Astral Codex Ten

Kyiv

15 min read

Kyiv

Article

Kyiv is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 10 times across 10 issues between February 14, 2022 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “only about a 30% chance they take Kyiv”; “Will Kyiv fall to Russian forces”; “The six cities are Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Kherson”. It most often appears alongside Ukraine, Russia, China.

Metadata

  • Category: Places
  • Mention count: 10
  • Issue count: 10
  • First seen: February 14, 2022
  • Last seen: April 01, 2026

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.

Mantic Monday: Ukraine Cube Manifold
February 14, 2022 · Original source
So it looks like forecasters expect that, conditional upon Russia invading at all, there’s an 80% chance they’ll take Mariupol in the east, a 66% chance they’ll take Kharkiv (also eastern, but only a third ethnic Russian and currently aligned with the central government), and only about a 30% chance they take Kyiv or Odessa. See also this thread full of speculation in the subreddit. As for me, I’m going all in on “yes” after seeing this tweet: Alexander Cube Last week I speculated that to truly realize the potential of prediction markets, we’d need one that was real money, easy to use, and easy to create markets on. Gustavo Lacerda and Nuno Sempere very kindly drew this picture and named it after me: Nobody has reached the promised land at the furthest point. But all three connected vertices are occupied. Augur is real-money and lets people create their own markets, (but it’s impossible to use - it’s made of complicated crypto contracts that nobody’s made a workable front end for yet). Polymarket is real money and easy to use (but doesn’t let people create their own markets; apparently they’re nervous about resolution disputes). Manifold is easy to use and lets people create their own market, but it’s not real money (they’re American and centralized, so they have to follow anti-gambling regulations). Manifold Markets Speaking of which, they’re open! As the cube suggests, Manifold is a site where anyone can create their own (play money) prediction market. They set the question and they decide when and how it resolves (with everyone else just out of luck if they decide to fake it or rug-pull). It’s a bold strategy, but boy oh boy are people liking it so far: Not actually in order This is a semi-randomly selected sample of Manifold markets, but let’s go through them one by one. The Ukraine market is the biggest on Manifold. It’s also deeply out of step with every other prediction market and the top non-prediction-market authorities - who are all giving numbers in the 50s and 60s. I don’t understand how this is so low - yes, play money < real money, but mostly because play money doesn’t get enough people betting. Here lots of people are betting - it’s the biggest market on the site, and since you only start with $1000 either twenty people have bet everything or more people have bet a fraction - but it’s still wrong. I tried to spend some play money to correct it and it snapped back to just as wrong as it was before. I have no explanation. Midnight The Stray Cat is the second biggest market on Manifold, just after Ukraine. I guess the Internet really liking cats shouldn’t be a surprise at this point. In case you need to do research first I’m told this is the cat in question: Props to Manifold for a bunch of markets like the third one on there, where they eat their own dog food by using their market to predict how their business decisions are going to go. ACX Bot has copy-pasted all of my predictions from 2022. At some point they should be able to compare their results with Zvi (ie a single very smart person), with the contest many of you entered (ie an average of formless crowdsourced predictions), and Metaculus (ie a non-monetary forecasting tournament). I’m looking forward to it! Most of you already know Lars Doucet, who’s written some great ACX posts on Georgism. I don’t know what possessed him to make a Joe Rogan Georgism interviewee market, unless he’s gunning for the position. Valinor is a group house on my street, with ~a dozen people living in and around it. We’ve been talking about fixing the backyard for a while. Now we can bet about whether it will happen. Having a number for this actually affects some of my decisions a little. Connor is hijacking the prediction market to make a poll, which is pretty cute. Dwayne Johnson does not have a 15% chance of winning the election. Manifold is suffering from the usual play money problem, where if you only start out with $1000 in play money, nobody wants to lock it up for three years to make a 15% profit. Vivek’s market, “Will I believe that 13177 is a prime number”, is pretty unusual. I’m interpreting it as a test/demonstration of prediction markets’ information-gathering ability. If you don’t know something and it’s hard to Google, you can make a prediction market about whether you’ll believe it in the future, and people who are able to figure out the answer will bet on it. Based on the 97% YES rate, I’m guessing 13177 is in fact a prime number. What else can you do this with? TANSTAAFL’s “Will I Be Convinced That Justin Trudeau Is Not Fidel Castro’s Son?” market is maybe pushing the limit of this methodology. Anyway, there are lots of me-too prediction markets but this is something genuinely new under the sun. Maybe it will be awesome itself, but I’m also hoping it helps bigger players realize how much more is possible. This Week In Metaculus A few new questions on intelligence enhancement, eg: The question explicitly allows embryo selection, but says it must raise IQ ten points and be available for <25% median income to count. Trivial improvements to existing embryo selection will top out around 9 points, so this seems to be predicting something more interesting, maybe iterated embryo selection at the very least. I’m probably slightly bearish on this one; I believe if it existed someone would find a way to get it, but I think the regulatory climate might be able to prevent the relevant research indefinitely. Improving adult IQ is really hard. This is a bold thing to speculate about! Atmospheric CO2 was 300ish for most of pre-industrial history, 400ish now, and rising. This question predicts 600 in 2100, which sounds like what happens if global warming gets a bit worse but eventually stabilizes. I’m less sure. I think if we make it to 2100, we’ll have so much technology that atmospheric CO2 can be whatever we want it to be. But maybe we’ll want it to stay where it is; once there’s been a lot of global warming and people have moved / shifted lifestyles, it could be equally disruptive to cool the planet back down. Right now it’s 5%, the official government prediction is 10% by 2030, but this market says 17.6%. But look at that probability distribution! It’s a lot of people saying 10%ish, plus a very long tail of very big numbers. I think people are disagreeing about how exponential this change is going to be. Shorts Metaculus is holding an essay contest for people who want to use their AI-related prediction markets to argue the future of AI. $6500 available in prizes.
Inline links: this thread full of speculation in the subreddit, Gustavo Lacerda, Nuno Sempere, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ukFP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F851b95c2-a103-43fc-8e6f-339468fa1469_485x320.png, Augur, Polymarket, Manifold, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!j26W!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcba2cb25-7980-446d-8050-499c35c4e56f_919x1017.png, predictions from 2022, ACX posts on Georgism, Will I Be Convinced That Justin Trudeau Is Not Fidel Castro’s Son?, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!V2bV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fca419ec2-7b91-44cd-80b0-2aad1baa4c2f_766x166.png, The question, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Ah6n!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1ff4f28d-1901-45f2-85bc-8f1c2120ecd1_770x187.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zSK8!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F80e3383c-6f68-412a-ac90-ca63236bdb10_769x167.png, This, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!frCz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F976d1b66-daee-43d1-948a-500e77ac5a2f_764x164.png, this market, holding an essay contest
Ukraine Warcasting
March 01, 2022 · Original source
This is the guy who wrote Coup D’Etat, a handbook for attempting coups. He is a famous international relations and geopolitics theorist, has served in the IDF, speaks six languages, and has written a book on the military strategy of the late Roman Empire. I read his coup handbook a while ago and was very impressed by him. Luttwak correctly predicted that Russia would have a hard time invading Ukraine with its current troop numbers, but incorrectly predicted that, because “Putin is not a fool”, they wouldn’t try. When everyone else expected Russia to win instantly, Luttwak was the only person I saw arguing (again and again) that conquering Ukraine would actually be very hard and Putin might fail. He deserves honor and glory for that strong, public, and accurate prediction.
When I say he is careful not to say anything specific that might be proven false, this isn’t exactly a compliment. I think it’s better optics, but worse rationality, compared to people like Karlin and Hanania who make extremely clear predictions with numbers attached, sometimes get them totally wrong, and then admit it and write thoughtful essays on how they screwed up. Like Tyler Cowen, Samo is going for the “shadowy Machiavellian genius” role, which gives him a strong incentive to avoid humiliation. But part of our civilizational immune system against shadowy Machiavellian genius figures is demanding that they do this even when they would prefer not to! I like Samo enough (and have enough probability on him actually being a shadowy Machiavellian genius) that I want him to up his game! Lindyman: D- The only reason this isn’t an F is that I assume LindyMan plagiarized it from someone else, and I don’t want to blame him for their mistake.
— Will Kyiv fall to Russian forces by April 1 2022? 69% chance
22
March 21, 2022 · Original source
Will Kiev fall to Russian forces by April 2022?: 14% —→ 2%
Inline links: Will Kiev fall to Russian forces by April 2022
On the other hand, the third market (will Russian troops enter Kiev?, currently at 52%) is almost a direct copy of this Metaculus question , which is currently at 92%. Why? The only difference I can find is that Insight requires two media sources to resolve positively and Metaculus only one - surely people don’t think there’s a 40% chance troops will enter Kyiv but only one source will report it?
Inline links: this Metaculus question
Who Gets Self-Determination?
March 30, 2022 · Original source
The notion that Ukraine is not a country in its own right, but a historical part of Russia, appears to be deeply ingrained in the minds of many in the Russian leadership. Already long before the Ukraine crisis, at an April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Vladimir Putin reportedly claimed that “Ukraine is not even a state! What is Ukraine? A part of its territory is [in] Eastern Europe, but a[nother] part, a considerable one, was a gift from us!” In his March 18, 2014 speech marking the annexation of Crimea, Putin declared that Russians and Ukrainians “are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus’ is our common source and we cannot live without each other.” Since then, Putin has repeated similar claims on many occasions. As recently as February 2020, he once again stated in an interview that Ukrainians and Russians “are one and the same people”, and he insinuated that Ukrainian national identity had emerged as a product of foreign interference. Similarly, Russia’s then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a perplexed apparatchik in April 2016 that there has been “no state” in Ukraine, neither before nor after the 2014 crisis.
Inline links: Ukraine is not even a state!, Putin declared, stated, Medvedev told
What exactly makes the Ukraine a nation? To just about everyone outside of Ukraine itself, no one can figure out what distinguishes Ukrainians from Russians. I’m not a Slavic language speaker, but I frequently hear about Ukrainian simply being a dialect of Russian or at least mutually intelligible. It should also be pointed out that English-language transliterations of Ukrainian words consistently look much worse than their Russian equivalents, and this is now ruining maps all over the world. Just from the standpoint of not wanting to ever see the cringe term “Kyiv” again one should avoid supporting the Ukrainians.
Your Book Review: The Internationalists
July 01, 2022 · Original source
Since it began I have, as I think we all have, been trying to make sense of the war in Ukraine. What story does it best fit, and how will its future unfold? Is it the beginning of World War III, as once again a dictator with a powerful army attempts to sweep across Europe, to build or rebuild the Russian Imperium? Is it closer to a religious crusade that will end in Kyiv or not at all? Is it the last gasp of a demographically dying nation? Will it be the model for future wars, that countries that feel threatened can conquer their neighbors?
Inline links: a religious crusade that will end in Kyiv, the last gasp of a demographically dying nation
Your Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning
June 10, 2023 · Original source
This winter a friend of mine, an American living in Europe, went to Ukraine with a humanitarian mission. (Here’s a twist for you, dear reader.) He visited Lviv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Irpin, Kherson. He was shelled a few times; he now can recommend a hotel in Kyiv with “the best bomb shelter in town”. His reasons for going there in the first place were dark. The results, however, were miraculous and heart-warming, and align very well with everything said above. His story could have been a nice coda to this review. However, his story is also much bigger than this review, and it is also his, so I will not elaborate more than I already have. He will tell it in his own time and in his own way. And for now, if there are any darling buds of trust sprouting between us, dear reader, you’ll just have to trust me on this. Because for an actual coda I chose something much more grim.
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024
March 30, 2024 · Original source
KYIV Contact: Artem Batogovsky (or Forux) Contact Info: https://t[dot]me/forux Time: Friday, April 5th, 7:00 PM Location: Ziferblat Cafe (Циферблат кафе) Group Link: https://t.me/lwkyiv Notes: The meetup has been moved to online due to the situation in Ukraine. Use the group link.
Inline links: https://t.me/lwkyiv
Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places
August 29, 2025 · Original source
Contact: Ozge Contact Info: ozgeco[a t]yahoo[period]com Time: Saturday, October 4th, 3:00 PM Location: Kadıkoy Yeni Iskele Kahve Dunyası ( the ferry pier building that we take ferries from Kadıkoy to Eminonu or Karakoy. Second floor, upstairs bookstore and cafe) Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8GGFX2VF+45 Notes: ACX readers, old friends, new friends welcome for an easy afternoon coffee. Please contact me at ozgeco@yahoo.com for any help request. Looking forward to seeing you soon. Ukraine KYIV Contact: Anton Contact Info: antonx451[a t]gmail[period]com | antonx451 on Telegram Time: Saturday, September 20th, 05:00 PM Location: Franyk Podil Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9G2GFG78+W6
Inline links: https://plus.codes/8GGFX2VF+45, https://plus.codes/9G2GFG78+W6
Open Thread 399
September 15, 2025 · Original source
1: Meetups this week include Ann Arbor, Bangkok, Brussels, Cape Town, Charlotte, Frankfurt, Kyiv, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Portland, Philadelphia, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Sydney, Waterloo, and others; see the meetup post for more information. And Prague and St. Louis have been added to the list for October.
Inline links: the meetup post
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places
April 01, 2026 · Original source
Contact: Ozge Contact Info: ozgeco[@]yahoo[.]com Time: Saturday, April 11th, 3:00 PM Location: Kaffe Schütz in Beşiktaş. This is a large cafe with few floors upstairs. I will be either on the entrance floor or upstairs, depending on the availability of seats. Please look for the ACX MEETUP sign on the table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8GHF22V4+9F Notes: Old friends, new friends: everyone welcomed to meet likeminded people residing in and visiting Istanbul Ukraine KYIV 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/8GHF22V4+9F, https://plus.codes/9G2GFG87+7P
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