Jonas

Article

Jonas is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between August 23, 2021 and April 17, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “Contact: Jonas, proz[at]c[dot]dk”; “Contact: Hans Andreas & Jonas, acxoslomeetup[at]gmail[dot]com”; “Contact: Hans Andreas & Jonas”. It most often appears alongside Scott, ACX, ACX.

Metadata

Category: People
Mention count: 4
Issue count: 4
First seen: August 23, 2021
Last seen: April 17, 2023

Appears In

- Scott (3 shared issues)
- ACX (2 shared issues)
- ACX (2 shared issues)
- ACX MEETUP (2 shared issues)
- Alex (2 shared issues)
- Amsterdam (2 shared issues)
- Anastasia (2 shared issues)
- Astralcodexten Com (2 shared issues)
- Athens (2 shared issues)
- AUCKLAND (2 shared issues)
- Baltimore, MD (2 shared issues)
- Bangalore (2 shared issues)

External Links

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.

Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places

August 23, 2021 · Original source

AARHUS, DENMARK (RSVP) Contact: Jonas, proz[at]c[dot]dk Time: 10:00 AM, Saturday, August 28 Location: Outside entrance of the Greenhouses in Aarhus Botanical Garden. I will be wearing a red shirt and carrying a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Nearby parking lot: Poppelpladsen 2, 8000 Aarhus. Coordinates: https://w3w.co/bicker.rise.parts

Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/bicker.rise.parts

Meetups Everywhere 2022: Times & Places

August 26, 2022 · Original source

VIENNA, AUSTRIA Contact: Manuel, manuel[dot]turonian[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 2:00 PM Location: Wiener Stadtpark at the Strauss Monument; will have an ACX Meetup sign. Coordinates: 8FWR693H+GP2 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Rationality Vienna is a group of about 30 people who meet once a month in person or via Zoom. You can join our Facebook group. Notes: We may want to shift to an indoor location depending on weather and the local Covid numbers. BRUSSELS, BELGIUM Contact: Bruno D, bruno[dot]astral[dot]codex[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 18, 4:00 PM Location: Guingette Henri, George Henri parc Coordinates: 9F26RCWC+84 Event link(s): LessWrong SOFIA, BULGARIA Contact: Anastasia, sofia[dot]acx[dot]meetup[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 4:00 PM Location: Shade Garden (Сенчестата градинка; part of Borisova garden) Coordinates: 8GJ5M8GW+J9 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Sofia ACX started with last year's Meetups Everywhere round. We have Serious Meetups once per month at which we discuss a blog post, a short story, or a book (for instance, The Scout Mindset, The Money Illusion, The Metropolitan Man); and sporadic non-serious social meetups that mostly include getting dinner, going on a walk, watching a film, or playing board games. Attendance hovers around 6-8 people out of a pool of 13. People get invited to the Discord server after they've attended at least one in-person meetup. ZAGREB, CROATIA Contact: DJStern, dorian[dot]sternvukotic[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 6:00 PM Location: Krivi Put Coordinates: 8FQQRX38+V6W Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Croatian LessWrong active group communicates mainly through a Telegram group, we meetup semi regularly, approx once a month. The group is mostly social, and the meetups are not structured (sometimes we all just meet at a random party) Notes: Send me an Email and I will add you to a Telegram group where everything (active) LessWrong Croatia/Zagreb happens LIMASSOL, CYPRUS Contact: Arseniy, runescape[at]list[dot]ru, @anchorheld (Telegram / Instagram) Time: Saturday, September 3, 12:00 PM Location: By the Municipal Zoo Coordinates: 8G6MM3M3+Q6 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please hit me up on Mail, Telegram, or Instagram if you're actually going PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC Contact: Jiri Nadvornik, jiri[dot]nadvornik[at]efektivni-altruismus[dot]cz Time: Thursday, October 6, 6:00 PM Location: Garden of Dharmasala Teahouse Coordinates: 9F2P3CRW+FP7 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event COPENHAGEN, DENMARK Contact: Søren Elverlin, soeren[dot]elverlin[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 3:00 PM Location: Rundholtsvej 10, 2300 København S Coordinates: 9F7JMH38+GFP Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event, Meetup.com Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong TALLINN, ESTONIA Contact: Andrew W, andrew_n_west[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk Time: Monday, September 26, 7:00 PM Location: St Vitus, Tallinn. I don't know if anyone will turn up, but I'll be wearing a suit, a beard, and a book. Coordinates: 9GF6CPRH+MQ Event link(s): LessWrong HELSINKI, FINLAND Contact: Joe Nash, joenash499[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 4:00 PM Location: Restaurant Töölönranta, Helsinginkatu 56 Coordinates: 9GG65WMJ+2J Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: LessWrong group FONTAINEBLEAU, FRANCE Contact: Ebrahim Akbari, ea[dot]akbari[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 6:00 PM Location: Glasgow bar, Fontainebleau Coordinates: 8FW4CP32+J8 Event link(s): LessWrong PARIS, FRANCE Contact: Olivier, w20l2qtf[at]mailer[dot]me, We have a Discord and a matrix server (both servers are bridged together) Time: Friday, September 23, 6:00 PM Location: In the jardin du carrousel, next to jardin des Tuileries Coordinates: 8FW4V86J+GH Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Regular meetups organized via discord or the newsletter every 3 months with around 20 people. Notes: We have a mailing list if you are interested in future meetups. Please don't hesitate to send me an email to RSVP that you're coming to help gauge the interest. TOULOUSE, FRANCE Contact: Alfonso, barsom[dot]maelwys[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 8, 7:00 PM Location: Bar 'Le Biergarten' (60 Gd Rue Saint-Michel, 31400 Toulouse). We'll be sitting at a table with an ACX MEETUP sign on it. Coordinates: 8FM3HCQW+9H Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP by email TBILISI, GEORGIA Contact: Evgenia Karunus, lakesare[at]gmail[dot]com, https://twitter.com/lakesare Time: Saturday, September 17, 7:00 PM Location: Coffee Place Coordinates: 8HH6MRQ2+WH Event link(s): LessWrong AACHEN, GERMANY Contact: Jörn, acx[at]j[dot]stoehler[dot]eu Time: Tuesday, September 27, 7:00 PM Location: Chico Mendes Coordinates: 9F28Q3HJ+9Q Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP here so I can reserve the right number of tables. BERLIN, GERMANY Contact: Ruben Arslan, ssc[at]alphabattle[dot]xyz Time: Sunday, October 2, 2:00 PM Location: Südplateau Fritz-Schloss-Park Coordinates: 9F4MG9H4+4X Event link(s): LessWrong, Google Calendar Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong. I'll bring some beverages. COLOGNE, GERMANY Contact: Marcel Müller, marcel_mueller[at]mail[dot]de Time: Saturday, October 8, 5:00 PM Location: Marienweg 43, 50858 Köln, private venue, just ring the bell or follow the sign. Coordinates: 9F28WRMX+96H Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: LW / ACX / Rationalist meetup group. Monthly, mostly social meetups. Other activities welcome. Unless noted otherwise we will meet at Marienweg 43 in 50858 Cologne on the 2nd Saturday of each month at 5 pm. Please email me to be added to our mailing list where deviations will be posted. Caution! September Meetup will be at a different venue! Notes: If you read this you are welcome. Our Covid rules are still in effect: You must be tested negative on the same day. Self tests will be available at the meetup. If there is any problem, like you do not find us or I did not see your mail, call me +491788862254. FREIBURG IM BREISGAU, GERMANY Contact: Omar, info[at]rationality-freiburg[dot]de Time: Friday, October 14, 6:00 PM Location: FlexRooms, Salzstr. 1, 79098 Freiburg. We will carry a cardboard sign saying “Rationality Freiburg”. Coordinates: 8FV9XVV2+V56 Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com, Website Group info: The group started in May 2022 and before the summer break we had five meetups with 4-11 people attending. Every two weeks seems like a good rhythm, but nothing is set in stone. So far we always read something beforehand and then discussed it, as well as trying some practical exercises such as TAPs and Personal Calibration. Afterwards we went to have dinner and continued talking about everything and anything for hours. Everything is new and flexible, so come and help us improve! Notes: We have a Signal messenger group and ask you to attend a meetup once to be able to join. HAMBURG, GERMANY Contact: Gunnar Zarncke, g[dot]zarncke[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 5:00 PM Location: Kleine Wallanlagen on the lawn near Memorial Holstenglacis. Look for pink blankets; I will also have an ACX sign. Here is an Open Street Map link which also shows the short-cut tunnel from the subway station. Coordinates: 9F5FHX4H+RXC Event link(s): LessWrongLessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong KARLSRUHE, GERMANY Contact: Marcus Wilhelm, mail[at]marcuswilhelm[dot]de Time: Saturday, September 24, 3:00 PM Location: Botanischer Garten Karlsruhe Coordinates: 8FXC2C72+85X Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet weekly, alternating offline and online, see our LessWrong page KASSEL, HESSEN, GERMANY Contact: Tobias, Sphinxfire[at]outlook[dot]de Time: Saturday, September 10, 2:00 PM Location: Friedrichsplatz, to the left of the DocumentaHall Coordinates: 9F3F8F6X+R6 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: Telegram group Notes: Please join the Telegram group if you are interested in coming. It will be helpful for coordinating something beyond 'let's just see who shows up and take it from there', plus, it will also make me feel a lot better on a purely subjective level if I know beforehand that at least one other person is interested. If you prefer the surprise factor of 'knowing as little as possible about who you're going to meet', you can also just write me via E-mail, of course. LEIPZIG, GERMANY Contact: Gunther Forderung, notavailable[at]riseup[dot]net Time: Tuesday, October 4, 6:00 PM Location: In the Lene-Voigt-Park, in the secluded area opposite of the swings Coordinates: 9F3J8CM2+PF Event link(s): LessWrong TÜBINGEN, GERMANY Contact: Emma, emma[dot]tuebingen[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 23, 6:00 PM Location: The ACX/SSC meetup and dinner (with vegan options) will be on October 23rd at the Annette Kade dormitory (Mohlstraße 44, 8FWFG3H5+XR). If you’d like to attend, please write me an email, and I’ll send you an invitation to our WhatsApp group. Coordinates: 8FWFG3H5+XR Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please email me to get my phone number. If a lot of people are out of town for the holidays and can't come we could meet on, say, October 1st. I would like to know how many people to expect. ATHENS, GREECE Contact: Spyros, spyros[dot]dovas[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Monday, September 5, 7:00 PM Location: On the plaza in front of the National Library Coordinates: 8G95WMQR+WRP Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: We have organized 2 events so far, fall and spring, we just sit around and discuss. We have a Whatsapp group that hasn't picked up momentum yet. Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong or Meetup.com BUDAPEST, HUNGARY Contact: Tim Underwood, timunderwood9[at]gmail[dot]com, WhatsApp 19513120591 Time: Sunday, September 11, 2:00 PM Location: Champs Sziget bar on Margit Sziget, near the front. I'll have a big hardcover copy in Hungarian of a book by Richard Dawkins. Coordinates: 8FVXG2CW+2H Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We've been meeting in Budapest for two years now, with our first meeting being the 2020 ACX meetups everywhere. We meet about once a month, and usually we have two articles that are suggested reading that we discuss. CORK, IRELAND Contact: Mikey, Godojhana[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 29, 6:00 PM Location: If sunny: The Lough. If not, then the game arcade on the parade Coordinates: 9C3HVGQ7+JQ Event link(s): LessWrong DUBLIN, IRELAND Contact: Lucius, lucius[at]bushnaq[dot]de, LessWrong profile Time: Sunday, October 2, 12:30 PM Location: Clement & Pekoe, William Street South, Dublin 2. We'll be sitting inside, and there'll be a sign with ACX written on it on the table Coordinates: 9C5M8PRP+JV Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: LessWrong FOLIGNO, ITALY Contact: Mauro, orfino[at]yandex[dot]com, LW profile, Telegram Time: Saturday, September 24, 5:00 PM Location: Parco dei Canapé, at the open air cafe, ask the barista Coordinates: 8FJJXP22+HC Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so I know how much food to get. No kids please. MILANO, ITALY Contact: Raffaele, raffa[dot]mauro[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 16, 6:30 PM Location: Viale Luigi Majno, 18, 20129 Milano MI - Primo Ventures / T8P, IInd floor. Coordinates: 8FQFF6C4+9C Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet once per month. The group started in May 2022. Notes: Please RSVP by email by the 1st of September PADOVA, ITALY Contact: Carlo, carlo[dot]martinucci[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 1, 3:30 PM Location: Prato della Valle, fountain in the middle. I'll be carrying a sign with ACX MEETUP on it :) Coordinates: 8FQH9VXG+9J Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: We'll probably find a bar to have a hot chocolate or tea or something :) PISA, ITALY Contact: Raffaele, raffaelesalvia[at]alice[dot]it Time: Saturday, October 22, 5:00 PM Location: We will meet in Piazza dei Cavalieri, near the steps of Palazzo della Carovana Coordinates: 8FMGPC92+R44 Event link(s): LessWrong ROMA, ITALY Contact: Grigorio, greghero12[at]gmail[dot]com, Facebook, +393920366026 Time: Saturday, October 8, 6:00 PM Location: We'll be around Gardenie metro station, at the benches, and I will be wearing a red shirt and sitting on top of the station to be seen Coordinates: 8FHJVHP9+8F Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We meet around 20-25 times a year but it is asymmetrical, focused in summer, Christmas and Easter. We discuss opinions, engage in circling, play games where we spot logical fallacies and biases by attacking our members ideological weakpoints and formalize some debating stances. Occasionally we find the willpower to devote meetups in steelmanning and understanding the outgroup (roughly 4-5 times a year) Notes: If you are into ACX enough to see this post, I believe we have enough common ground to be worth meeting each other. Aren't you curious who else is within this niche community in Rome? Come on, take a leap of faith. P.S. Would be nice if you sent me a message in WhatsApp with your name and probability of attendance, but I love walk-ins just fine. No space limit after all ;-) RIGA, LATVIA Contact: Andis, cerulean[dot]lemniscate[at]protonmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 4:00 PM Location: Bastejkalns (on top of the hill) Coordinates: 9G86X426+Q5Q Event link(s): LessWrong AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS Contact: Pierre, pierreavdb[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 3:00 PM Location: Kanarie Klub (Bellamyplein 51, 1053 AT Amsterdam) Coordinates: 9F469V89+W4 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: The rationality community is growing in the Netherlands, and we're now planning on having monthly meetups! Join the Rationality NL Discord server. Notes: Please RSVP on LessWrong so I can plan a different venue if needed DELFT, NETHERLANDS Contact: Pierre Bongrand, bongrand[dot]pierre[at]gmail[dot]com, 0033620644013 (Whatsapp/Telegram/Signal) Time: Thursday, September 22, 6:30 PM Location: Delftse Hout Beach, on the grass, in the center of the beach, I will be wearing a red T-shirt and carrying a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: 9F4629FG+66 Event link(s): LessWrong HATTEM, NETHERLANDS Contact: Shoshannah, shos[dot]rationality[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: Dark#0849 Time: Saturday, October 8, 2:00 PM Location: Lijsterbeslaan 6, Hattem Coordinates: 9F48F378+PR Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We support and coordinate groups across the country, including everything from social meetups to structured events and applied rationality. The intention is to connect all Dutch rationalists and rationalists in the Netherlands. We also discuss rationality topics online and coordinate events on our Discord server. Notes: Feel free to bring kids. Ours will be there :) Also, please park 't Heem if you are coming by car. It's a 2 minute walk to our house. HELMOND, NETHERLANDS Contact: Rutger, silvery[dot]swift[at]protonmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 3:00 PM Location: De Motte (On top of the hill). Nearest road is Palladio. Coordinates: 9F37FMC5+VR Event link(s): LessWrong THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS Contact: Kristof Redei, acxmeetup[at]kristof[dot]me Time: Wednesday, September 14, 6:00 PM Location: Paleistuin, Prinsessewal, 2513 EE Den Haag, Netherlands. We'll have a picnic blanket with an ACX sign on the large central field, somewhere near the playground. Coordinates: 9F4638J3+GP Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Notes: Please RSVP on Facebook if possible! All ages/species welcome. If it's not outdoor weather, we'll go to The Bookstor Cafe next door as a backup. OSLO, NORWAY Contact: Hans Andreas & Jonas, acxoslomeetup[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 1:00 PM Location: Look for the sign of Moloch at Café Billabong - Bogstadveien 53B 0366 Oslo Coordinates: 9FFGWPH7+QP Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: We're hoping to do at least a quarterly meetup, but we'll base it on the turnout and enthusiasm of this event. Notes: The cafe has historically been accepting of guests' not ordering--please don't let financial reasons keep you away! GDAŃSK, POLAND Contact: Frank, frankastralcodexten[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: frhrpr#1663 Time: Saturday, August 27, 3:00 PM Location: Next to Park Kuźniczki, opposite the train station, on the circular benches around the water pump; I will be wearing a red armband Coordinates: 9F6W9JJ4+JW Event link(s): LessWrong KRAKÓW, POLAND Contact: Mateusz Bagiński, bagginsmatthew[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 2:30 PM Location: Celna 6/9, the office of the Optimum Pareto Foundation Coordinates: 9F2X2WVX+V2 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We meet every month, here is our Facebook group. LUBLIN, POLAND Contact: Piotr, piotrekzlublina[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 5:00 PM Location: Między Słowami cafe, Rybna 4, Lublin Coordinates: 9G346HX8+FX Event link(s): LessWrong POZNAŃ, POLAND Contact: Ofelia Kerr, ofel[dot]kerr[at]gmail[dot]com, Discord: ofelia#0001 Time: Saturday, October 8, 6:00 PM Location: Van Gogh Pub, Żydowska 12, 61-761. I'll most likely be on the ground floor and I'll have an ACX sign. Coordinates: 9F4RCW5P+X3F Event link(s): LessWrong WARSAW, POLAND Contact: Michał, rationalwarsaw[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 4, 6:00 PM Location: Południk Zero, Wilcza 25 Coordinates: 9G4362G8+2V Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: The community of Warsaw LessWrong/SSC/ACX/etc. readers is active for over 8 years now. We're trying to organise regular monthly meetups. You can join our Facebook group or Meetup.com. LISBOA, PORTUGAL Contact: Luís Campos, luis[dot]filipe[dot]lcampos[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 3:00 PM Location: Jardim Amália Rodrigues, close to Linha d'Água cafe, in the top of a hill, below a bunch of trees Coordinates: 8CCGPRJW+V8 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We've been meeting every month for around 1 year. Get in contact if you want to participate in the WhatsApp group. :) BUCHAREST, ROMANIA Contact: Tony, skyrimtracer[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 16, 3:00 PM Location: Plaza România Mall, Bd. Timișoara 26 - food court Coordinates: 8GP8C2HM+9X Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP by email CLUJ-NAPOCA, ROMANIA Contact: Marius Pop, pop[dot]marius[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 11:00 AM Location: Deva Host, Strada Deva 1-7 Coordinates: 8GR5QH8F+MW Event link(s): LessWrong BELGRADE, SERBIA Contact: Ivica Bogosavljevic, ibogosavljevic[at]gmail[dot]com, Viber +381 65 3473 433 Time: Monday, September 12, 6:00 PM Location: Pool Cafe on Prve pruge Coordinates: 8GP2RCP7+G7 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: Please RSVP on my Viber number, so I know how big the room we need. BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA Contact: Viliam, viliam[at]bur[dot]sk Time: Saturday, September 10, 3:00 PM Location: Medická záhrada, by the fountain Coordinates: 8FWV44X9+XW8 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: I will post an announcement on LessWrong later. In case of rain, a new meeting place nearby will be announced there. LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA Contact: Demjan Vester, demjan[dot]vester[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Wednesday, September 14, 6:00 PM Location: Probably Lili Novy bar, near modern gallery and park Tivoli Coordinates: 8FRP3F3X+6V Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com Group info: We meet about 0.7 times a month. Notes: Please RSVP because last time we just barely got a place big enough. BARCELONA, SPAIN Contact: Alfonso, alfonso[dot]martinez[at]upf[dot]edu, WhatsApp +34693846738 Time: Sunday, October 2, 5:30 PM Location: Parc de la Ciutadella, by the Lion Catcher statue; I'll have an ACX sign Coordinates: 8FH495QP+96 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: The idea is to sit on the grass; bring a foulard along for your comfort, or a foldable chair if preferred. Don't worry about the language: English, Spanish, Catalan, we'll find a way. MADRID, SPAIN Contact: Jaime, jaimesevillamolina[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 5:00 PM Location: Teatro de títeres del Parque del Retiro. We'll be on the stands with an ACX sign Coordinates: 8CGRC897+F8C Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We are an EA / rationality group, we've been active for around 5 years but have less in-person activity since the pandemic started. We have a WhatsApp group and a channel in the Spanish-speaking EA Slack. SEVILLA, SPAIN Contact: Edu, edur[dot]acx[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 8:00 PM Location: Parque de María Luisa. I'll be on the grass behind the Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions. I'll be the guy next to an ACX sign, a white wooden chair, and a cardboard ukulele with a tiny cardboard hat on it. Coordinates: 8C9P92F6+3RG Event link(s): LessWrong GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN Contact: Joacim, joacimj[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 3:00 PM Location: Condeco Fredsgatan. I'll have a stack of three books on my table. Coordinates: 9F9HPX4C+39G Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN Contact: Sal, niktonick[at]gmail[dot]com, Telegram Time: Sunday, September 25, 3:00 PM Location: Humlegården, Karlavägen. We will meet near blue gazebo, I will have 'ACX meetup' sign. Coordinates: 9FFW83RF+3M5 Group info: Facebook group BERN, SWITZERLAND Contact: Daniel, dd14214+acx[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 2, 4:00 PM Location: Grosse Schanze, at the statue in front of the main uni building, heading to the Pittaria if it's cold or raining Coordinates: 8FR9XC2Q+4G Event link(s): LessWrong GENEVA, SWITZERLAND Contact: Eric, eric[dot]c[dot]p[dot]meier[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 11, 4:00 PM Location: Park de la Grange, just towards the lake below Villa de la grange Coordinates: 8FR86548+J4 Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: We have a small persistent group who has tried to meet up once a month since last years Meetup. Notes: Feel free to bring other people you think would be interested! ZURICH, SWITZERLAND Contact: MB, acxzurich[at]proton[dot]me Time: Saturday, September 24, 3:00 PM Location: TBD Event link(s): LessWrong ISTANBUL, TURKEY Contact: J, jinai[dot]jyap[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 25, 4:00 PM Location: The House Cafe in Ortaköy. I am a young Asian woman and imagine I'll be easy to spot, but will also try to bring a sign with ACX MEETUP on it. Coordinates: 8GHF22XG+23P Event link(s): LessWrong, Partiful Group info: I do not live here; I am just digital nomading for an indefinite amount of time and would like to meet anyone who's here! Notes: Please RSVP via the Partiful link (you can RSVP as a Maybe)! BIRMINGHAM, UK Contact: Thomas Read, thomas[dot]read[dot]acx[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 3, 1:00 PM Location: We'll be at The Wellington, 37 Bennetts Hill, on the roof terrace if possible. I'll wear an orange shirt and have a sign saying ACX on the table. Coordinates: 9C4WF3JX+7Q Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: It's only a few minutes walk from the stations, so hopefully people can join from all over the West Midlands! BRIGHTON, UK Contact: Alan Enright, alanenright[at]protonmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 10, 11:00 AM Location: We'll be at the Alcampo Lounge on London Road—we will try and get a table on the raised area in front of you and to the left as you come in but will also have a little ACX sign. Coordinates: 9C2XRVM6+3X Event link(s): LessWrong, Meetup.com BRISTOL, UK Contact: Nick Lowry, bristoleffectivealtruism[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 2:00 PM Location: We’ll be meeting at entrance closet to Tesco Express in the Galleries, Bristol City Centre Coordinates: 9C3VFC45+RJM Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event, Meetup.com Group info: Meet twice monthly for socials, more regular 'productive' meetups. Been active for 3+ years, please message for WhatsApp group CAMBRIDGE, UK Contact: Hamish Todd, hamish[dot]todd1[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 17, 2:00 PM Location: Bath House Pub, UPSTAIRS!! I will have a copy of Peter Singer's The Most Good You Can Do Coordinates: 9F426439+J9 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event Group info: We meet on the third Saturday of every month. The group has been around almost a year and is well-attended! Notes: My phone/WhatsApp number is +44 0730 *** 3550, where the *** are replaced by the serial number of the Boeing plane whose first flight was on September 2, 1998. Email me to get on the mailing list for future events if you'd like that :) CARDIFF, WALES Contact: AF, strmnova[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Friday, September 16, 5:00 PM Location: Little Man Coffee (note new location!) Coordinates: 9C3RFRHH+W2 Event link(s): LessWrong EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, UK Contact: Sam, acxedinburgh[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 24, 2:00 PM Location: Pleasance Cafe. Go through the arch and the door to the cafe is on your left Coordinates: 9C7RWRW9+M8 Group info: ~Monthly meetups, often in Pleasance Cafe but have experimented with other locations. Email me to join the mailing list & WhatsApp group. LANCASTER, UK Contact: Gruffydd Gozali, gruffyddgozali[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, October 15, 3:00 PM Location: Lancaster University Library, will be on the ground floor by the tree wearing an EA shirt. Coordinates: 9C6V2657+WJR Event link(s): LessWrong LINCOLN, UK Contact: Tobias, tobias[dot]showan[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk Time: Saturday, September 10, 2:00 PM Location: Nosey Parker pub, I'll bring a little paper ACX sign. Coordinates: 9C5X6C9R+XJ Event link(s): LessWrong LONDON, UK Contact: Edward Saperia, edsaperia[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 25, 2:00 PM Location: Newspeak House Coordinates: 9C3XGWGH+3F7 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event, Meetup.com, Eventbrite Group info: You can join our mailing list or our Meetup.com group MANCHESTER, UK Contact: Matthew Gibson, melkartmtg[at]hotmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, September 18, 11:00 AM Location: Sackville Gardens, Alan Turing Memorial Coordinates: 9C5VFQG7+MH Event link(s): LessWrong NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, UK Contact: Joshua William, iamjoshwilliam[at]icloud[dot]com, Telegram Time: Saturday, September 3, 12:30 PM Location: Trinity Square, High Street Gosforth. You can get the bus to Gosforth from the city center just outside the famous 'Tyneside Cinema' (bus number: 30, 31, or 35 at Monument Pilgrim Street bus stop), or you can take a walk if you want to get your 'steps' in (if you'd like to do the latter, send me an email and I'll send you the directions), which takes ~60-min. Coordinates: 9C7W294H+5V Event link(s): LessWrong Group info: To my knowledge, there isn't an ACX meet up in this city, or region of the UK, though if there is a demand for a reoccurrence, I'd be happy to keep facilitating such. I'd also happily formulate a WhatsApp group if theres interest, after the meet up. Notes: We have a deli, '1901 cafe', on the square, which we can grab an immediate bite to eat at [so save some hunger if you'd like to do that]. There's a safe [and lovely] park with some benches just by the way, which, if the weather is nice, we can sit at after a bite to eat, or, otherwise, we can remain in the cafe. OXFORD, UK Contact: Sam, ssc[at]sambrown[dot]eu, There's a Signal group people can join :) contact Sam for info Time: Wednesday, October 19, 6:30 PM Location: The Star, Rectory Road, Oxford. We'll be in the beer garden round the back, with a sign ?? Coordinates: 9C3WPQX6+QP9 Event link(s): LessWrong, Facebook event, Meetup.com Group info: We run socials every months, and applied rationality workshops from time to time! Notes: Please RSVP on any of the platforms (or email) for free pizza PENRYN, CORNWALL, UK Contact: mini t, tminns[at]btinternet[dot]com Time: Saturday, August 27, 3:00 PM Location: glasney playing field and valley Coordinates: 9C2P5V8V+P9 Event link(s): LessWrong Notes: I don't mind rescheduling, or organizing another event, not many people are likely to turn up this far out of the way.

Book Review: From Oversight To Overkill

April 12, 2023 · Original source

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Beecher’s activism, Shannon’s CRCs, and the mounting level of Tuskegee-style scandals came together in a demand for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to create some official ethics report. Most ethicists demurred to dirty their hands with something as worldly as medicine; after some searching, they finally tapped Hans Jonas, a philosopher of Gnosticism. In retrospect, of course bioethics derives from a religion that believes the material world is evil and death is the only escape. I’m barely even joking here:

In his most compelling passage, Jonas attacked the belief that we must pursue cures for the diseases that ravage us, that we cannot afford to forego continued medical advances. To the contrary, he wrote, we must accept what we cannot avoid, and that includes disease, suffering, and death. What society genuinely cannot afford is “a single miscarriage of justice, a single inequity in the dispensation of its laws, the violation of the rights of even the tiniest minority, because these undermine the moral basis on which society's existence rests.” He concluded that “progress is an optional goal.”

What miscarriages of justice was Jonas worried about? He was uncertain that people could ever truly consent to studies; there was too much they didn’t understand, and you could never prove the consent wasn’t forced. Even studies with no possible risk were dangerous because they “risked” treating the patient as an object rather than a subject. As for double-blind placebo-controlled trials, they were based on deceiving patients, and he was unsure if anyone could ethically consent to one.

Highlights From The Comments On IRBs

April 17, 2023 · Original source

Finally, most of the surveys in question are just a series of basic psychology scales or tasks both the worker and average SSC reader are very familiar with. I suspect many of them are administered by students as practice rather than 'serious' research. As the other poster said, rejected HITs are just any task the requestor declines for any reason. A worker's acceptance rate is extremely important - one of the few pieces of advice Amazon seems to give requestors is to filter for 98% or 99% acceptance rate. It's probably pretty reasonable for surveys - if you can't get 99 out of 100 of those filled out acceptably (assuming good faith by the requestors), maybe you should be filtered. It's also worth noting that Amazon makes communication difficult, and that rejected HITs can only be reversed for like a month - after that, they're permanently on your record. It's also probably worth restating: if a worker goes below the high 90s, they'll have access to fewer tasks, likely from less reputable requestors, and they'll need to do 100 of these to offset every rejection. And the worker is at much greater risk of being dug deeper into that hole by requestors rejecting their work in bad faith with no recourse - part of why surveys are popular is because the IRB can bludgeon requestors into accountability. Most of the surveys in question are also are the crumbs that filter through the grasping pedipalps of the hordes of workers (and their scripts). If people are seriously using MTurk to monetize their time, they're likely looking for 'batch HITs' - the sort of thing where there's hundreds or thousands of tasks that can be quickly repeated (moderating images, 3 cents for a sentiment analysis, a couple quarters to outline a car in an image, etc.) Of course, this mana from heaven rarely lasts long, and the worker always takes a risk - 'if I do 100 of these, and this is an unscrupulous requestor, well - I better have ten thousand accepted HITs under my belt.' That's why workers are so protective of their acceptance rate. Back to surveys - again as the other poster replied, most of what the average MTurk worker will see is probably a psychology study questionnaire with a series of whatever common scales, attention checks, and other tricks the worker has probably seen at least dozens if not hundreds of times by now. They often pay Amazon's princely sum of about 10 cents per (expected) minute - based on the minimum wage in whatever benighted 00s year Amazon Mechanical Turk launched. Anecdotally, it also seems like a lot of these are from students - probably just practice research by someone who likely has less experience with the platform than the worker themselves. The problem the requestor has - at least as of ~2018 - is that there is a lot of fraud with foreign workers getting access to MTurk accounts and submitting totally garbo data, often very quickly. Based purely on a 'time to complete' metric, this is hard to distinguish from a legit worker who has filled out hundreds of these and is looking to maximize how many pennies they get for their minutes. It also wasn't uncommon for workers to 'cook' such a survey - letting it sit at the end screen before submitting - just to avoid getting pinged for finishing it quickly. As for how this all ties back into Institutional Review Boards - well, yeah, griping to the IRB is often the MTurk worker's only recourse. Amazon just doesn't care, and as I recall a lot of requestors don't even know workers can contact them - and as mentioned there's a narrow time window to discuss rejected HITs before they become permanent. On the other hand, in a lot of cases this is basically a reddit mob complaining that a student doling out dimes screwed up their understanding of MTurk's arcane inner workings, and that's in the case that the workers aren't actually trying to defraud them for said dimes. 5. Comments About Regulation, Liability, and Vetocracy CatCube writes: I think the fundamental problem is that you cannot separate the ability to make a decision from the ability to make a *wrong* decision. However, our society--pushed by the regulator/lawyer/journalist/administrator axis you discuss--tries to use detailed written rules to prevent wrong decisions from being made. But, because of the decision/wrong decision inseparability thing, the consequences are that nobody has the ability to make a decision. This is ultimately a political question. It's not wrong, precisely, or right either. It's a question of value tradeoffs. Any constraint you put on a course of action is necessarily something that you value more than the action, but this isn't something people like to admit or hear voiced aloud. If you say, "We want to make sure that no infrastructure project will drive a species to extinction", then you are saying that's more important than building infrastructure. Which can be a defensible decision! But if you keep adding stuff--we need to make sure we're not burdening certain races, we need to make sure we're getting input from each neighborhood nearby, etc.--you can eventually end up overconstraining the problem, where there turns out to be no viable path forward for a project. This is often a consequence of the detailed rules to prevent wrong decisions. But because we can't admit that we're valuing things more than building stuff (or doing medical research, I guess?), we as a society just end up sitting and stewing about how we seemingly can't do anything anymore. We need to either: 1) admit we're fine with crumbling infrastructure, so long as we don't have any environmental, social, etc., impacts; or 2) decide which of those are less important and streamline the rules, admitting that sometimes the people who are thus able to make a decision are going to screw it up and do stuff we ultimately won't like. Darwin on why safetyism expanded just as the neoliberals were trying to decrease government regulation: Without the excuse of 'we were following all of the very strict and explicit regulations, so the bad thing that happened was a freak accident and not our fault' to rely on, companies had to take safety and caution and liability limitation and PR management into their own hands in a much more serious way. And without the confidence in very strict and explicit regulations to limit the bad things companies might do, and without democratically-elected regulators as a means to bring complaint and affect change, we became much more focused on seeking remedy for corporate malfeasance by suing companies into oblivion and destroying them in the court of public opinion. Basically, government actually *can* do useful things, as it turns out. One of the useful things it can do is be a third party to a dispute between two people or entities, such as 'corporations' and 'citizens', and use it's power to legibly and credibly ensure cooperation by explicitly specifying what will be considered defection and then punishing it harshly. This actually allows the two parties, which might otherwise be in conflict, to trust each other much more and cooperate much better, because their incentives have been shifted by a third party to make defection more costly. Without government playing that role, you can fall back into bad equilibrium of distrust and warring, which in this case might look like a wary populace ready to sue and decry at the slightest excuse, and paranoid corporations going overboard on caution and PR to shield from that. Meadow Freckle writes: Why can’t you sue an IRB for killing people for blocking research? You can clearly at least sometimes activist them into changing course. But their behavior seems sue-worthy in these examples, and completely irresponsible. We have negligence laws in other areas. Is there an airtight legal case that they’re beyond suing, or is it just that nobody’s tried? I don’t know, and this seems like an important question. And Donald writes: Why do we need special rules for medicine? The law has rules about what dangerous activities people are allowed to consent to, for example in the context of dangerous sports or dangerous jobs. Criminal and civil trials in this context seem to be a fairly functional system. If Doctors do bad things, they can stand in the accused box in court and get charged with assault or murder, with the same standards applied as are applied to everyone else. If there need to be exceptions, they should be exceptions of the form "doctors have special permission to do X". I do want to slightly defend something IRB-like here. When a doctor asks you to be part of a study, they’re implicitly promising that they did their homework, this is a valuable thing to study, and that there’s no obvious reason it should be extremely unsafe. As a patient (who may be uneducated) you have no way of knowing whether or not this promise is true. Every so often, someone does everything right, and something goes wrong anyway. A drug that everyone reasonably thought would be safe and effective turns out to have unpredictable side effects - this is part of why we have to do studies in the first place. If every time this happened, a doctor had to stand trial for assault/murder, nobody would ever study new drugs. Trials are a crapshoot, and juries tend to rule against doctors on the grounds that the disabled/dead patient is very sympathetic and everyone knows doctors/hospitals are rich and can give them infinite money as damages. There is no way for an average uneducated jury to distinguish between “doctor did their homework and got unlucky” and “doctor did an idiotic thing”. Either way, the prosecution can find “expert witnesses” to testify, for money, that you were an idiot and should have known the study would fail. In order to remove this risk, you need some standards for when a study is safe, so that if people sue you, you can say “I was following the standards and everyone else agreed with me that this was good” and then the lawsuit will fail. Right now those standards are “complied with an IRB”. This book is arguing that the IRB’s standards are too high, but we can’t cut the IRB out entirely without some kind of profound reform of the very concept of lawsuits, and I don’t know what that reform would look like. 6. Comments About The Act/Omission Distinction jumpingjacksplash writes: I think you've unintentionally elided two distinct points: first, that IRBs are wildly inefficient and often pointless within the prevailing legal-moral normative system (PLMNS); second, that IRBs are at odds with utilitarianism. Law in Anglo-Saxon countries, and most people's opinions, draw a huge distinction between harming someone and not helping them. If I cut you with a knife causing a small amount of blood loss and maybe a small scar, that's a serious crime because I have an obligation not to harm you. If I see a car hurtling towards you that you've got time to escape from if you notice it, but don't shout to warn you (even if I do this because I don't like you), then that's completely fine because I have no obligation to help you. This is the answer you'd get from both Christianity and Liberalism (in the old-fashioned/European sense of the term, cf. American Right-Libertarianism). Notably, in most Anglo-Saxon legal systems, you can't consent to be caused physical injury. Under PLMNS, researchers should always ask people if they consent to using their personal data in studies which are purely comparing data and don't change how someone will be treated. For anything that affects what medical treatment someone will or won't receive, you'd at least have to give them a full account of how their treatment would be different and what the risks of that are. If there's a real risk of killing someone, or permanently disabling them, you probably shouldn't be allowed to do the study even if all the participants give their informed consent. This isn't quite Hans Jonas' position, but it cashes out pretty similarly. That isn't to say the current IRB system works fine for PLMNS purposes; obviously there's a focus on matters that are simply irrelevant to anything anyone could be rationally concerned with. But if, for example, they were putting people on a different ventilator setting than they otherwise would, and that risked killing the patient, then that probably shouldn't be allowed; the fact that it might lead to the future survival of other, unconnected people isn't a relevant consideration, and nor is "the same number of people end up on each ventilator setting, who cares which ones it is" because under PLMNS individuals aren't fungible. Under utilitarianism, you'd probably still want some sort of oversight to eliminate pointless yet harmful experiments or reduce unnecessary harm, but it's not clear why subjects' consent would ever be a relevant concern; you might not want to tell them about the worst risks of a study, as this would upset them. The threshold would be really low, because any advance in medical science could potentially last for centuries and save vastly more people than the study would ever involve. The problem is, as is always the case for utilitarianism, this binds you to some pretty nasty stuff; I can't work out whether the Tuskegee experiment's findings have saved any lives, but Mengele's research has definitely saved more people than he killed, and I'd be surprised if that didn't apply to Unit 731 as well. The utilitarian IRB would presumably sign off on those. More interestingly, it might have to object to a study where everyone gives informed consent but the risk of serious harm to subjects is pretty high, and insist that it be done on people whose quality of life will be less affected if it goes wrong (or whose lower expected utility in the longer term makes their deaths less bad) such as prisoners or the disabled. The starting point to any ideal system has to be setting out what it's trying to achieve. Granted, if you wanted reform in the utilitarian direction, you probably wouldn't advocate a fully utilitarian system due to the tendency of the general public to recoil in horror. I want to stress how far we are away from “do experiments without patient’s consent” here - a much more common problem is that patients really want to be in experiments, and the system won’t allow it. This is most classic in studies on cancer, where patients really want access to experimental drugs and IRBs are constantly coming up with reasons not to give it to them. Jonas argued that all cancer studies should be banned because it’s impossible to consent when you’re desperate to survive, which isn’t the direction I would have taken that particular example in. But there are other examples - during COVID, lots of effective altruists stepped up to be in human challenge trials that would have gotten the vaccines tested faster, but the government wouldn’t allow them to participate. I would honestly be happy with a system that counts the harm of denying a patient’s ability to consent to an experiment they really want to be in as a negative, forget about any lives saved. And JDK writes: I haven't finished reading by felt compelled to comment on this: "the stricter IRB system in place since the '90s probably only prevents a single-digit number of deaths per decade, but causes tens of thousands more by preventing lifesaving studies." No. It does NOT "cause" deaths. We can't go down this weird path of imprecision about what "causing" means. I've been examining Ivan Illich, "Medical Nemesis" recently. By claiming IRBs which stop research ostensibly CAUSE death strikes me as cultural iatrogenesis masquerading as a cure for clinical iatrogenesis. […] "Might have been saved if" is not the same as "death was caused by". This seems to me to be a weird and overly metaphysical nitpick. Suppose a surgeon is operating on someone. In the process, they must clamp a blood vessel - this is completely safe for one minute, but if they leave it clamped more than one minute, the patient dies. They clamp it as usual, but I rush into the operating room and forceably restrain the surgeon and all the staff. The surgeon is unable to remove the clamp and the patient dies. I (and probably the legal system) would like to be able to say I caused the patient’s death in this scenario. But it sounds like JDK is saying I have to say the surgeon caused the patient's death and I was only tangentially involved. Here’s another example; suppose the US government bans all food production - farmers, hunters, fishermen, etc are forbidden from doing their jobs. After a few months, everyone starves to death. I might want to say something like “the US government’s ban on food production killed people”. But by JDK’s reasoning, this is wrong - the government merely prevented farmers and fishermen from saving people (by giving them food so they didn’t starve). I might want to say something like “Mao’s collective farming policy killed lots of people”. But since this is just a weaker version of hypothetical-Biden’s ban on food, by JDK’s reasoning I can’t do this. This seems contrary to common usage, common sense, and communicating information clearly. I have never heard any philosopher or dictionary suggest this, so what exactly is the argument? (JDK has a response here, but I didn’t find it especially enlightening) 7. Comments About The Applications For AI Metaphysiocrat writes: People have joked about applying NEPA review to AI capabilities research, but I wonder if some kind of IRB model might have legs (as part of a larger package of capabilities-slowing policy.) It’s embedded in research bureaucracies, we sort of know how to subject institutions to it, and so on. I can think of seven obvious reasons this wouldn’t work, but at this point I’m getting doomery enough that I feel like we may just have to throw every snowball we have at the train on the off chance one has stopping power. Zach Stein-Perlman writes: A colleague of mine is interested in 'IRBs for AI'-- he hasn't investigated it but has thought about IRB-y stuff in the context of takeaways for AI (https://wiki.aiimpacts.org/doku.php?id=responses_to_ai:technological_inevitability:incentivized_technologies_not_pursued:vaccine_challenge_trials). He's interested in people's takes on the topic. My take: my understanding is that the US can’t technically demand all doctors use IRBs. (Almost) al doctors use IRBs for a combination of a few reasons : The US government demands that everyone who receives federal funding use an IRB, and most doctors get some federal funding.

Inline links: writes, Darwin, writes, writes, writes, writes, has a response here, writes, writes, https://wiki.aiimpacts.org/doku.php?id=responses_to_ai:technological_inevitability:incentivized_technologies_not_pursued:vaccine_challenge_trials

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Astral Codex Ten

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