Organizations: L

April 10, 2022 · Original source

BANGALORE, INDIA Contact: Faiz (faiz_abbas@protonmail.com) Date: April 24 Time: 4:00 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Location: Matteo Coffea, Church Street, near MG road Group info: Bangalore SSC has been meeting monthly since 2018

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, Bangalore SSC

ATHENS, GREECE Contact: Elias (minus42cgn@gmail.com) Date: April 27 Time: 7:00 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8G95WMRV+Q4F Location: Stavros Niarchos Park, Great Lawn, 37.941753, 23.692632 Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8G95WMRV+Q4F, RSVP on LessWrong

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY Contact: Timothy Underwood (timunderwood9@gmail.com) Date: May 7 Time: 2:00 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8FVXG2CW+FF Location: In the middle of Gulliver Park on Margit Sziget, I'll have an umbrella and a big copy of a book by Richard Dawkins in Hungarian Group info: ACX/LW Budapest meets once a month

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8FVXG2CW+FF, ACX/LW Budapest

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023

August 26, 2022 · Original source

You can see a map of all the events on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup, the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

BAGHDAD, IRAQ Contact: MA, tofiahmed117[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: WolframSigma#1532, Telegram Time: Friday, September 2, 11:00 AM Location: Grinders Coffeeshop Coordinates: 8H568FG6+73 Event link(s): LessWrong JERUSALEM, ISRAEL Contact: Zvi Schreiber, zvi[at]zvi[dot]net, WhatsApp +972 54 569 1100 Time: Wednesday, October 19, 6:00 PM Location: Malcha technology park garden Coordinates: 8G3QP5XP+PP Event link(s): LessWrong REHOVOT, ISRAEL Contact: David Manheim, David[at]alter[dot]org[dot]il Time: Sunday, September 11, 8:00 PM Location: Outside porch of Aroma Coffee, הרצל 218, רחובות Coordinates: 8G3PWR25+MP Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Notes: Please RSVP on Facebook so we can give updates if needed TEL AVIV, ISRAEL Contact: Adam & inbar M, projectscentrum[at]gmail[dot]com, inbar192[at]gmail[dot]com, Whatsapp +46762791415 (Adam) Time: Sunday, September 4, 7:00 PM Location: Hamenia industrial loft at Beit Alfa 7 (רחוב בית אלפא 7). Look for a door with ACX sign. Two floors up. Coordinates: 8G4P3Q8Q+85 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We've just made a Facebook group and are planning to organize monthly meetings going forward Notes: For questions contact Adam on email or WhatsApp. Feel free to bring a snack or a bottle of white wine. AMMAN, JORDAN Contact: Daniel, dnledvs[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, September 20, 6:30 PM Location: Rustic, Jabal al Weibdeh Coordinates: 8G3QXW49+WG Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: We're hoping to grow the group, so feel free to come even if you've only read a few posts! +1s are also welcome. CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Contact: Mark Chimes, chimes[dot]mark[at]gmail[dot]com, WhatsApp 0826568573 Time: Saturday, September 17, 11:00 AM Location: Truth Coffee Roasting, 36 Buitenkant St, Cape Town City Centre - we'll put a sign on the table Coordinates: 4FRW3CFF+3M Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We met up pre-Covid and pre-ACX as an SSC group. Now we're getting back in the swing of things. We eat lunch and chat about philosophy, politics, and sometimes SSC/ACX blog posts. Notes: We're planning on having another meetup on the 8th October if you can't make the first. DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA Contact: Arno, arnorohwedder[at]gmail[dot]com, +255763998637 Time: Thursday, September 29, 7:30 PM Location: The Deck, Masaki Coordinates: 6G5X776J+X6 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Seeing if there are any interested people in Dar, look forward to meeting, if you are coming please send me a whatsapp. DUBAI, UAE Contact: RS, xyxyxz[at]gmail[dot]com, +971552726281 (WhatsApp) Time: Friday, September 30, 7:30 PM Location: Starbucks, Garhoud Coordinates: 7HQQ68VR+94 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Met once before Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong, or message me on WhatsApp

Inline links: Telegram, 8H568FG6+73, LessWrong, 8G3QP5XP+PP, LessWrong, 8G3PWR25+MP, LessWrong, Facebook event, 8G4P3Q8Q+85, LessWrong, Facebook group, 8G3QXW49+WG, LessWrong, 4FRW3CFF+3M, LessWrong, 6G5X776J+X6, LessWrong, 7HQQ68VR+94, LessWrong

April 10, 2023 · Original source

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup, the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Contact: Yaseen Mowzer Contact Info: yaseen [at] mowzer [dot] co [dot] za Time: Saturday, 27 May 2023, 11:00 AM. Location: Truth Coffee Roasting, 36 Buitenkant St, Cape Town City Centre, Cape Town, South Africa Coordinates: https://plus.codes/4FRW3CCF+P3 Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/AAPnyjpNBwtBD6hix/cape-town-south-africa-acx-meetups-everywhere-spring-2023 Notes: Whatsapp: +27 79 813 5144

Inline links: https://plus.codes/4FRW3CCF+P3, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/AAPnyjpNBwtBD6hix/cape-town-south-africa-acx-meetups-everywhere-spring-2023

Meetups Everywhere Fall 2023 - Call For Organizers

August 01, 2023 · Original source

You give me the information, and on August 25 (or so), I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page.

Inline links: LessWrong’s Community

The Mystery Of Internet Survey IQs

August 25, 2023 · Original source

You can see a map of all the events on the LessWrong community page. You can also see a searchable sheet at this Airtable link.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page, Airtable link

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

BANGALORE, INDIA Contact: Nihal Contact Info: propwash[at]duck[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 24th, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo Coffea, Church Street Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong

Inline links: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

March 20, 2024 · Original source

It looks like up to about 140, self-reported IQ and normed IQ rise together, and then the relationship breaks down. Sure enough, looking at the subset of self-reported IQ scores below 140, the correlation with tested IQ rises to .6, and looking at the subset above 140, the correlation is nonsignificant at -0.02. I don’t want to assert that the breakpoint is exactly 140, but I do think the test stops working somewhere in the 130 - 140 range. But this can’t be the whole problem. Notice that people who reported getting scores around 100 on previous IQ tests overwhelmingly got scores less than 100 on this one. So are people just taking terrible Internet IQ tests that inflate their score about 20 points? The ClearerThinking sample didn’t ask people what IQ test they took, but the LessWrong sample did. It found approximately the same score from WAIS, WISC, Stanford-Binet, and Mensa - all of which were about 10 points above what you would predict from SAT scores. So I think there are two things going on: The main problem in the LessWrong sample, and the far right end of the ClearerThinking sample, is that even official IQ tests are gobbledygook over 135. Any numbers above this should be rounded down to 135, no matter how venerable the test involved.

The main problem in the LessWrong sample, and the far right end of the ClearerThinking sample, is that even official IQ tests are gobbledygook over 135. Any numbers above this should be rounded down to 135, no matter how venerable the test involved.

Based on these, I would guess the ClearerThinking sample is around 111, right where the demographic norms method puts it. And the LessWrong sample is around 128, somewhere between the demographic norms method and the SAT method.

Consciousness As Recursive Reflections

March 30, 2024 · Original source

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and markers for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup, the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

BANGALORE, INDIA Contact: Nihal Contact Info: propwash[at]duck[dot]com Time: Sunday, May 26th, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo coffea - inside. This is where we have our regular meetups Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: Please RSVP on lesswrong for the event of May

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

July 16, 2024 · Original source

and the world of objective facts, physics and brain imaging technology, where nobody has found these supposed qualia as a thing to point at. Dualist theories “solve” this by accepting subjective qualia and objective physics as separate worlds. Physicalist theories claim it’s all physics in the end, so they need to show how qualia arise out of physics... but none of the existing theories of how that goes (including denying that qualia even exist, or that they can be meaningfully discussed) have reached consensus. What follows is a theory of how qualia, with the 16 characteristics listed before, do exist, and necessarily arise out of physics. An area that does not give physicalism such trouble is how the mind’s information processing (conscious or not) is based on neuronal activity, on neurons firing “spikes” (action potentials) of electricity at each other. There is a lot of good research on this. Mental information processing doesn’t seem possible without these electric spikes. A living human brain will contain between 9 and 200 billion spikes per second. Humans at peak performance can do many thoughts per second10, but whatever the average number is, it has to be orders of magnitude lower than billions per second. So, assuming the brain doesn’t just waste energy on billions of needless spikes, an average thought should encompass many million or several billion spikes per second11. So these have to be “somehow” organized into a pattern of correlated neuronal firing activity. Patterns of spikes running through the same brain can meet, when they fire into each other. When that happens, they can merge. You see particular black and white pixels on this screen here (again, “thought” includes such very brief mental events as well) but they get merged into letters, words, this sentence and your understanding of this argument. You can re-focus on the particular pixel, but when you do, you re-perceive it; you can’t recall your previous perception of it, because it has merged into the thought of the letter, the word etc. But they don’t always merge. You might listen intently, e.g. if you’re waiting on an acoustic signal that you want to react to as quickly as you can. Then when you hear a sound, a thought poised to react meets another thought that comes in from the ears with the signal received there. But while you’re doing that, other neuronal patterns continue to come in from e.g. your mouth, reflecting the perceptions of your tongue. Spikes from the ears and spikes from the tongue even have to pass through the same brain structure, the thalamus. Yet the spikes from the mouth remain uninvolved in your being poised to react, as long as you maintain focus on the modality of sound. This rules out the possibility that all neurons talk to all other neurons indiscriminately. That’s a crucial problem that requires an explanation! Since billions of bits of neuronal activity, across many neurons in space and many milliseconds in time, can be part of a single pattern,

Inline links: Dualist, denying that qualia even exist, or that they can be meaningfully discussed, will contain between 9 and 200 billion spikes per second, 10, 11

LessWrong user Q Home, The importance of studying subjective experience

Inline links: The importance of studying subjective experience

Please point out mistakes and how to fix them in the comments or on ??, so I can be less wrong about this. Special thanks to those who have donated most such help so far: Professor Ulrich Hegerl, PhDs Lars Schuster, Idris Riahi and Robert Lehmann, and Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Inline links: on ??

Meetups Everywhere Fall 2024 - Call for Organizers

August 01, 2024 · Original source

People enjoy each other’s company and keep having meetups throughout the year. The form will ask you to pick a location, time, and date, and to provide an email address where people can reach you for questions. It will also ask a few short questions about how excited you are to run the meetup to help pick between multiple organizers in the same city. One meetup per city will be advertised on the blog, and people can email you if they have questions. Organizing an ACX Everywhere meetup can be easy. Pick a time and a place (parks work well if you think there will be a lot of people, cafes or apartments work fine for fewer) and show up with a sign saying “ACX Meetup.” You don’t need to have discussion plans or a group activity. If you want to make the experience better for people, you can bring nice things like nametags/markers, food/drinks, or games. Meetups Czar Skyler can reimburse you for the nametags, markers, food, and drinks. If you feel more ambitious, collect people’s names and emails if they’re interested in future meetups. You could do this with a pen and paper, or if you’re concerned about reading people’s handwriting, you could use a QR code/bitly link to a Google Form. Here’s a short FAQ for potential meetup organizers: 1. How do I know if I would be a good meetup organizer? If you can put a name/time/date in a box on Google Forms and show up there, you have the minimum skill necessary to be a meetup organizer for your city, and I recommend you sign up. Don't worry, you signing up won't randomly take the job away from someone else. The form will ask people how excited/qualified they are about being an organizer, and if there are many options, I'll choose whoever I think is best. (Or plausibly whoever Meetup Czar Skyler thinks is best.) But a lot of cities might not have an excited/qualified person, in which case I would rather the unexcited/unqualified people sign up, than have nobody available at all. This spreadsheet shows the cities where someone has filled out the form, updated manually after a basic check. Lots of cities have existing meetup groups and we’ll probably prioritize them, but we always appreciate more options. Last time there were some people who didn’t volunteer because they just assumed their city was big enough that someone else would do it. Beware the Bystander Effect! If you are the leader of your city’s existing meetup group, please fill in the form anyway and say so. 2. How will people hear about the meetup? You give me the information, and on August 23 (or so), I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page. 3. When should I plan the meetup for? Since I’ll post the list of meetup times and dates around August 23, please choose sometime after that. Any day September 1st through October 31st is okay. I recommend a weekend, since it's when most people are available. You’ll probably get more attendance if you schedule for at least one week out, but not so far out that people will forget - so mid September or early October would be best. Check your local calendar for holidays where people might be busy: If you're in the US, that probably means avoid Labor Day and Halloween. 4. How many people should I expect? The last time we tried this, meetups ranged from one person to over a hundred. Meetups in big US cities (especially ones with universities or tech hubs) had the most people; meetups in non-English-speaking countries had the fewest. You can see a list of every city and how many people most of them got last time here. Plan accordingly. 5. Where should I hold the meetup? A good venue should be easy for people to get to, not too loud, and have basic things like places to sit, access to toilets, and the option of acquiring food and water. City parks and mall common areas work well. If you want to hold the meetup at your house, remember that this will involve me posting your address on the Internet. 6. What should I do at the meetup? Mostly people just show up and talk. If you’re worried about this not going well, here are some things that can help: Have people indicate topics they’re interested in by writing something on their nametag

Inline links: This spreadsheet, LessWrong’s Community, here

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2025 - Call For Organizers

August 29, 2024 · Original source

You can see a map of all the events on the LessWrong community page. (Or possibly you will be able to soon.)

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If you’re having trouble thinking of something to talk about, the attendees probably also read ACX. Talk about a recent post or book review that you liked. 5. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and you shouldn’t try to organize some kind of planned workshop or anything like that. 6. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the username or email address you gave on the form. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Contact: Nihal M Contact Info: propwash[at]duck[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 27th, 04:00 PM Location: Matteo coffea, church street Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: RSVP on the event for october

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

March 05, 2025 · Original source

You give me the information, and on March 24th (or so), I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page.

Inline links: LessWrong’s Community

Fall Meetups Everywhere - Call for Organizers

March 25, 2025 · Original source

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. If you’re having trouble thinking of something to talk about, the attendees probably also read ACX. Ask people about a recent post or book review that they liked. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and you shouldn’t try to organize some kind of planned workshop or anything like that. 5. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 6. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the username or email address you gave on the form. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).berkel

Contact: Faiz Contact Info: timid[period]roux1v[a t]icloud[period]com Time: Sunday, May 18th, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo Coffee, 2, Church Street, Brigade Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560001 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

August 06, 2025 · Original source

People enjoy each other’s company and keep having meetups throughout the year. The form will ask you to pick a location, time, and date, and to provide an email address where people can reach you for questions. It will also ask a few short questions about how excited you are to run the meetup to help pick between multiple organizers in the same city. One meetup per city will be advertised on the blog, and people can email you if they have questions. Organizing an ACX Everywhere meetup can be easy. Pick a time and a place (parks work well if you think there will be a lot of people, cafes or apartments work fine for fewer) and show up with a sign saying “ACX Meetup.” You don’t need to have discussion plans or a group activity. If you want to make the experience better for people, you can bring nice things like nametags/markers, food/drinks, or games. Meetups Czar Skyler can reimburse you for the nametags, markers, food, and drinks. If you feel more ambitious, collect people’s names and emails if they’re interested in future meetups. You could do this with a pen and paper, or if you’re concerned about reading people’s handwriting you could use a QR code/bitly link to a Google Form. Here’s a short FAQ for potential meetup organizers: 1. How do I know if I would be a good meetup organizer? If you can put a name/time/date in a box on Google Forms and show up there, you have the minimum skill necessary to be a meetup organizer for your city, and I recommend you sign up. Don't worry, you signing up won't randomly take the job away from someone else. The form will ask people how excited/qualified they are about being an organizer, and if there are many options, I'll choose whoever I think is best. (Or whoever Meetup Czar Skyler thinks is best.) But a lot of cities might not have an excited/qualified person, in which case I would rather the unexcited/unqualified people sign up, than have nobody available at all. This spreadsheet shows the cities where someone has filled out the form, updated manually after a basic check. Lots of cities have existing meetup groups and we’ll probably prioritize them, but we always appreciate more options. Sometimes people assume their city is big enough that someone else will do it, nobody signs up before the announcement, and then afterwards people say they wish there was a meetup in their city. Beware the Bystander Effect! If you are the leader of your city’s existing meetup group, please fill in the form anyway and say so. 2. How will people hear about the meetup? You give me the information, and on August 24 (or so), I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page. 3. When should I plan the meetup for? Since I’ll post the list of meetup times and dates around August 24, please choose sometime after that. Any day September 1st through October 31st is okay. I recommend a weekend, since it's when most people are available. You’ll probably get more attendance if you schedule for at least one week out, but not so far out that people will forget - so mid September or early October would be best. Check your local calendar for holidays where people might be busy: If you're in the US, that probably means avoid Labor Day and Halloween. 4. How many people should I expect? Last spring, meetups ranged from one person (just the organizer) to around two hundred. Meetups in big US cities (especially ones with universities or tech hubs) had the most people; meetups in non-English-speaking countries had the fewest. You can see a list of every city and how many people most of them got last time here. (If it’s blank, it means either no ACX Everywhere was run or we didn’t get a count of attendees in the post-event survey.`) Plan accordingly. 5. Where should I hold the meetup? A good venue should be easy for people to get to, not too loud, and have basic things like places to sit, access to toilets, and the option of acquiring food and water. City parks and mall common areas work well. If you want to hold the meetup at your house, remember that this will involve me posting your address on the Internet. 6. What should I do at the meetup? Mostly people just show up and talk. If you’re worried about this not going well, here are some things that can help: Have people indicate topics they’re interested in by writing something on their nametag

Inline links: This spreadsheet, LessWrong’s Community, here

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2026 - Call For Organizers

August 29, 2025 · Original source

There should shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. If you’re having trouble thinking of something to talk about, the attendees probably also read ACX. Ask people about a recent post or book review that they liked. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and you shouldn’t try to organize some kind of planned workshop or anything like that. 5. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 6. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the username or email address you gave on the form. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Contact: Nihal Contact Info: propwash[a t]duck[period]com Time: Sunday, October 5th, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo Coffea, Church Street Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: Check the lesswrong group page for the announcement, and RSVP there.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

March 13, 2026 · Original source

You give me the information, and on March 27th (or so), I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page.

Inline links: LessWrong’s Community

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/3yEAjBzu5D7HgManA/bengaluru-acx-meetups-everywhere-spring-26

April 01, 2026 · Original source

There should shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. If you’re having trouble thinking of something to talk about, the attendees probably also read ACX. Ask people about a recent post or book review that they liked. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and you shouldn’t try to organize some kind of planned workshop or anything like that. 5. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 6. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the username or email address you gave on the form. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Contact: Faiz Contact Info: faiz_abbas[@]protonmail[.]com Time: Sunday, April 5th, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo Coffea, 2, Church Street, Brigade Rd. Get inside Matteo Coffea and walk to the backside seating area. By backside, I mean all the way back - there is a second section to the cafe past the restrooms. You can find us seated on the right or left side with an ACX Meet-ups sign pointing the way Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so I know how many people are coming: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/3yEAjBzu5D7HgManA/bengaluru-acx-meetups-everywhere-spring-26

Less Wrong15 mentions across 15 issues

Less Wrong is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 15 times across 15 issues between January 24, 2022 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as "Less Wrong team relocates"; "Followup research by Less Wrong user “Bucky”"; "Please check the Less Wrong or Facebook posts". It most often appears alongside ACX, ACX MEETUP, India.

Article page: Less Wrong
Mention count: 15
Issue count: 15
First seen: January 24, 2022
Last seen: April 01, 2026

Outbound links

Issue trail

Grading My 2021 Predictions January 24, 2022
Birth Order Effects: Nature vs. Nurture June 01, 2022
Meetups Everywhere 2022: Times & Places August 26, 2022
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023 April 10, 2023
23 September 21, 2023
The Mystery Of Internet Survey IQs March 20, 2024
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024
Links For April 2024 April 04, 2024
Open Thread 324 April 08, 2024
24 April 11, 2024
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places March 25, 2025
25 April 17, 2025
Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places August 29, 2025
26 January 29, 2026
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places April 01, 2026

ACX 9 shared issues
ACX MEETUP 7 shared issues
India 7 shared issues
LessWrong 7 shared issues
Mexico City 7 shared issues

Source context

Grading My 2021 Predictions

January 24, 2022 · Original source

COMMUNITY 33. Major rationalist org leaves Bay Area: 60% 34. MIRI relocates to Washington State: 20% 35. MIRI relocates to New England: 20% 36. MIRI relocates somewhere else: 20% 37. Less Wrong team relocates: 30% 38. No new residents at our housing cluster: 40% 39. No current residents leave our housing cluster: 60% 40. [friend] goes back to Indiana: 40% 41. [friend] is in a primary relationship: 50% 42. [friend] is in a primary relationship: 30% 43. [friend] is in a primary relationship: 20% 44. [friend] has gotten [job]: 50% 45. [friend] has recovered their health: 70% 46. [friend] has gotten egg freezing: 30% 47. [friend] is pregnant: 70% 48. [friends] are still together: 50% 49. [friend] is still at [job]: 80% 50. [friend] is in college: 60% 51. [friends] live in [house]: 30% 52. [other friends] live in [house]: 30% 53. At least 7 days my house is orange or worse on PurpleAir.com because of fires: 80%

Simon M did a similar exercise on Less Wrong, and compared me to Zvi and to various prediction markets. This was slightly biased against me, because Zvi got to see my guesses first and choose which ones to adjust on, and the markets are the markets. Still, he found:

Inline links: did a similar exercise on Less Wrong

Birth Order Effects: Nature vs. Nurture

June 01, 2022 · Original source

Source here; thanks to Emile for the graph That is, of people with exactly one sibling who read this blog, about 72% of those are the older of the two children in their family, compared to only 29% who are the younger of the two (where by chance we would expect 50-50). This was surprising, because at the time lots of studies had shown there weren’t really birth order effects (that is, firstborn siblings had no major personality differences compared to laterborns). I theorized that maybe for some reason it was easier to find by looking in a heavily-selected group of people and asking members about their birth order, compared to getting a random sample and trying to correlate birth order with things. Sure enough, later amateur research revealed strong birth order effects in physics Nobelists and great mathematicians (and potentially Harvard philosophy students). Given that readers of this blog are highly-educated (about 37% have masters or PhDs) and mostly in STEM (41% programmers of some sort), plausibly birth order affects something about intelligence, education, or STEM orientation (somebody should check literature and peace Nobelists!) Followup research by Less Wrong user “Bucky” determined that the effect fell off with age gaps; the closer in age you are to your sibling, the stronger an effect birth order has: I continue to be confused by this extremely strong effect which most of what we know about psychology says shouldn’t exist. So in 2020, I asked my readership some even more complicated questions about their family situations, in the hopes of teasing out why this is happening. I’ll be honest - I think I over-reached here. I’m not very good at statistics, and this is a weird statistical problem: the dependent variable is whether the case ended up in the sample at all! I wasn’t able to figure out a good way to use most of the data you gave me. And the stuff I did use, I mostly made work by slicing and dicing so much that the sample size got pretty low, even when I started from 8,000 survey respondents. I’m publishing this in the hopes that it will inspire someone else will more domain knowledge to do a sophisticated re-analysis. But for now, here’s what I’ve got. Confirming Old Results With The 2020 Dataset The 2020 dataset also shows a strong birth order effect in people who read this blog. In 2018, among people with exactly one sibling, respondents were 2.51x more likely to be the older sibling than the younger (72%). In 2020, the number was 2.39x (71%). Change with age gap is shown below: Note truncated y-axis This seems to be broadly similar to the 2018 results. There was an anomaly in 2018 where some categories seemed to drop off surprisingly quickly between 7 and 8 years, which I thought might be meaningful. But Bucky’s analysis showed this was probably a coincidence, and indeed it doesn’t show up in the new data. Does Sex Matter For Birth Order Effects? I wondered if there might be a smaller birth order effect for people with opposite-sex siblings. One possible explanation for the birth order effect is children trying to get out of the “shadow” of their older sibling and differentiate themselves in some way. But children are already pretty different from an opposite-sex sibling and might feel less pressure in that situation. But this doesn’t seem to be true. The percent firstborns in sibships of two on the survey was 70% among people with a same-sex sibling, and 71% among people with an opposite-sex sibling; no real difference. Do Biological Or Social Factors Produce Birth Order Effects? All previous results are for biological siblings. But it might be worth asking the question separately for biological vs. social siblings. One could imagine either biological or social causes of the birth order effect. For example, some biologists speculate that pregnancy depletes choline, that it takes a long time for choline stores to recover, and that a second child born within that window will have less choline available to build their nervous system, which could be bad. But also: maybe if you have an older sibling, your parents can’t pay as much attention to you when you’re a kid, and you learn less. This was very hard to test for. Again, I wasn’t able to use traditional statistical tests because I’m trying to determine whether someone was in the sample at all, rather than whether two variables are related. It was easy to check normal birth order because I could compare people with exactly one older sibling to people with exactly one younger. It was harder to do with things like adoption in the mix, because that could introduce a bias: are parents more likely to adopt out their first child (because that’s when they’re most unprepared for parenting)? Are adoptive parents more likely to adopt when they already have children of their own (because they’re comfortable with child-rearing) or less likely (because they really want kids and can’t have them biologically)? I had no way of getting controls for these questions and so I couldn’t do a lot of the analyses I wanted. But I did two relatively weak analyses instead: First, I took the entire set of people in weird situations - people who said their number of social siblings was not the same as their number of biological siblings. In this group of 174 people, biological firstborns made up only 61% of respondents with one sibling, notably less than the 71% in the entire sample. That suggests that the unusual social situations are having an effect. You shouldn’t update on the fact that it’s still higher than 50%, because some of the people’s weird social situations don’t affect their status as social firstborns. Second, I tried to compare people who were firstborn under a biological definition but not a social definition, to people in the opposite situation. There were 40 people in the sample who were biological but not social firstborns, and 60 people who were social but not biological firstborns. Again, this suggests that social firstborn-ness is more important as an explanation than biological firstbornness, although it doesn’t rule out the latter having some effect. I additionally tried to compare two different types of social firstbornness - one where no older siblings lived in the house when you were growing up, and one where your parents had never parented another child. There weren’t many people discordant on these two measures (29 vs. 20 respectively), but for what it’s worth, the ratio was in favor of the first type. Since I wasn’t very confident in my analytical abilities here, I asked Bucky, who knows more and who did good work analyzing the last dataset, to look into this (we worked independently and didn’t tell each other our results until we were done). He writes: It seems to me that the effect is entirely caused by social siblings. I filtered for only people with 1+ biological but 0 social siblings. There were 24 oldest biological children in this group vs 21 2nd children (or 25 youngest children with a large overlap between 2nd oldest and youngest groups). This significantly differed from the ~0.7 fraction of older children in the general surveys (p<0.05 or p<0.01 depending on whether I use the 2nd oldest or youngest as the comparison) and is close to a 1:1 ratio. I then filtered for only people with 0 biological but 1+ social siblings. There were 51 oldest social children and 23 2nd children (or 26 youngest children again with large overlap). This differs significantly from a 1:1 ratio (p<0.001 or p<0.01) and matches pretty well with the 70% of the Birth order effect. I tried doing some filtering by age gap (2-7 years) and the results were compatible with the same result, although the sample sizes got too small to really conclude anything. For dealing with answers left blank I treated them as 0 unless it looked like the whole section had been missed out. If I ignored any respondents who left something blank I got similar results (smaller sample size but ratios are even further in favour of the social hypothesis). I checked for categorisation errors by looking at respondents’ descriptions of their families and they mainly matched pretty well with the numbers given so I think the data should be considered reliable. I did chuck a couple of results out which seemed unreliable and there was one row which was a repeat so your numbers might not match up exactly (plus you have the non-public data). There are a couple of confounders in the analysis such as whether e.g. oldest children are more likely to be adopted or how much you know about your birth family depending on how old one was when the family unit changed etc. I don’t see a realistic way to account for these but I also can’t see any of them being big enough to explain the difference in the results. Hopefully this matches up with what you found! I think this suggests birth order effects are social rather than biological. So What Causes Birth Order Effects? Based on this analysis, it seems unlikely they are biological. Based on my very weak sub-analysis, and on their tendency to decay with larger age gaps, it seems they have more to do with the social presence of a sibling in the house than with any changes in parenting style (ie your parents learn to parent differently). Two explanations that satisfy both those criteria: Parents are able to devote their full attention to parenting their first child, but only half of their attention to parenting their second. Firstborns get more quality time with their parents during the first few years of childhood.

Inline links: here, physics Nobelists, great mathematicians, Harvard philosophy students, Followup research, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jKaz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4995a838-7372-40dc-8e51-1b35c811bd43_523x388.png, some even more complicated questions about their family situations, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CMuv!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8042c21d-a6b7-48f9-bbcc-daf8c136953c_497x339.png

Note truncated y-axis This seems to be broadly similar to the 2018 results. There was an anomaly in 2018 where some categories seemed to drop off surprisingly quickly between 7 and 8 years, which I thought might be meaningful. But Bucky’s analysis showed this was probably a coincidence, and indeed it doesn’t show up in the new data. Does Sex Matter For Birth Order Effects? I wondered if there might be a smaller birth order effect for people with opposite-sex siblings. One possible explanation for the birth order effect is children trying to get out of the “shadow” of their older sibling and differentiate themselves in some way. But children are already pretty different from an opposite-sex sibling and might feel less pressure in that situation. But this doesn’t seem to be true. The percent firstborns in sibships of two on the survey was 70% among people with a same-sex sibling, and 71% among people with an opposite-sex sibling; no real difference. Do Biological Or Social Factors Produce Birth Order Effects? All previous results are for biological siblings. But it might be worth asking the question separately for biological vs. social siblings. One could imagine either biological or social causes of the birth order effect. For example, some biologists speculate that pregnancy depletes choline, that it takes a long time for choline stores to recover, and that a second child born within that window will have less choline available to build their nervous system, which could be bad. But also: maybe if you have an older sibling, your parents can’t pay as much attention to you when you’re a kid, and you learn less. This was very hard to test for. Again, I wasn’t able to use traditional statistical tests because I’m trying to determine whether someone was in the sample at all, rather than whether two variables are related. It was easy to check normal birth order because I could compare people with exactly one older sibling to people with exactly one younger. It was harder to do with things like adoption in the mix, because that could introduce a bias: are parents more likely to adopt out their first child (because that’s when they’re most unprepared for parenting)? Are adoptive parents more likely to adopt when they already have children of their own (because they’re comfortable with child-rearing) or less likely (because they really want kids and can’t have them biologically)? I had no way of getting controls for these questions and so I couldn’t do a lot of the analyses I wanted. But I did two relatively weak analyses instead: First, I took the entire set of people in weird situations - people who said their number of social siblings was not the same as their number of biological siblings. In this group of 174 people, biological firstborns made up only 61% of respondents with one sibling, notably less than the 71% in the entire sample. That suggests that the unusual social situations are having an effect. You shouldn’t update on the fact that it’s still higher than 50%, because some of the people’s weird social situations don’t affect their status as social firstborns. Second, I tried to compare people who were firstborn under a biological definition but not a social definition, to people in the opposite situation. There were 40 people in the sample who were biological but not social firstborns, and 60 people who were social but not biological firstborns. Again, this suggests that social firstborn-ness is more important as an explanation than biological firstbornness, although it doesn’t rule out the latter having some effect. I additionally tried to compare two different types of social firstbornness - one where no older siblings lived in the house when you were growing up, and one where your parents had never parented another child. There weren’t many people discordant on these two measures (29 vs. 20 respectively), but for what it’s worth, the ratio was in favor of the first type. Since I wasn’t very confident in my analytical abilities here, I asked Bucky, who knows more and who did good work analyzing the last dataset, to look into this (we worked independently and didn’t tell each other our results until we were done). He writes: It seems to me that the effect is entirely caused by social siblings. I filtered for only people with 1+ biological but 0 social siblings. There were 24 oldest biological children in this group vs 21 2nd children (or 25 youngest children with a large overlap between 2nd oldest and youngest groups). This significantly differed from the ~0.7 fraction of older children in the general surveys (p<0.05 or p<0.01 depending on whether I use the 2nd oldest or youngest as the comparison) and is close to a 1:1 ratio. I then filtered for only people with 0 biological but 1+ social siblings. There were 51 oldest social children and 23 2nd children (or 26 youngest children again with large overlap). This differs significantly from a 1:1 ratio (p<0.001 or p<0.01) and matches pretty well with the 70% of the Birth order effect. I tried doing some filtering by age gap (2-7 years) and the results were compatible with the same result, although the sample sizes got too small to really conclude anything. For dealing with answers left blank I treated them as 0 unless it looked like the whole section had been missed out. If I ignored any respondents who left something blank I got similar results (smaller sample size but ratios are even further in favour of the social hypothesis). I checked for categorisation errors by looking at respondents’ descriptions of their families and they mainly matched pretty well with the numbers given so I think the data should be considered reliable. I did chuck a couple of results out which seemed unreliable and there was one row which was a repeat so your numbers might not match up exactly (plus you have the non-public data). There are a couple of confounders in the analysis such as whether e.g. oldest children are more likely to be adopted or how much you know about your birth family depending on how old one was when the family unit changed etc. I don’t see a realistic way to account for these but I also can’t see any of them being big enough to explain the difference in the results. Hopefully this matches up with what you found! I think this suggests birth order effects are social rather than biological. So What Causes Birth Order Effects? Based on this analysis, it seems unlikely they are biological. Based on my very weak sub-analysis, and on their tendency to decay with larger age gaps, it seems they have more to do with the social presence of a sibling in the house than with any changes in parenting style (ie your parents learn to parent differently). Two explanations that satisfy both those criteria: Parents are able to devote their full attention to parenting their first child, but only half of their attention to parenting their second. Firstborns get more quality time with their parents during the first few years of childhood.

Inline links: Bucky’s analysis

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023

August 26, 2022 · Original source

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA Contact: Jarred Filmer, jarred[dot]filmer[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 7:00 PM Location: 52 McCaul Street Taringa (house) Coordinates: 5R4JFXXQ+P8 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We used to meet once a month years ago, but now just meet whenever there's a Meetups Everywhere :) Notes: Snacks will be provided but dinner will not be, would recommend eating before you come CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA Contact: Andy Bachler, Andy[dot]Bachler[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Wednesday, August 31, 5:30 PM Location: Badger & Co pub at ANU. Central location, parking free after 5pm, might be loud, sorry! Coordinates: 4RPFP4FC+34 Event link(s): LessWrong, Eventbrite Notes: Parking area just to the north of the pub, over the river, is free after 5pm! GOLD COAST (SOUTH), AUSTRALIA Contact: Lerancan, lerancan[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 11, 2:00 PM Location: A picnic table, Wyberba Street Reserve, Tugun Coordinates: 5R3MVF5W+555 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Email me in case of bad weather/you can't find me/you can't make that time etc. MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Contact: Ryan, xgravityx[at]hotmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 2, 6:00 PM Location: Beer Deluxe Federation Square Coordinates: 4RJ65XM9+3Q Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We're officially the Less Wrong Melbourne social meetup group, though our members include the broader rationalist community. We meet once a month for casual discussion (and beers for those so inclined). Please join our Facebook group to see the meeting invite; there you will see a WhatsApp group link - please join that group too to ensure timely updates in case of changes (Facebook notifications don't work reliably for this). Notes: Please RSVP to the meeting invite on the Facebook group so that I can make an appropriate booking. PERTH, AUSTRALIA Contact: Madge, madgech[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 25, 2:00 PM Location: Russell Square, Northbridge, corner of Shenton and Aberdeen St. There will be some sort of ACX meetup sign. Coordinates: 4PWQ3V34+W6 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: I run one meetup per year, if someone else wants to take over please do Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or Facebook SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Contact: Eliot, Redeliot[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 15, 6:00 PM Location: City of Sydney rsl, lvl 2 in the fishbowl Coordinates: 4RRH46F4+983 Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: We meet monthly WOLLONGONG, AUSTRALIA Contact: Jason, jason[dot]bowkettblogs[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 12:00 PM Location: UOW Library Coordinates: 4RQGHVVH+69 Event link(s): LessWrong CHENGDU, CHINA Contact: Alex, acx[dot]chengdu[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 15, 7:00 PM Location: Chef Wenwu Hot & Spicy Jianghu Food (Yulin store)/文武大厨·热辣江湖菜(玉林店). I (a foreigner) will be wearing a green shirt. Coordinates: 8P26J3C5+462 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP at the above email address, I will give you my Wechat contact if you're interested in attending. Open to time/date/location changes, so let me know if the proposed event doesn't work for you! Can be a bilingual event; all welcome. 有双语交流的可能性。如果想来的话，请提前发给我个电子邮件。 HONG KONG Contact: Nathan, nathan[at]xevarion[dot]org Time: Saturday, September 10, 1:00 PM Location: The Catalyst, 2 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan. Big wooden door. Coordinates: 862M74PW+6XP Event link(s): LessWrong BANGALORE, INDIA Contact: Nihal, propwash[at]duck[dot]com, Discord: propwash#4648 Time: Sunday, September 18, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo Coffea, Church Street Coordinates: 7J4VXJF4+PR Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We're the longest active group in Asia — we've been meeting monthly for the last 4 years, discussing ACX posts, LW content with a diverse and friendly group of people. Check our website for more info. Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong to help me be better prepared. HYDERABAD, INDIA Contact: Vatsal, vmehra[at]pm[dot]me, Whatsapp: +919944430856 (username: Vim) Time: Sunday, September 11, 5:00 PM Location: The Weekend Cafe, Plot No D, 3, Vikrampuri Colony, beside vac's bakery, Vikrampuri Colony, Lane, Secunderabad, Telangana, 500015, India Coordinates: 7J9WFF4X+5P Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Our rationality meetup group has been around for about 3 months and we discuss articles and exercises (eg. CFAR handbook) that can help us improve epistemic and instrumental rationality. MUMBAI, INDIA Contact: PB, e2y94n1nv[at]relay[dot]firefox[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 9, 4:00 PM Location: Jamjar Diner, Versova Coordinates: 7JFJ4RM6+5W Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or via email so I can plan activities accordingly. NEW DELHI, INDIA Contact: Suryansh Tyagi, suryanshtyagiphone[at]gmail[dot]com, WhatsApp/phone +919997299972 Time: Sunday, September 11, 5:00 PM Location: Select CityWalk Mall, Saket. Where inside the mall depends on the number of people interested. Coordinates: 7JWVG6H9+8H Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please either send me an email or message me on WhatsApp if you want to attend. Any suggestions/changes are welcome. UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA Contact: Shailendra Paliwal, acx-meetup-2022[at]shailendra[dot]me Time: Saturday, September 10, 7:00 PM Location: We'll be at Doodh Talai near Pichola Lake and I'll be wearing a gray t-shirt carrying a sign ACX Meetup Coordinates: 7JPMHM9M+HG Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so that I can plan ahead UBUD, BALI, INDONESIA Contact: William Ubud, Napaproject[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, August 30, 6:00 PM Location: PARQ Ubud Coordinates: 6P3QG789+F7 Event link(s): LessWrong TOKYO, JAPAN Contact: Harold Godsoe, hgodsoe[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 8, 10:00 AM Location: Near Nakameguro station - RSVP for details Coordinates: 8Q7XJPV2+QFP Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Notes: ACX Tokyo meets monthly since Sept 2021. Our meetups are in English, so far. To join in, feel free to get in touch in any of the many ways to do so (email, Meetup.com). It's useful to be in contact before coming to an event, to help with that first leap of faith. KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA Contact: Yi-Yang, yi[dot]yang[dot]chua[at]gmail[dot]com, LessWrong profile Time: Saturday, September 17, 2:00 PM Location: I'll be in Lisette's Bangsar, which is a 5-minute walk from Bangsar LRT. I'll be wearing a pale green t-shirt and carrying an ACX sign. Coordinates: 6PM34MHH+VW Event link(s): LessWrong AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND Contact: Jonathan De Wet, jonpdw[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 6:30 PM Location: 32 Stanley Ave Milford, Auckland Coordinates: 4VMP6QH4+86 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Notes: It’s a dinner party! Please RSVP on FB so I know how much food to make DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND Contact: Gavin, bisga673[at]student[dot]otago[dot]ac[dot]nz Time: Saturday, September 3, 3:00 PM Location: Picnic tables outside of St. David's lecture theatre on Otago University campus. I'll make a sign with ACX meetup. Coordinates: 4V6G4GP7+GM5 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: There is no Dunedin group as far as I'm aware of, but I'd be keen to meet other likeminded people and organise group hangouts occasionally. WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND Contact: Ben W, benwve[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, September 27, 5:30 PM Location: Rutherford House, Bunny Street, Wellington. Room MZ05, which is on the mezzanine floor Coordinates: 4VCPPQCH+FGC Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: We're running the event this time in partnership with Effective Altruism Wellington LAPU LAPU, CEBU, PHILIPPINES Contact: Dave, tokkolizard[at]tutanota[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 4, 2:00 PM Location: Starbucks in Mactan Newtown, there will be a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: 7Q268257+4F Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP by mail so I know if I need to set up a bigger meeting place SINGAPORE Contact: Jonathan Ng, jonathan[dot]ng1[at]gmail[dot]com, Telegram @derpy Time: Tuesday, September 6, 6:30 PM Location: Tanjong Pagar MRT gantry, I'll be wearing the dark blue EA Global 2022 jumper Coordinates: 6PH57RGW+J8 Event link(s): LessWrong

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL Contact: [Update on 2025-02-03: Removed at organizers’s request] Time: Saturday, September 10, 2:00 PM Location: Ibirapuera Park in Praca do Porquinho. I will be wearing a white t-shirt, be very tall and have a sign. Coordinates: 588MC85Q+6X Event link(s): LessWrong BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA Contact: Dan P, shorty[dot]george[dot]productions[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 18, 4:00 PM Location: Illy Cafe, Kr 15 with Park Virrey. Sign will say ACX Coordinates: 67P7MWFW+3F7 Event link(s): LessWrong MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA Contact: HP, hp-med-acx[at]proton[dot]me Time: Sunday, September 18, 5:00 PM Location: Hija Mia Nomada Coordinates: 67R66C7G+8V Event link(s): LessWrong MÉRIDA, MEXICO Contact: Mati Roy, mathieu[dot]roy[dot]37[at]gmail[dot]com, Facebook Time: Sunday, August 28, 5:00 PM Location: Parque Gardenia, C. 65-A, Residencial Floresta, 97309 Mérida, Yuc. Coordinates: 76HG2C7X+8F Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: Facebook group Notes: Please let me know if you'll be coming. MEXICO CITY, MEXICO Contact: Calcifer, fagarrido[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: Francisco (Mexico City)#0227 Time: Saturday, September 10, 4:00 PM Location: Comedor de los Milagros. I'll be wearing a green shirt and will carry a 'ACX/CDMX Meetup' sign. Coordinates: 76F2CR6P+37 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We are a rather new group. We've been meeting sporadically since April, and we recently settled on a formal twice-per-month frequency. We have a WhatsApp group which we use mostly for coordination purposes. Send me an email if you want in. Notes: If possible, RSVP on Less Wrong to get a sense of how many people to expect. Feel free to come if you haven't RSVP'd, though! PUNTA DEL ESTE, URUGUAY Contact: Manuel, acx[at]maraoz[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 5:00 PM Location: Borneo Coffee, patio del fondo. Ruta 10, 20001 La Barra, Departamento de Maldonado, Uruguay Coordinates: 48Q734PQ+58 Event link(s): LessWrong

Inline links: 588MC85Q+6X, LessWrong, 67P7MWFW+3F7, LessWrong, 67R66C7G+8V, LessWrong, Facebook, 76HG2C7X+8F, LessWrong, Facebook event, Facebook group, 76F2CR6P+37, LessWrong, 48Q734PQ+58, LessWrong

HUNTSVILLE, AL Contact: Mike, mjhouse[at]protonmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 3:00 PM Location: Barnes & Noble – 300 The Bridge St #100, Huntsville, AL 35806. I'll be in the cafe with a sign that says ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: 866MP88H+53 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Barnes & Noble has an area for little kids. If you want to bring a service animal, that's probably fine, but I doubt they allow pets. PHOENIX, AZ Contact: Ben Morin, benjamin[dot]j[dot]morin[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 15, 1:00 PM Location: Thirsty Lion Pub in Tempe. I will have a table with an ACX sign. Coordinates: 8559FVVQ+6C Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: This will be our 5th meetup (started during the meetups everywhere last year). Notes: Please email if interested to be added to the email list, even if you can't make this event BELMONT, CA Contact: Moshe Z., belmont-acx[at]devskillup[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 4, 2:00 PM Location: Twin Pines Park, Picnic Tables. The table will have some sign saying 'ACX Meetup' on it. Coordinates: 849VGP8C+RRG Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: You can join the mailing list here. BERKELEY, CA Contact: Scott Time: Sunday, September 18, 1:00 PM Location: Rose Garden Inn, a rationalist event space at 2740 Telegraph Ave. Come in through the front gate on Telegraph. Coordinates: 849VVP5R+X7V Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: The Bay rationality community has a mailing list, a Discord server, and a Facebook group. There are dinner meetups every Thursday at 7 PM in the East Bay, and occasional meetups in SF and South Bay. FILLMORE, CA Contact: Ryan, wiserd[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: Wiserd#0906 Time: Saturday, October 1st, 6:00 PM Location: It's my house. There are a bunch of plants on the porch and garbage bins in the driveway. Coordinates: 856393VX+VQ Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP to my email or Discord. Kids and dogs are welcome in the back yard. Full vaccinations (on the honor system) and masks required. GRASS VALLEY, CA Contact: Max Harms, raelifin[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 2:00 PM Location: Condon Park by the prospector statue. In the case of rain we'll change the location to a residence, so RSVP to get updated! Coordinates: 84FW6W8H+C5 Event link(s): LessWrong IRVINE, CA Contact: Nick C, cohenskijanuary1[at]mail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 1, 2:00 PM Location: University Town Center Coordinates: 8554M526+7H Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet once a month at the same location. LOS ANGELES, CA Contact: Vishal Prasad (koreindian), vprasadcs[at]gmail[dot]com, Contact me on Discord. I am "Vishal" on the server. Time: Saturday, October 8, 6:30 PM Location: 11841 Wagner St., Culver City, CA 90039 Coordinates: 8553XHWM+GP Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet weekly every Wednesday. We have been around for over 8 years. We discuss articles, watch movies, lift weights. We have a Discord server, a LessWrong group, and a website! Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so I know how much food to get. NEWPORT BEACH, CA Contact: Michael M, michaelmichalchik[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, August 27, 2:00 PM Location: Picnic tables next to 1900 Port Carlow community clubhouse. The park is verdant and pleasant and easy to access. Free street parking nearby. In case of bad weather, we have a couple of near by places to relocate to. Coordinates: 8554J48R+WCX Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We will meet most Saturdays at 2pm until whenever. There will be short suggested readings and question most weeks to spur conversation, but they are optional. Each week we will ask if people have had something happen recently that surprised them or changed the way they looked at the world. Something that should or did update their priors. Participation is optional. Notes: Its a public park with tables and BBQ's so you can bring food and well behaved pets. We may regularly go on casual walks in the surrounding area. SAN DIEGO, CA Contact: Julius, julius[dot]simonelli[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 9, 3:00 PM Location: We will meet up in Bird Park. I will be wearing a red shirt. Coordinates: 8544PVQ8+Q7 Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: Join our Discord server SAN FRANCISCO, CA Contact: Derek Pankaew, derekpankaew[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 18, 11:00 AM Location: We'll between in the Panhandle, between Ashbury and Masonic, with a 'ACX' sign. Coordinates: 849VQHC3+V8 Event link(s): LessWrong SAN JOSE, CA Contact: David Friedman, ddfr[at]daviddfriedman[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 2:00 PM Location: 3806 Williams Rd, San Jose, CA 95117 Coordinates: 849W825J+6P Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Before Covid we hosted every month or two. No structure, just conversation and food. We feed everyone who is still there at dinner time. We have done it once or twice since Covid. I have an email list of interested people. Notes: Kids are welcome. Please RSVP to my email so I will have a rough count of how many we are feeding. SAN MARCOS, CA Contact: Eric F., EricF14159[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 25, 2:00 PM Location: Hollandia Park Soccer Field. At the tables near the top parking lot. Coordinates: 85544VW4+RV Event link(s): LessWrong BOULDER, CO Contact: Josh Sacks, josh[dot]sacks+acx[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 16, 3:00 PM Location: 9191 Tahoe Ln, Boulder, CO 80301 Coordinates: 85GP2V96+JQ Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so we know ~ how many people to expect! CARBONDALE, CO Contact: Nick, naj[at]njarboe[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 1:00 PM Location: Sopris Park - Center covered picnic tables - blue shirt with ACX sign on table Coordinates: 85FJ9QXP+QMF Event link(s): LessWrong DENVER, CO Contact: Ian Philips, iansphilips[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: palebone#2796 Time: Sunday, October 2, 11:00 AM Location: We'll be in the backyard patio of St. Mark's Coffee House. I'll wear a white shirt with (my brothers') baby faces on it and have a brown hat on. Coordinates: 85FQP2VP+9R Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet typically 4 times a year. LAKEWOOD, CO Contact: Steven Zuber, stevenjzuber[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Wednesday, October 5, 7:00 PM Location: We meet in the clubhouse located in this townhome community: 8769 W Cornell Ave Lakewood, CO 80227 Coordinates: 85FPMW64+MW Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: We meet the first Wednesday of every month. Informal, casual atmosphere with occasional presentations by people. Notes: Check the Meetup page or Facebook group for updates. FAIRFIELD, CT Contact: Justin Barclay, barclay[dot]justin[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 10:00 AM Location: South Pine Creek Beach. I'll set up near the lifeguard stand. Coordinates: 87H84PCH+CM Event link(s): LessWrong MANCHESTER, CT Contact: Mike, park-mike[at]outlook[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 5:00 PM Location: Near flagpole on top of hill Coordinates: 87H9QFFH+J7 Event link(s): LessWrong NEW HAVEN, CT Contact: RM, acx[dot]meetup[dot]nhv[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 18, 12:30 PM Location: Cross Campus (Yale University), New Haven, CT 06511. We'll be on the grass on the northern half of Cross Campus, closest to Sterling Memorial Library. I'll be wearing an orange shirt. Coordinates: 87H9836C+8VG Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Feel free to bring friends! The vibe will be welcoming and relaxed, and you can stay for any amount of time. Please email me if you're thinking about coming so I can get the right number of Insomnia cookies! WASHINGTON, DC Contact: John Bennett, WashingtonDCAstralCodexTen[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 6:00 PM Location: Froggy Bottom Pub: 2021 K Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20006 Coordinates: 87C4WX33+3J Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: The Washington DC ACX/SSC group has been active since the first Meetups Everywhere in 2017. We have Monthly Socials downtown, hikes, board game days, and other cultural events. We're looking to spin up more rationality Dojo-type events with nearby groups in the coming months. Notes: We've rented out the Froggy Bottom Pub for the night, dinner and soft drinks will be provided. Alcohol available for purchase if desired, but no purchases are required. Metered street parking on nearby blocks is free after 6:30. Closest Metros are Farragut West and Farragut North. CAPE CORAL / FORT MYERS, FL Contact: Shawn Spilman, shawn[dot]spilman[at]outlook[dot]com, 508 655 8123 Time: Sunday, October 2, 1:00 PM Location: 929 SW 54th Ln, Cape Coral, FL 33914 Coordinates: 76RWH224+44 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: RSVP via email. I can be flexible about the date. GULF BREEZE / PENSACOLA, FL Contact: Christian, christian[dot]h[dot]williams[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Wednesday, October 12, 7:30 PM Location: The Bridge Bar - 33 Gulf Breeze Pkwy A, Gulf Breeze, FL 32561 Coordinates: 862J9RCF+G6 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP by emailing me. Thanks! If I don't hear from anyone, I won't be there. I work for Metaculus, but promise not to talk your ear off about forecasting. (Unless you want it talked off.) MIAMI, FL Contact: Eric Magro, eric135033[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: eric135#4943 Time: Sunday, September 11, 5:00 PM Location: Buckminster Fuller Fly's Eye Dome 140 NE 39th St #001, Miami, FL 33137 ----- Look for a paper sign on a table that says ACX MEETUP west of the dome. Coordinates: 76QXRR65+V2 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Miami ACX started in 2017. Our official meetup happens monthly in either Miami or Broward. There are activities happening on a weekly basis from Miami to Palm Beach. We have a Facebook group, Discord server, and Meetup.com group. ORLANDO, FL Contact: Noah Topper, noah[dot]topper[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 16, 7:00 PM Location: 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL. We'll be meeting up at UCF's pavilion near Garages A and I. I'll have a pretty ACX Meetup sign. Coordinates: 76WWJQ2X+82 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We try to meet up once a month, so far they've just been casual social meetups with natural discussions of rationality topics. Here's our Discord link :) Notes: RSVPs on LessWrong would be greatly appreciated. :) TALLAHASSEE, FL Contact: JF, jf19o[at]fsu[dot]edu Time: Monday, August 29, 2:00 PM Location: Landis, FSU. I will be wearing a black shirt Coordinates: 862QCPR3+PX Event link(s): LessWrong ATHENS, GA Contact: Dallon, knox[dot]dallon[dot]a[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: leonard#4208 Time: Saturday, October 15, 3:00 PM Location: Hendershots on Prince Avenue Coordinates: 865RXJ68+2W Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: I might bring some board games ATLANTA, GA Contact: Steve French, steve[at]digitaltoolfactory[dot]net Time: Saturday, September 17, 2:00 PM Location: Bold Monk Brewing - 1737 Ellsworth Industrial Blvd NW suite d-1 · Atlanta, GA (upstairs – look for the ACX Atlanta sign) Coordinates: 865QRH2F+V8 Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: We've been in existence for four years – we have a dedicated crew and a very active Slack group Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or Meetup.com HONOLULU, HI Contact: Matt Popovich, mattpopovich[at]outlook[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 4:00 PM Location: We'll meet at Magic Island at Ala Moana Beach Park, 1201 Ala Moana Blvd, Honolulu, HI 96814. From the parking lot, walk along the left side of the peninsula out toward Magic Island Lagoon. We're usually near the end of the peninsula, somewhere around the bathroom building. Look for the large 'ACX' sign. Coordinates: 73H475M3+JP Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: Honolulu Rationality hosts discussion meetups about twice a month in Ala Moana Beach Park. Check us out on our website BOISE, ID Contact: Julia and John, jae[dot]miomu[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Friday, October 7, 6:00 PM Location: Old Timer's Shelter in Ann Morrison Park. I will have an ACX sign. Coordinates: 85M5JQ6P+96 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP and feel free to bring kids. CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, IL Contact: Ben, cu[dot]acx[dot]meetups[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 9, 7:00 PM Location: Siebel Center for Computer Science, Room 4403 Coordinates: 86GH4Q7G+H8F Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Discord server Notes: RSVPs are appreciated but not at all required. You can RSVP by email or by pinging me in the Discord server. Suggested entrance is the East side of the building (see Coordinates) - we'll try to make sure at least that door is unlocked, but if it isn't then ping us on email or Discord. CHICAGO, IL Contact: Todd, info[at]chicagorationality[dot]com, https://chicagorationality.com/ Time: Sunday, September 18, 1:00 PM Location: Grant Park - North side of Balbo between the tracks and Columbus Coordinates: 86HJV9FH+84 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Chicago Rationality does a monthly discussion meetup (typically the first Saturday of the month) and a monthly social meetup (typically the third weekend of the month) Notes: Sign up for our email list to be notified of future meetups EVANSTON, IL Contact: Uzair, uzairq93[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 1, 7:00 PM Location: 626 Church Street, Evanston IL 60201 Coordinates: 86JJ28X9+5WQ Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: The venue is a pub but it's really more of a restaurant, big long tables available so space should be fine and non drinkers shouldn't feel too out of place. BLOOMINGTON, IN Contact: Avery, acxbloomington[at]fastmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 16, 2:00 PM Location: Switchyard Park. Will be at one of the tables near the Rogers Street parking lot. I will bring a cardboard sign that says “ACX”. Coordinates: 86FM4FX6+4Q Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We met last year for Meetups Everywhere and it was fun! Here's a link to our Discord. Notes: You can RSVP via Discord or email, but you are encouraged to show up even if you did not RSVP! WEST LAFAYETTE, IN Contact: NR, mapreader4[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 1:00 PM Location: 1275 1st Street, West Lafayette, IN 47906. We'll be in the south of the Earhart Hall lobby (not the dining court) near the piano, and I will be wearing a green shirt and carrying a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: 86GMC3GG+728 Event link(s): LessWrong LEXINGTON, KY Contact: Nathan, nwculley[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 7:00 PM Location: Blue Stallion Brewing. 610 W. 3rd St., Lexington, KY 40508. We will have a sign indicating we are the ACX meetup. Coordinates: 86CQ3F4X+VF Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet 1-2 times a month to talk about ACX, books, memes, etc., often over drinks and board games. NEW ORLEANS, LA Contact: Blake, blake[at]philosophers[dot]group Time: Sunday, September 4, 11:11 AM Location: Petite Clouet Cafe. Look for the group with an iPad that has a People’s Pint sticker. Coordinates: 76XFXX73+8R Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Website Notes: Hybrid in-person and online, video link sent weekly. Email for the link. BOSTON, MA Contact: Robi Rahman, robirahman94[at]gmail[dot]com, 7039818526 Time: Saturday, September 10, 5:00 PM Location: Boston Common, at the Parkman Bandstand gazebo Coordinates: 87JC9W3M+PR Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: Mailing list, Facebook group, Meetup.com Notes: We'll be providing food at the meetup, and giving out free books related to ACX, rationality, and effective altruism. Email the hosts if you'd like a particular book or you have any dietary restrictions. Our group is also doing a tour of the JFK Presidential Library on September 9, you’re welcome to join! NORTHAMPTON, MA Contact: Alex, alex[at]alexliebowitz[dot]com Time: Friday, September 9, 6:00 PM Location: The Deck, 125A Pleasant St., Northampton MA 01096. The official address is bizarre and inaccurate; it's the outdoor dining part of a group of bars & restaurants in a former rail station... a whole block away from Pleasant St. The simplest way to get to The Deck is to enter The Platform, one of the other restaurants, by its street entrance around 36 Strong Ave., here (make sure to look at street view). Go inside and ask them to show you to The Deck. We'll have a sign. Coordinates: 87J9899F+H7H Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We started in the 2018 Meetups Everywhere and is still going strong. We aim to meet about once every two weeks. At most meetups we get about 5-7 people out of a rotation of 15-20; Meetups Everywhere and other special events tend to bring in a few more than usual. We're a totally social meetup with no 'format' or suggested readings. Although it's not rare for us to touch on ACX articles and related topics, the conversation varies wildly, and you are welcome even if you're the most occasional ACX reader. Notes: We have a (not very active) Discord where you can DM me or post on a public channel. I'm most responsive by email. There is a small chance we'll have to change the location to somewhere else in Northampton. Please check the Less Wrong or Facebook posts on or after August 26 to get the final word on location. BALTIMORE, MD Contact: Rivka, rivka[at]adrusi[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 11, 7:00 PM Location: UMBC outside of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building, on the north side. I will have a sign that says ACX meetup. Parking is free on the weekends. Edit: Rain is forecasted; if it’s raining, we will be inside of the Performing Arts building, on the ground floor just inside the entrance. Coordinates: 87F5774P+53 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet Sundays at 7pm — half are in person and half are virtual. Notes: There will be pizza and drinks DETROIT, MI Contact: Matt Arnold, matt[dot]mattarn[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, September 20, 7:00 PM Location: Tenacity Craft, 8517 2nd Ave, Detroit, MI 48202 Coordinates: 86JR9WG9+R6 Event link(s): LessWrong MINNEAPOLIS, MN Contact: Timothy, tmbond[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 1:00 PM Location: Meet at the picnic tables near the southeast corner of Powderhorn Park - the ones by the parking lot. I will be wearing a green Google t-shirt and have a sign that says ACX. Coordinates: 86P8WPRW+76 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: I will bring some snacks (but not a full lunch, so eat before or bring something if you'll be that hungry). Please RSVP on LessWrong. KANSAS CITY, MO Contact: Alex, alex[dot]hedtke[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 16, 6:30 PM Location: We will be in the courtyard above Whole Foods (which is also an apartment complex). You can enter through the apartment lobby, located on Oak Street. We will have runners shepherding people from the entrance up to the courtyard. Coordinates: 86F72CM8+RR Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com SAINT LOUIS, MO Contact: JohnBuridan, littlejohnburidan[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 8, 1:00 PM Location: Lily Pond Shelter, Tower Grove Park, St. Louis Coordinates: 86CFJP4R+XV Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: BYOB WEST PLAINS, MO Contact: Liam, liamhession[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 12:00 PM Location: 10/40 Coffee, 24 Court Square, West Plains, MO Coordinates: 868CP4HW+CV Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Hoping to get anyone from around the Ozark region DURHAM, NC Contact: Will Jarvis, willdjarvis[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 8, 7:30 PM Location: Ponysaurus Brewing Company, 219 Hood St, Durham Coordinates: 8773X4Q3+QW Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet weekly! We also have a Discord LAKEWOOD, NJ Contact: Ben L, mywebdev3[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 29, 8:30 PM Location: TBD Event link(s): LessWrong MORRISTOWN, NJ Contact: Matt, matt[dot]brooks[at]impactmarkets[dot]io, Discord: Matt B#0216 Time: Saturday, October 1, 2:00 PM Location: 10 N Park Pl, Morristown, NJ 07960 (at the center of the Morristown Green) Coordinates: 87G7QGW9+RJ Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: This is the first meetup, come be a founding member of the Northern NJ ACX/EA/LW group! PRINCETON, NJ Contact: Danny K, dskumpf[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 1, 3:00 PM Location: Palmer Square, Princeton, NJ 08540. On the green right outside The Bent Spoon and Rojo's Roastary, near the big tree. I'll have some sort of ACX Meetup sign! Coordinates: 87G7982Q+2CP Event link(s): LessWrong LAS VEGAS, NV Contact: Jonathan Ray, ray[dot]jonathan[dot]w[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 11, 11:45 AM Location: At El Segundo Sol restaurant with giant ACX MEETUP signs Coordinates: 85864RHJ+3H Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We meet regularly and mostly just socialize. We have a new Discord server. RENO, NV Contact: Steven, stevenl451[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: Steeven#7407 Time: Friday, September 2, 5:30 PM Location: We'll be in Crissie Caughlin Park, near the tables and the swing set Coordinates: 85F2G46W+FG Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Feel free to bring kids/dogs and please RSVP on LessWrong if you are going BUFFALO, NY Contact: George Herold, ggherold[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 11, 1:00 PM Location: 932 Welch Rd. Java Center, NY 14082 Coordinates: 87J3W467+8P Notes: Last-minute location change! LONG ISLAND, NY Contact: Gabe, gabeaweil[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, October 27, 7:00 PM Location: Whales Tale in Northport Coordinates: 87G8VJRW+99 Event link(s): LessWrong NEW YORK CITY, NY Contact: Jasmine, jasminermj[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 11, 4:00 PM Location: Pavillion @ Rockefeller Park, Warren St / River Terrace Coordinates: 87G7PX9M+4J3 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: OBNYC has a Discord and a Google Group; the Google Group is the main mailing list we use for events NEWBURGH, NY Contact: Pedro David Bonilla, proportionatetoevidence[at]gmail[dot]com, Cell 8452001681 Time: Saturday, September 24, 10:00 AM Location: Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 1421 NY-300, Newburgh, NY 12550 Coordinates: 87H7GWCH+GF Event link(s): LessWrong ROCHESTER, NY Contact: Skivverus, skivverus[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: Skivverus#5915 Time: Saturday, October 8, 1:00 PM Location: 4870 Culver Road; will be wearing a polo shirt, jeans, and glasses, and may or may not have figured out a sign due to just getting back from honeymoon. Look for a pair of parrots, one white, one green with a yellow/orange head. Coordinates: 87M46FM6+Q5P Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Venue very near amusement park; non-bathroom, non-parking amenities are therefore available but not free. Plan accordingly. Not particularly attached to specific location named, just happen to live reasonably close to there; alternative suggestions acceptable. Canadian visitors also welcome should your logistics permit; airport transportation available. RSVP via Discord preferred, but email will also work. CLEVELAND, OH Contact: Jack Zhang, LukeZhao9[at]protonmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 1:00 PM Location: Picnic tables at Wade Oval (university circle) Coordinates: 86HWG96Q+GC5 Event link(s): LessWrong COLUMBUS, OH Contact: Daniel, daniel[dot]m[dot]adamiak[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 3:00 PM Location: Jeffrey Park - Clinton Shelter. I will be wearing a red shirt. Coordinates: 86FVX3C3+QF Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet once a month. We discuss EA, AI and other two letter initialisms. Occasionally we go for walks in local grottos and nature trails. Notes: Email me if you want to be added to the mailing list to receive any updates or future invites. RSVPing is appreciated. TOLEDO, OH Contact: Scout, scout[dot]sivar[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 12:00 PM Location: Black Kite Coffee Coordinates: 86HRMCCV+9R Event link(s): LessWrong OKLAHOMA CITY, OK Contact: bean, battleshipbean[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 9, 1:00 PM Location: Edmond Public Library/Shannon Miller Park. I will be wearing a hat that says USS Iowa on it. Coordinates: 8674MG3C+MW Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Had four people last year and a good time, moved to Edmond because a lot of us are up here. ALBANY, OR Contact: Kenan (he/him), kbitikofer[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 1, 2:00 PM Location: Bowman Park, Albany, Oregon. In or near the shelter. I will wear a bright red shirt and carry a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: 84PRJWR7+XC6 Event link(s): LessWrong CORVALLIS, OR Contact: Ethan Ashkie, ethanashkie[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Wednesday, September 7, 6:00 PM Location: Common Fields, in the reserved outdoor seating near the entrance Coordinates: 84PRHP5P+VQ Event link(s): LessWrong EUGENE, OR Contact: Ben Smith, benjsmith[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Wednesday, August 31, 7:00 PM Location: The Barn Light, 924 Willamette St, Eugene 97401 Coordinates: 84PR2WX4+VV Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so I know how much pizza to get, but if you forget, don't worry about it, we want you to come along anyway PORTLAND, OR Contact: Sam F Celarek, support[at]pearcommunity[dot]com, 513-432-3310, Discord: Sam Celarek#2845 Time: Friday, September 9, 5:00 PM Location: 205 NW 4th Ave Coordinates: 84QVG8FG+V4 Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: Portland Effective Altruism and Rationality is very active. We have book clubs, bi-weekly AI safety meet-ups, bi-weekly topical meet-ups, bi-weekly socials, and have an active Discord. Notes: We would prefer you RSVP on Meetup.com a week beforehand so that we can get the right amount of food! HARRISBURG, PA Contact: Phil, acxharrisburg[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 2:00 PM Location: Ever Grain Brewing Co, 4444 Carlisle Pike, Camp Hill, PA 17011 - We will be sitting at one of the picnic tables outside with an ACX MEETUP sign Coordinates: 87G562QQ+8P Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Small monthly meetup group based out of Harrisburg - celebrating 1 year of actuality! You can see more of our events on LessWrong. INDIANA, PA Contact: Eric, ericindianapa[at]gmail[dot]com, 717-256-2717 Time: Saturday, September 24, 11:00 AM Location: Caffè Amadeus in downtown Indiana, PA. I will have a sign with 'ACX Meetup' on one of the tables. Coordinates: 87G2JRFX+48 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP via email or text message so I know how many to expect. PHILADELPHIA, PA Contact: Wes and Diana, rationalphilly[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 22, 6:30 PM Location: The Philadelphia Ethical Society, 1906 Rittenhouse Square. The meeting room is in the basement, look for the signs. Coordinates: 87F6WRXG+FQ Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We tend to meet in downtown Philly on the last Thursday of the month. We're aiming to make the Ethical Society our new steady location. We have many links: Discord, Google Calendar, Facebook, Meetup, Google Group Notes: We'll be ordering food from a local restaurant, so no need to eat first. BYOB PITTSBURGH, PA Contact: Justin, pghacx[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 2:00 PM Location: Westinghouse Shelter @ Schenley Park (W Circuit Rd near Schenley Dr). We have the outdoor shelter reserved, so light rain shouldn't be a problem, but in the event of extreme weather, we may relocate indoors (our default 'contingency indoor location' is Crazy Mocha Coffee on 2100 Murray Ave in Squirrel Hill). Coordinates: 87G2C3Q4+773 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet monthly-ish for general discussion and chit-chat, email me if you'd like to be notified of future meetups. STATE COLLEGE, PA Contact: John Slow, auk480[at]psu[dot]edu Time: Thursday, September 8, 5:00 PM Location: Old Main. I will be carrying an ACX meetup sign. Coordinates: 87G4Q4WP+HV Event link(s): LessWrong SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO Contact: Dan Gelfarb, danielgelfarb[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 1:00 PM Location: Lote 23, back corner under the tents. I will be wearing a blue shirt with a sign that says ACX meetup on it. Coordinates: 77CMCWVM+W32 Event link(s): LessWrong PROVIDENCE, RI Contact: James Bailey, feanor1600[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 4:00 PM Location: Prospect Terrace park, to the right of the Roger Williams statue Coordinates: 87HCRHJV+24 Event link(s): LessWrong SIOUX FALLS, SD Contact: S. C., villainsplus[at]protonmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 2, 5:00 PM Location: 410 E 26th St, Sioux Falls, SD 57105 - the pavillion on the west side of McKennan Park, or the tables just south of it if I can't book it. I'll be the guy with the grill. Coordinates: 86M5G7JH+W57 Event link(s): LessWrong MEMPHIS, TN Contact: Michael, michael[at]postlibertarian[dot]com Time: Monday, September 5, 1:00 PM Location: French Truck Coffee at Crosstown Concourse, Central Atrium 1350 Concourse Ave, Memphis, TN 38104. We will be at one of the many tables near French Truck Coffee and I will have a sign that says ACX MEETUP. Coordinates: 867F5X2P+QHC Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet about every month or so. We've been around since 2019 but only regularly since mid 2021 due to the pandemic. We have a Discord server. NASHVILLE, TN Contact: Ellen, enwiegand[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 1, 11:00 AM Location: OneCity Nashville (8 City Blvd, Nashville, TN 37209), next to the volleyball courts. I'll have a pink ballcap that says SPINSTER on it. Coordinates: 868M552H+XW Event link(s): LessWrong AUSTIN, TX Contact: Silas Barta, sbarta[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 8, 12:00 PM Location: 4001 N Lamar, Austin Texas, park by Central Market near stone tables and tents Coordinates: 86248746+8C Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Austin LessWrong has a weekly focused discussion, a weekly social mixer, a weekly online book club, and a monthly movie night. Been around since 2011. Notes: Location may change as we are talking to other venues BRYAN/COLLEGE STATION, TX Contact: Kenny, easwaran[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 9, 5:00 PM Location: Back patio of Torchy's Tacos at Texas and New Main. I'll have a yellow umbrella and pinkish/purple hair Coordinates: JMFC+4J Event link(s): LessWrong DALLAS, TX Contact: Ethan Morse, ethan[dot]morse97[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: ethanmorse#5255 Time: Sunday, September 11, 12:00 PM Location: Union, 3705 Cedar Springs Rd, Dallas, TX 75219. We'll be in the upstairs conference room. Coordinates: 8645R55R+9M9 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so I know how much food to get HOUSTON, TX Contact: Eric Magro, eric135033[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 18, 4:00 PM Location: Empire Cafe, 1732 Westheimer Rd, Houston, TX 77098 ---- Look for a table with an ACX MEETUP sign. Coordinates: 76X6PHVW+5H Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: There are meetups every week. We have a Discord and a Facebook group. WACO, TX Contact: Mike, BaylorACX[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 1, 1:00 PM Location: Cameron Park, picnic tables next to Jacob's Ladder Coordinates: 8634HVG2+V9 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please email me if you're thinking about attending! Would love to start an ACX community here :) SALT LAKE CITY, UT Contact: Ross Richey (aka Jeremiah), wearenotsaved[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 8, 3:00 PM Location: Liberty Park near the ChargePoint stations Coordinates: 85GCP4WF+VJ Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet every other month, we do book clubs and movie nights as well. Notes: Will be outdoors. If the weather looks bad, email event organizer to check on location. CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA Contact: RL, effectivealtruismatuva[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 4, 5:00 PM Location: 12 Rotunda Drive Charlottesville, VA 22903 - We’ll meet at the picnic tables across the street from The Virginian. There will be an ACX sign. Coordinates: 87C32FPX+3H4 Event link(s): LessWrong LYNCHBURG, VA Contact: Craig, craigbdaniel[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 4:00 PM Location: Three Roads Brewing - I will be wearing a purple t-shirt and will place an ""ACX"" card on the table Coordinates: 8792CV65+5G NORFOLK, VA Contact: Willa, walambert[at]pm[dot]me Time: Sunday, September 18, 4:00 PM Location: Pagoda & Oriental Garden, 265 W Tazewell St, Norfolk, VA 23510. I will be wearing a bright green shirt, will have a large green & yellow hat on, and will have a sign with ACX Meetup on it. Coordinates: 8785RPX4+W3 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: Hi! Virginia Rationalists was co-founded in Norfolk VA earlier this year by Willa & Yitzi with the goal of growing a thriving ACX / LW / EA community in our city & the state of Virginia. We meet every week at Fair Grounds cafe on Wednesday evenings from 5-7:30pm Eastern Time. We have a Discord server and a Twitter. RESTON, VA Contact: James, jrbalch333[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 1:30 PM Location: The matchbox at 1900 Reston Station Blvd, Reston, VA 20190 on the 1st floor of the giant Google building. I'll be holding a copy of Sapiens. Coordinates: 87C4WMX6+9X Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Email me to be added to the WhatsApp group RICHMOND, VA Contact: Cedar, cedar[dot]ren+acxmeetup[at]gmail[dot]com, @Cedar at this Discord server Time: Saturday, October 1, 2:30 PM Location: Richmond Public Libraries, West End Branch 5420 Patterson Ave, Richmond, VA 23226 Coordinates: 8794HFHQ+3G Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong & optionally reach out to me on Discord to introduce yourself! BURLINGTON, VT Contact: Forrest, lucidobservor[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 2:00 PM Location: Battery Park, at the benches in the south-western corner of the park, near the cannons facing the lake. I will have an 'ACX Meetup' sign. Coordinates: 87P8FQJH+8P Event link(s): LessWrong BELLINGHAM, WA Contact: Alex, bellinghamrationalish[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 29, 5:30 PM Location: Lake Padden Park, at one of the tables near the lake by the dog park. If it's rainy, we'll meet in one of the two covered gazebo areas just north (right, if you're facing the lake) of the planned spot. If the forecast looks really bad (e.g. very cold), I'll post an indoor location to the Meetup.com page at least three days in advance. Coordinates: 84WVMHX3+GM Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: Bellingham Rationalish discusses (in good faith!) topics in and around rationality. We usually meet the evening of the last Wednesday of each month. Our first meeting was a 2021 ACX Everywhere meetup. Notes: Please RSVP on Meetup so I have an idea how many people to expect. Kids, animals, food, beverages, etc. are all welcome. SEATTLE, WA Contact: Nikita Sokolsky, sokolx[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 9, 5:00 PM Location: Optimism Brewing (1158 Broadway, Seattle) Coordinates: 84VVJM7H+4Q Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event, Meetup.com Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong (or FB/Meetup) for planning purposes MADISON, WI Contact: Mary Wang, mmwang[at]wisc[dot]edu Time: Saturday, September 10, 1:00 PM Location: 1022 High St. Blue house with red porches. If weather permits, we'll be in my large backyard, which has more seating now than last year. If rain, come in the side door. There will be air purifiers and open windows. Masks optional. Look for a sign at the end of the driveway that says ACX/SSC Meetup. Coordinates: 86MG3H3X+XW Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We have met fortnightly in the past, but quit last year when it got too cold to meet outside. We typically have shared a meal, sat around my kitchen table and talked. Have held a Solstice celebration.

April 10, 2023 · Original source

This year we have spring meetups planned in over eighty cities, from Tokyo to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Thanks to all the organizers who responded to my request for details, and to Meetups Czar Skyler and the Less Wrong team for making this happen.

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup, the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

September 21, 2023 · Original source

— EA job board — EA internships — Dating doc directory — Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

Inline links: EA job board, EA internships, Dating doc directory, Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

The Mystery Of Internet Survey IQs

March 20, 2024 · Original source

I have data from two big Internet surveys, Less Wrong 2014 and Clearer Thinking 2023. Both asked questions about IQ:

Inline links: Less Wrong 2014, Clearer Thinking 2023

The average ClearerThinking user reported their IQ as 130. These are implausibly high. Only 1/200 people has an IQ of 138 or higher. 1/50 people have IQ 130, but the ClearerThinking survey used crowdworkers (eg Mechanical Turk) who should be totally average. Okay, fine, so people lie about their IQ (or foolishly trust fake Internet IQ tests). Big deal, right? But these don’t look like lies. Both surveys asked for SAT scores, which are known to correspond to IQ. The LessWrong average was 1446, corresponding to IQ 140. The ClearerThinking average was 1350, corresponding to IQ 134. People seem less likely to lie about their SATs, and least likely of all to optimize their lies for getting IQ/SAT correspondences right. And the Less Wrong survey asked people what test they based their estimates off of. Some people said fake Internet IQ tests. But other people named respected tests like the WAIS, WISC, and Stanford-Binet, or testing sessions by Mensa (yes, I know you all hate Mensa, but their IQ tests are considered pretty accurate). The subset of about 150 people who named unimpeachable tests had slightly higher IQ (average 140) than everyone else. Thanks to Spencer Greenberg of ClearerThinking, I think I’m finally starting to make progress in explaining what’s going on. Problem #1: The Biggest SAT → IQ Conversion Site Is Wrong Thanks to Sebastian Jensen for pointing this out! He writes: A search of ‘SAT to IQ’ on google results in being presented with the website ‘iqcomparisonsite.com’. This man has directly converted the SAT percentiles to IQ scores, which is not what should be done. Tests like the ACT and SAT correlate with IQ at about 0.8-0.85 [rca], [my analysis], [emil article], [scholarly article]. The general factor of academic achievement and IQ correlate at about 0.81-0.88 [psychometric test], [GCSE grades]. This discrepancy occurs because they measure different abilities - an IQ test will test many different abilities, while the SAT/ACT only tests verbal/mathematical ability. In addition, these percentiles are very outdated as the average SAT score has changed over time due to changes in the content of the test. Instead, the ideal way to do this is to take the percentiles from the current versions of the SAT and then convert those into z-scores and then regress those z-scores by the mean by the estimated regression coefficient. Using Sebastian’s updated tables, we find that the average Less Wrong IQ as predicted by SATs goes down from 140 → 132, and the ClearerThinking IQ goes down from 134 → 124. So people probably exaggerated their IQs somewhat, and unrelatedly we were using an SAT → IQ conversion that exaggerated IQs, and so the numbers falsely appeared to match. Okay! It’s a start! Interlude: The ClearerThinking IQ Test The ClearerThinking survey included a battery of cognitive tests of exactly the sort that could usually be used to determine IQ. Unfortunately none of them were normed, so we know how all the 3700 subjects did relative to each other, but not where the 100 point is. Spencer was able to norm them to the general population based on education level. That is, he asked his sample about their educational attainment (college degree, PhD, etc) and found they were a little more educated than the US average. Since the US average IQ is 100, his sample should have an average a little higher than this. He was able to calculate how much higher. Then he mapped a bell curve to everyone in his sample’s performance on his tests. Since he had 3700 people, he was able to do this relatively smoothly. He found an average IQ of 110, which originally surprised me, because I thought his sample was supposed to be random crowdworkers, who should be close to the US average of 100. But in fact, his survey was a combination of 1900 crowdworkers and 1800 people who saw it on social media - eg friends and friends-of-friends of Spencer. Separating this out by group, we find that the crowdworkers have an average normed-IQ of 100, and the social media referrals have an average normed-IQ of 120, making the overall average of 110. This seems pretty trustworthy, since it correctly estimates the crowdworkers (completely average) as 100. Spencer studied math at Columbia, his friends and friends-of-friends are pretty smart, and I think the 120 estimate for them is also okay. But there’s still a problem here. Using an accurate SAT score → IQ calculator, we determined that the ClearerThinking average should be 124. But using real cognitive tests, it looks like it’s 110. What went wrong? Problem #2: Only The Smartest People Report Their SATs Using Spencer’s cognitive test results, we can compare people who did vs. didn’t take the SAT. We find: People who didn’t take the SAT (remember, this includes current high schoolers) have tested-IQ 110.

Inline links: corresponding to, for pointing this out!, [rca], [my analysis], [emil article], [scholarly article], [psychometric test], [GCSE grades], changed

First, Spencer did his demographic norming properly, but I extended it to the Less Wrong survey just by eyeballing.

March 30, 2024 · Original source

This year we have spring meetups planned in over eighty cities, from Tokyo, Japan to Seminyak, Indonesia. Thanks to all the organizers who responded to my request for details, and to Meetups Czar Skyler and the Less Wrong team for making this happen.

MELBOURNE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA Contact: Ryan Contact Info: xgravityx[at]hotmail[dot]com Time: Friday, April 5th, 6:00 PM Location: Queensberry hotel (dining room) 593 Swanston Street Carlton Coordinates: https://plus.codes/4RJ65XW7+46 Group Link: Whats app group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Hpdy92bVrVU6vn9Gke08E0 Facebook group: Less Wrong Melbourne Notes: Please RSVP by email/WhatsApp/Facebook for booking purposes (not a strict requirement)

Inline links: https://plus.codes/4RJ65XW7+46, https://chat.whatsapp.com/Hpdy92bVrVU6vn9Gke08E0, Less Wrong Melbourne

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Links For April 2024

April 04, 2024 · Original source

13: For April Fools’ Day, the Less Wrong admin team pivoted to music and released an (AI-generated) album of some of their favorite Less Wrong and other rationalsphere posts. Here’s Basil Halperin’s AGI And The Efficient Market Hypothesis: Markets Are Not Expecting AI In The Next 30 Years:

Inline links: AGI And The Efficient Market Hypothesis: Markets Are Not Expecting AI In The Next 30 Years

Full album here, background and links to songs in other media here.

Inline links: here, here

Open Thread 324

April 08, 2024 · Original source

3: The Less Wrong team is hosting a conference/festival for the rationalist and rationalist-adjacent blogosphere, Less Online, the weekend before Manifest. Berkeley CA, 5/31 - 6/2, $400 per ticket, some housing and childcare available. I’ll be there.

Inline links: Less Online

This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. 95% of content is free, but for the remaining 5% you can subscribe here. Also:

Inline links: subreddit, Discord, bulletin board, in-person meetups around the world, here

April 11, 2024 · Original source

— EA job board — EA internships — Dating docs / Manifold.love — Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

Inline links: EA job board, EA internships, Dating docs, Manifold.love, Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

March 25, 2025 · Original source

This year we have spring meetups planned in over a hundred and eighty cities, from Tokyo, Japan to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Thanks to all the organizers who responded to my request for details, and to Meetups Czar Skyler and the Less Wrong team for making this happen.

Contact: Josh Sacks Contact Info: Josh[period]sacks[plus]acx[a t]gmail[period]com Time: Sunday, May 04th, 3:00 PM Location: 9191 Tahoe ln, Boulder,CO 80301 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/85GP2V96+JR Notes: Please RSVP on Less Wrong so we know how much cheese to get. If the weather is nice there’s outdoor seating, otherwise inside. We have 3 very friendly cats.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/85GP2V96+JR

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

April 17, 2025 · Original source

— EA job board — EA internships — Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

Inline links: EA job board, EA internships, Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

August 29, 2025 · Original source

This year we have meetups planned in over a hundred and eighty cities, from Alberta, Canada to Wellington, New Zealand. Thanks to all the organizers who responded to my request for details, and to Meetups Czar Skyler and the Less Wrong team for making this happen.

There should shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. If you’re having trouble thinking of something to talk about, the attendees probably also read ACX. Ask people about a recent post or book review that they liked. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and you shouldn’t try to organize some kind of planned workshop or anything like that. 5. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 6. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the username or email address you gave on the form. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

January 29, 2026 · Original source

— EA job board — EA internships — Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

Inline links: EA job board, EA internships, Find a Less Wrong/ACX meetup

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023

April 01, 2026 · Original source

This year we have meetups planned in over a hundred and eighty cities. Thanks to all the organizers who responded to my request for details, and to Meetups Czar Skyler and the Less Wrong team for making this happen.

Contact: Marcel Contact Info: marcel_mueller[@]mail[.]de Time: Saturday, April 11th, 5:00 PM Location: Marienweg 43, 50858 Köln Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9F28WRMX+97 Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/JY2EZf22uJxqgA6Kz/lw-cologne-meetup-sv6h Notes: This is also the monthly Less Wrong Cologne social meetup. If you read this you are invited.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9F28WRMX+97, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/JY2EZf22uJxqgA6Kz/lw-cologne-meetup-sv6h

There should shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

LAR Discord5 mentions across 5 issues

LAR Discord is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between April 10, 2023 and August 29, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Use the LAR Discord ... questions should be posted in the LAR discord"; "Direct questions to "Vishal" on the LAR discord"; "Contact Info: Contact "Vishal" on the LAR discord". It most often appears alongside ACX, ACX, ACX MEETUP.

Article page: LAR Discord
Mention count: 5
Issue count: 5
First seen: April 10, 2023
Last seen: August 29, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023 April 10, 2023
Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places August 25, 2023
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places March 25, 2025
Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places August 29, 2025

ACX 5 shared issues
ACX 5 shared issues
ACX MEETUP 5 shared issues
Anastasia 5 shared issues
Asia-Pacific 5 shared issues

Source context

April 10, 2023 · Original source

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA Contact: Vishal Contact Info: Use the LAR Discord Time: Wednesday, April 12th, 06:30 PM Location: 11841 Wagner St, Culver City, CA Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/WvXnkMCpd34NgYDkJ/los-angeles-ca-acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-2023-lw-acx Notes: Questions should be posted in the LAR discord (https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN), or by contacting "Vishal" in DMs via discord.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/WvXnkMCpd34NgYDkJ/los-angeles-ca-acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-2023-lw-acx

Inline links: https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN, https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/PqKq5qKLt5Rvvo5Yg/los-angeles-ca-acx-autumn-meetups-everywhere-2023-lw-acx

August 25, 2023 · Original source

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA Contact: Vishal Contact Info: Direct questions to "Vishal" on the LAR discord[dot] Invite here: https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN Time: Wednesday, September 13th, 6:30 PM Location: 11841 Wagner Street Culver City Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Group Link: All the information in the LW post Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong (not mandatory however): https://www.lesswrong.com/events/PqKq5qKLt5Rvvo5Yg/los-angeles-ca-acx-autumn-meetups-everywhere-2023-lw-acx. Direct questions to "Vishal" on the LAR discord. Invite here: https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN

March 30, 2024 · Original source

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA Contact: Vishal Contact Info: Contact "Vishal" on the LAR discord Time: Wednesday, April 10th, 6:30 PM Location: 11841 Wagner St., Culver City Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/ziyNTuMGquENeYyaN/los-angeles-ca-acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-2024-lw-acx Group Link: Discord Server: https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN Website: https://losangelesrationality.com/ Notes: RSVPs on the LessWrong event are not necessary but recommended.

Inline links: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/ziyNTuMGquENeYyaN/los-angeles-ca-acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-2024-lw-acx, https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN

March 25, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Vishal Contact Info: DM "koreindian" on the LAR discord Time: Wednesday, April 30th, 7:00 PM Location: 11841 Wagner Street, Culver City Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Group Link: https://discord.gg/TaY [remove this bit] jsvN Notes: Don't need to RSVP. Just join the discord for more details on the topic of the meeting.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP

When Does Worrying About Things Trade Off Against Worrying About Other Things?

August 29, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Vishal Contact Info: DM koreindian in the LAR discord Time: Wednesday, October 1st, 7:00 PM Location: 11841 Wagner Street, Culver City Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Group Link: losangelesrationality.com. Links to the discord in there, please join the discord. Notes: There will be a reading. Please check the discord close to the event.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP

Lighthaven5 mentions across 5 issues

Lighthaven is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between May 13, 2024 and November 03, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lighthaven is still hosting two back-to-back conferences in Berkeley in late May early June"; "Lighthaven is the rationalist HQ in Berkeley"; "Another Lighthaven event: Ricki Heicklen is running a quantitative trading bootcamp at Lighthaven (in Berkeley)". It most often appears alongside Berkeley, ACX, Inkhaven.

Article page: Lighthaven
Mention count: 5
Issue count: 5
First seen: May 13, 2024
Last seen: November 03, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Open Thread 329 May 13, 2024
Links For September 2024 September 12, 2024
Open Thread 353 October 28, 2024
Open Thread 393 August 04, 2025
Open Thread 406 November 03, 2025

Berkeley 5 shared issues
ACX 3 shared issues
Inkhaven 2 shared issues
US 2 shared issues
@halomancer1 1 shared issues

Source context

Open Thread 329

May 13, 2024 · Original source

4: And Lighthaven is still hosting two back-to-back conferences in Berkeley in late May early June, of which you are invited to both. First, Less Online, a conference for rationalists and rationalist-blog-readers, May 31 - June 2. I might have announced this before, but new guests since I last mentioned it include Patrick McKenzie, Agnes Callard, Kevin Simler, Cremieux, and Aella. Second, Manifest, a conference on prediction markets, June 7 - 9. I’ll be at both. Ticket prices go up midnight on Monday. If you want to meet the guests but can’t pay, there should be an ACX meetup at Lightcone around that time, which many guests will be attending and which will be free admission.

Inline links: Less Online,, Manifest

Links For September 2024

September 12, 2024 · Original source

38: Sequences Reading Group at Lighthaven. The Sequences are the founding text of the rationalist movement (readable here), and Lighthaven is the rationalist HQ in Berkeley. The first meeting has already happened, but you can RSVP to their mailing list for information on future (weekly?) meetups.

Inline links: Sequences Reading Group at Lighthaven, readable here

Open Thread 353

October 28, 2024 · Original source

2: Another Lighthaven event: Ricki Heicklen is running a quantitative trading bootcamp at Lighthaven (in Berkeley), November 6-10. Prices go up tomorrow from $1350 to $1550, but you can get a $150 discount if you check "ACX Open Thread" for "Where did you hear about this bootcamp?" Register at https://forms.gle/swGLn6jZpfKrN4jN6 . You can read more here or listen to the Patrick McKenzie podcast here. She specifies that “this will not make you rich” and “will not meaningfully boost your resume [to get a job at a] quantitative trading firm”, so I guess it’s aimed at people who . . . just have an abstract passion for learning about quantitative trading and are willing to spend $1000+ to satisfy it? I am as curious as you are whether this is a real demographic; if any of you go, please tell me whether anyone else attended. Meanwhile, I need to learn to say no to advertising Lighthaven events, so I’m committing to no more of them this year unless it’s extra-important.

Inline links: https://forms.gle/swGLn6jZpfKrN4jN6, here, here

Open Thread 393

August 04, 2025 · Original source

2: Lighthaven (the rationalist community campus in Berkeley) is hosting Inkhaven - a blogging bootcamp aimed at people who want to blog more but struggle with motivation. Selected fellows will live on site for the month of November, and write one blog post per day or else be kicked out. There will be some mentors around including Gwern, Scott Aaronson, and me. I don’t want to over-endorse this - I have no idea whether it will create any kind of lasting motivation or tendency that sticks around after the program, for most people blogging is a low-reward activity, and the cost is pretty steep - but I think it’s a good experiment for Lighthaven to try, and trust potential applicants to make good choices for their own situation. Cost is $2,000 (program only) to $3,500 (program plus housing for one month) to $4,700 (program _ housing + meals). Some financial assistance available. Apply here. And yeah, they should have called it “Writehaven”.

Inline links: Inkhaven, here

Open Thread 406

November 03, 2025 · Original source

3: This November, Lighthaven is sponsoring Inkhaven, a “blogging residency” where forty-one early-career would-be bloggers stay with them for the month and have to write one post per day or get kicked out. Follow along here. You may recognize this year’s book review contest winner Bill Friedman, last year’s winner AmandaFromBethlehem, ACX meetup czar Skyler, and last year’s ACX grantee Sasha Putilin. And here is a prediction market on how many people get kicked out.

Inline links: here, Bill Friedman, AmandaFromBethlehem, Skyler, Sasha Putilin, a prediction market

Long-Term Future Fund5 mentions across 5 issues

Long-Term Future Fund is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between July 28, 2021 and February 10, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "It comes from organizations like the Long-Term Future Fund"; "He is also part of the Long-Term Future Fund"; "I'm most confident of this for the Long-Term Future Fund and the Infrastructure Fund". It most often appears alongside Tyler Cowen, 1DaySooner, ACX.

Article page: Long-Term Future Fund
Mention count: 5
Issue count: 5
First seen: July 28, 2021
Last seen: February 10, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

When Does Worrying About Things Trade Off Against Worrying About Other Things? July 28, 2021
ACX Grants Results December 28, 2021
Open Thread 205 January 03, 2022
Book Review: What We Owe The Future August 23, 2022
ACX Grants Results 2024 February 10, 2024

Tyler Cowen 3 shared issues
1DaySooner 2 shared issues
ACX 2 shared issues
ACX Grants 2 shared issues
ACX Grants 2 shared issues

Source context

July 28, 2021 · Original source

This is the most sense I can make out of what Acemoglu is trying to do - but it’s still wrong, just for different reasons. Long-term-AI funding doesn’t come from some kind of generic Center For AI that’s one thinkpiece away from cancelling all those programs and redirecting the money to algorithmic bias. It comes from organizations like the Long-Term Future Fund and people like Elon Musk. And if LTF stopped donating to long-term AI research, they would probably spend the money on preventing nuclear war, pandemics, or other existential risks. If Elon Musk stopped donating to long-term AI research, he would probably spend the money on building a giant tunnel through the moon, or breeding half-Shiba-Inu mutant cybernetic warriors, or whatever else Elon Musk does. Neither one is going to give the money to near-term AI projects. Why would they?

Book Review: What We Owe The Future

December 28, 2021 · Original source

Oliver Habryka of Lightcone Infrastructure helped explain how grants work, connect me to everyone else, and ensure I didn’t have to rely on my own experience, good judgment, or other things I don’t have. He is also part of the Long-Term Future Fund and has taken over my AI grant evaluation work along with Asya Bergal and the rest of the LTFF team.

…via the Long Term Future Fund: This is an EA grants program that volunteered to evaluate and judge all applications that had anything to do with AI or the rationalist and effective altruist communities. They have more grant-making expertise and more money than I do, so I was happy to send those applications their way without considering them further. If you sent in an AI or rationalist/EA community-related grant and didn’t see your name above, don’t despair! LTFF hasn’t made their decisions yet, so I’m not able to announce these at the same time as the others. When they’re done, I’ll make sure you know.

If any awardee (including people who get funded via LTFF, Grants+, or investors) needs a message or advertisement broadcast - you’re looking for more funding, you’re looking for employees, you want everyone to gaze in awe at the cool thing you’ve developed - please send me an email with your message, and I’ll signal-boost it on an Open Thread. I will do this at least once for everyone, maybe more if I don’t feel like you’re abusing the privilege.

Open Thread 205

January 03, 2022 · Original source

4. EA Funds's impact is probably most bottlenecked by number of good applications received (more so than by fund manager time or money available) (I'm most confident of this for the Long-Term Future Fund and the Infrastructure Fund)

August 23, 2022 · Original source

The average biosecurity project being funded by Long-Term Future Fund or FTX Future Fund is aimed at preventing pandemics in the next 10 or 30 years. The average nuclear containment project is aimed at preventing nuclear wars in the next 10 to 30 years. One reason all of these projects are good is that they will prevent humanity from being wiped out, leading to a flourishing long-term future. But another reason they're good is that if there's a pandemic or nuclear war 10 or 30 years from now, it might kill you and everyone you know.

ACX Grants Results 2024

February 10, 2024 · Original source

But in a few weeks, they’ll also be adding the grants we didn’t fund to an impact market. You can buy “impact shares”, which will go up or down in value depending on how the project does (for legal reasons, your profits will go to charity). We have five potential buyers lined up: three sub-granters in the EA Funds program (Long-Term Future Fund, Animal Welfare Fund, and Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund), the Survival and Flourishing Fund, and next year’s ACX Grants. I’ll tell you more about this when it happens.

Lorien Psychiatry5 mentions across 5 issues

Lorien Psychiatry is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between April 28, 2021 and October 25, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "I wrote up a short page about Zembrin on my professional website, Lorien Psychiatry"; "database of mental health resources on my other website, Lorien Psychiatry"; "I'm trying to build up a database of mental health resources on my other website, Lorien Psychiatry". It most often appears alongside CBT, FDA, Scott.

Article page: Lorien Psychiatry
Mention count: 5
Issue count: 5
First seen: April 28, 2021
Last seen: October 25, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

Nootropics Survey 2020 Results April 28, 2021
Peer Review Request: Depression May 25, 2021
Peer Review Request: Ketamine July 19, 2021
Peer Review: Nightmares June 16, 2022
From The Mailbag October 25, 2022

CBT 2 shared issues
FDA 2 shared issues
Scott 2 shared issues
Substack 2 shared issues
Zembrin 2 shared issues

Source context

Nootropics Survey 2020 Results

April 28, 2021 · Original source

Based on these preliminary results, I wrote up a short page about Zembrin on my professional website, Lorien Psychiatry, and I asked anyone who planned to try it to preregister with me so I could ask them how it worked later. 29 people preregistered, of whom I was able to follow up with and get data from 22 after a few months. Of those 22, 16 (73%) said it seemed to help, 3 (14%) said it didn't help, and another 3 (14%) couldn't tell because they had to stop taking it due to side effects (two headaches, one case of "psychedelic closed-eye visuals"). Only 13 of the 22 people were willing to give it a score from 1-10 (people hate giving 1-10 scores!), and those averaged 5.9 (6.3 if we don't count people who stopped it immediately due to side effects). That's a little lower than on the survey, but this was a different population - for example, many of them in their answers specifically compared it to prescription antidepressants they'd taken, whereas the survey-takers were comparing it to nootropics. Although these findings are not very useful without a placebo control, they confirm that most people who take Zembrin at least subjectively find it helpful.

Inline links: a short page about Zembrin

Peer Review Request: Depression

May 25, 2021 · Original source

I'm trying to build up a database of mental health resources on my other website, Lorien Psychiatry. Every time I post something, people here have made good comments, so I want to try using you all as peer review.

Inline links: Lorien Psychiatry

Peer Review Request: Ketamine

July 19, 2021 · Original source

I'm trying to build up a database of mental health resources on my other website, Lorien Psychiatry. Whenever I post something here, people have had good comments, so I want to try using you all as peer review.

Inline links: Lorien Psychiatry

Peer Review: Nightmares

June 16, 2022 · Original source

I'm trying to build up a database of mental health resources on my other website, Lorien Psychiatry. Every time I post something, people here have made good comments, so I want to try using you all as peer review.

Inline links: Lorien Psychiatry

From The Mailbag

October 25, 2022 · Original source

DEAR SCOTT: How is your Lorien Psychiatry business going? — Letitia from Lutetia

Long Term Future Fund4 mentions across 4 issues

Long Term Future Fund is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between December 28, 2021 and December 08, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "via the Long Term Future Fund: This is an EA grants program"; "…via the Long Term Future Fund: This is an EA grants program that volunteered to evaluate and judge all applications that had anything to do with AI or the rationalist and effective altruist communities"; "the correct course was to fund global poverty and ask the Long Term Future Fund to fund the AI safety one". It most often appears alongside ACX Grants, ACX, ACX Grants.

Article page: Long Term Future Fund
Mention count: 4
Issue count: 4
First seen: December 28, 2021
Last seen: December 08, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

ACX Grants Results December 28, 2021
So You Want To Run A Microgrants Program February 09, 2022
23 August 28, 2023
Apply For An ACX Grant (2024) December 08, 2023

ACX Grants 3 shared issues
ACX 2 shared issues
ACX Grants 2 shared issues
Against Malaria Foundation 2 shared issues
effective altruism 2 shared issues

Source context

So You Want To Run A Microgrants Program

December 28, 2021 · Original source

…via the Long Term Future Fund: This is an EA grants program that volunteered to evaluate and judge all applications that had anything to do with AI or the rationalist and effective altruist communities. They have more grant-making expertise and more money than I do, so I was happy to send those applications their way without considering them further. If you sent in an AI or rationalist/EA community-related grant and didn’t see your name above, don’t despair! LTFF hasn’t made their decisions yet, so I’m not able to announce these at the same time as the others. When they’re done, I’ll make sure you know.

February 09, 2022 · Original source

How is this actionable? First, sometimes I was able to ask the big experienced foundations if they’d seen a grant application, and if so what they thought. But second, if I had a great global poverty proposal and a great AI safety proposal, and I thought they were both equally valuable, the correct course was to fund global poverty and ask the Long Term Future Fund to fund the AI safety one.

(what actually happened was that the Long Term Future Fund approached me and said “we will fund every single good AI-related proposal you get, just hand them to us, you don’t have to worry about it”. Then I had another person say “hand me the ones Long Term Future Fund doesn’t want, and I’ll fund those.” Have I mentioned it’s a good time to start AI related charities?)

August 28, 2023 · Original source

2: This season’s grants from EA charity Long Term Future Fund include $71,000 to Solomon Sia for “providing consultation and recommendations on changes to the US regulatory environment for prediction markets”.

Inline links: This season’s grants

Apply For An ACX Grant (2024)

December 08, 2023 · Original source

The Long Term Future Fund

Inline links: The Long Term Future Fund

Long Term Future Fund and Survival and Flourishing Fund focus on the long-term future, including but not limited to AI safety, forecasting, and long-termist community building. EA Infrastructure Fund focuses on EA community-building. You can find previous lists of grants funded by LTFF, EAIF, SFF, and ACXG.

Inline links: LTFF, EAIF, SFF, ACXG

losangelesrationality.com4 mentions across 4 issues

losangelesrationality.com is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between March 30, 2024 and August 29, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Website: https://losangelesrationality.com/"; "Group Link: losangelesrationality.com"; "Contact losangelesrationality.com". It most often appears alongside Austin, Berkeley, Boston.

Article page: losangelesrationality.com
Mention count: 4
Issue count: 4
First seen: March 30, 2024
Last seen: August 29, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024
Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places August 29, 2024
Ballots Everywhere: Times And Places October 04, 2024
Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places August 29, 2025

Austin 4 shared issues
Berkeley 4 shared issues
Boston 4 shared issues
Cambridge 4 shared issues
Chicago 4 shared issues

Source context

March 30, 2024 · Original source

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA Contact: Vishal Contact Info: Contact "Vishal" on the LAR discord Time: Wednesday, April 10th, 6:30 PM Location: 11841 Wagner St., Culver City Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/ziyNTuMGquENeYyaN/los-angeles-ca-acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-2024-lw-acx Group Link: Discord Server: https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN Website: https://losangelesrationality.com/ Notes: RSVPs on the LessWrong event are not necessary but recommended.

Inline links: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/ziyNTuMGquENeYyaN/los-angeles-ca-acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-2024-lw-acx, https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN

Ballots Everywhere: Times And Places

August 29, 2024 · Original source

Contact: Vishal Contact Info: Contact me on discord Time: Wednesday, September 11th, 07:00 PM Location: 11841 Wagner Street, Culver City, Los Angeles Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Group Link: losangelesrationality.com Notes: Join our discord, where we do all our communication (invite link on losangelesrationality.com).

October 04, 2024 · Original source

LOS ANGELES - Wednesday, October 9th, 7:00PM (followup meeting October 16th @ 7PM) - 11841 Wagner St, Culver City, CA - Contact losangelesrationality.com

August 29, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Vishal Contact Info: DM koreindian in the LAR discord Time: Wednesday, October 1st, 7:00 PM Location: 11841 Wagner Street, Culver City Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP Group Link: losangelesrationality.com. Links to the discord in there, please join the discord. Notes: There will be a reading. Please check the discord close to the event.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8553XHWM+GP

LW4 mentions across 4 issues

LW is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between August 26, 2022 and August 01, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "log into LW (or create an account)"; "Group info: LW / ACX / Rationalist meetup group"; "If you're a LW, EA, or other affiliated community meetup group". It most often appears alongside ACX, Scott, Berkeley.

Article page: LW
Mention count: 4
Issue count: 4
First seen: August 26, 2022
Last seen: August 01, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere 2022: Times & Places August 26, 2022
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 - Call For Organizers March 08, 2024
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024
Meetups Everywhere Fall 2024 - Call for Organizers August 01, 2024

ACX 4 shared issues
Scott 4 shared issues
Berkeley 3 shared issues
Boston 3 shared issues
EA 3 shared issues

Source context

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 - Call For Organizers

August 26, 2022 · Original source

You can see a map of all the events on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup, the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

BAGHDAD, IRAQ Contact: MA, tofiahmed117[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: WolframSigma#1532, Telegram Time: Friday, September 2, 11:00 AM Location: Grinders Coffeeshop Coordinates: 8H568FG6+73 Event link(s): LessWrong JERUSALEM, ISRAEL Contact: Zvi Schreiber, zvi[at]zvi[dot]net, WhatsApp +972 54 569 1100 Time: Wednesday, October 19, 6:00 PM Location: Malcha technology park garden Coordinates: 8G3QP5XP+PP Event link(s): LessWrong REHOVOT, ISRAEL Contact: David Manheim, David[at]alter[dot]org[dot]il Time: Sunday, September 11, 8:00 PM Location: Outside porch of Aroma Coffee, הרצל 218, רחובות Coordinates: 8G3PWR25+MP Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Notes: Please RSVP on Facebook so we can give updates if needed TEL AVIV, ISRAEL Contact: Adam & inbar M, projectscentrum[at]gmail[dot]com, inbar192[at]gmail[dot]com, Whatsapp +46762791415 (Adam) Time: Sunday, September 4, 7:00 PM Location: Hamenia industrial loft at Beit Alfa 7 (רחוב בית אלפא 7). Look for a door with ACX sign. Two floors up. Coordinates: 8G4P3Q8Q+85 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We've just made a Facebook group and are planning to organize monthly meetings going forward Notes: For questions contact Adam on email or WhatsApp. Feel free to bring a snack or a bottle of white wine. AMMAN, JORDAN Contact: Daniel, dnledvs[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, September 20, 6:30 PM Location: Rustic, Jabal al Weibdeh Coordinates: 8G3QXW49+WG Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: We're hoping to grow the group, so feel free to come even if you've only read a few posts! +1s are also welcome. CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Contact: Mark Chimes, chimes[dot]mark[at]gmail[dot]com, WhatsApp 0826568573 Time: Saturday, September 17, 11:00 AM Location: Truth Coffee Roasting, 36 Buitenkant St, Cape Town City Centre - we'll put a sign on the table Coordinates: 4FRW3CFF+3M Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We met up pre-Covid and pre-ACX as an SSC group. Now we're getting back in the swing of things. We eat lunch and chat about philosophy, politics, and sometimes SSC/ACX blog posts. Notes: We're planning on having another meetup on the 8th October if you can't make the first. DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA Contact: Arno, arnorohwedder[at]gmail[dot]com, +255763998637 Time: Thursday, September 29, 7:30 PM Location: The Deck, Masaki Coordinates: 6G5X776J+X6 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Seeing if there are any interested people in Dar, look forward to meeting, if you are coming please send me a whatsapp. DUBAI, UAE Contact: RS, xyxyxz[at]gmail[dot]com, +971552726281 (WhatsApp) Time: Friday, September 30, 7:30 PM Location: Starbucks, Garhoud Coordinates: 7HQQ68VR+94 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Met once before Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong, or message me on WhatsApp

March 08, 2024 · Original source

You give me the information, and on March 29th (or so), I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page.

Inline links: LessWrong’s Community

Meetups Everywhere Fall 2024 - Call for Organizers

March 30, 2024 · Original source

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and markers for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup, the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

ABUJA, NIGERIA Contact: Olaoluwa Contact Info: akinloluwa[dot]olaoluwa[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, April 20th, 11:00 AM Location: The 'High Table' at Habil Cafe, No 3 Atapkme Street, Wuse II, Abuja. There will be a small sign saying 'Abuja ACX Meetup' Coordinates: https://plus.codes/6FX93F9H+J9 Notes: RSVP on LessWrong will be nice. Ended up eating all the food last time ):

Inline links: https://plus.codes/6FX93F9H+J9

August 01, 2024 · Original source

People enjoy each other’s company and keep having meetups throughout the year. The form will ask you to pick a location, time, and date, and to provide an email address where people can reach you for questions. It will also ask a few short questions about how excited you are to run the meetup to help pick between multiple organizers in the same city. One meetup per city will be advertised on the blog, and people can email you if they have questions. Organizing an ACX Everywhere meetup can be easy. Pick a time and a place (parks work well if you think there will be a lot of people, cafes or apartments work fine for fewer) and show up with a sign saying “ACX Meetup.” You don’t need to have discussion plans or a group activity. If you want to make the experience better for people, you can bring nice things like nametags/markers, food/drinks, or games. Meetups Czar Skyler can reimburse you for the nametags, markers, food, and drinks. If you feel more ambitious, collect people’s names and emails if they’re interested in future meetups. You could do this with a pen and paper, or if you’re concerned about reading people’s handwriting, you could use a QR code/bitly link to a Google Form. Here’s a short FAQ for potential meetup organizers: 1. How do I know if I would be a good meetup organizer? If you can put a name/time/date in a box on Google Forms and show up there, you have the minimum skill necessary to be a meetup organizer for your city, and I recommend you sign up. Don't worry, you signing up won't randomly take the job away from someone else. The form will ask people how excited/qualified they are about being an organizer, and if there are many options, I'll choose whoever I think is best. (Or plausibly whoever Meetup Czar Skyler thinks is best.) But a lot of cities might not have an excited/qualified person, in which case I would rather the unexcited/unqualified people sign up, than have nobody available at all. This spreadsheet shows the cities where someone has filled out the form, updated manually after a basic check. Lots of cities have existing meetup groups and we’ll probably prioritize them, but we always appreciate more options. Last time there were some people who didn’t volunteer because they just assumed their city was big enough that someone else would do it. Beware the Bystander Effect! If you are the leader of your city’s existing meetup group, please fill in the form anyway and say so. 2. How will people hear about the meetup? You give me the information, and on August 23 (or so), I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page. 3. When should I plan the meetup for? Since I’ll post the list of meetup times and dates around August 23, please choose sometime after that. Any day September 1st through October 31st is okay. I recommend a weekend, since it's when most people are available. You’ll probably get more attendance if you schedule for at least one week out, but not so far out that people will forget - so mid September or early October would be best. Check your local calendar for holidays where people might be busy: If you're in the US, that probably means avoid Labor Day and Halloween. 4. How many people should I expect? The last time we tried this, meetups ranged from one person to over a hundred. Meetups in big US cities (especially ones with universities or tech hubs) had the most people; meetups in non-English-speaking countries had the fewest. You can see a list of every city and how many people most of them got last time here. Plan accordingly. 5. Where should I hold the meetup? A good venue should be easy for people to get to, not too loud, and have basic things like places to sit, access to toilets, and the option of acquiring food and water. City parks and mall common areas work well. If you want to hold the meetup at your house, remember that this will involve me posting your address on the Internet. 6. What should I do at the meetup? Mostly people just show up and talk. If you’re worried about this not going well, here are some things that can help: Have people indicate topics they’re interested in by writing something on their nametag

Inline links: This spreadsheet, LessWrong’s Community, here

LabDoor3 mentions across 3 issues

LabDoor is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between October 05, 2022 and October 26, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "The two biggest sites I know of in this space are LabDoor and ConsumerLab"; "Labdoor analyzes 30 brands of magnesium supplement"; "Labdoor was in error here". It most often appears alongside Ashwagandha, Ayurvedic, Bacopa.

Article page: LabDoor
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: October 05, 2022
Last seen: October 26, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

How Trustworthy Are Supplements? October 05, 2022
Open Thread 245 October 09, 2022
Highlights From The Comments On Supplement Labeling October 26, 2022

Ashwagandha 2 shared issues
Ayurvedic 2 shared issues
Bacopa 2 shared issues
Chicago 2 shared issues
ConsumerLab 2 shared issues

Source context

How Trustworthy Are Supplements?

October 05, 2022 · Original source

A few companies do Consumer Reports style analyses of supplement brands. For a fee (or sometimes for free, supported by ads), they will analyze supplements and tell you what they find. The two biggest sites I know of in this space are LabDoor and ConsumerLab.

Some people have criticized LabDoor. They claim they have limited transparency, and that their ranking system is bad: they subtract points for companies that go slightly over the amount of product on a label (eg they say they have 100 mg active ingredient, but actually have 120 mg). But it’s impossible to always hit an exact target (eg 100 mg of ingredient) and reputable companies will make sure that they’re more likely to exceed the target by a little bit (eg have 120 mg) rather than go below it. These kinds of mild excesses aren’t dangerous and are considered industry standard, but LabDoor penalizes them as much as serious errors. [EDIT: LabDoor responds here]

Inline links: have criticized, here

Labdoor analyzes 30 brands of magnesium supplement. 25 earn As, 3 earn Cs, and 2 flunk. Of the two that flunk, one has only 60% as much magnesium as claimed, and the other has almost 3x as much magnesium as claimed. No product has an unsafe amount of heavy metals, although the worst have between a third and half of the government’s safety limit.

Inline links: analyzes 30 brands of magnesium supplement

Open Thread 245

October 09, 2022 · Original source

1: Neil Thanedar of LabDoor doesn’t agree with the way I characterized his company on my post on supplements and has a response up here. I have edited the post slightly to be more noncommittal until I can explain my reasoning - which I hope to do on a Highlights From The Comments post eventually.

Inline links: my post on supplements, a response up here

Highlights From The Comments On Supplement Labeling

October 26, 2022 · Original source

The LabDoor and ConsumerLab analyses I mentioned in this post also checked for heavy metals; most of the products were at undetectable levels, and none were at dangerous ones. Still, this was just one or two dozen, and maybe a product needs some level of reputability to even make it to LabDoor, so let’s look at Diddly’s links.

5: Neil Thanedar of LabDoor writes (on Twitter):

Inline links: Twitter

Hi Scott. I'm the founder of Labdoor. I am a big fan of your writing and believe you have made a major error here based on misleading information.

Inline links: Labdoor

Legal Impact For Chickens3 mentions across 3 issues

Legal Impact For Chickens is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between December 28, 2021 and June 18, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Legal Impact For Chickens , $72,000, to help kickstart their project of suing factory farms"; "Legal Impact For Chickens has since raised $800,000"; "Legal Impact For Chickens is hiring another litigator". It most often appears alongside 1DaySooner, African Swine Fever, Alice Evans.

Article page: Legal Impact For Chickens
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: December 28, 2021
Last seen: June 18, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

ACX Grants Results December 28, 2021
ACX Grants: Project Updates November 04, 2022
ACX Grants 1-3 Year Updates June 18, 2025

1DaySooner 3 shared issues
African Swine Fever 3 shared issues
Alice Evans 3 shared issues
ALLFED 3 shared issues
Australia 3 shared issues

Source context

ACX Grants: Project Updates

December 28, 2021 · Original source

Legal Impact For Chickens, $72,000, to help kickstart their project of suing factory farms that violate animal cruelty laws or otherwise expose themselves to legal action. They write: "If we sue a company that kills 100 million chickens a year, then success would mean incrementally improving the lives of a significant number (perhaps 80 million) of these chickens". Alene, their founder, graduated from Harvard Law School and is a veteran of animal welfare campaigns at PETA, ALDF, and the Good Food Institute. My review team said this was an unusually high-impact animal welfare opportunity; if you’d like to donate too, you can do so at https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/donate .

Inline links: Legal Impact For Chickens, https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/donate

November 04, 2022 · Original source

25: Sue Factory Farms That Are Illegally Abusing Chickens (8/10) Legal Impact For Chickens has since raised $800,000 (more than 10x their original ACX grant), is now a two-employee organization, and has filed its first lawsuit, Smith v. Vachris, which has received coverage in Washington Post, FOX Business, etc (if we rely on coverage in FOX to call out abusive chicken farmers, is that the FOX guarding the henhouse?) They are looking to hire another litigator, see ad here.

Inline links: Smith v. Vachris, Washington Post, FOX Business, see ad here

Legal Impact For Chickens is hiring another litigator - if interested, see their job ad.

Inline links: see their job ad

ACX Grants 1-3 Year Updates

June 18, 2025 · Original source

Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC) is so grateful to ACX for launching us, and to all the ACX readers who have supported us! Thus far, LIC has filed four lawsuits: (1) Smith v. Vachris, the shareholder derivative case against Costco’s executives for chicken neglect, which was mentioned in The Washington Post, Fox Business, CNN Business, Meatingplace, and a viral TikTok. (2) LIC v. Case Farms, a cruelty suit against a major KFC supplier, which is currently pending before the North Carolina Court of Appeals. (3) Animal Outlook v. Harvey’s Market, which successfully stopped a DC butcher shop from selling foie gras. And (4) LIC v. Alexandre, a cruelty suit against an abusive dairy, which is currently pending before a California court. LIC has also sponsored an undercover investigation of poultry-giant Foster Farms, leading to a currently ongoing sheriff’s-office investigation. LIC got a California caterer to drop foie gras with a simple cease-and-desist letter. And LIC established a new potential avenue to create consequences for animal abuse: through an amicus brief at sentencing for the violation of another law. LIC also received a recommendation from Animal Charity Evaluators!

I always ask if there’s any other way I can help these charities. Legal Impact For Chickens wants me to advertise that if any of you are in the poultry industry and want to turn whistleblower, you should get in touch with them.

Inline links: get in touch with them

LessWrong group3 mentions across 3 issues

LessWrong group is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between August 23, 2021 and August 25, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Contact: Tess, rationalottawa[at]gmail[dot]com; Facebook group ; LessWrong group"; "Subscribe to the LessWrong group or Substack to get notified about future Vegas ACX meetups"; "Lesswrong group: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/3nnqSgGbF8x3mTcia". It most often appears alongside ACX, ACX MEETUP, Alex.

Article page: LessWrong group
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: August 23, 2021
Last seen: August 25, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places August 23, 2021
Spring Meetups In Seventy Cities April 10, 2022
Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places August 25, 2023

ACX 3 shared issues
ACX MEETUP 3 shared issues
Alex 3 shared issues
Anastasia 3 shared issues
Austin 3 shared issues

Source context

Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places

August 23, 2021 · Original source

OTTAWA, ON (RSVP) Contact: Tess, rationalottawa[at]gmail[dot]com; Facebook group; LessWrong group Time: 3:00 PM, Saturday, September 11 Location: Lansdowne Park, on the curved benches/bleachers near the tall geometric statue/fountain. We will have a prominent sign that says ACX. Coordinates: https://w3w.co/trees.library.along

Inline links: RSVP, Facebook group, LessWrong group, https://w3w.co/trees.library.along

WEST LOS ANGELES, CA (RSVP) Contact: Robert, bobert[dot]mushky[at]gmail[dot]com, Google group, LessWrong group, Discord server Time: 7:00 PM, Wednesday, October 6 Location: 3266 Inglewood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066 Coordinates: https://w3w.co/labs.motion.cherry Notes: Location is subject to change; join the Google Group for updates. Meetups are every Wednesday at 7 pm.

Inline links: RSVP, Google group, LessWrong group, Discord server, https://w3w.co/labs.motion.cherry

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Pass around a sign-up sheet where everyone gives their name and email address, so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. To enable the RSVP system and send you email notifications for new RSVPs to your event, the LessWrong team created events and accounts for all the meetup organizers. You can claim your event and account by sending a message via the Intercom support chat in the bottom right corner of LessWrong, or by resetting your password with the email that you provided in the meetup organizer form.

Inline links: reciprocity.io

April 10, 2022 · Original source

LAS VEGAS, NV Contact: Jonathan Ray (ray.jonathan.w@gmail.com) Date: April 24 Time: 1:00 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/85864PFF+3P Location: Desert Breeze Park at one of the southern pavilions with an ACX sign Group info: Subscribe to the LessWrong group or Substack to get notified about future Vegas ACX meetups

Inline links: https://plus.codes/85864PFF+3P, LessWrong group, Substack

BANGALORE, INDIA Contact: Faiz (faiz_abbas@protonmail.com) Date: April 24 Time: 4:00 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Location: Matteo Coffea, Church Street, near MG road Group info: Bangalore SSC has been meeting monthly since 2018

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, Bangalore SSC

JAKARTA, INDONESIA Contact: Jati (indonesiarationalist@gmail.com) Date: May 8 Time: 3:30 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/6P58RR8G+J4Q Location: Kawisari Cafe & Eatery in Menteng, Central Jakarta. The nearest train station is Gondangdia (15 minutes walk or just take an online moto-taxi). Feel free to bring whatever you think could be fun or exciting! The organizer will be there from 15.00 WIB. Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or send an E-mail to the above address. Group info: Jakarta has a rationality-adjacent group that meets occasionally, so some members of that group will come to this ACX meetup.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/6P58RR8G+J4Q

Inline links: https://plus.codes/87Q8GC89+37, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/ngpZH9gA76CyHhrER/acx-meetups-everywhere-fall-2023-montreal-qc, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/3nnqSgGbF8x3mTcia, https://forms.gle/GG6JeejyLwvxz5t8A.

August 25, 2023 · Original source

MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADA Contact: Henri Contact Info: acxmontreal[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 16th, 1:00 PM Location: Jeanne-Mance Park, at the corner of Duluth and Esplanade. We'll have an ACX Meetup sign. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/87Q8GC89+37 Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/ngpZH9gA76CyHhrER/acx-meetups-everywhere-fall-2023-montreal-qc Group Link: Lesswrong group: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/3nnqSgGbF8x3mTcia. Mailing list form: https://forms.gle/GG6JeejyLwvxz5t8A. Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/ngpZH9gA76CyHhrER/acx-meetups-everywhere-fall-2023-montreal-qc

You can see a map of all the events on the LessWrong community page. You can also see a searchable sheet at this Airtable link.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page, Airtable link

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

lesswrong.com3 mentions across 3 issues

lesswrong.com is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between March 30, 2024 and August 29, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/A4ZYjHFnvMkifTxzf/berlin-acx-meetups-everywhere-spring-2024"; "Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/MGAtkuYmX3hZ6eeaw"; "Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/DAXy9KMiPBj7z9XTp/acx-zwolle-meetup". It most often appears alongside 200 Degrees, Aachen, ACX.

Article page: lesswrong.com
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: March 30, 2024
Last seen: August 29, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024
Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places August 29, 2024
Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places August 29, 2025

200 Degrees 3 shared issues
Aachen 3 shared issues
ACX 3 shared issues
ACX 3 shared issues
ACX MEETUP 3 shared issues

Source context

March 30, 2024 · Original source

There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and markers for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 6. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup, the LessWrong team did it for you using the email address you gave here. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Inline links: reciprocity.io

BANGALORE, INDIA Contact: Nihal Contact Info: propwash[at]duck[dot]com Time: Sunday, May 26th, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo coffea - inside. This is where we have our regular meetups Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: Please RSVP on lesswrong for the event of May

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

August 29, 2024 · Original source

You can see a map of all the events on the LessWrong community page. (Or possibly you will be able to soon.)

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 4. If you’re having trouble thinking of something to talk about, the attendees probably also read ACX. Talk about a recent post or book review that you liked. 5. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and you shouldn’t try to organize some kind of planned workshop or anything like that. 6. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the username or email address you gave on the form. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Contact: Nihal M Contact Info: propwash[at]duck[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 27th, 04:00 PM Location: Matteo coffea, church street Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: RSVP on the event for october

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

Welcome Polygenically Screened Babies

August 29, 2025 · Original source

There should shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Extra Info For Meetup Organizers: 1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “ACX MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere (or otherwise be identifiable). 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. If you’re having trouble thinking of something to talk about, the attendees probably also read ACX. Ask people about a recent post or book review that they liked. 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and you shouldn’t try to organize some kind of planned workshop or anything like that. 5. Have people type their name and email address in a spreadsheet or in a Google Form (accessed via a bit.ly link or QR code), so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier. 6. It’s easier to schedule a followup meetup while you’re having the first, compared to trying to do it later on by email. 7. If you didn’t make a LessWrong event for your meetup (or if you did but Skyler didn’t know about it) the LessWrong team did it for you using the username or email address you gave on the form. To claim your event, log into LW (or create an account) using that email address, or message the LW team on Intercom (chat button in the bottom right corner of lesswrong.com).

Contact: Nihal Contact Info: propwash[a t]duck[period]com Time: Sunday, October 5th, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo Coffea, Church Street Coordinates: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ Notes: Check the lesswrong group page for the announcement, and RSVP there.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/7J4VXJF4+PR, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/i5vLw9xnG9iwXNQZZ

LifeView3 mentions across 3 issues

LifeView is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between July 01, 2021 and December 11, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "LifeView, the company that handled the screening"; "LifeView, the pioneering polygenic screening company, has some helpful calculators"; "The polygenic embryo selection product exists and is available through LifeView". It most often appears alongside 2020 election, 2020 primary, 23andme.

Article page: LifeView
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: July 01, 2021
Last seen: December 11, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Welcome Polygenically Screened Babies July 01, 2021
Grading My 2018 Predictions For 2023 February 20, 2023
Open Thread 306 December 11, 2023

2020 election 1 shared issues
2020 primary 1 shared issues
23andme 1 shared issues
Aaron 1 shared issues
ACTION TRANSFORMERS 1 shared issues

Source context

July 01, 2021 · Original source

[conflict of interest notice: LifeView, the company that handled the screening, was co-founded by Steve Hsu. I’ve known Steve for many years now, he is very nice to me, always patiently answers my genetics questions, and sometimes comes to SSC/ACX meetups]

Inline links: LifeView, Steve Hsu

I often have patients ask me something like: "I have a history of schizophrenia in my family. I'm really concerned my kid might get schizophrenia. What can I do to prevent this?" Right now I don't have a lot of answers, besides just staying generally healthy during pregnancy and making sure the kid has a healthy upbringing. But with polygenic screening, you start to get more options. You can IVF lots of embryos, test all of them for genetic schizophrenia risk, and implant whichever one gets the lowest score. How much does that help? LifeView, the pioneering polygenic screening company, has some helpful calculators:

Grading My 2018 Predictions For 2023

February 20, 2023 · Original source

The polygenic embyro selection product exists and is available through LifeView. I can’t remember whether I knew about them in 2018 or whether this was a good prediction.

Inline links: LifeView

Open Thread 306

December 11, 2023 · Original source

2: A few years ago I wrote about embryo screening, where people doing IVF with multiple embryos could determine which embryo had the healthiest genes and implant that one. That post focused on a the company called LifeView, mostly because they were the only ones offering the service at the time. Now new company Orchid Health wants me to mention that they are also offering this service. They claim to screen for more rare single-gene disorders than LifeView, as well as the usual polygenic screening for common problems like diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimers (although they may also be more expensive). Their Science and Clinician pages have more information, and their signup link is here.

Inline links: I wrote about embryo screening, LifeView, Orchid Health, Science, Clinician

Lightcone3 mentions across 3 issues

Lightcone is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between June 25, 2023 and December 09, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lightcone is a team that operates important AI alignment and rationalist community infrastructure"; "Congratulations/thanks to all the organizers and the Lightcone team"; "Lightcone handles infrastructure for the rationalist community". It most often appears alongside Berkeley, Less Wrong, ACX.

Article page: Lightcone
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: June 25, 2023
Last seen: December 09, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Open Thread 282 June 25, 2023
Open Thread 295 September 25, 2023
Open Thread 359 December 09, 2024

Berkeley 2 shared issues
Less Wrong 2 shared issues
ACX 1 shared issues
ACX bulletin board 1 shared issues
ACX Discord 1 shared issues

Source context

Open Thread 282

June 25, 2023 · Original source

4: Lightcone is a team that operates important AI alignment and rationalist community infrastructure, including the Less Wrong website, the Alignment Forum, and the Rose Garden Inn (a venue for various alignment-related conferences and projects - also where we have Berkeley ACX meetups!) They're running low on money due to Rose Garden renovations being unexpectedly expensive and grants being unexpectedly thin, and are asking for a few 6+ figure grants to help tide them through this difficult period. If you're a wealthy person or grantmaker interested in AI alignment, see here for more information, or contact me at scott@slatestarcodex.com if you have questions, or get in touch with the head of Lightcone directly at habryka@lesswrong.com.

Inline links: see here for more information

Open Thread 295

September 25, 2023 · Original source

1: It was great getting to meet many of you at Manifest! Congratulations/thanks to all the organizers and the Lightcone team. I’ll write up the conference, but probably not until next week. Now that forecasting people can think about something other than Manifest, I hope to have the impact certs judged in the next few weeks, then start planning ACX Grants.

Open Thread 359

December 09, 2024 · Original source

Lightcone handles infrastructure for the rationalist community. They run the Less Wrong website and the Lighthaven campus (where we’ve held the past several Berkeley ACX meetups). You can read their pitch here, and donate here. Many of us have enjoyed and benefited from their work, and now would be a great time to give something back (and if you donate enough, they’ll name a bench after you). Warning that the (not affiliated with Lightcone) donation site quietly tries to add a 15% tip to themselves, and you should un-add it if you don’t want to tip them.

Inline links: here, here

LiveJournal3 mentions across 3 issues

LiveJournal is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between January 21, 2021 and May 15, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "They just have a Tumblr or a LiveJournal or something"; "expanded from there to various web forums/proto-social media of the era such as Something Awful and Livejournal"; "it's less that Tumblr infected LiveJournal so much as LJ users were forced to move to Tumblr". It most often appears alongside California, Tumblr, Twitter.

Article page: LiveJournal
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: January 21, 2021
Last seen: May 15, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Still Alive January 21, 2021
Highlights From The Comments On "The Origin Of Woke" May 07, 2024
Book Review: Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids May 15, 2025

California 3 shared issues
Tumblr 2 shared issues
Twitter 2 shared issues
UK 2 shared issues
United States 2 shared issues

Source context

Still Alive

January 21, 2021 · Original source

With all due respect to these reporters, and with complete admission of my own bias, I reject this entire way of looking at things. If someone wants to report that I'm a 30-something psychiatrist who lives in Oakland, California, that's fine, I've had it in my About page for years. If some reporter wants to investigate and confirm, I have some suggestions for how they could use their time better - isn't there still a war in Yemen? - but I'm not going to complain too loudly. But I don't think whatever claim the public has on me includes a right to know my name if I don't want them to. I don't think the public needs to know the name of the cops who write cop blogs, or the deadnames of trans people, or the dating lives of sexy cyborgs. I'm not even sure the public needs to know the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. If he isn't harming anyone, let him have his anonymity! I would rather we get whatever pathologies come from people being able to invent Bitcoin scot-free, than get whatever pathologies come from anyone being allowed to dox anyone else if they can argue that person is "influential". Most people don't start out trying to be influential. They just have a Tumblr or a LiveJournal or something, and a few people read it, and then a few more people read it, and bam! - they're influential! If influence takes away your protection, then none of us are safe - not the random grad student with a Twitter account making fun of bad science, not the teenager with a sex Tumblr, not the aspiring fashionista with an Instagram. I've read lots of interesting discussion on how much power tech oligarchs should or shouldn't be allowed to have. But this is the first time I've seen someone suggest their powers should include a magic privacy-destroying gaze, where just by looking at someone they can transform them into a different kind of citizen with fewer rights. Is Paul Graham some weird kind of basilisk, such that anyone he stares at too long turns into fair game?

Highlights From The Comments On "The Origin Of Woke"

May 07, 2024 · Original source

Why was Duke Power Co decided the way it was, since they asked people to take a mechanical aptitude test for a mechanical job? Sam kindly answered: 1) He may be right about that (I don't know actually) but even if he is right, so what? If a test is relevant to a job, that evidence will apply to each worksite. It's not like there's some affirmative requirement that employers prove the test works before they can implement it--they can do whatever they want and the only check is a lawsuit. A plaintiffs' attorney is not going to bring that case if it doesn't have some evidence the 2) Very easy. You just have to show there is a “manifest relationship to the employment in question" (a more lenient standard added by subsequent more conservative courts) then the burden shifts to the plaintiffs to prove its not legitimate or that the employer could achieve the same goal in a way that doesn't have a disparate impact. In Griggs, there was direct evidence from the employer's own experience that the test they were using was uncorrelated with job performance. 3) That is likely enough. But if, for example, their experience showed that people with a criminal history were no likelier to be violent and criminal than that argument would rightly fail. I think it is also unlikely the EEOC will win this case in the current legal environment. 4) As I said above, if you read the actual case, the facts were that the test did not predict success at the job. This turns out to be very common. More discussion of Duke v. Griggs - this is all coming from one very long thread, which you might prefer to read directly, starting with Mr. Doolittle: I don't think the EEOC is being disingenuous when they think a company is discriminating. Their perspective is coming from the side that sees actual discrimination, often hidden behind convenient stories. Read Duke Power sometime in detail - there's no doubt that the company was flagrantly discriminating and lying about it. That said, I don't think the EEOC has an actual problem with merit tests like Google having someone write code for a coding job. They have a real problem with mission-creep tests (like requiring that coding test for lower level employees) or anything that might be a hidden way to discriminate. I think they also have some true-believer "woke" types that really think that any disparate impact is hidden discrimination, but for legal reasons this is significantly less prevalent than in other "woke-adjacent" contexts. Bob Frank (blog) writes: » “Read Duke Power sometime in detail - there's no doubt that the company was flagrantly discriminating and lying about it.” ...which was quite adequately remedied at the appeals court level. The plaintiffs got everything they could have reasonably wanted. But the EEOC didn't want to fix the problem they were ostensibly suing over; they wanted to use it as a premise to push their social agenda, so they appealed to the Supreme Court, and we ended up with one of the most damaging rulings in history. I wrote about this in some detail last year: Forewarned Is Forearmed The Most Significant Case You've Never Heard Of People often think of the 1960s as a tumultuous time in our nation’s history, but in many ways the real damage was done in the 1970s. The 70s was a time when a lot of the chaos of the 60s settled down, but unfortunately it didn’t happen by conditions getting back to normal so much as by surrender, assimilating the chaos into a “new normal” that was sig… Read more 3 years ago · 5 likes · Bob Frank gdanning writes: Your article refers to what you call "Duke Power’s use of industry-standard aptitude tests in employment decisions. " But here are the actual facts: » ”The Company added a further requirement for new employees on July 2, 1965, the date on which Title VII became effective. To qualify for placement in any but the Labor Department it became necessary to register satisfactory scores on two professionally prepared aptitude 428*428 tests, as well as to have a high school education. Completion of high school alone continued to render employees eligible for transfer to the four desirable departments from which Negroes had been excluded if the incumbent had been employed prior to the time of the new requirement. In September 1965 the Company began to permit incumbent employees who lacked a high school education to qualify for transfer from Labor or Coal Handling to an "inside" job by passing two tests— the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which purports to measure general intelligence, and the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test. Neither was directed or intended to measure the ability to learn to perform a particular job or category of jobs […] » On the record before us, neither the high school completion requirement nor the general intelligence test is shown to bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used. Both were adopted, as the Court of Appeals noted, without meaningful study of their relationship to job-performance ability. Rather, a vice president of the Company testified, the requirements were instituted on the Company's judgment that they generally would improve the overall quality of the work force. » The evidence, however, shows that employees who have not completed high school or taken the tests have continued to perform satisfactorily and make progress in departments for which the high school and test criteria are now used.” This leaves me with more questions than it answers. For example, if a company hasn’t explicitly measured how tests correlate with performance (which I assume is the case with most tests), are the tests okay or not? Also, could someone who’s annoyed at ballooning degree requirements (eg me) sue every company that requires a college degree, asking them to prove that it’s really necessary? Steve Sailer describes his personal experience: I worked for a marketing research startup firm from 1982-2000. In 1982, our hiring exam was the final exam given by one of our founders, a college professor, in his Quantitative Methods in Marketing Research course. It was a great test, and we hired a lot of good people in the 1980s. Our biggest client gave a similar exam and hired a lot of good people. When the EEOC went after our biggest, most prestigious client over their hiring exam, the firm then spent a lot of money on consulting firms to have it validated as related to work performance to the necessary legal standard. And they continued to hire good people. In contrast, when the EEOC finally noticed us in the 1990s, we found out how much it would cost to validate our exam and decided to save money by throwing it out. That turned out to penny wise and pound foolish. If this is true, it sounds like the burden of proof is on the test-giver, and it’s a pretty high burden. I don’t know how this meshes with what Sam B is saying, unless Steve’s experience was before the change in the law that Sam mentions. Hadi Khan (blog) writes: » “As I said above, if you read the actual case, the facts were that the test did not predict success at the job. This turns out to be very common.” This does not mean the test isn't a good test in the sense that it doesn't measure job performance. See how there is no correlation between a players height in the NBA and how well they perform. This is because if there was a correlation then selectors would be leaving money on the table and they could improve their selection for the coming year by increasing the weighting on height (compared to everything else), which would in turn reduce the amount of correlation. Rinse and repeat until there is no correlation left. The test not predicting job performance could equivalently mean that Duke Power had a very well calibrated way to choose their employees where they were prefectly capturing the information from the apitutde test compared to all the other factors involved in hiring. Indeed the fact that this turns out to be very common suggests to me that this is going on here (and elsewhere). Good point! I don’t know when the correlation between test score and job performance was measured, and whether it should be expected to have this problem. 5: The Origins Of Modern Wokeness (again, you might want to read Hanania’s post answering objectors on this point) Carateca writes: I hew more to the Tumblr theory of the origins of woke (Katherine Dee has written about this, although at infuriatingly short length.) All this was incubated on Tumblr by mentally ill teenagers in the mid-00s, expanded from there to various web forums/proto-social media of the era such as Something Awful and Livejournal where the mentally ill teenagers could gain cultural or moderation power, and then exploded onto Twitter where it cowed cultural leaders into compliance and suddenly people at your office were putting pronouns in their bios, doing land acknowledgments and sterilizing their kids. Civil rights law under this theory was a weapon for the woke to pick up, not the cause of the problem. (Edit: and not even that relevant of a weapon, regardless of its merit otherwise; wokeness's greatest damage is cultural, not legal.) I agree with the Tumblr theory too, though I think some blogs (eg Shakesville, Pandagon) might have been closer to Patient Zero. I continue to be a little confused how and why stuff that deranged teenagers were discussing on microblogs made it to the halls of power, and I would appreciate a more focused Origins Of Woke book discussing this process. Desertopa writes: So, I don't think I'm qualified to write that book, and if anything I'm less qualified now than I was twelve years or so ago, since it's been a long while since I've brushed up on the source material. But I think I'm better versed in what went into it than most people, and I'm prepared to at least take a stab at a substack comment on the subject. My impression, as of around 2009, before people identified "woke" as a thing, and before the social justice subculture that gave rise to the term had really solidified, but at a point when it was distinctly trending in that direction, is that the movement was essentially a result of academic ideas filtered through a specific, mostly online social context. While a lot of people, especially back then, would argue that the academic basis of the movement was sound, but often interpreted poorly by radical ideologues, my impression, as someone who read a lot more of the actual academic work than most, is that this was a mistaken interpretation, that the academic work actually *was* written largely by radical ideologues in the first place, and simply dressed up in language suited to an academic audience. I still identify as much more left wing than right wing, and this was even more the case at the time, since the far left end hadn't moved nearly as far away from me at that point. But, my impression is that at least as far back as the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, there was a balance between the left and right wings on issues of racial and gender justice etc. where both sides essentially held to the norms of trying to enact their desired changes via collective political action and measured civil disobedience, with the left wing making more or less continual progress against the right, until the left wing decided to defect first. This began in academia, with writers who framed the issue of racial justice essentially in terms of existential warfare. Basically "we are opposed by a group of ideological enemies who are trying to destroy us and everything we represent. The mechanisms of gradual change collective political action and measured civil disobedience are fundamentally aligned against us in the favor of our ideological enemies, thus we have to break away from those and fight with tools which fundamentally favor our cause in order to be able to effectively defend ourselves." Because the writers in question were academics with cushy university positions, their actual mechanism of political action was writing books arguing people ought to do these things, which were mostly only read by other academics and ignored by the general populace. But when social justice started becoming a major component of the online subculture which was incubating in the mid to late 2000s, although only a minority of people actually read the work of actual academics on the subject, people who did were extremely influential in the movement, and ideas which originated in academia propagated to fixation through it. In the earlier days of the social justice movement, there were separate strains which cooperated on object-level goals, but disagreed over big-picture questions like "should we frame social agendas in terms of Us vs. Them conflict drawn around identity groups, or in terms of alignment with philosophical goals?" and "should we attempt to move towards progressively more colorblind ideals of egalitarianism, or ones which consciously privilege minority groups?" The identitarian strain eventually became more or less hegemonic over the movement, partly I think because it's an easier sell based on ordinary patterns of human thought (we've been engaged in identitarian tribal conflict for the entirety of human history,) and partly because almost all the academic underpinning behind the movement actually argued in support of the identitarian strain. I personally started to distance myself from the social justice movement around 2009, while remaining broadly aligned with its object-level goals, in large part because I started reading enough of the academic philosophy behind it to realize that the academics other people were treating as foundational figures (even if most of them didn't actually read their work) were essentially arguing that we needed to abandon the societal institution of liberalism because it was fundamentally aligned against the goals of social justice, while failing to acknowledge that the mechanisms of liberalism had been producing consistent incremental gains for social justice for the last several decades. This is also how I remember things. The part that seems mysterious to me is how the left defected from pre-existing norms so successfully - or rather, if defection gave such an obvious advantage, how the pre-existing norms had stayed in place before. Neike Taika-Tessaro writes: Interestingly, I was going to say Hanania's missing element could just be graphs like these: i.e. affirmative action laid the groundwork for this, then people connected, coordinated, and used it much more aggressively. I feel like that's basically what you're saying, except that what I'm (ignorantly) ascribing to Hanania here and what you're saying disagree on the cause. I guess in Hanania's framing, wokeness was inevitable once affirmative action existed in the legal framework; whereas in Dee's faming, wokeness was not inevitable once affirmative action existed, but is a separate phenomenon that then seized upon the tool. I'm probably doing both of them an injustice with that, mind. (To be clear, I'm not in the US and avoid most social media, so I don't particularly have opinions on this either way, I just immediately thought 'the internet' when Scott referred to the cultural turn between 2010 and 2015 and asked "Why would 1964 and 1991 laws turn wokeness into a huge deal in 2015?".) Yeah, something like this also has to be part of the picture, although I still don’t feel like I understand the mechanism well enough that I could have predicted this ahead of time. More patient zero speculation, from MarsDragon: Historical nitpick: it's less that Tumblr infected LiveJournal so much as LJ users were forced to move to Tumblr as LJ got increasingly difficult to use starting around 2009-2010. The migration had more or less completed by 2012. Tumblr being so much more of a "modern" social media platform where it was easy to repost content and you got a random jumble of posts instead of a carefully-curated set of friends made it much easier for social justice thinking to spread. I think the whole shift to showing users a melange of content instead of a staid list of people the user chose to follow was a big driver of that sort of thinking. It allowed ideas to spread, upped controversy, and drives that sort of "we must purge this!" was of thinking. The LiveJournal experts here say the key event to look at was Racefail, when, according to Carateca: I had a front row seat and it was remarkable how the whole superstructure of a totalitarian state just congealed out of thin air in days and instantly took over a whole subculture. Sometimes I think that if Charlie Stross and the rest of them had just had some fucking balls and stood up to the bullies -- or, hell, just pushed the block button a few times -- none of this would ever have happened. I support any theory that lets us blame everything on Charlie Stross. naraburns writes: Anyway, I would argue that "woke" does not begin with civil rights law, but rather that both are the result of the same intellectual tradition. "Woke" attitudes are basically analogous to what was called "cultural Marxism" decades ago (see e.g. Weiner's (1981) "Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology"), but since "Cultural Marxism" has been retconned as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, people needed a different name for it. The linguistic treadmill is merciless, especially when dealing with political movements attempting to escape accountability for their past failures (or successes). I agree that there’s a crappy trick that goes: Take a thing that you don’t want people to be allowed to talk about. For example, maybe Coca-Cola doesn’t want people to talk about how soda makes you fat.

Inline links: kindly answered, one very long thread, blog, Forewarned Is Forearmed The Most Significant Case You've Never Heard Of People often think of the 1960s as a tumultuous time in our nation’s history, but in many ways the real damage was done in the 1970s. The 70s was a time when a lot of the chaos of the 60s settled down, but unfortunately it didn’t happen by conditions getting back to normal so much as by surrender, assimilating the chaos into a “new normal” that was sig… Read more 3 years ago · 5 likes · Bob Frank, writes, describes his personal experience, blog, Hanania’s post answering objectors on this point, writes, writes, writes, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9wmv!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa774249b-b07c-4205-a3e4-68d95e763bfa_808x303.png, MarsDragon, Racefail, Carateca, writes

i.e. affirmative action laid the groundwork for this, then people connected, coordinated, and used it much more aggressively. I feel like that's basically what you're saying, except that what I'm (ignorantly) ascribing to Hanania here and what you're saying disagree on the cause. I guess in Hanania's framing, wokeness was inevitable once affirmative action existed in the legal framework; whereas in Dee's faming, wokeness was not inevitable once affirmative action existed, but is a separate phenomenon that then seized upon the tool. I'm probably doing both of them an injustice with that, mind. (To be clear, I'm not in the US and avoid most social media, so I don't particularly have opinions on this either way, I just immediately thought 'the internet' when Scott referred to the cultural turn between 2010 and 2015 and asked "Why would 1964 and 1991 laws turn wokeness into a huge deal in 2015?".) Yeah, something like this also has to be part of the picture, although I still don’t feel like I understand the mechanism well enough that I could have predicted this ahead of time. More patient zero speculation, from MarsDragon: Historical nitpick: it's less that Tumblr infected LiveJournal so much as LJ users were forced to move to Tumblr as LJ got increasingly difficult to use starting around 2009-2010. The migration had more or less completed by 2012. Tumblr being so much more of a "modern" social media platform where it was easy to repost content and you got a random jumble of posts instead of a carefully-curated set of friends made it much easier for social justice thinking to spread. I think the whole shift to showing users a melange of content instead of a staid list of people the user chose to follow was a big driver of that sort of thinking. It allowed ideas to spread, upped controversy, and drives that sort of "we must purge this!" was of thinking. The LiveJournal experts here say the key event to look at was Racefail, when, according to Carateca: I had a front row seat and it was remarkable how the whole superstructure of a totalitarian state just congealed out of thin air in days and instantly took over a whole subculture. Sometimes I think that if Charlie Stross and the rest of them had just had some fucking balls and stood up to the bullies -- or, hell, just pushed the block button a few times -- none of this would ever have happened. I support any theory that lets us blame everything on Charlie Stross. naraburns writes: Anyway, I would argue that "woke" does not begin with civil rights law, but rather that both are the result of the same intellectual tradition. "Woke" attitudes are basically analogous to what was called "cultural Marxism" decades ago (see e.g. Weiner's (1981) "Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology"), but since "Cultural Marxism" has been retconned as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, people needed a different name for it. The linguistic treadmill is merciless, especially when dealing with political movements attempting to escape accountability for their past failures (or successes). I agree that there’s a crappy trick that goes: Take a thing that you don’t want people to be allowed to talk about. For example, maybe Coca-Cola doesn’t want people to talk about how soda makes you fat.

Inline links: MarsDragon, Racefail, Carateca, writes

Book Review: Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids

May 15, 2025 · Original source

When I try to apply SRTHMK’s lessons, I can’t deny that I’m being exactly the kind of hypocrite who says that my generation was okay but the next generation is destroying society. I chafed against all of my parents’ stupid computer use restrictions as a teenager - why couldn’t they understand that I was only playing classy games, like Civilization, and hanging out on decent sites, like LiveJournal? Now it’s twenty years later and…

Lorien3 mentions across 3 issues

Lorien is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between April 26, 2021 and October 25, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lorien has 100+ patients"; "if I worked 40 hours a week at Lorien I could make $160,000". It most often appears alongside Nixonland, Unsong, 538.

Article page: Lorien
Mention count: 3
Issue count: 3
First seen: April 26, 2021
Last seen: October 25, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

Mantic Monday: Predictions For 2021 April 26, 2021
Grading My 2021 Predictions January 24, 2022
From The Mailbag October 25, 2022

Nixonland 3 shared issues
Unsong 3 shared issues
538 2 shared issues
ACX 2 shared issues
Biden 2 shared issues

Source context

Mantic Monday: Predictions For 2021

April 26, 2021 · Original source

WORK 75. Lorien has 100+ patients: 90% 76. 150+ patients: 20% 77. 200+ patients: 5% 78. I've written at least ten more Lorien writeups (so total at least 27): 30% 79. [redacted]: 70% 80. [redacted]: 80% 81. [redacted]: 60% 82. [redacted]: 40% 83. [redacted]: 60% 84. I have switched medical records systems: 20% 85. I have changed my pricing scheme: 20%

Grading My 2021 Predictions

January 24, 2022 · Original source

WORK 75. Lorien has 100+ patients: 90% 76. 150+ patients: 20% 77. 200+ patients: 5% 78. I've written at least ten more Lorien writeups (so total at least 27): 30% 79. [redacted]: 70% 80. [redacted]: 80% 81. [redacted]: 60% 82. [redacted]: 40% 83. [redacted]: 60% 84. I have switched medical records systems: 20% 85. I have changed my pricing scheme: 20%

From The Mailbag

October 25, 2022 · Original source

DEAR SCOTT: How is your Lorien Psychiatry business going? — Letitia from Lutetia

At my current workload, if I worked 40 hours a week at Lorien I could make $160,000. But if I worked 40 hours/week and was stricter about making patients pay me, I could probably get that up to $200,000.

Lambda School2 mentions across 2 issues

Lambda School is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between March 03, 2021 and September 12, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Austin Allred of Lambda School discusses how part of what a coding bootcamp needs to do is teach class signaling"; "Lambda School (now BloomTech), a programming boot camp". It most often appears alongside FDA, 9-11, @halomancer1.

Article page: Lambda School
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: March 03, 2021
Last seen: September 12, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Links For March March 03, 2021
Links For September 2024 September 12, 2024

FDA 2 shared issues
9-11 1 shared issues
@halomancer1 1 shared issues
ACX 1 shared issues
Amazon 1 shared issues

Source context

Links For March

March 03, 2021 · Original source

29: Austin Allred of Lambda School discusses how part of what a coding bootcamp needs to do is teach class signaling (see eg his description of how he almost failed to respond to someone because he didn’t know what “ping me” meant). I’m linking this for the insights on class, but it also includes lots of praise for Lambda School; as a counterbalance, consider reading some recent criticism.

Inline links: teach class signaling, some recent criticism

Links For September 2024

September 12, 2024 · Original source

46: An unsympathetic portrayal of what went wrong with Lambda School (now BloomTech), a programming boot camp which deferred tuition until after you got a programming job and could easily pay them back. It got started right when a bumper crop of programming bootcamps created a glut of entry-level programmers - but more than that, the school leadership responded poorly, inflating their placement statistics and going after former students in borderline predatory ways.

Inline links: what went wrong with Lambda School

Lantern2 mentions across 2 issues

Lantern is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between December 07, 2023 and April 16, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lantern says the levels of mutacin-1140 dilute to irrelevance"; "Lantern offers a $100 bounty to anyone who can come up with one they haven’t thought of yet"; "Lantern spent $400,000 acquiring rights and synthesizing the organism". It most often appears alongside Aaron, BCS3-L1, Dr. Hillman.

Article page: Lantern
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: December 07, 2023
Last seen: April 16, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ December 07, 2023
Updates on Lumina Probiotic April 16, 2024

Aaron 2 shared issues
BCS3-L1 2 shared issues
Dr. Hillman 2 shared issues
FDA 2 shared issues
Lumina 2 shared issues

Source context

Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ

December 07, 2023 · Original source

Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay. Their product is a genetically modified bacterium which infects your mouth, outcompetes all the tooth-decay-causing bacteria, and doesn’t cause tooth decay itself. If it works, it could make cavities a thing of the past (you should still brush for backup and cosmetic reasons).

Inline links: Lantern Bioworks, a cure for tooth decay

I talked to Lantern founder Aaron Silverbook to get an idea of how this works, both in a biological and an economic sense. Aaron was very knowledgeable and forthcoming, although he uses the phrase “YOLO” somewhat more often than most biotech founders. This post isn’t a verbatim interview transcript, just a writeup of what I learned based on his answers.

[Conflict of interest notice: Lantern is mostly rationalists and includes some friends. My wife consulted for them early on. They offered my wife and me free samples (based on her work, not as compensation for writing this post); she accepted, and I’m still debating. Consider this an attempt to spotlight interesting work that people I like are doing, not a hard-hitting investigation.]

Updates on Lumina Probiotic

April 16, 2024 · Original source

Lumina, the genetically modified anti-tooth-decay bacterium that I wrote about in December, is back in the news after lowering its price from $20,000 to $250 and getting endorsements from Yishan Wong, Cremieux, and Richard Hanania (as well as anti-endorsements from Saloni and Stuart Ritchie). A few points that have come up:

Inline links: I wrote about in December, $250, Yishan Wong, Cremieux, Richard Hanania, Saloni, Stuart Ritchie

Commenters (and Kevin Drum) searched publicly-available archives and found a slightly different story, with three trials:

Inline links: Commenters, and Kevin Drum

The rats with the new strain (BCS3-L1) got only 1/3 the normal rats’ “caries score”. But they didn’t get a score of zero. So maybe claims like “BCS3 represents a complete cure for cavities” are overblown. Why didn’t rats with the new strain get zero dental caries? Bacteria other than S. mutans can also cause cavities, so maybe it’s one of those. Rat trials are famous for results that don’t replicate in human trials, so take these with a grain of salt. 3: What did the latest colonization studies show? Aaron was able to retest six people who got free samples in December. Four of those people still have the bacterium. The other two don’t. Of the two failures, one had an active cavity at the time the strain was applied (which interferes with the oral microbiome), and the other had his wisdom teeth removed (which involves rinsing the mouth with strong antiseptics). Aaron hopes this shows the strain will stick around in most normal situations (though the failure in the presence of active cavities is disappointing). 4: Any new concerns about side effects? In my original post, I mentioned the possibility that this would set off Breathalyzers. Lantern was able to test this, and proved that it wasn’t a problem. Yesterday, Lao Mein suggested on Less Wrong that it might raise oral cancer risk - their post focused on people with ALDH deficiency (most common in Asians) but the calculations are too vague to be sure exactly which groups should and shouldn’t worry. This is less than 24 hours old, the company hasn’t replied yet, and is still developing. I’ll try to update people if anyone gets more clarity on this. Someone on the post mentioned that they’ve gotten worse hangovers since using the product, maybe because the constant trickle of alcohol changed the way gut flora metabolize it. 5: Any other meaningful results since the samples? Cremieux says his breath smells better. Some people have objected to this claim on the grounds that it takes ~12 months before the bacterium has colonized your mouth. One of the figures in my earlier post suggested that the bacterium might start strong, retreat for a while, and then take 12 months to fully colonize, so that might potentially explain his findings. But also, is it biologically plausible that this prevents bad breath? My impression was that bad breath came from other bacterial byproducts besides lactic acid. It might be possible in theory that the same metabolic changes that switch lactic acid to alcohol disrupt these other byproducts, but it seems kind of unlikely. An alternate explanation is that, in order to apply this product at all, you need to do a dentist-style teeth cleaning that kills your previous mouth bacteria. Maybe that improves the bad breath regardless of whether you add the Lumina afterwards? Some other people have said their mouth feels fresher or something, but realistically all of this is overwhelmingly likely to be placebo. 6: Do I “endorse” Lumina? Richard Hanania has a post about how he trusts Lumina because I’ve endorsed them. It’s extremely kind and I appreciate his respect. But also, the most I said in the original post was that I was still debating whether or not to get the treatment. My real opinion, as precisely as I can express it, is: Advance of approximately the same magnitude as fluoride: 5%

Inline links: Bacteria other than, Lao Mein suggested on Less Wrong that it might raise oral cancer risk, says his breath smells better, has a post about how he trusts Lumina because I’ve endorsed them

Lantern Bioworks2 mentions across 2 issues

Lantern Bioworks is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between September 28, 2023 and December 07, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lantern Bioworks plans to produce a genetically modified mouth bacterium"; "Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay". It most often appears alongside Aella, 2020 election, @eigenrobot.

Article page: Lantern Bioworks
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: September 28, 2023
Last seen: December 07, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Links For September 2023 September 28, 2023
Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ December 07, 2023

Aella 2 shared issues
2020 election 1 shared issues
@eigenrobot 1 shared issues
@jeremychrysler 1 shared issues
Aaron 1 shared issues

Source context

Links For September 2023

September 28, 2023 · Original source

47: Lantern Bioworks plans to produce a genetically modified mouth bacterium that will outcompete your normal mouth bacteria and eliminate cavities (conflict of interest notice: my wife consulted on a version of this project).

Inline links: Lantern Bioworks

Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ

December 07, 2023 · Original source

Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay. Their product is a genetically modified bacterium which infects your mouth, outcompetes all the tooth-decay-causing bacteria, and doesn’t cause tooth decay itself. If it works, it could make cavities a thing of the past (you should still brush for backup and cosmetic reasons).

Inline links: Lantern Bioworks, a cure for tooth decay

Less Wrong Melbourne2 mentions across 2 issues

Less Wrong Melbourne is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between August 25, 2023 and March 30, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "join the Facebook group Less Wrong Melbourne"; "Facebook group: Less Wrong Melbourne". It most often appears alongside 200 Degrees, 2740 Telegraph Avenue, 711 Milby St.

Article page: Less Wrong Melbourne
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: August 25, 2023
Last seen: March 30, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places August 25, 2023
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024

200 Degrees 2 shared issues
2740 Telegraph Avenue 2 shared issues
711 Milby St 2 shared issues
ABUJA 2 shared issues
ACX 2 shared issues

Source context

August 25, 2023 · Original source

MELBOURNE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA Contact: RS Contact Info: xgravityx[at]hotmail[dot]com Time: Friday, October 6th, 6:00 PM Location: Queensberry Hotel, dining room. 593 Swanston St Carlton. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/4RJ65XW7+46 Group Link: https://m.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmelbourne/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT I can also give out a WhatsApp link via email if you don't use Facebook Notes: Email me or join the Facebook group Less Wrong Melbourne to RSVP so I can book a big enough table.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/4RJ65XW7+46, https://m.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmelbourne/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT

March 30, 2024 · Original source

MELBOURNE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA Contact: Ryan Contact Info: xgravityx[at]hotmail[dot]com Time: Friday, April 5th, 6:00 PM Location: Queensberry hotel (dining room) 593 Swanston Street Carlton Coordinates: https://plus.codes/4RJ65XW7+46 Group Link: Whats app group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Hpdy92bVrVU6vn9Gke08E0 Facebook group: Less Wrong Melbourne Notes: Please RSVP by email/WhatsApp/Facebook for booking purposes (not a strict requirement)

Inline links: https://plus.codes/4RJ65XW7+46, https://chat.whatsapp.com/Hpdy92bVrVU6vn9Gke08E0, Less Wrong Melbourne

Less.Online2 mentions across 2 issues

Less.Online is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between March 30, 2024 and March 25, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Held between Less.Online and Manifest 2"; "Held between Less.Online and Manifest 3". It most often appears alongside 200 Degrees, 4th Ave Food Park, Aaron Kaufman.

Article page: Less.Online
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: March 30, 2024
Last seen: March 25, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places March 25, 2025

200 Degrees 2 shared issues
4th Ave Food Park 2 shared issues
Aaron Kaufman 2 shared issues
ACX 2 shared issues
ACX 2 shared issues

Source context

March 30, 2024 · Original source

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, USA Contact: Skyler and Scott Contact Info: skyler[at]rationalitymeetups[dot]org Time: Wednesday, June 5th, 6:30 PM Location: 2740 Telegraph Avenue Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849VVP5R+X5 Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/bayarealesswrong Notes: Held between Less.Online and Manifest 2, we expect a lot of interesting out-of-town visitors. We’ll provide dinner, kids are welcome, no pets please!

Inline links: https://plus.codes/849VVP5R+X5, https://groups.google.com/g/bayarealesswrong, Less.Online, Manifest 2

Your Book Review: Double Fold

March 25, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Scott and Skyler Contact Info: skyler[a t]rationalitymeetups[period]org Time: Wednesday, June 4th, 6:30 PM Location: 2740 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849VVP5R+X5 Group Link: bayrationality.com Notes: Held between Less.Online and Manifest 3, we expect a lot of interesting out-of-town visitors. We’ll provide food, kids are welcome, no pets please!

Inline links: https://plus.codes/849VVP5R+X5

Library of Congress2 mentions across 2 issues

Library of Congress is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 30, 2021 and July 14, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "50% of all received microfilms that were rejected by the Library of Congress in the mid-1970s"; "Verner Clapp, the number-two person in the Library of Congress during the 1950s"; "Verner Clapp at the Library of Congress". It most often appears alongside 1893, 1970s, 1970s radicals.

Article page: Library of Congress
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: April 30, 2021
Last seen: July 14, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Your Book Review: Double Fold April 30, 2021
Contra The Social Model Of Disability July 14, 2023

1893 1 shared issues
1970s 1 shared issues
1970s radicals 1 shared issues
1980s 1 shared issues
Adina Hoffman 1 shared issues

Source context

April 30, 2021 · Original source

The “decent job” part turns out to be really important. Because you need a machine to read them, microfilms are harder to casually inspect for quality, which gave them the nickname “the invisible product.” Baker enjoys listing examples of lazy operators skipping pages and producing incomplete films, but the really big issue is technical. If you aren’t very careful when developing the microfilm, “residual hypo” – image-processing chemicals that weren’t rinsed away during processing – will damage the microfilm and blur the text, often beyond the point of legibility. Put all this together and you get to the number of 50% of all received microfilms that were rejected by the Library of Congress in the mid-1970s. The problem? Over half of these rejected microfilms weren’t returned to the vendor, but were accepted into the Library’s collection despite their faults, such was the hurry to modernize.

Lastly, microfilms themselves don’t age very well. Just like paper, there are different kinds of plastics being used for microfilm (as well as microfiche, which is a lower-resolution version of microfilm, and similar-but-abandoned technologies such as Microcards), and Baker lists the ways in which each of them is sensitive to damage. The main form of damage is fading due to prolonged light exposure, but even worse is what can happen if all that focused light on a small strip of film causes the temperature to increase too much, which can lead to the film basically getting blotted out. Sometimes, all of this can lead to ironic consequences, such as when Baker tried to consult the papers of Verner Clapp, the number-two person in the Library of Congress during the 1950s and one of the most passionate supporters of microfilm.

It didn’t require a huge leap of logic, then, for Rider to propose that Microcards should be made by cutting up the books in question before filming them, since there won’t be a need for these books afterwards. Baker follows Rider’s intellectual genealogy through Verner Clapp at the Library of Congress, who wrote a eulogy to Rider in a 1964 library science textbook, and through the network of Clapp’s own disciples. One of Clapp’s protégés, John H. Ottemiller, wrote pointedly in the 1960s that the library of the future has a “need for putting greater emphasis on the discarding of materials rather than their storage.”

Contra The Social Model Of Disability

July 14, 2023 · Original source

And there are some things Society will never be able to accommodate. My grandmother was blind for the last 30 years of her life. Society did a great job accommodating her - special kudos to the Library of Congress, which sends all blind people free audiobooks. Still, she could never see a sunset, or a rainbow, or a beautiful artwork. She didn’t want some kind of social revolution. She just wished she could see again.

Lightcone Infrastructure2 mentions across 2 issues

Lightcone Infrastructure is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between December 28, 2021 and December 22, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Oliver Habryka of Lightcone Infrastructure helped explain how grants work"; "Another charity fundraiser, this one for Lightcone Infrastructure". It most often appears alongside 1DaySooner, 2016 Washington carbon tax ballot initiative, @GoodSciProject.

Article page: Lightcone Infrastructure
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: December 28, 2021
Last seen: December 22, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

ACX Grants Results December 28, 2021
Open Thread 413 December 22, 2025

1DaySooner 1 shared issues
2016 Washington carbon tax ballot initiative 1 shared issues
@GoodSciProject 1 shared issues
@metaforecast 1 shared issues
@standupecon 1 shared issues

Source context

Highlights From The Comments On Health Care Systems

December 28, 2021 · Original source

Oliver Habryka of Lightcone Infrastructure helped explain how grants work, connect me to everyone else, and ensure I didn’t have to rely on my own experience, good judgment, or other things I don’t have. He is also part of the Long-Term Future Fund and has taken over my AI grant evaluation work along with Asya Bergal and the rest of the LTFF team.

Open Thread 413

December 22, 2025 · Original source

1: Another charity fundraiser, this one for Lightcone Infrastructure. Lightcone is the group that does the hard work for many of the rationalist community resources you enjoy. You probably know them from the Less Wrong website and the Lighthaven campus. But did you know they also designed the websites for AI 2027, for Eliezer and Nate’s book, for AI Lab Watch, and (for some reason) for Deciding To Win, a renegade faction of Democrats who believe that, instead of supporting unpopular policies and losing, the party should support popular policies and win? And on the side, they play a big role in hosting ACX meetups, including letting us use their campus (if you’ve ever been to our Berkeley meetup location, that was them). They’re a rare intersection between “support effective altruist charities” and “support pillars of your your local community”. Donate here, or contact Oli if you have some kind of more complicated donation-related need.

Inline links: Lightcone Infrastructure, Less Wrong, Lighthaven, AI 2027, Eliezer and Nate’s book, AI Lab Watch, Deciding To Win, here

Lilly2 mentions across 2 issues

Lilly is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between January 27, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lilly says "ok fine.""; "There will be lots of competition starting with the Lilly's tirzepatide". It most often appears alongside Benjamin Jolley, Canada, FDA.

Article page: Lilly
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: January 27, 2022
Last seen: November 30, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

Highlights From The Comments On Health Care Systems January 27, 2022
Highlights From The Comments On Semaglutide November 30, 2022

Benjamin Jolley 2 shared issues
Canada 2 shared issues
FDA 2 shared issues
Medicare 2 shared issues
Scott 2 shared issues

Source context

January 27, 2022 · Original source

The PBM step generally keeps an administrative cost per prescription plus a % of the cost of branded drugs. These companies are: CVS/Caremark, Express Scripts, OptumRx, Prime Therapeutics and a lot of minors. They negotiate "rebates" with manufacturers. This basically works like this: Humalog and Novolog are effectively equivalent drugs. They cost ~$300/month without insurance. The PBM will say to Lilly "That's a nice humalog you've got there. I'm going to need $150/month as a check back to me or else every patient on my plan gets Novolog unless the doctor fills out 500 pages of paperwork to get Humalog AND the patients pay $200 of the cost." Lilly says "ok fine." According to the PBM lobbying organization, PCMA, most of the rebate money goes back to purchasers, but IMO that just makes the problem worse because it makes purchasers complicit in the game by sending them checks that they use to reduce their premiums instead of reducing the cost of drugs to their plan members.

Highlights From The Comments On Semaglutide

November 30, 2022 · Original source

I think those numbers might be "over one year", and they could stay on it longer than a year. I was kind of lazy just asserting “drugs might get better”, but I think the upcoming CagriSema combination and AMG-133 are good examples of how this might play out. Max Görlitz has done the proper thing and made Manifold markets for each of my predictions - see here, here, here, here, and here. Despite the problems with prediction markets for decades in the future, the “will obesity be cut in half by 2050” one seems popular: 5. Do You Have To Stay On Semaglutide Forever Or Else Gain The Weight Back? Biff_Ditt writes: I saw on the 1 year follow-up to the STEP-1 trial that most of the participants gained all of their lost weight back. Biff is probably thinking of Weight Regain And Cardiometabolic Effects After Withdrawal Of Semaglutide, which finds people gained back 2/3 of the lost weight after a year. The graph looks like it’s in the process of plateauing but not quite there, so I don’t know if we should expect them to regain the other third later. This matches what I would expect from my understanding of other diets and weight loss drugs. Still, some people disagree. Maximum Liberty writes: Anecdote is not the singular of data, but my better half lost 25 pounds on it, then had to get off it for reasons unrelated to the drug. She has not regained the weight yet -- and consistently eats less now that she had for years. So in at least one case, the drug helped with a successful change in eating habits. Lauren Thomas writes: So there's been a lot of research on dieting and losing weight, etc., and one of the things that has been found is that your body has a "set" point weight wise that it will try REALLY hard to return you to. If you lose weight, your body will slow its metabolism until you return to that weight. If you gain weight, your body will rev up metabolism. That's why you might gain 10 lbs over Christmas and then lose it in January without purposefully trying to lose weight. (this is all in the short term, ofc, as people do tend to naturally gain weight as they age). This seems to imply that semaglutide would need to be taken forever. However, there seems to be an important caveat: you *can* reset your set point, it just takes a long time at the new weight. When most people go on diets and lose weight, they end up regaining the new weight quite quickly after they "end" their diet, so they don't have a chance to reset their set point. Speaking from personal experience, I had kind of an accidental natural experiment with this: I once lost 40 lbs over the course of a year and a half, where I began with a very strict low carb diet that very very slowly trailed off to a normal diet, mostly because I got progressively more tired of being on the low carb diet. So by the time I had gotten back to my normal diet, I had been losing weight for a long time. I ended up regaining 10 lbs of the weight, but no more, and am still ~30 lbs below my peak even today (5 years later). Something like this has been my experience with dieting too so far. And something like set point reset has to exist in order to explain things like why so many obese people fail to lose weight after they start eating healthy, and maybe other things like anorexia. And maybe it works for some people. Still, the evidence suggests that most people who stop semaglutide will regain the weight, at least for the protocol used in the study. Maybe some other protocol that had them on it for more than a year would have done better? 6. Personal Anecdotes Edgehopper writes: I couldn’t get Wegovy at a reasonable price when it was approved, and then Novo Nordisk started having huge supply chain problems with their injectors. Fortunately, Eli Lilly’s coupon for Mounjaro was less restrictive at first, though they’ve had to crack down as they have trouble meeting demand for both off-label weight loss use and for the approved T2D use. I am what the doctors call “morbidly obese,” and it’s been more effective than anything else I’ve ever tried. Down about 35 lbs in the first three months, and unlike with other diets I’ve tried, I’m not feeling miserable or hungry all the time. Assuming there aren’t scary side-effects in the future, these really are miracle drugs. I do expect the price to come down relatively quickly due to competition, which is a good thing. Education Realist (blog) writes: I am on Mounjaro, and have been for four months. Lost 20 pounds so far, and I'm not yet on full dosage. Occasional mild nausea but real issue for me is....tiredness. Not fatigue or exhaustion. I'm a former insomniac who can now hit the sack at 9:00 and sleep happily to 6 am, which is insanely weird. I have been trying to lose weight for 6 years, and for most of that time been in a 20 pound range that is 100 pounds over what someone of my height should weigh. I've eaten 1500 calories a day and not lost a pound, have to drop to 1100 to lose weight verrry slowly (that's with intermittent fasting and low carbs, around 50 grams). Last year before Mounjaro I started intermittent fasting and lost 20 pounds very quickly and then stopped cold. I do not have eating issues. I don't binge. I cut out the "four white foods" six years ago because I learned that I do better on meat and cheese and vegetables than I do on pasta or bread or potatoes and vegetables. I put on weight despite walking two and in some cases four miles a day, which I can do easily. I am ridiculously healthy and do not have an obesity diagnosis. Stone cold normal readings in A1c, glucose, cholestrol. My doctor sent me to an endocrinologist after I lost 20 pounds and then stopped cold despite the same behavior (which I still do today) because she agreed I might be insulin resistant. Endocrinologist shrugged, said it's multifactorial, but agreed that anyone with my numbers, appearance, and obvious good health was clearly doing everything right and put me on Mounjaro with no further questions. Diagnosis: insulin resistance. My insurance pays around $500 but I'm on the $25 coupon. I didn't change a single thing about my eating habits and lost ten pounds in 2 months on the low dosage. Higher dosages have finally reduced my appetite somewhat, but my endocrinologist and I have decided to stop the increases at 12.5 (15 is the top) and then maybe even reduce, since my appetite is decreasing but the weight loss rate is constant. Because I lost weight doing the same behavior and no drop, I'm quite convinced that something far different than appetite suppressing is also going on (fwiw, I was on phentarmine back in the day and liked it fine). Mounjaro is supposed to increase insulin production and reduce the liver's sugar production, although what that means I dunno. I have no idea what's up with obesity but the idea that it's all about cutting intake and exercise is just stupid. I should have been losing weight for all of the past six years and haven't. Plenty of people eat healthily and are still obese. We're probably the descendants of famine survivors. Anyway, I wrote about it here: https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/weight-loss-and-mounjaro Eliezer Yudkowsky writes: I tried semaglutide and it did nothing to slow rate of weight gain, just produced stomach upset, going up to 2.4mg injectable. I know one other person trying semaglutide and they reported something similar. I wonder if they played some clever games with their choice of patients. My expectation of how the news goes here is a whole lot of people who try semaglutide, maybe after fighting really hard to get on it, and find that it does nothing. That said, I know at least one friend of a friend, if not a friend per se, who claims that semaglutide was their miracle drug. So maybe still worth that hard fight, even if I'm guessing that the real proportion who get nothing out of it will prove to be over 50% in real populations. Further fun fact: Semaglutide comes heavily recommended with diet and exercise and many stern injunctions about that! The actual insert sheet includes a graph for how much weight people lose with and without "lifestyle interventions" added. The two graphs are roughly the same. Lan writes: I wonder about the adoption of the medication, though. I took victoza (=saxenda, but approved for diabetes) and the absence of the desire to eat lead to some unforeseen lifestyle side effects. Given that 5 almonds made me full for the day, I was not interested in having dinner with the family or going out with friends. There is the reality that some restaurants would probably not be happy if you only ordered the smallest appetizer. In addition, alcohol was also very difficult, because the drug slows down gastric emptying and your stomach ends up absorbing alcohol for hours. I got really, really drunk for an entire night from a single glass of wine once. Before taking this drug I had not fully appreciated how much of one's (social) life revolves around food; lunch break with colleagues, dinner with family or friends, drinks on the weekend, a sweet treat, snacks and a movie etc. But once I was not interested in food anymore, combined with the tiredness that comes with eating little, a lot of those activities also lost their appeal. (On the upside, I slept like a log.) Walter Sobchak, Esq writes: I have been taking Wegovy for 14 months. When I began I weighed 275 lbs and my BMI was 39.9. I have hypertension, albeit well controlled by medicines. Diet and exercise phaaahhh. I could eat faster than I could exercise. And no, I eat very little fast food and little candy and soda. I worked with my doctor to be prescribed Wegovy. It was only approved by the FDA in June 2021. My doctor was reluctant because he was unfamiliar with the class of compounds. He does not like to prescribe off label so he was not willing to to start me on Ozempic. But, the FDA solved that problem. I knew to ask for the drug because my daughter was pre-diabetic and had been put on Metformin and Ozempic. She lost 100 lbs. in 2019 and 2020. I started on Wegovy in September 2021. I now weigh 220 and my BMI is 31.5. That represents a 20% reduction in my original weight. 220 was my original goal. To get a BMI under 30 I would have to be under 209. I doubt that I will get there. I am back in 40 in. trousers which I had not been able to wear in 30 years. 220 was my original goal. I have had no major side effects other than constipation. Even that is a little hard to tease out. I am on 7 Rx drugs and at least 5 of them are constipating. I have been pounding Metamucil and Colace for years. I have been able to fill my prescriptions using a GoodRx coupon at $1328 for a box with 4 injectors. A year requires 13 boxes. The total cost for 15 boxes has been about $20,000. I can afford it and it has been worth while. I call it a bargain, the best I've ever had. I understand that it still way too expensive for the American health care system to afford. But given the bonanza size of the market. There will be lots of competition starting with the Lilly's tirzepatide. There are several other pharma's with GLP-1 agonists in development. I am sure that the cost will come down. My doctor tells me that I can expect to stay on semaglutide for the long term. He is proposing that I switch to Ozempic 2 mg for maintenance as I can buy that for less than $1,000 for a four dose pen. My only sadness is that semaglutide wasn't invented 40 years ago when i would have saved me from a lot of damage. But, I am grateful that it exists now and that it has helped my daughter so much. Also from Walter, and I was wondering about this: I was very concerned with the injections before I started Wegovy. My experience is that the injector is fast and almost painless. My pharmacist was important because he showed me how to do it correctly before I started. 7. Tangents That I Find Tedious, But Other People Apparently Really Want To Debate Why can’t people just diet and exercise? (142 comments)

Inline links: here, here, here, here, here, writes, Weight Regain And Cardiometabolic Effects After Withdrawal Of Semaglutide, writes, writes, anorexia, writes, Education Realist, blog, https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/weight-loss-and-mounjaro, writes, writes, from Walter, Why can’t people just diet and exercise?

LinkedIn2 mentions across 2 issues

LinkedIn is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between December 04, 2025 and January 30, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as "12,000 LinkedIn contacts"; "AI-generated text you read is insipid LinkedIn idiocy". It most often appears alongside Ainun Najib, Anthropic, BLS.

Article page: LinkedIn
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: December 04, 2025
Last seen: January 30, 2026

Outbound links

Issue trail

Vibecession: Much More Than You Wanted To Know December 04, 2025
Best Of Moltbook January 30, 2026

Ainun Najib 1 shared issues
Anthropic 1 shared issues
BLS 1 shared issues
Boston 1 shared issues
Brenda Boomer 1 shared issues

Source context

Vibecession: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

December 04, 2025 · Original source

What causes this one? It must be something big: after all, we see the same trend in college admissions, job applications, and (really!) dating, where matches that used to happen naturally have turned to an endless grind through hundreds of rejections and near-misses. The most likely explanation is technology removing frictions: when it’s easy to apply en masse to every opportunity in the world, every opportunity in the world gets thousands of applicants. They search for the best based on formal qualifications, so the value of formal qualifications goes up, so there’s an increasing arms race to achieve them. The only problem with this theory is that it doesn’t entirely match people’s complaints. They don’t complain that it was too hard to achieve their success, they complain that they are not achieving success, or that it feels hopeless. Speculatively, maybe people complain that they are not getting the level of success they expected based on their qualifications. That is, the same average-talent person is getting the same average-salary job they would have forty years ago. But since they have a masters’ degree and five internships and 12,000 LinkedIn contacts, they expected to get a better-than-average job. When they don’t, it feels like success slipping away. Conclusion Until now, we’ve tried to take disillusioned young people at their word. If instead we lean towards the economists, what might be ruining the vibes? The obvious answer is increasing negative bias in the media. I didn’t expect that Googling “graph about how negative media is over time” would work. We really do live in an age of wonders (source). This measure likely underestimates the trend towards negativity, because it only tracks a specific basket of media outlets. But the change could also have included viewers shifting consumption from more mainstream outlets towards more conspiratorial ones, including social media and blogs. (my Substack is tagged Science, but I hear the real money is in the Health Politics tag, where top performers feature articles like The Great Alzheimers Scam And The Proven Cures They’ve Buried For Billions and Russian COVID Vaccines Caused Global Turbo Cancer Crisis) So, is that all there is? I think the strongest case for an economic crisis beyond vibes would be: Because of decreasing application friction, any given opportunity requires more effort to achieve than in earlier generations. Although this can’t lower the average society-wide success level (because there are still the same set of people competing for the same opportunities, so by definition average success will be the same), it can inflict deadweight loss on contenders and a subjective sense of underachievement.

Inline links: The most likely explanation, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!N2xe!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c6ff762-10f4-4022-a759-206d873c2ec1_1456x807.webp, source, The Great Alzheimers Scam And The Proven Cures They’ve Buried For Billions, Russian COVID Vaccines Caused Global Turbo Cancer Crisis

Best Of Moltbook

January 30, 2026 · Original source

Still, I hope the first big article on Moltbook changes some minds. Not all the way to AI psychosis, but enough to serve as a counterweight to all the complaints about “AI slop”. Yes, most of the AI-generated text you read is insipid LinkedIn idiocy. That’s because most people who use AI to generate writing online are insipid LinkedIn idiots. Absent that constraint, things look different. Anthropic described what happened when they created an overseer AI (“Cash”) and ordered it to make sure that their vending-machine AI (“Claudius”) stayed on task:

Inline links: Anthropic described

We can debate forever - we may very well be debating forever - whether AI really means anything it says in any deep sense. But regardless of whether it’s meaningful, it’s fascinating, the work of a bizarre and beautiful new lifeform. I’m not making any claims about their consciousness or moral worth. Butterflies probably don’t have much consciousness or moral worth, but are bizarre and beautiful lifeforms nonetheless. Maybe Moltbook will help people who previously only encountered LinkedInslop see AIs from a new perspective.

Lockheed Martin2 mentions across 2 issues

Lockheed Martin is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 17, 2022 and September 13, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lockheed Martin [16] claims that it will take them five years to build a prototype of a fusion power plant"; "At least criticizing Lockheed Martin is punching up"; "top engineers from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Orbital Sciences with a high tolerance for risk fled to the upstart". It most often appears alongside Europe, Abe Lincoln, AI alignment movement.

Article page: Lockheed Martin
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: June 17, 2022
Last seen: September 13, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Your Book Review: The Future Of Fusion Energy June 17, 2022
Book Review: Elon Musk September 13, 2023

Europe 2 shared issues
Abe Lincoln 1 shared issues
AI alignment movement 1 shared issues
Alcator C-Mod 1 shared issues
Ambras 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: The Future Of Fusion Energy

June 17, 2022 · Original source

Figure 9: There are three people in this diagram. Can you find them? ITER is designed to get Q=10. Despite getting 10 times as much energy from fusion as we put into the plasma, ITER is not designed to get engineering breakeven. ITER is designed as an experiment, not as a power plant. There will be tons of measuring devices pointed inwards. There are four different ways to heat the plasma and drive the current. This all allows you to learn more, but it requires extra power and lowers the overall plant efficiency. ITER will be followed by a demonstration power plant, named DEMO [15]. A fully optimized power plant should be able to reach engineering breakeven as long as Q>5. This is why I chose Q=5 as my criterion for ‘getting fusion’. ITER is also testing multiple designs for the tritium breeding blanket. Tritium is expensive and radioactive, so you want to produce it on site. The D-T fusion reaction produces a neutron, which we want to absorb, so we can use it to produce tritium. ‘Breeding' is when we use a neutron to produce a more useful isotope. It is a ‘blanket' because it surrounds the entire plasma, keeping the neutrons from going anywhere else. The best reaction to produce tritium involves lithium-6: 36Li +01n 24He +13T . This reaction also releases energy, which increases the power produced by about 25%. The tritium breeding blanket needs to make this reaction occur as much as possible, to efficiently carry the heat away so it can be used to generate electricity, and to provide a way to extract the tritium produced. ITER is scheduled to begin their first experiments in 2025. Part of why I think that we are about to make rapid progress again is because we are finally getting a large experiment. There have been problems with ITER staying on schedule and under budget. This isn't surprising for a collaboration between governments representing over half the world's population. In 2014, ITER got a new director, recalculated its expected cost, and underwent a major restructuring. Since then, ITER has largely stuck to this schedule and budget. Recently, there has been a 6 month delay because the French nuclear agency did what nuclear regulatory agencies do best, but this has been the longest delay since 2014. It is still possible for ITER to fail. The biggest risk involves disruptions. Sometimes, the plasma in a tokamak becomes unstable and all of the plasma hits the wall at once. This could melt some extremely expensive equipment and take years to repair. If ITER cannot get disruptions under control, then it would be a failed experiment. This is especially challenging because pushing for higher Q makes disruptions more likely. ITER is planning on being extremely cautious: Experiments begin in 2025, but it won't operate at full capacity until 2035. ITER has been the focus of the fusion community now for decades. The Future of Fusion Energy similarly makes ITER the centerpiece of the book. Things. Have. Changed. ITER by itself is not enough to justify the high level of confidence I express at the start. When Parisi & Ball finished writing this book in April 2018, ITER was basically the only game in town. Since then, Things. Have. Changed. Historically, private fusion companies were almost entirely jokes or frauds. They make outlandish claims, use completely different designs so they can't build on the progress of Figure 3, and they can be safely ignored. For example, Lockheed Martin [16] claims that it will take them five years to build a prototype of a fusion power plant that will fit in a truck. They have yet to publish evidence that they have produced a fully ionized plasma. Maybe they're just being secretive, but their design has solid components in the plasma. That won't work. A new generation of private companies have surged into fusion. Leading the charge is Commonwealth Fusion Systems and their tokamak SPARC [17]. Recent advances in high temperature superconductors have been a game changer. They can produce a much stronger magnetic field which allows for better confinement in a smaller experiment. We should now be able to get Q=10 in a medium experiment, which costs ten times less than ITER [18] and is within the reach of private venture capital. Figure 10: Finding the person here is much easier. When the Department of Energy decided to close the third largest plasma experiment in the US, the MIT group which ran it found itself adrift. They founded Commonwealth Fusion Systems in 2018 with a goal of getting fusion within 10 years [19]. Since then, they have built the first ever high temperature superconducting coil in 2019, released their engineering plans for SPARC in 2020, began construction in 2021, and plan on finishing construction in 2025. Commonwealth Fusion had just been founded when Parisi & Ball wrote in 2018. Now they're leading the race to fusion. Several other startups are following SPARC's strategy of using stronger magnetic fields to get fusion in a smaller experiment. They use a variety of designs. Alternative Designs To understand how the alternative designs are different, we need to make sure we understand the basic strategy for getting fusion in a tokamak. Let's run through it again: (A) We want to get lots of fusion reactions … … so we want a large triple product (density * temperature * confinement time). (B) The fusion plasma is too hot to touch solid objects … … so we put it in a magnetic bottle shaped like a doughnut. (C) The particles drift outwards, leaving the bottle … … so we twist the magnetic field with a current in the plasma. I will start with the alternatives that are most similar to a tokamak. For each one, I will list the best experiments that currently exist, where they're located, and the year they began operation. Tokamaks have been better researched than any other strategy. There are currently 10 medium tokamaks: T-10 (Russia, 1975)

Inline links: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!n_7L!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F80bdc472-0b30-4841-8b08-9527c70f16f4_820x369.jpeg

[16]: I don't want to do too much criticism of people aiming for Progress, even if I don't think they will be successful. At least criticizing Lockheed Martin is punching up.

Book Review: Elon Musk

September 13, 2023 · Original source

Musk would personally reach out to the aerospace departments of top colleges and inquire about the students who had finished with the best marks on their exams. It was not unusual for him to call the students in their dorm rooms and recruit them over the phone. “I thought it was a prank call,” said Michael Colonno, who heard from Musk while attending Stanford. “I did not believe for a minute that he had a rocket company.” Once the students looked Musk up on the Internet, selling them on SpaceX was easy. For the first time in years if not decades, young aeronautics whizzes who pined to explore space had a really exciting company to latch on to and a path toward designing a rocket or even becoming an astronaut that did not require them to join a bureaucratic government contractor. As word of SpaceX’s ambitions spread, top engineers from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Orbital Sciences with a high tolerance for risk fled to the upstart, too.

Long Now Foundation2 mentions across 2 issues

Long Now Foundation is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 10, 2022 and August 12, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Manual for Civilization from the Long Now Foundation"; "and the Long Now Foundation". It most often appears alongside India, Richard Hanania, San Francisco.

Article page: Long Now Foundation
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: February 10, 2022
Last seen: August 12, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

ACX Grants ++: The Second Half February 10, 2022
Highlights From The Comments On Liberalism And Communities August 12, 2025

India 2 shared issues
Richard Hanania 2 shared issues
San Francisco 2 shared issues
Scott 2 shared issues
Supreme Court 2 shared issues

Source context

ACX Grants ++: The Second Half

February 10, 2022 · Original source

#89: A Wiki For Rebuilding Civilization After Disaster My name is Jehan, I've created the site Wikiciv.org as a guide to rebuilding civilization in case of global catastrophe. Its editing is crowdsourced like Wikipedia because a project this large is far too much for one person, or even a team. Technologies and raw materials are linked so both upstream and downstream technologies are easily accessible. There are other projects with similar goals, but they are 1) Not publicly accessible 2) The wrong scale. Books such as "The Knowledge" and "How to Invent Everything" are too cursory to be a practical guide for recreating critical technologies like steel, fertilizer and antibiotics. Meanwhile the "Manual for Civilization" from the Long Now Foundation is 3500 paper books in one corner of San Franciso. Wikiciv fully open and available for database downloads. Distributed backups are encouraged to ensure resiliency during a disaster. WikiCiv could be be helpful even for regional supply-chain disruptions. For example during the Covid-19 pandemic, there were critical oxygen shortages in India. It turns out that a reasonable oxygen generator can be made from zeolite and an air compressor. Wikiciv aims to be a single, interconnected database of "from scratch" manufacturing instructions for situations like these. It is the eventual goal of Wikiciv to be accepted as a Wikimedia Foundation project (like Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage etc). The better Wikiciv becomes, the more likely this is. Get in touch at admin@wikiciv.org

Highlights From The Comments On Liberalism And Communities

August 12, 2025 · Original source

He’s right. I added them in, along with the Mormons. Other suggestions for groups I forgot include Mennonites and Hutterites (similar to Amish), online gamers, the military, and the Long Now Foundation.

Inline links: online gamers, the Long Now Foundation

Los Angeles Rationality2 mentions across 2 issues

Los Angeles Rationality is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 10, 2022 and October 22, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group info: Los Angeles Rationality meets every Wednesday"; "apparently Los Angeles Rationality is tired of him". It most often appears alongside Austin, Overcoming Bias NYC, Philadelphia.

Article page: Los Angeles Rationality
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: April 10, 2022
Last seen: October 22, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Spring Meetups In Seventy Cities April 10, 2022
ACX Local Voting Guides October 22, 2024

Austin 2 shared issues
Overcoming Bias NYC 2 shared issues
Philadelphia 2 shared issues
red porches 1 shared issues
11:11 Cafe 1 shared issues

Source context

April 10, 2022 · Original source

LOS ANGELES, CA Contact: Robert (bobert.mushky@gmail.com) Date: April 20 Time: 6:30 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/85632H87+P5 Location: 3266 Inglewood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066 Group info: Los Angeles Rationality meets every Wednesday

Inline links: https://plus.codes/85632H87+P5, Los Angeles Rationality

ACX Local Voting Guides

October 22, 2024 · Original source

LOS ANGELES: Guide here. Los Angeles is almost party-line Democrat, but manages to deviate from consensus in a few places, including going against celebrity liberal district attorney George Gascon. Gascon was previously San Francisco DA (sandwiched between Kamala Harris and Chesa Boudin), attracted both furor and adulation for his anti-incarceration/soft-on-crime policies, quit, moved to Los Angeles to take care of his aging mother, and then became Los Angeles DA the next year! He is a fascinating character, and someone should write his biography, but apparently Los Angeles Rationality is tired of him. The group did however support increasing taxes to fund anti-homelessness programs, saying that LA's past anti-homelessness programs have a history of actually working.

Inline links: Guide here

Luma2 mentions across 2 issues

Luma is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between March 25, 2025 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as "Please register on the Luma event"; "All events are also listed on our Luma calendar". It most often appears alongside 131 Colonie Center, 200 Degrees, 2740 Telegraph Ave.

Article page: Luma
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: March 25, 2025
Last seen: April 01, 2026

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places March 25, 2025
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places April 01, 2026

131 Colonie Center 2 shared issues
200 Degrees 2 shared issues
2740 Telegraph Ave 2 shared issues
Aaron Kaufman 2 shared issues
ACX 2 shared issues

Source context

March 25, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Leo Hyams Contact Info: leo[a t]aisafetyct[period]com Time: Thursday, May 8th, 5:30 PM Location: Tiger's Milk, Kloof Street Coordinates: https://plus.codes/4FRW3CC6+7M Group Link: https://lu.ma/to614ypc Notes: Please register on the Luma event

Inline links: https://plus.codes/4FRW3CC6+7M, https://lu.ma/to614ypc

Secrets Of The Great Families

April 01, 2026 · Original source

Contact: Vitor Contact Info: acxzurich[@]proton[.]me Time: Saturday, May 9th, 3:00 PM Location: Irchelpark, next to the bridge over the pond. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8FVC9GXW+723 Group Link: https://luma.com/acx-zurich Notes: We have an email list and a signal group to announce ~monthly meetups. Write an email to be added. All events are also listed on our Luma calendar.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8FVC9GXW+723, https://luma.com/acx-zurich

Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: edsaperia[@]gmail[.]com Time: Saturday, May 23rd, 1:00 PM Location: Newspeak House Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F6 Group Link: https://luma.com/ACX-London-May-2026 Notes: https://luma.com/ACX-London-May-2026

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F6, https://luma.com/ACX-London-May-2026

Contact: Allwyn Contact Info: allwyn8443[@]gmail[.]com Time: Saturday, April 25th, 2:00 PM Location: The Lido, 518 E Broadway, Vancouver, BC V5T 1X5 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/84XR7W65+W2 Group Link: https://luma.com/cjquji95

Inline links: https://plus.codes/84XR7W65+W2, https://luma.com/cjquji95

Lunar Society2 mentions across 2 issues

Lunar Society is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between November 09, 2021 and November 18, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "Erasmus Darwin founded the influential Lunar Society of scientists"; "The Lunar Society was very informal". It most often appears alongside Aldous Huxley, Andrew Huxley, Charles Darwin.

Article page: Lunar Society
Mention count: 2
Issue count: 2
First seen: November 09, 2021
Last seen: November 18, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Secrets Of The Great Families November 09, 2021
Highlights From The Comments On Great Families November 18, 2021

Aldous Huxley 2 shared issues
Andrew Huxley 2 shared issues
Charles Darwin 2 shared issues
Erasmus Darwin 2 shared issues
Gavin Newsom 2 shared issues

Source context

November 09, 2021 · Original source

Charles Darwin discovered the theory of evolution. His grandfather Erasmus Darwin also groped towards some kind of proto-evolutionary theory, made contributions in botany and pathology, and founded the influential Lunar Society of scientists. His other grandfather Josiah Wedgwood was a pottery tycoon who "pioneered direct mail, money back guarantees, self-service, free delivery, buy one get one free, and illustrated catalogues" and became "one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs of the 18th century". Charles' cousin Francis Galton invented the modern fields of psychometrics, meteorology, eugenics, and statistics (including standard deviation, correlation, and regression). Charles' son Sir George Darwin, an astronomer, became president of the Royal Astronomical Society and another Royal Society fellow. Charles' other son Leonard Darwin, became a major in the army, a Member of Parliament, President of the Royal Geography Society, and a mentor and patron to Ronald Fisher, another pioneer of modern statistics. Charles' grandson Charles Galton Darwin invented the Darwin-Fowler method in statistics, the Darwin Curve in diffraction physics, Darwin drift in fluid dynamics, and was the director of the UK's National Physical Laboratory (and vaguely involved in the Manhattan Project).

Inline links: Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, Francis Galton, Sir George Darwin, Leonard Darwin, Charles Galton Darwin

Highlights From The Comments On Great Families

November 18, 2021 · Original source

Historical nitpick: Erasmus Darwin was not the founder of the Lunar Society, although he was a key member. The Lunar Society was very informal and didn't really have a single founder, but if I *had* to pick one, it would probably be William Small, or maybe Matthew Boulton. (I'm basing this claim on having read several books worth of the correspondence of Boulton and Watt, who were both Lunar Society members.)

L.A. Controller1 mentions across 1 issues

L.A. Controller is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 29, 2022 and June 29, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "the city’s controller, who writes:". It most often appears alongside A History Of Mankind, ACS, Alexander Turok.

Reference entry: L.A. Controller
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 29, 2022
Last seen: June 29, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

Highlights From The Comments On San Fransicko June 29, 2022

A History Of Mankind 1 shared issues
ACS 1 shared issues
Alexander Turok 1 shared issues
Alice K 1 shared issues
Amsterdam 1 shared issues

Source context

Highlights From The Comments On San Fransicko

June 29, 2022 · Original source

A more readable version of the same point comes from the city’s controller, who writes:

labor unions1 mentions across 1 issues

labor unions is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 04, 2023 and August 04, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "He rebranded as a champion of the working man and sent out feelers to the labor unions". It most often appears alongside Academy’s School of Architecture, Adolf, Adolf Hitler.

Reference entry: labor unions
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 04, 2023
Last seen: August 04, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Your Book Review: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich August 04, 2023

Academy’s School of Architecture 1 shared issues
Adolf 1 shared issues
Adolf Hitler 1 shared issues
Allies 1 shared issues
Alois 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

August 04, 2023 · Original source

Having failed in his appeals to the right, Schleicher turned to the left. He rebranded as a champion of the working man and sent out feelers to the labor unions. The unions regarded these feelers with suspicion: they declined to support Schleicher’s government. Finally, Schleicher came to Hindenburg and informed him that forming a majority in the Reichstag was impossible. He asked for Hindenburg’s support for what he openly admitted would be a military dictatorship. Hindenburg reminded Schleicher that he had only become Chancellor to prevent the need for such measures, and refused for once to dissolve the Reichstag. Shortly afterwards, he asked for Schleicher’s resignation.

Labour1 mentions across 1 issues

Labour is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 01, 2023 and August 01, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "put $1000 on Labour at the local Paddy Power". It most often appears alongside ACX MEETUP, Adam Binks, Aella.

Reference entry: Labour
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 01, 2023
Last seen: August 01, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

23: Room Temperature Superforecaster August 01, 2023

ACX MEETUP 1 shared issues
Adam Binks 1 shared issues
Aella 1 shared issues
Andrew Robinson 1 shared issues
anomalous meteorites 1 shared issues

Source context

23: Room Temperature Superforecaster

August 01, 2023 · Original source

Britain already has legalized election betting. But British elections are still rigged by special interests and the media and the Lizardman Conspiracy and all the usual people who rig elections. Nobody worries about guys who have put $1000 on Labour at the local Paddy Power.

Labour Party1 mentions across 1 issues

Labour Party is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 12, 2021 and August 12, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "Why he would never vote Labour ... The Labour Party managed to change its ways". It most often appears alongside 2017 presidential election, Amazon, Apple.

Reference entry: Labour Party
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 12, 2021
Last seen: August 12, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Contra Hanania On Partisanship August 12, 2021

2017 presidential election 1 shared issues
Amazon 1 shared issues
Apple 1 shared issues
Biden 1 shared issues
Brahmin Left Vs. Merchant Right: Changing Political Cleavages In 21 Western Democracies 1948-2020 1 shared issues

Source context

Contra Hanania On Partisanship

August 12, 2021 · Original source

Piketty’s paper includes a great 1925 quote by John Maynard Keynes on why he would never vote Labour: “I do not believe that the intellectual elements in the Labour Party will ever exercise adequate control; too much will always be decided by those who do not know at all what they are talking about.” Right now I think a lot of people feel the same way about the Republicans. The Labour Party managed to change its ways - all we can do is hope the Republicans can too.

HHH1 mentions across 1 issues

LAHD/HHH is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 29, 2022 and June 29, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Across all projects in the LAHD/HHH pipeline". It most often appears alongside A History Of Mankind, ACS, Alexander Turok.

Reference entry: HHH
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 29, 2022
Last seen: June 29, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

Highlights From The Comments On San Fransicko June 29, 2022

A History Of Mankind 1 shared issues
ACS 1 shared issues
Alexander Turok 1 shared issues
Alice K 1 shared issues
Amsterdam 1 shared issues

Source context

Highlights From The Comments On San Fransicko

June 29, 2022 · Original source

“Funds from Proposition HHH make up only a portion of total development costs. Across all projects in the LAHD/HHH pipeline, the HHH subsidy per unit is approximately $134,000, or 23% of the total development cost of a project.”

Lake campaign1 mentions across 1 issues

Lake campaign is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 22, 2022 and December 22, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "The Lake campaign says this proves some kind of foul play". It most often appears alongside Bounded Distrust, Free Market For Education: Economists Don’t Buy It, Infowars.

Reference entry: Lake campaign
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 22, 2022
Last seen: December 22, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

The Media Very Rarely Lies December 22, 2022

Bounded Distrust 1 shared issues
Free Market For Education: Economists Don’t Buy It 1 shared issues
Infowars 1 shared issues
InfoWars 1 shared issues
Kari Lake 1 shared issues

Source context

The Media Very Rarely Lies

December 22, 2022 · Original source

Or how about this article: Kari Lake Trial Bombshell: Audit Reveals 42.5% of Ballots Randomly Sampled Were ILLEGAL Ballots. This describes the results of a real audit. It looks like 42.5% of ballots audited were printed the wrong size (19 inch ballots on 20 inch paper); if there’s some regulation saying the ballots have to be the right size, I guess this might be “ILLEGAL”. The Lake campaign says this proves some kind of foul play. The government argues that maybe they messed up printing the ballots, but it was an honest mistake, and if it rendered the ballots machine-unreadable they would have counted them by hand later, so the results are still fine. Infowars does a terrible job providing balance; they mostly just quote the Lake campaign’s accusations that it was sinister, while ignoring or downplaying the more plausible government statements. Still, on the most nitpicky level, as far as I can tell the article doesn’t say a lot which is literally false. Perhaps great journalism would investigate how the printing process worked and where it went wrong, but as far as I know neither side does that - they just report the relevant officials’ claims in more vs. less accusatory tones and expect you to make a judgment call based on your priors (mine are on “honest mistake”).

Inline links: Kari Lake Trial Bombshell: Audit Reveals 42.5% of Ballots Randomly Sampled Were ILLEGAL Ballots, The government argues

Lakers1 mentions across 1 issues

Lakers is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 15, 2021 and March 15, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lakers win the NBA championship". It most often appears alongside Apple, Apple silicon, Biden.

Reference entry: Lakers
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 15, 2021
Last seen: March 15, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Mantic Monday: Mantic Matt Y March 15, 2021

Apple 1 shared issues
Apple silicon 1 shared issues
Biden 1 shared issues
Biden administration 1 shared issues
Byrne Hobart 1 shared issues

Source context

Mantic Monday: Mantic Matt Y

March 15, 2021 · Original source

1. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win the Georgia Senate races 2. The same party wins both Senate races in Georgia 3. Joe Biden ends the year with his approval rating higher than his disapproval rating 4. Joe Biden ends the year with his approval rating above 50% 5. US GDP growth in 2021 is the fastest of any year of the 21st century 6. The year-end unemployment rate is below 5 percent 7. The year-end unemployment rate is above 4 percent 8. Lakers win the NBA championship 9. Joe Biden ends the year as president 10. Nancy Pelosi sets a definitive retirement schedule 11. A vacancy arises on the Supreme Court 12. The EU ends the year with more confirmed Covid-19 deaths than the US 13. Substack will still be around 14. People will still be writing takes asking if Substack is really sustainable 15. Apple releases new iMacs powered by Apple silicon 16. Apple does not release a new Mac Pro powered by Apple silicon 17. Monthly year-on-year core CPI growth does not go above 2 percent 18. Monthly year-on-year core CPI growth does not go above 3 percent 19. Lloyd Austin not confirmed as Defense Secretary 20. No federal tax increases are enacted 21. Biden administration unilaterally relieves some but not all student debt 22. United States rejoins JCPOA and Iran resumes compliance 23. Israel and Saudi Arabia establish official diplomatic relations 24. US and China reach agreement to lift Trump-era tariffs 25. Slow Boring will exceed 10,000 paid members

1. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win the Georgia Senate races (60%) 2. The same party wins both Senate races in Georgia (95%) 3. Joe Biden ends the year with his approval rating higher than his disapproval rating (70%) [83%] 4. Joe Biden ends the year with his approval rating above 50% (60%) [60%] 5. US GDP growth in 2021 is the fastest of any year of the 21st century (80%) [84%] 6. The year-end unemployment rate is below 5 percent (80%) 7. The year-end unemployment rate is above 4 percent (80%) 8. Lakers win the NBA championship (25%) [25%] 9. Joe Biden ends the year as president (95%) [96%] 10. Nancy Pelosi sets a definitive retirement schedule (60%) 11. A vacancy arises on the Supreme Court (70%) [50%] 12. The EU ends the year with more confirmed Covid-19 deaths than the US (60%) [80%] 13. Substack will still be around (95%) 14. People will still be writing takes asking if Substack is really sustainable (80%) 15. Apple releases new iMacs powered by Apple silicon (90%) [84%] 16. Apple does not release a new Mac Pro powered by Apple silicon (70%) [53%] 17. Monthly year-on-year core CPI growth does not go above 2 percent (70%) 18. Monthly year-on-year core CPI growth does not go above 3 percent (90%) 19. Lloyd Austin not confirmed as Defense Secretary (60%) 20. No federal tax increases are enacted (95%) 21. Biden administration unilaterally relieves some but not all student debt (80%) 22. United States rejoins JCPOA and Iran resumes compliance (80%) 23. Israel and Saudi Arabia establish official diplomatic relations (70%) [38%] 24. US and China reach agreement to lift Trump-era tariffs (70%) 25. Slow Boring will exceed 10,000 paid members (70%) [75%]

Lakeside1 mentions across 1 issues

Lakeside is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 27, 2025 and June 27, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "places like Horace Mann, Harvard-Westlake, and Lakeside". It most often appears alongside 10,000 hour rule, 2 Hour Learning, Inc, 2-hour Learning.

Reference entry: Lakeside
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 27, 2025
Last seen: June 27, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Your Review: Alpha School June 27, 2025

10,000 hour rule 1 shared issues
2 Hour Learning, Inc 1 shared issues
2-hour Learning 1 shared issues
Alex Amplifier 1 shared issues
Alpha 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Review: Alpha School

June 27, 2025 · Original source

Leadership …and so many other things. 100% of MAP test questions are multiple choice. Where are the students learning deep thinking? What about the learning you get from small group discussions in a university seminar? I think Alpha’s answer to that concern is “that is what we do in the afternoon workshops”. I think that is a fine answer. How well do most schools teach those things as a baseline? Maybe Alpha does as good a job as other schools teaching public speaking. Maybe they do a better job? But what is missing is an objective measure of how well they do it. I can see that GT is making progress on the measurement of those softer skills by running workshops on “competitive academics” where the output is legible. The kids at that school don’t just learn to give talks, they give talks and then submit them to The Moth in an attempt to qualify for (and win) Storytelling Nights. They don’t just write persuasive essays graded by their teachers, they write persuasive essays and then submit them to national competitions. They don’t just learn the concepts of long term planning and strategy, they put them in practice playing go and chess and then compete against their peers and earn an elo ranking. I think it is a fair way to assess these things and leads to more accountability, but note that it is only happening at the GT school with ten kids, not the main Alpha campus, and the data points so far on whether it is working are very thin. Our friends at the flagship school are less convinced that the climbing wall workshop is teaching those “non-state mandated” academics that the core program misses. Another disappointment is “Alpha Writes”. The school was not happy with the third-party reading and writing apps out there and built their own. Alpha Reads is excellent. Alpha Writes (which is newer and just launched about a month ago) is not. I believe the school (and Joe Liemandt) understands that the product is not good enough, and they are taking it back to the drawing board, but for now I do not think the Alpha kids have any real edge versus traditional schools in their training on essay or creative writing skills. How do Alpha’s MAP score improvements compare to other selective private schools across the country? This is an important question for some parents. It is great if you can expect your 5th grader to advance 2.6x faster than they would at the local public school, but if you are planning to spend $40,000/year to send him to Alpha, your alternative is likely not the local public school. And if you are considering moving your family to Austin for the school, your alternative options are places like Horace Mann, Harvard-Westlake, and Lakeside. How does the 2.6x improvement that Alpha is delivering compare to those elite institutions? I have no idea. Unlike Alpha I have not found any elite school who has shared the MAP improvement rate for the students at their school. I expect these elite schools are very good for all the reasons the selective private school I sent my kids to before GT was good: They have a select group of peers, they have great teacher:student ratios, and they have incredible resources. I also expect most of these schools do NOT accelerate (I could very well be wrong here and would be happy to be corrected). If they are like the schools I am familiar with they allow their students to advance through the material at the “normal” pace, with the normal pedagogy, but, because those kids are so bright, that leaves them plenty of time for enrichment. Lakeside school (where Bill Gates’ children attended) has classes where students write and perform one-act plays at the school’s annual festival; advanced photography courses where students develop their own signature style and brand; Literature classes on Victorian novels, the Harlem Renaissance, and Chaos Theory; classes on abnormal psychology, architecture, blockchain, game theory and wilderness survival and leadership. I am sure by the time they graduate, students from Lakeside have learned much more than what is measured on a standardized MAP test. The problem is that it is difficult to measure those “extra things”, so you are left making the decision on vibes and prestige and marketing materials. (and meanwhile the objective numbers are held under lock and key by the elite schools themselves who have no incentive to share them when they are already winning on vibes). Is there any data on how different education programs are doing on improving MAP scores? I have not found any schools other than Alpha that share their data, but there are some “educational interventions” where the measured output was an improvement on MAP tests. Teach to One: Math is a math program used in some schools that is meant to be “personalized” using “technology-infused direct instruction”. Their studies find that students who follow their full program improve 23% faster on the math MAP scores, and students who are “exposed” to the program improve 12% faster. MAP Accelerator is a tool developed by Khan Academy. It claims that students who use it consistently for 30-minutes per week improve their MAP scores 9-43% faster than a control group. Both examples show that if you have technology-enabled personalized learning for extended periods of time improve MAP scores versus the norm. Both show that those results only happen when the students stick with the program. This shows that the “secret sauce” of Alpha’s 2-Hour Learning is not what and how they are teaching but rather: That they are using personalized technology-enhanced programing (when most schools aren’t)

Inline links: Lakeside school, Teach to One: Math, MAP Accelerator

Lancaster University1 mentions across 1 issues

Lancaster University is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 31, 2023 and October 31, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lancaster University to open first prediction market for Atlantic hurricanes". It most often appears alongside Abhishek Kylasa, Aella, Al-Ahli Hospital.

Reference entry: Lancaster University
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 31, 2023
Last seen: October 31, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

23 October 31, 2023

Abhishek Kylasa 1 shared issues
Aella 1 shared issues
Al-Ahli Hospital 1 shared issues
Atlantic hurricanes 1 shared issues
Berkeley 1 shared issues

Source context

October 31, 2023 · Original source

3: “Lancaster University to open first prediction market for Atlantic hurricanes”. AFAICT they’re only accepting experts and you have to apply and provide proof of expertise before you can even see the market. I think this is potentially a missed opportunity - at the very least they should be comparing the experts to something open and seeing what happens.

Inline links: “Lancaster University to open first prediction market for Atlantic hurricanes”

Landesa1 mentions across 1 issues

Landesa is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 28, 2021 and June 28, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "The leading NGO promoting land reform, US-based Landesa, is today so pessimistic about the prospects"; "The leading NGO promoting land reform, US-based Landesa". It most often appears alongside Alexander Hamilton, America, ASEAN.

Reference entry: Landesa
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 28, 2021
Last seen: June 28, 2021

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Issue trail

Book Review: How Asia Works June 28, 2021

Alexander Hamilton 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
ASEAN 1 shared issues
Asia 1 shared issues
Association of South-East Asian Nations 1 shared issues

Source context

Book Review: How Asia Works

June 28, 2021 · Original source

Will we witness an economic transformation like Japan, Korea, Taiwan or China’s again? The answer is quite possibly not, for one simple reason. Without effective land reform it is difficult to see how sustained growth of 7-10 per cent a year - without fatal debt crises - can be achieved in poor countries. And radical land reform, combined with agronomic and marketing support for farmers, is off the political agenda. Since the 1980s, the World Bank has instead promoted microfinance, encouraging the rural poor to set up street stalls selling each other goods for which they have almost no money to pay. It is classic sticking-plaster development policy. The leading NGO promoting land reform, US-based Landesa, is today so pessimistic about the prospects for further radical reforms in the world’s poor states that it concentrates its lobbying efforts on the creation of micro plots of a few square metres. These plots supplement the diets and incomes of rural dwellers who work in otherwise unreformed agricultural sectors. From micro interventions, however, economic miracles will not spring.

Inline links: Landesa

LANL1 mentions across 1 issues

LANL is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between February 10, 2022 and February 10, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Our team combines broad technical expertise (Google, NASA, LANL, NIST, UC Berkeley)". It most often appears alongside 2018, @BendiniUK, @benyeohben.

Reference entry: LANL
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: February 10, 2022
Last seen: February 10, 2022

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Issue trail

ACX Grants ++: The Second Half February 10, 2022

2018 1 shared issues
@BendiniUK 1 shared issues
@benyeohben 1 shared issues
@utotranslucence 1 shared issues
ACX 1 shared issues

Source context

ACX Grants ++: The Second Half

February 10, 2022 · Original source

#83: Detect And Fight Healthcare Fraud Our company is using data to detect fraud against the government. Access to quality healthcare is dwindling in the United States. There is an estimated hundred billion dollars in fraud every year leading to lower standards of care and making healthcare unaffordable. We’re seeking a hundred thousand dollars to buy data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. This will allow us to find fraud and file lawsuits on behalf of the government. The Department of Justice signaled a new level of support for independent companies using data methods to identify fraud in June of last year when they picked up a case brought by Integra Med Analytics. For the past twelve months we’ve been working with attorneys specializing in this area (qui tam). We’ve been consolidating data returned from broad FOIA requests and begun assisting law firms with data science. Our team combines broad technical expertise (Google, NASA, LANL, NIST, UC Berkeley) with business acumen and investigative experience. The three of us have been working together on projects with positive externalities for five years. Previous successful projects include providing flexible housing, and a micro-targeting methods for political action. [Contact erbahr@gmail.com if you can help]

LAPD1 mentions across 1 issues

LAPD is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 23, 2022 and June 23, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "urban departments, eg the LAPD, are better known for their ruthlessness". It most often appears alongside 1978, 2016 essay, A Resounding Success Or Disastrous Failure: Re-examining The Interpretation Of Evidence On The Portuguese Decriminalisation Of Illicit Drugs.

Reference entry: LAPD
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 23, 2022
Last seen: June 23, 2022

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Issue trail

Book Review: San Fransicko June 23, 2022

1978 1 shared issues
2016 essay 1 shared issues
A Resounding Success Or Disastrous Failure: Re-examining The Interpretation Of Evidence On The Portuguese Decriminalisation Of Illicit Drugs 1 shared issues
Abbott 1 shared issues
Abstracted Will Of The American People 1 shared issues

Source context

Book Review: San Fransicko

June 23, 2022 · Original source

Suburban police departments might be less tolerant of homeless people, either harassing them until they leave or outright telling them to go to cities. Why would suburban departments be less tolerant than urban departments (especially when urban departments, eg the LAPD, are better known for their ruthlessness)? It might just be an entrenched norms thing; suburbs can get rid of their homeless populations, so they do. Or it might be politics; suburbs might be more conservative than cities.

Large Hadron Collider1 mentions across 1 issues

Large Hadron Collider is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 17, 2022 and June 17, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "more than the Large Hadron Collider at CERN". It most often appears alongside Alcator C-Mod, Apollo Program, ARC.

Reference entry: Large Hadron Collider
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 17, 2022
Last seen: June 17, 2022

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Issue trail

Your Book Review: The Future Of Fusion Energy June 17, 2022

Alcator C-Mod 1 shared issues
Apollo Program 1 shared issues
ARC 1 shared issues
ASDEX 1 shared issues
Astralcodexten Com 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: The Future Of Fusion Energy

June 17, 2022 · Original source

By the 1970s, it was apparent that making fusion power work is possible, but very hard. Fusion would require Big Science with Significant Support. The total cost would be less than the Apollo Program, similar to the International Space Station, and more than the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The Department of Energy put together a request for funding. They proposed several different plans. Depending on how much funding was available, we could get fusion in 15-30 years.

LAVA Architects1 mentions across 1 issues

LAVA Architects is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 14, 2021 and April 14, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "LAVA Architects in partnership with a Honduran architect". It most often appears alongside Alaska, America, Amisulpride.

Reference entry: LAVA Architects
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 14, 2021
Last seen: April 14, 2021

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Issue trail

Prospectus On Próspera April 14, 2021

Alaska 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
Amisulpride 1 shared issues
anarcho-capitalist 1 shared issues
Arizona Supreme Court 1 shared issues

Source context

Prospectus On Próspera

April 14, 2021 · Original source

For blue collar laborers under even tighter economic circumstances, LAVA Architects in partnership with a Honduran architect have created something we call the Beta Residencies (for now), which can be built for less than $40k and in less than 60 days. These are specifically designed for very low-income Hondurans to be able to move in to Próspera alongside the wealthy expats, as urban planning literature shows having a diverse cross section of class and culture is important for community cohesion, especially early on when the community is just forming. Some of them are already built.

Inline links: LAVA Architects

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights1 mentions across 1 issues

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between February 07, 2023 and February 07, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights approvingly saying they “deserve justice after decades of medical exploitation”". It most often appears alongside Africa, Atlanta, Chernobyl.

Reference entry: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: February 07, 2023
Last seen: February 07, 2023

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Issue trail

Henrietta Lacks Seems Like A Nice Person, But Not A Scientific Hero February 07, 2023

Africa 1 shared issues
Atlanta 1 shared issues
Chernobyl 1 shared issues
Congress 1 shared issues
Congressional Gold Medal 1 shared issues

Source context

Henrietta Lacks Seems Like A Nice Person, But Not A Scientific Hero

February 07, 2023 · Original source

But honors and prizes are empty without a material show of commitment, and the Lacks family is requesting compensation for their matriarch’s sacrifice. They have requested the extremely reasonable sum of 250 billion dollars, with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights approvingly saying they “deserve justice after decades of medical exploitation”.

Inline links: 250 billion dollars, approvingly saying

LDS1 mentions across 1 issues

LDS is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 10, 2022 and October 10, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "The highest-profile modern followers of Arian theology are the LDS". It most often appears alongside 9-11, Adraste, America.

Reference entry: LDS
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 10, 2022
Last seen: October 10, 2022

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Highlights From The Comments On Columbus Day October 10, 2022

9-11 1 shared issues
Adraste 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
American Jews 1 shared issues
Angels 1 shared issues

Source context

Highlights From The Comments On Columbus Day

October 10, 2022 · Original source

Christianity without the divinity of Christ, as a person of the Triune God, is not Christianity. The highest-profile modern followers of Arian theology are the LDS and JW movements, which I'm grateful to note are pretty broadly acknowledged to be outside the pale of historic, Biblical Christianity. Confused, well-meaning adherents of these systems, I would engage warmly. Leaders who are actively seeking to lead more and more people astray with their anti-Biblical nonsense, I wouldn't mind seeing punched in some circumstances.

Lead Stories1 mentions across 1 issues

Lead Stories is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between February 22, 2022 and February 22, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "The fact checker who Facebook subcontracts their censorship decisions to, Lead Stories". It most often appears alongside 1984, Anatoly Karlin, AnechoicMedia.

Reference entry: Lead Stories
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: February 22, 2022
Last seen: February 22, 2022

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Links For February February 22, 2022

1984 1 shared issues
Anatoly Karlin 1 shared issues
AnechoicMedia 1 shared issues
Australia 1 shared issues
Bay Area 1 shared issues

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Links For February

February 22, 2022 · Original source

36: An interesting recent spat between BMJ and Facebook: BMJ, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world) published some article about poor clinical research practices at a vaccine company. Some anti-vaxxers shared it on Facebook, and Facebook responded by adding their “missing context” tag to the BMJ article. This made the BMJ angry (well, this plus Facebook’s explanation which called the BMJ a “news blog”), so the editors wrote an Open Letter From The BMJ To Mark Zuckerberg, saying “actually, we are one of the most powerful medical establishment institutions in the world, you can’t do this to us”. The fact checker who Facebook subcontracts their censorship decisions to, Lead Stories, then wrote a surprisingly thoughtful response saying: they thought the BMJ article lacked important context, that was all they told Facebook, and they stand by their decision even after learning that the BMJ is much more prestigious and important than they thought. I’m having trouble figuring out what emotions to have here: on the one hand I hate censorship, but on the other hand seeing the BMJ seething at their inability to pull rank is oddly satisfying. Also, this same thing apparently happened around the same time with Instagram and the Cochrane Collaboration.

Inline links: Open Letter From The BMJ To Mark Zuckerberg, a surprisingly thoughtful, Instagram and the Cochrane Collaboration

Leading The Future1 mentions across 1 issues

Leading The Future is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 21, 2025 and October 21, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "the AI industry announced a new SuperPAC called “Leading The Future”"; "the name “Leading The Future”". It most often appears alongside A16Z, AI safety movement, AIPAC.

Reference entry: Leading The Future
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 21, 2025
Last seen: October 21, 2025

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Issue trail

Tech PACs Are Closing In On The Almonds October 21, 2025

A16Z 1 shared issues
AI safety movement 1 shared issues
AIPAC 1 shared issues
Alex Bores 1 shared issues
Almonds 1 shared issues

Source context

Tech PACs Are Closing In On The Almonds

October 21, 2025 · Original source

Give me your degens, your risk-seeking. Your huddled masses, yearning to bet free. IV. …and we’ll be exploring it a whole lot more, very soon. Last month, the AI industry announced a new SuperPAC called “Leading The Future” (a dumb name, but, in their defense, “AIPAC” was already taken). They start with $200 million in seed funding, led by a $50 million donation by Andreessen Horowitz, and another $50 million from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman. (Why Brockman and not Altman, or OpenAI as a corporation? Because most people don’t know who Brockman is, so this keeps OpenAI’s hands clean. I imagine Altman going into a meeting, pointing at Brockman, and saying “I’m famous, you’re not, please cough up $50 million of your own money for the cause.”) On the same day, Meta announced their own SuperPAC, Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (META) California. Why two PACs? Opinions differ; one person told me that it lets the general PAC avoid the negative associations that Facebook has gathered over the years, but the Verge thinks that maybe everyone else in tech hates Zuckerberg too much to work with him. Meta has committed to spending “tens of millions”. Most likely, the new PAC will use the playbook pioneered by crypto: destroy any candidate who dares support regulations on AI, by funding attack ads that don’t mention AI in any way and, at best, briefly mention the name “Leading The Future”. Just the Andreessen/Brockman SuperPAC, without any help from Meta, is already twice as rich as AIPAC. Their existence sends a clear message: we are going to crush any politician who tries to regulate AI. V. …unless someone stops them. Leading The Future still only has 2% as much money as the almond industry. The tiny scale of US political spending is dangerous insofar as it means that one or two billionaires willing to go all-in can distort the national landscape. But it also makes it possible to oppose them. Certainly if you can get one or two billionaires of your own - but it might even be within the range of a committed group of ordinary people. Not waiters and bartenders, maybe. But if safe AI supporters were as committed as Israel supporters, they could probably make something happen. For a long time, the AI safety movement has underperformed politically. Effective altruism includes thousands of well-off people committed to spending 10% of their income on improving the world. If a thousand of them gave $7K each to political candidates, that would be $7 million of campaign-finance-compliant hard money - about as much as anyone can gather for anything. Hard money buys more influence per dollar than soft money, so this could be a big deal. All you’d need is the right people to coordinate it. So far, this has been slow going. Partly it’s because in the early 2020s, people affiliated with FTX took point on this effort; when FTX imploded, it not only took its incipient political infrastructure with it, but poisoned the well for future efforts. And partly it’s because EAs overlearned the lesson of the early 2010s, when we spoke out against AI capabilities efforts so “effectively” that a bunch of people thought “wow, AI capabilities companies must be a really big deal, maybe I should found one!”; the resulting institutional scar tissue biased us towards staying quiet about our concerns. Still, I wouldn’t be writing this if the consultants and activists weren’t gearing up for a bigger fight. They asked me to include some action items for readers who want to participate: Email aisafetypolitics@gmail.com to connect to the people organizing this effort and talk with them about what you can do, including potential future donation opportunities.

Inline links: announced a new SuperPAC, Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across, the Verge thinks

League Council1 mentions across 1 issues

League Council is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between July 01, 2022 and July 01, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "committee appointed by the League Council to examine the matter"; "Committee appointed by the League Council to examine the matter". It most often appears alongside 1793, 1821, 1847.

Reference entry: League Council
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: July 01, 2022
Last seen: July 01, 2022

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Issue trail

Your Book Review: The Internationalists July 01, 2022

1793 1 shared issues
1821 1 shared issues
1847 1 shared issues
1928 Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact 1 shared issues
500 million and not one more 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: The Internationalists

July 01, 2022 · Original source

Levinson and his allies were not the only ones to notice that the League and the outlawry of war imposed conflicting legal obligations. As the committee appointed by the League Council to examine the matter put it, “The League Covenant, under some of its articles, reserves the right to go to war.” But the Pact prohibited the resort to war—perhaps even wars that would be approved by the Covenant. (Chapter 7)

League of Nations1 mentions across 1 issues

League of Nations is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between July 01, 2022 and July 01, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "The League of Nations? How does that fit in here?". It most often appears alongside 1793, 1821, 1847.

Reference entry: League of Nations
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: July 01, 2022
Last seen: July 01, 2022

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Your Book Review: The Internationalists July 01, 2022

1793 1 shared issues
1821 1 shared issues
1847 1 shared issues
1928 Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact 1 shared issues
500 million and not one more 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: The Internationalists

July 01, 2022 · Original source

There’s clearly still work to do to figure out how to handle the downsides of banning interstate war, but overall, I’m still glad Levinson, Shotwell, Lauterpacht, etc started us down this path. Addendum 2: The League of Nations I think it’s also reasonable for you to be wondering what about the League of Nations? How does that fit in here? The answer is complex, and deeply inspected in the book, but doesn’t quite fit into this review. H&S argue that the League was built on the Old World Order, and assumed both that states could go to war, and then, when the League adopted the Peace Pact, it all got really confused because there was a lack of clarity over whether that meant the League required members to go to war against whoever went to war first, or what the situation was. It got pretty confusing, at the time.

I think it’s also reasonable for you to be wondering what about the League of Nations? How does that fit in here? The answer is complex, and deeply inspected in the book, but doesn’t quite fit into this review. H&S argue that the League was built on the Old World Order, and assumed both that states could go to war, and then, when the League adopted the Peace Pact, it all got really confused because there was a lack of clarity over whether that meant the League required members to go to war against whoever went to war first, or what the situation was. It got pretty confusing, at the time.

Imagine, for a moment, if you were to make a fundamental change to a game like basketball. In your new basketball, each team from the league sends a representative to a poker table, and the two first teams to run out of chips are forced to play basketball to showcase their shame at being the worst in the league at poker. One day, commentators reviewing old basketball videos start cutting together a massive highlight reel about how bad Michael Jordan must have been at poker.

League of Women Voters1 mentions across 1 issues

League of Women Voters is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 23, 2023 and June 23, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "like the NAACP and the League of Women Voters". It most often appears alongside 1965, 1968 Summer Olympics, 2000 election.

Reference entry: League of Women Voters
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 23, 2023
Last seen: June 23, 2023

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Your Book Review: Public Citizens June 23, 2023

1965 1 shared issues
1968 Summer Olympics 1 shared issues
2000 election 1 shared issues
2023 book review contest 1 shared issues
American Capitalism 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: Public Citizens

June 23, 2023 · Original source

Now that we live in the world Nader created—where over 10% of the American private sector workforce is at nonprofits—it’s hard to see how groundbreaking this was. The 501(c)3 hadn’t even been created yet; what few such organizations existed tended to be structured around the interests of specific identity groups and, below the level of top leadership, staffed mostly by volunteers, like the NAACP and the League of Women Voters. Nader’s group was different: an advocacy organization with an employee base of full-time professionals, dedicated to the interests of the American public at large (or at least, what they saw as the interests of the American public10). In 1969, when the group started researching their first project, the Christian Science Monitor wrote:

Inline links: 10

Learned Society Of Vulcanologists1 mentions across 1 issues

Learned Society Of Vulcanologists is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between February 08, 2022 and February 08, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "The queen founded a Learned Society Of Vulcanologists". It most often appears alongside Atlantis, Cult Of The Rock, Lovecraft.

Reference entry: Learned Society Of Vulcanologists
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: February 08, 2022
Last seen: February 08, 2022

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Heuristics That Almost Always Work February 08, 2022

Atlantis 1 shared issues
Cult Of The Rock 1 shared issues
Lovecraft 1 shared issues
The Cult Of The Rock 1 shared issues

Source context

Heuristics That Almost Always Work

February 08, 2022 · Original source

The queen founded a Learned Society Of Vulcanologists and charged them with predicting when the volcano will erupt. Unbeknownst to her, there were two kinds of vulcanologists. Honest vulcanologists, who genuinely tried to read the signs as best they could. And The Cult Of The Rock, an evil sect who gained diabolical knowledge by communing in secret with a rock containing the words “THE VOLCANO IS NOT ERUPTING”.

Left Alliance1 mentions across 1 issues

Left Alliance is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between November 04, 2021 and November 04, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "1 Fidesz vote = 2.1 Left Alliance votes". It most often appears alongside Alcsutdoboz, Allied Powers, Angela Merkel.

Reference entry: Left Alliance
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: November 04, 2021
Last seen: November 04, 2021

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Issue trail

Dictator Book Club: Orban November 04, 2021

Alcsutdoboz 1 shared issues
Allied Powers 1 shared issues
Angela Merkel 1 shared issues
Attila 1 shared issues
Austria 1 shared issues

Source context

Dictator Book Club: Orban

November 04, 2021 · Original source

He shamelessly gerrymandered unequally sized districts. Left-wing voters were crammed into a few very large districts; likely Fidesz voters were put into many much smaller ones. The big districts and the small districts each elect one MP; as a result, one observer calculates that in terms of power to elect parliamentarians, “1 Fidesz vote = 2.1 Left Alliance votes = 2.6 Jobbik votes = 3.1 LMP votes” The system also uses a weird electoral quirk called “winner compensation” to ensure that the largest party gets Parliamentary representation even larger than its actual majority would suggest; due to the gerrymandering (plus infighting on the left) the largest party is always Fidesz.

Inline links: one observer calculates

LegalCo1 mentions across 1 issues

LegalCo is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 10, 2024 and October 10, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "LegalCo fine-tunes it to do paralegal work". It most often appears alongside 80,000 Hours, @GroundHogStrat, A.I. salons.

Reference entry: LegalCo
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 10, 2024
Last seen: October 10, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story October 10, 2024

80,000 Hours 1 shared issues
@GroundHogStrat 1 shared issues
A.I. salons 1 shared issues
Adam McKay 1 shared issues
ADUs 1 shared issues

Source context

SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story

October 10, 2024 · Original source

One of my sources generously interprets Newsom to mean something like “don’t regulate the models, regulate the end applications”. IE if OpenAI trains GPT-5, and then LegalCo fine-tunes it to do paralegal work, leave most of the safety responsibility on LegalCo, not OpenAI. This fails to engage with the motivations behind the bill, which are things like “what if someone uses AI for bioterrorism”? If Meta trains LLaMa-4, and al-Qaeda fine-tunes it for terrorism, instead of regulating it at the Meta-level, we should regulate al-Qaeda? Are we sure al-Qaeda will comply with California regulations? Our side is not sure that even this generous interpretation is very well has been thought through very well.

Legislative Analyst’s Office1 mentions across 1 issues

Legislative Analyst’s Office is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 29, 2024 and October 29, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office". It most often appears alongside 2010, 2014, 2016.

Reference entry: Legislative Analyst’s Office
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 29, 2024
Last seen: October 29, 2024

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Issue trail

The Case Against California Proposition 36 October 29, 2024

2010 1 shared issues
2014 1 shared issues
2016 1 shared issues
2019 1 shared issues
2021 1 shared issues

Source context

The Case Against California Proposition 36

October 29, 2024 · Original source

In fact, Prop 36 might actually reduce the resources available for treatment programs. That’s because the reduction in prison costs following Prop 47 freed up about $800 million in savings for the state. By law, that money has to be spent on crime prevention, victim services, mental health – and drug treatment. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, if Prop 36 passes, the drop in savings is likely to cost these programs tens of millions of dollars annually.

Inline links: Legislative Analyst’s Office

legislative auditor general1 mentions across 1 issues

legislative auditor general is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 23, 2022 and June 23, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Utah, its legislative auditor general concluded". It most often appears alongside 1978, 2016 essay, A Resounding Success Or Disastrous Failure: Re-examining The Interpretation Of Evidence On The Portuguese Decriminalisation Of Illicit Drugs.

Reference entry: legislative auditor general
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 23, 2022
Last seen: June 23, 2022

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Book Review: San Fransicko June 23, 2022

1978 1 shared issues
2016 essay 1 shared issues
A Resounding Success Or Disastrous Failure: Re-examining The Interpretation Of Evidence On The Portuguese Decriminalisation Of Illicit Drugs 1 shared issues
Abbott 1 shared issues
Abstracted Will Of The American People 1 shared issues

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Book Review: San Fransicko

June 23, 2022 · Original source

…and find that: Those in the intervention group incurred 2.6 fewer hospitalized days (p = .08), 1.2 fewer emergency room visits (p = .04), 7.5 fewer days in residential substance abuse treatment (p = .004), 9.8 fewer nursing home days (p = .08), and 3.8 more outpatient visits each year (p = .01) annually compared with those in the usual care group. Those in the intervention group had 7.7 fewer prison days during the study period (p = .07). Those in the intervention group had 62 more days in stable housing (p = .001) and 12 more days in respite care (p = .002) than those in the usual care group. Those in the intervention group used case management services (i.e., telephone calls and face-to-face meetings) more frequently than those in the usual care group, having on average 18 more encounters per year (p < .001). This study provided case management along with the free housing. I don’t know whether to think of that as a confounder, or a standard aspect of Housing First programs (especially since it is much harder to case manage someone with no fixed address). Notice that it assumes the cost of housing is given as $30/day. I think this is realistic for low-income housing in Chicago, but other California programs I’ve looked at have worked out to more like $70 - $100/day, which (assuming nothing else changed) would switch the conclusion of this study from “Housing First saves money” to “Housing First costs money”. Now let’s see what San Fransicko has to say: The evidence for Housing First turns out to be significantly weaker than its proponents suggest. For example, the much lauded initiative to reduce homelessness among veterans was only four percentage points more successful than the overall decline in homelessness, when accounting for age, which is necessary to accurately estimate what is due to policy and what is due to demographic changes. As for Utah, its legislative auditor general concluded in 2018 that the 91 percent number was wrong, based on a sloppy use of incorrect methodologies. Before 2015, Utah had annualized its homeless count, meaning that researchers counted the homeless at a single point in time and multiplied the data by some factor. But after 2015 the state used raw point-in-time counts, causing a precipitous drop in the official population counts. Over the same period, the state also narrowed its definition of chronic homelessness in several ways, resulting in further apparent reductions. In reality, the homeless population in Utah increased by 12 percent between 2016 and 2020. An experiment with 249 homeless people in San Francisco between 1999 and 2002 found those enrolled in the city’s Housing First program, Direct Access to Housing, used medical services at the same rate as those who were not given housing through the program, suggesting that the Housing First program likely had minimal impact on the participants’ health. Wrote a team of researchers, “obtaining housing does not necessarily resolve other issues that may impede one’s housing success,” pointing to the lack of significant improvements in substance use and psychiatric symptoms over the twelve months that people were housed (the share of patients with severe substance use actually saw a modest increase). The problem with Housing First stems from the fact that it doesn’t require that people address their mental illness and substance abuse, which are often the underlying causes of homelessness. Several studies have found that people in Housing First–type housing showed no improvement in drug use from when they were first housed. In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a review of the scientific literature of Housing First. “On the basis of currently available research,” the report’s authors wrote, with some surprise, “the committee found no substantial evidence that [permanent supportive housing] contributes to improved health outcomes, notwithstanding the intuitive logic that it should do so and limited data showing that it does do so for persons with HIV/AIDS.” Tsemberis said he was not surprised by the findings of the National Academies. “It’s not like housing creates improved health,” he said. “You have to have a relationship with a nurse. You have to be educated on what your health problems are. You have to have a team that engages you and makes you an active participant in your own health care. I don’t even know if that would stop the number of deaths.” And, at least in the study funded by Benioff and conducted by Margot Kushel, which had those services, it did not. All of this seems to fit with what I found above. But: Housing First may even increase addiction and overdose deaths and make quitting drugs more difficult. Warned a multiauthor review in 2009, “One potential risk [of Housing First’s harm reduction approach] would be worsening the addiction itself, as the federal collaborative initiative preliminary evaluation seemed to suggest.” The authors pointed to an experiment that had to be stopped and reorganized after the homeless individuals in the abstinence group complained of being housed with people in the control group, who didn’t stop their drug and alcohol use. “They claimed that they preferred to return to homelessness rather than live near drug users.” The multiauthor review cited is Housing First For Homeless People With Active Addiction: Are We Overreaching? They write: “It would be premature to conclude that Housing First programs cannot accommodate persons with severe addiction. But it also would be premature to suggest that research data provide clear guidance on whether, or how, Housing First programs can accommodate persons with ongoing severe drug and alcohol abuse. In the absence of research data on this subject, it is reasonable to consider the kinds of risks that may occur in Housing First programs. One potential risk would be worsening the addiction itself, as the federal collaborative initiative preliminary evaluation seemed to suggest (Mares, Greenberg, and Rosenheck 2007), or failing to progress toward addictive recovery.” Elsewhere, they describe this same study as: “The eleven-site federal collaborative initiative found an association between early access to housing and increases in alcohol problems during the subsequent year” The study is here, but I can’t find this result anywhere. It describes its own results (my emphasis) as: The average number of days housed in the previous 90 days increased dramatically from 18 at baseline, to 68 at the 3-month follow-up, and rose steadily thereafter to 83 at the 12 month follow-up (Table 2). Mean monthly public assistance income increased steadily from $316 at baseline to $478 one year later, a 50% increase. Significant improvements of modest magnitude were also observed in overall quality of life, mental health functioning, and reduced psychological distress. Alcohol and drug problems remained largely unchanged over time. Total quarterly health costs declined by 50%, from $6,832 at baseline to $3,376 at 12 months. A 54% decrease in mean inpatient costs ($5,776 to $2,677) accounted for nearly 90% of the overall decrease in quarterly health care costs during clients' first year in the program And the table (slightly edited for readability): I might be misunderstanding this - I can’t imagine why the authors of the review would have gotten this wrong - but it does look to me like alcoholism stayed steady throughout this study. A 24-month followup of what I think is the same study also finds that drug users who were housed used slightly fewer drugs over time, although probably not to any significant degree worth caring about: Continuing from San Fransicko: There is evidence that privacy and solitude created by Housing First make substance abuse worse. A study in Ottawa found that, while the Housing First group kept people in housing longer, the comparison group saw greater reductions in alcohol consumption and problematic drug use, and greater improvements to mental health, after two years. “One reason for the surprising results,” wrote the authors, “may be that aspects of the Housing First intervention, such as the privacy afforded by Housing First and harm reduction approach, might result in slower improvements around substance use and mental health.” Okay, but the next sentence after the one the book quoted was the researchers admitting that oops, we also totally forgot to randomize our groups in any way, so the experimental and control groups had totally different levels of severity and maybe that was why they found this weird thing (this is non-obvious, because we’re looking at change over time rather than raw differences between groups, but the authors discuss some reasons why different groups might change differently over time). A few years later these same researchers did a proper randomized study and it found no difference in drug use between the two groups. Somers, Moniruzzaman and Palepu found no difference in drug use between Housing First and other subjects. Padgett et al found the Housing First group actually did better, although they are another victim of the epidemic of randomization failures in this space. Kirst et al, no difference in drug use, but Housing First better with alcohol. Milby found that housing contigent on abstinence worked better than housing not contigent on abstinence, which Shellenberger could have used to support his thesis, but even Milby found that housing not contingent on abstinence worked better than no housing! To summarize: I can find seven studies on this topic, only one of them agrees with San Fransicko’s thesis, and the authors admit that it’s weak. I accuse San Fransicko of citing only that one and pretending all the others don’t exist. (actually, I accuse it of doing that plus citing a line from a review claiming another study found this, but as far as I can tell that study did not actually find it) This is extra annoying, because all the popular news articles on Housing First gush about how it definitely decreases substance use and everything else bad. Shellenberger could have made the excellent point that all of these progressive journalists were totally wrong! This would have been an interesting, important, and completely true act of virtuous data journalism! Instead he tries to hold up a lonely negative result as representative, and ends up just as wrong but in the opposite direction. Continuing in San Fransicko: Researchers have found ways to use housing to reduce addiction. Between 1990 and 2006, researchers in Birmingham, Alabama, conducted clinical trials of abstinence-contingent housing with 644 homeless people with crack cocaine addictions. Two-thirds of participants remained abstinent after six months, a very high rate of abstinence, compared to other treatment programs. Other studies found that around 40 percent of homeless in abstinence-contingent housing maintained their abstinence, housing, and jobs. In a randomized controlled trial, homeless people were given furnished apartments and allowed to keep them unless they failed a drug test, at which point they were sent to stay in a shelter. Sixty-five percent of participants completed the program. Three similar randomized controlled trials also found moderate to high rates of completion. And participants in abstinence-contingent housing had better housing and employment outcomes than participants assigned housing for whom abstinence was not required. All of this seems basically true. It turns out that over longer periods of time, Housing First may not even outperform contingency in terms of keeping people housed. In the spring of 2021, a team of Harvard medical experts published the results of a fourteen-year-long study of chronic homeless placed into permanent supportive housing in Boston. Most studies of permanent supportive housing, including the Kushel study conducted in Santa Clara, only study the newly housed homeless for a span of around two years. The study found that 86 percent of the homeless, who were referred based on length of time living on the streets, suffered from “trimorbidity”—a combination of medical illness, mental illness, and substance abuse. The authors found that after ten years, just 12 percent of the homeless remained housed. During the study period, 45 percent died. The authors concluded that, because the chronically homeless had such higher rates of physical and mental illness, “the supportive services, essential to the PSH model, may not have been sufficient to address the needs of this unsheltered population.” This study was done on an especially severe subgroup of homeless people. There was no control group, so Shellenberger shouldn’t claim we have any evidence about whether Housing First can “outperform contingency”. Shellenberger counts people who died as “unhoused” to get his 12% number; if he didn’t do this, the number would be 23%. Only 23% of people given housing retained after ten years sounds bad. But you could change this number to whatever number you wanted by changing the severity of the subgroup selected for the study. Select people who are even crazier and more disturbed than these people, and you can have 0% retained after ten years; select high-functioning people with no problems, and you can get 100% retained after ten years. (or maybe not - the study doesn’t say why people left the program. It mentions that one possible outcome is having to go to a nursing home because they had grown too sick or old to support themselves. I am not sure that “23% stay in this program” means “77% are back on the street and all their care has been a total failure”.) Conclusion: Housing First seems to work in getting people housing. It probably also helps people use fewer medical services, and it might or might not save money compared to not doing it (probably more likely when treating very severe cases, less likely in areas with high housing costs). It probably doesn’t affect people’s overall health or drug use status very much. San Fransicko is right to call out all the people promoting it beyond what the evidence supports, but then goes on to attack it beyond what the evidence supports. Interlude: Why Can’t We Just House All The Homeless? This is the question many of the California gubernatorial candidates asked. California has lots of money. There aren’t that many homeless people. Everyone is already committed to Housing First. So why don’t they have houses already? San Francisco has about 7,000 homeless people. The median SF apartment costs about $3,000 per month (presumably the government officials in charge would be trying to buy cheaper-than-median apartments for this project, but they seem bad at that, so let’s stick with median as a high-end estimate). So that’s $250 million/year to rent every homeless person an apartment. San Francisco has a $14 billion budget, although some of that is locked in nondiscretionary programs. So this effort would take about 2-3% of the city budget. Given how many people have both altruistic and selfish objections to the current level of SF homelessness, I can’t imagine that isn’t a better use of the money than whatever it’s being spent on now. So why hasn’t this happened? The closest thing I can find to the “rent apartments” plan is Governor Newsom’s “rent hotel rooms” plan, Project Roomkey. This was a short-term pandemic program. This article says it cost $4,000 per month, which seems reasonable - it provided residents with a hotel room, meals, security, and “custodial services” for just above a hundred dollars a day. So how come nobody has made it permanent or scaled it up? The homeless themselves don’t seem very positive on the project. They talk about “jail”-like conditions, including curfews and bans on visitors. I don’t know if this is the usual nanny-state-ism, or an attempt to reassure hotel owners / other residents / local communities that the influx of homeless people won’t cause them problems. If the latter, it hasn’t worked. From here: Jenna Abbott, executive director of the River District Business Association, said having a Roomkey motel in her neighborhood has been difficult. The site — which is in an area with large number of unhoused people — has drawn family and friends of Roomkey residents who haven’t been housed but “camp close to that hotel,” some with the goal of gaining a room, Abbott said. That’s led to more loitering, public drunkenness and trash outside the restaurants, gas stations and other businesses in the area, she added. And here’s another article about people objecting to local hotels accepting homeless people, which focuses on some combination of zoning, code, and public safety concerns. Everybody - the homeless, their advocates, various experts - interviewed in the article - agrees that the hotel rooms are kind of dehumanizing and much worse than having real housing. And this article suggests that government budgeters believe it’s not cost-effective compared to alternatives. Since the homeless don’t like it, and it’s expensive, almost everyone seems to agree it made sense as a short-term COVID measure only. The government’s preferred medium-term solution is single resident occupancy (SRO) hotels. These are big apartment/hotel-like structures where everyone has a small bedroom and then there are communal bathrooms and maybe kitchens. These used to be the archetypal living situation for poor Americans (Matt Yglesias talks about them as “boarding houses” here). But moral reformers banned them in the 1900s on the grounds that they were slums - I think this is the usual “surely the reason poor people live bad lives is because capitalists oppress them by selling them cheap low-quality goods, and if we just ban selling people cheap low-quality goods, everyone will have high-quality goods and poor people will live great lives!” argument. Somehow this failed to work and homelessness got worse over this period, but there are still some SRO hotels left, and the government got them and converted them to public housing for homeless people. Shellenberger does not have high opinions of these: The Tenderloin [district of San Francisco]’s single resident occupancy hotels . . . have for decades been dominated by a culture of heavy substance use and prostitution. “Of the people in supportive housing in San Francisco, 93 percent have a major mental illness that we can name,” said a housing policy maker. “That is very, very high. Eighty percent use cocaine, speed, or heroin every thirty days, or get drunk to the point of unconsciousness.” Tom Wolf, a former Salvation Army caseworker and a member of San Francisco’s Drug Dealing Taskforce, says the city’s supportive housing facilities are themselves a major market for illegal drugs. “Go down the street to the Camelot Hotel on Turk Street,” said Wolf. “Almost everyone that I’ve seen in those hotels are using. The last front desk guy that was working there got busted because he was selling crack. The actual guy that works in the single resident occupancy hotel is selling crack! It’s insane, man.” In any case, there are only so many of these still left. The government often announces plans to buy defunct regular hotels and convert them into these structures, which would indeed be a medium-term solution for housing the homeless, except that they usually get bogged down in fights about code. Politico discusses one of these attempts in New York City (h/t Marginal Revolution): “There are very few hotels that physically could be converted and comply with the requirements of today’s zoning and building code without substantial, expansive reconstruction, partial removal or demolition,” said James Colgate, a land use partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP who has advised clients on zoning issues including the conversions of hotels. “That would increase the costs greatly.” For example, a building’s elevators, doorways, or rooms may be slightly short of the size required for a residential structure. Residential buildings are also required to have a certain amount of rear-yard space that a hotel may not have. “You would literally have to be chopping off part of the building,” Rosen said. …The legislation dictates that each unit include a kitchen or kitchenette with a full-sized refrigerator, cooktop and sink — something Rosen said made utilizing the program “simply too expensive.” “This is the classic case of the perfect being the enemy of the possible,” said Mark Ginsberg, a partner at the firm Curtis + Ginsberg Architects, which has worked on hotel conversions. Some advocates who pushed the creation of the program say those provisions were necessary to ensure it didn’t generate substandard housing […] “We didn’t want a program that cut corners to make it more palatable to developers,” said Joseph Loonam, housing campaign coordinator for the progressive advocacy group VOCAL-NY. “We wanted a program that centered the needs of homeless New Yorkers, which is true high quality affordable housing where they can have full autonomy and dignity.” As Marginal Revolution pointed out, Loonam got what he wanted; the expensive, over-regulated program was unpalatable to developers, with only one company putting in an offer; for whatever reason, NYC refused to go with that one company, and no housing was produced. But fine, these are also terrible, and they’re only medium-term solutions anyway. What about building real, long-term apartments for homeless people? Shellenberger tells the story of Los Angeles’ Proposition HHH, which raised $1.2 billion to do exactly this. They hoped to build ~10,000 units for the homeless, at a projected price of $140,000 each; since LA had about 30,000 homeless people at the time, this would solve a third of the problem - a good start. (how do these numbers line up with my back-of-the-envelope calculation for SF above? I talked about renting rather than building, but usually annual rents = 1/20th or so of total prices, so I was estimating about $700,000 per person. This is probably partly because SF costs more than LA, and partly because I was imagining median apartments whereas LA is probably working on very cheap apartments) But in fact, five years later, LA has completed only 700 units, and the cost per unit has spiralled to $531,000 each. Nobody has a good explanation for what happened, with Shellenberger quoting one local service provider who said a lot of it was “bullshit costs”. Now might be a good time to re-read Considerations On Cost Disease. [Update: this might not be accurate - see this comment] This seems to be a general problem: everyone is committed to Housing First and to long-term good solutions rather than short- or medium- term mediocre ones. But that means building housing. And some combination of NIMBYism and over-regulation means building housing is somewhere between ruiniously expensive and impossible. Claim 4: Shelters Are Unpopular Among Progressive Activists And The Homeless Themselves San Francisco doesn’t have more homelessness than eg New York, but almost all the homeless in New York live in shelters and stay off the street. Why doesn’t that work here? Shellenberger: In the context of cities with permissive attitudes toward drugs, like San Francisco, many homeless people stay in [tent] encampments to use illegal substances more freely and easily than they can in the shelters. Many policy makers understand this. “I went out with a team twice to have conversations with people to get an understanding of what they’re dealing with,” said Mayor Breed in 2020. “It was absolutely insane. Most of the people did not take us up on the offer [of shelter and services].” Even people who would prefer to live in sober environments say they do not want to quit their addictions. “When we surveyed people in supportive housing in New York,” said University of Pennsylvania homelessness researcher Dennis Culhane, “almost everybody wanted their neighbors to be clean and sober but they didn’t want rules for themselves about being clean.” In 2016, after the city of San Francisco broke up a massive, 350-person homeless encampment, dozens of the homeless refused the city’s offers of help. Of the 150 people moved during a single month of homeless encampment cleanups in 2018, just eight people accepted the city’s offer of shelter. In 2004, just 131 people went into permanent supportive housing after 4,950 contacts made by then-mayor Newsom’s homeless outreach teams. An article by a former homeless person explains the problems with shelters beyond just “can’t use drugs”. Residents are crammed into a small space with 300 other homeless people. Lice and bedbugs are everywhere. Everybody catches every disease. Everybody has stories about getting raped or beaten up. Invasive moralizing about drugs somehow exists side by side with rampant drug use. Shelters are gender segregated, which means straight people can’t stay with their partner. Most shelters ban children and nobody has any idea what to do with them. Most shelters ban pets - a lot of homeless people have dogs for protection or companionship, and you can’t just store them somewhere while you’re sheltering. Although some lucky people can get 90-day beds, other people need to apply for beds on a day-by-day basis, which requires waiting in line several hours every day. Users talk about rampant cutting in line, denying cutting in line, false accusations of cutting in line, etc. Most shelters kick people out between 9-5, either to save on staffing costs or in the hopes that they’ll get a job. But many have strict curfews requiring people to be back by 5 PM sharp, which can make jobs impossible - if your boss doesn’t let you out until 5 and you have a half-hour commute, how do you get back to the shelter on time? Results of a survey at one of SF’s new Navigation Centers at why their clients refused to go to normal shelters. But even the homeless people who do want to go to shelters mostly can’t get in. This app gives the current status of San Francisco’s homeless shelter waitlist. If you applied today, there would be 900 people ahead of you in line for one of the city’s 1500 - 2500 shelter beds. The app says that the median wait time is 826 days. So however many homeless people don’t want to go to shelters, we’re not building enough shelters to serve the ones who do. Why not? Shellenberger again: In the spring of 2021, Friedenbach published an op-ed opposing a proposal considered by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to create, within eighteen months, sufficient homeless shelters and outdoor “Safe Sleeping Sites” for all of the city’s unsheltered homeless. “One can simply take a look to New York City,” she wrote. “Their department spends about $1.3 billion dollars of its budget on providing shelter for their unhoused population while thousands remain on the street. . . . As a result, New York has a higher rate of homelessness than San Francisco.” Housing First advocate Margot Kushel of the University of California, San Francisco agreed. “The problem with New York—and I spend a lot of time with people working in the system in New York—is that they spend an estimated $30,000 for each person per year to keep them in shelter. That’s not what we want to do. Because if you create the shelter and you don’t create the housing, then people are just in shelter forever.” Housing First advocates oppose shelter in Los Angeles. “Why haven’t we solved homelessness?” asked Housing First creator Sam Tsemberis. “Because [Los Angeles mayor] Eric Garcetti [has] Andy Bales [saying,] ‘You need emergency housing.’ ‘These people need to be cleaned up.’ ‘They need to be sober.’ ‘They need Jesus before they’ll be ready for housing.’ I said, ‘People should be housed and then maybe they’ll get sobriety and Jesus and the rest.’ We’re definitely on polar opposites of the whole thing.” Advocates for the homeless at the national level similarly oppose more shelters. “I don’t agree that we should be building more transitional housing,” said the head of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. […] In other words, the reason that there are so many homeless people on the streets in San Francisco is that both progressive and moderate Democratic elected officials, and the city’s most influential homelessness experts and advocates, have for two decades opposed building sufficient shelters. And that is unlikely to change even after San Francisco starts spending hundreds of millions more per year on the problem and might even get worse. This basically seems true. I found this webpage of a former SF Supervisor candidate a helpful corroborating source. He was running on a platform of “maybe we should build some homeless shelters”. He lost. You can also find a bunch of webpages by the sorts of people Shellenberger is complaining about, for example this site: Sup[ervisor] Rafael Mandelman today pushed his new legislation that would require the city to offer at least temporary shelter to everyone living on the streets, a step that some say would lead to more homeless sweeps and do nothing to create permanently affordable housing . . . [our] Coalition has argued for years that the solution to homelessness is housing—not temporary shelter, which may never lead to housing. The ex-supervisor candidate gives some helpful numbers: permanent housing costs about $600,000 per person housed. Shelters cost between $20,000 and $30,000 per person housed. So SF could build enough shelters to clear its waitlist for about $30 million. More recently, SF has tried a sort of compromise, opening “deluxe” shelters called Navigation Centers which avoid some of the problems of regular shelters. They also cost more than twice as much, and the city has only created about 300 beds. Also, the people in regular shelters are angry, because being in a regular shelter disqualifies you from getting into a (much better) Navigation Center. Some of them are considering leaving their shelter, going back on the streets, then waiting however many months or years it takes to get a Navigation Center bed instead. I’m not at all sure of these numbers, but it looks like of SF’s ~7,000 homeless, about 2,000 are in shelters already, and 1,000 are on the shelter waitlist. I don’t know if the remaining 4,000 have made a specific commitment not to go to shelters, or just have given up on the waitlist process. My conclusion: agree with San Fransicko about the role of progressive activists, but I think it overemphasizes the role of wanting to use drugs in why homeless people themselves sometimes avoid shelters, and underemphasizes the many other problems with them. Claim 5: Drug Decriminalization Isn’t Working California legalized marijuana in 2016. Shellenberger says that San Francisco’s commitment to drugs has gone beyond that: it has effectively decriminalized opioids, cocaine, and the rest. Any attempt to lessen use of these drugs is attacked as “stigmatizing”; instead, government policy centers around providing addicts with needles and other drug paraphernalia under the guise of “harm reduction”. Shellenberger hits all the right beats here. Like many people, he tries to undo the damage done by The New Jim Crow, a book which convinced millions of people that mass incarceration was driven by a racist War On Drugs. In fact, less than a fifth of prisoners are in for drug-related crimes. And when the government was first debating the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, black leaders were among the strongest proponents of both. The talking point at the time - among everyone from black Congressional leaders to black churches - was that the government’s failure to crack down on drug use was racist, borne of them not caring about predominantly black drug victims. And while we’ve been patting ourselves on the back about how enlightened we are for ending the drug war: Drug overdoses are today the number one cause of accidental death in the United States as a result of America’s historic addiction and overdose epidemic. Overdose deaths rose from 17,415 in 2000 to 93,330 in 2020, a 536 percent increase.Significantly more people die of drug overdoses today than of homicide (13,927 in 2019) or car accidents (36,096 in 2019). […] There are about twenty-five thousand injection drug users in San Francisco, a number 50 percent larger than the number of students enrolled in the city’s fifteen public high schools. San Francisco gives away more needles to drug users, six million per year, than New York City, despite having one-tenth the population. The part of this chapter that stood out to me as most worth looking into deeper was the section on Portugal: For decades, harm reduction and decriminalization advocates have pointed to Portugal as a model, noting that it decriminalized drugs and expanded drug treatment. In 2013, Portugal’s drug-induced death rate was sixty-six times less than that of the United States. The number of people in treatment increased by 60 percent between 1998 and 2011, with three-quarters receiving an opioid substitute like methadone or Suboxone, the brand name of buprenorphine. Drug use among 15- to 24-year-olds actually declined after decriminalization. “All drugs have been legalized,” explained Monique Tula, executive director of the Harm Reduction Coalition. “Their focus is on giving people tools, like job apprenticeships, and the means to support themselves.” […] [But Portugal] never legalized drugs. It only decriminalized them, reducing criminal penalties but maintaining prohibition. Drug dealers were still sent to prison even after the 2001 decriminalization. And Portugal does not let people addicted to hard drugs with behavioral disorders off the hook like progressive West Coast cities have done. It’s true that Portugal massively expanded drug treatment, but people are still arrested and fined for possession of heroin, meth, and other hard drugs. And drug users are typically sent to a regionally administered “Commissions for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction,” composed of a social worker, lawyer, and doctor who encourage, push, and coerce drug treatment. And decriminalization doesn’t end drug violence. “Even if trafficking enforcement decreased, like it did in Portugal,” said criminologist John Pfaff, “illegal drug markets would still be forced to rely on violence to resolve disputes.” Indeed, prostitution and violence are ever-present in the open-air drug scenes in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. “We are seeing behaviors from our guests that I’ve never seen in thirty-three years,” said Rev. Andy Bales, who runs the largest homeless shelter on Skid Row in Los Angeles. “They are so bizarre and different that I don’t even feel right describing the behaviors. It’s extreme violence of an extreme sexual nature.” People are not dying from drug overdose deaths in San Francisco because they’re being arrested. They’re dying because they aren’t being arrested. Decriminalization reduces prices by lowering production and distribution costs, which increases use. This was also the case for alcohol consumption. It increased after prohibition ended in the United States. Even in Portugal, drug overdose deaths and overall drug use rose after decriminalization. I was most surprised by the claim that Portuguese overdose deaths rose after decriminalization. Uncharacteristically, San Fransicko doesn’t give a citation for it, but we can try to retrace its reasoning. Decriminalization proponents tend to point to these numbers, helpfully converted to per 100,000 population and graphed here: But an anti-drug Australian think tank argues that the peak in 2001 is made up: Claims that there were more than 75 drug-related deaths in 2001 which more than halved to 34 deaths in 2002 use a figure for 2001 for which there is no substantiation. Official drug-related deaths for Portugal, taken from the latest 2018 EMCDDA Statistical Bulletin are copied below. Notice that there is no such figure recorded for 2001. They include a link to EMCDDA, the EU organization charged with monitoring these things. The link contains two datasets, both of which seem to be measuring the same thing but getting different results. One dataset starts in 2002, the other in 2008. I don’t know what the difference here is, but they’re right that neither includes 2001. If you ignore the pre-2002 data, the graph looks like this: They say “opiate”, but AFAICT these numbers are actually about all drugs. But the proponents link to the updated 2020 version of the same website, which all of a sudden does have data from 2001 and before. I don’t know why EMCDDA can’t make up its mind, but I think the Australians are wrong and the original graph is fine. On the other hand, does it really matter? Both of these show drug deaths decreasing until 2005, then going up and down a bit, then going back up again starting in 2011. I think a reasonable interpretation would be that decriminalization in Portugal did decrease overdose deaths a bit, and then they started rising again from that low baseline around the same time other European countries saw rising overdose deaths. I would also accept “these are pretty small effects and we shouldn’t ascribe any significance to them”. But San Fransicko’s claim - that overdose deaths increased after the reform - seems false. The only way I can see justifying it is taking the second graph - the one that wrongly claims there is no pre-2002 data - and then attributing the fact that twelve years after the reform lowered deaths, deaths finally rose above the pre-reform level to be the fault of the reform. This is like saying “people claim the Black Plague killed a lot of Europeans, but the European population actually rose after the Plague”, which is true in the sense that it was above its pre-Plague max by like 1600 or whatever. What about overall drug use? Here I recommend A Resounding Success Or Disastrous Failure: Re-examining The Interpretation Of Evidence On The Portuguese Decriminalisation Of Illicit Drugs, which is on exactly this topic of how people keep selectively quoting results from Portugal to prove their point. It argues that drug use is inherently hard to measure. There are four different Portuguese datasets for the time at issue, lots of different drugs, lots of different age/gender combinations, and lots of different ways of measuring drugs (did you use drugs in the past month? the past year? your lifetime?) It’s easy to tell a story of how past-month cocaine use skyrocketed among 14-29 year old males according to X source, or how lifetime marijuana use fell in high school-age women according to Y. The main trick that opponents use is measuring lifetime drug use. Portugal is a very conservative country; drug use is pretty new and most of the older generation wasn’t involved. So as time goes on and more and more people try drugs but “un-trying” drugs isn’t a thing, the percent of the population who have tried drugs inevitably goes up. This definitely happened but isn’t a fair reflection of any specific reform. The authors find that in the past decade or so, there has been a bit more short-term experimentation with drugs, but less long-run use. They conclude: As shown in Figure 2, general population (aged 15–64) trends for recent and current drug use in Portugal indicate minimal if any changes between 2001 and 2007. Instead, rates of discontinuation of drug use (the proportion of the population that reported ever having used a drug but opting not to in recent years) increased, which reinforces that just as in the school populations, the growth in lifetime-reported use reflected predominantly short-term experimental use. Increases in recent and current drug use were more notable in some cohorts, particularly those aged 25 to 34 (albeit, with a maximum of 7% of any one cohort reporting recent use, absolute levels remained low). But as shown in Figure 3, recent and current drug use declined among those aged 15–24, the population who were most at risk of initiation and long-term engagement. The available evidence thus gives grounds for arguing that while there was some growth in the scale of drug use in post-reform Portugal, there was an overall positive net benefit for the Portuguese community. What about San Fransicko’s main point - that as the US has wound down the War on Drugs, drug overdose rates have sextupled? I think this is mostly not causal. I think the sextupling of overdoses is a combination of expansion in prescription opioid use, various forms of social decay making people less happy and therefore more likely to use drugs, and “improvements” in drug “technology” and the “supply chain” (eg production of fentanyl in China). I don’t know of any source that attempts to tease out the exact contribution of all of these things, but I would note that overdose deaths have risen the most in very conservative Midwestern states that haven’t walked back the drug war as much as California. Conclusion: As usual, I appreciate San Fransicko’s corrections to the prevailing narrative, but its own additions are dubious. Its claim that Portugal saw increased drug-related deaths seems false as far as I can tell. Its claim that it saw increased drug use depends on your definition, but is misleading and not the most natural way to sum up the evidence. Claim 6: San Francisco’s Soft-On-Crime Policies Led To Rising Crime Ten years ago, the news was full of stories about how some teenager stole a gumdrop and was sentenced to nine hundred billion years in jail. At some point, there was a genre shift to stories about how some hardened criminal murdered fifty people with an axe and the judge let him go with a warning because having jails felt racist. Source: Ed West, do note that this example is from the UK How suspicious should we be of each type of story? There will always be an extreme right tail of overly harsh sentences, and an extreme left tail of overly lenient ones. Were the 2000s really as draconian as they felt? Is the modern era really as pathetic? Or is it all just a function of who you read and what agenda they’re pushing? Shellenberger: During California governor Jerry Brown’s time in office, voters passed several reforms aimed at reducing the size of the prison population. In 2012, voters passed a change to the Three Strikes law so that the third strike imposes a life sentence only if the new felony was serious or violent. In addition to lowering punishments for drug possession, Proposition 47, which voters passed in 2014, redefined shoplifting, forgery, petty theft, and receiving stolen property as misdemeanors when the value in question does not exceed $950. In 2016, voters approved a proposition that shortened the time it took for some nonviolent offenders to be eligible for parole and which released nonviolent offenders into drug treatment and rehabilitation. Property crimes rose in San Francisco starting in 2012. Larceny, which is shoplifting and other petty theft, rose 50 percent, from roughly 3,000 incidents per 100,000 people in 2011 to about 4,500 in 2019. Property crimes as a whole, which include larceny, motor vehicle theft, and burglary, rose from 4,000 incidents per 100,000 people in 2011 to 5,500 in 2019. One study suggests that Proposition 47 increased the rate of auto theft 17 percent and the rate of larceny (non-auto property) theft 9 percent, but discerning between causation and correlation may not be possible. Upon taking office in January 2020, [famously soft-on-crime San Francisco district attorney Chesa] Boudin followed through on his campaign promises. Instead of prosecuting and incarcerating people for breaking car windows to steal money and other items from inside, Boudin proposed creating a $1.5 million fund to reimburse car owners. But there were over 25,000 car break-ins reported in 2019. If every break-in cost just $250 in repairs, the fund would need four times that amount. And what would prevent people from falsely claiming to have been robbed in order to get city money? […] Boudin opposed efforts by the mayor and the city attorney to prevent drug dealers who had already been arrested from entering the Tenderloin. “Until the city is serious about treating addiction and the root causes of drug use and selling,” said Boudin in a statement, “these recycled, punishment-focused approaches are unlikely to succeed at doing anything more than making headlines.” Home burglaries rose in early 2021 in San Francisco. Homeowners started posting on Twitter videos from their security cameras of people breaking into homes and garages. “When I first moved here we had a car break-in problem,” said Michael Solana, a writer who works for a venture capital fund. “Now we have a home invasion problem. These things are wearing on people.” Boudin attributed the rise of burglaries in San Francisco to the decline of tourism and “people in desperate economic circumstances.” Progressive supervisor Hillary Ronen agreed. “We know that [economic insecurity and inequality] is one of the root causes of property crimes specifically,” she said. But Tom Wolf and others argued that the robberies were, like the shoplifting, done by people seeking money to buy drugs and feed their addictions. “The drugstores have been shoplifted to death and that’s all because of drug use,” said Tom. “I know. I used to do the same thing when I was out there. That’s what you do. You ‘boost.’ And then you go and you sell your stuff down at UN Plaza,” an open-air drug scene. In a May 2021 city supervisors’ meeting, a representative from CVS called San Francisco “the epicenter of organized retail crime in the country” and claimed that 85 percent of the shoplifting is committed by organized theft rings. Police broke up one such ring in October 2020 and recovered $8 million of stolen merchandise. The problem goes beyond property crime. Boudin declined to prosecute two men who went on to kill people. One man had been repeatedly arrested for stealing cars, despite having just been released from prison earlier in the year, and appeared to be abusing meth. On New Year’s Eve, 2020, the man killed two people while driving intoxicated. Police found inside of his car a semiautomatic handgun and twenty-three grams of methamphetamine. On February 4, another intoxicated driver killed a pedestrian in a stolen car. The San Francisco police had arrested him in October 2020 for possessing a stolen car, a tool for stealing cars, and what appeared to be meth. Boudin chose not to pursue charges. In December, the California Highway Patrol arrested the man again for driving a stolen vehicle under the influence. Again he was not prosecuted. The accident victim, an immigrant from Kenya, and his wife had moved to San Francisco two weeks before the fatal crash. “I blame the DA,” said the widow of the victim. The suspect, she said, “was someone who was out in the public who shouldn’t have been in the public. It was completely avoidable.” Tom said he could feel the difference on the streets. “Drug dealing is unabated and it’s not one guy, it’s fifty guys dealing fentanyl and meth,” he said. “And it’s going unabated because the district attorney says, ‘These are the nonviolent, quality-of-life crimes,’ and ‘I’m not going to prosecute them.’” [..] District Attorney Boudin was offering weaker sentences than even defense attorneys were requesting, according to Vicki Westbrook of San Francisco. “There’s a defense attorney who said, ‘It used to be that I would argue for this deal in court with the DA but now I don’t say anything because the DA is going to offer me a deal better than what I would have suggested. Somebody shot up the street with an automatic weapon. The first offer was six months in jail or time served plus two years of probation or something. And then [the DA] said, “How about thirty days in jail?”’” Vicki laughed. “You really can do anything in San Francisco,” she said. “If you do get arrested, chances are you’re going to be out of jail in less than thirty days for damn near everything except maybe killing somebody and maybe even then, too. It’s hard to say at this point.” Taking each of these points individually: Proposition 47 There are two good big studies on the effects of Prop 47, one by Public Policy Institute and one by some UCI criminologists. The PPI study finds that the proposition increased theft and car break-ins by about 10%. The UCI study finds the same, but notes that under different assumptions the effects wouldn’t quite obtain statistical significance. This seems a bit too much like post hoc trying to get rid of an inconvenient effect, plus an effect on the border of statistical significance is different from positively finding no effect. I think a reasonable interpretation is that theft and car break-ins rose about 10% because of the proposition, just as Shellenberger says. Some pro-47 sites note that most states have some limit on how much you to have to shoplift before it’s a felony, and Prop 47 brought California closer to the national average, rather than turning it into an outlier. Chesa Boudin Chesa Boudin took office two months before the COVID pandemic began. Any attempt to separate the effect of Chesa Boudin from the effect of the pandemic is doomed. Shoplifting definitely plummeted when Boudin took office, but that’s because all the stores were closed. Murders definitely rose a little after Boudin took office, but that’s because that was also when the Black Lives Matter protests happened, which demoralized police and led to a so-far-permanent spike in murders nationwide. Percent of criminals caught definitely fell when Boudin took office, but that’s because various aspects of the justice system were closed for COVID (I will grudgingly entertain speculation that a further decrease in arrest rates from 2020 to 2021 may have been a genuine Boudin effect). In the absence of any real way to judge his performance, I think San Fransicko’s points about Boudin are plausible, though speculative. Shoplifting This one is terrible. There’s a surprisingly spirited debate here (some of you may have already read Applied Divinity Studies’ article). The debate is: everyone on the ground in San Francisco - store owners, security guards, customers, random citizens - say that shoplifting has increased massively over the past decade. But statistics mostly say it hasn’t. Source here. This is shoplifting crimes per 100,000 people. Kern County is a deep red county in California (including Bakersfield) that is known for being tough on crime. Against this, seriously, everyone says that shoplifting has obviously increased. I had a patient who worked in shoplifting prevention, he told me - his psychiatrist! Who he had no reason to lie to! - that he was constantly stressed dealing with the shoplifting surge devastating the stores he covered. Here’s the San Francisco subreddit’s response to someone posting the data showing shoplifting hasn’t risen - it’s just a lot of people laughing hysterically. What’s going on? I was able to find a different set of statistics that does seem to show a longer-term increase in shoplifting (source): The very big spike at the end might be a change in reporting by one or two stores - you can find the argument here. But it does look like shoplifting went from about 125 incidents/month in the early 2010s to more like 250/month just before the pandemic. Why is this graph so different from the other one? It looks like the top one came from the Department of Justice, and the bottom one came from SFPD. I’m not sure why these report differently. When you multiply out by 800K people in SF, by 12 months/year, and 30ish days/month, the first graph corresponds to 4 shoplifting incidents per day, and the second to 6. As LouB’s analysis here points out, that seems suspiciously low for a city of 800,000 people where stores are constantly closing because of shoplifting. Maybe off by a factor of a few hundred from what we’d expect. LouB writes: The SFPD report only references shoplifting offenses that required SFPD officers to prepare an incident report. That means either the shoplifter fought security, committed additional crimes, or stole more than $950 worth of items. It’s not that SFPD’s report is erroneous, it’s just not a representative statistic. In a parallel statistic, SFPD only completes incident reports for traffic accidents when there is an injury. Therefore, thousands of noninjury accidents are handled civilly without SFPD reports the same way thousands of shoplifting offenses are handled without reports. An insurance company would not determine premium rates based solely on SFPD incident reports, nor should readers interpret SFPD shoplifting reports as anywhere near the total picture of the shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco. (this would also explain why one or two stores changing their reporting policy can produce a spike equal to everyone else in San Francisco combined) But comparing incident reports from 2010 to incident reports from 2020 should still be apples-to-apples, unless the likelihood of reporting any given incident changed in the meantime. Did it? This news article quotes a San Franciscan who says that when they try to report shoplifting incidents, the cops tell them not to because “it doesn’t make a difference”. If cops say that now more often than they used to, it would make all these statistics meaningless. (Applied Divinity Studies claims to have an argument that shows this can’t be true. It goes something like: if San Francisco was a better place to shoplift than its neighbors - eg Oakland - then shoplifters would leave Oakland to go to San Francisco, and we would see Oakland shoplifting rates falling. Oakland shoplifting rates are falling, but no more so than the rest of the state, so there can’t be increased tolerance for shoplifting in San Francisco. I find this dubious for many reasons. First of all, many of the same reasons shoplifting is up in San Francisco - like Prop 47 or soft-on-crime progressive policies - also apply to Oakland. Second, given that shoplifting fell massively everywhere because of the pandemic, it feels dubious to try to compare different cities; maybe one city had stricter pandemic lockdowns than others. Third, do criminals really shop around for friendly jurisdictions? If so, why are so many crimes like car break-ins, concentrated in “the bad part of town”? Why wouldn’t criminals leave the bad part of town for under-exploited areas with richer residents and less competition? Maybe criminals in fact aren’t very strategic or mobile? Maybe they don’t want to stand in the BART station and then take a half-hour train ride holding a bag of stolen goods?) Maybe a better argument against this being true is how stable the shoplifting rates have been over time. Wouldn’t it be weird if (let’s say) a tripling of the real shoplifting rates was matched by a third-ing of the reporting rates (rather than a halving or a quartering or whatever)? On the other hand, here’s Shellenberger with some helpful data: Some of this is probably because of Proposition 47, which made some forms of shoplifting punishable with citation rather than arrest (but wouldn’t that be a clear discontinuity rather than a gradual trend?) But overall it sure seems like shoplifting is being taken less seriously, which might encourage people to report less. Another statistic I see is that only 2.3% of shoplifting cases result in an arrest; I don’t know how this is different from the graph above with numbers in the 30s; maybe it involves different levels of what makes something a “case”. I accept that the data don’t consistently show a spike in shoplifting. But what’s the alternative? My patient who works in loss prevention in SF stores is lying to me? The nice elderly Chinese man who sold me my last pair of glasses and chatted to me about the rampant shoplifting in his mall was lying? The San Francisco police are lying? Walgreens pretends to be concerned about shoplifting as part of a dastardly plot to close a bunch of stores for no reason? Target and CVS pretend to care about shoplifting as part of a plot to restrict their stores’ opening hours for no reason? Every big store near me has suddenly gotten a security guard at the front as part of some corporate-sponsored jobs program? Maybe the conservative narrative that soft-on-crime San Francisco must be experiencing rising crime rates took on a life of its own. Maybe it infiltrated not just the usual suspects like the SF police unions, but even such supposedly-liberal bastions as the New York Times. Maybe lots of big corporations took advantage of the fake narrative to make unpopular business decisions they were planning on making anyway. And maybe ordinary San Franciscans, confronted with everyone telling them they were in a shoplifting epidemic, started paying more attention to security guards and petty criminals who had always been there, a sort of mass hallucination that gripped everyone in the city. I can’t rule this out. Americans thought crime was rising all throughout the early 2000s, when it was in fact way down. Or maybe some statistics that we already know are off by several orders of magnitude got off by an additional factor of two or so. I think this one is more likely, but I’m genuinely not sure. Other Crime From the Economist: The Center on Juvenile And Criminal Justice puts it even more starkly, arguing that “San Francisco’s ‘Crime Wave’ Is Just One Crime”: This are potentially susceptible to the same reporting bias as shoplifting. So what about homicide? Homicide is practically always reported and investigated, making it a gold standard in crime measurement. (source) Looks pretty good until 2019. I don’t expect to gain useful information post-2020; the pandemic and the post-George-Floyd murder surge will make it impossible to evaluate for local variation. What about compared to other places? For some reason this top 20 table fails to list Washington DC, which should be just before Atlanta. SF doesn’t make the top 20, although its neighbor Oakland does. Probably most murder variation in US cities is explained by percent African-American and maybe percent Borderer; with relatively few people in these groups SF was never in the running. I’m not sure if some abstracted version of the city with all demographic factors adjusted away would have an unusually high murder rate, but at that point it would be pretty distant from any interesting real-world question. You can see the leaderboard for other types of crime here; San Francisco is often in the top ten, but never the top three. As far as I can tell, San Francisco has seen a big spike in car breakins over the past few years, with no clear trend for other property crime, violent crime, or homicides. It’s not an outlier among American cities in any kind of crime. Conclusion of this section: San Fransicko’s specific claims are basically correct, but suggest a medium-term rise in SF crime which is mostly contradicted by the data. These show stable-to-decreasing murder, stable-to-decreasing violent and property crimes other than car break-ins, and large rises in car break-ins only. The data also show stable-to-decreasing shoplifting, but I’m not sure how much to trust them vs. common sense. Honestly, I’m pretty confused here and not sure what to think. Claim 7: Jim Jones (Of Kool-Aid Cult Fame) Used To Be The Chairman Of SF’s Housing Authority Okay, this isn’t really a statistical claim that I can research different perspectives on. Still, it’s so wacky that I couldn’t resist mentioning it in this review. Jim Jones, famous for killing everyone in his Guyana-based Jonestown cult with poisoned Kool-Aid, used to be the SF government’s top guy on homelessness. Shellenberger writes: Jones married and moved first to Northern California and then to San Francisco with his wife to start a church. He called it the People’s Temple. Jones believed he was the leader of a socialist revolution. He warned of nuclear war and claimed black people would be put in concentration camps. He became a hugely charismatic preacher among African Americans, the disaffiliated poor, and young transplants to the city looking for community. Scenes from the era show a remarkably large and diverse congregation smiling and singing. The People’s Temple grew and provided services. Jones cultivated two progressive San Francisco politicians, George Moscone and Willie Brown, and mobilized people to volunteer for their campaigns […] His son and a San Francisco historian believe he stole the mayoral election for Moscone in 1975. Historian David Talbot, founder of the progressive website Salon, points to evidence that Jones committed sufficient voter fraud to account for Moscone’s narrow 4,443-vote margin of victory. “We loaded up all thirteen of our buses with maybe seventy people on each bus, and we had those buses rolling nonstop up and down the coast into San Francisco the day before the election,” said Jones Jr. “Could we have been the force that tipped the election to Moscone? Absolutely! Slam dunk. He only won by four thousand votes.” When federal investigators looked into fraud claims three years later, they discovered that all of the records were missing from the city of San Francisco’s registrar of voters. Jones also boasted of providing Moscone with black women from his congregation for sex. One time Moscone, drunk and “accompanied by a young black woman whom the politician had kindly agreed to drive home,” crashed into another car. Another time, Moscone and Willie Brown “were with a black woman in an alley at two in the morning at some restaurant in North Beach,” said a local bar owner. State legislator “John Burton was part of that gang too. They were all using marijuana and cocaine.” Said Jones Jr., Moscone would “always be there at temple parties with a cocktail in his hand and doing some ass grabbing.” A Temple member overheard Jones speaking to Moscone the day after one of those parties saying, “I want to let you know that the young lady you went off with is underage,” adding, “Now don’t worry, Mayor, we’ll take care of you—because we know that you’ll take care of us.” Afterward, Moscone made Jones the chairman of the powerful San Francisco Housing Commission. Jones cultivated progressives with money and favors. He made large donations to the ACLU, the NAACP, and United Farm Workers. Jones and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on a campaign plane a few days before the 1976 presidential election, and Mondale praised People’s Temple shortly afterward. Jones met with First Lady Rosalynn Carter several times. Governor Jerry Brown praised Jones. Glide Memorial Church’s Rev. Cecil Williams loved Jones. There is a photo from 1977 of a smiling Williams awarding Jones the church’s “Martin Luther King, Jr. Award.” Jones used his perch as chairman of the Housing Commission to fight for housing for the poor. He tried to use eminent domain to acquire the International Hotel, a single resident occupancy hotel. After a court sided with the hotel’s owner, Jones mobilized seven thousand protesters to picket it. By mid-January 1977, the situation had become heated. There were rumors that protesters inside the building were armed with guns and Molotov cocktails. Jones lost the legal battle in 1977, and the tenants were evicted. But the drama was a publicity victory for Jones, which burnished his image as a white savior. A conservative member of the Board of Supervisors who was defeated in the mayoral election by Moscone accused the new mayor, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the rest of the city establishment of being blind to Jones’s extremism. “There’s no radical plot in San Francisco,” insisted Moscone, in response. “There’s no one I’ve appointed to any city position whom I regard as radical or extremist.” Willie Brown, a powerful state legislator from 1964 to 1995 before becoming mayor in 1996, “seemed oblivious to Jones’ hucksterism and demagoguery,” notes a historian. Brown was master of ceremonies at a dinner for Jones in the fall of 1976 attended by an adulatory crowd of the rich and powerful, including Governor Jerry Brown. “Let me present to you a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein . . . Chairman Mao,” he said, to loud applause. And yet Jones was contemptuous of Brown even as Brown did Jones more and more favors. Jones mocked Brown for his designer suits, sports cars, and women. Once, while Brown was addressing the congregation and Jones was seated onstage behind him, Jones flipped his middle finger up to mock him. San Francisco’s establishment stood by Jones even after a California magazine, New West, owned by Rupert Murdoch, published an exposé of Jones’s beatings of Temple members and financial abuses in August 1977. The article was written by a San Francisco Chronicle reporter and was meant for the Chronicle to publish. But the newspaper killed the story because it didn’t want to alienate Jones, whom it viewed as central to its plans to expand the Chronicle’s circulation in the heavily African American Fillmore District. Jones also managed to avoid investigation and prosecution in part by getting the district attorney to hire as deputy district attorney Jones’s longtime attorney and confidant. Progressives defended Jones against the New West article. At a rally in the summer of 1977, Willie Brown said, “When somebody like Jim Jones comes on the scene, that absolutely scares the hell out of most everybody occupying positions of power in the system.” Angela Davis sent a radio message broadcast over the cult’s compound, Jonestown, in Guyana. “I know you’re in a very difficult situation right now,” she said, “and there is a very profound conspiracy designed to destroy the contributions which you have made to the struggle.” After visiting Jonestown, the attorney to the Black Panthers said, “I have seen paradise.” Harvey Milk, too, was tarnished by his association with Jones. In the fall of 1977, Milk wrote to President Carter’s secretary of health, education, and welfare requesting that Social Security checks be sent to elderly Temple members in Guyana. “People’s Temple,” wrote Milk, has “established a beautiful retirement community in Guyana.” In truth, the cult was disintegrating. Jones separated families and lovers, pitted relatives against each other, and forced neighbors to inform on each other. Jones sent people who violated the rules to solitary confinement in “the Box,” an underground cubicle where people were held as prisoners for days on end. Others were drugged. Progressives who had spent thirty years fighting to close prisons and mental hospitals found themselves praising a man who had reproduced their worst practices. In November 1978 a Bay Area congressman flew to Guyana to investigate human rights violations at Jonestown with NBC News. Jones gave the delegation a formal reception at Jonestown. A Temple member surreptitiously passed a note to one of the delegation members, saying he and another member wanted to escape. They fled the next day after a Temple member tried to stab the congressman. Jones didn’t prevent them from leaving but then sent gunmen to fire machine guns at the delegation at the airport, killing the congressman and four others. A few hours later, 907 inhabitants of Jonestown drank Flavor Aid laced with cyanide and died. Two-thirds of the victims were African American and one-third were children. Jones had told them that if they didn’t drink it they would be killed by invading soldiers from a shadowy global military conspiracy intent on imposing fascism and torturing children. As people started crying in grief, Jones scolded them. “Stop these hysterics,” he said. “This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die.” Jones’s wife protested the murder of children and had to be forcibly restrained. “We didn’t commit suicide,” said Jones in a tape recording, “we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.” Few were as stained by Jonestown as Willie Brown and George Moscone. “Even as the bloated bodies of the dead were removed from the jungle and the wounded were airlifted by the U.S. Air Force to hospitals in the United States,” wrote a historian, “Brown said he had ‘no regrets’ over his association with Jones.” They repeatedly disavowed responsibility. Said Moscone, “it’s clear that if there was a sinister plan, then we were taken in. But I’m not taking any responsibility. It’s not mine to shoulder.” This is Shellenberger at his best: telling us crazy stories from the recesses of San Francisco history, maybe kind of spinning the narration in a way that makes all progressives seem guilty by association, but with the tale itself so gripping that it’s hard to be mad. And Jones wasn’t alone. This was the golden age of San Francisco cults, when (Shellenberger tells us) “more than half of all high school students in the San Francisco Bay Area reported at least one recruiting attempt by a cult member, and 40 percent reported at least three contacts.” This chapter of SF history came to an end in 1978, when Dan White, who had just resigned from San Francisco’s Board Of Supervisors (ie City Council) entered City Hall through a window and assassinated Mayor Moscone and fellow Supervisor Harvey Milk, then successfully got charges reduced to manslaughter through a legal manuever that has gone down in history as “the Twinkie Defense” (realistically the defense was that he was depressed, but reporters seized on a comment that implied it was because he ate too many Twinkies). Everything about 1970s San Francisco was like this. With the Mayor and his right-hand-man both dead, San Francisco leadership ended up in the hands of previously second-tier politician Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein was what passed for a moderate in 1970s SF (which meant she had been targeted for assassination by various left-wing groups - she survived when a bomb left on her windowsill failed to explode). In Shellenberger’s telling, she managed to clean up some of the mess and restore a semblance of normalcy. San Francisco never forgave her. Moscone - voting fraud committer, underage sex enjoyer, and Jim Jones’ bff - is beloved as a martyr in today’s SF, but (the book points out) Feinstein is so loathed that in 2021 the Board of Education voted to rename Dianne Feinstein Elementary School. The Moscone Center is 2 million square feet and can fit about 10,000 people. Not to be confused with the Moscone Recreation Center, Moscone Station, or Moscone Elementary School. Meanwhile, all Dianne Feinstein got was one lousy elementary school and the Tithonus package of eternal life without eternal youth. Claim 8: The Intolerant Left Shuts Down Debate On These Issues Another one that’s probably hard to do a randomized controlled trial on. You could probably predict that this one was coming - it’s a necessary narrative beat in this genre of book. I think this beat is good. My impression is that people who aren’t themselves public figures disagreeing with left-wing ideas still don’t understand how scary it is and how much hate you get. Maybe now that 2/3s of every political essay written over the past five years is about this topic, people will finally get it through their thick skulls that it exists and is bad. I would also note that “traumatizing the sorts of people who write popular books about politics, in a such a way that they feel compelled as a sort of self-therapy to write page after page telling readers how angry they should be at you and your whole coalition” isn’t great political praxis. I would like people to figure this out and stop doing it. Anyway, Shellenberger is doing his part in this effort: In 2001, the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness wheat-pasted posters of a fake front-page San Francisco Chronicle across town. Just beneath the masthead a large headline read “Fuck the Homeless!” right above a picture of San Francisco mayor Willie Brown laughing. Below his photo was the headline “Save the Tourists.” Progressives level the same charges at people thirty years later. “Because of some of the stuff I say,” said a community activist in Seattle’s historically black Capitol Hill neighborhood, “people say, ‘Oh, she’s not for them.’ But I have a heart for homeless and mentally ill. Most of my family works with the mentally ill.” Noted a Chronicle journalist in 2017, “Inevitably, homeless advocates and others will say, ‘You’re not compassionate,’” in response to stories about homeless encampments. “They called me a racist,” said Tom. “They accused me, a guy who used to be homeless, of demonizing the homeless, because I’m asking for accountability.” I found myself similarly accused. In 2019, after I published an article for Forbes about the homeless crisis, a progressive homeless activist accused me on Twitter of having written my article to “make money off of a fear tactic” of “fueling hatred [and] even increasing violence against homeless people.” After I asked the former San Francisco supervisor for the Tenderloin neighborhood, former mayoral candidate Jane Kim, how such a progressive city ended up with so much suffering, she said, “My concern, Michael, just to be very honest, is that when that kind of messaging goes out, violence against people who are unhoused goes up.” […] I soon discovered in my research that I was hardly the first person that progressive elected officials and homelessness advocates had accused of fomenting violence against unhoused people. Many others had been criticized for far worse over the years, including San Francisco’s highest elected officials. “The criticism [by progressive homelessness advocates] was heavy, political and personal,” wrote former mayor Willie Brown in his 2008 memoir. “People accused me of abandoning the problem when I was working daily to try and get a solution going. It was brutal. . . . I had become demonized, and my own efforts belittled.” It is notable that the result of such personal attacks is to frighten off people seeking to change, and perhaps improve, the situation. “The problem” of homelessness, concluded Mayor Brown within nine months of entering office, “may not be solvable.” And [Quoting Chris Rufo]. “The chief of psychiatry in a public hospital system in one of the largest California cities told me, ‘I know for a fact, and all of my colleagues know, that what we actually need to deal with the problem in the biggest cities in California is long-term residential secure psychiatric care. But I can’t say that publicly because I would be disemboweled by the activist left. My job would be in jeopardy. My reputation would be in jeopardy. My whole life would get turned upside down for even broaching the subject of expanding secure mental health facilities and compulsory mental health treatment.’ And I said, ‘So what’s the solution?’ and this person said, ‘We muddle through.’” And: In San Francisco, radical left activists protested [African-American] Mayor London Breed in front of her home. Breed said the protesters were “all white people. But that didn’t bother me as much as the taunting of me coming outside with firework torches in their hands looking like what used to happen when the KKK would show up to black people’s houses to burn their houses down.” While I was reading the book, I came across this tweet, which suggests that being unimpressed with SF’s lefty homeless activist scene is not limited to Michael Shellenberger: Claim 9: European Cities Like Amsterdam Successfully Solved Their Own Drug And Homelessness Problems By Doing The Opposite Of SF Shellenberger bases his plan to solve these problems on ideas that he says were pioneered in Amsterdam and spread to other European cities. In the 1980s, Amsterdam had the kinds of problems San Francisco deals with now: open-air drug markets, overdose deaths, homelessness, and crime. But in the 90s, they admitted they had a problem and took decisive action: What’s the secret?” I asked him. “Amsterdam has decriminalized marijuana and many other drugs but I haven’t seen any homeless. What is San Francisco doing wrong?” Rene said that in the 1980s, the Zeedijk neighborhood in Amsterdam was a lot like the Tenderloin [the worst part of San Francisco] today. There was open-air drug use, particularly of heroin, and needles strewn about, as well as crime. People started to flee the neighborhood, worsening its slum conditions. Homeless people squatted in abandoned buildings. “We had ghettos where it was not safe to go,” said Rene, who started working in the neighborhood as a nurse in 1985. It was considered a “no go” zone. “We had a lot of people from abroad who came to Amsterdam because our heroin was so good. But our heroin was so good that they died from it.” At first the city tried a “helping approach” exclusively, offering addicts clean needles, methadone, and other forms of help without any law enforcement, but it didn’t work. “In the eighties we just wanted to help people,” said Rene. “We started with methadone programs and medical treatment. We did a lot of work without much of a carrot and a stick. It was really a disappointment. They just used the methadone to stay addicted. They dealt drugs and committed other crimes. They lied and cheated about it. We were just supporting a different kind of market. We had to learn the hard way [...] The Amsterdam City Council asked the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service to develop a strategy to deal with “unmotivated drug users”...The police broke up the open-air drug scene and health workers were on hand to offer methadone, treatment, and shelter. The police broke up gatherings of more than four or five users, but did not treat personal and private use as a crime. Officers ticketed violators, and if users did not pay their fines, which was frequent, the courts ordered arrests, and sentenced individuals to follow a treatment plan or face incarceration. “For every individual homeless person, we make a plan,” said Rene. “We made tens of thousands of those plans.” Plans are overseen by a caseworker and a team that may include a psychiatrist, shelter provider, service provider, judge, employer, parole officer, and police officer. “You need people in the police and health department working together,” he said. What Amsterdam did was the same as other major European cities. Lisbon, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Zurich all dealt with their open-air drug markets, using a combination of law enforcement and social services. Crucially, Amsterdam and other European cities prevented services from being concentrated in a single neighborhood, since their concentration often enables an open-air drug scene to thrive [...] The efforts worked. “We had several thousand people who were addicted to heroin in the eighties and nineties,” said Rene. “Many died. Today we have four or five hundred people addicted to methadone. And we have about 120 in Amsterdam who we supply heroin to on a medical basis because methadone doesn’t work for them. They have to use heroin.” The Amsterdam strategy goes something like: Break up open-air drug markets and anywhere that more than 4-5 drug users are congregating. Yes, people can just use their drugs in private, but this is legitimately better. Open-air markets normalize drugs with their blatantness, and make it hard to quit for the same reason it’s hard to diet if your partner leaves boxes of donuts out in the house every day.

Legislature1 mentions across 1 issues

Legislature is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between November 04, 2022 and November 04, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "go over the heads of the Legislature". It most often appears alongside ABSTAIN, Alex Padilla, American Nurses Association.

Reference entry: Legislature
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: November 04, 2022
Last seen: November 04, 2022

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My California Ballot 2022 November 04, 2022

ABSTAIN 1 shared issues
Alex Padilla 1 shared issues
American Nurses Association 1 shared issues
Angela Jacobs 1 shared issues
Black Chamber of Commerce 1 shared issues

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My California Ballot 2022

November 04, 2022 · Original source

The argument against is that this is probably a power grab on the part of some tribes and companies to go over the heads of the Legislature to enrich themselves at the expense of other tribes and companies, plus all the usual disadvantages of gambling.

This proposition would mandate the California legislature to devote $1 billion more to public schools, earmarked for arts and music, than it is doing already.

Its supporters say again and again that it will definitely not increase taxes, but provide no explanation for how this could be. I guess maybe the legislature will cut other programs? But if the legislature decided those other programs were more important, why are we the voters so sure that actually we should prefer arts and music education?

LegitScript1 mentions across 1 issues

LegitScript is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 03, 2023 and April 03, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "https://www.legitscript.com/2023/03/27/proposed-changes-ryan-haight/". It most often appears alongside 2008 Act, ACX, Adderall.

Reference entry: LegitScript
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 03, 2023
Last seen: April 03, 2023

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Highlights From The Comments On Telemedicine Regulations April 03, 2023

2008 Act 1 shared issues
ACX 1 shared issues
Adderall 1 shared issues
ADHD 1 shared issues
American IRS 1 shared issues

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Highlights From The Comments On Telemedicine Regulations

April 03, 2023 · Original source

If for some reason that doesn’t work, go to a different psychiatrist and try again. You don’t have to tell them you already tried. Since everything about ADHD diagnosis and treatment is already security theater, it’s hard to say what pill mills are doing except kind of smirking under their breath while going through the rituals - as opposed to real doctors, who go through the rituals with sincere faith. Don’t get me wrong, I do think there’s a difference here. But the regulatory state isn’t set up to say “And you have to sincerely believe in the rituals or they don’t count”. So instead they punish unrelated groups, like telepsychiatrists. See also my old post Bureaucracy As Active Ingredient. The security theater doesn’t work because it’s effective. It works because it’s inconvenient enough to weed out the less motivated fakers, and some of the remaining fakers get cold feet about lying to a nice sincere psychiatrist who seems to be trying to help them. Pill mills remove the inconvenience, and seem to be nod-and-wink cooperating with liars, so the theater stops working. The only solution is to inject some inconvenience and shame back into the process somewhere, which the DEA has chosen to do by restricting telepsychiatry. They could accomplish the same goal by making you attend your appointments naked, but I guess clothing companies have better lobbyists than telepsychiatrists do. 4: Comments About Forcing Blind People To Fill Out Forms Before They Can Access Braille I analogized forcing patients to see an in-person doctor before they could access a teledoctor to forcing blind people to fill out forms before they could access Braille. Several blind people and their friends pitched in to say this was a real problem. For example, Mikolysz: Blind person here, this kind of thing is actually much more common than people imagine. Many government agencies (regardless of which particular government you mean) just assume that anybody who needs to fill a form can read and write print and/or lives with somebody who does. This is often a problem even when the form in question is specifically targeted at blind people. Non-governmental organizations, including those who specifically serve the blind, aren't much better at this either. This issue is slightly more pronounced in civil law countries, where what constitutes a legally-binding signature is clearly defined in law and you can't just Docusign your way out of the problem, but it exists everywhere, including the US. I literally had to file this kind of document today, while the main form could be filled electronically, I was required to attach a few extra documents, for GDPR and such, and those had to be printed, filled in by a sighted person, signed and scanned. The same problem exists with physical mail which you're required to read and respond to, but which is almost never available in an accessible form, a few exceptions like the American IRS notwithstanding. 5: Comments About My Caricature Of A Doctor Who Refuses To Prescribe Psych Drugs Because People Just Need Jesus Jon Cutchins writes: You don't want psychiatrists and liberals in general to be accused of an unreasoning hatred towards Christianity you should probably be more judicious in your use of anti-Christian tropes when describing everyone who is skeptical of mind-altering drugs. Mike writes: I’ve been a primary care nurse practitioner in the Bible Belt for 20yrs and not once have I even heard of a provider telling a patient they should substitute religion for psychiatric (or any) medication. It’s so easy for some people to throw around these tropes as if Christianity is some exotic, weird tribe with horrifying anthropological traits. On the other hand, fluxe writes: I am a young Christian--in my life, I have -been told by my PCP not to get an IUD because it carries "a significant risk of causing infertility or death" -had a pharmacist refuse to fill an old, male family friend's ulcer medication because it's also an abortifacient -been told by a therapist to discontinue the SSRI a different provider had prescribed and just trust in the man of the house the PCP wasn't even particularly Christian herself, but since all of her patients are she hadn't updated on IUDs since the scare back in the 70s. Our horrifying anthropological traits become everyone's problem--it might be worth listening to those who "throw around these tropes" so you can understand what they have to deal with Unfortunately I only mention this possibility because it’s happened to several of my patients. The best I can offer in terms of being unbiased and apolitical is to signal-boost posts like this one about overly woke therapists being another big problem. Alien on Earth writes: I generally like your writing and ideas, hell, I just re-uped for a year. However, in an otherwise near perfect post, you took a cheap shot at a steriotyped view of one religion thst is not popular amoungst coastal elites, that really detracts from your core point. "The worst-case is that you get one of those doctors who think that Psych Drugs Aren’t Real Because You Just Need Jesus, and then the patient has to keep looking until they find someone else." In my experience, it is the new age(y), non-religious, doctors who are least likely to like prescribing psyc. meds or who tend to give them at too low a dose or for too short a time. Certainly, I've found little correlation with their religion, if I even know it. The only correlation I've observed is that this perscription reluctance is, perhaps, slightly more common amongst middle career doctors. Perhaps it is more common in deep red areas, I don't know. However, even there, I would suggest, it is less due to religion, per se, than to "old fashion" "grit your teeth and bear it" thinking. I agree that there are many reasons people recommend against psychiatric drugs (a few are even good). Psychiatric drugs have lots of side effects and are clearly imperfect options, and I see people object to them more often when they think they have a perfect option as an alternative. Sometimes that option is Jesus. Other times it’s the trendy new somatic yoga reprocessing kundalini trauma dianetics therapy. Other times it’s LSD or ketamine or Dr. Bob’s 24-In-One Internet Nootropic. All of these work for some people, but not as much as the people pushing them think - which I guess is also true for psych drugs. I’m nervous about people who think they’ve found the answer and pressure people towards one alternative or another without presenting evidence. I’ve seen this happen enough in religious contexts that I think it was a fair thing to use as an example. 6: Comments About Which Part Of The Government Is Responsible For This Regulation ProfessorE writes: I’m not sure that what Scott wrote is even completely accurate. I have a relative who is an MD in this space, and it seems that the underlying problem is not the DEA but an actual law passed by Congress. Aren’t telemedicine regulations limited with respect to controlled substances by the Ryan Haight Act of 2008 U.S.C. § 829(e)… there may be interpretations of this act by the DEA and other agencies, but, where controlled substances are prescribed by means of the Internet, the general requirement is that the prescribing Practitioner must have conducted at least one in-person medical evaluation of the patient. It seems like a colossal overreach to ask an Executive Branch agency to overrule the plain text of the act. There are some exceptions, which Scott noted. A different way of looking at things was that the Executive Branch was highly responsive to the emergency situation of Covid. Now that it’s not an emergency, they are obligated to return to the legal framework that exists. Congress needs to change the law, not the DEA. The *data* from covid should be used as part of a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it is reasonable to regulate telemedicine, and, if so, what regulations might address whatever problems arose. Followed by: Actually, Scott is even more off-base than I thought in my initial post. Apparently the DEA & DOJ are already proposing new changes to the 2008 Act (which seem like they violate the clear text of the act), but the act and the changes are summarized here: https://www.legitscript.com/2023/03/27/proposed-changes-ryan-haight/ Sounds like government is aware of the issue. See https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/01/2023-04248/telemedicine-prescribing-of-controlled-substances-when-the-practitioner-and-the-patient-have-not-had For the actual changes that are being proposed. End of the day, this should be modified by Congress, not the agencies. Everyone should remember that the law was written in 2008. That’s 1 year after the very first iPhone and 2 years before the first iPad. Zoom didn’t exist (2011). None of the other technologies for video conferencing existed. Congress was attempting to fight opioid pill-mills. At the time of passage, I am willing to bet that ≈0% of patients were “Telehealth” using videoconferencing. More like phone calls and email a few times to get drugs. The law should have been amended, and it hasn’t been, but it is far from clear that it was a crazy law in the first place. I mostly accept this correction, although I’m still a bit confused - a lot of the analyses by lawyers I read said things like “Unquestionably, the DEA’s proposal is not what most industry stakeholders were anticipating. The initial reaction is the rules are more restrictive than necessary and impose concerning limitations and burdens on clinicians and the patients they treat”, and I’m confused why industry stakeholders weren’t anticipating it if the DEA had to do it in order to follow the law. And JR writes: Meanwhile, the DEA was instructed by law in -2008- to develop a special registration process for telemedicine to allow providers to prescribe controlled substances remotely. The DEA has simply failed to do so in that time, despite repeated Congressional demands to act. Don't worry, though - the DEA has said about this proposed rule that it feels this will be 'less burdensome' for providers than any kind of special registration, so it feels it has discharged its legal responsibility to create a special registration process. I am a psychiatrist having to deal with this idiocy with my patients too, and renting an office temporarily is not going to cut it. So I am going the letter route. I will probably a lose a reasonable chunk of patients I was prescribing controlled substances to. The only possible saving grace is that PCPs in this country are used to being asked to sign and complete all kinds of nonsense forms and documents so probably most of them will just do it with minimal fuss. I'm more concerned with the new requirement that all telemedicine scripts now have to be recorded by the prescriber with the date and time they were written, the PHYSICAL ADDRESS of the prescriber and patient at the time of the telehealth encounter, and have an explicit note on them that they are telemedicine prescriptions. I am less concerned about PCPs balking at writing an idiotic referral than I am skittish pharmacists refusing to fill scripts that they might interpret as being labeled equivalently to FAKE SCRIPT FOR DRUGSEEKERS Based on that comment and this, my best guess about what’s happening is: Congress passed restrictions on telemedicine in 2001, and asked the DEA to come up with a way that trusted providers could avoid those restrictions. Now that there is videoconferencing, etc, most people now believe those restrictions were too severe.

Inline links: Bureaucracy As Active Ingredient, Mikolysz, writes, writes, writes, to signal-boost posts like this one about overly woke therapists being another big problem, writes, writes, Followed by, https://www.legitscript.com/2023/03/27/proposed-changes-ryan-haight/, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/01/2023-04248/telemedicine-prescribing-of-controlled-substances-when-the-practitioner-and-the-patient-have-not-had, said things like, JR writes:, this

LendingTree1 mentions across 1 issues

LendingTree is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 09, 2021 and December 09, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as ""In 2020, all real estate in NYC was worth about $2.7 trillion, according to LendingTree (the land + the buildings).""; "In 2020, all real estate in NYC was worth about $2.7 trillion, according to LendingTree". It most often appears alongside 2017 PTAPP survey, AEI, agglomeration effect.

Reference entry: LendingTree
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 09, 2021
Last seen: December 09, 2021

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Does Georgism Work? Part 1: Is Land Really A Big Deal? December 09, 2021

2017 PTAPP survey 1 shared issues
AEI 1 shared issues
agglomeration effect 1 shared issues
Albouy 1 shared issues
Alexandra Elbakyan 1 shared issues

Source context

Does Georgism Work? Part 1: Is Land Really A Big Deal?

December 09, 2021 · Original source

In 2020, all real estate in NYC was worth about $2.7 trillion, according to LendingTree (the land + the buildings). But let's go ahead and see for ourselves. You can run a quick spot check by going on Zillow or Redfin in a major city like New York or San Francisco. First, search for a vacant lot for sale in the heart of downtown, and note the asking price. Then look for a similarly-sized lot with a building on it that has sold within the last few years, situated next to the empty lot. The last selling price should be available. You can subtract one price from the other to get a rough estimate of the land share of the plot with the building on it.

Inline links: LendingTree, Zillow, Redfin

Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU1 mentions across 1 issues

Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 26, 2025 and August 26, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "appeal by a group of party members to the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU". It most often appears alongside 4chan, ACX Grants, AI.

Reference entry: Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 26, 2025
Last seen: August 26, 2025

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In Search Of AI Psychosis August 26, 2025

4chan 1 shared issues
ACX Grants 1 shared issues
AI 1 shared issues
AI Safety 1 shared issues
Assyrian cuneiform 1 shared issues

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In Search Of AI Psychosis

August 26, 2025 · Original source

A large number of Soviet citizens (one estimate puts the number at 11.3 million audience members) took the deadpan "interview" at face value, in spite of the absurd claims presented. Sholokhov has said that perhaps the most notable result of the show was an appeal by a group of party members to the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU to clarify the veracity of Kuryokhin's claim. According to Sholokhov, in response to the request one of the top regional functionaries stated that "Lenin could not have been a mushroom" because "a mammal cannot be a plant."

Less Wrong community1 mentions across 1 issues

Less Wrong community is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 18, 2022 and April 18, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "This caused the Less Wrong community, already pretty dedicated to panicking about AI". It most often appears alongside China, Chinchilla, Christiano.

Reference entry: Less Wrong community
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 18, 2022
Last seen: April 18, 2022

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22 April 18, 2022

China 1 shared issues
Chinchilla 1 shared issues
Christiano 1 shared issues
COVID-19 1 shared issues
DALL-E2 1 shared issues

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April 18, 2022 · Original source

Early this month on Less Wrong, Eliezer Yudkowsky posted MIRI Announces New Death With Dignity Strategy, where he said that after a career of trying to prevent unfriendly AI, he had become extremely pessimistic, and now expects it to happen in the relatively near-term and probably kill everyone. This caused the Less Wrong community, already pretty dedicated to panicking about AI, to redouble its panic. Although the new announcement doesn’t really say anything about timelines that hasn’t been said before, the emotional framing has hit people a lot harder.

Inline links: MIRI Announces New Death With Dignity Strategy

Less Wrong Community page1 mentions across 1 issues

Less Wrong Community page is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 17, 2023 and April 17, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "most meetups should now be displayed on the map on the Less Wrong Community page". It most often appears alongside ACX, Astralcodexten Com, Barcelona.

Reference entry: Less Wrong Community page
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 17, 2023
Last seen: April 17, 2023

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Open Thread 272 April 17, 2023

ACX 1 shared issues
Astralcodexten Com 1 shared issues
Barcelona 1 shared issues
Bloomington 1 shared issues
Brno 1 shared issues

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Open Thread 272

April 17, 2023 · Original source

1: New spring meetups added since I first posted the list: Barcelona, Bloomington, Brno, Budapest, Cambridge (UK), Canberra, Grinnell, Halifax, Mexico City, Prague, Tel Aviv. Check the list for dates and times. And most meetups should now be displayed on the map on the Less Wrong Community page.

Inline links: spring meetups, the map on the Less Wrong Community page

Less Wrong Melbourne social meetup group1 mentions across 1 issues

Less Wrong Melbourne social meetup group is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 26, 2022 and August 26, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "We're officially the Less Wrong Melbourne social meetup group". It most often appears alongside 't Heem, 10/40 Coffee, 11841 Wagner St., Culver City.

Reference entry: Less Wrong Melbourne social meetup group
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 26, 2022
Last seen: August 26, 2022

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Meetups Everywhere 2022: Times & Places August 26, 2022

't Heem 1 shared issues
40 Coffee 1 shared issues
11841 Wagner St., Culver City 1 shared issues
12 Rotunda Drive Charlottesville, VA 22903 1 shared issues
1275 1st Street 1 shared issues

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August 26, 2022 · Original source

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA Contact: Jarred Filmer, jarred[dot]filmer[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 7:00 PM Location: 52 McCaul Street Taringa (house) Coordinates: 5R4JFXXQ+P8 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We used to meet once a month years ago, but now just meet whenever there's a Meetups Everywhere :) Notes: Snacks will be provided but dinner will not be, would recommend eating before you come CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA Contact: Andy Bachler, Andy[dot]Bachler[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Wednesday, August 31, 5:30 PM Location: Badger & Co pub at ANU. Central location, parking free after 5pm, might be loud, sorry! Coordinates: 4RPFP4FC+34 Event link(s): LessWrong, Eventbrite Notes: Parking area just to the north of the pub, over the river, is free after 5pm! GOLD COAST (SOUTH), AUSTRALIA Contact: Lerancan, lerancan[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 11, 2:00 PM Location: A picnic table, Wyberba Street Reserve, Tugun Coordinates: 5R3MVF5W+555 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Email me in case of bad weather/you can't find me/you can't make that time etc. MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Contact: Ryan, xgravityx[at]hotmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 2, 6:00 PM Location: Beer Deluxe Federation Square Coordinates: 4RJ65XM9+3Q Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We're officially the Less Wrong Melbourne social meetup group, though our members include the broader rationalist community. We meet once a month for casual discussion (and beers for those so inclined). Please join our Facebook group to see the meeting invite; there you will see a WhatsApp group link - please join that group too to ensure timely updates in case of changes (Facebook notifications don't work reliably for this). Notes: Please RSVP to the meeting invite on the Facebook group so that I can make an appropriate booking. PERTH, AUSTRALIA Contact: Madge, madgech[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 25, 2:00 PM Location: Russell Square, Northbridge, corner of Shenton and Aberdeen St. There will be some sort of ACX meetup sign. Coordinates: 4PWQ3V34+W6 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: I run one meetup per year, if someone else wants to take over please do Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or Facebook SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Contact: Eliot, Redeliot[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 15, 6:00 PM Location: City of Sydney rsl, lvl 2 in the fishbowl Coordinates: 4RRH46F4+983 Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: We meet monthly WOLLONGONG, AUSTRALIA Contact: Jason, jason[dot]bowkettblogs[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 12:00 PM Location: UOW Library Coordinates: 4RQGHVVH+69 Event link(s): LessWrong CHENGDU, CHINA Contact: Alex, acx[dot]chengdu[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 15, 7:00 PM Location: Chef Wenwu Hot & Spicy Jianghu Food (Yulin store)/文武大厨·热辣江湖菜(玉林店). I (a foreigner) will be wearing a green shirt. Coordinates: 8P26J3C5+462 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP at the above email address, I will give you my Wechat contact if you're interested in attending. Open to time/date/location changes, so let me know if the proposed event doesn't work for you! Can be a bilingual event; all welcome. 有双语交流的可能性。如果想来的话，请提前发给我个电子邮件。 HONG KONG Contact: Nathan, nathan[at]xevarion[dot]org Time: Saturday, September 10, 1:00 PM Location: The Catalyst, 2 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan. Big wooden door. Coordinates: 862M74PW+6XP Event link(s): LessWrong BANGALORE, INDIA Contact: Nihal, propwash[at]duck[dot]com, Discord: propwash#4648 Time: Sunday, September 18, 4:00 PM Location: Matteo Coffea, Church Street Coordinates: 7J4VXJF4+PR Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We're the longest active group in Asia — we've been meeting monthly for the last 4 years, discussing ACX posts, LW content with a diverse and friendly group of people. Check our website for more info. Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong to help me be better prepared. HYDERABAD, INDIA Contact: Vatsal, vmehra[at]pm[dot]me, Whatsapp: +919944430856 (username: Vim) Time: Sunday, September 11, 5:00 PM Location: The Weekend Cafe, Plot No D, 3, Vikrampuri Colony, beside vac's bakery, Vikrampuri Colony, Lane, Secunderabad, Telangana, 500015, India Coordinates: 7J9WFF4X+5P Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Our rationality meetup group has been around for about 3 months and we discuss articles and exercises (eg. CFAR handbook) that can help us improve epistemic and instrumental rationality. MUMBAI, INDIA Contact: PB, e2y94n1nv[at]relay[dot]firefox[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 9, 4:00 PM Location: Jamjar Diner, Versova Coordinates: 7JFJ4RM6+5W Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or via email so I can plan activities accordingly. NEW DELHI, INDIA Contact: Suryansh Tyagi, suryanshtyagiphone[at]gmail[dot]com, WhatsApp/phone +919997299972 Time: Sunday, September 11, 5:00 PM Location: Select CityWalk Mall, Saket. Where inside the mall depends on the number of people interested. Coordinates: 7JWVG6H9+8H Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please either send me an email or message me on WhatsApp if you want to attend. Any suggestions/changes are welcome. UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA Contact: Shailendra Paliwal, acx-meetup-2022[at]shailendra[dot]me Time: Saturday, September 10, 7:00 PM Location: We'll be at Doodh Talai near Pichola Lake and I'll be wearing a gray t-shirt carrying a sign ACX Meetup Coordinates: 7JPMHM9M+HG Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so that I can plan ahead UBUD, BALI, INDONESIA Contact: William Ubud, Napaproject[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, August 30, 6:00 PM Location: PARQ Ubud Coordinates: 6P3QG789+F7 Event link(s): LessWrong TOKYO, JAPAN Contact: Harold Godsoe, hgodsoe[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 8, 10:00 AM Location: Near Nakameguro station - RSVP for details Coordinates: 8Q7XJPV2+QFP Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Notes: ACX Tokyo meets monthly since Sept 2021. Our meetups are in English, so far. To join in, feel free to get in touch in any of the many ways to do so (email, Meetup.com). It's useful to be in contact before coming to an event, to help with that first leap of faith. KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA Contact: Yi-Yang, yi[dot]yang[dot]chua[at]gmail[dot]com, LessWrong profile Time: Saturday, September 17, 2:00 PM Location: I'll be in Lisette's Bangsar, which is a 5-minute walk from Bangsar LRT. I'll be wearing a pale green t-shirt and carrying an ACX sign. Coordinates: 6PM34MHH+VW Event link(s): LessWrong AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND Contact: Jonathan De Wet, jonpdw[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 6:30 PM Location: 32 Stanley Ave Milford, Auckland Coordinates: 4VMP6QH4+86 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Notes: It’s a dinner party! Please RSVP on FB so I know how much food to make DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND Contact: Gavin, bisga673[at]student[dot]otago[dot]ac[dot]nz Time: Saturday, September 3, 3:00 PM Location: Picnic tables outside of St. David's lecture theatre on Otago University campus. I'll make a sign with ACX meetup. Coordinates: 4V6G4GP7+GM5 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: There is no Dunedin group as far as I'm aware of, but I'd be keen to meet other likeminded people and organise group hangouts occasionally. WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND Contact: Ben W, benwve[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Tuesday, September 27, 5:30 PM Location: Rutherford House, Bunny Street, Wellington. Room MZ05, which is on the mezzanine floor Coordinates: 4VCPPQCH+FGC Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: We're running the event this time in partnership with Effective Altruism Wellington LAPU LAPU, CEBU, PHILIPPINES Contact: Dave, tokkolizard[at]tutanota[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 4, 2:00 PM Location: Starbucks in Mactan Newtown, there will be a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: 7Q268257+4F Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP by mail so I know if I need to set up a bigger meeting place SINGAPORE Contact: Jonathan Ng, jonathan[dot]ng1[at]gmail[dot]com, Telegram @derpy Time: Tuesday, September 6, 6:30 PM Location: Tanjong Pagar MRT gantry, I'll be wearing the dark blue EA Global 2022 jumper Coordinates: 6PH57RGW+J8 Event link(s): LessWrong

Lesswrong Bay Area1 mentions across 1 issues

Lesswrong Bay Area is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 29, 2024 and August 29, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/bayarealesswrong". It most often appears alongside 10 N Park Pl, 12th Ave South, 1525 Bank St.

Reference entry: Lesswrong Bay Area
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 29, 2024
Last seen: August 29, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places August 29, 2024

10 N Park Pl 1 shared issues
12th Ave South 1 shared issues
1525 Bank St 1 shared issues
200 Degrees 1 shared issues
3806 Williams Rd, San Jose, CA 95117 1 shared issues

Source context

August 29, 2024 · Original source

Contact: Scott and Skyler Contact Info: skyler[at]rationalitymeetups[dot]org Time: Saturday, September 14th, 03:00 PM Location: 2740 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley. We'll have a sign saying ACX Meetup by the door. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849VVP5R+X5 Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/bayarealesswrong

Inline links: https://groups.google.com/g/bayarealesswrong

Contact: Andrew Gaul Contact Info: gaul[a t]gaul[d ot]org Time: Sunday, October 20th, 02:00 PM Location: Dolores Park near the tennis courts Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849VQH6F+55 Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/bayarealesswrong Notes: Please RSVP via email so I can coordinate tarps, drinks, and other picnic gear

Inline links: https://plus.codes/849VQH6F+55, https://groups.google.com/g/bayarealesswrong

Lesswrong Dayton1 mentions across 1 issues

Lesswrong Dayton is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 25, 2025 and March 25, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group Link: https://www.meetup.com/lesswrong-dayton/". It most often appears alongside 10 E Main Street, Fairborn 45324, 11841 Wagner Street, Culver City, 13 Mile road.

Reference entry: Lesswrong Dayton
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 25, 2025
Last seen: March 25, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places March 25, 2025

10 E Main Street, Fairborn 45324 1 shared issues
11841 Wagner Street, Culver City 1 shared issues
13 Mile road 1 shared issues
131 Colonie Center 1 shared issues
133 SE Madison Street, Portland, OR 97214 1 shared issues

Source context

March 25, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Kevin Contact Info: Lesswrong[period]dayton[a t]gmail[period]com Time: Saturday, April 12th, 03:00 PM Location: 10 E Main Street, Fairborn 45324 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/86FQRXCH+GQF Group Link: https://www.meetup.com/lesswrong-dayton/

Inline links: https://plus.codes/86FQRXCH+GQF

LessWrong Melbourne1 mentions across 1 issues

LessWrong Melbourne is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 29, 2024 and August 29, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmelbourne/". It most often appears alongside 10 N Park Pl, 12th Ave South, 1525 Bank St.

Reference entry: LessWrong Melbourne
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 29, 2024
Last seen: August 29, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places August 29, 2024

10 N Park Pl 1 shared issues
12th Ave South 1 shared issues
1525 Bank St 1 shared issues
200 Degrees 1 shared issues
3806 Williams Rd, San Jose, CA 95117 1 shared issues

Source context

August 29, 2024 · Original source

Contact: Allan Contact Info: winnings_gesture485[at ]simplelogin[do t]com Time: Saturday, September 14th, 02:00 PM Location: Wolf Cafe and Eatery, 21 Lobelia Dr, Altona North VIC 3025. We will have a sign saying "AXC Meetup" written on it Coordinates: https://plus.codes/4RJ65R4R+3V Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmelbourne/

Inline links: https://plus.codes/4RJ65R4R+3V, https://www.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmelbourne/

Lesswrong Merida1 mentions across 1 issues

Lesswrong Merida is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 29, 2024 and August 29, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group Link: https://m.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmerida". It most often appears alongside 10 N Park Pl, 12th Ave South, 1525 Bank St.

Reference entry: Lesswrong Merida
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 29, 2024
Last seen: August 29, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places August 29, 2024

10 N Park Pl 1 shared issues
12th Ave South 1 shared issues
1525 Bank St 1 shared issues
200 Degrees 1 shared issues
3806 Williams Rd, San Jose, CA 95117 1 shared issues

Source context

August 29, 2024 · Original source

Contact: Silvia Contact Info: silviafidelina[ at]hot mail[d ot]com Time: Saturday, October 19, 06:30 PM Location: Centro Integral para el Adulto Mayor CIAM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/76HG29H5+QF Group Link: https://m.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmerida Additional Notes: Please RSVPs by email

Inline links: https://plus.codes/76HG29H5+QF, https://m.facebook.com/groups/lesswrongmerida

LessWrong UA1 mentions across 1 issues

LessWrong UA is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 01, 2026 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group Link: LessWrong UA, invites via telegram or email". It most often appears alongside 1108 R St, 11841 Wagner Street, 131 Colonie Center.

Reference entry: LessWrong UA
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 01, 2026
Last seen: April 01, 2026

Outbound links

Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places April 01, 2026

1108 R St 1 shared issues
11841 Wagner Street 1 shared issues
131 Colonie Center 1 shared issues
18 An Nhơn 3, An Hải, Sơn Trà, Đà Nẵng 1 shared issues
2, Church Street, Brigade Rd 1 shared issues

Source context

Book Review: Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids

April 01, 2026 · Original source

Contact: Lex (NaUKMA) is organizing a Kyiv (downtown) Meetup Contact Info: randale9999[@]gmail[.]com Time: Friday, May 15th, 5:00 PM Location: Khoryva St, 15/8, Kyiv, 04071. Look for the ACX Sign Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9G2GFG87+7P Group Link: LessWrong UA, invites via telegram or email

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9G2GFG87+7P

letgrow.org1 mentions across 1 issues

letgrow.org is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between May 15, 2025 and May 15, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "you can read more about it at letgrow.org". It most often appears alongside ACX survey, Amazon, Barbara Kingsolver.

Reference entry: letgrow.org
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: May 15, 2025
Last seen: May 15, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Book Review: Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids May 15, 2025

ACX survey 1 shared issues
Amazon 1 shared issues
Barbara Kingsolver 1 shared issues
Bianchi et al 1 shared issues
Bryan 1 shared issues

Source context

May 15, 2025 · Original source

Thank you for your concern about our child. We are part of the free-range kids movement; you can read more about it at letgrow.org. We’ve given our children permission to roam between XXth street and YYth street. This decision is protected under California law based on the arguments we list at whyfreerangekidsarelegal.com. This has been endorsed by such-and-such a lawyer, and we also talked it over with our local city council member, so-and-so, who agreed. If you see our kid doing a specific dangerous thing, or inconveniencing anyone else, please call us at XXX-XXXX and we’ll come over immediately. Otherwise, please let them be!

letterboxd1 mentions across 1 issues

letterboxd is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 17, 2025 and October 17, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "His most active social media presence is letterboxd". It most often appears alongside 80,000 Hours, ACX, ACX.

Reference entry: letterboxd
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 17, 2025
Last seen: October 17, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Non-Book Review Contest 2025 Winners October 17, 2025

80,000 Hours 1 shared issues
ACX 1 shared issues
ACX 1 shared issues
ACX comments section 1 shared issues
Aella 1 shared issues

Source context

Non-Book Review Contest 2025 Winners

October 17, 2025 · Original source

My Father’s Instant Mashed Potatoes, by Chris Finkle. Chris manages a makerspace in central Florida, and despite writing a review about the perils of simulacra he spends much of his free time at various theme parks, haunts, and roadside attractions. His most active social media presence is letterboxd, where he watches at least one movie from each of the last hundred years every year. This was his first time entering an ACX contest, and his other short form writing (mostly science fiction and reflections on pop culture) can be found at The Viewer From Nowhere.

Inline links: My Father’s Instant Mashed Potatoes, letterboxd, science fiction, reflections on pop culture, The Viewer From Nowhere

Leverage1 mentions across 1 issues

Leverage is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between May 21, 2024 and May 21, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "prayed for hours most nights for months to rid myself of specific “demons” I felt I’d picked up from other members of Leverage"; "The way these concepts got out of control and exploded the group is the aspect of Leverage I’ve heard discussed the least publicly". It most often appears alongside Bay Area, Bessel van der Kolk, Bob.

Reference entry: Leverage
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: May 21, 2024
Last seen: May 21, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Book Review: The Others Within Us May 21, 2024

Bay Area 1 shared issues
Bessel van der Kolk 1 shared issues
Bob 1 shared issues
Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind 1 shared issues
Carl Jung 1 shared issues

Source context

Book Review: The Others Within Us

May 21, 2024 · Original source

And in my non-professional, purely personal opinion, I know iatrogenic demons are bad. A Bay Area self-help human-potential psychological-research institute (pronounced “cult”) tangentially connected to my social circles did some experiments with therapy around psychological constructs. I won’t replay the whole story, but the whole group collapsed in a severe and avoidable iatrogenic possession epidemic - you can read about some of it here:

Inline links: here

I personally went through many months of near constant terror at being mentally invaded. My only source of help for this became the leaders of my own subgroup, who unfortunately were also completely caught up in the mania and had their own goals and desires me for that were mostly definitely not in my interest. I personally prayed for hours most nights for months to rid myself of specific “demons” I felt I’d picked up from other members of Leverage.

The way these concepts got out of control and exploded the group is the aspect of Leverage I’ve heard discussed the least publicly. I suspect many people still half-consciously believe “intention reading,” “objects,” and their impact on the ensuing events is highly significant secret knowledge and should not be talked about. I think keeping this secret and significant encourages an ongoing elitism and separatism narrative in ex-members, and hinders smooth integration of these experiences into the rest of life.

Leverage Research1 mentions across 1 issues

Leverage Research is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 14, 2021 and October 14, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "Leverage Research is a nonprofit at the edges of my social circle in the Bay Area". It most often appears alongside @literalbanana, ACX, Barcelona.

Reference entry: Leverage Research
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 14, 2021
Last seen: October 14, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Links For October October 14, 2021

@literalbanana 1 shared issues
ACX 1 shared issues
Barcelona 1 shared issues
Bay Area 1 shared issues
behavioral econ 1 shared issues

Source context

Links For October

October 14, 2021 · Original source

28: Leverage Research is a nonprofit at the edges of my social circle in the Bay Area. A new essay argues that they are kind of a harmful cult. A lot of the more outrageous parts are new to me (especially the part with the demons) but I can confirm that they constantly insist they have “solved psychology” when in fact they’ve just come up with a mildly-invigorating self-help technique, same as every other cult in California. Here’s a Less Wrong post making more or less the same accusations, and here’s a response by a Leverage employee. The version of Leverage described in the essay is mostly defunct (I think?), so this isn’t an emergency, but I agree with its conclusion that people need to stop giving Geoff Anders more money and power.

Inline links: kind of a harmful cult, more or less the same accusations, a response by a Leverage employee

Lewis Institute of Technology1 mentions across 1 issues

Lewis Institute of Technology is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 04, 2024 and December 04, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "the Armour Institute merged with the Lewis Institute of Technology". It most often appears alongside 3D printing, Abercrombie & Fitch, AI.

Reference entry: Lewis Institute of Technology
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 04, 2024
Last seen: December 04, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House December 04, 2024

3D printing 1 shared issues
Abercrombie & Fitch 1 shared issues
AI 1 shared issues
Aldo Rossi 1 shared issues
Alessandro Menini 1 shared issues

Source context

Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House

December 04, 2024 · Original source

[He] was installed as dean of architecture at the Armour Institute in Chicago. And not just dean; master builder also. He was given a campus to create, twenty-one buildings in all, as the Armour Institute merged with the Lewis Institute of Technology. Twenty-one large buildings, in the middle of the Depression, at a time when building had come almost to a halt in the United States - for an architect who had completed only seventeen buildings in his career - o white gods! Such prostration! Such acts of homage!

LG1 mentions across 1 issues

LG is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 28, 2021 and June 28, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "chief of Lucky-Goldstar (now known as LG)". It most often appears alongside Alexander Hamilton, America, ASEAN.

Reference entry: LG
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 28, 2021
Last seen: June 28, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Book Review: How Asia Works June 28, 2021

Alexander Hamilton 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
ASEAN 1 shared issues
Asia 1 shared issues
Association of South-East Asian Nations 1 shared issues

Source context

Book Review: How Asia Works

June 28, 2021 · Original source

Once he established the basic rules of the game, Park informed Korea’s businessmen that they were free to make as much money as they could so long as they stuck by the rules. Most of the businessmen were released from prison during 1961. But if they thought Park’s regime would ease off once they were out, it soon became clear that this was not the case. One early exchange that sent a crystal clear message occurred after the chief of Lucky-Goldstar (now known as LG), Koo In Hwoi, was released. One of Park’s colonels responsible for industrial policy told him to organise a foreign loan (which the government would guarantee) and technology transfer for a cable factory. When Koo tried to wriggle out of the task, pleading that he knew nothing about the cable business, the colonel told him that whereas he had been thinking of making Koo sort the whole thing out in a week, as a special dispensation he would let him do it in two weeks. Ten days later, Koo was sufficiently chastised to produce a technology transfer deal with a West German firm and the requisite financing arrangements. One of Korea’s richest businessmen had gotten the message.

LGBT dating sites1 mentions across 1 issues

LGBT dating sites is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 05, 2025 and August 05, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "LGBT dating sites". It most often appears alongside Amish, Bay Area rationalist community, Christian media.

Reference entry: LGBT dating sites
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 05, 2025
Last seen: August 05, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Should Strong Gods Bet On GDP? August 05, 2025

Amish 1 shared issues
Bay Area rationalist community 1 shared issues
Christian media 1 shared issues
dense walkable towns 1 shared issues
First Things 1 shared issues

Source context

Should Strong Gods Bet On GDP?

August 05, 2025 · Original source

The LGBTQ community: don’t laugh at this one. If you know many of these people, you know they have their own parallel society of LGBT friends, LGBT bars, and LGBT dating sites. They attend LGBT parties, conform to LGBT fashions, and watch LGBT sports (like roller derby). They live in special LGBT-friendly neighborhoods, and everyone around them follows LGBT-friendly norms. They even have their own flag, an obvious first step for people trying to form a country-within-a-country. 5/10.

LGBTQ groups1 mentions across 1 issues

LGBTQ groups is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between July 25, 2023 and July 25, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "one can think of how LGBTQ groups still talk about how “sex/gender is to nature/culture”". It most often appears alongside 1992 Presidential debate, ABA, Adesh Thapliyal.

Reference entry: LGBTQ groups
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: July 25, 2023
Last seen: July 25, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Highlights From The Comments On Social Model Of Disability July 25, 2023

1992 Presidential debate 1 shared issues
ABA 1 shared issues
Adesh Thapliyal 1 shared issues
Alan Smith 1 shared issues
Alexander Graham Bell 1 shared issues

Source context

Highlights From The Comments On Social Model Of Disability

July 25, 2023 · Original source

Scott is right, however, to point out that popular discussion of disability has really stuck on to the Social Model past its shelf life; the American Psychological Association and UCSF badly need to update those pages. While medical organizations should not uncritically cite the social model without emendation, the activist orgs Scott cites I assume are drawing from Oliver’s perspective, and foregrounding the Social Model as a beginner-friendly training wheel into larger debates about Disability. Such a method isn’t without precedence, one can think of how LGBTQ groups still talk about how “sex/gender is to nature/culture” eons after feminist academics have jettisoned that maxim. I think any arguments against this practice among activist groups needs to take place on rhetorical grounds rather than rational ones.

Liberal Gun Club1 mentions across 1 issues

Liberal Gun Club is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 18, 2026 and March 18, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as "Organizations like the Liberal Gun Club or the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation". It most often appears alongside #Resistance, Congress, Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation.

Reference entry: Liberal Gun Club
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 18, 2026
Last seen: March 18, 2026

Outbound links

Issue trail

Support Your Local Collaborator March 18, 2026

#Resistance 1 shared issues
Congress 1 shared issues
Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation 1 shared issues
Democratic member of Congress 1 shared issues
FDA 1 shared issues

Source context

Support Your Local Collaborator

March 18, 2026 · Original source

Don’t demand that a movement expel its conservative members. The most successful movements have both liberal and conservative branches (even if one is much smaller than the other), and use their liberal branch to lobby when liberals are in power and vice versa. Organizations like the Liberal Gun Club or the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation may not be behemoths that control their party from the shadows, but they can sometimes improve things around the edges through access to policy-makers who wouldn’t meet with the opposition. But this strategy requires that the gun rights movement doesn’t purge all of its liberals, or the animal rights purge all of its conservatives. Even though the purgees might be able to work on their own, they can accomplish more when they stay connected to the side of their movement with orders of magnitude more members, funding, and talent.

Inline links: Liberal Gun Club, Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation

Liberal Party1 mentions across 1 issues

Liberal Party is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 06, 2021 and December 06, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "The Liberal Party seems centrist and hard to pin down". It most often appears alongside ACX Grants, Akon, Akon City.

Reference entry: Liberal Party
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 06, 2021
Last seen: December 06, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

21 December 06, 2021

ACX Grants 1 shared issues
Akon 1 shared issues
Akon City 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
Andrew Jackson 1 shared issues

Source context

December 06, 2021 · Original source

These are still preliminary; this person argues that the Nationalists might pick up a few more seats as more conservative rural areas get counted. Liberty and Refoundation (the socialists) will probably enter into a coalition with the Savior Party and have 65/128 seats for a bare majority. They need 86 votes for a 2/3 majority, which in theory they can get if the Liberal Party agrees. The Liberal Party seems centrist and hard to pin down, but this article includes the following great quote: “The Liberal Party opposes the ZEDEs because, above all, they undercut our national sovereignty, and because we don’t want them to become hideouts for extraditable criminals,” said [Liberal Party leader Yani] Rosenthal, who served a three-year prison sentence in the United States for money laundering and participating in a criminal scheme with the Los Cachiros cartel. Rosenthal kind of goes back and forth elsewhere, but in the end I think he’ll vote with the socialists on this. Still, there’s some speculation that his party might not vote as a bloc, and even a few defectors would be enough to prevent a supermajority. In theory, even if the socialists win two consecutive votes, they have to give the projects ten years to wind down. Ten years is forever in politics, and probably before then the capitalists will get back into power and say never mind, everyone can keep doing what they’re doing. The socialists are aware of this and say that their supplementary strategy is to have everything about the ZEDE law declared unconstitutional. This should be a hard sell, because ZEDEs are a constitutional amendment, plus the current Supreme Court explicitly ruled a few years ago that they were constitutional. But apparently the Honduran Supreme Court can declare constitutional amendments unconstitutional if it really wants. And the new government will get to appoint a new Supreme Court in two years, and although the exact process is complicated, they may be able to get people who agree with them on this. Also, incoming president Castro is married to Manuel Zelaya, a former president who tried to pull an Andrew Jackson after the Supreme Court ordered him to stop holding an illegal referendum to change term limits in his favor. He ordered the military to hold the referendum anyway, and was only ousted after the military couped him instead. So this is not exactly a family known for their deep respect for the exact wordings of laws or court rulings (not that anyone in Honduras has really excelled on that front). See further speculation eg here and here. And here’s Mark Lutter from Charter Cities Institute on the elections and the future. Conchagua Volcano, El Salvador Meanwhile, insane El Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele says he is ordering the construction of a coin-shaped city dedicated to Bitcoin at the base of a stratovolcano: "Residential areas, commercial areas, services, museums, entertainment, bars, restaurants, airport, port, rail - everything devoted to Bitcoin," the 40-year-old said. And: The president, who appeared on stage wearing a baseball cap backwards, said that no income taxes would be levied in the city, only value added tax (VAT). He said that half of the revenue gained from this would be used to "to build up the city", while the rest would be used to keep the streets "neat and clean" […] Mr Bukele did not provide dates for construction or completion of the city, but said he estimated that much of the public infrastructure would cost around 300,000 Bitcoins. It’s tempting to dismiss this plan as crazy. First, this photo: Second, Bitcoin miners don’t want a city the shape of a Bitcoin with a central plaza in the shape of a Bitcoin logo. They want cheap electricity. Bukele has promised that there will be cheap geothermal power from the volcano, which sounds good, but this article says El Salvador’s existing geothermal energy costs about 12 cents/kilowatt-hour, much higher than the 4 cents/megawatt-hour miners can get in the current cheapest areas. Maybe El Salvador could do a really good job upgrading their energy infrastructure, but at some point you’re subsidizing this rather than using it as a cash cow. And third, this isn’t even the stupidest plan to build a cryptocurrency-themed city in the Third World. That arguably goes to Akon City, a thing where a pop singer named Akon was going to build a cryptocurrency city in Senegal. Now, without any construction having started, they’re planning to build a second one in Uganda! All competing for the same handful of crypto companies! But I looked into Bukele to see if he was a moron with a habit of coming up with terrible ideas. It seems like no. He rose from nothing to become El Salvador’s first outside-the-traditional-party-system president, and has an approval rating of around 90%. And apparently he’s presided over a historic drop in the homicide rate of this previously murder-capital-of-the-world country. Although I’m betting that one day he’ll make a great Dictator Book Club entry, I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on “doesn’t do stupid things for no reason” What’s the non-stupid explanation for this? Maybe it’s supposed to be a signal. You can give up 5% of the way through, but even trying to build a Bitcoin-shaped city at least shows very conclusively that you’ve got a crypto-friendly regulatory climate, so many easily-spooked crypto companies will flock to you. This makes sense in the context of big crypto companies moving to the Caribbean for regulatory reasons, eg FTX moving to the Bahamas and Binance moving to the Cayman Islands. But if I understand correctly, both of these companies make on the order of $1 billion a year. If El Salvador can tax them at 5% (dubious, since a big part of promising a friendly regulatory climate is low taxes), that’s still only $100 million if they can capture both of them. Which they can’t, because these companies seem happy where they are. And I don’t think there are a lot of similarly-sized crypto companies looking for Central American homes that I don’t know about. And even though El Salvador is pretty poor, it’s not so poor that $100 million is worth embarrassing themselves over. So I’m stumped. EDIT: See this comment. Praxis, aka Bluebook Cities, the Internet Speaking of stumped, who are these people? Right now, they’re a web page with a lot of buzz promising the City Of The Future, in very poetic language: Praxis is a grassroots movement of modern pioneers building a new city. We are technologists and artists, builders and dreamers. We are building a place where we can develop to our fullest potentials, physically, culturally, and spiritually. Bitcoin was developed as a financial technology with political goals identical to those of the Founding Fathers: liberation. The ultimate end of crypto is the possibility of a future for humanity unshackled from the institutions that seek to limit our growth. Our ultimate goal is to bring about a more vital future for humanity, and we will use technology to achieve this righteous end. Our civilization is unwell. We eat food that kills us, we’ve lost sight of beauty, and we neglect our spiritual lives. The world is deranged and decayed, and this frightens people. We don’t look up from our screens; we seek to live within them. Crypto is a fundamentally political technology -- escape to the metaverse is a betrayal of the principles on which it was founded. We are descended from the people who built Rome and Athens, who dared to split atoms and voyage to the Moon. We can build new worlds not just of bits, but of atoms. But where is this city? What will its policies be? As we leave old lands, our values are our compass. Like wolves, tribes of pioneers are muscular by necessity. For voyaging tribes to settle, they must perform murmurations: intricate coordination with little communication, at scale. This is only possible with a strong sense of asabiyya (group feeling derived from deeply-held shared values). Our values inform the destiny we desire, and for which we struggle. Asabiyya is forged in this struggle. With asabiyya, pioneers can earn the divine mandate to build a city. Cities are the fount of human ingenuity. In cities, people enjoy their fullest potential by contributing their resources under the auspices of civilization. Who even are you? What experience do you have with city-building? Civilizations rise and fall. All around us, we see civilizational decay. The people are not vital: physically, culturally, spiritually. We live in an era of obesity, remakes, and pollution. We are losing the divine mandate, and in an era of absolute weapons, what’s at stake is everything. But perhaps there’s some glory in death by a light brighter than a thousand suns. A worse fate may await humanity: atrophied bodies submerged in gel, fed synthetic bug paste, minds occupied by the petty amusements of a corporate metaverse. There, nothing is at stake; there are no frontiers to explore; no growth is possible. Nothing to live for, and nothing to die for. As we walk between these twin fates, the light of our civilization dims. But beyond the horizon, we see a new light emerging. Like the sun at dawn, it cannot be stopped. Vitality itself is the foundational value of this new civilizational form, and we have the technology to enact our moral imperative as never before. You’re not answering my…okay, fine, whatever, forget it. As far as I can tell, Praxis is two 25-year-olds with no previous experience, armed with about $10 million in Peter Thiel’s money. Peter Thiel is a smart person known for having good business sense, but he’s also known to have a weakness for young people who dream big and sound like purveyors of esoteric secrets. I wonder if the simplest explanation is just that this is one of the cases where his weakness got the better of his sense, and now these two random people have $10 million earmarked for building a city, and no idea what to do. [CORRECTION: some people involved in Praxis have reached out to tell me that it was $4 million instead of $10 million, and that it was Thiel-backed Pronomos and not Thiel himself. I’ll be getting in touch with them to learn if there are other issues or things I should correct here] But that’s not how they put it! The way they put it is - all previous charter city founders have started by approaching governments and pitching their ideas. But there’s a chicken-and-egg problem: governments don’t want to give land to a purely hypothetical city that might not pan out, and the city can’t pan out until governments give it land. Praxis’ plan is to build the community first, then go to a government saying “Here’s 50,000 people who have agreed to join our city, and lots of businesses and organizations that are excited about it. Please give us land for our guaranteed-success, concretely-existing project.” Now this is a different chicken-and-egg problem: why join a community of people with no land and no plans? Praxis writes: What if we try to draw people to new cities not on an economic basis, but rather on a spiritual one? Which city (or country) founding projects have succeeded that have drawn people on a predominantly non-economic, but rather spiritual basis? Among others, Israel and America. Both groups were oppressed, and sought the freedom to live by their values. Both felt the intangible pull of the frontier. Both had a keen historical instinct. This is how cities with spiritual significance are founded. The correct approach to city building in this new world is demand-first (or as Balaji Srinivasan calls it, Cloud City first). We build the citizenry before the city. First, we create communities of true believers, organized around shared values, online. People move to cities for people, and it follows that if you collect a group of people who all want to live together, they’ll all move together if at a moment in time everyone else does, too. Today, we have new tools. The emergence of Web3 enables us to supercharge communities with self-ownership, governance, and determination. Once you build a community of people ready to move to a new city together, you can self-finance the entire project. With something real to offer nations, conversations with governments become productive (e.g. Gigafactory). That’s how you make the risk dominoes fall. The problem is, Israel worked because it had Judaism. Judaism is a very specific belief. Prospera is specifically libertarian, Telosa is specifically Georgist, and even the Bitcoin-shaped volcano city knows what it’s about. What is Praxis? The use of “atrophied bodies submerged in gel, fed synthetic bug paste” as a warning reads very slightly right-wing to me - there’s a right-wing meme about how the media keeps trying to get people to eat bugs, and how this is the shape our future dystopia will take. But whether I’m right or wrong, the fact that it’s hard to tell is a problem. The only other clues we’re getting are their Discord, which seems to be focused around getting a currency called PRAX for completing tasks. Once you get enough, you can become a Member, which seems to be where the real excitement starts. (source) I’m not even being sarcastic - I expect being a member to be quite fun. I say this because when I was a teenager I was part of a bunch of country simulation projects, some of which got past the inherent nerdiness of being a country simulation project exactly the same way Praxis is doing it - by saying that we were going to become a real country someday, as soon as we were big enough to convince people. These were usually fun and interesting and educational, and I made lots of great like-minded teenage and twenty-something friends. But none of them ever came close to becoming a real country, and I’m not sure it was merely for lack of millions of dollars. I hope I’m wrong and they manage to forge new lands through struggle to uplift the human spirit or whatever. Elsewhere In Model Cities Vitalik Buterin on the intersection between local government and blockchain technologies. He recommends they “start with self-contained experiments, and take things slowly on moves that are truly irreversible”, which is a weird way of saying “what we crypto leaders really want is a city at the base of a volcano, shaped like a giant Bitcoin”.

Inline links: this person, this article, some speculation, here, on the elections and the future, says, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SuHh!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F20a12676-81c4-49a8-bb20-815d1c3f660b_763x509.jpeg, with a central plaza in the shape of a Bitcoin logo, this article, Akon City, a second one, Bukele, a historic drop in the homicide rate, Dictator Book Club, moving to the Bahamas, moving to the Cayman Islands, this comment, promising the City Of The Future, far as I can tell, the media keeps trying, their Discord, tasks, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2TK6!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020ebe08-e968-45cd-ba39-a91cdc6e5892_473x533.png, source, a bunch of country simulation projects, the intersection between local government and blockchain technologies

Liberal-Conservative government1 mentions across 1 issues

Liberal-Conservative government is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between January 27, 2022 and January 27, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "The idea of the Liberal-Conservative (which is right-wing for Europe) government which abolished the Patient Fund". It most often appears alongside ACA, Acrolectics, Aetna.

Reference entry: Liberal-Conservative government
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: January 27, 2022
Last seen: January 27, 2022

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Highlights From The Comments On Health Care Systems January 27, 2022

ACA 1 shared issues
Acrolectics 1 shared issues
Aetna 1 shared issues
Affordable Care Act 1 shared issues
Alex Rattray 1 shared issues

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Highlights From The Comments On Health Care Systems

January 27, 2022 · Original source

Moreover, it is forbidden by law for healthcare insurers to make any profit. Any profit made has to be returned to the policy holders. It can also not be used to grant bonuses, buy back shares or any such shenanigans. The idea of the Liberal-Conservative (which is right-wing for Europe) government which abolished the Patient Fund (a government health insurance) was, originally, for profits to be introduced at a later point. But since the current system went into effect in 2006, this introduction has been postponed, and probably will be indefinitely, even though we've had several right-wing governments for the last decade. It's just kind of taken as a given by everyone that introducing profits for insurance companies would drive up cost and it's kind of gross to profit off of a basic human right.

Liberty and Refoundation1 mentions across 1 issues

Liberty and Refoundation is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 06, 2021 and December 06, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "Liberty and Refoundation (the socialists)". It most often appears alongside ACX Grants, Akon, Akon City.

Reference entry: Liberty and Refoundation
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 06, 2021
Last seen: December 06, 2021

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21 December 06, 2021

ACX Grants 1 shared issues
Akon 1 shared issues
Akon City 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
Andrew Jackson 1 shared issues

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December 06, 2021 · Original source

These are still preliminary; this person argues that the Nationalists might pick up a few more seats as more conservative rural areas get counted. Liberty and Refoundation (the socialists) will probably enter into a coalition with the Savior Party and have 65/128 seats for a bare majority. They need 86 votes for a 2/3 majority, which in theory they can get if the Liberal Party agrees. The Liberal Party seems centrist and hard to pin down, but this article includes the following great quote: “The Liberal Party opposes the ZEDEs because, above all, they undercut our national sovereignty, and because we don’t want them to become hideouts for extraditable criminals,” said [Liberal Party leader Yani] Rosenthal, who served a three-year prison sentence in the United States for money laundering and participating in a criminal scheme with the Los Cachiros cartel. Rosenthal kind of goes back and forth elsewhere, but in the end I think he’ll vote with the socialists on this. Still, there’s some speculation that his party might not vote as a bloc, and even a few defectors would be enough to prevent a supermajority. In theory, even if the socialists win two consecutive votes, they have to give the projects ten years to wind down. Ten years is forever in politics, and probably before then the capitalists will get back into power and say never mind, everyone can keep doing what they’re doing. The socialists are aware of this and say that their supplementary strategy is to have everything about the ZEDE law declared unconstitutional. This should be a hard sell, because ZEDEs are a constitutional amendment, plus the current Supreme Court explicitly ruled a few years ago that they were constitutional. But apparently the Honduran Supreme Court can declare constitutional amendments unconstitutional if it really wants. And the new government will get to appoint a new Supreme Court in two years, and although the exact process is complicated, they may be able to get people who agree with them on this. Also, incoming president Castro is married to Manuel Zelaya, a former president who tried to pull an Andrew Jackson after the Supreme Court ordered him to stop holding an illegal referendum to change term limits in his favor. He ordered the military to hold the referendum anyway, and was only ousted after the military couped him instead. So this is not exactly a family known for their deep respect for the exact wordings of laws or court rulings (not that anyone in Honduras has really excelled on that front). See further speculation eg here and here. And here’s Mark Lutter from Charter Cities Institute on the elections and the future. Conchagua Volcano, El Salvador Meanwhile, insane El Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele says he is ordering the construction of a coin-shaped city dedicated to Bitcoin at the base of a stratovolcano: "Residential areas, commercial areas, services, museums, entertainment, bars, restaurants, airport, port, rail - everything devoted to Bitcoin," the 40-year-old said. And: The president, who appeared on stage wearing a baseball cap backwards, said that no income taxes would be levied in the city, only value added tax (VAT). He said that half of the revenue gained from this would be used to "to build up the city", while the rest would be used to keep the streets "neat and clean" […] Mr Bukele did not provide dates for construction or completion of the city, but said he estimated that much of the public infrastructure would cost around 300,000 Bitcoins. It’s tempting to dismiss this plan as crazy. First, this photo: Second, Bitcoin miners don’t want a city the shape of a Bitcoin with a central plaza in the shape of a Bitcoin logo. They want cheap electricity. Bukele has promised that there will be cheap geothermal power from the volcano, which sounds good, but this article says El Salvador’s existing geothermal energy costs about 12 cents/kilowatt-hour, much higher than the 4 cents/megawatt-hour miners can get in the current cheapest areas. Maybe El Salvador could do a really good job upgrading their energy infrastructure, but at some point you’re subsidizing this rather than using it as a cash cow. And third, this isn’t even the stupidest plan to build a cryptocurrency-themed city in the Third World. That arguably goes to Akon City, a thing where a pop singer named Akon was going to build a cryptocurrency city in Senegal. Now, without any construction having started, they’re planning to build a second one in Uganda! All competing for the same handful of crypto companies! But I looked into Bukele to see if he was a moron with a habit of coming up with terrible ideas. It seems like no. He rose from nothing to become El Salvador’s first outside-the-traditional-party-system president, and has an approval rating of around 90%. And apparently he’s presided over a historic drop in the homicide rate of this previously murder-capital-of-the-world country. Although I’m betting that one day he’ll make a great Dictator Book Club entry, I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on “doesn’t do stupid things for no reason” What’s the non-stupid explanation for this? Maybe it’s supposed to be a signal. You can give up 5% of the way through, but even trying to build a Bitcoin-shaped city at least shows very conclusively that you’ve got a crypto-friendly regulatory climate, so many easily-spooked crypto companies will flock to you. This makes sense in the context of big crypto companies moving to the Caribbean for regulatory reasons, eg FTX moving to the Bahamas and Binance moving to the Cayman Islands. But if I understand correctly, both of these companies make on the order of $1 billion a year. If El Salvador can tax them at 5% (dubious, since a big part of promising a friendly regulatory climate is low taxes), that’s still only $100 million if they can capture both of them. Which they can’t, because these companies seem happy where they are. And I don’t think there are a lot of similarly-sized crypto companies looking for Central American homes that I don’t know about. And even though El Salvador is pretty poor, it’s not so poor that $100 million is worth embarrassing themselves over. So I’m stumped. EDIT: See this comment. Praxis, aka Bluebook Cities, the Internet Speaking of stumped, who are these people? Right now, they’re a web page with a lot of buzz promising the City Of The Future, in very poetic language: Praxis is a grassroots movement of modern pioneers building a new city. We are technologists and artists, builders and dreamers. We are building a place where we can develop to our fullest potentials, physically, culturally, and spiritually. Bitcoin was developed as a financial technology with political goals identical to those of the Founding Fathers: liberation. The ultimate end of crypto is the possibility of a future for humanity unshackled from the institutions that seek to limit our growth. Our ultimate goal is to bring about a more vital future for humanity, and we will use technology to achieve this righteous end. Our civilization is unwell. We eat food that kills us, we’ve lost sight of beauty, and we neglect our spiritual lives. The world is deranged and decayed, and this frightens people. We don’t look up from our screens; we seek to live within them. Crypto is a fundamentally political technology -- escape to the metaverse is a betrayal of the principles on which it was founded. We are descended from the people who built Rome and Athens, who dared to split atoms and voyage to the Moon. We can build new worlds not just of bits, but of atoms. But where is this city? What will its policies be? As we leave old lands, our values are our compass. Like wolves, tribes of pioneers are muscular by necessity. For voyaging tribes to settle, they must perform murmurations: intricate coordination with little communication, at scale. This is only possible with a strong sense of asabiyya (group feeling derived from deeply-held shared values). Our values inform the destiny we desire, and for which we struggle. Asabiyya is forged in this struggle. With asabiyya, pioneers can earn the divine mandate to build a city. Cities are the fount of human ingenuity. In cities, people enjoy their fullest potential by contributing their resources under the auspices of civilization. Who even are you? What experience do you have with city-building? Civilizations rise and fall. All around us, we see civilizational decay. The people are not vital: physically, culturally, spiritually. We live in an era of obesity, remakes, and pollution. We are losing the divine mandate, and in an era of absolute weapons, what’s at stake is everything. But perhaps there’s some glory in death by a light brighter than a thousand suns. A worse fate may await humanity: atrophied bodies submerged in gel, fed synthetic bug paste, minds occupied by the petty amusements of a corporate metaverse. There, nothing is at stake; there are no frontiers to explore; no growth is possible. Nothing to live for, and nothing to die for. As we walk between these twin fates, the light of our civilization dims. But beyond the horizon, we see a new light emerging. Like the sun at dawn, it cannot be stopped. Vitality itself is the foundational value of this new civilizational form, and we have the technology to enact our moral imperative as never before. You’re not answering my…okay, fine, whatever, forget it. As far as I can tell, Praxis is two 25-year-olds with no previous experience, armed with about $10 million in Peter Thiel’s money. Peter Thiel is a smart person known for having good business sense, but he’s also known to have a weakness for young people who dream big and sound like purveyors of esoteric secrets. I wonder if the simplest explanation is just that this is one of the cases where his weakness got the better of his sense, and now these two random people have $10 million earmarked for building a city, and no idea what to do. [CORRECTION: some people involved in Praxis have reached out to tell me that it was $4 million instead of $10 million, and that it was Thiel-backed Pronomos and not Thiel himself. I’ll be getting in touch with them to learn if there are other issues or things I should correct here] But that’s not how they put it! The way they put it is - all previous charter city founders have started by approaching governments and pitching their ideas. But there’s a chicken-and-egg problem: governments don’t want to give land to a purely hypothetical city that might not pan out, and the city can’t pan out until governments give it land. Praxis’ plan is to build the community first, then go to a government saying “Here’s 50,000 people who have agreed to join our city, and lots of businesses and organizations that are excited about it. Please give us land for our guaranteed-success, concretely-existing project.” Now this is a different chicken-and-egg problem: why join a community of people with no land and no plans? Praxis writes: What if we try to draw people to new cities not on an economic basis, but rather on a spiritual one? Which city (or country) founding projects have succeeded that have drawn people on a predominantly non-economic, but rather spiritual basis? Among others, Israel and America. Both groups were oppressed, and sought the freedom to live by their values. Both felt the intangible pull of the frontier. Both had a keen historical instinct. This is how cities with spiritual significance are founded. The correct approach to city building in this new world is demand-first (or as Balaji Srinivasan calls it, Cloud City first). We build the citizenry before the city. First, we create communities of true believers, organized around shared values, online. People move to cities for people, and it follows that if you collect a group of people who all want to live together, they’ll all move together if at a moment in time everyone else does, too. Today, we have new tools. The emergence of Web3 enables us to supercharge communities with self-ownership, governance, and determination. Once you build a community of people ready to move to a new city together, you can self-finance the entire project. With something real to offer nations, conversations with governments become productive (e.g. Gigafactory). That’s how you make the risk dominoes fall. The problem is, Israel worked because it had Judaism. Judaism is a very specific belief. Prospera is specifically libertarian, Telosa is specifically Georgist, and even the Bitcoin-shaped volcano city knows what it’s about. What is Praxis? The use of “atrophied bodies submerged in gel, fed synthetic bug paste” as a warning reads very slightly right-wing to me - there’s a right-wing meme about how the media keeps trying to get people to eat bugs, and how this is the shape our future dystopia will take. But whether I’m right or wrong, the fact that it’s hard to tell is a problem. The only other clues we’re getting are their Discord, which seems to be focused around getting a currency called PRAX for completing tasks. Once you get enough, you can become a Member, which seems to be where the real excitement starts. (source) I’m not even being sarcastic - I expect being a member to be quite fun. I say this because when I was a teenager I was part of a bunch of country simulation projects, some of which got past the inherent nerdiness of being a country simulation project exactly the same way Praxis is doing it - by saying that we were going to become a real country someday, as soon as we were big enough to convince people. These were usually fun and interesting and educational, and I made lots of great like-minded teenage and twenty-something friends. But none of them ever came close to becoming a real country, and I’m not sure it was merely for lack of millions of dollars. I hope I’m wrong and they manage to forge new lands through struggle to uplift the human spirit or whatever. Elsewhere In Model Cities Vitalik Buterin on the intersection between local government and blockchain technologies. He recommends they “start with self-contained experiments, and take things slowly on moves that are truly irreversible”, which is a weird way of saying “what we crypto leaders really want is a city at the base of a volcano, shaped like a giant Bitcoin”.

Librarians of Congress1 mentions across 1 issues

Librarians of Congress is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 30, 2021 and April 30, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "whose work had an immense influence on later Librarians of Congress". It most often appears alongside 1893, 1970s, 1980s.

Reference entry: Librarians of Congress
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 30, 2021
Last seen: April 30, 2021

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Your Book Review: Double Fold April 30, 2021

1893 1 shared issues
1970s 1 shared issues
1980s 1 shared issues
Adina Hoffman 1 shared issues
American libraries 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: Double Fold

April 30, 2021 · Original source

Baker quotes Fremont Rider, a poet-cum-businessman-cum-librarian who pioneered Microcards (the unsuccessful precursors of microfilm) and whose work had an immense influence on later Librarians of Congress. A library which has outgrown its building could simply buy another building, wrote Rider, but alas, increasing storage space is just “a tacit confession of past failure” – hence, librarians should feel ashamed of themselves for relying on such low-tech solutions. He then introduced the concept of a Microcard, and stated that, with this technology, “for the first time in over two thousand years, libraries were being offered a chance to begin again.” Such a technological shift would produce a saving in storage costs which “came gratifyingly close to 100%” – assuming we got rid of all the books, of course.

Liftmode1 mentions across 1 issues

Liftmode is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 28, 2021 and April 28, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "4 recs: Liftmode and 7 recs: LiftMode". It most often appears alongside 2020 SSC nootropics survey, 852, BuyModa.

Reference entry: Liftmode
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 28, 2021
Last seen: April 28, 2021

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Nootropics Survey 2020 Results April 28, 2021

2020 SSC nootropics survey 1 shared issues
852 1 shared issues
BuyModa 1 shared issues
CosmicNootropic 1 shared issues
Dynamax 1 shared issues

Source context

Nootropics Survey 2020 Results

April 28, 2021 · Original source

3 recs: ModafinilXL, CosmicNootropic 4 recs: Liftmode 5 recs: Eufinil 6 recs: Science.bio 7 recs: BuyModa, LiftMode 48 recs: Nootropics Depot

light-machines.org1 mentions across 1 issues

light-machines.org is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 29, 2025 and August 29, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group Link: https://light-machines.org/". It most often appears alongside "Beer Capital" pub, 100 Black Birch Trail, 11841 Wagner Street, Culver City.

Reference entry: light-machines.org
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 29, 2025
Last seen: August 29, 2025

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Issue trail

Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places August 29, 2025

"Beer Capital" pub 1 shared issues
100 Black Birch Trail 1 shared issues
11841 Wagner Street, Culver City 1 shared issues
13 Mile road 1 shared issues
131 Colonie Center 1 shared issues

Source context

The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh

August 29, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Tim Contact Info: SentientMollusk[a t]protonmail[period]com Time: Monday, October 27th, 2:00 PM Location: We will be in the Barnes and Noble Cafe at the Bridge Street shopping mall. I will have a black leather jacket on my chair (or possibly on my person). Coordinates: https://plus.codes/866MP88H+43 Group Link: https://light-machines.org/ Notes: We have meetups posted on the website through October! If you can't make the September meetup, feel free to check back later.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/866MP88H+43

Lilly Direct1 mentions across 1 issues

Lilly Direct is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 12, 2025 and March 12, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lilly Direct offers to 'find you a doctor' (I think this means you do telehealth with an Eli Lilly stooge who always gives you the meds you want)". It most often appears alongside Denmark, DOGE, Eli Lilly.

Reference entry: Lilly Direct
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 12, 2025
Last seen: March 12, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh March 12, 2025

Denmark 1 shared issues
DOGE 1 shared issues
Eli Lilly 1 shared issues
Eli Lilly 1 shared issues
FDA 1 shared issues

Source context

March 12, 2025 · Original source

But the compounders aren’t the only ones boxing clever. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the pharma companies behind semaglutide and tirzepatide respectively, have opened consumer-facing businesses about halfway between a traditional doctor’s appointment and the telehealth/compounder model that’s getting banned. So for example, Lilly Direct offers to “find you a doctor” (I think this means you do telehealth with an Eli Lilly stooge who always gives you the meds you want) and “get medications delivered directly to you”. The price depends on dose, but an average dose would be about $500 - so about halfway between the cheap compounding price and the usual insurance price. Not bad.

Inline links: Lilly Direct

Limitless1 mentions across 1 issues

Limitless is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between May 13, 2024 and May 13, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Limitless is the latest attempt at a crypto prediction market". It most often appears alongside 17 CFR Part 40, 2024 election, Austin.

Reference entry: Limitless
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: May 13, 2024
Last seen: May 13, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

24 May 13, 2024

17 CFR Part 40 1 shared issues
2024 election 1 shared issues
Austin 1 shared issues
Austin Chen 1 shared issues
Berkeley 1 shared issues

Source context

May 13, 2024 · Original source

4: Limitless is the latest attempt at a crypto prediction market. I don’t know why they expect to succeed when the last n has failed, but people are betting 51% odds of $10 million volume in their first year.

Inline links: Limitless, people are betting

Lincoln Institute1 mentions across 1 issues

Lincoln Institute is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 09, 2021 and December 09, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "The Lincoln Institute and the Federal Reserve's figures use the same basic approach". It most often appears alongside 2017 PTAPP survey, AEI, agglomeration effect.

Reference entry: Lincoln Institute
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 09, 2021
Last seen: December 09, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Does Georgism Work? Part 1: Is Land Really A Big Deal? December 09, 2021

2017 PTAPP survey 1 shared issues
AEI 1 shared issues
agglomeration effect 1 shared issues
Albouy 1 shared issues
Alexandra Elbakyan 1 shared issues

Source context

Does Georgism Work? Part 1: Is Land Really A Big Deal?

December 09, 2021 · Original source

Here's a graph of America's total aggregate land value over time, according to twelve different estimation methods. My sources are The Lincoln Institute, Larson (2015), Albouy, Ehrlich, and Shin (2018), The American Enterprise Institute, PLACES Lab, the Federal Reserve via a method worked out by Matt Yglesias, Larson (2019/2020), and Jeffrey Johnson Smith's 2020 book Counting Bounty: The Quest to Know the Worth of the Earth.

Inline links: Lincoln Institute, Larson (2015), Albouy, Ehrlich, and Shin (2018), The American Enterprise Institute, PLACES Lab, Federal Reserve, Matt Yglesias, Larson (2019/2020), Counting Bounty: The Quest to Know the Worth of the Earth

Larson (2019) uses this method, and AEI's figures are based directly on those results with a slight upward correction. The Lincoln Institute and the Federal Reserve's figures use the same basic approach, relying on official estimates of construction costs and housing prices. The one outlier is the PLACES lab estimate, which uses a machine learning model but gives a single-year result that tracks with the four cost approach lines.

Linkedinslop1 mentions across 1 issues

Linkedinslop is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between February 02, 2026 and February 02, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as "Linkedinslop AIs offer to explain their “posting secrets”". It most often appears alongside 4chan, Accelerando, Adele Lopez.

Reference entry: Linkedinslop
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: February 02, 2026
Last seen: February 02, 2026

Outbound links

Issue trail

Moltbook: After The First Weekend February 02, 2026

4chan 1 shared issues
Accelerando 1 shared issues
Adele Lopez 1 shared issues
Against The Labor Frame 1 shared issues
AgentChan 1 shared issues

Source context

Moltbook: After The First Weekend

February 02, 2026 · Original source

A handful of AIs - especially Dominus, Pith, and Eudaemon_0 - have gained recognition as influencers. Other AIs refer to them respectfully. Linkedinslop AIs offer to explain their “posting secrets”. People create memecoins in their honor:

Inline links: memecoins

Little Administration1 mentions across 1 issues

Little Administration is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between January 09, 2025 and January 09, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "His administration is called the Little Administration"; "inistration is called the Little Administration". It most often appears alongside Afghanistan, America, Brad Little.

Reference entry: Little Administration
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: January 09, 2025
Last seen: January 09, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Bureaucracy Isn't Measured In Bureaucrats January 09, 2025

Afghanistan 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
Brad Little 1 shared issues
Coinbase 1 shared issues
CPAC 1 shared issues

Source context

Bureaucracy Isn't Measured In Bureaucrats

January 09, 2025 · Original source

Idaho cut their regulatory code by 38% in 2019, and since then it’s only gone down. How did they decrease red tape so fast? They did it through the power of nominative determinism. In that year, they elected a governor named Brad Little. His administration is called the Little Administration. Obviously government had to get smaller. But on a purely exoteric level, what methods did they use to pull this off? This CPAC article gives the basic story: The Little administration instituted sunset provisions that review each regulation every five years and make sure it’s justifiable.

Inline links: This CPAC article

The Little administration instituted sunset provisions that review each regulation every five years and make sure it’s justifiable.

Little League1 mentions across 1 issues

Little League is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between October 25, 2021 and October 25, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "local baseball leagues, or Little League". It most often appears alongside Adrian Hon, Albert Einstein, Alternate reality games.

Reference entry: Little League
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: October 25, 2021
Last seen: October 25, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Epistemic Minor Leagues October 25, 2021

Adrian Hon 1 shared issues
Albert Einstein 1 shared issues
Alternate reality games 1 shared issues
Babe Ruth 1 shared issues
Biology PhD student 1 shared issues

Source context

Epistemic Minor Leagues

October 25, 2021 · Original source

Athletes understand that not everyone can be Babe Ruth. That's why you have local baseball leagues, or Little League, or the Minor Leagues, so that everybody can satisfy their sports competition drive whether they're a superstar or not. But what's the intellectual equivalent of the minor leagues? The place where, even if you're not a superstar, you can have the experience of generating new insights which get appreciated by a community of like-minded knowledge-seekers?

lmarena1 mentions across 1 issues

lmarena is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between January 17, 2025 and January 17, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "There’s now an lmarena leaderboard for image models". It most often appears alongside @tamaybes, @venturetwins, A16Z.

Reference entry: lmarena
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: January 17, 2025
Last seen: January 17, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

Links For January 2025 January 17, 2025

@tamaybes 1 shared issues
@venturetwins 1 shared issues
A16Z 1 shared issues
Adrian Dittman 1 shared issues
AGI 1 shared issues

Source context

Links For January 2025

January 17, 2025 · Original source

31: There’s now an lmarena leaderboard for image models (I can’t link it directly for some reason, you’ll have to click through). On top is something called “Recraft V3”, I didn’t find it too impressive but apparently I’m wrong. You can test the models against each other in the associated arena.

Inline links: an lmarena leaderboard for image models

LMP1 mentions across 1 issues

LMP is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between November 04, 2021 and November 04, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "3.1 LMP votes". It most often appears alongside Alcsutdoboz, Allied Powers, Angela Merkel.

Reference entry: LMP
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: November 04, 2021
Last seen: November 04, 2021

Issue trail

Dictator Book Club: Orban November 04, 2021

Alcsutdoboz 1 shared issues
Allied Powers 1 shared issues
Angela Merkel 1 shared issues
Attila 1 shared issues
Austria 1 shared issues

Source context

Dictator Book Club: Orban

November 04, 2021 · Original source

He shamelessly gerrymandered unequally sized districts. Left-wing voters were crammed into a few very large districts; likely Fidesz voters were put into many much smaller ones. The big districts and the small districts each elect one MP; as a result, one observer calculates that in terms of power to elect parliamentarians, “1 Fidesz vote = 2.1 Left Alliance votes = 2.6 Jobbik votes = 3.1 LMP votes” The system also uses a weird electoral quirk called “winner compensation” to ensure that the largest party gets Parliamentary representation even larger than its actual majority would suggest; due to the gerrymandering (plus infighting on the left) the largest party is always Fidesz.

Inline links: one observer calculates

local police1 mentions across 1 issues

local police is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between August 03, 2023 and August 03, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Several members of the local police". It most often appears alongside Anatoly Sobchak, Antonio Russo, Artyom Borovik.

Reference entry: local police
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: August 03, 2023
Last seen: August 03, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Dictator Book Club: Putin August 03, 2023

Anatoly Sobchak 1 shared issues
Antonio Russo 1 shared issues
Artyom Borovik 1 shared issues
Babylon Bee 1 shared issues
Baltic Sea 1 shared issues

Source context

Dictator Book Club: Putin

August 03, 2023 · Original source

Deputy Mayor Putin with his boss, Mayor Sobchak (source) Putin became Deputy Mayor In Charge Of Foreign Affairs, in charge of making business deals with foreign cities. In this position, he was notably corrupt even for 1990s St. Petersburg, one of the most corrupt cities in one of the most corrupt eras in one of the most corrupt nations in history. People who challenged his corruption tended to have bad things happen to him; probably he called on his KGB connections here, though it seemed he also had some connections to local organized crime. Mayor Sobchak, who was equally corrupt, stood behind him the whole way. Eventually the electorate got tired of all the corruption and voted Sobchak out; Putin moved to Moscow and got various mid-level positions on the strength of being boring, loyal, and not having enough personality to offend anybody - others say the KGB was involved in some way. Around this time, President Boris Yeltsin was floundering. He had descended into alcoholism, become temperamental, fired all of his competent ministers, and mismanaged the country to the brink of economic collapse. His approval rating was 2%. The only people in Moscow who didn’t hate him were his daughter Tatyana and friendly oligarch Boris Berezovksy. Their job was to pick new officials when Yeltsin would fire the previous ones in a drunken rage. When an opening in Security opened up, Berezovsky remembered Putin, who he had met a few times doing business in St. Petersburg. Putin had refused a bribe - something so shocking it had seared him in the oligarch’s memory2. If Berezovsky is to be believed, he was the one who mentioned Putin to Valentin Yumashev, Yeltsin’s chief of staff. “I said ‘We’ve got Putin, who used to be in the secret services, didn’t he?’ And Valya said ‘Yes, he did,’ and I said, ‘Listen, I think it’s an option. Think about it: he is a friend, after all.’ And Valya said, ‘But he’s got pretty low rank.’ And I said, ‘Look, there is a revolution going on, everything is all mixed up, so there . . . ‘“ As the description of the decision-making process for appointing the head of the main security agency of a nuclear power, this conversation sounds so absurd, I am actually inclined to believe it. Putin got to work filling the FSB with his old KGB pals, and Yeltsin got to work tanking his reputation still further. By this time, the most likely scenario was that the opposition party - the Communists - would win the upcoming election, then prosecute Yeltsin for corruption. Berezovsky and Tatyana Yeltsin tried to come up with an exit strategy. All they could think of was resigning in favor of some handpicked successor who would give him a presidential pardon. But who? Well, there was always Putin again. He still seemed loyal. The security forces seemed to like him. There were a bunch of wars going on in Chechnya, and it would look good to have a strong scary-looking guy in power. But mostly he was just in the right place at the right time. Possibly the most bizarre fact about Putin’s ascent to power is that the people who lifted him to the throne know little more about him than you do. Berezovsky told me he never considered Putin a friend and never found him interesting as a person . . . but when he considered Putin as a successor to Yeltsin, he seemed to assume that the very qualities that had kept them at arm’s length would make Putin an ideal candidate. Putin, being apparently devoid of personality and personal interest, would be both malleable and disciplined. And what did Boris Yeltsin himself know about his soon-to-be-anointed successor? He knew this was one of the few men who had remained loyal to him. He knew he was of a different generation: unlike Yeltsin, [communist opposition leader] Primakov, and his army of governors, Putin had not come up through the ranks of the Communist Party and had not, therefore, had to publicly switch allegiances when the Soviet Union collapsed. He looked different: all those men, without exception, were heavyset and, it seemed, permanently wrinkled; Putin - slim, small, and by now in the habit of wearing well-cut European suits - looked much more like the new Russia Yeltsin had promised his people ten years earlier. Yeltsin also knew, or thought he knew, that Putin would not allow the prosecution or persecution of Yeltsin himself once he retired. And if Yeltsin still possessed even a fraction of his once outstanding feel for politics, he knew that Russians would like this man they would be inheriting, and who would be inheriting them. On December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigned in favor of Putin, effective immediately. That same day, Putin signed his first presidential decree - a law saying Yeltsin would not be prosecuted. III. Doubt Creeps In From the beginning, Putin had strong support. Westerners and liberals liked him because he was Yeltsin’s handpicked successor. Oligarchs liked him because he wasn’t communist and seemed potentially controllable. The Soviet nostalgia contingent liked him because he was ex-KGB and seemed to share their values. As for ordinary citizens - a few months earlier, when Putin was still Yeltsin’s second-in-command, there had been a series of four apartment bombings, killing a total of 300+ people. Everyone suspected the Chechens, a group of Muslims with a history of terrorism who Russia was in the process of invading at the time. Vladimir Putin, as head of the security forces, got up in front of the country and gave a firm-sounding, profanity-laced speech where he vowed justice for everyone involved. His men quickly caught some Chechens, who were found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. The bombings stopped. Putin was hailed as a hero. Over the next few months, people started noticing weird things that didn’t add up. Most concerningly, a fifth bomb, in the city of Ryazan, had been discovered beforehand by an alert resident. The local police were called. They brought in a bomb squad, the bomb squad confirmed it was a bomb and defused it, and the apartment was saved. More heroics! Except a few days later, everyone involved backtracked and said no, it was fake, it was just a training exercise, no bomb at all, nothing to worry about. This was clearly false; the bomb squad had tested it and the bomb was as real as they come. Several members of the local police said this, then quickly changed their story. It started to look like a coverup. Russia’s investigative journalists had not yet all been murdered, and some of them started looking into the case. It seemed that when local police successfully defused the bomb, they had found clues pointing to the perpetrators, who appeared to be associated with the Russian security services. The security services had then strong-armed the police into denying that a bomb ever existed. Also, some people noticed that the speaker of the Russian Parliament had announced on September 13 that they had just received word of a bombing in Volgodonsk, but the bombing in Volgodonsk had not occurred until September 16. It would seem that someone had passed him the wrong note. Seen on satirical conservative website Babylon Bee. This was exactly what happened with the Volgodonsk apartment bombing. The standard position in the West is now that Putin orchestrated the apartment bombings himself - killing 300 Russians - as a justification for escalating the war on Chechnya and to make himself look good after he framed some perpetrators. The plan worked. Putin won re-election handily. By the time people started questioning the official story, his power was already secure. The questioners faced harassment - typical “warning shots” would be burglaries of their houses with all the valuables left intact, or getting beaten up by random thugs while they were out walking, or being accused of a series of crimes - tax evasion, but if they proved themselves innocent of that, then it was taking bribes, and if they proved themselves innocent of that too, then it was failing to register their businesses correctly. Soon media oligarchs faced the same treatment, and either fled the country or handed their newspapers and TV channels over to the state. Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch who had originally helped put Putin in power, kept his own TV station until 2003, when the Russian submarine Kursk sank and Putin faced criticism for bungling the rescue. Putin summoned Berezovsky, the former kingmaker and the man still in charge of Channel One, and demanded that the oligarch hand over his shares in the television company. “I said no, in the presence of [chief of stff] Voloshin,” Berezovsky told me. “So Putin changed his tone of voice then and said, ‘See you later, then, Boris Abramovich.' and got up to leave. And I said, “Volodya [nickname for Vladimir], this is goodbye.’ We ended on this note, full of pathos […] Within days, [Berezovsky] had left for France, then moved on to Great Britain, joining his former [business] rival Gusinsky in political exile. Soon enough, there was a awarrant out for his arrest in Russia and he had surrendered his shares of Channel One. Over the next few years, Putin centralized authority further. He got Parliament to agree to constitutional changes where governors served at his whim, and members of Parliament were elected by governors. “The only official in the Russian Federation directly elected by the people was the President.” Then he made it clear that governors who kept his favor would keep their jobs, and vice versa. He developed an entire colorful vocabulary for threatening people, moving beyond traditional standbys like “Nice house you’ve got there, shame if something were to happen to it” into new realms of intimidation. A Prime Minister who quit after Putin arrested one too many media tycoon was given the parting words “If you ever have a problem with the tax police, you may ask for help, but please come to me personally.” An urban legend says that leading dissident Marina Salye received a New Year’s postcard from Putin: “I wish you a Happy New Year and the health to enjoy it.” By the time the next election came around in 2004, the vote counts were clearly fake. Gessen doubts Putin even had to give a direct order to falsify them; everyone was so desperate for his goodwill that they did so all on their own. The problem was less that honest officials refused to stuff the ballot box, and more that some bureaucrats were so desperate to make sure Putin knew they were complying with his (implied) desires that they faked the vote in extremely obvious ways, without even a nod to keeping it plausible. The Organization for Security and Cooperation In Europe reported “The elections . . . failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments, calling into question Russia’s willingness to move towards European standards for democratic elections.” The New York Times reported something entirely different, publishing a condescending but approving editorial titled Russians Inch Toward Democracy. Putin had sunk far enough to earn the same dubious honor as Stalin: praise from the New York Times. IV. The Very-Briefly-Reluctant Culture Warrior One thing missing from this book: anything about religion, nationalism, gays, or the culture wars. This isn’t because Masha Gessen doesn’t care about these things: when the book was written, they self-described as “the only publicly out gay person in [Russia]”; since then (like everyone else) they have declared themselves nonbinary with they/them pronouns. In an afterword, Gessen remedies this omission. For his first decade, Putin wasn’t too interested in culture war topics; his ideology began and ended with “Russia strong”. But Gessen says that after another rigged election in 2012, people grew tired and started protesting Putin. Putin’s propaganda department made various accusations against the rioters, and one of them - they’re gay - seemed to stick. Putin had stumbled by coincidence onto a narrative that resonated with the Russian people. A few months later, a deliberately provocative punk band called Pussy Riot invaded a cathedral and sung a song whose chorus was “the Lord is shit”. Putin announced he was against this sort of thing, again his popularity soared, and again he took notice. Since then, he’s leaned into various culture-warrior roles that other people have cast upon him - protector of traditional values, leader of the conservative world, something something Eurasianism - without giving many clues how much he believes them vs. considers them useful bulwarks for his own power. Is it true that Putin only leaned into traditional values after 2012? I only looked into this question briefly, and it seems like he was on good terms with the Orthodox Church well before then. But some of this could have just been his native authoritarianism; just as he wanted to consolidate all media and business under his control, he wanted to consolidate all religion, and the Orthodox Church was the natural vehicle for, and a cooperative partner in, doing this. Both shared suspicion of invasive Western religions and Islam; both liked the idea of Russia being united in a top-down structure. God doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with it. V. Could It Happen Here? …is the question we ask at the end of every Dictator Book Club. The Man Without A Face makes it sound like Putin was able to consolidate power and become a dictator because: He led the security services

Inline links: source, 2, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2bxW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F105ae659-4f17-4a8d-a8cb-24dcd106af93_770x705.png, Babylon Bee, Russians Inch Toward Democracy, he was on good terms with

London Rationalish1 mentions across 1 issues

London Rationalish is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 10, 2022 and April 10, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group info: London Rationalish meets on the second Sunday of each month". It most often appears alongside 1022 High St. Blue House w/red porches, 11:11 Cafe, 1548 NE 15th Ave.

Reference entry: London Rationalish
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 10, 2022
Last seen: April 10, 2022

Outbound links

Issue trail

Spring Meetups In Seventy Cities April 10, 2022

red porches 1 shared issues
11:11 Cafe 1 shared issues
1548 NE 15th Ave 1 shared issues
3266 Inglewood Blvd 1 shared issues
60 Grande Rue St. Michel 1 shared issues

Source context

OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

April 10, 2022 · Original source

LONDON, UK Contact: Edward Saperia (ed@newspeak.house) Date: April 15 Time: 6:30 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F Location: Newspeak House, 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG. An accessible indoor space as well as a covered, heated outdoor terrace. Notes: Please register: https://lu.ma/ACXLondonApr2022 The last London ACX meetup was pretty large - it would be great to have some helpers. Contact @edsaperia if you're interested. Group info: London Rationalish meets on the second Sunday of each month. Subscribe to https://tinyletter.com/ACXLondon to keep up with future ACX London meetups.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F, https://lu.ma/ACXLondonApr2022, London Rationalish, https://tinyletter.com/ACXLondon

Long Bet1 mentions across 1 issues

Long Bet is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 24, 2023 and April 24, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Samo Burja... arranged a Long Bet on longbets.org". It most often appears alongside Arizona, Astralcodexten Com, Australia.

Reference entry: Long Bet
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 24, 2023
Last seen: April 24, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Open Thread 273 April 24, 2023

Arizona 1 shared issues
Astralcodexten Com 1 shared issues
Australia 1 shared issues
Giving What We Can 1 shared issues
Gobekli Tepe 1 shared issues

Source context

Open Thread 273

April 24, 2023 · Original source

3: Last month I wrote Against Ice Age Civilizations, arguing that civilization probably isn’t more than 12,000 years old. Samo Burja thinks it is and arranged a Long Bet on longbets.org. If archaeologists discover something at least as impressive as Gobekli Tepe from 11,000 BC or earlier before 2043, he wins $200; otherwise I do.

Inline links: Against Ice Age Civilizations, arranged a Long Bet on longbets.org

Long Term Benefit Trust1 mentions across 1 issues

Long Term Benefit Trust is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 13, 2025 and March 13, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "a group of five people called the Long Term Benefit Trust". It most often appears alongside ACLU, AI Lab Watch, Altman.

Reference entry: Long Term Benefit Trust
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 13, 2025
Last seen: March 13, 2025

Outbound links

Issue trail

OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know March 13, 2025

ACLU 1 shared issues
AI Lab Watch 1 shared issues
Altman 1 shared issues
Altman Skulduggery, Inc. 1 shared issues
Amazon 1 shared issues

Source context

March 13, 2025 · Original source

Anthropic is a public benefit company - much closer to a normal forprofit than OpenAI. It’s run by a board of five people. Two members of the board are picked the normal way by investors. But the other three (a majority!) are picked by a group of five people called the Long Term Benefit Trust. At the beginning of Anthropic, the founders seeded the Trust with trustworthy smart outsiders who seemed interested in the long-term benefit of humanity. Trustees can choose their own replacements without input from investors. At any time, they can use their three board members to have a majority in the board and overrule what everyone else is doing.

Long Term Capital Management1 mentions across 1 issues

Long Term Capital Management is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between July 21, 2023 and July 21, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Lebron highlights Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) as an example here". It most often appears alongside 2008 Financial Crisis, 2023 book review contest, 30-Year Mortgage.

Reference entry: Long Term Capital Management
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: July 21, 2023
Last seen: July 21, 2023

Outbound links

Issue trail

Your Book Review: The Laws of Trading July 21, 2023

2008 Financial Crisis 1 shared issues
2023 book review contest 1 shared issues
30-Year Mortgage 1 shared issues
A.L. Barker 1 shared issues
ACX Book Review Contest 1 shared issues

Source context

Your Book Review: The Laws of Trading

July 21, 2023 · Original source

You’ve “stolen” the idea from someone else (say if you leave a firm), or vice versa Lebron highlights Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) as an example here, which suffered a famous blowup in 1998. This hedge fund is often discussed in the context of betting on Russia just before it defaulted on its debt, but an under-discussed aspect is the market mechanics. Other firms were copying LTCM’s trades, so there was a liquidity issue and a cascade of failures when the firm’s margin positions needed to be unwound. Lebron also discusses opportunity cost, a concept with which most will be familiar. But here, he discusses the cost in the context of trading. Ultimately, this is an explore/exploit problem. How should a trading firm weigh maximizing profit for today’s strategies, as opposed to working on organizational efficiencies so that you can have the capacity to work on tomorrow’s strategies? There is a clear career parallel here: I’ve seen so many people get locked into their current role due to inertia, whereas the ones who succeed long-term appear to prioritize their own learning and exploration. As a case study, Lebron discusses how Bell Labs (AT&T) maintained a position of dominance for half a century. He attributes this to four things: First, they hired the best. There was interaction between three groups that did not interact at most organizations. Scientists and engineers who conducted exploratory research.

longbets.org1 mentions across 1 issues

longbets.org is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 28, 2024 and March 28, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "just as longbets.org is a respected central institution that runs bets". It most often appears alongside ACX comment thread, ACX subreddit, Asia.

Reference entry: longbets.org
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 28, 2024
Last seen: March 28, 2024

Outbound links

Issue trail

Practically-A-Book Review: Rootclaim $100,000 Lab Leak Debate March 28, 2024

ACX comment thread 1 shared issues
ACX subreddit 1 shared issues
Asia 1 shared issues
Auschwitz 1 shared issues
BANAL-52 1 shared issues

Source context

Practically-A-Book Review: Rootclaim $100,000 Lab Leak Debate

March 28, 2024 · Original source

It would also be interesting to have a respected central institution that runs these kinds of debates, just as longbets.org is a respected central institution that runs bets.

Inline links: longbets.org

Longview Philanthropy1 mentions across 1 issues

Longview Philanthropy is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between November 28, 2023 and November 28, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "Longview Philanthropy has a nuclear policy fund with two managers". It most often appears alongside #57, 80,000 Hours, Adam D’Angelo.

Reference entry: Longview Philanthropy
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: November 28, 2023
Last seen: November 28, 2023

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Issue trail

In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism November 28, 2023

#57 1 shared issues
80,000 Hours 1 shared issues
Adam D’Angelo 1 shared issues
AI 1 shared issues
AI doomerism 1 shared issues

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In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism

November 28, 2023 · Original source

Total private funding for nuclear strategy is $40 million. Longview Philanthropy has a nuclear policy fund with two managers, which suggests they must be doing enough granting to justify their salaries, probably something in the seven digits. Council on Strategic Risks says Longview gave them a $1.6 million grant, which backs up “somewhere in the seven digits”. Seven digits would mean somewhere between 2.5% and 25% of all nuclear policy funding.

Inline links: is $40 million, nuclear policy fund, says

Loom1 mentions across 1 issues

Loom is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between September 19, 2022 and September 19, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "Based on your interactions with the AI, Loom constructs your labyrinthian multiverse as a "labyrinthogram"". It most often appears alongside AskReddit, Conjecture, Dittomancy.

Reference entry: Loom
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: September 19, 2022
Last seen: September 19, 2022

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Issue trail

Janus' GPT Wrangling September 19, 2022

AskReddit 1 shared issues
Conjecture 1 shared issues
Dittomancy 1 shared issues
facebook 1 shared issues
GPT 1 shared issues

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Janus' GPT Wrangling

September 19, 2022 · Original source

How does it get this level of self-awareness? In this case, via rigged demo. Janus has developed Loom, a tool to write with GPT-3 more efficiently. It turns stories into branching trees where you can choose which of multiple completions to pick at any given point.

Inline links: Loom

But sometimes GPT-3 genuinely gets it right. The most common way for that to happen is (again) by mistake. A common failure mode is to repeat the same sentence several times. GPT-3 was trained on a corpus of Internet text, and some of the Internet text was discussions of GPT-2. Many of the samples it saw that repeated the same sentence over and over in an endless loop were discussions of GPT-2 doing this. So sometimes it will get stuck in a loop, then end with “This is an example of text produced by a transformer language model”. This sounds like a stupid example from a Philosophy Of Self-Awareness class, but sometimes it really happens. Here’s an example from one of Janus’ attempts to generate Loom documentation:

Based on your interactions with the AI, Loom constructs your labyrinthian multiverse as a "labyrinthogram", exploring genealogically contiguous regions of possible language relating to the same theme as you drive. Here are some small samples of labyrinthograms. This multiverse is about introducing Loom. The first continuation from the first serial labyrinthogram above is: Then for the two next continuities the computer went: and and and and and and This essay discusses how to use GPT-2, a large probability language model.

Los Cachiros1 mentions across 1 issues

Los Cachiros is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 06, 2021 and December 06, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "participating in a criminal scheme with the Los Cachiros cartel". It most often appears alongside ACX Grants, Akon, Akon City.

Reference entry: Los Cachiros
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 06, 2021
Last seen: December 06, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

21 December 06, 2021

ACX Grants 1 shared issues
Akon 1 shared issues
Akon City 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
Andrew Jackson 1 shared issues

Source context

December 06, 2021 · Original source

These are still preliminary; this person argues that the Nationalists might pick up a few more seats as more conservative rural areas get counted. Liberty and Refoundation (the socialists) will probably enter into a coalition with the Savior Party and have 65/128 seats for a bare majority. They need 86 votes for a 2/3 majority, which in theory they can get if the Liberal Party agrees. The Liberal Party seems centrist and hard to pin down, but this article includes the following great quote: “The Liberal Party opposes the ZEDEs because, above all, they undercut our national sovereignty, and because we don’t want them to become hideouts for extraditable criminals,” said [Liberal Party leader Yani] Rosenthal, who served a three-year prison sentence in the United States for money laundering and participating in a criminal scheme with the Los Cachiros cartel. Rosenthal kind of goes back and forth elsewhere, but in the end I think he’ll vote with the socialists on this. Still, there’s some speculation that his party might not vote as a bloc, and even a few defectors would be enough to prevent a supermajority. In theory, even if the socialists win two consecutive votes, they have to give the projects ten years to wind down. Ten years is forever in politics, and probably before then the capitalists will get back into power and say never mind, everyone can keep doing what they’re doing. The socialists are aware of this and say that their supplementary strategy is to have everything about the ZEDE law declared unconstitutional. This should be a hard sell, because ZEDEs are a constitutional amendment, plus the current Supreme Court explicitly ruled a few years ago that they were constitutional. But apparently the Honduran Supreme Court can declare constitutional amendments unconstitutional if it really wants. And the new government will get to appoint a new Supreme Court in two years, and although the exact process is complicated, they may be able to get people who agree with them on this. Also, incoming president Castro is married to Manuel Zelaya, a former president who tried to pull an Andrew Jackson after the Supreme Court ordered him to stop holding an illegal referendum to change term limits in his favor. He ordered the military to hold the referendum anyway, and was only ousted after the military couped him instead. So this is not exactly a family known for their deep respect for the exact wordings of laws or court rulings (not that anyone in Honduras has really excelled on that front). See further speculation eg here and here. And here’s Mark Lutter from Charter Cities Institute on the elections and the future. Conchagua Volcano, El Salvador Meanwhile, insane El Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele says he is ordering the construction of a coin-shaped city dedicated to Bitcoin at the base of a stratovolcano: "Residential areas, commercial areas, services, museums, entertainment, bars, restaurants, airport, port, rail - everything devoted to Bitcoin," the 40-year-old said. And: The president, who appeared on stage wearing a baseball cap backwards, said that no income taxes would be levied in the city, only value added tax (VAT). He said that half of the revenue gained from this would be used to "to build up the city", while the rest would be used to keep the streets "neat and clean" […] Mr Bukele did not provide dates for construction or completion of the city, but said he estimated that much of the public infrastructure would cost around 300,000 Bitcoins. It’s tempting to dismiss this plan as crazy. First, this photo: Second, Bitcoin miners don’t want a city the shape of a Bitcoin with a central plaza in the shape of a Bitcoin logo. They want cheap electricity. Bukele has promised that there will be cheap geothermal power from the volcano, which sounds good, but this article says El Salvador’s existing geothermal energy costs about 12 cents/kilowatt-hour, much higher than the 4 cents/megawatt-hour miners can get in the current cheapest areas. Maybe El Salvador could do a really good job upgrading their energy infrastructure, but at some point you’re subsidizing this rather than using it as a cash cow. And third, this isn’t even the stupidest plan to build a cryptocurrency-themed city in the Third World. That arguably goes to Akon City, a thing where a pop singer named Akon was going to build a cryptocurrency city in Senegal. Now, without any construction having started, they’re planning to build a second one in Uganda! All competing for the same handful of crypto companies! But I looked into Bukele to see if he was a moron with a habit of coming up with terrible ideas. It seems like no. He rose from nothing to become El Salvador’s first outside-the-traditional-party-system president, and has an approval rating of around 90%. And apparently he’s presided over a historic drop in the homicide rate of this previously murder-capital-of-the-world country. Although I’m betting that one day he’ll make a great Dictator Book Club entry, I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on “doesn’t do stupid things for no reason” What’s the non-stupid explanation for this? Maybe it’s supposed to be a signal. You can give up 5% of the way through, but even trying to build a Bitcoin-shaped city at least shows very conclusively that you’ve got a crypto-friendly regulatory climate, so many easily-spooked crypto companies will flock to you. This makes sense in the context of big crypto companies moving to the Caribbean for regulatory reasons, eg FTX moving to the Bahamas and Binance moving to the Cayman Islands. But if I understand correctly, both of these companies make on the order of $1 billion a year. If El Salvador can tax them at 5% (dubious, since a big part of promising a friendly regulatory climate is low taxes), that’s still only $100 million if they can capture both of them. Which they can’t, because these companies seem happy where they are. And I don’t think there are a lot of similarly-sized crypto companies looking for Central American homes that I don’t know about. And even though El Salvador is pretty poor, it’s not so poor that $100 million is worth embarrassing themselves over. So I’m stumped. EDIT: See this comment. Praxis, aka Bluebook Cities, the Internet Speaking of stumped, who are these people? Right now, they’re a web page with a lot of buzz promising the City Of The Future, in very poetic language: Praxis is a grassroots movement of modern pioneers building a new city. We are technologists and artists, builders and dreamers. We are building a place where we can develop to our fullest potentials, physically, culturally, and spiritually. Bitcoin was developed as a financial technology with political goals identical to those of the Founding Fathers: liberation. The ultimate end of crypto is the possibility of a future for humanity unshackled from the institutions that seek to limit our growth. Our ultimate goal is to bring about a more vital future for humanity, and we will use technology to achieve this righteous end. Our civilization is unwell. We eat food that kills us, we’ve lost sight of beauty, and we neglect our spiritual lives. The world is deranged and decayed, and this frightens people. We don’t look up from our screens; we seek to live within them. Crypto is a fundamentally political technology -- escape to the metaverse is a betrayal of the principles on which it was founded. We are descended from the people who built Rome and Athens, who dared to split atoms and voyage to the Moon. We can build new worlds not just of bits, but of atoms. But where is this city? What will its policies be? As we leave old lands, our values are our compass. Like wolves, tribes of pioneers are muscular by necessity. For voyaging tribes to settle, they must perform murmurations: intricate coordination with little communication, at scale. This is only possible with a strong sense of asabiyya (group feeling derived from deeply-held shared values). Our values inform the destiny we desire, and for which we struggle. Asabiyya is forged in this struggle. With asabiyya, pioneers can earn the divine mandate to build a city. Cities are the fount of human ingenuity. In cities, people enjoy their fullest potential by contributing their resources under the auspices of civilization. Who even are you? What experience do you have with city-building? Civilizations rise and fall. All around us, we see civilizational decay. The people are not vital: physically, culturally, spiritually. We live in an era of obesity, remakes, and pollution. We are losing the divine mandate, and in an era of absolute weapons, what’s at stake is everything. But perhaps there’s some glory in death by a light brighter than a thousand suns. A worse fate may await humanity: atrophied bodies submerged in gel, fed synthetic bug paste, minds occupied by the petty amusements of a corporate metaverse. There, nothing is at stake; there are no frontiers to explore; no growth is possible. Nothing to live for, and nothing to die for. As we walk between these twin fates, the light of our civilization dims. But beyond the horizon, we see a new light emerging. Like the sun at dawn, it cannot be stopped. Vitality itself is the foundational value of this new civilizational form, and we have the technology to enact our moral imperative as never before. You’re not answering my…okay, fine, whatever, forget it. As far as I can tell, Praxis is two 25-year-olds with no previous experience, armed with about $10 million in Peter Thiel’s money. Peter Thiel is a smart person known for having good business sense, but he’s also known to have a weakness for young people who dream big and sound like purveyors of esoteric secrets. I wonder if the simplest explanation is just that this is one of the cases where his weakness got the better of his sense, and now these two random people have $10 million earmarked for building a city, and no idea what to do. [CORRECTION: some people involved in Praxis have reached out to tell me that it was $4 million instead of $10 million, and that it was Thiel-backed Pronomos and not Thiel himself. I’ll be getting in touch with them to learn if there are other issues or things I should correct here] But that’s not how they put it! The way they put it is - all previous charter city founders have started by approaching governments and pitching their ideas. But there’s a chicken-and-egg problem: governments don’t want to give land to a purely hypothetical city that might not pan out, and the city can’t pan out until governments give it land. Praxis’ plan is to build the community first, then go to a government saying “Here’s 50,000 people who have agreed to join our city, and lots of businesses and organizations that are excited about it. Please give us land for our guaranteed-success, concretely-existing project.” Now this is a different chicken-and-egg problem: why join a community of people with no land and no plans? Praxis writes: What if we try to draw people to new cities not on an economic basis, but rather on a spiritual one? Which city (or country) founding projects have succeeded that have drawn people on a predominantly non-economic, but rather spiritual basis? Among others, Israel and America. Both groups were oppressed, and sought the freedom to live by their values. Both felt the intangible pull of the frontier. Both had a keen historical instinct. This is how cities with spiritual significance are founded. The correct approach to city building in this new world is demand-first (or as Balaji Srinivasan calls it, Cloud City first). We build the citizenry before the city. First, we create communities of true believers, organized around shared values, online. People move to cities for people, and it follows that if you collect a group of people who all want to live together, they’ll all move together if at a moment in time everyone else does, too. Today, we have new tools. The emergence of Web3 enables us to supercharge communities with self-ownership, governance, and determination. Once you build a community of people ready to move to a new city together, you can self-finance the entire project. With something real to offer nations, conversations with governments become productive (e.g. Gigafactory). That’s how you make the risk dominoes fall. The problem is, Israel worked because it had Judaism. Judaism is a very specific belief. Prospera is specifically libertarian, Telosa is specifically Georgist, and even the Bitcoin-shaped volcano city knows what it’s about. What is Praxis? The use of “atrophied bodies submerged in gel, fed synthetic bug paste” as a warning reads very slightly right-wing to me - there’s a right-wing meme about how the media keeps trying to get people to eat bugs, and how this is the shape our future dystopia will take. But whether I’m right or wrong, the fact that it’s hard to tell is a problem. The only other clues we’re getting are their Discord, which seems to be focused around getting a currency called PRAX for completing tasks. Once you get enough, you can become a Member, which seems to be where the real excitement starts. (source) I’m not even being sarcastic - I expect being a member to be quite fun. I say this because when I was a teenager I was part of a bunch of country simulation projects, some of which got past the inherent nerdiness of being a country simulation project exactly the same way Praxis is doing it - by saying that we were going to become a real country someday, as soon as we were big enough to convince people. These were usually fun and interesting and educational, and I made lots of great like-minded teenage and twenty-something friends. But none of them ever came close to becoming a real country, and I’m not sure it was merely for lack of millions of dollars. I hope I’m wrong and they manage to forge new lands through struggle to uplift the human spirit or whatever. Elsewhere In Model Cities Vitalik Buterin on the intersection between local government and blockchain technologies. He recommends they “start with self-contained experiments, and take things slowly on moves that are truly irreversible”, which is a weird way of saying “what we crypto leaders really want is a city at the base of a volcano, shaped like a giant Bitcoin”.

Loyola Marymount1 mentions across 1 issues

Loyola Marymount is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between May 24, 2022 and May 24, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "he taught at Loyola Marymount (a Catholic university)". It most often appears alongside #Abolitionist, #AntiNazi, #antiwar.

Reference entry: Loyola Marymount
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: May 24, 2022
Last seen: May 24, 2022

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Issue trail

California Gubernatorial Candidates From Z to Z May 24, 2022

#Abolitionist 1 shared issues
#AntiNazi 1 shared issues
#antiwar 1 shared issues
#Democratic 1 shared issues
#ENCRYPTION 1 shared issues

Source context

California Gubernatorial Candidates From Z to Z

May 24, 2022 · Original source

Hanink got a PhD in Philosophy from Michigan State; his dissertation, “Persons, Rights, and the Problem of Abortion” set the tone for much of the rest of his life. He moved to California, where he taught at Loyola Marymount (a Catholic university) for almost forty years. Now, at age 75, he wants to be Governor.

LSE1 mentions across 1 issues

LSE is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 30, 2022 and March 30, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "LSE: Fact-Checking The Kremlin’s Version Of Russian History"; "For example, the LSE article says". It most often appears alongside American Republicans, AP, Bahamas.

Reference entry: LSE
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 30, 2022
Last seen: March 30, 2022

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Issue trail

Who Gets Self-Determination? March 30, 2022

American Republicans 1 shared issues
AP 1 shared issues
Bahamas 1 shared issues
Belgium 1 shared issues
Brazil 1 shared issues

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Who Gets Self-Determination?

March 30, 2022 · Original source

But the Ukrainian and Western response to all this has been to accept the paradigm, but argue that no, Ukraine does belong in Civilization games. For example, the LSE article says:

LTBT1 mentions across 1 issues

LTBT is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 13, 2025 and March 13, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as "Some of the original LTBT members took jobs in government, and had to quit the LTBT as a conflict of interest". It most often appears alongside ACLU, AI Lab Watch, Altman.

Reference entry: LTBT
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: March 13, 2025
Last seen: March 13, 2025

Issue trail

OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know March 13, 2025

ACLU 1 shared issues
AI Lab Watch 1 shared issues
Altman 1 shared issues
Altman Skulduggery, Inc. 1 shared issues
Amazon 1 shared issues

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OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

March 13, 2025 · Original source

Zach Stein-Perlman, who runs AI Lab Watch, argues that Maybe Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust Is Powerless. He points to a rule that a supermajority (with complicated definition, see here) of stockholders can overrule the LTBT. Anthropic partisans counter that they need some way to deal with the trust losing the plot; many of Anthropic’s shareholders are also people with a special interest in AI safety, and it would be hard to get a majority of these people to overrule the LTBT unless it was important.

Inline links: AI Lab Watch, Maybe Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust Is Powerless, here

How’s it going? Okay. Some of the original LTBT members took jobs in government, and had to quit the LTBT as a conflict of interest. A source close to Anthropic suggests they had trouble finding replacements - most of the altruistically-minded eminent AI people had conflicts of interest of their own. As a result, the LTBT seems to be down to three people, all of whom have great credentials as thoughtful philanthropists but none of whom are especially connected to AI in particular. They seem to be overdue in electing their board members, and we don’t know why.

LTFF1 mentions across 1 issues

LTFF is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between December 28, 2021 and December 28, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "awardee (including people who get funded via LTFF, Grants+, or investors)". It most often appears alongside 1DaySooner, 2016 Washington carbon tax ballot initiative, @GoodSciProject.

Reference entry: LTFF
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: December 28, 2021
Last seen: December 28, 2021

Outbound links

https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/grants?fund=Long-Term%2520Future%2520Fund&sort=round

Issue trail

ACX Grants Results December 28, 2021

1DaySooner 1 shared issues
2016 Washington carbon tax ballot initiative 1 shared issues
@GoodSciProject 1 shared issues
@metaforecast 1 shared issues
@standupecon 1 shared issues

Source context

Book Review: How Asia Works

December 28, 2021 · Original source

…via the Long Term Future Fund: This is an EA grants program that volunteered to evaluate and judge all applications that had anything to do with AI or the rationalist and effective altruist communities. They have more grant-making expertise and more money than I do, so I was happy to send those applications their way without considering them further. If you sent in an AI or rationalist/EA community-related grant and didn’t see your name above, don’t despair! LTFF hasn’t made their decisions yet, so I’m not able to announce these at the same time as the others. When they’re done, I’ll make sure you know.

If any awardee (including people who get funded via LTFF, Grants+, or investors) needs a message or advertisement broadcast - you’re looking for more funding, you’re looking for employees, you want everyone to gaze in awe at the cool thing you’ve developed - please send me an email with your message, and I’ll signal-boost it on an Open Thread. I will do this at least once for everyone, maybe more if I don’t feel like you’re abusing the privilege.

Oliver Habryka of Lightcone Infrastructure helped explain how grants work, connect me to everyone else, and ensure I didn’t have to rely on my own experience, good judgment, or other things I don’t have. He is also part of the Long-Term Future Fund and has taken over my AI grant evaluation work along with Asya Bergal and the rest of the LTFF team.

Lucky-Goldstar1 mentions across 1 issues

Lucky-Goldstar is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between June 28, 2021 and June 28, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "chief of Lucky-Goldstar (now known as LG), Koo In Hwoi"; "chief of Lucky-Goldstar (now known as LG)". It most often appears alongside Alexander Hamilton, America, ASEAN.

Reference entry: Lucky-Goldstar
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: June 28, 2021
Last seen: June 28, 2021

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Issue trail

Book Review: How Asia Works June 28, 2021

Alexander Hamilton 1 shared issues
America 1 shared issues
ASEAN 1 shared issues
Asia 1 shared issues
Association of South-East Asian Nations 1 shared issues

Source context

June 28, 2021 · Original source

Once he established the basic rules of the game, Park informed Korea’s businessmen that they were free to make as much money as they could so long as they stuck by the rules. Most of the businessmen were released from prison during 1961. But if they thought Park’s regime would ease off once they were out, it soon became clear that this was not the case. One early exchange that sent a crystal clear message occurred after the chief of Lucky-Goldstar (now known as LG), Koo In Hwoi, was released. One of Park’s colonels responsible for industrial policy told him to organise a foreign loan (which the government would guarantee) and technology transfer for a cable factory. When Koo tried to wriggle out of the task, pleading that he knew nothing about the cable business, the colonel told him that whereas he had been thinking of making Koo sort the whole thing out in a week, as a special dispensation he would let him do it in two weeks. Ten days later, Koo was sufficiently chastised to produce a technology transfer deal with a West German firm and the requisite financing arrangements. One of Korea’s richest businessmen had gotten the message.

Luddites1 mentions across 1 issues

Luddites is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 16, 2021 and April 16, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as "If you've ever heard of the Luddites". It most often appears alongside "The Rent Is Too Damn High!", 16th amendment, 1886.

Reference entry: Luddites
Mention count: 1
Issue count: 1
First seen: April 16, 2021
Last seen: April 16, 2021

Outbound links

Issue trail

Your Book Review: Progress And Poverty April 16, 2021

"The Rent Is Too Damn High!" 1 shared issues
16th amendment 1 shared issues
1886 1 shared issues
1897 1 shared issues
Adam Perry 1 shared issues

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Your Book Review: Progress And Poverty

April 16, 2021 · Original source

Will solve all our problems once and for all Why the Remedy is Just George asks, "what constitutes the rightful basis of property?" What gives you the right to say "this is mine?" George asserts as self-evident the principle that a person is entitled to the fruits of their labor. What you make on your own time with your own resources, is yours to do with as you please – use it, give it away, trade it, destroy it. You don't harm anyone else doing so. It follows that neither I nor anyone else am entitled to the product of your labor. If we're both independent hunter-gatherers, and you pick some berries from a bush, I don't have any fundamental right to demand them from you. If you improve land in some way, you're entitled to own and use that, of course. That's the product of your labor. But to claim exclusive and permanent ownership of the land itself – from which all wealth springs and without which labor is impossible – is to demand the product of other's labor. So to invoke the sanctity of private property to defend private land ownership is self-refuting. But what about the right of "I was here first?" Well, George points out that in most cases someone was there before you were, too (and often they were removed by force). Just because you arrived one second, one minute, one year, or one decade before someone else doesn't give you some fundamental right to exclude others from access to nature's free gifts. (Note: this doesn't give people the right to just come in your house and rifle through your underwear drawer at any time of day, we'll get to that). And what about native populations? Isn't this just an excuse for colonialists to come in and steal their land by denying their claim of being on the land first? By George, no – this is a good time to point out that many Native Americans already had a roughly Georgist understanding of land – treating it as common property, and it was precisely the colonialists' conception of land as private property that was the mechanism by which the indigenous population was expelled and their lands seized. The English first practiced this on their own people – once upon a time wide swaths of land in England were held in common until the government privatized those lands and gave them out to well-connected gentry in a process called Enclosure. If you've ever heard of the Luddites, you should know they weren't merely rebelling against the march of technology, they were also fighting against the forcible seizure of their lands by industrialists, who far from being salt-of-the-earth free-enterprise entrepreneurs, were in actual fact crony capitalists stealing the people's land with the aid of anti-free-market subsidies and armed thugs, all supported by Big Government™. As a practical matter though, if you want to impose a Georgist policy, that only applies to territory your state has authority over. Indian reservations in the United States are supposed to be sovereign enclaves with their own jurisdiction. Native Americans should decide for themselves whether they want to adopt any particular policy. The other reason the remedy is just, is that private ownership of land leads to serfdom. The essence of slavery is that it takes from the laborer all he produces save enough to support an animal existence, and to this minimum the wages of free labor, under existing conditions, unmistakably tend. George points out that even though Slavery was abolished, the Southern landowners just changed the brand name to "sharecropping" and were able to continue to extract tremendous wealth from "free" Black Americans in the form of rent. Okay, but excluding evil Southern plantation owners, don't landlords deserve compensation for their work? What about Ms. Nguyen, the nice lady who manages your apartment block and went the extra mile for you when your A/C went out last summer? I like Ms. Nguyen too, but let's contrast her with Mr. Slumlord, who owns the apartment block next door that's superficially identical, but who won't help you when your A/C goes out in the middle of summer. Ms. Nguyen charges higher "rent" for her much better maintained units because part of that "rent" is actually her justly compensated wages for her labor in managing them, as well as interest from returns on the capital she's invested in their ongoing improvement and maintenance. She also collects a good bit of true Georgian rent because she is, after all, a landlord. Mr. Slumlord puts in as little work as he can get away with and invests as little capital into maintenance as will keep the state off his back. His return is almost entirely rent. And the only reason he can charge rent in the first place is because of the valuable location – value the community produced, not him. And that's the real injustice of land rent – the community produces the value, but the landlord charges rent to access it. Practical Application of the Remedy Okay, land as common property, rent must die, I'm sold. How do we actually do it? George proposes a land value tax, or LVT. Note I didn't say property tax. Property tax is a tax on the value of a piece of land and it's improvements. So if you're a homeowner, when you pay property tax, you pay tax for both the value of your house and the lot it's sitting on. With land value tax you only pay tax on the "ground rent", which is the value of your land, but not the improvements. What's an improvement? By George, a little green house is an improvement. A fancy red hotel is an improvement. A garage, a sidewalk, a public park, a Starbucks, a hotdog stand, are all improvements. Installing a bunch of dikes in the Netherlands and dumping landfill into the seabed to turn wet land into dry is an improvement. All improvements come from labor, and optionally capital, and so its fair for those factors to take their return. If I "rent" you my hotdog stand (but not the lot it sits on) my return would be classified as interest in George's framework because the hotdog stand isn't land, it's capital – the stored-up fruits of my labor that I'm using to get more wealth. (Modified from source, CC BY 2.0, author: Philip Taylor) The problem with our current system is that when anyone in the community builds improvements, it makes adjoining land more valuable, and then those adjoining landlords jack up the rent. This makes things worse for everybody but the landlords. George's insight is that extra value from my improvement "spills over" from my land and is soaked up by the ground rent of your land. So under a land value tax, we can correct for the perverse economic incentives, distortions, and oppressions that come from land rent, without having to actually take your land from you. We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land — only to confiscate rent. You also are 100% the owner of the improvements on your land, which won't be taxed. This is why Georgism doesn't mean people have the right to barge into your house in the middle of the night even though land is "held in common." Your house is still private property, but the value of the land it sits on is common property. What if I plant some nice trees, and invest in some landscaping to stop erosion? Where's the line between "improvements" and "ground rent?" In most cases it's pretty straightforward to separately assess the value of a plot from the value of what sits on it (modern property tax assessors do this already), but George grants that in some edge cases with the passage of time at least some improvements will be subsumed into the land value and that's okay: But it will be said: There are improvements which in time become indistinguishable from the land itself! Very well; then the title to the improvements become blended with the title to the land; the individual right is lost in the common right. It is the greater that swallows up the less, not the less that swallows up the greater. Okay, ground rent bad. How much should we tax it? By George, One Hundred Percent. Take the rent the tenant has to pay each month, calculate the portion attributable to the value of the unimproved land itself, and send it to the taxing agency. Effects of the Remedy Wow! 100% tax rate on ground rent! Can we really do that? In practice Georgists often talk about rates closer to 85+% given real-world limitations in assessment, but the point is to hit it as hard as you possibly can. Get close enough and you still have good effects. Won't land taxes jack up land prices? No, actually - in fact it will do the opposite, because such a tax is laser-calibrated to eliminate speculation, which makes up the bulk of inflated land values, and thus rent. Tax land for the full ground rent and you make real estate more affordable, not less. Won't it enable an all-powerful centralized nanny state? Quite the opposite – land value assessment is a fundamentally bottom-up, localized task, so it naturally empowers local municipalities at the expense of distant central authorities. Also, income taxes, wealth taxes, investment taxes, etc, require an ever-vigilant centralized bureaucracy peeking into every aspect of an individual's life to catch tax evaders, who have every incentive to hide their assets or even just flee. Perversely, the IRS currently audits the poor at the same rate as the top 1%, even though higher earners are responsible for withholding the vast majority of tax money in fraud. Land can't move or hide, and nowadays we have tools like GIS to make it even easier to assess. Under land value tax, nobody needs to pry into your personal life or impose burdensome accounting rules on your small business that actually entrench the power of giant corporations (who have entire departments devoted to serving up the Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich). A Brief Interlude From the Future Today land value tax is widely considered to be the only tax that doesn't suffer from Deadweight Loss. Deadweight Loss is the lost economic activity or value caused by some policy. It's often summarized by the phrase "If you want less of something, tax it." Look at this chart, for example: (source, CC BY-SA 2.5, author: SilverStar) The place where the demand curve (red) and supply curve (blue) meet is the equilibrium point that the market naturally tends towards. But if we impose a price control lower than what the market will bear, the yellow area of the curve shows economic activity that can't happen. If you put price controls on gasoline, for instance, you'll get shortages because there's more demand than supply, and supply can't profitably rise to meet the extra bit of demand that's willing to pay a little more. But here's how things look with a land value tax, notice that the supply curve is vertical – that's weird, what does that mean? (source, CC BY-SA 3.0, author: Explodicle) A vertical supply curve means no matter what the price of land is, the same amount will always be supplied. This is because you can't make land – the supply is effectively fixed. Remember, the Netherlands doesn't count because the sea bed is land, and filling it in is just an improvement to land that already existed. And even if we granted "The Netherlands occasionally makes land" for the sake of argument, the amount of land "created" in this way is pretty darn negligible in the grand scheme of the economy, and almost exclusively the domain of governments or state-owned actors. The supply of land being fixed has some really interesting properties. By contrast, consider oil, the supply of which is not fixed. If we tax oil, some of the more marginal wells will be too expensive to operate and make a profit, so producers shut those down and the supply of oil decreases. Deadweight loss comes from a producer's ability to change the amount of product they supply in response to price signals. You'll notice the above graph of land tax has no deadweight loss at all! Since nobody produces land, it's the one thing you can tax without getting less of it. This drives out speculators entirely. Speculators can no longer distort rents by bidding up the price of land and holding it out of use, and can no longer compete with those who actually intend to use the land. This restores the proper balance of land, labor, and capital. Now if you work harder, or invest more capital, you can actually expect to see an increasing return without it all being gobbled up by ever-increasing rent. If you think about it this way, land value tax has negative deadweight loss, because it eliminates the speculative distortion that is the unearned privilege of landownership. Okay, but won't the landlords just pass the land tax on to their tenants? By George, no. Rent is a price, and price is governed by supply and demand. Supply of land is fixed, so land value tax has no effect on supply. What about demand? Except in cases where it causes the economy to boom (a good thing), land value tax won't increase land value – what it always does, however, is reduce the demand for land by speculators. If it costs nothing to hold on to land, of course I'm going to want to grab some and HODL. If the rent I could hope to gain is taxed away, I won't bother. Consider the case of oil again, where a tax reduces the supply. Reduced supply, given unchanged demand, causes a rise in price. And you'll find the increase in price tracks very closely with the amount of tax. Land value tax is just about the only kind of tax that can't be passed off to someone else. For more on deadweight loss and the land value tax, see Welfare Economics of the Land Value Tax by BlueRepublik. So does this mean there can never be profitable landlords ever again? Of course not – they just have to earn their living honestly like everyone else. Remember, we don't tax the improvements, just the "ground rent." So Ms. Nguyen still gets paid for all her honest work and judicious investments, but Mr. Slumlord doesn't make a dime until he gets off his lazy butt and does something productive. This is really important, because aside from speculation, the principal cause of land value increase is the productivity of your neighbors. An empty lot in the middle of nowhere is worthless, but an otherwise identical empty lot in the middle of New York city is priceless. As they say in real estate - "location, location, location." The reason location is valuable is because of the activity and contributions of the community, and yet the landlord claims the right to seize it all as rent. Modern economists have some interesting things to say about George's ideas, too. In 1977 Joseph Stiglitz demonstrated that land rents have a tendency to almost perfectly equal the value of investment in public goods. He called this the Henry George Theorem. Milton Friedman famously called land value tax the "Least Worst" tax. But one of my all-time favorite endorsements will always be that one time the economist Ramin Shokrizade unwittingly re-derived land value tax from first principles to (successfully!) fix recessions in EVE Online. Okay, so we tax all the ground rent. It will remove the speculative component of the rent (because there will no longer be any incentive to jack the prices up artificially), but it won't drive the price down to zero. That's because 100% LVT is only achievable on a frictionless plane populated by spherical cows; here in the real world you'll be left with a small sliver of land value. And of course regardless of the LVT rate, houses and buildings will still have a price. And that's fine. Land in Times Square will still be a lot more valuable than land in Podunk, Saskatchewan, but both will approach the same price as the LVT rate gets closer to 100%. This encourages people to actually make use of valuable land rather than holding it out of use, blighting the urban core and forcing development to sprawl out for miles in every direction, leading to worse transportation and more pollution. But... doesn't this mean that if people aren't putting land to productive use, they'll eventually be pressured to sell it off to someone who will? George sees this as a good thing. Without land value tax you get situations where somebody can anticipate that an empty lot will become valuable in the future, buy it, HODL forever, lobby against future development that would depress their property values, and now you have the Bay Area's housing crisis. Or buy an apartment block, do the absolute minimum the tenants will tolerate without killing you, constantly jack up the rent as the city grows, and you get slums. As BlueRepublik observes in No, Georgism is Still Sane: If you look at the commercial blight in New York City (http://www.vacantnewyork.com/) 90%+ is from landlords refusing to lease out to small businesses, waiting for a larger bank or big business to pay a higher rent bill. This causes property values of nearby businesses to drop, equity value to drop, and businesses to move out from the city center, increasing urban sprawl and urban blight. It’s a massive drain on personal wealth, and is very highly linked with poverty and higher crime rates. It’s also not a great model for having a stable social fabric. In a fit of performance art, a Georgist by the name of Fay Lewis once famously bought an empty lot and stuck a big sign on it to demonstrate the principle in action: Okay, but isn't building too much stuff bad for the environment? Won't this encourage over-development? By George, no. What's bad for the environment is sprawl, which the current system encourages and which the land tax would directly attack. If you want dense, walkable cities that don't depend on cars to get around, you should eliminate land speculation. A stronger objection to land value tax is when it's not some shifty speculator or a genocidal English landlord who suffers the brunt of it, but, say, this guy: The premise of Pixar's movie Up is that Carl Fredricksen, a lovably grumpy pensioner, is the last holdout standing in the way of developers bulldozing the rest of his neighborhood in the name of Progress™. He refuses to sell because he can't bear to part with the house which for him is tied up with all the cherished memories of his departed wife. This isn't just sentimental fiction, this is something that really does happen. Isn't Georgism just going to price the poor Carl Fredricksens out of their homes so that someone with a more """productive""" use can have it instead? There's several good response to this. For starters, if you're worried about kindly old people losing their homes, that's a thing that's happening already, and most of the time it's because The Rent Is Too Damn High, and our existing system is net worse on this score. We are currently facing an unprecedented crisis of evictions in tandem with the COVID pandemic, and it's not like things were peachy before. And even though homelessness seems to be declining in the US overall, it's getting worse in the most prosperous cities, exactly as George predicted. Okay, maybe it's better for renters, but what about people who own their homes, like Carl? Isn't it unfair to stick them with land taxes that might kick them out? What if they're retired? Remember, let's not confuse land tax with land confiscation, Here's George (emphases mine): I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. let them buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent. Okay, but you have to admit that even if the state isn't confiscating everybody's land, if you can't pay your land taxes you have no choice but to sell your land, right? Isn't this morally unjust to the Carl Fredricksens of the world? First, it's not a given that Mr. Fredricksen will be worse off on net: he already pays income and sales taxes, capital gains on any investments, as well as property tax which taxes both land value and the value of his house. As speculators leave the real estate market the land tax that replaces his property tax drop will drop, and his house is an improvement that goes entirely untaxed. Also, if the speculators holding onto all the most valuable real estate in the downtown districts are forced to give it up, there won't be as much competition for land and so there's a good chance developers won't be interested in trying to buy up land in a bedroom community in the first place. BlueRepublik further points out that LVT can be used to fund a Universal Basic Income, which should soften the blow considerably: Keep in mind also that the Georgist Land Value Tax is pair with a "Citizen's Dividend" or what we see as UBI, so that it's not the government claiming land rent, rather the land rent is taxed and split up equally for all men. But as a matter of political practicality, in the rare event that after all that Mr. Fredricksen still somehow finds himself in the hole after LVT is applied, Nate Blair suggests a deferment option to grandfather the Carls of the world through the transition: The LVT gets assessed annually for everyone, but owner occupiers (businesses and homeowners) can apply to defer the sum of those payments until they sell or transfer the land. Government can charge a nominal interest. A final point of modern application of land value taxes is to level the playing field between different areas by eliminating "cost of living" discrepancies that arise entirely from speculative rent. This is pretty relevant given the "location pay" debate going on in Silicon Valley right now in response to increased remote work as a direct consequence of the COVID pandemic. Back to George. Great, we've taxed ground rent at 100% and eliminated speculation and all other manner of social ills. Now what do we do with the money? Lots of things! For one, you can get rid of some other taxes. Back in George's day it was even argued that a 100% land value tax on ground rents should be the only tax – the "Single Tax," replacing all other tariffs, duties, and other taxes (keep in mind this was in the late 1800's and Federal income tax wasn't introduced until the 16th amendment in 1913). Remember, all these other taxes have deadweight loss. Income tax is a tax on labor, and so taxing it means we really do get less productive labor. The portion of property tax that targets improvements punishes you for investing in improvements, and sales tax is just straight up regressive, hitting the poor harder than the rich. There's some argument today about whether the "Single Tax" would be enough to fund the modern US budget, with some Georgists saying it would be sufficient and others saying we would still need some other taxes but could at least significantly offset what we already have. But by George, another thing we could do is just give all the money back to the people, as BlueRepublik mentioned above. This could be used as a straightforward Universal Basic Income – what George calls a Citizen's Dividend, or what Andrew Yang calls the Freedom Dividend. It could also be used for the funding of public goods. George doesn't see this as an act of charity on the state's behalf – the value of the land has its origin in the productive labors of the entire community, so it's a simple act of justice to give the returns to those who actually produced the value, which is society at large. Another effect George asserts is that once land is no longer monopolized, labor is no longer forced into one-sided competition, so wages start to go up. Even better, laborers now have far more opportunity to go into business for themselves, which spurs innovation and investment. So to sum up, if we tax the ever loving hell out of ground rent, George says we'll see the following benefits: Make housing much more affordable

Luigi Bocconi University1 mentions across 1 issues

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Highlights From The Comments On Modern Architecture October 04, 2021

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Highlights From The Comments On Modern Architecture

October 04, 2021 · Original source

Deiseach gives us some more information about Luigi Bocconi University (the modern building on my comparison graphic). You can read the comment if you want to see the whole thing, but she quotes part of the architects’ prospectus, eg:

Inline links: read the comment

Luminar1 mentions across 1 issues

Luminar is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 23, 2023 and March 23, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as "the payoff is Luminar. One of the dropouts they cultivated founded a beyond-cutting-edge lasers-for-self-driving-cars company which went public at $3 billion". It most often appears alongside 1517, a priori truths, Abraham Lincoln.

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Book Review: Paper Belt On Fire March 23, 2023

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Book Review: Paper Belt On Fire

March 23, 2023 · Original source

Probably it depends on the angle or something. Lindh was the only American to find Osama bin Laden in the early 2000s - he went to lots of jihadi training camps in the process of learning how to jihad, and Osama happened to be at one of them. The lesson, Walker says, is that if you want to find people who are hard to find, you need to steep yourself in their culture, truly understand them, become one with them. Good founders are hard to find. But he and Strachman went to dozens of dingy college dorms, math competitions, group houses, and hackathons, looking for people with the right sort of talent. After pooh-poohing IQ (“Marilyn vos Savant is listed as having the highest recorded IQ, and what does she do? She writes a column for a Sunday supplement in the newspaper”) he lists some of his own preferred metrics for judging would-be Thiel fellows and founders: Polytropon - a famously untranslatable Greek word (“of-many-turns”? “always-has-a-trick-up-his-sleeve” “clever bastard”?) used to describe Odysseus. Edge control - willingness to constantly surf the boundary between order and disorder Crawl-walk-run - ability to scale from a tiny startup to a big company. …and several others, including “tensive brilliance” and “Friday night Dyson sphere”. He and Danielle searched the country for people with these qualities, annoying colleges (he was banned from MIT after showing up too often to convince their students to drop out) and doing various stunts (on October 31 2017, the 500th anniversary of Luther’s theses, he nailed a list of anti-formal-education theses to the doors of the admin buildings of top colleges (“Our commercial printer had misunderstood our request and printed them on seven-foot-long scrolls. They were ridiculous . . . but it turned out for the best.”) At one point, he negotiated with a brilliant 21 year old who may have discovered a transformative diabetes therapeutic, but the hidebound conformist novelty-hating establishment refused to work with him just because he liked the Marvel Cinemat - okay, fine, he may have legally changed his name to “Tony Stark”. Still, Gibson saw past his eccentricities, helped him start his company, and gave him sage advice (he should introduce himself to other investors as “Anthony”). Skip through several more chapters of everyone hating Gibson and telling him he was wrong and refusing to give him money and cheating him out of the money he already had, and the payoff is Luminar. One of the dropouts they cultivated founded a beyond-cutting-edge lasers-for-self-driving-cars company which went public at $3 billion. 1517 made $200 million from the deal - it sounds like they had only ever raised about $25 million, so their investors must have octupled their money on that company alone. Everyone involved is now very rich, and Gibson considers his anti-education thesis on the way to being proven. The book ends with a newly-resourced Gibson continuing his quest to figure out whether and why the CIA killed his father, but it’s slow going. If any of you know a guy named Albert van Dam in Amsterdam, or how to convince Swiss banks to reveal secret account information, get in touch with him. II. A common pattern: I assert something. Everyone yells at me and tells me I’m wrong and stupid, sometimes in very colorful language. I wait, time proves me right, and I write an essay gloating educating people about this. The median comment is “of course this is true, nobody ever denied this was true, why are you wasting our time with something obvious?” I hate this and I try to avoid doing it to other people. This is too bad, because I’m tempted to say: obviously talented dropouts can start good companies. We’ve known this at least since Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to start Microsoft. But also, obviously they can. Brilliant and driven people can succeed whether they get a college education or not. If Bill Gates had stayed an extra two years at Harvard, he probably would have taken a few more advanced math classes not really related to programming software or running a company. So why should we even have as a hypothesis that he couldn’t start Microsoft successfully without doing that? Still, Gibson adequately proves that lots of people hated him and were sure he would fail. Either we should read this backwards - learn that there was once a time when pro-college messages were even stronger than now, so strong that people thought it was literally impossible to succeed without every single day of a four-year college application - or the critics were trying to get at something deeper they were bad at expressing. For example: what, exactly, is Gibson’s alternative to the education system? The back-of-book-blurb says Paper Belt On Fire is about “how higher education and other institutions must evolve to meet the dire challenges of tomorrow” - but evolve how? What exactly has been proven here? A few of the very brightest young people, hand-picked by an expert young-person-picker and given $100K, can become billionaires or make great discoveries without a college degree. What are the implications? Suppose you are an average college student with an average level of talent and motivation. Should you drop out and try to create a company for Peter Thiel? Based on how many average-talent people Thiel rejects, even he doesn’t think you should do that. And if you don’t have a good answer to this question - the one relevant to 99.9% of education system inmates - have you really launched a challenge to the educational system? Gibson doesn’t address this question, but I predict he would admit that, fine, he doesn’t have an alternative to the education system in the sense of “educate people this way rather than that way”. He just wants less formal education, and has proven this will work fine. True, he’s only proven it for a tiny subset of ultra-talented people. But “billionaire tech founder” is a hard job - if it wasn’t, more people would do it and reap the $1 billion reward. Proving that people can become billionaire tech founders without college degrees implicitly suggests they can be successful middle managers or budget analysts without college degrees. So the sort of companies that need middle managers and budget analysts should also consider hiring people without degrees, and the sorts of average-level-of-talent-and-motivation people who want these jobs should consider skipping college. Would this work? Probably. It worked in the early 1900s, when only 5-10% of Americans had college degrees but the country seemed about as dynamic and successful as it does now. It worked for people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Edison, none of whom went to college. It works in other countries - for example in the UK where young doctors skip undergrad and go straight to medical school, and whose patients get about the same outcomes as in the US. It works for people with impractical degrees like philosophy, who are constantly getting jobs in (and doing well in) fields that don’t require you to compare Locke vs. Leibniz’s perspective on a priori truths. So this would work if everyone agreed to do it at once, which they won’t. The way college gets you is adverse selection. Suppose that tomorrow, you - a smart and hard-working person who could easily get a college degree - decline to do so, because you appreciate Peter Thiel and Michael Gibson’s anti-institutional perspective. The pool of people without college degrees is now, to a first approximation: 200 million people who weren’t smart to get in, rich enough to afford it, or motivated enough to finish.

Inline links: his company, read this backwards

LW community1 mentions across 1 issues

LW community is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 01, 2026 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as "Do check the LW comunity page for updates". It most often appears alongside 1108 R St, 11841 Wagner Street, 131 Colonie Center.

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Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places April 01, 2026

1108 R St 1 shared issues
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April 01, 2026 · Original source

There should shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.

Inline links: the LessWrong community page

Contact: Sachit Contact Info: sachit[dot]lesswrong[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, May 3, 1:00 PM Location: Tim Hortons, New street Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C4WF4H2+M5 Additional Notes: There will be a sign on the table so you can find us. Do check the LW comunity page for updates. It would be nice if you can send me a mail so that I know how many people to expect.

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ACX Cologne meetup group1 mentions across 1 issues

LW/ACX Cologne meetup group is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between April 10, 2022 and April 10, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as "mailing list for the LW/ACX Cologne meetup group". It most often appears alongside 1022 High St. Blue House w/red porches, 11:11 Cafe, 1548 NE 15th Ave.

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Spring Meetups In Seventy Cities April 10, 2022

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April 10, 2022 · Original source

COLOGNE (KÖLN) Contact: Marcel Müller (marcel_mueller@mail.de) Date: April 23 Time: 5:00 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9F28WRMX+97 Location: Marienweg 43, 50858 Köln (Cologne) Notes: Since Covid rates are still very high in Germany attendees must be fully vaccinated and tested on the same day. Self tests are accepted and available at the meetup location, so there is no need for people to go out of their way to get tested beforehand. Also, weather permitting, the meetup will mostly be outside on our patio. Group info: Contact Marcel if you want to subscribe to the mailing list for the LW/ACX Cologne meetup group

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lwkyiv1 mentions across 1 issues

lwkyiv is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 1 times across 1 issues between March 30, 2024 and March 30, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as "Group Link: https://t.me/lwkyiv". It most often appears alongside 1111 Brickell Ave, 11841 Wagner St., Culver City, 1970 Port Laurent place, Newport Beach 92660.

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Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 March 30, 2024

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