Lead time
- Weight

When replying to a business email you should answer every question as completely as you can. My friend didn't answer the questions about price and weight. A customer should never have to ask you for information twice.

My friend did a minimal job of addressing the lead time question. She should include multiple lead time estimates, depending on when the customer confirms the order. This provides more information to the customer (which is good for the customer) and applies external closing pressure on the customer (which is good for my friend).

The reference to Spring Festival only works if the customer is Chinese or is intimately familiar with Chinese culture. The customer is not Chinese. Either the reference to Spring Festival should be removed or my friend should provide cultural context like "lead times increase around Spring Festival".

The customer's warehouse pressure is a potential bargaining chip. My friend should use it to try to upsell the customer.

Here is my version of the message.

> Thank you for getting back to us so quickly. We understand what it's like to have a limited warehouse space.
>
> If you confirm an order this week, we estimate a lead time of 45 days (plus <number> days for shipping). If you confirm an order four weeks from now (late December) we estimate a lead time closer to <bigger number> days.
>
> As for pricing, <pricing information>.
>
> We are not (ourselves) super limited by warehouse space. Another option is to confirm an order now (so lead times are short) but have us mail the package later so that it arrives at the time of your choosing.

Negotiation is not solely about money. My friend benefits when orders are confirmed fast and confirmed early. If she can offer her company's warehouse space in exchange for faster confirmation then everybody wins.
# Parenting: "Try harder next time" is bad advice for kids too

A post from last year that really stuck with me is Neel Nanda's ["Stop pressing the Try Harder button"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FY6bZAxHTcMi5nhyb/stop-pressing-the-try-harder-button). Key excerpt:

> And every time I thought about the task, I resolved to Try Harder, and felt a stronger sense of motivation, but this never translated into action. I call this error **Pressing the Try Harder button**, and it’s characterised by feelings of guilt, obligation, motivation and optimism.
> 
> This is a classic case of failing to Be Deliberate. It feels *good* to try hard at something, it feels important and virtuous, and it’s easy to think that trying hard is what matters. But ultimately, trying hard is just a means to an end - my goal is to ensure that the task happens. If I can get it done in half the effort, or get somebody else to do it, that’s awesome! Because my true goal is the *result*. And pressing the Try Harder button is *not* an effective way of achieving the goal - you can tell, because it so often fails!

If I'm repeatedly failing to do something I want to do, then that's strong evidence that "resolving to try harder next time" was not an effective plan for accomplishing this particular goal. (That's not to say it *never* works.) Well, if *that* plan is ineffective, I need to find a different plan. Maybe I should set a reminder alarm, or change my routine, or outsource the task, or make a checklist, or whatever. (See [Neel's post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FY6bZAxHTcMi5nhyb/stop-pressing-the-try-harder-button) or your favorite productivity book for more ideas.)

I don't consider this advice to be particularly novel, but Neel's post is a nice framing because the phrase "try harder" jogs my memory. It has become the "trigger" of a [trigger-action-plan](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wJutA2czyFg6HbYoW/what-are-trigger-action-plans-taps): When I say to myself "I'll try harder next time", it makes me think of Neel's post, and then *that* makes me pause and try to think of a better way.

…And then, what do you know, I *also* started noticing myself *telling my kid* to "try harder next time".

Well, let me tell you. If "try harder next time" is a frequently-ineffective way for *me* to solve a problem, then wouldn't you know it, it's a frequently-ineffective way for *my kid* to solve a problem too.

So now if my kid is trying to solve a problem—or if they're not even trying—and I catch myself telling them to "try harder next time", that reminds me to pause, and put on my problem-solving hat instead, and encourage my kid to put on *their* problem-solving hat too. Maybe we'll even brainstorm together. (If tensions are high, I might set a reminder to do the brainstorming session the following day.)

I'm not perfect. I don't always remember to do this. Guess I should try harder next time.
# Researcher incentives cause smoother progress on benchmarks 

_(Epistemic status: likely. That said, this post isn't thorough; I wanted to write quickly.)_

Let's look at [the state of the art in ImageNet][sotaimage].[^meaninglessgarbage]
The curve looks pretty smooth especially for the last 7 years.
However, there don't seem to be that many advances which actually improve
current results.

Here's a list which should include most of the important factors:

- Batch norm
- Better LR schedules
- Residual connections
- MBConv
- NAS
- ReLU
- Attention
- Augmentation schemes
- Some other tweaks to the training process
- Moar compute

Part of the smoothness comes from compute scaling, but I think another important
factor is the control system of researchers trying to achieve SOTA (compare to
[does reality drive straight lines on graphs, or do straight lines on graphs
drive reality?][lines]).

For instance, consider [the batch norm paper][bn]. Despite batch norm being
a relatively large advancement (removing it would greatly harm performance with
current models even after retuning), the improvement in top 5 SOTA error from this paper is
only from 4.94% to 4.82%. This is likely because the researchers only
bothered to improve performance until the SOTA threshold was reached.
When surpassing SOTA by a large amount is easy, this situation likely differs,
but that seems uncommon (it does seem to have been the case for [resnet][resnet]).

This presents a reason to be wary of generalizing smooth progress on benchmarks
to smooth AI progress in future high investment scenarios where research
incentives could differ greatly.


_(I'm also planning on writing a post on gears level models of where smooth AI
progress could come from, but I wanted to write this first as a standalone
post. Edit: [here is the post][newpost])_



[^meaninglessgarbage]:
    Yes, ImageNet SOTA is mostly meaningless garbage. This post is actually
    trying to increase the rate at which the fully automatic nail gun is
    shooting at that particular dead horse containing coffin.

[sotaimage]: https://paperswithcode.com/sota/image-classification-on-imagenet?metric=Top%205%20Accuracy
[lines]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/13/does-reality-drive-straight-lines-on-graphs-or-do-straight-lines-on-graphs-drive-reality/
[resnet]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.03385
[bn]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03167
[newpost]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ShrAZXjTs5HTxDmGM/potential-gears-level-explanations-of-smooth-progress
# Quick Poll: Booster Reactions

Lots of people are getting covid boosters now. To help myself and others plan I did an extremely informal poll on Twitter and Facebook about how people’s booster side effects compared to their second dose. Take home message: **boosters are typically easier than second shots, but they’re bad often enough you should have a plan for that**.

The poll was a mess for a number of reasons, including:

*   I didn’t describe the options very well, so it’s 2/3 freeform responses I collapsed into a few categories.
*   There was a tremendous variation in what combination of shots people got.
*   It’s self-reported. I have unusually data-minded friends which minimizes the typical problem of extreme responses getting disproportionate attention, but it doesn’t eliminate it, and self-report data has other issues.
*   I only sampled people who follow me on social media, who are predominantly <45 years old, reasonably healthy, reasonably high income, and mostly working desk jobs. 
*   I specified mRNA but not the manufacturer; Moderna but not Pfizer boosters are smaller than the original dose.

Nonetheless, the trend was pretty clear.

Of people who received three mRNA shots from the same manufacturer, comparing their second shot to their third:

*   12 had no major symptoms either time (where major is defined as “affected what you could do in your day.” It specifically does not include arm soreness, including soreness that limited range of motion)
*   2 had no major symptoms for their second shot but had major for their third
    *   Not included in data: one person who got pregnant between their second and third shot
*   23 had major symptoms for their second shot, and the third was easier
    *   This includes at least one case where the third was still extremely bad and 2-3 “still pretty bad, just not as bad as the second”
    *   Three cases fell short of  “major symptoms” for the second, but had an even easier third shot
*   11 people had similar major symptoms both times
*   2 had major symptoms for second shot, and third was worse

Of people who mix and matched doses

*   2 had no major symptoms either time
*   4 had no major symptoms for their second shot but had major symptoms for their third
    *   Not included: 1 reported no symptoms for the first two and mild symptoms for the third
*   4 had major symptoms for their second shot, and their third was easier
*   2 people had major symptoms both times
*   1 had major symptoms for their second shot, and their third was worse
# Perpetual Dickensian Poverty?

Several of my friends have been sharing screenshots of this Twitter post:

> Time for your annual reminder that, according to *A Christmas Carol*, Bob Cratchit makes 15 shillings a week. Adjusted for inflation, that's $530.27/wk, $27,574/yr, or $13.50/hr.
> 
> Most Americans on minimum wage earn less than a Dickensian allegory for destitution.
> 
>   —[Chris Thompson](https://twitter.com/DrChrisThompson/status/1472039474901049346)

It's wrong, but it's wrong in an interesting way!

[A Christmas Carol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol) came out in 1843. The [Bank of England Inflation Calculator](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator), which incredibly goes back to 1209, estimates £1 in 1843 is equivalent to £130 in 2020. Since there were 20 shillings to the pound, 15s/wk in 1843 makes £98/wk in 2020. Cratchit would have been working six days a week at perhaps ten hours a day, so we get £1.63/hr or $2.15/hr. The post gave $13.50/hr; where's the factor of six coming from?

There are multiple ways to figure inflation. The most common one, and the one I use above, is purchasing power: what can you buy with your £? While I can't replicate Thompson's number exactly, I think he's instead using using labor value: how many hours of someone's time can you buy? 15s/wk in 1843 is, deflated by the cost of labor, [£611/wk in 2020](https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/), or $807/wk. For a 60hr week that's $13.45/hr.

The problem is, no matter how much richer we get, using the cost of labor to adjust worker pay for inflation will always show that workers are paid the same amount. It's saying "Cratchit was paid X% of a typical wage for 1843, which you can think of as if he were paid X% of a typical 2020 wage, which is $13.45/hr." This sort of adjustment makes sense if you're trying to understand the social position of the Cratchit family, but since what we care about here is their absolute level of poverty, purchasing power is the right measure.

(Thanks to [Marcus](https://www.facebook.com/mynaumov/posts/10201522109314976?comment_id=10201522165796388&reply_comment_id=10201522176956667) for pointing this out.)

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100238164358552)*
# What questions do you have about doing work on AI safety?

As part of the work [Nonlinear](http://nonlinear.org/) is doing to try and improve the state of AI safety research, we’re going to be talking with a range of researchers. One of our aims is to help people who are unsure about doing AI safety research figure out if this is a good fit for them. We’re planning on talking about things like:

*   What skills are *actually* useful?
*   What the day-to-day work is like?
*   Misconceptions about the job
*   And any other advice they have

We’d love to hear questions about doing AI safety research from people who are considering moving into the field but are still currently on the fence.
# Confusion about Sequences and Review Sequences

I just made a series of attempted actions on the site that ended up with me being confused. Am I missing ways to use the site, or are these ways missing?

I was reading the page for the [2019 review book launch](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mvPfao35Moah8py46/the-engines-of-cognition-book-launch), and someone commented that the table of contents has no links. I thought to myself, I'll be helpful and post a comment that is a link to the 2019 review sequence! That is, the sequence page that is a list of all the posts that ended up in the 2019 review books. (The reason I thought this page existed is because I had recently found the sequence page for the 2018 review books.) I then searched around for this page by googling, and failed to find it. I then tried to go on the LW home page to see if there was a list of sequences. I saw ["Library"](https://www.lesswrong.com/library), which lists "Core Reading", "Curated Sequences" and "Community Sequences", but even after clicking "Load more" on Community Sequences until there were no more, I didn't see the Review sequences I was looking for. I thought for *sure* I had seen one, though, so then I went to a specific post that I thought I saw it on ([Arguments about fast takeoff](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/QyQcBpSur9SFyRuvB/p/AfGmsjGPXN97kNp57)) and sure enough there was a link for the [Alignment sequence](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/QyQcBpSur9SFyRuvB) at the top. This is one of the five books in the 2018 review. But it didn't itself contain a link to a higher-order sequence of all five books, or anything. And it isn't listed on the "Library" page.

So, it looks like the "Library" page doesn't list all sequences? Is there a place that does? And is there a sequence for the 2019 review? (If not, I'm happy to make one.)
# Six Specializations Makes You World-Class

> If you want an average, successful life, it doesn't take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two rather: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.
>
> ―Scott Adams

You can make a lot of money by being the best at a scalable domain because [leverage](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/od4zNmfujwEcDtWRq/leverage) feeds winner-take-all dynamics.

The problem is there are $P=8\times10^9$ people on Earth. To be the best, you have to be better than every single one of them. It's not hard to get into the top 0.1 or even 0.01 of people at many skills but it is hard to get into the top $\frac1P=.0000000001$.

There are many different skills you can learn *e.g.* mathematics, sales, drawing, management. Suppose there are $S=100$ basic skills. You can become the best in the world by being the best at any one of them. But to be the best at one of $S=100$ different skills you must compete against $\frac PS=80,000,000$ people. Competing against eighty million people is easier than competing against eight billion but it is still hard.

Many real-world competitions require more than one skill. Suppose you want to be the best author of physics books. You must combine two skills: writing and physics. There are $\frac{S(S-1)}2=\frac{100(100-1)}2\approx5,000$ different pairs of skills. Instead of competing against the rest of mankind in 100 domains you are competing in 5,000 different domains. On average, you will compete against $\frac{2P}{S(S-1)}\approx\frac{2P}{S^2}=1,600,000$ people.

For $n$ randomly-selected skills there will, on average, be only $\frac{Pn!}{S^n}$ people competing at the intersection. You are one of those people. At what $n$ is there zero competition (besides yourself)?

$$\begin{eqnarray*}
\frac{Pn!}{S^n}&=&1\\
P&=&\frac{S^n}{n!}\\
\ln P&=&n\ln S-\ln(n!)\\
&\approx&n\ln S-(n\ln n-n)\\
&\approx&n(1+\ln S-\ln n)\\
\end{eqnarray*}$$

$\ln n\approx2$ when $5\leq n\leq10$.

$$\begin{eqnarray*}
\ln P&\approx&n(1+\ln S-2)\\
&\approx&n(\ln S-1)\\
n&\approx&\frac{\ln P}{\ln S-1}\\
&\approx&\frac{\ln(8\times10^9)}{\ln 100-1}\\
&\approx&6
\end{eqnarray*}$$

Six. If $S=100$ then combining six skills at random makes you so specialized that literally nobody in the world is competing with you. The equation is weakly dependent on our choice of $S$. If $S=50$ then you need seven skills instead.

Six arbitrary skills may not be, in general, synergistic. But if your work combines six or more skills then you should not be surprised if you are the best in the world.

> I am not a great artist, and I have never taken a traditional class in writing. I’m not the funniest person in my social circle, and I’m not a great business mind either. But few people in the world have a complete talent stack as valuable as mine. By being good enough in each of those individual talents, I can be a famous syndicated cartoonist and enjoy an ideal career.
>
> ―*Win Bigly* by Scott Adams
# What time in your life were you the most productive at learning and/or thinking and why?

Example answers include “high school math camp, because we were forced to do X and because there was an atmosphere of amicable competition” or “that day when I locked myself in a room with a textbook” or “the day when I studied X, because I am really fascinated by X and ABC topics were boring to me when I tried to study them” or “the time I hired a tutor” etc

Asking because I’m considering building something that could amplify people’s learning/thinking productivity.
# A spreadsheet/template for doing an annual review

*\[Sharing this as a forum post because it may be useful for some forum users - mostly a copy and paste of a social media post\]*

🤔 Are you looking for a way to review your year and plan for the future?

Many people I know do an "annual review".

When I started in 2018, I couldn't find a ready-made document to use.

With that in mind, I am sharing this annual review/planner template that I made in google sheets.

It incorporates Alex Vermeer's questions (https://lnkd.in/gFmp4MX). I also a few of my own and some additional sheets to add goals and plans for the future.

Based on feedback, I have also prioritised the sheet so that you can choose how many questions you want it to be.

It might still seem too long. Feel free to start with smaller - anything is better than nothing!

Please feel free to copy, share and modify it.

Annual review template and explainer video

http://bit.ly/2MhHc0W

https://lnkd.in/guY8EDW

Over the past few years, I have also used a 'daily tracker' sheet to help track the goals and outcomes I plan each year. The feedback on that is that it is a bit complicated, but feel free to check it out and use it to make something simpler!

Daily tracker template and explainer video

http://bit.ly/3rOscb9

https://lnkd.in/gi6aEQk

Does all of this reflection and tracking help? 

I think it does. I feel that it has given me huge rewards over the last few years.

Of course this approach won't work for everyone, but I think that self-monitoring, reflection and improvement are all underrated.

My perspective is that life is not unlike a startup - both are attempts to thrive in the face of uncertainty. Would you back a business that didn't do any accounting or strategy each year? I wouldn't!

Of course, you might think: I really don't have time to do this sort of self-improvement work. Fair enough, maybe you don't. I certainly didn’t for a long time.

However, my current update to having that feeling would be to wonder if I should aim to prioritize my time differently.

Committing <.033% of your year (~1 day for a review) or day (~5m to track your experiences and reflections) to self-improvement doesn’t sound very extreme. Most people put much more time into social media.

To return to my earlier analogy, if a company you were considering investing in told you that they didn’t know if this year was better than the last because they didn't have time to track and review any indicators, what would think of their priorities?

Even now, I struggle (and regret) to believe that I spent most of my life with problems (like anxiety) that I could have fixed/hugely improved if I had attended to them instead of mindlessly switching my attention to focus on whatever it was that occupied my mind at that time (e.g., socialising, working etc).

Does anyone else have a similar annual review or tracking process? Or suggestions for improvements? Or arguments against this approach?
# Hedging the Possibility of Russia invading Ukraine 

Assume that you know with a high degree of confidence that Russia will invade Ukraine in February 2022.   
  
Also assume that you have an investment portfolio invested 100% in VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index).  
  
You think that if Russia invades Ukraine, this will affect your portfolio in a negative way.   
  
Aside from doing a direct hedge (Buying buts on VTI), in what other ways would you attempt to hedge your portfolio?
# Mechanistic Interpretability for the MLP Layers (rough early thoughts)

This post is a link to a video I just made in response to the new work coming out of Anthropic described [here](https://transformer-circuits.pub/) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3NQaDR3xI4&list=PLoyGOS2WIonajhAVqKUgEMNmeq3nEeM51) and discussed on LessWrong [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2269iGRnWruLHsZ5r/transformer-circuits).

In the video I try to puzzle through how best to think about the MLP layers of a transformer in the same spirit as Anthropic is thinking through the self-attention layers.
# Prerequisite Skills

Learning is a process of trial and error. You try something. It fails. You identify what went wrong. You try something else.

Learning progresses quickly when you can reliably identify what went wrong. The best way to guarantee you'll know what you did wrong is to isolate a single variable. Start with a process that works. Change exactly one thing. If the new process works better you'll know exactly why. If the new process fails you'll know exactly why.

The hard part is "start with a process that works". Suppose you want to be a magician. "Start with a process that works" means "perform a magic trick guaranteed to fool your audience". But if you're not a magician yet then you cannot perform a magic trick guaranteed to fool your audience. You cannot learn misdirection from books alone. You must practice on real people.

You cajole your friends into watching you. You perform a magic trick you read about in *The Amateur Magician's Handbook*. It falls flat. Why? You don't know. Maybe you goofed up the mechanics of the slight. Maybe your misdirection is mistimed. Maybe you are boring.

Magic tricks are finicky Rube Goldberg machines. The whole deception shatters if you get just one critical component wrong. There is no guarantee you did just one thing wrong. Novice magicians often do everything wrong simultaneously.

A better approach is to learn acting first. Acting is simpler than magic. Actors have to entertain an audience and direct the audience's attention but actors don't have to do it while palming objects and messing with invisible string. Acting involves fewer variables than magic. If you learn acting first then when you learn magic you'll know you're not failing to entertain your audience or direct their attention. If the trick falls flat you'll know it's because you did something wrong that's specific to magic tricks, like goofing up a sleight.

Acting is **prerequisite skill** to magic tricks. Magicians are a subset of actors; all magicians are actors but not all actors are magicians. It is possible to learn magic and acting simultaneously (I did) but it is more efficient to learn acting first and then magic.
# The Debtor's Revolt

Ben Hoffman describes the transition from a old world order to a debtor-aristocracy world order.

Consider a standard microeconomics model, where profits are good and debts represent some loss of that profit in interest; individual actions are taken based on whether they will be return more than they cost (and the return is above the best publicly available return). People lend gold to governments to get gold in return, and that gold is valuable across the world regardless of government policy.

Consider also a debt-based model, where there are more winner-takes-all dynamics. There might be some new (economic) land opened up, and a competition to see who gets it; if money can be turned into increased ability to win that competition, then more access to debt means more chance of win. (Think Uber vs. Lyft.) 

With the debt-based model, there's also more coalitional dynamics at play, as debt ties together borrower and lender; with the rest of their stake at risk, lenders are more likely to throw 'good money after bad', and with access to capital as a kingmaker, lenders may be more interested in propping up those that share their interests.

Of course, the main event is the transition from the gold-based economy with weaker states, to the cash-based economy with stronger states, and the main psychological event is the transition from an expectation of 'being in the clear' to an expectation of being heavily indebted. People used to talk about taking unsavory jobs to 'pay the mortgage', and now many talk about that to 'pay their student loan debt'.
# San Francisco shares COVID data only when it's too late

In the early months of the pandemic, San Francisco posted case and death counts on a daily basis. It was sometimes messy with significant corrections, but the city did the best they could (or at least better than most) to keep the public informed.

Around half a year ago, they got worse. Data is now published with a 5 day lag. Presumably, the politicians and decision makers get timely data. Everyone else has to wait.

This is not okay. This is very not okay. In the post vaccination but pre-Omicron days, I was annoyed philosophically. But now. Now?

https://sf.gov/data/covid-19-cases-and-deaths

![Cases as of 12/21, as reported on 12/26](https://i.imgur.com/Nhow6V3.png)

At this point, [we're fucked and it's definitely over](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6apSCHHuWyxK635pE/omicron-variant-post-1-we-re-f-ed-it-s-never-over). But this is still not okay, and now I am furious. Anyone who wants to know the true state of the world cannot, unless they are On The Inside.

So, where is the pebble that starts an avalanche? Who do I need to Tweet or email or call to pressure the city into changing this?
# Solstice Quaker Darkness Circling

This year I did a small "Darkness [Solstice](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/secular-solstice)" in the woods (i.e. basically got up to the moment of darkness, and then instead of having an uplifting third act we just sorta sat in the darkness for awhile). 

"Darkness Solstice" probably doesn't make sense for most people. But a thing that was interesting and perhaps surprisingly relevant was "Solstice Quaker Circling". 

After the moment of darkness we just sat around a campfire in silence. Anyone could speak up and share something if they felt like it. I modeled this after the structure of a [Quaker meeting](https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/quakers_1.shtml#:~:text=Quaker%20meetings%20for%20worship%20take,a%20square%20or%20a%20circle.), with a vague dose of Circling culture thrown in.

When you felt like you'd had "enough", you lit a candle indicate you were ready to move on from the segment (which in this case meant wrapping up the solstice with one final song)

I think it was about 40 minutes before a critical mass of people had lit their "I'm done" candles. I was happy with how the "I'm done" mechanic played out – if I had had to guess how long to have the period have lasted, I might have went with something much shorter.

We ended up sharing a lot of personal stuff that felt valuable to me. There were some impromptu solstice speeches came up that were interesting. Some minor personal interactions.

A question came up: "Am I allowed to respond to what other people have said?" and my answer was "Yes, but only in slow motion. To preserve the overall vibe and prevent it from turning into "just a conversation", the guideline was to always wait a minute or so before saying the next thing. So, you could respond to something someone else said but not transition into rapid back-and-forth that'd have killed the mood.

It as definitely a great experience for me as a small solstice. There were six of us there, and five of us shared things during the period.

I think this might surprisingly just.... work, even at larger scales? Its modeled after a Quaker meeting. I've seen Quaker meetings work well with ~30-40 people, and the largest ones [are apparently ~70](There were 6 of us there.) (but maybe have a different vibe than the smaller ones).

In open-invite large scale Solstice, I think there are additional complications – I think it's bad to [create an illusion of a safer space than you can guarantee](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aFyWFwGWBsP5DZbHF/circling?commentId=2uE7benA255i9XjZu#comments). There's also a risk of someone bringing up a social conflict in the middle of the space, or a political rant, in a way that's hard to deal with. (It seems to me the Quakers would also run into this problem at least sometimes. I'm curious how they deal)

I tried this out specifically hoping it could be a thing that worked well at small solstices, and gave people more of a reason to hold private events after they go to Big Regional Solstice. I think it worked really well for that.
# Should I blog on LessWrong?

This is my first post here. I would like feedback on my decision of signing up to LessWrong with the idea of writing here occasionally. I explain my reasoning below, but first, for context, here is a brief intro about me:

I am not sure if I consider myself a rationalist or part of the rationality community, but I enjoy scrolling through LW and reading some posts. I do consider myself part of the Effective Altruism community and have been involved in it for over two years. I'm a graduate student in one of the 80,000 Hours priority cause areas and my aim is to be a researcher, perhaps also involved with policy, in such area. 

I have a website where I used to blog about anything I found interesting. Since I applied to graduate school, it has become a professional/academic website (I removed most of my existing posts) and I intend to keep it that way (with occasional academic posts). I enjoy writing and I recognize it's a very useful skill to develop. However, I'm concerned that having several posts on my professional website about EA or Rationality would cause a negative impression on academics or future employers who visit my website.

I have not included my surname on my LW username for the same reasons (my LW user does not show up on a google search of my full name). I do not want complete anonymity: I expect that most of the people who know me will identify me as the person behind this LW profile and that those reading this LW profile may find my website. I'm okay with both.   
  
Does my reasoning seem reasonable? A few final thoughts: 

1.  I expect I would cross-post some posts from here on my blog, and vice-versa.
2.  I have also created a profile on the EA Forum with the same username ([https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/maria_a](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/maria_a)) to use in a similar fashion (but I expect to post on LW more frequently due to its broader content scope).
3.  I can always link to my LW account on the first page of my website should I want to (effectively becoming fully public), and even re-posting there (some of) my LW posts.
# What would you like from Microcovid.org? How valuable would it be to you?

[Microcovid.org](http://microcovid.org) was a vital tool to many of us during the pandemic- I made [a whole speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2LSu00YLs0) about it back at summer solstice. The back and forth over how finished covid is, plus a dependence entirely on volunteers, has pushed microcovid into something of a limbo. It's not clear what the best next step for it is. One option would be to update microcovid for new problems, but that’s a lot of work and I have a lot of uncertainty about how valuable any given improvement is. So I’d to collect some data.

1.  How are you using microcovid now?
2.  What is the minimum viable change that would create value for you, and what would that value be? The more explicit the better here- comments like “feature X would be worth $n to me” or “it enabled me to find a collaborated then enabled a project” are more useful than “I like it a lot”
3.  What’s your dream microcovid, and what value would that create for you?
4.  Anything else you’d like to share on this topic?  
     

I’ve asked LW to enable the experimental agree/disagree feature for this post. The benefit of this is that you can boost particular data points without writing anything. The risk is that an individual's preferences get counted repeatedly: 5 people with the same opinion who write five posts and agree with all of the others’ identical points should be counted as 5 people, not 25. So I ask that you:

1.  Not agree with comments substantially overlapping with a comment you write
2.  If multiple comments make the same point, only click agree for one of them

This isn’t an exact science because comments will sometimes contain more than one point or make very similar but not totally identical points, but please do your best.
# What are the pros and cons of seeking a formal diagnosis of autism?

I suspect myself to be borderline autistic, and while I can function in society, I might have a diagnosable condition. (More details below.) Is it in my interest to seek diagnosis? I believe many viewers and commenters on this site are in similar situations, so I hope that this question will be useful to others and not just to me. I've listed some of the pros and cons I can think of below, but I'm probably missing some.

Pros:

A formal diagnosis means you can ask for special consideration and usually get it, even if you don't strictly need it. For example, accommodations to make a work environment less distracting. If I'm undiagnosed and just find things irritating, I have to put up with them. (Not so relevant for me, but students may be able to get more time on exams which is a big advantage.)

Many people seem to find a formal diagnosis helpful for understanding themselves (are there advantages over a self-diagnosis?) and for explaining themselves to others.

Cons:

Are there circumstances where having a formal diagnosis could make me more vulnerable to being stigmatized or labeled? For example, if I were to suffer a different medical condition and be admitted to hospital, will the doctors/nurses treat me like an idiot because I have 'autistic' on my medical records? Relatedly, if I get dementia when I'm old, will I be infantilised and treated as lacking capacity at a much earlier stage than non-autistics because of the pre-existing autism diagnosis?

I could just explain to people that eg I don't like last-minute changes of plans. Is there an advantage to explaining to other people that it's because I'm autistic, rather than just saying it's part of my personality? 

Is it socially responsible to seek diagnosis for borderline cases? There's an argument that the modern world is far too quick to pathologise behaviour that is only slightly different from normal. Should I avoid contributing to this trend?

Personal details: I have difficulty making friends and have gone through periods of my life where I had no friends. I was bullied at school for being obviously different from other children. I think analytically and respond to ideas more than personalities. I found LessWrong's explanation of non-autistic behaviour to be very helpful: what was sometimes baffling is now explained by status-seeking and signalling. I personally seem to lack most of the status-regulation emotions and the mental architecture that makes most people engage in this behaviour automatically. On the other hand, I don't have stimming behaviour and don't display special interests to an autistic level. I had no developmental delays and have a good job. If I am autistic, I would be labelled high-functioning.

NB: I personally live in the UK, so British law and culture are relevant. I would like this thread to be useful to others too, so please post about the situation in the US or other countries, just make sure you say which you're talking about.