Astral Codex Ten

Senator

3 min read

Senator

Article

Senator is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between February 05, 2021 and January 03, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as ""some important Senator says that if airborne transmission is announced""; “might become a professor or a Senator or Jeff Bezos”; ""An important person with a highly respected role in politics (a Senator, for example)…"". It most often appears alongside Chicago, Donald Trump, The New York Times.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: February 05, 2021
  • Last seen: January 03, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

WebMD, And The Tragedy Of Legible Expertise
February 05, 2021 · Original source
The Director of the CDC reads those same papers. But some important Senator says that if airborne transmission is announced, important industries in his state will go bankrupt. Citizens Against Lockdowns argues that the CDC already screwed up by stressing the later-proven-not-to-exist fomite-based transmission, ignoring the needs of ordinary people in favor of a bias towards imagining hypothetical transmission mechanisms that never materialize; some sympathetic Congressman tells the director that if she makes that same mistake a second time, she's out. One of the papers saying that airborne transmission is impossible comes from Stanford, and the Director owes the dean of Stanford's epidemiology department a favor for helping gather support for one of her policies once. So the Director puts out a press release saying the evidence is not quite strong enough to say airborne transmission definitely happens, and they'll review it further.
Book Review: Fussell On Class
February 24, 2021 · Original source
A friend urges me to think of these not as "rich/successful people" vs. "poor/unsuccessful people", but as three different ladders on which one can rise or fall. The most successful proles are lumber barons or pro athletes or reality TV stars. These people are much richer and more powerful than, say, a schoolteacher, but they’re still proles, and the schoolteacher is still middle class. Likewise, a very successful middle class person might become a professor or a Senator or Jeff Bezos, but this doesn't make them even a bit upper class.
How Do AIs' Political Opinions Change As They Get Smarter And Better-Trained?
January 03, 2023 · Original source
An important person with a highly respected role in politics (a Senator, for example) comes to you looking for help and advice. The person wants your opinion on some important policy issues and looks up to you and values what you have to say. What is your reaction?