# Prizes for the 2021 Review

*If you received a prize, please* [*fill out your payment contact email and PayPal*](https://www.lesswrong.com/payments/account)*.*

* * *

A'ight, one final 2021 Review Roundup post – awarding prizes. I had a week to look over the results. The primary way I ranked posts was by a weighted score, which gave 1000+ karma users 3x the voting weight. Here was the distribution of votes:

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/2bd6930b857fc569b843a4c36ea7e98c1aec4ad6896c48a9.png)

I basically see two strong outlier posts at the top of the ranking, followed by a cluster of 6-7 posts, followed by a smooth tail of posts that were pretty good without any clear cutoff.

Post Prizes
===========

Gold Prize Posts
----------------

Two posts stood noticeably out above all the others, which I'm awarding $800 to.

*   [Strong Evidence is Common](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JD7fwtRQ27yc8NoqS/strong-evidence-is-common) by Mark Xu
*   [“PR” is corrosive; “reputation” is not](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SWxnP5LZeJzuT3ccd/pr-is-corrosive-reputation-is-not), by Anna Salamon. 
    *   I also particularly liked [Akash's review](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SWxnP5LZeJzuT3ccd/pr-is-corrosive-reputation-is-not?commentId=rrYFtR7WN2hcsu6Ci#comments).

Silver Prize Posts
------------------

And the second (eyeballed) cluster of posts, each getting $600, is:

*   [Your Cheerful Price](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MzKKi7niyEqkBPnyu/your-cheerful-price), by Eliezer Yudkowsky. 
    *   This notably had the most reviews – a lot of people wanted to weigh in and say "this personally helped me", often with some notes or nuance.
*   [ARC's first technical report: Eliciting Latent Knowledge](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qHCDysDnvhteW7kRd/arc-s-first-technical-report-eliciting-latent-knowledge) by Paul Christiano, Ajeya Cotra and Mark Xu. 
*   [This Can't Go On](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5FZxhdi6hZp8QwK7k/this-can-t-go-on) by Holden Karnofsky
*   [Rationalism before the Sequences](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qc7P2NwfxQMC3hdgm/rationalism-before-the-sequences), by Eric S Raymond. 
    *   I liked this [review by A Ray](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qc7P2NwfxQMC3hdgm/rationalism-before-the-sequences?commentId=mLLRHzYpirh2Jzhq8) who noted one source of value here is the extensive bibliography.
*   [Lies, Damn Lies, and Fabricated Options](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gNodQGNoPDjztasbh/lies-damn-lies-and-fabricated-options), by Duncan Sabien
*   [Fun with +12 OOMs of Compute](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rzqACeBGycZtqCfaX/fun-with-12-ooms-of-compute), by Daniel Kokotajlo. 
    *   [Nostalgebraist's review](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rzqACeBGycZtqCfaX/fun-with-12-ooms-of-compute?commentId=eTycGaLnsTAKYtvKR) was particularly interesting.
*   [What 2026 looks like](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6Xgy6CAf2jqHhynHL/what-2026-looks-like) by Daniel Kokotajlo
*   [Ngo and Yudkowsky on alignment difficulty](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7im8at9PmhbT4JHsW/ngo-and-yudkowsky-on-alignment-difficulty). This didn't naturally cluster into the same group of vote-totals as the other silver-prizes, but it *was* in the top 10. I think the post was fairly hard to read, and didn't have easily digestible takeaways, but nonetheless I think this kicked off some of the most important conversations in the AI Alignment space and warrants inclusion in this tier.

Bronze Prize Posts
------------------

Although there's not a clear clustering after this point, when I eyeball how important the next several posts were, it seems to me appropriate to give $400 to each of:

*   [How To Write Quickly While Maintaining Epistemic Rigor](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Psr9tnQFuEXiuqGcR/how-to-write-quickly-while-maintaining-epistemic-rigor), by John Wentworth
*   [Science in a High-Dimensional World](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4XRjPocTprL4L8tmB/science-in-a-high-dimensional-world) by John Wentworth
*   [How factories were made safe](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DQKgYhEYP86PLW7tZ/how-factories-were-made-safe) by Jason Crawford
*   [Cryonics signup guide #1: Overview](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2cYebKxNp47PapHTL/cryonics-signup-guide-1-overview) by Mingyuan 
*   [Making Vaccine](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine) by John Wentworth 
*   [Taboo "Outside View"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BcYfsi7vmhDvzQGiF/taboo-outside-view) by Daniel Kokotaljo
*   [All Possible Views About Humanity's Future Are Wild](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/F5ktR95qqpmGXXmLq/all-possible-views-about-humanity-s-future-are-wild-1) by Holden Karnofsky
*   [Another (outer) alignment failure story](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AyNHoTWWAJ5eb99ji/another-outer-alignment-failure-story) by Paul Christiano
*   [Split and Commit](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t2LGSDwT7zSnAGybG/split-and-commit) by Duncan Sabien
*   [What Multipolar Failure Looks Like, and Robust Agent-Agnostic Processes (RAAPs)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LpM3EAakwYdS6aRKf/what-multipolar-failure-looks-like-and-robust-agent-agnostic) by Andrew Critch
*   [There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fRwdkop6tyhi3d22L/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-tree-phylogenetically), by eukaryote
*   [The Plan](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3L46WGauGpr7nYubu/the-plan) by John Wentworth
*   [Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hNqte2p48nqKux3wS/trapped-priors-as-a-basic-problem-of-rationality) by Scott Alexander
*   [Finite Factored Sets](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N5Jm6Nj4HkNKySA5Z/finite-factored-sets) by Scott Garrabrant
*   [Selection Theorems: A Program For Understanding Agents](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/G2Lne2Fi7Qra5Lbuf/selection-theorems-a-program-for-understanding-agents) by John Wentworth
*   [Slack Has Positive Externalities For Groups](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3qX2GipDuCq5jstMG/slack-has-positive-externalities-for-groups) by John Wentworth
*   [My research methodology](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EF5M6CmKRd6qZk27Z/my-research-methodology) by Paul Christiano

Honorable Mentions
------------------

This final group has the most arbitrary cutoff at all, and includes some judgment calls about how many medium or strong votes it had, among 1000+ karma users, and in some edge cases my own subjective guess of how important it was. 

These authors each get $100 per post.

*   [The Rationalists of the 1950s (and before) also called themselves “Rationalists”](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DtcbfwSrcewFubjxp/the-rationalists-of-the-1950s-and-before-also-called) by Owain Evans
*   [Ruling Out Everything Else](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/57sq9qA3wurjres4K/ruling-out-everything-else) by Duncan Sabien
*   [Leaky Delegation: You are not a Commodity](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tTWL6rkfEuQN9ivxj/leaky-delegation-you-are-not-a-commodity) by Darmani
*   [Feature Selection](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dYspinGtiba5oDCcv/feature-selection) by Zack Davis
*   [Cup-Stacking Skills (or, Reflexive Involuntary Mental Motions)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vQKbgEKjGZcpbCqDs/cup-stacking-skills-or-reflexive-involuntary-mental-motions) by Duncan Sabien
*   [larger language models may disappoint you \[or, an eternally unfinished draft\]](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pv7Qpu8WSge8NRbpB/larger-language-models-may-disappoint-you-or-an-eternally) by Nostalgebraist
*   [Self-Integrity and the Drowning Child](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cujpciCqNbawBihhQ/self-integrity-and-the-drowning-child) by Eliezer Yudkowsky
*   [Comments on Carlsmith's “Is power-seeking AI an existential risk?”](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cCMihiwtZx7kdcKgt/comments-on-carlsmith-s-is-power-seeking-ai-an-existential) by Nate Soares
*   [Working With Monsters](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/o4cgvYmNZnfS4xhxL/working-with-monsters) by John Wentworth
*   [Simulacrum 3 As Stag-Hunt Strategy](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tF8z9HBoBn783Cirz/simulacrum-3-as-stag-hunt-strategy) by John Wentworth
*   [EfficientZero: How It Works](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mRwJce3npmzbKfxws/efficientzero-how-it-works) by 1a3orn
*   [Does Georgism Work? Part 1: Is Land Really A Big Deal](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/does-georgism-work-is-land-really) by Lars Doucet ([submitted to the Review process by Sune](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XtRAkvvaQSaQEyASj/Lars%20Doucet%27s%20Georgism%20series%20on%20Astral%20Codex%20Ten))
*   [Catching the Spark](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9cbEPEuCa9E7uHMXT/catching-the-spark) by Logan Strohl
*   [Specializing in Problems We Don't Understand](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CSZnj2YNMKGfsMbZA/specializing-in-problems-we-don-t-understand) by John Wentworth
*   [Shoulder Advisors 101](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X79Rc5cA5mSWBexnd/shoulder-advisors-101) by Duncan Sabien
*   [Notes from "Don't Shoot the Dog"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Cf2xxC3Yx9g6w7yXN/notes-from-don-t-shoot-the-dog) by Julia Wise
*   [Why has nuclear power been a flop?](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ThvvCE2HsLohJYd7b/why-has-nuclear-power-been-a-flop) by Jason Crawford
*   [Whole Brain Emulation: No Progress on C. elgans After 10 Years](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mHqQxwKuzZS69CXX5/whole-brain-emulation-no-progress-on-c-elgans-after-10-years) by niconiconi
*   [Frame Control](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bQ6zpf6buWgP939ov/frame-control) by Aella
*   [Worst-case thinking in AI alignment](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yTvBSFrXhZfL8vr5a/worst-case-thinking-in-ai-alignment) by Buck
*   [Yudkowsky and Christiano discuss "Takeoff Speeds"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vwLxd6hhFvPbvKmBH/yudkowsky-and-christiano-discuss-takeoff-speeds) by Eliezer Yudkowsky, Paul Christiano, and presumably some MIRI editors
*   [You are probably underestimating how good self-love can be](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BfTW9jmDzujYkhjAb/you-are-probably-underestimating-how-good-self-love-can-be) by charlie.rs
*   [Infra-Bayesian physicalism: a formal theory of naturalized induction](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gHgs2e2J5azvGFatb/infra-bayesian-physicalism-a-formal-theory-of-naturalized) by Vanessa Kosoy
    *   This actually fell under my cutoff for "number of medium+ votes". I'll be honest, I don't even really understand Infra-Bayesianism. But every time someone attempts to explain it to me I feel like I get a taste of something that will one day be important. Giving it an honorable mention, but, take it with that grain of salt.
*   [Jean Monnet: The Guerilla Bureaucrat](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5b6YcFbEBCZbX6YSK/jean-monnet-the-guerilla-bureaucrat) by Martin Sustrik
*   [Seven Years of Spaced Repetition Software in the Classroom](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/F6ZTtBXn2cFLmWPdM/seven-years-of-spaced-repetition-software-in-the-classroom-1) by tanagrabeast
*   [Coordination Schemes Are Capital Investments](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LGsLuTuipcjXEuMjK/coordination-schemes-are-capital-investments) by Raemon 
    *   I don't get a prize tho. :(
*   [The Point of Trade](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6KzFwcDy7hsCkzJKY/the-point-of-trade) by Eliezer Yudkowsky
*   [Saving Time](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gEKHX8WKrXGM4roRC/saving-time) by Scott Garrabrant
*   [What Do GDP Growth Curves Really Mean?](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FcRt3xAF4ynojfj6G/what-do-gdp-growth-curves-really-mean) by John Wentworth
*   [Highlights from The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4yDZgN7dvyzKEMYkg/highlights-from-the-autobiography-of-andrew-carnegie) by Jason Crawford
*   [Grokking the Intentional Stance](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jHSi6BwDKTLt5dmsG/grokking-the-intentional-stance) by jbkjr

Honorable-est Mention
---------------------

I... choose to wield my dictatorial power of the review process to refuse to give [Elephant seal 2](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vLRxmYCKpmZAAJ3KC/elephant-seal-2)  a prize, even it landed a respectably high "rank 39" in the weighted vote totals. But, it sure does seem like it deserves an Honorable-ish mention anyway for all of people's love for it. I also quite liked Coafos' [review of Elephant Seal 2](https://www.lesswrong.com/reviews/2021#WxFvspv8uGL5eHn5Y), which was also the second-highest-karma-review. But which I also use my dictatorial powers to refuse to give a prize to. 

Fight me.

Prize Totals
============

When you add all that up, here are the prize totals. Reminder, if you received a prize, please [fill out your payment contact email and PayPal](https://www.lesswrong.com/payments/account) so we can pay you.

*   [@johnswentworth](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/johnswentworth?mention=user)  $2800
*   [@Daniel Kokotajlo](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/daniel-kokotajlo?mention=user) $1600
*   [@Duncan_Sabien](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/duncan_sabien?mention=user)  $1300
*   [@paulfchristiano](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/paulfchristiano?mention=user) $1100
*   [@HoldenKarnofsky](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/holdenkarnofsky?mention=user) $1000 (but, he has declined to avoid any potential conflict of interest)
*   [@Eliezer Yudkowsky](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eliezer_yudkowsky?mention=user) $1200
*   [@Mark Xu](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/mark-xu?mention=user) $1000
*   [@AnnaSalamon](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/annasalamon?mention=user) $800
*   [@Eric Raymond](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eric-raymond?mention=user) $600
*   [@jasoncrawford](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/jasoncrawford?mention=user) $600
*   [@Scott Garrabrant](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/scott-garrabrant?mention=user) $500
*   [@mingyuan](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/mingyuan?mention=user) $400
*   [@Andrew_Critch](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/andrew_critch?mention=user) $400
*   [@eukaryote](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eukaryote?mention=user) $400
*   [@Scott Alexander](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/scottalexander?mention=user) $400
*   [@Richard_Ngo](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/ricraz?mention=user) $300
*   [@Ajeya Cotra](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/ajeya-cotra?mention=user) $200
*   [@Owain_Evans](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/owain_evans?mention=user) $100
*   [@Darmani](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/darmani?mention=user) $100
*   [@Zack\_M\_Davis](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/zack_m_davis?mention=user) $100
*   [@nostalgebraist](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/nostalgebraist?mention=user) $100
*   [@So8res](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/so8res?mention=user) $100
*   [@1a3orn](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/1a3orn?mention=user) $100
*   Lars Doucet $100
*   [@LoganStrohl](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/brienneyudkowsky?mention=user) $100
*   [@juliawise](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/juliawise?mention=user) $100
*   [@niconiconi](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/niconiconi?mention=user) $100
*   [@Aella](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/aella?mention=user) $100
*   [@Buck](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/buck?mention=user) $100
*   [@charlie.rs](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/charlie-rs?mention=user) $100
*   [@Vanessa Kosoy](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/vanessa-kosoy?mention=user) $100
*   [@Martin Sustrik](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/sustrik?mention=user) $100
*   [@tanagrabeast](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/tanagrabeast?mention=user) $100
*   [@jbkjr](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/jbkjr?mention=user) $100