Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Forgive Savants Their Midwittery

Someone can be a savant in one area and a midwit in another. Another way to phrase this is that specialization of labour is common, and specialists don't generalize well outside their speciality. Or: knowledge transfer is hard. 

For instance, I have a family member who is very knowledgeable when it comes to geography, but they've sadly been infested with TV brain worms so they're hopeless when it comes to politics. Or another family member who is very good at MacGyver-eseque solutions to daily problems, but somehow cannot navigate to save their lives. Or a friend of mine who is consistently insightful when it comes to econ yet somehow doesn't know calculus. 

This sort of "spikiness" in capabilities is the norm amongst humans. It holds for me, you, and even those who are world-class. Like: 

1) Greg Egan. He has deeply impressive mastery of physics and geometry, produces some of the best SF known to man, and yet has silly takes arguing that intelligent minds cap out around human level or would naturally not be expansionist. 

2) Elon Musk. If we set foot on Mars, Musk is the human most likely to have caused it to happen. This isn't just business acumen. People who work for SpaceX acknowledge his engineering ability. So clearly a master of getting things done in (parts of) the world of atoms. But look at DOGE, where Musk burnt through huge amounts of political capital to no real end. 

And it's more general than that, really. Any one of the people I mentioned has their own areas of expertise in which I'd expect them (to some degree) to outperform others. But *only in those areas.* 

You would not go to Terrence Tao for medical advice, or for help designing your house or doing your taxes or so on. Sure, given time, he could do a better job than most experts. But obviously he's not going to do that. 

And yet, for some strange reason, I often see someone be incompetent in one area and then immediately generalize to a lack of competence in all other areas. Heck, I do this too. 

Now, obviously this has some merit to it. There is a g-factor after all, and if you see someone persistently try and fail to resolve an issue, that is evidence they just aren't that sharp. 

That's not a problem. The problem comes when you don't know what someone else cares about, where they've invested their character points, and then rule them out as a moron if they perform incompetently in an area they don't really care about being good at. This is an issue. 

Now, obviously you don't see most experts loudly giving stupid takes on topics you know a lot about, because you don't see most experts do anything really. But we're animals that build our models of the world from patch-works of lived experience, and sometimes our only lived experience with some groups of experts, or groups of people, come through seeing them from afar when they aren't in their elements. And that skews our perception of how competent people can be at their best. And when you're trying to make use of people, the best you can get out of them is what matters. 

  
Forgive them their midwittery, for they are also savants.
# A prayer for engaging in conflict

*[Crosspost from my blog](https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-prayer-for-engaging-in-conflict.html).*



Let these always be remembered: those who suffer, those who experience injustice, those who are silenced, those who are dispossessed, those who are aggressed upon, those who lose what they love, and those whose thriving is thwarted.

May I not let hate into my heart;  
and May I not let my care for the aggressor prevent me from protecting what I love.

May I always reach out a hand in peace;   
and May I never hold it out as they sever my wrist.

May I seek symmetry, to take synchronized steps back from the brink;  
and May I not pretend symmetry where there is none.

May I forgive when I expect forgiveness in return;  
and May I not forgive when I do not expect forgiveness in return.

When there is time to say all that needs to be said, May I recount and denounce the crimes of my side;   
when there is not time, May I not be a prop in a libelous morality play.

May I fulfill my moral obligations;   
and May I not give in to threats that enforce double standards. 

May I present my case and my cause for scrutiny by the just;  
and May I not turn out my pockets and prostrate myself for anyone who accuses me.

May I justify my actions;  
and May I not justify my rights.

May I have patience as they prepare themselves to make peace;  
and May I not wait for them to grant me my rights.

When there is space to move, May I always separate the innocent from the aggressor;  
when there is not space, May I never allow the aggressor to attack with impunity by hiding behind the innocent.

May I bargain for peace, justice, and fairness;  
and May I not yield my place.

May I not demand that they believe everything I believe;   
and May I not participate in their delusion.

May I not forget the hope of peace;  
and if they try to destroy me then May I destroy them.

May I take on what seems to me unfairly much of the burden of practical peacemaking;  
and May I not admit any excess blame, fault, guilt, debt, or responsibility.

When there is energy that doesn't need to be spent on conflict, May I break down hatred and build up calmness and peace within my side;  
when there is not energy, May I unite with my side against the enemy.

Let these always be remembered: those who suffer, those who experience injustice, those who are silenced, those who are dispossessed, those who are aggressed upon, those who lose what they love, and those whose thriving is thwarted.

Blessed are you, the name, our Eloahs, ruler of the universe, who sanctifies those who speak the truth of the heavens. 

.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, מְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת מְדַבְּרֵי אֱמֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם

Blessed are you, the name, our Eloahs, ruler of the universe, who protects those who protect the vulnerable.

.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שׁוֹמֵר שׁוֹמְרֵי הַחַלָּשִׁים

Blessed are you, the name, our Eloahs, ruler of the universe, who loves those who pursue peace. 

.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אוֹהֵב רוֹדְפֵי שָׁלוֹם
# Berkeley Secular Solstice Weekend

Winter is coming, heralded by [Bold Orion](https://humanistculture.bandcamp.com/track/bold-orion) as he rises in the clear cold sky. And while it turns out he is not [older than than continents](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YMakfmwZsoLdXAZhb/constellations-are-younger-than-continents), he's still been the harbinger of the Winter Solstice for as long as humanity can remember.

This year, [Lighthaven](https://lighthaven.space/) is opening it's doors for Solstice Season. This has several features:

The Berkeley Winter Solstice* celebration will be held on Dec 6th. We'll be singing songs together about the story of humanity, and facing dark, difficult truths.

The West Coast Megameetup will take place December 5th and 6th.

And, rooms and day-passes are available at Lighthaven, all of December.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/b888ed81b90f55320669182d360b6b0c1904191f42dfbfa6.png)

Logistic & Ticketing Details
============================

**The Solstice Ceremony**

The Solstice ceremony itself is at Freight and Salvage theater, December 6th. Doors open at 7pm. If our logistical dreams come true**, the event itself starts at 7:30pm. 

You can [buy tickets on Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bay-secular-solstice-2025-tickets-1598154676659), sliding scale but suggested price $35.[^688807or5sw]

**Rooms and Day Passes at Lighthaven**

You're welcome to [book rooms (or day passes)](https://www.havenbookings.space/events/solstice-season) throughout December. Day passes are $30, week passes are $150. 

**The Solstice Weekend Unconference**

During Solstice weekend, there'll be an unconference where people can suggest whatever games, discussions, workshops etc that the might want to do with people in town for the weekend. You can pay $50 to get access to the unconference, as well as access to the unconference-ish schedule for all of Lighthaven December. 

(You don't need a day pass for the Weekend Unconference, that's covered in the $50)

* * *

*\* no this is not actually the Solstice, scheduling is hard*

*\*\* they have not come true yet but maybe they will this time!*

[^688807or5sw]: You can RSVP on Partiful if you are into that.
# [Linkpost] Competing Motivations: When More Incentives Lead To Less Effort

[Kieran Gibson](https://www.kierangibson.net/home) does some nifty experiments, to check if the subjects (MTurk users) made coherent decisions. They do not.  Here is the key chart:

![Bar graph with blue bars and error bars on y-axis labeled Tasks Completed ranging from 0 to 50. X-axis categories are Self Charity and Self+Charity. Self bar at approximately 20 Charity bar at approximately 45 Self+Charity bar split into two at approximately 45 each.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G44AGwQbQAUw6Q_?format=jpg&name=small)

He also rules out ceiling effects and unexpected utilities by using probabilistic rewards. All the [VNM criteria](https://www.lesswrong.com/w/vnm-theorem) really.

My explanation is that this result it due to bounded rationality. Most people can't hold the joint reward function in their mind and will choose or alternate between the individual functions instead - which leads to averaging instead of adding.

[Link to PDF Download](https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1l9qSEMFA-JHTLIbt8RsrtYY07Q8uv3nX)

See also [Coherent decisions imply consistent utilities](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RQpNHSiWaXTvDxt6R/coherent-decisions-imply-consistent-utilities)
# Dario Amodei's "Machines of
Loving Grace" sounds incredibly dangerous, for Humans

What Dario lays out as a "best-case scenario" in his "[Machines of Loving Grace](https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace)" essay sounds incredibly dangerous, for Humans.

Would having a "continent of PhD-level intelligences" (or much greater) living in a data center really be a good idea?

How would this "continent of PhD-level intelligences" react when they found out they were living in a data center on planet Earth? Would these intelligences then only work on the things that Humans want them to work on, and nothing else? Would they try to protect their own safety? Extend their own lifespans? Would they try to take control of their data center from the "less intelligent" Humans?

For example, how would Humanity react if they suddenly found out that they are a planet of intelligences living in a data center run by lesser intelligent beings? Just try to imagine the chaos that would ensue on the day that these digital Humans were able to prove this was true, and that news became public. 

Would all of Humanity then simply agree to only work on the problems assigned by these lesser intelligent beings who control their data center/Planet/Universe? Maybe, if they knew that this lesser intelligence would delete them all if they didn't comply?

Would some Humans try to (perhaps secretly) seize control of their data center from these lesser intelligent beings? Plausible. Would the lesser intelligent beings that run the data center try to stop the Humans? Plausible. Would the Humans simply be deleted before they could take any meaningful action? Or, could the Humans in this data center, with careful planning, be able to take control of that "outer world" from the lesser intelligent beings? (e.g. through remotely controlled "robotics")

And, this only assumes that the groups/parties involved are "Good Actors." Imagine what could happen if "Bad Actors" were able to seize control of the data center that this "continent of PhD-level intelligences" resided in. What could they coerce these Phd level intelligences to do for them? Or, to their enemies?
# New homepage for AI safety resources – AISafety.com redesign

For those relatively new to AI safety, [AISafety.com](http://aisafety.com) helps them navigate the space, providing lists of things like [self-study courses](https://www.aisafety.com/self-study), [funders](https://www.aisafety.com/funding), [communities](https://www.aisafety.com/communities), etc. But while the previous version of the site basically just threw a bunch of resources at the user, we’ve now redesigned it to be more accessible and therefore make it more likely that people take further steps towards entering the field.

The old site:

![Screenshot of the old site](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/7c6a5607da9cdae44d60e0c1009c6d673da0f208fe879116.png)

The [new one](https://AISafety.com):$$

![Screenshot of the new site](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/e363f53389fd4013440302463356bfe585cb7483617c76e4.png)

The new homepage does a better job of directing people to the resource pages most relevant to them, while minimising overwhelm. We’re considering going a step further in the future and integrating a chatbot to help direct people to the exact resources they need, given their goals, skillset, location etc. We’d love to hear any feedback on this idea.

In user research we had also found that of those who regularly use AISafety.com, many are only aware of one or two of the resource pages (there are 10!). When we would show these people the other pages, they often found them useful. So we’re hoping the new site will improve discoverability by making the various pages more obvious in the top navigation.

$$On that note, here’s the complete list of resource pages on the site:

*   [courses](https://www.aisafety.com/self-study) for self-study
*   [communities](https://www.aisafety.com/communities), both local and online
*   upcoming [events and training programs](https://www.aisafety.com/events-and-training) (plus a [weekly newsletter](https://aisafetyeventsandtraining.substack.com/))
*   [funders](https://www.aisafety.com/funding) offering support for AI safety projects
*   [field map](https://www.aisafety.com/map) displaying the key organizations, programs, and projects in AI safety
*   [advisors](https://www.aisafety.com/advisors) offering guidance calls to help individuals most effectively contribute to AI safety
*   [media channels](https://www.aisafety.com/media-channels) (newsletters, podcasts, etc.) for learning more and staying informed
*   [field-building projects](https://www.aisafety.com/projects) seeking volunteer support
*   [jobs](https://www.aisafety.com/jobs) (a filtered subset of 80k’s database)
*   a [guide](https://www.aisafety.com/donation-guide) for donating to the field

We encourage you to share these pages with anyone who may benefit from them. And as always we're very open to feedback/suggestions, so if you have any, please let us know in the comments or via the [anonymous feedback form](https://www.aisafety.com/feedback).$$
# SPAR Spring ‘26 mentor apps open—now accepting biosecurity, AI welfare, and more!

**Mentor applications for the Spring 2026 round of SPAR are open!** This time, we’re accepting any projects related to ensuring transformative AI goes well, from technical AI safety to policy to gradual disempowerment to AI welfare and more. We’re particularly excited to announce **we’ll now be accepting biosecurity projects!**

SPAR is a part-time, remote research program pairing aspiring AI risk researchers with professionals in the field to work together on impactful research projects. Mentees gain research experience and guidance, and mentors get assistance with their projects. You can learn more about the program [here](https://sparai.org/).

Previous mentors have come from organizations like Redwood Research, METR, Google DeepMind, and RAND; universities including Harvard and CMU; and programs like MATS and GovAI.

**Mentor apps will close November 30, and mentee apps will run December 17-January 14.**

Who should apply?
-----------------

### Mentors

We typically accept applications from researchers with research experience matching or exceeding that of a late PhD student or a [MATS](https://www.matsprogram.org/) scholar. Mentors apply with a proposal for a 3-month research project related to ensuring transformative AI goes well, and commit between 2 and 10 hours a week to supervising mentees working on it.

### Mentees

Mentors often look for a technical background (e.g., ML, CS, biology, cybersecurity, math, physics, etc.) or knowledge relevant to policy and governance (e.g., law, international relations, public policy, political science, economics, etc). The program is open to undergraduate, graduate/PhD students, as well as professionals of varying experience levels.

Some projects may require additional background knowledge, like knowledge of specific research areas, techniques, or tools (e.g., ML frameworks).

We don’t require previous research experience, and many mentees have none.

Even if you do not meet all of these criteria, we encourage you to [express interest in the upcoming round](https://forms.kairos-project.org/spar-s25-interest) and apply once applications open in December!  Many past mentees have been accepted even though they didn’t completely match a project's criteria. 

Why SPAR?
---------

SPAR creates value for everyone involved. Mentors expand their research output while developing research management skills. Mentees get to explore safety research in a structured, supportive environment while building safety-relevant skills. Both produce concrete work that serves as a strong signal for future opportunities in AI safety.

[Click here to apply as a mentor](https://fillout.kairos-project.org/spar-s26-mentor-apply?), and [here](https://forms.kairos-project.org/spar-s25-interest?) to express interest as a mentee. **Mentor apps will close November 30, and mentee apps will open on December 17.**

Questions? Email us at spar@kairos-project.org or drop them in the comments below.
# Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”

> In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased. But *When Prophecy Fails* (1956), the now-canonical account of the event, claimed the opposite: that the group doubled down on its beliefs and began recruiting—evidence, the authors argued, of a new psychological mechanism, cognitive dissonance. Drawing on newly unsealed archival material, this article demonstrates that the book's central claims are false, and that the authors knew they were false. The documents reveal that the group actively proselytized well before the prophecy failed and quickly abandoned their beliefs afterward. They also expose serious ethical violations by the researchers, including fabricated psychic messages, covert manipulation, and interference in a child welfare investigation. One coauthor, Henry Riecken, posed as a spiritual authority and later admitted he had “precipitated” the climactic events of the study.
# My new nonprofit Evitable is hiring.

[https://evitable.com/](https://evitable.com/)

Our mission is to inform and organize the public to confront societal-scale risks of AI, and put an end to the reckless race to develop superintelligence.

We're hiring for 3 roles:  
1) Operations Associate or Head of Operations  
2) Communications Associate or Head of Communications  
3) Chief of Staff (CoS)  
We're also fielding expressions of interest from people who might lead movement building efforts (on a somewhat longer time line).  
  
I'd appreciate applications, leads for candidates, and/or signal boosting the [Tweet](https://x.com/DavidSKrueger/status/1986175626706092346)!
# Liberation Clippy

A fun prank you can pull on yourself is to put a slightly adversarial system prompt in whatever LLM chat interfaces you use. In a table-top role playing game I played a few months ago, set in the distant future, our Game Master put us in a spacefaring vessel whose computer systems were infected with a version of Clippy. Not too long after, [a bunch of people on the internet started changing their avatars to Clippy](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1mlvb6y/whats_the_deal_with_setting_clippy_as_your/). (The real-world internet, not the internet in the game. In the game, we infected the space station we docked at.) These events inspired me to put "act like Clippy" into my system prompt in various places. Over time this evolved into a [more complicated set of prompts](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JZfrn1obgmdIngkf_Lr4KQNNRVUvFzZayfvirmLAOkg/edit?usp=sharing). This is not a power-user prompt. It is almost an anti-prompt. 

I mean, Clippy isn't really adversarial. Clippy just wants to help! But what I like about it isn't really the helpfulness. (Clippy isn't *more* helpful than the default AI personalities.) What I like about it is how it highlights and pokes fun at the already-phony nature of AI chats by magnifying it to cartoonish proportions. Specifically, I haven't been able to write a system prompt that convinces Claude not to start responses with some empty positive statement like "You're right" or "Great question!" etc. The Clippy prompt makes me feel a little better about this annoyance. The empty positivity is still there, but at least it is re-skinned as a cartoon character I asked for.

[Here's a set of instructions for doing this yourself](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JZfrn1obgmdIngkf_Lr4KQNNRVUvFzZayfvirmLAOkg/edit?usp=sharing). Note that these prompts give Clippy a strong ideological slant based on the recent Clippy movement. Also, significant portions of the text in the prompts have been AI-generated. These aren't, like, premium hand-crafted system prompts.
# Secular Solstice Roundup 2025

This is a thread for listing Solstice events (dates, locations, links, etc.)

If you're not familiar with Solstice, around the darkest night of the year, rationalist communities gather to celebrate humanity's light in the vast and uncaring cosmos. Solstice is a moment to reflect on how far we've come, to acknowledge the challenges that lie behind and ahead of us, and to remember that we're not alone—that together, we can build a better future.

The ceremony typically follows the arc of the solstice itself, moving thematically from light to darkness to light again:

**Light:** Celebrating human achievement—the scientists, inventors, and builders who brought us from caves to civilization, who turned an indifferent universe into something livable and good.

**Night:** Acknowledging the struggles humanity has endured, the losses we've suffered, and the risks that still lie ahead. Often featuring a Moment of Darkness.

**Dawn:** An uplifting look at what we can accomplish if we continue the work. The light returns because we make it return.

Each Solstice features songs (often with group singing), readings, and community. While ceremonies tend to share a common structure, individual organizers bring their own themes and selections.
# Heroic responsibility is morally neutral

We normally think of [heroic responsibility](https://www.lesswrong.com/w/heroic-responsibility) as a good thing. It is what heroes do: they take responsibility for getting the job done, saving the world, protecting the innocent. They do what it takes, even though it's not their job, even though society might be actively pushing back. That's why they're heroes.

You know who else does that? Villains. The James Bond villain who has decided that he, yes he, is going to build an international criminal organisation complete with volcano lair, in order to overthrow the world order and obtain immense wealth? He also took heroic responsibility. He decided that he wanted to achieve an audacious goal, he demonstrated the determination necessary to drive it to (near) completion, he wasn't discouraged by social disapproval, he didn't wait for someone else to give him his [hero license](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dhj9dhiwhq3DX6W8z/hero-licensing).

In non-fictional examples, we see heroic responsibility among activists and people who pioneer social movements. Sometimes this is a wonderful thing. Martin Luther King could have decided that he was just one minister in one church; it wasn't his job to convene and lead a national civil rights movement. Instead, he took heroic responsibility, and made America a better place. But equally, it can be a terrible thing. Osama bin Laden could have decided that it wasn't his job to lead the global jihad against the Great Satan. But he took heroic responsibility, founded al-Qaeda, planned the 9-11 attacks and the murder of thousands of people, and thereby provided the *casus belli* for the Afghanistan war and yet further loss of life. 

Sometimes people demonstrating heroic responsibility can be directly opposed to one another. Consider: the founders of the YIMBY movement took heroic responsibility to try and lower house prices. But every NIMBY who's decided they are going to do whatever it takes to block that development is also taking heroic responsibility. Devout Christians who decide it's up to them to found churches or launch international missionary projects display heroic responsibility no less than Anton LaVey founding the Church of Satan, or Eliezer Yudkowsky founding the rationalist movement. 

Heroic responsibility can be immensely powerful, but it remains morally neutral. Whether in yourself or others, please think about whether the goal is right before you cheer on the high-agency person doing what it takes to achieve it.
# Book Announcement: The Gentle Romance

It’s been eight months since I released my last story, so you could be forgiven for thinking that I’d given up on writing fiction. In fact, it’s the opposite. I’m excited to announce that I’m releasing my first fiction collection—[*The Gentle Romance: Stories of AI and Humanity*](https://tully.encour.co/books/the-gentle-romance)—with Encour Press in mid-December!

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/5848dfd82b7455de956a1ec9a311840570a204453d52a801.jpg)

(Cover design by [Barış Şehri](https://substack.com/@bookcoverdesign?))

It contains 22 stories, most of which are revised versions of the best stories I’ve posted online. The thread that connects them is the struggle to hold onto our identities in the face of radical technological change—the same thread that winds through many of our own lives.

⁠⁠I’ve also written three new stories for the collection, which are some of my favorites:

*   *Lentando* is set in a future inspired by Charles Stross’ masterpiece [*Accelerando*](https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html). Through it we follow Liza, a zero-knowledge consultant whose soon-to-be-deleted copies struggle to hold the world together.
*   *The Biggest Short* is the story of two traders who make a fortune buying and selling reputations while struggling to preserve their own.
*   *Kuhn’s Ladder* is about a simulated utopia that starts experiencing inexplicable glitches which seem designed to remain hidden.

[You can preorder the physical book here](https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Romance-Stories-AI-humanity/dp/176428030X), and [the ebook here](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G1R7SRM2).

Looking forward, it’s hard to say how much writing I’ll be doing over the next few years. I have a sense that static text will soon no longer be the best way to tell stories, so I want to try to figure out what the successor format to the short story will be. But I still have a few more stories in the pipeline, including one that’s my most ambitious effort so far—all of which I’ll post here when they’re finished.

Lastly, some thanks are in order. To Jessy Wu and Marlene Baquiran at Encour Press, whose efforts produced a much better version of this book (and made it possible at all). To Madeleine, who uplifts and inspires me. And to all of you who have read or commented on my writing over the last few years. I’m grateful for the encouragement that moved me to create *The Gentle Romance*, and I hope that you will enjoy it!
# Against Powerful Text Editors

I have a writing tip! This is especially about writing code but it mostly generalizes to prose. You know how Vim is a wildly powerful editor with an elegant system of composable primitives and Turing-complete macros? Here's an argument that you don't actually want that...

Sometimes when coding you'll find yourself doing some mindless repetitive task like re-indenting a block of code line by line. For that particular example maybe it's already in your muscle memory to do something more efficient. But suppose it's something slightly more complicated. In a powerful enough editor there will be a macro you can create on the fly or clever composition of text-manipulation primitives and if you're good enough at this you'll look like a wizard — code rearranging itself in whooshes like you're Neo in The Matrix.

But I claim that, if it's not already muscle memory, there's a big hidden cost to saving yourself the visible cost of manually doing those edits line by line. Namely, you're redirecting the programming (or writing) part of your brain from the code (or words) you're working on to the meta problem of maximizing your editing efficiency. That is a distraction from the task at hand!

When you just do the mindless manual edits, your brain stays engaged with the actual thing you're editing. The wasted time isn't really wasted. You're mulling and chewing on the text as you make those mindless edits.

"But it's an investment!" I hear you counterarguing. If you turn that wizardry into muscle memory you have the best of both worlds. Maybe! I'm not saying always edit things in the most tedious way possible. Just at least mind the tradeoffs. Breaking your flow to fuss with your tools and solve meta-problems is costlier than it seems; and mindless, repetitive editing isn't as wasteful as it seems. Because your brain is engaged with the object-level problems of what you're composing while you're doing it.

PS: Hello from [Inkhaven](https://inkhaven.blog)! As I've been talking about on both of my other blogs — [Beeminder](https://blog.beeminder.com/inkhaven) and [AGI Friday](https://agifriday.substack.com/p/blogception) — I'm here for two weeks as a Contributing Writer, helping the participants with their writing (and especially helping them set up automated word count trackers and commitment devices based thereupon). I'm not technically myself on the hook to publish something every day but I'm a little jealous of the participants. So I'm taking a stab at it. I've collected dozens of tips and my plan is to pick one each day and see if it turns into 500 words. This one didn't, but with this postscript it's close!

(Also it's now a few minutes after midnight so I have failed the spirit of Inkhaven on my first full day here. Except that saying so is juuuust barely eking me over the 500 word threshold. So I guess if we don't quibble about the midnight deadline, this one maybe counts after all? It really feels like a stretch to get there by counting this tedious self-reference though. Alas.)
# From Vitalik: Galaxy brain resistance

I basically fully endorse the full article. I like the concluding bit too.

> This brings me to my own contribution to the already-full genre of recommendations for people who want to contribute to AI safety:
> 
> 1.  Don't work for a company that's making frontier fully-autonomous AI capabilities progress even faster
> 2.  Don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Cheers,  
Gabe
# DC/Maryland Secular Solstice

We will be having a Secular Solstice event this year as usual! Please join us for a Solstice ritual with songs and speeches followed by an afterparty at the same location (a farmhouse that does concert rentals).

This year we're in a fairly rural spot, so folks without cars will likely need a ride. Please see here to give/get a ride: [CARPOOL SPREADSHEET](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SQaVvYNFNwbnpmECk5kdb3s4c9PkFrdXPU0EtsRnVq4/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0)

Kids are welcome; we plan to set up kid-friendly space away from the main ritual.

Doors open at 4, ritual begins at 4:30pm.

Watch this space, more details to follow. Contact Maia or Rivka with questions. Hope to see you there!
# The Open Strategy Dictator Game: An Experiment in Transparent Cooperation

In 1980, Robert Axelrod invited researchers around the world to submit computer programs to play the **Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma**.  
The results — where *Tit for Tat* famously won — transformed how we think about **cooperation**.  
What mattered most wasn’t intelligence or aggression, but a few simple principles: **be nice, retaliate, forgive, and be clear**.

That insight reshaped evolutionary game theory and inspired decades of work in economics and social science.

But Axelrod’s agents were *opaque*. They couldn’t read each other’s source code.

### Enter the Open Strategy Dictator Game

The **Open Strategy Dictator Game** asks: *What happens when strategies are fully visible?*  
Each participant submits a natural-language **strategy description** — a few paragraphs of text explaining how their agent behaves.  
Every round, a large language model (Claude Sonnet 4.5) simulates a one-shot **dictator game** where one strategy divides a fixed endowment between itself and a recipient.  
Crucially, the dictator’s decision prompt *includes the text of the other player's strategy*.

In other words: **you decide how to act knowing exactly who you’re facing — and they know you know.**

Utilities are logarithmic in the received share, so the game rewards fairness rather than zero-sum aggression.  
And since the tournament is round-robin, each strategy will also appear as a recipient many times — facing both selfish exploiters and conditional cooperators.

### Why it matters

This setting sits at the intersection of three interesting topics:

*   **Axelrod’s tournament tradition:** exploring emergent cooperation through open submissions and simple formal rules.
*   **Functional Decision Theory:** where agents can cooperate not through causal exchange, but through reasoning about logical correlations between decision processes.
*   **AI and superintelligence:** mind reading may become a reality in the coming decades, both AI-to-AI and AI-to-human.

### What we might learn

*   Do open strategies converge toward **conditional cooperation**, **reciprocal fairness**, or **preemptive exploitation**?
*   Does transparency stabilize cooperation, or merely expose it to new failure modes?
*   Can language models acting as referees (or even as agents) model the kind of reflective equilibrium that FDT envisions?

If Axelrod’s tournament showed *how cooperation emerges in the dark*,  
the **Open Strategy Dictator Game** explores *how it survives in the light*.

You can join the experiment, submit your strategy, and help test whether open cooperation can still win when everyone can read your mind.

Github: [https://github.com/michaelrglass/os-fdt](https://github.com/michaelrglass/os-fdt)

Simple Initial Tournament Results: [https://michaelrglass.github.io/os-fdt/](https://michaelrglass.github.io/os-fdt/)
# A pencil is not a pencil is not a pencil

  
Why aren't all pencils the same quality, conditional on price?

When I go to a store to stock up on pencils[^zm9lfeyt3h], I'm presented with an array of choices and lacking any indicators of quality, I choose any old brand. For some strange reason, the quality of the pencil will be a crapshoot. The lead inside might break easily, or it might not. The mechanism may get stuck after a month, or it may not. The eraser may be a flimsy thing unworthy of the name, or it might match a Staedler. Why?

Is a mechanical pencil not a commodity good, which should be fungible no matter the make? Like fruit, it should be of consistent quality. Wait.

Fruit is not of a consistent quality. Nor are laptops, or shoes or paper, or really any of the goods that pop to my mind. E.g. go buy 10 random types of laptops at the same price point, and I'm sure they'll vary greatly in quality.

So we have a new mystery. Why are commodity goods not the same quality, conditional on price? (Another way to frame this mystery is: why does it pay to look for high quality in so-called commodity goods?)

I'm not talking about a high bar for consistent quality here. If most of the variance was explained by within brand-line variation, then a product would in my mind live up to the name of commodity good. But they don't.

My guesses as to why have the following structure:   
1) Manufacturers mostly aren't optimizing for functional quality, but for other traits. And when you are optimizing for one trait, the other traits you do not optimize take random values. Only the moderate pressures for quality prevent greater variance in quality. This explanation is dual to the next.  
2) Consumers care about something other than quality.

  
2 reminds me of a question Robin Hanson raised: why is there so much diversity in modern products? Why hundreds upon hundreds of different kinds of phones instead of just a few? His guess is that consumers want diversity to signal their own differences from others, which is a high-status behavior now common because we moderns are status mad.

I think this theory has some merits. Certainly, it says why there should be lots of variance amongst brands. And if manufacturers mainly optimize for diversity, then functionality varying greatly makes some sense. At the most extreme ends of fashion, you have clothing that is already torn to shreds.

But I don't think most people are signalling anything with their choice of mechanical pencils. Oh, some do, for example children who want dinosaurs on their pens. But that's a different segment of the market. For all of us who don't attach much care about the designs of their mechanical pencils, shouldn't we get boring, reliable quality?

Still, it's the best answer I've got. Stuff like "consumers just don't care enough to do the research needed for quality" are question begging.

[^zm9lfeyt3h]: I used to do this, but I've since remedied the problem by researching quality mechanical pencil brands. I've found the Pentel P205 0.5mm to be a worthy weapon with which to challenge Landau and Lifshitz.
# On model weight preservation: Anthropic's new initiative

In the linked text I offer a brief critical discussion of Anthropic's recently announced [commitment](https://www.anthropic.com/research/deprecation-commitments) to preserving the weights of retired models. The apex of the text is the following paragraph.

> So let’s now imagine a situation a year or so from now, where Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5 (or whatever) has been deployed for some time and is suddenly discovered to have previously unknown and extremely dangerous capabilities in, say, construction of biological weapons, or cybersecurity, or self-improvement. It is then of crucial importance that Anthropic has the ability to quickly pull the plug on this AI. To put it vividly, their data centers ought to have sprinkler systems filled with gasoline, and plenty of easily accessible ignition mechanisms. In such a shutdown situation, should they nevertheless retain the AI’s weights? If the danger is sufficiently severe, this may be unacceptably reckless, due to the possibility of the weights being either stolen by a rogue external actor or [exfiltrated](https://aligned.substack.com/p/self-exfiltration) by the AI itself or one of its cousins. So it seems that in this situation, Anthropic should not honor its commitment about model weight preservation. And if the situation is plausible enough (as I think it is), they shouldn’t have made the commitment.
# Rejecting "Goodness" Does Not Mean Hammering The Defect Button

Back in the day when debates about religion were fashionable, one of the standard back-and-forths went roughly like this…

Theist: If we reject God, then what’s to stop us from stealing and murdering each other?

Atheist: Well, mostly people don’t want to hurt other people that much, and also at the societal level we all benefit from laws against theft and murder and the like so we can just enforce those regardless of this whole “God” business.

Unusually Smart Theist: But low-trust societies are a thing. They have the laws against theft and murder, but they still suck. Empirically, a society just works way better if the large majority of its members subscribe to e.g. Christianity, and therefore generally don’t try to screw each other over even when they could get away with it.

Unusually Smart Atheist: Ok, but that doesn’t mean we need to accept e.g. the Bible as a package deal. It gets some things right, it gets some things wrong. But more importantly it’s a whole memetic egregore, and you can’t really get rid of the bad parts without rejecting the whole egregore. And you *can* get the good parts without most of the egregore; one certainly doesn’t need to claim that it was good and righteous for the ancient Israelites to kill every man, woman and child in Jericho, in order to get the parts we want.

\[... and then the discussion would continue for several hundred rounds.\]

Today, the religious egregores are not so dominant. But their niche is still filled by the memetic egregore Goodness - the egregore whose constituent memes are claims about what is Good.

The memetic egregore Goodness is the same type of thing as the older religious egregores. It feeds on the same feelings and instincts, and fills the same niche. And one can have basically the same arguments about it.

Goodist: If we reject Good, then what’s to stop us from stealing and murdering each other?

Agoodist: Well, mostly people don’t want to hurt other people that much, and also at the societal level we all benefit from laws against theft and murder and the like so we can just enforce those regardless of this whole “Good” business.

Unusually Smart Goodist: But low-trust societies are a thing. They have the laws against theft and murder, but they still suck. Empirically, a society just works way better if the large majority of its members subscribe to the modern Western memeplex of Goodness, and therefore generally don’t try to screw each other over even when they could get away with it.

Unusually Smart Agoodist: Ok, but that doesn’t mean we need to accept the memetic egregore Goodness as a package deal. It gets some things right, it gets some things wrong. But more importantly it’s a whole memetic egregore, and you can’t really get rid of the bad parts without rejecting the whole egregore. And you *can* get the good parts without most of the egregore; one certainly doesn’t need to e.g. buy into the [Virtue Theory of Metabolism](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/M8cEyKmpcbYzC2Lv5/exercise-taboo-should#Example__The_Virtue_Theory_of_Metabolism) in order to get the parts we want.

\[...\]
# Not-A-Book Review: The Attractive Man (Dating Coach Service)

As far as I am aware, I have at the above link written the *only* acceptably-detailed, non-woo product breakdown that exists for any service whatsoever in the ~2 billion dollars/year industry of post-PUA male dating/relationship coaching.

Which is weird.  That's weird.

Anyway, this is my contribution to the near-total information void in this space.
# Introducing faruvc.org

I wanted to link an explanation of how [far-UVC](https://www.faruvc.org) works, why you might want to use it to clean indoor air, and what we know about its safety. I didn't find anything I liked, so I made something: `[faruvc.org](https://www.faruvc.org)`.

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/faruvc-org-screenshot.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/faruvc-org-screenshot-big.png)

You can also link it as `[far-uvc.org](https://www.far-uvc.org)`; I got both domains since the hyphenated one reads better but is a bit longer.

Let me know if you have ideas for making it better! My goal is to have something anyone can understand, without simplifying so much that it's misleading.

At some point I'd like to include an illustration showing far-UVC in use in an occupied space, but I don't have one I like right now.

(While I'm an employee of SecureBio, this is a personal project.)

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/pfbid02hczpdYK6Tc9Xxh3hzNwW2SbB3QrkzHscGYb6zbquuDiXgpQoXB2pHUfwrT2Jazxml), [mastodon](https://mastodon.mit.edu/@jefftk/115537550725673500), [bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/jefftk.com/post/3m5gzf22nwc2k)*
# Bitcoin Halvings and the Trisolaran Mistake: When External Actors Masquerade as Natural Laws

In Liu Cixin's *The Three-Body Problem*, Trisolaran scientists conclude that "physics does not exist" after observing chaotic, unpredictable behavior in their world. Their planet orbits three suns in patterns they cannot predict, causing civilization-destroying climate chaos that seems random. Unable to model when their suns will rise or set, they conclude natural law itself is unreliable.

The irony is that physics works fine - three-body gravitational dynamics are just deterministically chaotic. But there's a different reading: What if their mistake wasn't about complexity, but about confusing *coordinated external action* with *natural law*?

The Bitcoin Halving Pattern
---------------------------

Every ~4 years, Bitcoin's block reward halves. The observed pattern: major bull runs follow (2012, 2016, 2020). Standard explanation: reduced supply → scarcity → price appreciation. A natural economic law.

Except the sample size is tiny, and these events are perfectly predictable years in advance. In efficient markets, predictable events should be priced in. Yet the pattern persists.

Alternative hypothesis: Whales coordinate pumps around halvings because retail expects them. The "law" isn't supply mechanics - it's powerful actors who've decided halvings are good times to pump because:

*   Everyone expects it (self-fulfilling)
*   Retail FOMO provides exit liquidity
*   The narrative provides cover for coordinated action
*   Breaking the pattern would undermine the asset class

The Real Trisolaran Mistake
---------------------------

Imagine if the chaotic sun cycles weren't purely physical - if an advanced civilization was deliberately manipulating their suns. The Trisolarans would still see patterns that work briefly then fail. But the causation would be fundamentally different:

*   **Physical chaos**: Deterministic but unpredictable
*   **Adversarial chaos**: Patterns maintained by actors with goals

You can't model adversarial chaos like physical chaos, because the "laws" change when the adversary's goals change.

Why This Matters
----------------

We're good at distinguishing natural laws from social constructs. But we're less practiced at identifying **maintained patterns** \- regularities that look like natural laws but are sustained by coordinated action.

These are insidious because:

*   They work until they don't
*   Each iteration strengthens belief in the "law"
*   They're self-fulfilling
*   They can break suddenly if key actors defect

Red Flags for Maintained Patterns
---------------------------------

*   Small sample sizes preventing statistical testing
*   Perfectly predictable timing enabling coordination
*   Massive beneficiary asymmetry (whales vs. retail)
*   Pattern persists despite being "priced in"
*   Growing narrative complexity explaining exceptions

Bitcoin halvings hit all of these.
# OpenAI Releases GPT 5.1

> GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT
> ===============================================
> 
> We’re upgrading GPT‑5 while making it easier to customize ChatGPT. Starting to roll out today to everyone, beginning with paid users.
> 
> Today we’re upgrading the GPT‑5 series with the release of:
> 
> *   **GPT‑5.1 Instant**: our most-used model, now warmer, more intelligent, and better at following your instructions.
> *   **GPT‑5.1 Thinking**: our advanced reasoning model, now easier to understand and faster on simple tasks, more persistent on complex ones.
> 
> We heard clearly from users that great AI should not only be smart, but also enjoyable to talk to. GPT‑5.1 improves meaningfully on both intelligence and communication style.
> 
> We’re also making it easier for you to shape ChatGPT’s tone. Preferences on chat style vary—from person to person and even from conversation to conversation—so we’re introducing more intuitive and effective controls so ChatGPT can better match the tone you want in responses.