Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Televised sports exist to gamble with testosterone levels using prediction skill

Testosterone levels go up and down based on success and failure in conflicts. It indicates the likelihood you’ll win the next conflict and determines your propensity to engage in further conflict. Win a lot, your levels go up, and you’re more likely to stand your ground or even initiate a conflict. Lose a lot, and that indicator will downregulate your behavior to prevent you from risking conflicts that have, historically, not gone well for you. It’s like a built-in, unconscious hint that regulates your desire to roll a die based on how well you’ve rolled in the past.

I feel this most viscerally when battling with phone support and getting a victory or concession a strict reading of the policy would not have entitled me to. The high of the win motivates me to make other calls I’ve been putting off, and I’m sure that extra motivation comes from this chemical being upregulated after success, indicating further success is possible.

What if there were a way to gamble testosterone without engaging in any conflict at all—if you could place some on the line in the hopes of getting a higher level through prediction rather than conflict? Watching sports allows such bets to be placed. First, because evolution is not stupid, you must associate yourself with one of the battling factions. You can’t make their victories yours without accepting their defeats. If you are to receive higher testosterone when your side wins, you must equally risk lower testosterone when they lose.

Sports affecting testosterone level is a well-known fact. I’m proposing that this is not an effect of recreational sports viewing, but the cause for it—to deliberately wager testosterone on one’s predictive abilities in substitution for actual combat. Further, wagers can be both safe or risky, with corresponding greater bets, like rooting for an underdog.
# Dan Luu on Persistent Bad Decision Making (but maybe it's noble?)

Dan walks through some extremely clear-cut sports examples where people continued making decisions that were ~~wrong~~ costing them wins in ways that were easily calculable. They did eventually change, but even that took years, sometimes decades. Given that this was happening in something as easy to measure as sports, he suggests we should expect bad decision making in corporations or governments to take even longer to correct.

My major concern with this post is that the goal of pro sports is a mix of winning and making money via attention from fans. This first means that the feedback loop isn't as tight as it would be otherwise. Additionally, many of the optimizations that lead to more wins make games more boring, which ultimately costs the entire league money. Using these optimizations is in some ways defecting in a prisoner's dilemma: you win more, which your fans like and other fans don't, but if everyone does it the game becomes more boring, which drives away everyone's fans. Under this light, base stealing attempts that cost you counterfactual wins could be viewed as a prosocial sacrifice to the entire league's benefit.
# Quadratic Voting and Collusion

Quadratic voting is a proposal for a voting system that ensures participants cast a number of votes proportional to the degree they care about the issue by making the marginal cost of each additional vote linearly increasing - see [this post by Vitalik](https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html) for an excellent introduction.

One major issue with QV is collusion - since the marginal cost of buying one vote is different for different people, if you could spread a number of votes out across multiple people, you could buy more votes for the same amount of money. For instance, suppose you and a friend have $100 each, and you care only about Cause A and they care only about Cause B, and neither of you care about any of the other causes up for vote. You could spend all of your $100 on A and they could spend all of theirs on B, *or* you could both agree to each spend $50 on A and $50 on B, which would net $\sqrt 2$ times the votes for both A and B as opposed to the default.

The solution generally proposed in response to this issue is to ensure that the vote is truly secret, to the extent that you cannot even prove to anyone else who you voted for. The thinking is that this creates a prisoner's dilemma where by defecting, you manage to obtain both the $50 from your friend and also the full $100 from yourself for your own cause, and that because there is no way to confirm how you voted, there are no possible externalities to create incentives for not defecting.

Unfortunately, I have two objections to this solution, one theoretical and one practical. The theoretical objection is that if the two agents are able to accurately predict each others' actions and reason using FDT, then it is possible for the two agents to cooperate à la FairBot - this circumvents the inability to prove what you voted for after the fact by proving ahead of time what you will vote. The practical objection is that people tend to cooperate in prisoner's dilemmas a significant amount of the time anyways, and in general a lot of people tend to uphold promises they make even if the other party has no way to verify. I think there's even an argument to be made that the latter is at least partially a real world instance of the former. 

I'm still optimistic that this might not be a showstopping problem in practice, since there is a limited pool of people who you would trust in practice, which puts a ceiling on how many times your vote can count. However, I think this is still a major unavoidable flaw with QV for both practical and theoretical applications.
# Applications for AI Safety Camp 2022 Now Open!

If you’ve read about alignment research and you want to start contributing, the new iteration of the AI Safety Camp is a great opportunity!

It’s a virtual camp from January to May 2022, where you collaborate with other applicants to work (1h / normal workday, 7h / weekend sprint day) on open problems proposed and supervised by mentors like John Wentworth, Beth Barnes, Stuart Armstrong, Daniel Kokotajlo… Around this core of research, the camp also includes talks and discussions about fundamental ideas in the field, how alignment research works, and how and where to get a job/funding.

All in all, the AI Safety Camp is a great opportunity if:

*   You have read enough about alignment that you’re convinced of the importance of the problem
*   You want to do alignment research (whether conceptual or applied), or to collaborate with alignment researchers (doing policy for example)
*   You don’t feel yet like you have enough research taste and grasp of the field to choose your research problems yourself yet

Note that you don’t need advanced maths skills to participate in the camp, as some of the projects don’t require any specific skillset or very unusual ones (evolutionary genetics, history...). If you care about alignment and are in this situation, I encourage you to apply for a project without required skillsets and learn what you need as you go along.

All the details on how to apply are available on [the website](https://aisafety.camp/) (including the list of open problems).
# Competence/Confidence

This "essay" is a bit of an experiment, format-wise.  I'd like to draw the reader's attention to a certain way of thinking about and evaluating progress that's been useful to me in a wide variety of domains.  It's an exercise I run through when I'm feeling stuck, which almost always provides some nugget of actionable insight.  It should take about three minutes to skim, and about thirty if you're actually engaging actively.

* * *

Choose a skill.  It could be dancing, or Haskell, or public speaking, or basket weaving, or backflips, or conflict resolution, or fiction writing, or emotional regulation, or impressing potential romantic partners, or whatever, so long as it's a skill you're either working on or expecting to work on at some point in the near future.

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/861e137944c0380644b64ba265bbec4cd94ef24668e70230.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/f70ed30d7ef9f0ca541d8432f146a595fcb652925ef98e70.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/7dddc26c72c6e95a2b6e42f87e2fc42f26a8fc83faeca881.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/d1ac24b913cc9938f1b7d13d694a2cbd4e8b6510dcb5993a.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/bf435d334ad8768d4546502a7bed4e715a7c6e97c6813c9a.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/a4b77eaba5197697bc8079fbf15c7078097103e4b34c7841.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/b2298059412bd26df9ac86819a10580adf2fc16c5443e1f1.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/c825ade8b319a3da3bd415f1134ab86128a76a95ccc9990e.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/9ac15dd521befe43857537fd66b18403a68859c53019a530.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/fc3be0a4fe585fb7c282a494f9137a3e746faf0ea4e135d1.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/1af9a827e2d5ff44a4ac59938f2442ef0b24366eee4c4f8b.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/4ba424c3109e3320e8a923ded0d7fa2c28b7f782d3bd818c.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/afa00e788d1b6545a095db99129342bf207feff1f3532ee6.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/d9e8f658198c8605370856ec9781a15e381c9c87c581155b.png)

* * *

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/ef7bfb8533c58f3fab6c7db790b0a0a8b7413b3e0a8c71d5.png)

* * *

If you actually engaged with this exercise, I'd be curious to hear what happened, and what it was like for you.

If you intended to engage with it, but bounced off, I'd be interested in hearing your best guess as to why.
# South Bay ACX/LW Meetup - CHANGED LOCATION

***Location changed to Ilmarin House (Sunnyvale). ***

This is a relaxed Saturday afternoon gathering at ~~Washington Park (if conditions are favorable) or~~ Ilmarin House which has some amount of outdoor space. Since this is (partially) indoors we ask that you only come if you're vaccinated and symptom-free.

**Location (verbose): **  
The house with the ACX/LW sign on the door. Come in or head to the garden accessible through the gate to the right of the house when facing the front door (also labeled with a sign). 

**Things to maybe bring:**  
Some snacks will be available but you're welcome to bring some, too.

**More:**  
If you’re reading this, you’re invited! Bring friends if you think they’d enjoy the event. Kids are welcome (for questions/accommodation requests email me)! Please RSVP if you haven’t already (but if you don’t manage to do that in time we’re happy to have you anyway).   
If you have other questions/concerns, please let me know at [svmeetup@protonmail.com](mailto:svmeetup@protonmail.com) or leave a comment.
# Giving Up On T-Mobile

I'd been thinking of moving away from T-Mobile since their depressingly cavalier account messaging a few weeks ago where [they sent](https://www.jefftk.com/p/t-mobile-spurious-account-takeover-warning) what were effectively "your account is in the process of being hacked" notifications as part of migrating to a new billing system.

This billing migration continues to be poorly handled, and after a series of conflicting messages I no longer have service:

> 2021-11-02: As part of your new My T-Mobile experience, your Autopay feature needs to be re-setup prior to your next bill cycle date. To avoid a service interruption, please login and re-setup your Autopay at \[url\]

> 2021-11-18: Please refill your plan within the next 3 days to ensure continued T-Mobile service at \[url\] or press 611. Please disregard if you've already paid for next month's service.

I tried to log in and update my billing information. The service was extremely slow and it timed out after I entered my credit card information. I thought I probably hadn't successfully enabled autopay, but I wasn't sure.

> 2021-11-18: Your T-Mobile plan will renew in two days via AutoPay with an estimated charge of $30.00 before taxes/fees/surcharges. Thank you for being a T-Mobile customer.

I took this to mean that my credit card change had actually gone through, and I was all set.

> 2021-11-20: Please refill your plan before 12:01am tomorrow to ensure continued T-Mobile service by visiting \[url\] or dial 611. Please disregard if you've already paid for next month's service.

I received three of these, one after another. This was surprising, but it did say to disregard if I had already paid. I thought there was a good chance that my service was going to be cancelled, but at this point I was grumpy enough that I figured that if they cancelled my service that was fine with me.

> 2021-11-20: Auto-Pay is cancelled. Your next T-Mobile plan payment will not be paid automatically. To re-enroll, call *233 or visit \[url\].

> 2021-11-21: Your T-Mobile service has been suspended. To restore service, contact your Primary Account Holder or make a payment at \[url\].

None of this is that bad, but it was frustrating enough that I decided to move away. I care about cost, hassle, and the chance that my account is stolen, and Google Fi (disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself) seemed like a solid option. The marginal cost was $20/month, since Julia already uses it. She's had a good experience, and Google is probably the company I trust most for security. I've now switched; it was simple, didn't need a SIM, and my phone number ported quickly.

The only wart so far is that since I ported my number from Google Voice (I had been using GV without giving out my underlying number) I wasn't able to read my old messages in GV until I signed up for a new number. The way I would have liked this to work would be for my GV history to move over to Fi, and I'm sad they didn't set that up.
# “The Wisdom of the Lazy Teacher”

>If you teach a man to fish, he’ll be eating fish for a lifetime. Teach him to teach himself to fish, and you’ve given him the fundamental life skill of figuring things out on his own.

— [Wylie Beckert](https://www.muddycolors.com/2021/01/the-wisdom-of-the-lazy-teacher/)
# Even if you're right, you're wrong

*Epistemic status: I noticed a commonality between a set of rhetorical moves that I sometimes find irritating and sometimes think is valid.*

You claim P? OK. But even if you’re right about P…

*   … if I assume P, then I can prove not P. So, by contradiction, P is false. So you’re wrong.
*   … if you really believed P, then you would have [a certain appropriate mood](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/01/the_invisible_t.html). But it doesn’t seem like you have that mood. So you’re wrong.
*   … with 99% probability, as long as there’s a 1% chance that P is wrong, according to expected value, we should act like P is wrong. So you’re wrong.
*   … accepting P would mean that you should do this weird action A. But you don’t do A, as far as I can tell. So you’re wrong.
*   … yesterday, you said Q, and Q implies not P. So you were wrong yesterday or today. So you’re wrong.
*   … somebody might infer Q from P. But Q is false! So you’re wrong.
*   … someone might infer from your expression of P that you believe Q. But Q is false! So you’re wrong.
# First Strike and Second Strike

**First-strike** weapons destroy your enemy's ability to retaliate. **Second-strike** weapons preserve your ability to retaliate after a first strike.

Missile defense systems constitute first-strike technology. Suppose you build an effective[^1] missile defense system. You could launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against your enemies. If your enemies are growing stronger relative to you then you are incentivized to launch a nuclear strike against them, before they can build their own missile defense system.

[^1]: Perfectly effective missile defense is implausible against a peer adversary (excepting a successful pre-emptive cyberattack), but we can imagine a world where the United States deploys a successful missile defense system against a non-peer adversary against North Korea.

It is impossible to defend a missile silo against a nuclear first strike because the position of a ground-based missile silo is fixed and few things provide adequate armor against a nuclear warhead. Airfields for bombers are even harder to hide. Submarines are relatively difficult to locate and destroy. Submarines are too small to launch a massive, overwhelming first strike. Submarines are second-strike technology.

First-strike weapons promote instability because they incentivize actors to strike first. Second-strike weapons promote stability because they make it safer for actors to wait. The more you can wait the less likely you'll be to [gamble everything on a desperate first strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor) or to retaliate against false alarms.

This doesn't mean we should put all of our doomesday devices on submarines. That's a single point of failure. A diverse arsenal of delivery systems is more robust than relying on a single technology. China's submarines are (for now) less advanced than Russia's and the United States'. If China put its nukes on submarines it is plausible that its enemies could wipe them all out in a pre-emptive strike. This may be related to why China is currently expanding its ground-based nuclear missile capacity.

A world of second-strike technologies tends to incentivize peace. A world of first-strike technologies tends to incentivize pre-emptive strikes.
# Latacora might be of interest to some AI Safety organizations

Am I affiliated with Latacora?
------------------------------

No, not in any way.

What is Latacora?
-----------------

From their own [webpage](https://www.latacora.com/):

> Latacora does just one kind of engagement: we join your engineering team virtually, create a security practice, and run it. As your company matures, we'll make sure that practice also matures. When it makes sense for you to bring some (or all!) of our security capabilities in-house, we'll help you make those hires.

Why might some AI Safety organizations be interested in Latacora?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Security is hard. Only amateurs roll their own security. But identifying good security hires and practices is hard if you don't know what they are or how they look like. This is similar to how it's difficult to hire for taste if you don't have taste. In particular, I'd expect top AI Safety hires to be great at AI Safety, but not necessarily great at security practices. But even if they are great at security practices, it's probably not their comparative advantage.

Recently, Yudkowsky has been talking about third countries stealing dangerous AI models and running them as a consideration feeding into his own pessimism. This doesn't seem like a hypothetical concern. Latacora seems like it would allow one to solve or mitigate this problem by throwing money at it. 

How did you hear about Latacora? Why do you think they're good?
---------------------------------------------------------------

I don't remember how I heard about them. It was probably mentioned by someone grungier than me in some Linux forum, and I've been following [their blog](https://latacora.micro.blog/) for a while. I think they're good because of the same reasons I think Zvi is good: because I read their stuff and they seem to say sensible things according to my judgment. 

Are you suggesting that AI Safety organizations literally hire these people?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes.
# Rapid Increase of Highly Mutated B.1.1.529 Strain in South Africa

I'm sorry to ruin your holidays. The video above is my only source for this information. I will summarize the key findings here.

A cluster of cases among students in Gauteng was recently sequenced. A new variant, B.1.1.529 was found. The mutation profile of this variant looks horrendous:

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/5bd849fff3ef2ebc3aacaa61aa5f458f75d45168884e17a0.png)

Mutation Profile of B.1.1.529

Each of the vertical black lines is a mutation from the original strain. For comparison, here is what the Delta variant looks like:

![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant.svg/2880px-SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant.svg.png)

Mutation Profile of B.1.617 (Delta)

Some of these mutations have known phenotypic impact (effect on transmissiblity and immune evasion), while others are brand new. 

As you may be quick to point out, more mutations does not equal bad. However, the proportion of sequenced cases comprised of this new variant is rapidly rising:

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/f66dca0bc308a880b0b632d4fdc4fd6e6223cd101c847a57.png)

Viral Proportions in South Africa

One might be tempted to say that this just the founder effect from the new cluster in Gauteng. However, while there has not been much full sequencing in other provinces, we can see that the lack of the "S-gene" in PCR tests, which the authors here are using as a signal that an infection may have been caused by this variant, is in fact rising rapidly in most provinces of South Africa.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/6f908d509e332025d4c7b57fdd52b6c2454bf7345a1f5e6b.png)

Given that this is the most mutated strain of the coronavirus yet, we may be in for a rough time. The C.1.2 variant, seen in the image "Variant proportions in South Africa" above, was the strain with the most mutations until recently. C.1.2 never really took off the way that B.1.1.529 is taking off, though. 

I expect that we will be hearing about this variant more. I think there is strong reason to believe that the high number of mutations in the spike protein will have a very negative impact on vaccine efficacy against this variant.
# Why don't our vaccines get updated to the delta spike protein?

[Delta and Delta Plus evade the antibody response](https://www.dpz.eu/en/home/single-view/news/delta-und-delta-plus-weichen-der-antikoerperantwort-aus.html):

> Delta and Delta Plus were less well inhibited (neutralized) by antibodies from infected and vaccinated individuals as compared to the original virus and this likely contributed to the rapid spread of Delta.

It seems to me relatively straightforward that if we would update the vaccine to the spike protein of the delta varient that would help with protecting against it. When talking to people on Facebook I heared strange arguments such as the "vaccine working well" against delta with seems like a really bogus statement given the need for booster shots and many vaccinated spreading the virus. Yes, the vaccine helps but that's no reason not to update it to make it help more. 

Can anyone make sense of this?
# Responding to common objections to the FDA unbanning Paxlovid *right now*

Here I respond to a number of objections to the FDA making Paxlovid available right now that came up in the comments section on Scott's post "[When will the FDA Approve Paxlovid?](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/when-will-the-fda-approve-paxlovid?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODA1MTAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjQ0MzM3Njc0LCJfIjoiUTg0OFoiLCJpYXQiOjE2Mzc2MzM4NzksImV4cCI6MTYzNzYzNzQ3OSwiaXNzIjoicHViLTg5MTIwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.W2ZYgyfRGYOG6irQ8RnLFY8MAkfRywp-1DWEAkCVLBM)". I also saw many of these objections on Twitter too in addition to the usual "but what about Thalidomide?".

I'm taking some time off from work right now and had been planning to some researching and writing on AI forecasting via scaling laws, but this seemed way more important!

Procedural notes: I only plan to share posts from my Substack here that are relevant to discussions going on in the LessWrong/Rationalist community. If you want to be notified of all my future posts, please subscribe. I shared this as a link post, but if people think a cross-post for this type of thing would be better in the future, please let me know.
# Kriorus update: full bodies patients were moved to the new location in Tver

Yesterday Valery Pride got a decision from police that she is an acting director and owner of the dewar vessels with full bodies patients in Sergiev Posad (Semhoz) which she unsuccessfully tried to take in September. Based on that decision she arranged the transportation of the three large vessels with bodies into a new (but still unfinished) building of the Kriorus in the Tver region, around 170 km from Moscow. A driver was injured in hand during a transportation accident, not related to the conflict. 

Danila Medvedev, her former husband and now rival commented on the event relatively peacefully: "It seems to me that this whole story also has a positive side. At the very least, we get an interesting answer to the objection "who will need these cryopatients in the future?" If even now, when, in the opinion of ordinary people, this is just a bunch of frozen bodies; there are those who are ready to fight for cryopatients. Thus, over time, as the reality and the likelihood of revival gradually grows, I think, and the value of cryopatients will also grow." (In Telegram chat "Open cryonics").

Photos [here](https://www.facebook.com/valerija.pride/posts/10224966981020455).
# Should PAXLOVID be given preventively?

An effective antiviral against COVID-19 seems to have a potential to end the pandemic if we give it to the whole population. Has anyone evaluated whether PAXLOVID has the potential to do the job? How is the side effect profile when thinking about giving it preventively?
# I currently translate AGI-related texts to Russian. Is that useful?

I live in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, and I want to do something useful to AI-Alignment movement.

Several weeks ago I started to translate "[Discussion with Eliezer Yudkowsky on AGI interventions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CpvyhFy9WvCNsifkY/discussion-with-eliezer-yudkowsky-on-agi-interventions)". Now it's [complete](https://vk.com/@makikoty-obsuzhdenie-agi-s-eliezerom-udkovskim) and linked to in couple thematic social network groups, and I currently translate [old metaphorical post]( https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Gg9a4y8reWKtLe3Tn/the-rocket-alignment-problem) almost as a rest, after which I plan to follow the list from [Rob Bensinger's comment](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CpvyhFy9WvCNsifkY/discussion-with-eliezer-yudkowsky-on-agi-interventions?commentId=rRDHuLKDos6iiesA9).

My English is not very good, I know a lot of people with better language proficiency, but it seems to me that I am on Pareto Frontier on "translation skills + alignment-related knowledge + motivation to translate". Otherwise, I think, there would be more than *one* alignment-related translation on [lesswrong.ru](https://lesswrong.ru/) over the past two years!

I would like to know if this is helpful or if I should focus on something completely different.
# [Linkpost] Being Normal by Brian Caplan

[**Being Normal**](https://www.econlib.org/being-normal/)
=========================================================

> *The Principle of Normality: A normal person says what others **say**, but does what others **do**.*

*I found this via a* [*Tweet by Paul Graham*](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1383713889146204164)*:*

> Very interesting point: Conformists conform **separately** in words and actions, and since conventional words are at odds with conventional actions, this thereby makes them hypocrites as well.
# Why Bedroom Closets?

Bedrooms, at least in the US, are nearly always constructed with built-in closets, but I don't see why? What's the appeal?

Personally, I don't like them. I want the flexibility to arrange furniture however currently best suits my needs, and a built-in closet permanently reserves a portion of the floor area. Stand-alone wardrobes also offer flexibility when occupants vary in how much stuff they have that is a good fit for a closet.

When we were [adding dormers to our house](https://www.jefftk.com/p/adding-dormers-to-our-house) four years ago we needed to decide whether to include closets in each of the rooms. Here's what the three new/expanded bedrooms looked like with and without closets:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-2-yes-closet.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-2-yes-closet-big.png)

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-2-no-closet.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-2-no-closet-big.png)

*Anna's bedroom*

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-3-yes-closet.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-3-yes-closet-big.png)

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-3-no-closet.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-3-no-closet-big.png)

*What will be Nora's bedroom once she's out of our room. Currently my office and where I sleep for the second half of the night.*

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-4-yes-closet.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-4-yes-closet-big.png)

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-4-no-closet.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/room-3-4-no-closet-big.png)

*Lily's bedroom*

We decided to construct all three without closets, and in retrospect we're both very happy with that decision: each of the three has the bed in a position that wouldn't be possible if we had kept the closets.

(Sometimes people will say that it doesn't matter whether you like closets, building code requires them. This is a myth: the International Residential Code (IRC) says nothing about bedroom closets. And our building inspector had no issues with our closetless bedrooms.)

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100236039317152)*
# Solve Corrigibility Week

A low-hanging fruit for solving alignment is to dedicate a chunk of time actually trying to solve a sub-problem collectively.

To that end, I’ve broken up researching the sub-problem of corrigibility into two categories in this [google doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vMucI0L3ssECOpJJgjLWE8uZ9KVWDA8FX9KIgcwnN6Q/edit?usp=sharing) (you have suggestion privileges):

1.  Previous Work: let’s not reinvent the wheel. Write out links to any past work on corrigibility. This can range from just links to links & summaries & analyses. Do comment reactions to other's reviews to provide counter-arguments. This is just a google doc, low-quality posts, comments, links are accepted; I want people to lean towards babbling more.
2.  Tasks: what do we actually do this week to make progress?  Suggest any research direction you find fruitful or general research questions or framings. Example: write an example of corrigibility (one could then comment an actual example).

Additionally, I’ll post 3 top-level comments for:

1.  Meetups: want to co-work with others in the community? Comment availability, work preferences, and a way to contact you (eg calendly link, “dm me”, “ my email is bob and alice dot com”, etc)  [For example](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Lv3emECEjkCSHG7L7/solve-corrigibility-week?commentId=FJqWDdepe4N68SDeN), I’m available most times this week with a [Calendly link](https://calendly.com/elriggs/chat) for scheduling 1-on-1 co-working sessions. Additionally, you yourself could message those you know to collaborate on this, or have a nerdy house co-working party.
2.  Potential topics: what other topics besides corrigibility could we collaborate on in future weeks?
3.  Meta: what are different formats this type of group collaboration could take? Comment suggestions with trade offs or discuss the cost/benefits of what I’m presenting in this post.

I do believe there’s a legitimate, albeit small, chance that we solve corrigibility or find its “core” this week. Nonetheless, I think it’s of great value to be able to make actual progress on alignment issues as a community and to figure out how to do that better. Additionally, it’s immensely valuable to have an alignment topic post include a literature review, the community's up-to-date thoughts, and possible future research directions to pursue. I also believe a collaborative project like this will put several community members on the same page as far as terminology and gears-level models.

I explicitly commit to 3 weeks of this (so corrigibility this week and two more the next two weeks). After that is Christmas and New Years, after which I may resume depending on how it goes.

*Thanks to Alex Turner for reviewing a draft.*
# Redwood Research is hiring for several roles

![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Op14pfYDwMEVWEcoU-luENnQoeEUMrMAx3xNZn7NjLtVOaE_NK39XYW9G5gEDCB3JsEf1gJcPp1PVsu6t0DVcQCrbKQOyt7wC8PYHLQ9bT-1h32zMcGb-vFGbLVqaj4TgEwV76Qd)

[Redwood Research](https://www.redwoodresearch.org/) does applied AI alignment research. We’re led by [Nate Thomas](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathaniel-t-18603079/) (CEO), [Buck Shlegeris](https://www.linkedin.com/in/buck-shlegeris-a2b89386/) (CTO), and [Bill Zito](https://www.linkedin.com/in/billzito/) (COO), and our board is Holden Karnofsky, Paul Christiano, and Nate Thomas. To learn more about our current project, you can read [a project update from September](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/k7oxdbNaGATZbtEg3/redwood-research-s-current-project) or Paul’s “[Why I’m excited about Redwood Research’s current project](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/pXLqpguHJzxSjDdx7/why-i-m-excited-about-redwood-research-s-current-project).”

In addition to our primary work of applied AI alignment research, Redwood hosts and operates Constellation, a shared office space we created to foster knowledge-sharing and collaboration between longtermist organizations. People from the following organizations often work from the space: Alignment Research Center, MIRI, and Open Philanthropy.

We’re hiring for several roles, listed below in order of which roles we’re excited to get more applications for right now (subject to change within a month):

*   [Redwood / Constellation Generalist](https://www.redwoodresearch.org/generalist)
*   [Research and Engineering Staff](https://www.redwoodresearch.org/technical-staff)
*   [Constellation Operations Manager](https://www.redwoodresearch.org/constellation-operations-manager)
*   [Constellation Member Experience Manager](https://www.redwoodresearch.org/constellation-member-experience-manager)
*   [Constellation Sous Chef](https://www.redwoodresearch.org/constellation-sous-chef)

If you have any questions, feel free to email Bill (bill@rdwrs.com) about generalist/ops roles or Buck (buck@rdwrs.com) about technical roles.

Below is a picture taken from the office -- we have beautiful views in all directions!  
 

![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/omMFjf4CPE2END7Ph0i9vB0AVelCUJhoBm-MxfVxNXdF7ttcqYRvU2lKLTDThtquLouK1m5vJjxfEbav87abyoKrCszJ8sVoRpqiElU_gkuUSW7Am3RP2uB6Tb-XzlWtjwwiVbaj)
# AI Governance Fundamentals - Curriculum and Application

_[Edit: The course has received major updates since this post was made. **See [here](https://course.aisafetyfundamentals.com/governance) for the most recent course information and curriculum**. I've removed the largely outdated information from this post.]_

While many people are interested in transformative AI governance, there is currently no scalable introduction to the field that offers substantial breadth, depth, context, accountability, and information about relevant career opportunities. Anecdotally, finding even a few of those things can be tough. Aiming to improve this state of affairs, I’m excited to introduce the AI Governance Fundamentals program. This program seeks to efficiently bring people up to speed on issues in transformative AI governance through an 11-week virtual course. It consists of 8 weeks of readings, facilitated group discussions, speaker sessions, and a 4-week capstone project, for a total of ~2-4 hours per week.
# Looking for reasoned discussion on Geert Vanden Bossche's ideas? +6 Months on...

I'm again looking for reasoned discussion on Geert Vanden Bossche's ideas. This time we can compare to our discussion 6 months ago. 

See: [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mjgcFJYFFgjqod9gi/looking-for-reasoned-discussion-on-geert-vanden-bossche-s.](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mjgcFJYFFgjqod9gi/looking-for-reasoned-discussion-on-geert-vanden-bossche-s.)

1.  Has his previous theory's been proven right?

Geert has continued commenting on events.

See: [https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/mass-vaccination-will-push-sars-cov-2-spike-protein-beyond-omicron](https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/mass-vaccination-will-push-sars-cov-2-spike-protein-beyond-omicron)

1.  Will his current theory's been proven right?

Please upvote for visibility. It is very interesting that we can tract the performance of less wrongs communities inference over time. Many thanks :)
# Tears Must Flow

This Thanksgiving I was with my girlfriend's family. Turkey was served. I held back tears for a little and finished my food. But I couldn't hold them back very long. I ended up going down to the basement to cry. I cried off and on for over an hour. My girlfriend held me. Eventually we went back upstairs but my mood never really improved. My girlfriend's mom was hurt. I just cannot do this anymore. I told myself I would get through thanksgving for my girlfriend's sake but I just couldn't stop crying.

In California, I met several birds who had been rescued from farms. These birds grew up in truly hellish conditions. Most chickens live in crowded amonia filled sheds. Here is a very short, [very grisly video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_8-U_o8oeM) of the conditions on factory turkey farms. They never, or almost, never got to enjoy feeling safe in the sun. All of the birds I met were rescued because they were in especially terrible shape, even by the standard of birds trapped on factory farms. Despite what they endured they seemed to enjoy many parts of their lives. Several birds seemed actively consistently happy. People, including non-human people, can recover from a lot even if their scars never fully heal. 

It is just so sad to see the body of a bird and think: 

***There was still time to say we were sorry. There was probably still time to give you a decent life. A life where you could have felt happy and safe at least some of the time. Maybe in a different world we could have sat in the sun together. We could have been friends. I had a*** [***miserable childhood***](https://deluks917.wordpress.com/2021/05/03/small-and-vulnerable/) ***but I eventually got to lead a real life. But instead of apologizing and making amends we killed you. Now you will never get to experience the life you deserved. I am so sorry...***

Tears must flow.

Several activists I know have taken the [liberation pledge](https://www.liberationpledge.com/). The pledge is pretty simple. 

**one | **Publicly refuse to eat animals - live vegan.  
**two |** Publicly refuse to sit where animals are being eaten.  
**three | **Encourage others to take the pledge.

I don't really believe in taking pledges and try to avoid promises if I can. I trust my future self. But right now I am in compliance with the pledge and expect I will be in the future. Pledge takers commonly wear a bracelet made from a bent fork. Its time to bend a fork.
# Relying on Future Creativity

I used to write songs for a rock band. Sometimes I'd have a song written, thinking it was my best work ever, then when it came time to rehearse, we'd realize it wasn't going to work out. Maybe we didn't have the instruments to do it justice (we were a three piece), or it was out of my comfortable vocal range, or just too technically tricky for us to get right.

Then I'd be left with this feeling like I'd wasted my best efforts, like I couldn't ever make something that good again. And I could prove it to myself! I didn't know what song I'd write that was better than the one we'd just had to ditch!

I get the same with research. Sometimes I'll come up with an idea of the next thing I want to test, or design. Then it doesn't work, or it's not practical, or its done before. And then it's tempting to feel exactly the same way: that I've bungled my one single shot.

But I've learnt to not feel this way, and it was my song writing which helped first. Now when my idea doesn't work, my first thought isn't "oh no my idea has failed", it's "OK I guess I'll have to just have another idea". I've learnt to rely on my future creativity.

This isn't easy, and sometimes it feels like walking on air. Coming up with an idea is different from other tasks, because by definition it's different every time. When I imagine playing a piece on the piano, I know exactly the form of what I'm going to do. When I imagine coming up with an idea it's a total mental blank. If I knew where I was going I'd already be there. Creativity is also a lot less reliable than physical skills, so I often have no idea how long it's going to take me to come up with something.

There's no magic bullet, but the most important thing is getting good at *noticing* when you're treating your future creativity as nonexistent. The biggest sign of improvement in this skill is that you don't feel like you're stepping off a cliff every time you abandon a creative endeavour, be it idea or project.
# DC Winter Solstice

Solstice is a time to sing songs, tell stories, contemplate how dark and cold the universe is, and remind ourselves that together, we can make it less so.

The DC Solstice will be held **outdoors**, in a backyard at a private residence in Silver Spring. It is not in walking distance of a Metro stop, but is bus-accessible. Please email me for the address if you're interested in coming: mwerbos at Google's mail service.

Please bring:  
\- Blankets and/or warm clothing  
\- If you can, something to sit on (our chair supply is limited, but we'll do our best)

Show up around 3:30 PM, and we will start the program at 4 PM.

Hope to see you there!
# How do you write original rationalist essays?

I really enjoy Scott Alexander's and Paul Graham's essays. How can I practice to learn to write as they do?

I'm getting pretty okay at writing tutorials, where I just walk people through the process of completing some project. I'm also okay at research-based posts - it's not that difficult to gather information from the internet and compile my own summary that is hopefully useful to other people.

But I don't understand how PG and SSC create such insightful essays seemingly by making them up (I'm talking about the SSC posts where he just shares his thoughts, not the ones where he analyzes studies or teaches you more than you ever wanted to know about x).

I can share things I have learned from experience, I can try to explain complicated subjects in more accessible ways, but none of these approaches will lead to essays that I see so many of at Less Wrong. People seem to just sit down, and generate interesting, original, and unique thoughts through the process of writing itself, by "thinking on paper". Or maybe not, I don't know.

Aside from just being born naturally very smart and gifted, is there anything that can be done to learn to write like this?

How do people like Scott Alexander, Paul Graham, Eliezer Yudkowsky, etc, just think of all these unique and original things? It seems like they just have a boundless source of ideas, every paragraph is insightful, and most of these thoughts are something they just came up with, not something they have learned elsewhere. Not just that, it seems that they come up with them *as they are writing the post*, not through collecting random epiphanies a person has now and then. Like, they can generate these epiphanies *intentionally*, *on demand.*

I guess the more general question is - how to I get better at creative, original thinking?

I have spent years practicing "creative" skills - traditional and digital art, writing, gamedev, programming, fiction. I've made a lot of things, I'm pretty proud of some of my projects, I'm getting pretty decent at some of these skills. But gun to my head - I can't seem to just sit down and make up an original non-fiction essay worthy of Less Wrong (or even my personal blog), even a simple one. What's wrong with me?
# Open & Welcome Thread December 2021

If it’s worth saying, but not worth its own post, here's a place to put it.

If you are new to LessWrong, here's the place to introduce yourself. Personal stories, anecdotes, or just general comments on how you found us and what you hope to get from the site and community are invited. This is also the place to discuss feature requests and other ideas you have for the site, if you don't want to write a full top-level post.

If you want to explore the community more, I recommend [reading the Library,](https://www.lesswrong.com/library) [checking recent Curated posts](https://www.lesswrong.com/?view=curated), [seeing if there are any meetups in your area](https://www.lesswrong.com/community), and checking out the [Getting Started](https://www.lesswrong.com/faq#Getting_Started) section of the [LessWrong FAQ](https://www.lesswrong.com/faq). If you want to orient to the content on the site, you can also check out the new [Concepts section](https://www.lesswrong.com/tags/all).

The Open Thread tag is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/open-threads?sortedBy=new). The Open Thread sequence is [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/yai5mppkuCHPQmzpN).
# Sydney AI Safety Fellowship

I’m excited to announce the launch of the Sydney AI Safety Fellowship which will provide fellows from Australia and New Zealand the opportunity to pursue projects in AI Safety or spend time upskilling. These projects may be technical projects, projects related to policy, or movement building projects.  
  
The fellowship will take place at WeWork in Sydney which provides fantastic views, plus free coffee, beer and energy drinks. It will take place during the 7 weeks 10th of January to the 25th of February, but there will be the option to start a week earlier if so desired.

The fellowship would include:  
• Coworking membership  
• Talks and/or Q&A sessions from people involved in AI Safety  
• Connection with others in the AI Safety community who may have similar interests or be able to provide support for your project  
• Mentorship (may be someone relatively junior)  
• A welcome dinner, final dinner, and social events (ie. watching a movie, rock-climbing, or whatever the fellows are interested in) - costs covered  
• Free lunch once per week  
• Whatever further activities the fellows decide to self-organise

We have funding for up to two (non-local) fellows to receive $1000 to help offset flights and accommodation. I know that this isn’t much compared to the costs, but it’s what we can commit to at the moment.

Fellows would be expected to spend four days a week at the coworking space working on projects or participating in other activities, although in some cases we might allow fellows to spend only three days a week if they needed to work to support themselves. There would be one day a week where we’d expect all of the fellows to attend so that we would be able to organise talks + have a meeting where fellows could share their ideas and ask for feedback.

There will also be up to two working fellowships available for people who are working as AI programmers or who otherwise have significant AI knowledge. These fellows will be able to pursue their normal work at the coworking space whilst also participating in the activities and sharing their knowledge with the fellows. They would have the option of pursuing a project part-time, which would provide an advantage during the application process, but this isn’t a requirement. Working fellows aren’t eligible for the non-local subsidy. They would receive half-subsidisation of a WeWork coworking membership and free access to the activities.  
  
Applications will be processed on a rolling basis given the short timeline. For the best chance of being accepted, I recommend having your application in by 10pm on the 9th of December, but we will still consider applications up to the 16th of December (we accidentally advertised earlier dates in some locations). Depending on the number of applications we may make a decision based purely on your responses this form or we may ask to speak to you.  
  
For any questions, please PM me.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbJiuTMOaOz5vx-9K3Yk1rjMaIslgQBbIBDwER9yDDbgtKxQ/viewform