London

Article

London is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 53 times across 53 issues between June 10, 2021 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “he had exactly nineteen and sixpence in hand… how to get a cheap bed in London”; “Orwell’s life as a London drifter”; “Orwell and other London tramps”. It most often appears alongside Paris, France, Japan.

Metadata

Category: Places
Mention count: 53
Issue count: 53
First seen: June 10, 2021
Last seen: April 01, 2026

Appears In

- Paris (17 shared issues)
- France (16 shared issues)
- Japan (16 shared issues)
- New York (16 shared issues)
- Scott (16 shared issues)
- Europe (15 shared issues)
- Oxford (15 shared issues)
- San Francisco (15 shared issues)
- China (14 shared issues)
- Germany (14 shared issues)
- India (14 shared issues)
- Astralcodexten Com (13 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.

Your Book Review: Down And Out In Paris And London

June 10, 2021 · Original source

George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London is at least three things; a highly entertaining, almost picaresque tale of rough-and-tumble living in Europe, a serious attempt to catalogue the numerous humiliations and injustices impoverished people were exposed to in Orwell’s time, and a stark comparison between life as a tramp who makes use of robust, if hellish and kafkaesque welfare resources, and as one who tries to get by working terrible jobs and living in disgusting places.

And with that, on to London!

I was outside in the street before it even occurred to me to borrow some more money. There was a month to wait, and I had exactly nineteen and sixpence in hand. The news had taken my breath away. For a long time I could not make up my mind what to do. I loafed the day in the streets, and at night, not having the slightest notion of how to get a cheap bed in London, I went to a 'family' hotel, where the charge was seven and sixpence. After paying the bill I had ten and twopence in hand.

Meetups Everywhere 2021: Times And Places

August 23, 2021 · Original source

Berkeley: Saturday 8/28, 1 PM Boston: Sunday 9/5, 5 PM New York: Monday 9/6, 5 PM Washington DC: Saturday 9/11, 5 PM Lisbon: Saturday 9/18, 5 PM Madrid: Saturday 9/25, 11 AM Zurich: Sunday 9/26, 5 PM Vienna: Saturday 10/2, 1 PM Prague: Sunday 10/3, 5 PM Berlin: Saturday 10/9, 1 PM Paris: Sunday 10/10, 5 PM London: Saturday 10/16, 1 PM Oxford: Sunday 10/17, 5 PM Cambridge: Saturday 10/23, 1 PM Edinburgh: Sunday 10/24, 5 PM

LONDON, UK (RSVP) Contact: Edward Saperia, edsaperia[at]gmail[dot]com Time: 1:00 PM, Saturday, October 16 Location: Barbican Lakeside Terrace Coordinates: https://w3w.co/drums.decide.secret

Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/drums.decide.secret

OAKLAND, CA (RSVP) Contact: Max, paxperplexus[at]gmail[dot]com Time: 7:00 PM, Thursday, September 9 Location: Marina Lawn, Jack London Square, we’ll be on the grass (you can bring blankets or chairs if you want) at the northwest corner. I’ll be wearing a blue and white stovepipe hat. For food there is pizza, Thai, burgers and salads very nearby. Coordinates: https://w3w.co/softly.finishing.risks Notes: I hope someone uses this chance to start a public weekend meetup in the East Bay — but if not I hope my weeknight meetup can suffice.

Inline links: RSVP, https://w3w.co/softly.finishing.risks

Open Thread 190

September 18, 2021 · Original source

Madrid - Saturday 9/25 11:00 Zurich - Sunday 9/26 17:00 Vienna - Saturday 10/2 13:00 Prague - Sunday 10/3 17:00 Berlin - Saturday 10/9 13:00 Paris - Sunday 10/10 17:00 London - Saturday 10/16 13:00 Oxford - Sunday 10/17 17:00 Cambridge - Saturday 10/23 13:00 Edinburgh - Sunday 10/24 17:00

Highlights From The Comments On Kids And Climate Change

October 13, 2021 · Original source

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year [...]; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.

Oxford Meetups This Weekend

October 15, 2021 · Original source

1: London meetup this Saturday, October 16, 1 PM, at drums.decide.secret, aka the Barbican Lakeside Terrace.

Inline links: drums.decide.secret

Chilling Effects

October 20, 2021 · Original source

The papers I read disagreed pretty intensely about this. This study from London 1997-2012 concludes:

Inline links: This study from London 1997-2012

But this study from London 1951 - 2011 says:

Inline links: this study

I’m not really impressed with the people working in this field. Most people don’t clearly say that excess winter deaths are a combination of season-related (from the flu) and cold-related (from cardiovascular) deaths, even though something like this has to be true. I can’t find anyone who says that flu seems to be a bigger deal in Africa than in Europe, even though something like that has to be true too. I can’t find anyone expressing even a smidgeon of curiosity about the Greenland question, which is why I had to cite a Greenland-specific journal from 1986 for the answer. A lot of these studies and analyses just take the temperature record from London and generalize. So I don’t want to say I 100% trust these people and the naive view is definitely wrong.

ACX Grants ++: The Second Half

February 10, 2022 · Original source

#71: Oculus App For Language Learning We have a prototype Oculus Quest app called Dynamic Spanish, available here: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/4231524270226603/ The co-founders are a husband-wife team from the UK. Dave is a chartered chemical engineer by trade, and is the camera operator, post-production lead, and general techie. Katie studied languages at university, has worked as a language teacher for many years, and is responsible for managing syllabus creation with language-specific experts. The next few years will be spent filming the classroom scenes for more languages (in London), before travelling to film native speakers in interactive scenarios around the world, and capturing the sights and sounds of the countries for students to virtually explore in narrated guided Trips. We are creating courses that can be completed over a few months, giving learners the confidence to speak their new language in real life, and connect more deeply with the cultures that speak it. We hope this project is appealing to a generous do-gooder, who is excited by the prospect of helping to build a positive vision of accessible education.

March 14, 2022 · Original source

We aggregated the forecasts of 8 excellent forecasters for the question What is the risk of death in the next month due to a nuclear explosion in London? Our aggregate answer is 24 micromorts (7 to 61) when excluding the most extreme on either side. A micromort is defined as a 1 in a million chance of death. Chiefly, we have a low baseline risk, and we think that escalation to targeting civilian populations is even more unlikely.

For San Francisco and most other major cities, we would forecast 1.5-2x lower probability (12-16 micromorts). We focused on London as it seems to be at high risk and is a hub for the effective altruism community, one target audience for this forecast.

Spring Meetups In Seventy Cities

April 10, 2022 · Original source

BRIGHTON, UK Contact: Alan Enright (alanenright@protonmail.com) Date: May 7 Time: 10:00 AM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C2XRVM6+3X Location: Alcampo Lounge, London Road, 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.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C2XRVM6+3X

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

April 18, 2022 · Original source

First, conditional on some kind of nuclear exchange, will London (their index city for where some specific person worrying about nuclear risk might be) get attacked? Samotsvety says only 18% chance. Scoblic raises this to 65%, saying:

Your Book Review: Making Nature

May 20, 2022 · Original source

First page of the first edition of Nature, 4 November 1869 II. One Hundred Years of Building a Reputation Despite its popularity, Nature didn’t become prestigious overnight. Far from it, in fact. Making Nature often reminds us that the journal spent most of its history as a low-grade publication where anything could be printed quickly, as long as it was factually correct. (This was ensured by basic checks from the editorial team; Nature articles were not consistently peer-reviewed until the 1970s.) As late as the 1960s, a researcher publishing a preliminary report in Nature was expected to follow up with a longer paper “in a more serious journal.” In other words, Nature delivered quick and cheap distribution, not luxury brand approval. This changed about fifty years ago, as we’ll see in Part III. But to understand what happened then, we first need to examine the characteristics of the journal in the roughly 100-year period from its early days until prestige took over, starting with a deeper look into publication speed. Publication Speed John Maddox, editor of Nature in the late 20th century, said that “one of Nature’s greatest early assets was the speed of the Royal Mail.” You could write to Nature, be published within a week, and read the replies to your communication within two weeks. This was state-of-the-art communication tech! Consider how many times publication speed is mentioned throughout the first half of the book (emphasis mine): What made Nature unique was, in large part, its ability to act as a venue for . . . discussions via its correspondence columns and its weekly publication schedule. (p. 8) Many British men of science found that one of the fastest ways to bring a scientific issue or idea to their fellow researchers’ attention was to send a communication to Nature. (p. 39) Unlike the literary periodicals, there was almost no delay between the submission of a piece and its appearance in the journal. (p. 63) A second reason Nature’s speed of publication would have been compelling to men of science is that getting one’s work into print quickly had become an increasingly essential part of establishing priority for a scientific finding or theory. (p. 65) Scientific weeklies [such as Nature] played a unique role in researchers’ publishing strategies at the end of the nineteenth century by offering researchers a forum where short articles could be printed quickly. (p. 105) Both the Proceedings [of the Royal Society of London] and the Philosophical Magazine had significant lag times between submission and publication . . ., which made Nature and its weekly turnaround uniquely valuable for the priority-conscious Rutherford. (p. 109) [Rutherford] sent his most interesting experimental results [to Nature] immediately, both as a way of keeping his colleagues updated on his work and as insurance against being scooped as he had in 1899. (p. 112) These quotes highlight two distinct reasons why speed was important. The first, as I hinted at earlier, was Nature’s role as the аcademic social media of its time. It was simply the best way to have discussions about scientific topics — or science itself — that could, unlike private correspondence, reach a large audience. More on this in the next section. The second reason, as shown by the mentions of physicist Ernest Rutherford, was establishing priority. Today we take for granted that being the first to publish new ideas or results is important, but in the 19th century this was less clear. To bring up Darwin as an example again, he kept his thoughts on evolution private for many years, because he wanted to make sure his argument was sound before he submitted it to the public (although he did eventually sense the urgency of publishing the theory before Alfred Russel Wallace did). But as science became professionalized, “not being scooped” became more and more crucial, and the weekly Nature was a good tool to avoid that. All this talk of speed may surprise anyone who has recently submitted a paper to Nature. In 2016, an analysis revealed that the median time for Nature to review a paper was 150 days, i.e. 5 months, up from 85 days a decade earlier. Nature itself reports, for the year 2020, a median time of 226 days between submission and acceptance. We’re a long way from “less than a week.” Why was there a decrease in publication speed? As we might expect, the reason was Nature’s growing popularity, especially among the international scientific community. At least, that’s what happened the first time there was a slowdown, in the mid-20th century. Early on, Nature was a journal for and by British scientists. But in the first half of the 20th century, science in general and Nature in particular began to involve much more collaboration between researchers across borders. It was a big deal, for instance, when a foreign government banned Nature, as Nazi Germany did in 1938; German researchers had been using it as an important source of scientific news. The ban was furthermore covered in non-British media, such as The New York Times, indicating that the journal was internationally newsworthy. Such an increase in international readership meant more letters and articles sent to the editors, and by the 1950s, there was such a backlog that submissions needed to be held for six months or more. In the 1960s, the new editor John Maddox recognized this as a problem. He began his editorship by clearing the backlog, and even printed the date of submission along with each scientific paper to show everyone how quick Nature was at reviewing articles (“often within a month,” Baldwin’s book says). Clearly, Maddox thought that restoring the speedy reputation of the journal was important. He seems to have succeeded, for a time. As late as 1989, during a controversy around cold fusion, a Wall Street Journal article said that Nature was still fast: it was able to print papers “in as little as three weeks instead of the more usual lead time of six to twelve months for other scientific publications.” Thus, despite a dip in the middle of the century due to its popularity and international reach, speedy publication was still an important characteristic of Nature in the 1970s. A second — and so far permanent — decrease occurred more recently, perhaps as a result of prestige and the competition of near-instantaneous online platforms, but that’s another story. Network Effects As of 2022, scientists argue in public on Twitter, blogs, and other online platforms, like ResearchHub. In the 19th century, Twitter and ResearchHub hadn’t been invented [citation needed]. Fortunately, Nature was there. A network effect occurs when the value of a product comes primarily from the people who use it. If there are two competing telephone systems, the most valuable one is whichever has the most users (or at least the users you want to talk to). If you create an improved Twitter clone, then all its amazing features won’t do much if you don’t somehow manage to capture Twitter’s network of several million people. Likewise, Nature became an interesting journal to read and contribute to because it gained the attention of Britain’s scientific elite as the place to discuss big science questions. This role as a forum was a constant in Nature’s history, as Making Nature shows with several detailed accounts of debates that took place within the journal’s pages. Some examples: Controversies over the age of the Earth in the 1880s.

Inline links: revealed, reports, ResearchHub

Thomas Huxley. Also known for establishing a network of other famous Huxleys, such as his grandson Aldous, the author of Brave New World. Victorian Britain’s most beloved scientist — yes, I’m talking about Darwin again — also enjoyed publishing in Nature. Darwin was an elderly and highly respected scientist by the time of the journal’s founding, and the abstracts and letters he frequently sent to Lockyer’s publication certainly gave it a status boost. And this was only the start of a long list of household names who got involved with Nature at one point or another. In physics, for instance, Lord Kelvin, Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and Lise Meitner were all important contributors. Some of the most famous papers in the field, such as James Chadwick’s 1932 report on the possible existence of the neutron, or Meitner and Otto Frisch’s 1939 letter proposing the idea of nuclear fission, were published in Nature. In biology, James Watson and Francis Crick’s 1953 work on the structure of DNA is probably the most historic paper to have appeared within its pages. Since Nature in the mid-20th century was popular but still not very prestigious, I’m comfortable assuming that these famous scientists and discoveries helped its reputation rather than the other way around. Today, the arrow of causation is mostly reversed: scientists become influential because they publish research in the most prestigious journal, rather than the journal becoming prestigious because it publishes big names and big papers. Of course, this is a self-reinforcing feedback loop that keeps benefiting Nature, thanks to network effects. Finally, a word about language. Nature, obviously, is published in English. But English wasn’t the dominant intellectual language back in the 19th century: French and German were more important. The rise of English as the lingua franca of science occurred during the 20th century, thanks to the political dominance of the British Empire and then the United States. As a result, Nature and its American equivalent Science gained a major advantage over their French (e.g. La Nature) and German (e.g. Naturwissenschaften) counterparts. Making Nature doesn’t belabor this self-evident point, but it’s worth mentioning that Nature benefitted from a global network effect that would have been far less attainable outside the Anglosphere. Survival and Conservatism Speed, elite networks, and English are great, but they won’t help if your publication fails to turn a profit and shuts down. As they say, the lesson of survivorship bias is that you should optimize for being a survivor. Thus the story of Nature is also the story of how it managed to stay alive, unlike most of its contemporaries. Nature was (and still is!) a venture of a London publisher called Macmillan and Company. It was very much intended to make money. But Victorian Britain was a crowded market for periodicals. It was common for publications to last just a few years after proving unable to attract enough subscribers. Lockyer himself had been briefly involved as the co-founder and science editor of a generalist magazine called The Reader, which existed only from 1863 to 1867 (and lost its science section in 1865). It would be tempting to contrast this with the popular success of Nature, but as we saw, most of Nature’s target audience couldn’t even understand the journal, and as a result both its subscriber base and revenue remained small. The survival of Nature therefore depended on the goodwill of its owner, Alexander Macmillan. And it took a lot of goodwill! Nature operated at a loss for an entire 30 years. Only at the very end of the 19th century did it manage to turn a profit. This surprising tolerance for financial loss seems to have stemmed from the other activities of Macmillan and Company: they sold scientific books, and Nature was a good way to reach that market. Still, without a wealthy publisher who was committed to back up Lockyer’s project for a long time, it would likely not have survived. Lockyer also displayed impressive commitment. He remained at the helm of the journal for a full half-century, from 1869 to 1919. Although none of his successors would hold the position that long, most would last at least twenty years, resulting in a strikingly short list of eight editors-in-chief over a 153-year history. Meanwhile, the journal was never sold: Macmillan and Company still exists and still owns Nature, even though corporate mergers have made the exact ownership structure difficult to figure out. (Springer Nature, a company created in 2015 by merging some divisions of Macmillan and other entities, is the immediate parent company of Nature.) The picture that emerges is that of a stable, conservative institution, with committed owners and editors, that has changed slowly even as it was a witness to the changes in science itself. This is nicely reflected in the stability of Nature’s mission and visual identity. The original mission statement was left unchanged from 1869 to 2000, including gendered references to “Scientific men” and “men eminent in Science.” The current version is shorter and gender-neutral, but overall similar, although I note that the ordering of the two main aims has been reversed: First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science. Second, to ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to the public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life. Similarly, the original masthead image, which dates from the very first issue, appeared at the top of the journal for 89 years, until 1958 (with slight variations). A central point of Making Nature is that Nature co-evolved with the British and international institutions of science. To do so, it had to strike a balance between conservatism and innovation. My impression is that Nature was more often on the conservative end of the spectrum, serving as a rock-solid stage where the rest of science could take place. Such an attitude was helpful from the beginning, but it probably became even more important after the 1970s, when everything changed. III. WTF Happened in the 1970s? A fun puzzle from the social sciences: what happened in the early seventies? As evidenced from a multitude of charts, various patterns in society seem to have veered off course around 1971, including growth in wages, inflation, housing costs, energy consumption, number of lawyers, divorce rates, fertility rates, and meat consumption. Whether it was a coincidence or part of the same mysterious phenomenon, we can add to this list the rise of prestige in the science publishing industry. To be clear, I’m the one who claims that this shift was a specific and momentous event. Melinda Baldwin acknowledges many times that Nature went from a low-grade magazine to a prestigious journal, but she remains vague as to what, exactly, was the turning point. In the chapter on the 1970s, she treats the increased selectivity and reputation as just one of many things that happened during this period. It was only in the course of writing this review — with a deliberate focus on prestige — that I realized something significant had occurred in that decade, and that this something affected more than just Nature. Let’s see what the book does tell us, and then I’ll offer a plausible explanation from elsewhere. Changes to Nature in the 1970s The 1970s mostly coincide with the leadership of Nature’s shortest-tenured editor, David Davies. Davies took over from John Maddox in 1973 and proceeded to make a number of changes. He made Nature a unitary publication again, after a short-lived experiment to split it into three journals. He reformed the style guide for contributors. He allowed for cartoons and some humor in his editorials. He also overhauled the journal’s physical appearance: from now on, Nature’s covers would feature interesting images as opposed to articles or advertisements. Today’s covers are still in that tradition. Here’s the Nature cover from 2016, as used on the Wikipedia page of the journal. Nature under Maddox and Davies followed the same trend of internationalization as in the previous decades, but the seventies saw what was perhaps the fastest growth outside the UK. Consider these approximate statistics on the origin of research articles from the years when there was a change in editorship: 1966 (when Maddox became editor): 40% British and 60% international

Inline links: a network of other famous Huxleys, report, letter, work, La Nature, Naturwissenschaften, The Reader, still exists, Springer Nature, original mission statement, current version, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wOmg!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1a1567d4-73fa-4fa9-9a65-f73b6dd233a1_800x320.png, a multitude of charts, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CaUh!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F783677da-78c8-4b94-b0c5-673658b060f8_454x599.jpeg, Wikipedia page of the journal

2022

June 02, 2022 · Original source

Lulie (F / 32 / Oxford + Waterloo) Kathy (NB / 28 / Massachusetts) Nathan (M / 28 / London) Richard (M / 27 / SF) Misha (M / 34 / Wisconsin + SF)

Inline links: Lulie, Kathy, Nathan, Richard, Misha

Your Book Review: The Castrato

June 03, 2022 · Original source

Farinelli crowned by Music (Euterpe) by Jacopo Amigoni (1735). Feldman writes: “Amigoni suggests a mythical crowning at a moment when Farinelli was at the height of his vocal and representational powers and was still singing publicly in London.” Look, I know this is a big moment for you Farinelli, getting crowned by the Goddess of lyric poetry and all, but that cherub next to your right foot really needs a hand. Photograph of Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922) ca. 1900 (author unknown), last surviving castato of the Sistine Chapel's Choir. Note the extended jaw and chin typical of the castrato morphology. Caricature of Bernacchi with belly held aloft by a page (Anton Maria Zanetti, 1735). Castrati were frequently satirized for their unusually large size and tall stature.

Inline links: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_1op!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F01e2c222-8ac7-4586-904d-0c9c656d621f_798x630.jpeg, https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/tFrQtqNogiTRp7SEkUh1ZZqZBLD8Dfwgxbf8SBpkNPSMoaRmu3MUCpO4vz5GuDF9bWODFNT3ypr4jO32bfOf01HLibeqXrfCqjYS9LIx108ygvNIAfVEFEwdNjh3hvW6YzbuMetwPkCXKxSLZA

For Europe’s high society women, the obvious benefit of built-in contraception made castrati ideal targets for discreet affairs. Soon popular songs and pamphlets began suggesting that castration actually enhanced a man’s sexual performance, as the lack of sensation ensured extra endurance; stories spread of the castrati as considerate lovers, whose attention was entirely focused on the woman…When the most handsome castrato of all, Farinelli, visited London in 1734, a poem written by an anonymous female admirer derided local men as “Bragging Boasters” whose enthusiasm “expires too fast, While F—–lli stands it to the last.”

English women seemed particularly susceptible to Italian eunuchs. Another castrato, Consolino, made clever use of his delicate, feminine features in London. He would arrive at trysts disguised in a dress then conduct a torrid affair right under the husband’s nose. ( “Why Castrati Made Better Lovers”)

Inline links: Why Castrati Made Better Lovers

Your Book Review: Public Choice Theory And The Illusion Of Grand Strategy

June 24, 2022 · Original source

It’s all a competition to see who can signal “I hate Putin” the most, but Germany was still shutting down all its nuclear power plants to rely on Russian gas despite warnings from every other EU state (Russia accounts for 40% of Europe’s gas imports) — so much for grand strategy. That is not to excuse Putin’s invasion (he is, after all, the aggressor) and no, Ukraine is not “the West’s fault” as Mearsheimer has claimed in his viral lecture, but “NATO’s door remains open” for me and “we're going to start WW3 because you're in my sphere of influence” for thee is no grand strategy at all. Indeed, the irrational Western response is not predictable by the unitary actor model, but by the public choice model. Hanania writes: If you were going to cut Russia off from SWIFT, for example, why wouldn’t you announce it beforehand? The whole point of a punishment like that is supposed to be its deterrent effect, but if you don’t communicate that a specific action will happen, then it can’t influence behaviour. The answer here seems to be a lack of grand strategy, with leaders responding to events according to emotion and public relations more than anything. Cutting off SWIFT, or even threatening to do so, seems extreme before an invasion occurs, but not after it has begun. The West cannot rely on sanctions to make Russia abandon its core national security interests, which at the very least include a no-NATO commitment, the acceptance of the secession of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the recognition of the annexation of Crimea. Sanctions will also push Putin closer to Beijing, and the US will continue down the self-defeating path of alienating both of the other two superpowers — so much for American grand strategy. Hanania writes: Even if Putin has maximalist aims at this point, that doesn’t mean sanctions are worth doing. Their costs are high and they may have major consequences for the global economy. One has to consider the possibility that they make Russia more repressive at home and more brutal in its persecution of the war. Putin is getting sanctioned, but ordinary Russians are getting cancelled. The Metropolitan Opera of New York has announced it will no longer stage performers who have supported Russian President Vladimir Putin. Carnegie Hall has done the same, and the Royal Opera House in London is cancelling a planned Bolshoi Ballet residency (one of the oldest and most prestigious ballet companies in the world). Eurovision banned Russia. Tchaikovsky is cancelled. As Tyler Cowen writes, cancel culture against Russians is the new McCarthyism. The culture war has morphed into a hyperreal form on the Internet. Just as COVID is the first pandemic in the Age of Twitter, so the Ukraine invasion is, in some sense, the first war in the Age of Twitter. As it unfolds, we are seeing many disturbing parallels to the events of early 2020. People are rapidly normalising once-fringe ideas like a NATO-enforced no-fly zone (while completely oblivious to the fact that it means shooting down Russian planes and causing WW3), direct US conflict with Russia, regime change in Moscow, and even, incredibly, the use of nuclear weapons. The overnight flips on German defence spending and SWIFT are like the overturning of conventional public health policies on masking and lockdowns. We have entered the age of shitpost diplomacy, as coined by Tanner Green, in which the official Twitter account of the US Embassy in Kiev literally posts memes to spite Putin: A Russian sixth-grader could explain why celebrating the glories of Kievan Rus does not subvert Putin’s claims about the history of the Russian nation so much as reinforce them. Just like Hong Kong’s protests, Ukraine has won the meme war with utterly lopsided propaganda and unanimous international support on the Internet. As Yoshimi writes: Floating ghostlike above it is our war, the myth of the ‘Ghost of Kyiv’, ace MIG-29 pilot who has apparently shot down six Russian planes, or the legend of the Ukrainian soldiers defending an island outpost who replied “Russian warship go fuck yourselves” to a surrender offer and may or may not have died heroically, or two Russian II-76 transport aircraft that maybe were shot down near Kiev, or videos of air strikes or dead bodies which variously are Russian or Ukrainian until they turn out to be from Gaza six years ago, or the viral video of an old Ukrainian woman telling off a Russian soldier by offering him sunflower seeds so when he dies, sunflowers (Ukraine’s national flowers) will sprout from the soil. We’re raising funds for the Ukrainian army on crowdfunding apps and giving advice to the civilians being handed assault weapons about how to disable tanks, sharing weird homophobic pictures of Putin as a gay icon and spamming Russian government posts. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has made the decision to stay and fight rather than flee like most would-be leaders who go all in for American foreign policy, and now is being deified by us as “badass”, “a true leader”, etc. etc., alongside his people, whose resistance to authoritarianism we are told is unparalleled in the modern world. After all, so it goes, who could be next? And like in Hong Kong, despite winning the culture war in hyperreality, the actual war in reality is won by the side with overwhelming military might, not morality. The real war is where Ukrainians are experiencing the genuine life-shattering effects of military conflict. It matters because this is the first time Western response is driven by Twitter outcry, and it will not be the last. A New EA Cause? Besides Hanania’s recommendations in the last section (which he admits are more or less impossible in an excellent interview with Caplan), a worthy EA priority might be to somehow turn the public tide on sanctions, which literally kill more people than Putin. Americans should be appalled by the atrocity committed in their names. The banality of the incompetence of foreign policy elites does not excuse their evil. With how entrenched the special interests are, I have no idea if it’s even worth trying, but at the very least the sheer amount of suffering and death from sanctions should be made common knowledge. Nuclear security is one of the top priorities in Effective Altruism, per 80,000 Hours, Future of Life Institute, and Our World In Data. Toby Orb, who wrote the definitive book on existential risk, The Precipice, estimates x-risk from nuclear war to be ~1 in 1000 in the next century. Luisa Rodriguez estimates a 1.1% chance of nuclear war each year and that the chances of a US-Russia nuclear war may be in the ballpark of 0.38% per year; summarised by Max Roser as: Nuclear risk is neglected by the public because of Pax Americana since the collapse of the USSR, and is not discussed as often in EA as it’s thought to be relatively well-funded and mainstream, but in fact major donors like the MacArthur Foundation have been withdrawing funding. As Joan Rohling details in an 80,000 Hours podcast there is much to be done, especially when Ukraine gave up their nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for Russia’s promise to never threaten or use military force against them. A worthwhile adjacent cause area might be de-escalation of public outcry to reduce x-risk from nuclear war beyond just regular anti-proliferation efforts — even a Russian specialist from the RAND Corporation is surprised by how much public outrage is driving policy: Even just the pace of the sanctions: we went to 11 out of 10 in like two days — farther than many expected we’d ever get in short order. And I think the same is true about these military assistance initiatives. We’re just trying to do something because there’s a public demand for action. So that’s what worries me, that the sort of public outrage that’s being channeled in Western democracies through political systems could result in decisions that prove ultimately unwise. Despite how odd it is that some wars are “legal” while others aren’t, we should be glad UNSC exists as much as everyone laughs at how useless the rest of the UN is. All is fair in love and war, but international norms is all that stands between us and nuclear annihilation. It is hard to emphasise just how delusional it is for the public to fixate on no-fly zones — I, like Scott, am surprised we’re still capable of jingoism. 80,000 Hours has updated their top career recommendations to include China specialist to improve China-Western coordination on global catastrophic risk, which seems more important after reading how irrational and captured the American foreign policy apparatus is. As Hanania writes, “great power competition” is an anachronism. If Ukraine is the first war warped by hyperreality, it won’t be the last. Now that US foreign policy elites have driven Putin into the arms of China, let’s hope IR specialists can imbibe the public choice model instead of antagonising yet another nuclear rival. Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy is an important work because it raises the sanity waterline, which at the least should make us stop killing millions for no reason, and at the most should make the human race more knowledgeable of how to prevent total extinction from nuclear armageddon. Pax Americana is dead, but a multipolar world will be more humane. Endnotes In the fiscal year 2018, the top five government contractors were all weapons manufacturers, with Lockheed Martin in first place at $40.6 billion. The Department of Defence spent $358 billion on contracting, ten times higher than second place Department of Energy. Collective action problems that stop a bunch of smaller companies from effectively influencing policy are no hindrance for companies like Lockheed Martin.

Inline links: not, viral lecture, NATO’s door remains open, we're going to start WW3 because you're in my sphere of influence, writes, writes, cancelled, banned, cancelled, writes,, German defence spending, shitpost diplomacy, posts, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!j4gR!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c5db00c-e420-4b54-b826-b85d9ddf186d_900x647.png, writes, interview, 80,000 Hours, Future of Life Institute, Our World In Data, The Precipice, ~1 in 1000, estimates, summarised, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PRc2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe90b1bb5-d84b-45dc-b9fa-2edddbf6b9fa_1600x1006.png, Pax Americana, MacArthur Foundation, details, gave up, surprised, Scott, jingoism, China specialist, captured, writes, the sanity waterline, a multipolar world will be more humane

July 12, 2022 · Original source

In February, crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried donated $1 billion to the Future Fund, a rationalist-adjacent organization that kickstarts projects promoting the long-term future of humanity. When they couldn’t spend their money fast enough, they deputized friendly experts as “regrantors”, charged with the task of going out and spending their money to start organizations that should exist but don’t. One regrantor must have thought that good forecasting teams were in this category, because it looks like Future Fund spent $2 million making this happen. The result is the Swift Centre For Applied Forecasting in London. They describe themselves as:

Inline links: regrantors, spent $2 million making this happen, Swift Centre For Applied Forecasting

Meetups Everywhere 2022: Times & Places

August 26, 2022 · Original source

I will provisionally be attending the meetups in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego. ACX meetups coordinator Mingyuan will provisionally be attending Paris and London. I’ll be announcing some of the biggest ones on the blog, regardless of whether or not I attend.

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.

Your Book Review: Kora In Hell

August 26, 2022 · Original source

Besides his friendship/rivalry with Pound, there’s also one of those with T.S. Eliot. Eliot’s gimmick is knowing everything, being very cultured, very erudite, speaking every language, mastering and combining and quoting every poetic form under the sun. And while Pound took himself very seriously and Eliot was somewhat more lighthearted, both represent Western Tradition incarnate in mortal bodies, cultural classicists who felt everything was obviously better in ages past, and their hope for Modernity was to preserve that tradition, reprising old forms but, in Pound’s slogan, “Making Them New” so as to keep them alive and fresh and fascist. WCW is in the antipodes of all that. He looks ahead. When seemingly every single one of his friends expatriated to the Old World, to Paris or London in order to build their audiences there, he stayed in Rutherford, New Jersey, where he lived during most of his life. In America, he felt, everything was yet to be made, and Eliot, in his project of first somehow turning British and then knowing and preserving everything ancient in poetic jars of quotation, was robbing other American poets blind, contemporaries and even those yet to emerge in the future.

Open Thread 242

September 18, 2022 · Original source

7: Sorry about the weather today for the Bay Area meetups! We are still planning to hold the Berkeley meetup at the Rose Garden Inn starting at 1, and SF started at 11 and has announced their rain plan here. Next week will be meetups in Amman on the 20th, Philadelphia on the 22nd, Paris on the 23rd, Zurich + Edinburgh + Pittsburgh + Copenhagen on the 24, and London + Perth + Waterloo on the 25th - see details here.

Inline links: here, here

From Nostradamus To Fukuyama

September 28, 2022 · Original source

The blood of the just will be demanded of London Burnt by fire in the year '66 The ancient Lady will fall from her high place And many of the same sect will be killed.

Seems like a match for the London fire of 1666. But again checking the original French and the commentators, the second line is more properly “burnt by fire in 23 the 6”, which a fanciful translator rounded off to 20 * 3 + 6 = 66 and then assumed was a year. The experts say that this is really a coded reference to 23 Protestants being burned, in groups of six, during Nostradamus’ lifetime (many of his quatrains are references to past or present events, for some reason). This sounds more compatible with the “many of the same sect will be killed” ending.

Inline links: experts

October 18, 2022 · Original source

Several additional plaintiffs I can’t find good information about You can find the complaint here. The plaintiffs write: The [CFTC’s action], without explanation or other indication of reasoned decisionmaking, without “written notice of the facts or conduct which may warrant” the Revocation, and without providing anyone “an opportunity to demonstrate or achieve compliance” with the terms of No-Action Relief or other requirements, violates the Administrative Procedure Act. 5 U.S.C. §§ 558, 706. Among other things, the Revocation is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, [and/or] otherwise not in accordance with law” and occurred “without observance of procedure required by law.” The Court should “hold unlawful and set aside” the Revocation, including its command that contracts that would otherwise turn on events occurring after February 2023 be prematurely liquidated. 5 U.S.C. § 706. The Court also should enter a preliminary and then permanent injunction against the prescriptions in the Revocation requiring the liquidation of contracts by February 2023, including contracts that concern the 2024 elections, well before they would ordinarily mature. I am not a lawyer, but it sounds kind of like they’re saying “the decision was bad, and the Administrative Procedure Act says regulators shouldn’t do bad things”. I am split between the part of me which hates government regulators doing bad things, and the part of me which feels like this is how you get a cover-your-ass-ocracy that never does anything at all without fifteen layers of paperwork and ten trillion dollars per action. Whatever. At least this time it’s in my favor. Of course there are prediction markets about it: Source: Insight Prediction Nuclear Warcasting, Part 2 Samotsvety Forecasting is a team made of top prediction market players and tournament winners, vaguely affiliated with effective altruism, who make predictions in the public interest. Earlier this year, they got attention for forecasting the risk of nuclear war - in particular, they said there was an a 0.01% per month chance of London getting nuked this spring. Since then, most of the fear has crystallized into a specific scenario. Suppose Russia is losing very badly in Ukraine. Putin, fearing a coup or revolution at home if he gives up, decides to use a tactical nuclear weapon, ie a “small” nuke more suited to winning battles than destroying cities. He nukes a Ukrainian battlefield position. The West is enraged at this violation of the nuclear taboo and feels like it needs to respond decisively - maybe by nuking something on Russia’s side, or through some other act of extreme escalation. Then Russia feels like they need to respond, and eventually it escalates to strikes on major cities and global nuclear war. There are reasons for doubt. Tactical nukes wouldn’t really be useful in Ukraine; the battle lines are too spread out and there’s no single place where a nuclear explosion could take out a substantial portion of Ukraine’s forces. In the past, nuclear powers have accepted lost wars gracefully rather than turning to nukes. And the Russians deny it, and saying this is all just Western propaganda intended to scare people. Amid this uncertainty, Samotsvety has published an update: now they are at 16% chance that “Russia uses any type of nuclear weapon in Ukraine in the next year”, and 0.02% per month of a strike on London. Although they didn’t mention it this time, they previously said the risk of a strike on San Francisco was a little over half that of London; I don’t know if that’s changed. See also Dan Keys’ comment here for some skepticism of Samotsvety’s process. Swift Centre is a lot like Samotsvety; they’re a collection of top forecasters brought together by EA to make important predictions. They also took a swing at the nuclear question, and said 9.1% chance of a hostile nuclear detonation in Europe in the next six months. They didn’t calculate the risk that this would spread to global war, but they did discuss how different scenarios would bring the risk up or down: One of my hopes for forecasting is that it eventually becomes so well-validated that decision-makers can take these kinds of considerations into account: “Should we sent ATACMS missiles to Ukraine? It would have such-and-such benefits, but also increase the risk of nuclear escalation by 3.6%, is it worth it?” We can’t directly compare Samotsvety and Swift because they’re predicting over different time periods. But assuming that there’s more risk in the next six months than in the six months after that, I think Samotsvety is a little higher but they’re not embarrassingly far off. Metaculus is a bit more optimistic than either, believing there’s only a 4% chance of detonation in Ukraine in 2023 and a 7% chance of any use in the next ~year. Max Tegmark is going much higher than anyone else and says 16% chance of global nuclear war. Kalshi Applies For Election Markets Kalshi is a regulated and fully-legal prediction market with good lobbyists and a compliance team. This means the CFTC probably won’t randomly shut them down one day. But it also means they can only create new markets with CFTC permission. In July, Kalshi asked the CFTC for permission to make midterm election prediction markets - specifically, which party will win control of the House and Senate. The CFTC has said they will make a decision by October 28 (which doesn’t leave much time for predicting to happen before the November 8 election, but I guess it sets a precedent). September was the Request For Comment period, when the CFTC solicited comments from stakeholders about what they should do. Kalshi tried really hard to get lots of people to send in positive assessments - I know this because of how many people asked me “why is the CEO of Kalshi emailing me about this thing?” Their strategy seems to have worked; among the people who wrote to the CFTC in support were: A managing director at JP Morgan

Inline links: additional plaintiffs, here, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!LaYa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0aaec309-35d6-430d-aeaa-b7cab022f4d6_548x215.png, Insight Prediction, Samotsvety Forecasting, Earlier this year, accepted lost wars gracefully, published an update, comment here, Swift Centre, They also took a swing at the nuclear question, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TczM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F702c1236-47d9-4c60-9b99-ab9b2ca320e7_737x377.png, a 4% chance, a 7% chance, 16% chance, In July, they will make a decision by October 28, A managing director at JP Morgan

Open Thread 254

December 12, 2022 · Original source

1: AI safety startup Conjecture is doing another hiring round, deadline December 16 (sorry!) Positions available in research, engineering, cybersecurity, finance, and strategy. Jobs are in London and "in person by default", but they do sponsor visas and help with relocation.

Inline links: doing another hiring round

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023

April 10, 2023 · Original source

LONDON, UK Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: ed[at]newspeak[dot]house Time: Saturday, April 15th, 10:00 AM Location: Newspeak House Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7 Notes: Please register via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/astral-codex-ten-meetup-tickets-591452770157

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7, https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/astral-codex-ten-meetup-tickets-591452770157

Change My Mind: Density Increases Local But Decreases Global Prices

May 01, 2023 · Original source

For example, if my home city of Oakland (population 500,000) became ten times denser, it would build 4.5 million new units and end up about as dense as Manhattan or London. But Manhattan and London have the highest house prices in their respective countries, primarily because of their density and the opportunities density provides. I don’t see why Oakland being able to tell a different story of how it reached Manhattan/London density levels (“it was because we were YIMBYs and deliberately cultivated density to lower prices”) would make the end result any different from the real Manhattan or London. But if becoming just as big as Manhattan or London would make Oakland more expensive, shouldn’t we assume that a little step in that direction would make it a little bit more expensive? Wouldn’t the alternative be some kind of highly unparsimonious pricing function like this?:

Highlights From The Comments On Housing Density And Prices

May 10, 2023 · Original source

Kangbashi, China’s most famous ghost city. What are housing prices like in the ghost city? Again from Bloomberg: Sitting on the southern outskirts of Inner Mongolia’s Ordos City (population 2.2 million), Kangbashi was the archetypal ghost city 10 years ago, with barren boulevards and empty buildings standing forlornly in the desert. Local officials are adamant that things have changed. They say 91% of homes in the district are occupied. In fact, after a yearslong construction freeze, the government approved six housing projects in 2020 and expects 3,000 homes to be built by the end of this year. Apartments in a new development are selling for 9,500 yuan per square meter, and downtown they go for 15,000 to 16,000 yuan, according to Liu Yueyue, 28, a salesman at a new residential development in the district’s northeast. “Would houses in a ghost town sell at such high prices?” asks Liu. Half of his customers come from outside Kangbashi, and most are parents who want to send their children to the well-regarded local schools, he says. Looking at this list of real estate prices across Chinese cities, Kangbashi seems squarely in the middle - for example, Wuhan and Xian are also in the 15,000 - 16,000 range. I claim this supports my argument: surely twenty years ago, houses in this particular deserted corner of Inner Mongolia would have been dirt cheap (if any even existed). But if you build a city there, it becomes just as expensive as any other city! Here it’s very obvious that the density caused the high prices instead of the other way around. Still, the Chinese housing market is weird, with significant vacancies even in expensive, well-developed cities. Paul Botts: No official vacancy rates are published in China and no specific definition of it exists there. Various think tanks and researchers both within that country and elsewhere have published estimates ranging from as low as 11 percent to as high as 24 percent. Those estimates have been for varying samples of Chinese cities, have used various definitions of housing vacancy rate, etc. The best (as in most systematic) estimate yet produced has come from researchers at a university in Liaoning. They used night-time urban lightsheds captured by a new (2018 launch) Chinese satellite having a new level of light sensing technology which allows separating out light from parks and plazas. They covered a large sample (49 cities), and made their sample representative of city type, city size, regions within China, etc. They also crossed-referenced with local housing data to ensure accurate balancing of their sample and to confirm that the satellite was successfully identifying light coming from housing blocks. They found vacancy rates of just under 20 percent in China's Tier 1 cities, and found rates above 20 percent in 40 of the 49 cities. They found the highest vacancy rates in western and northeastern cities, which are also the newest ones; that finding is consistent with the hypothesis of significant numbers of recently-built ghost cities. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345092218_Housing_Vacancy_Rate_in_Major_Cities_in_China_Perspectives_from_Nighttime_Light_Data And Phil H (author of the blog Tang Poetry) writes: The price of housing in China has skyrocketed over the past few decades, as all those extra apartments have been built. I live in a pleasant but unremarkable southern city, and I paid London prices (about 4.5m yuan/$650k for a 1,300 sq ft flat). That seems to match Scott's hypothesis that high density leads to high prices. House prices here have risen much faster than incomes. They've risen in rural areas, too, but the increases in price in cities have been stratospheric. 4. Comments Accusing Me Of Not Considering Tokyo, Even Though I Included A Section In The Post On Why I Didn’t Think Tokyo Was Relevant I won’t name and shame people, but for example: You excluded Tokyo from your dataset. Tokyo has much higher density than SF and much lower price per sqft. Tokyo just kills this. Tokyo is bigger than New York and has significantly lower rent because they build more housing! This is in a wealthy country with even lower interest rates than the US. I don't think you have justified excluding non-US metros, like Tokyo, or Auckland. Doesn't this lead to the natural conclusion that there is a sufficient level of housing to build, and that the problem is that the USA's many metros are structured to prevent housing? It seems like you're just arguing that US metros are bad at building housing, which is also what Matt Yglesias is arguing. "Change my mind about housing, but don't mention Tokyo" is like saying "Change my mind about gun possession, but don't mention Switzerland." You can't test the effect of allowing new housing unless you're willing to look at cities that do, in fact, allow it. Tokyo and NYC both attract tons of new residents But Tokyo's housing rents have been stable, while NYC rents keep rising. Why? Tokyo has permissive housing construction laws. NYC makes building new housing almost illegal. Yes, dense cities are attractive, and that makes them get more dense over time. But it only makes them more expensive if you forbid new housing to keep up with the new residents. Tokyo! But I’m like the 10th person to bring it up… As I wrote on the original post (not even edited in! it’s been there the whole time!): I worry someone will bring up Tokyo as a counterexample. But I think Tokyo managed to build its way to low housing prices in the context of the rest of Japan also having good housing policy. Even if that isn’t true, Tokyo on its own is a quarter of the Japanese market, so it might be able to exhaust the entire pool of Japanese house-seekers by itself! That is, yes, you’re all correct that cities are only expensive in the context of more demand for city housing than the (NIMBY-constrained) city housing market can currently supply. You are all correct that if this problem were solved at the national level, then city housing would be cheap, and every additional city house would make it cheaper. My claim is that marginal changes - like Oakland building an extra 10,000 units, but everyone else staying the same - will most likely increase Oakland prices. Yes, if Oakland unilaterally built 50 million units, that would soak up the entire excess demand and probably lower prices everywhere (including Oakland). Yes, if the entire US switched to good housing policy at the same time, that would probably lower prices everywhere (including Oakland). But if we don’t do any of that stuff, and just build another 10,000 houses in Oakland, I think it would probably increase prices in Oakland. Some other people brought up that Japan has a declining population, and it’s much easier to have low house prices when your population is declining (compared to some previous time when number of houses presumably matched number of people), but ddd pointed out that people continue to migrate from the Japanese countryside to Tokyo, so its population continues to increase. Also, Mike (I’m stitching together two comments here): In a country with a declining population, you would expect that fewer homes are being built per capita because there's little to no competition for existing homes. But it's exactly the opposite! Japan builds far more homes per capita than the US does, despite their declining population […] As a result, the average Japanese home is very new and the average house is torn down and replaced after a relatively short 30 years. They're living in nice new homes for cheaper. 5. Comments Accusing Me Of Not Understanding Economics Maximum Limelihood Estimator writes: I think you're making a very common mistake here of confusing supply/demand with *quantity* supplied or quantity demanded. (This is very common! we teach students about this in micro 101 because it's so easy to make!) What you're seeing is that the quantity supplied is correlated with housing prices (true!). But this is very different from establishing that the supply curve--i.e. the amount of housing that would be produced at any given price, and what moves up/down when we regulate/deregulate supply--is positively correlated with price. Figuring out what supply curves look like is a lot less intuitive and requires some high-grade econometrics, which is why economists had to set up a whole commission just to study this particular problem (the Cowles Commission). In terms of resources for understanding how these concepts are different, a micro 101 textbook will cover this distinction. For the econometrics side of this, I've heard good things about Scott Cunningham's *Causal Inference Mixtape*, although I haven't personally used it. My claim is that increasing density within a city shifts the demand curve for housing within that city, because of increasing desirability. MLE later gets more on point: The effect you're discussing here is kind of real in a sense. When the marginal utility of housing increases for *other* people, density arguably becomes more desirable for me, which is kind of like the demand curve shifting up. These are called bandwagon goods and discussed here: http://econfac.bsu.edu/research/workingpapers/bsuecwp200804gisser.pdf In theory, the bandwagon effect could be so strong that parts of the demand curve are upward-sloping. Solutions like this are not, technically, prohibited by the laws of mathematics, just the laws of economics. (And arguably of physics--see paper for conditions where these kinds of bandwagon effects imply the amount of housing in the city would have to be negative). In practice, this effect exists but just can't overcome the normal, non-weird economics that says "making more of a good makes the prices fall." Again, I claim the existence of Manhattan vs. Conanicut shows that sometimes it does. I cannot find the words “housing”, “real estate”, or “land value” anywhere in that paper. Alex Poterack writes: There's two things going on here: confusing shifts in demand with movement along the demand curve, and getting causation backwards. You're assuming density causes prosperity, rather than prosperity causing density. There are ways the former can happen, but the bigger thing is that, for a wide range of historical reasons, you can make a lot of money in NYC and SF, so lots of people want to live there, so they get very dense. This is the prosperity shifting demand right, so at any given price, more people want to live there; this drives prices up, and they go higher the more fixed supply is. If you built a bunch of housing in Oakland, lots of people would move there because it's cheaper, which is movement along the demand curve; it's still the same number of people who want to live there at any price. Now, it's possible that the increased number of people living there makes the city more prosperous (this is the phenomenon of induced demand), which would shift demand right, but there are way more differences between NYC/SF and Oakland than just the density, so I don't think it would shift demand enough to offset this. In particular, if it's just a small increase in small, it's also a small increase in density, so there's almost no shift in demand (but there is movement along the curve). I still think this is missing my point, but I present it here in case anyone else is enlightened by it and wants to try further to convince me I’m making this mistake. 6. Comments By Famous People Who Potentially Have Good Opinions Scott Sumner is an economist and blogger; he writes: It is certainly the case that building more housing can make a city more desirable, and that this effect could be so strong that it overwhelms the price depressing impact of a greater quantity supplied. But studies suggest that this is not generally the case. Texas provides a nice case study. Among Texas’s big metro areas, Austin has the tightest restrictions on building and Houston is the most willing to allow dense infill development. Even though Houston is the larger city, house prices are far higher in Austin: Houston pretty much describes the “Oakland with more housing” outcome that Alexander views as somewhat far-fetched. Only in this case, it’s Austin with more housing. Alexander seems too quick to accept the, “If you build it they will come” idea—that you can build more housing and thereby boost demand so much that prices actually rise. I started the post with a graph of about 50 cities, showing a positive correlation between density and price. I’m having trouble seeing how Sumner’s point isn’t just “if you remove 48 of those cities and cherry-pick two, the relationship is negative”. My attempt to place Austin and Houston on the original graph, using Sumner’s data plus a few other things available online. Why weren’t they on there already? Maybe because the graph is metro areas and Sumner was talking about Austin and Houston as cities, but I’m not sure and agree this is confusing. Everyone knows Austin is more expensive than Houston because Austin is a trendy tech and culture hub and Houston isn’t (and relatedly, because Austin’s median family income is 50% higher than Houston’s). Unless someone wants to claim that its failure to build housing helped turn it into a trendy tech and culture hub, I don’t think there’s much point to this comparison. It’s true that Houston’s bigger size didn’t let it leapfrog over Austin to become a trendy tech and culture hub, which goes against some of what I claimed in the first part of this post. But I never claimed there would be a perfect 1-1 correlation between city size and trendiness, or that you could never find a pair of cities where one was bigger but the other was more trendy. Just that there would be a correlation. Moving on: Here’s the problem with this argument. It mixes up population change due to economic effects such as the benefits of agglomeration, with population changes due to regulatory changes such as less strict zoning. If you look at things this way, then the stylized facts work against Alexander’s argument. Over the past 50 years, increasingly strict zoning has reduced housing construction on big cities like New York and San Francisco. As a result, their populations have increased by less than in cities with less strict zoning, such as Houston. If Alexander were correct, then the price gap between the tightly controlled cities on the coast and the more laissez-faire cities of Middle America should have shrunk over time. Instead, the price gap has widened. New York and San Francisco were always more expensive than other cites, but with tighter zoning and less new construction the gap has become far wider. During the last fifty years, there was also deindustrialization and demographic sorting. This is just the Austin vs. Houston story all over again. Alexander is implicitly viewing this outcome as a “problem” for the city that builds more housing. They must sacrifice so that the rest of the country can gain. But in his scenario, Oakland is better off. Indeed if it were not better off, then why would more people choose to live in Oakland? In order for it to be true that building more housing boosts housing prices, it must also be true that the quality of existing houses (including neighborhood effects) rises by more than enough to offset the increase in supply. That means the new housing construction must make Oakland such a desirable place to live that the amenity effect overwhelms the quantity effect [...] Of course, economic change always has winners and losers. Here’s how I would describe the impact of allowing more housing construction in Oakland, in the unlikely event that this did raise housing prices: 1. America would benefit. 2. Oakland would benefit. 3. Poor people in America would benefit, in aggregate. 4. Affluent people in America would benefit, in aggregate. 5. Homeowners in Oakland would benefit. 6. Some renters in Oakland would benefit (from a more economically dynamic city.) 7. Some renters in Oakland would suffer from higher rents. In the much more likely case where new housing construction would lower prices, the impact described in #5 and #7 might reverse. Either way, there is no defensible argument for not building more housing in Oakland, regardless of the impact on price. If building more housing reduces its price, then there is a strong argument for allowing more housing construction. If building more housing raises its price, then the argument for more construction is even stronger. I agree with all this. Jeremiah Johnson is a co-founder of the Center for New Liberalism, host of the Neoliberal Podcast, and a YIMBY activist (not to be confused with Jeremiah “Liver-Eating” Johnson, who killed 300 Native Americans and ate their livers). He writes: Here's why you're wrong in a single sentence: Demand causes high prices, not new units. Prices are high in SF and NYC because those are desirable places to live for a huge number of people. People all over the country and the world would live there if they could, and prices reflect that. The fact that the densest cities are the most expensive is true. But the high prices are not caused by density - rather, the density and the high prices are both a consequence of crushingly high demand […] There's a feedback loop, but what matters here is the elasticity, which is less than one. We can measure this empirically. New housing lowers prices via the mechanism of adding supply, which is basic economics and how we expect markets to work. New housing could raise prices if it also made the city a more desirable place to live and shifted people's preferences, such that there was more demand to live there after the new housing is built. If you think it's unclear which of these effects would dominate, luckily we have empirical data that over and over and over shows adding housing supply does indeed lower prices on a local level. This is a fairly well established result that replicates well. edit: I'm actually thinking about drawing out the weighted DAG graphs here to make the conceptual stuff easier, but it would be pretty long. I'd love to do this as a guest post. I’m skeptical of the empirical results because they don’t match the much stronger “Manhattan vs. Conanicut island” empirical results, and if I try to think about why, the best explanation I can think of is that the Manhattan experiment has been going on longer (ie long enough for Manhattan’s extra residents to found businesses and institutions that attract new people). I’ve told him he can try pitching this guest post to me; in either case, I would be interested in seeing the graphs. Several other people also posted this graph that Johnson helped make famous: Hopefully by now you can predict my objection: the places in the southeast corner are mostly unfashionable red state Sun Belt cities; the places in the northwest corner are mostly trendy liberal coastal cities. My conclusion is that trendy liberal coastal cities are both more NIMBY and more desirable, and if you use this to draw any conclusions about housing policy you’ll just end up confused. But maybe I should take this same lesson to heart myself. Dense cities are mostly trendy liberal coastal cities; uninhabited tundra in North Dakota isn’t. Maybe the demand is just for trendy liberal coastal cities, and once you attain that status, extra density doesn’t matter that much. Maybe Oakland has already maxed out its “trendy liberal coastal city” status, and even if it became Manhattan-sized, it wouldn’t get any trendier, or would get trendier only with a long time lag. There are a few very trendy small coastal villages in California (think eg Sea Ranch); maybe these (rather than North Dakota) are the natural control group for San Francisco. I think they are still cheaper than SF, but maybe not by very much. Cameron Murray is a housing economist whose work some other commenters recommended; he also writes the blog Fresh Economic Thinking. He very kindly showed up and wrote: I think you are in general right that agglomeration effects are real, which is why bigger cities have higher value to residents. I agree that people move locations. But I think you can go a step further. If one city is growing faster and densifying, surely those people are not demanding homes in other cities and those cities build slower. This is part of the spatial equilibrium story that further makes claims about “build density and get cheap homes” less plausible. 7. My Final Thoughts + Poll Thanks to everyone who commented on this post and helped me refine my thoughts. I’m willing to concede the following points: It might be that only attracting the sort of educated people who found companies, universities, etc will make housing prices go up. Less educated people will take more jobs than they create and not ratchet up the city’s desirability level. (I’d previously told commenters talking about “gentrification” that it was irrelevant to the mechanism I was talking about here, but maybe it isn’t - maybe “gentrifiers” are the people creating more jobs and institutions than they consume, and so homes that attract them in particular will increase demand more than they increase supply? Maybe this discussion does reduce to the gentrification discussion?)

Inline links: this list of real estate prices across Chinese cities, Paul Botts, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345092218_Housing_Vacancy_Rate_in_Major_Cities_in_China_Perspectives_from_Nighttime_Light_Data, Tang Poetry, writes, ddd pointed out, Mike, Maximum Limelihood Estimator, gets more on point, http://econfac.bsu.edu/research/workingpapers/bsuecwp200804gisser.pdf, writes, writes:, far higher in Austin, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tAF8!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F03f2b338-da84-4d85-b71c-0ce2e02e10e1_685x559.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mLwn!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9cf942da-5716-49e8-a177-20140681e7fc_573x421.png, Center for New Liberalism, the Neoliberal Podcast, Jeremiah “Liver-Eating” Johnson, Johnson helped make famous, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tg5t!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc490a60a-3e97-4b73-9806-79bb967b5172_608x550.png, Sea Ranch, some other commenters, Fresh Economic Thinking, wrote

The Question Of Separatism

May 19, 2023 · Original source

Of course, nations are an economically important concept because of that one property: they are sovereign, and therefore they write laws and implement policies that affect the economy. These policies can be productively compared. But that’s about it — for everything else, nations aren’t the right way to think about wealth. One reason is simply that they’re very different from one another: “it affronts common sense,” Jacobs writes, “to think of units as disparate as, say, Singapore and the United States, or Ecuador and the Soviet Union, or the Netherlands and Canada, as economic common denominators.” I would add that countries are arbitrary and changing: when the Soviet Union was replaced by 15 sovereign countries, the economic reality didn’t suddenly reshape itself to match the new borders. Lastly, nations contain, under the hood, many sub-economies that are also highly different from one another. None of that is secret or forbidden knowledge. Everyone has always been aware that New York City, or Milan, are economically very different from rural Mississippi or Sicily. But I find that it’s far easier to think in terms of “the United States” or “Italy,” especially when you’re not from there. Nations are an abstraction of real-life complexity, and are accordingly very tempting to use. Also, they’re often the entities that collect statistics, which is another difficult-to-resist temptation for anyone who likes quantitative data. Cities as Radiators of Economic Forces If nations aren’t the best unit to analyze the economy, what is? This is a Jane Jacobs book, so the answer is obviously going to be cities. Jacobs doesn’t actually give a clear argument why. Maybe that was in her previous book, The Economy of Cities. So far as I can see, her reasoning is, ironically, a bit tautological: “all developing economic life depends on city economies; it depends on them by definition because, wherever economic life is developing, the very process itself creates cities and has probably always done so.” But so far as I can see, this reasoning is correct. Cities concentrate people, and therefore economic life, and therefore economic power. The driving force for all this is a phenomenon that, from what I gather, was discovered by Jacobs when she wrote The Economy of Cities: import replacement. Consider, say, Boston back when it was a tiny settlement, not yet a city, in colonial times. At first, Boston didn’t produce much, especially not much that would be of interest to its main trading partner, London. It exported some natural resources: timber, fish. Whatever else the Bostonians needed, they needed to import it from other cities, again mostly London. (Remember to think of imports and exports in terms of cities, not nations.) For instance, at first, all metal tools in Boston came from European cities, and were paid for by the revenue from selling the timber and fish. Then, one day, some Bostonians decided to build an ironworks and make metal tools themselves. (Pictured: a reconstruction of the Saugus Iron Works, established 1646.) This wasn’t of any interest to London or other European cities. The Bostonians weren’t nearly as good or efficient at making metal tools as Londonians were. So Boston couldn’t export the metal tools back to Europe — but it could use them internally, and also export them to other American cities that were about as poor as Boston was, or poorer. Internally, this meant the spark of a manufacturing economy in Boston, as easily obtained metal parts made it easier for other Bostonians to replace other imports from European cities, and eventually develop a symbiotic network of industries. It also meant that the revenue from fish and timber could be used to import new things, including new innovations from European cities (which would later become opportunities for more import replacement). And because there were customers for Boston-made metal goods in New York and Philadelphia, and eventually Cincinnati and Chicago and Pittsburgh as these cities came into existence, it meant additional revenue for Boston that it could reinvest into developing its production further. For Jacobs, virtually all city development can be seen through the lens of import replacement (which, to be clear, has approximately nothing to do with policies of import substitution industrialization; import replacement is not a policy, but a naturally arising free market phenomenon). Her book contains many other examples than Boston, such as Venice, which started off in the early Middle Ages as a small town that sold salt to Constantinople, but then diversified its production to become one of the wealthiest cities of its time; or Taipei and Kaohsiung, two cities in Taiwan that kickstarted their development not long before the 1980s, by forcing expropriated landlords to invest into local import-replacing businesses. One is reminded of Scott’s review of How Asia Works. Import replacement, then, is what makes cities economically powerful. And this power is so great that it causes ripples in distant places. In fact it is the main reason that anything happens at all in non-city areas. Jacobs gives the example of Bardou, a small village in southern France. Bardou looks like this: To the extent that Bardou ever had an economic life, that life was almost entirely driven by distant cities. In ancient times, the area was populated because of iron mines nearby. The mines were exploited to serve the needs of people in the distant cities of Lugdunum (Lyon), Nemausus (Nîmes), or even Rome. As Jacobs notes, we could say that the mines served “the Roman Empire,” but that would be another example of using the abstraction of sovereign countries when we should instead be specific. It was Lugdunum, Nemausus and Rome that wanted the iron — not some random rural area of the empire, and certainly not the part of the empire in which Bardou was located. Eventually the mines and the region were abandoned. More than 1,000 years later, peasants moved into the area and built the modern village. For centuries they lived a wretchedly poor life of subsistence farming. No cities exerted any influence on it, and indeed nothing happened. Then, in the 19th century, the people of Bardou learned that they could improve their situation by moving to distant cities such as Paris, and most of them did. Again, the force wasn’t being exerted by “France”; Bardou was already part of France. The force was specifically being exerted by Paris and other cities with jobs for poor peasants. By the 1960s, only one old man was left. That’s when two foreign visitors, a German and an American, happened upon the village, decided to buy most of it, revitalized it, and turned it into a tourist spot (and even, for a brief time, into a set for a movie company). Today Bardou is a popular place for travelers — who are mostly city people, and spend money that was mostly earned in cities. The Bardou story contains examples of several of the forces that import-replacing cities radiate, according to Jacobs. These forces are central to her thinking. There are five of them: Markets. Cities house a lot of people who need a lot of goods and services, and are therefore strong markets to sell goods and services to. This was the force that acted on the Bardou area when it was a Roman mining region, and again today when it functions as a tourist spot for city vacationers.

Inline links: import replacement, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5j2T!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7f2675d9-ce56-4ac5-9b78-a16720269dea_1600x1159.png, import substitution industrialization, Scott’s review of, Bardou, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RfMs!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc119b085-f7b3-4e09-a586-9f4fc4c2ea21_1200x1600.png

This wasn’t of any interest to London or other European cities. The Bostonians weren’t nearly as good or efficient at making metal tools as Londonians were. So Boston couldn’t export the metal tools back to Europe — but it could use them internally, and also export them to other American cities that were about as poor as Boston was, or poorer. Internally, this meant the spark of a manufacturing economy in Boston, as easily obtained metal parts made it easier for other Bostonians to replace other imports from European cities, and eventually develop a symbiotic network of industries. It also meant that the revenue from fish and timber could be used to import new things, including new innovations from European cities (which would later become opportunities for more import replacement). And because there were customers for Boston-made metal goods in New York and Philadelphia, and eventually Cincinnati and Chicago and Pittsburgh as these cities came into existence, it meant additional revenue for Boston that it could reinvest into developing its production further. For Jacobs, virtually all city development can be seen through the lens of import replacement (which, to be clear, has approximately nothing to do with policies of import substitution industrialization; import replacement is not a policy, but a naturally arising free market phenomenon). Her book contains many other examples than Boston, such as Venice, which started off in the early Middle Ages as a small town that sold salt to Constantinople, but then diversified its production to become one of the wealthiest cities of its time; or Taipei and Kaohsiung, two cities in Taiwan that kickstarted their development not long before the 1980s, by forcing expropriated landlords to invest into local import-replacing businesses. One is reminded of Scott’s review of How Asia Works. Import replacement, then, is what makes cities economically powerful. And this power is so great that it causes ripples in distant places. In fact it is the main reason that anything happens at all in non-city areas. Jacobs gives the example of Bardou, a small village in southern France. Bardou looks like this: To the extent that Bardou ever had an economic life, that life was almost entirely driven by distant cities. In ancient times, the area was populated because of iron mines nearby. The mines were exploited to serve the needs of people in the distant cities of Lugdunum (Lyon), Nemausus (Nîmes), or even Rome. As Jacobs notes, we could say that the mines served “the Roman Empire,” but that would be another example of using the abstraction of sovereign countries when we should instead be specific. It was Lugdunum, Nemausus and Rome that wanted the iron — not some random rural area of the empire, and certainly not the part of the empire in which Bardou was located. Eventually the mines and the region were abandoned. More than 1,000 years later, peasants moved into the area and built the modern village. For centuries they lived a wretchedly poor life of subsistence farming. No cities exerted any influence on it, and indeed nothing happened. Then, in the 19th century, the people of Bardou learned that they could improve their situation by moving to distant cities such as Paris, and most of them did. Again, the force wasn’t being exerted by “France”; Bardou was already part of France. The force was specifically being exerted by Paris and other cities with jobs for poor peasants. By the 1960s, only one old man was left. That’s when two foreign visitors, a German and an American, happened upon the village, decided to buy most of it, revitalized it, and turned it into a tourist spot (and even, for a brief time, into a set for a movie company). Today Bardou is a popular place for travelers — who are mostly city people, and spend money that was mostly earned in cities. The Bardou story contains examples of several of the forces that import-replacing cities radiate, according to Jacobs. These forces are central to her thinking. There are five of them: Markets. Cities house a lot of people who need a lot of goods and services, and are therefore strong markets to sell goods and services to. This was the force that acted on the Bardou area when it was a Roman mining region, and again today when it functions as a tourist spot for city vacationers.

Inline links: import substitution industrialization, Scott’s review of, Bardou, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RfMs!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc119b085-f7b3-4e09-a586-9f4fc4c2ea21_1200x1600.png

An oversized technology force creates a clearance region. The example here is the Scottish Highlands, where a technological innovation was introduced in the late 18th century: a new breed of sheep. (Technically this was a rural invention, but the introduction to Scotland was devised by businessmen in London.) The new sheep greatly improved the yields from the land, but at the cost of violently displacing a large number of poor tenant farmers to make room for pastures. So it goes for other technologies, like farm machinery: when they are introduced to a poor rural region that isn’t integrated into an import-replacing economy, they just replace workers and leave them idle, poorer than before, or forced to emigrate.

Your Book Review: Lying for Money

May 26, 2023 · Original source

The Bank of Portugal, wanting the latest in anti-counterfeiting technology, had previously decided to outsource their production to the trusted and prestigious London firm of Waterlow & Sons. The London firm had printed the legitimate bank notes and they entered circulation, largely without incident. Knowing this, Alves Reis forged a contract (and other documents), approached Waterlow & Sons, and claimed that he had been authorized by the Bank of Portugal to print more banknotes. The printing firm, believing Alves Reis was a legitimate representative of the Portuguese government, produced 200,000 banknotes with a face value of 500 escudos each, totaling 100 million escudos. At the time, this amount represented around 1% of Portugal's GDP.

Highlights From The Comments On British Economic Decline

July 20, 2023 · Original source

And not to be too doomerist about the whole situation, but the feel on the ground is certainly one of general malaise. Even in London there is a general decline- property used to be expensive, it is now exorbitant, rents were kinda bad, they are now catching up to property prices. The job market is ok, but is entirely focused on professional services, with a small tech sector and a huge swathe of service jobs. Leave London and the feeling is one of awful decline since the mid 2000s boom, with Manchester perhaps an exception.

I think particularly for the smart/driven things have changed from a sense of you can achieve your dreams here (in the same way you can in US or maybe Germany and parts of east Asia) to the sense it’s more like much of Europe where you have to leave to make something of yourself (becoming a France or Italy, full of old people on massive pensions with little growth or dynamism). In the 2000s you could make ridiculous amounts of cash in finance if you worked hard, now it’s a pretty bad deal. Most other industries you would be much better off in the US either as an employee or setting up your own company (e.g. McKinsey associate in London earns £95k, in New York earns $185k with bigger bonus). Hard to think of many successful UK companies that have been created in recent years (Deliveroo, Sky, Ocado?). When I try to explain to American friends that £35k is considered an enviable salary when graduating university they all assume I’m joking. I think the average salary of an Oxford undergrad five years after graduating is around £50k.

More Memorable Passages From "The Man Without A Face"

August 04, 2023 · Original source

During the glastnost days near the fall of the Soviet Union, activists set up “Hyde Park”, named for the famous London location - an event where people would speak freely in public about their opinions. The authorities disbanded them, but they came back, and:

Links For August 2023

August 09, 2023 · Original source

London’s Pride parade featured a convicted kidnapper/torturer/rapist/sadist as a speaker, who advocated that anti-trans people should be “punch[ed] in the f**king face” ; the organizers say they stand by her.

Inline links: featured, stand by her

Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places

August 25, 2023 · Original source

Scott will provisionally be attending the meetup in Berkeley. ACX meetups coordinator Skyler will provisionally be attending Boston, Cavendish, Burlington, Berlin, Bremen, Amsterdam, Cardiff, London, and Berkeley. Some of the biggest ones might be announced on the blog, regardless of whether or not Scott or Skyler attends.

TOULOUSE, FRANCE Contact: Alfonso Contact Info: barsom[dot]maelwys[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Sunday, October 15th, 7:00 PM Location: Pub "The Tower of London", 39 Gd Rue Saint-Michel, 31400 Toulouse. We'll have a sign saying ACX Meetup, and we'll probably be sitting in the back. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/8FM3HCPW+HP Notes: Please, RSVP by emailing barsom.maelwys@gmail.com. Thank you!

Inline links: https://plus.codes/8FM3HCPW+HP

LONDON, UK Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: ed[at]newspeak[dot]house Time: Saturday, October 7th, 12:00 PM Location: Newspeak House Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3FG Group Link: https://tinyletter.com/acxlondon Notes: To attend you must register at https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Oct-2023.

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3FG, https://tinyletter.com/acxlondon, https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Oct-2023

Your Book Review: Why Nations Fail

August 25, 2023 · Original source

I think AR overrate the importance of the Glorious Revolution, to the point of claiming it "created the rule of law" – after all, Parliament had already deposed and executed a king, then brought back the king’s son on their own terms after a decade of republican government. No less a luminary than Edmund Burke asserted "The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty." Also, strong signs of British economic uniqueness – the abnormal growth of London and reliance on coal as a fuel – predated 1688.

Inline links: Glorious Revolution, Edmund Burke, predated

Open Thread 307

December 18, 2023 · Original source

1: Update to Quests and Requests: Alexander Putilin, who previously took point on the EEG replication experiment, plans to apply for an ACX Grant. He wants to try crowdfunding first - I think we got wires crossed on whether you need some pre-existing work to show before applying (you don’t), but you’re welcome to look at his campaign page anyway. He asks that while I’m highlighting him, I also signal-boost his prediction market dating show attempt (London, this Tuesday).

Inline links: Quests and Requests, campaign page, prediction market dating show attempt

Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024

March 30, 2024 · Original source

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: ed[at]newspeak[dot]house Time: Saturday, April 20th, 1:00 PM Location: Newspeak House Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7 Event Link: https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Apr-2024 Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon Notes: Please register: https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Apr-2024

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7, https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Apr-2024, https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon

Open Thread 323

April 01, 2024 · Original source

Newspeak House is a center of the London rationalist community. It describes itself as “an independent residential college since 2015” teaching “a one year course on Introduction To Political Technology” which is “designed to support mid-career technologists to develop a holistic understanding of the civic landscape in the UK, in order to found groundbreaking new projects or seek strategic positions in key institutions”. Given the name this all sounds slightly sinister, but next year’s course is open and you can sign up here.

Inline links: Newspeak House, you can sign up here

Open Thread 325

April 15, 2024 · Original source

1: More meetups this week, including London, Oxford, SF, Cambridge (UK), Vienna, Portland, Jerusalem, Sydney, Ann Arbor, Capetown, Paris, Rome, Lisbon, Boulder, Dallas, Leipzig, and Jakarta; bolding these last two since they were later additions you might have missed the first time. Check the list for more information.

Inline links: the list

Profile: The Far Out Initiative

May 15, 2024 · Original source

Cameron’s condition was discovered ten years ago, when her anaesthesiologist noticed she needed no pain medication after a difficult surgery. He checked her records and found she had never asked for pain medication, and moreover, that she described giving birth as basically painless. He got intrigued and recommended she talk to a team at University College London researching pain-related disorders.

The London team interviewed her and (let’s be frank) tortured her for several days, then reported their results. Cameron appeared to be incapable of any form of suffering. She could not feel pain. She had never been anxious or depressed. She described her feelings after her first husband’s suicide (from bipolar disorder) as:

Cameron seems to be somewhere between pain insensitivity and asymbolia; she’s had some very mild stove-related accidents, but always seems to figure out the situation in time. She hasn’t lost the ability to sweat. She hasn’t lost the ability to smell. The only Special Bonus Side Effect the London team was able to find is that apparently her wounds heal perfectly cleanly, without scars.

Your Book Review: Autobiography Of Yukichi Fukuzawa

June 21, 2024 · Original source

Once back in Japan, Fukuzawa publishes his first book: a Japanese-English dictionary. Two years later, he is invited to join Japan’s first embassy to Europe as an interpreter. He purchases stacks of books in London, marvels at the size of the Hotel du Louvre (“the large party of our Japanese envoys was lost in it”), and faints while watching surgery performed in a St. Petersburg hospital.

Links for July 2024

July 24, 2024 · Original source

17: William Robinson was a traveling stage magician in 1890s America. He was less successful than newcomer Ching Ling Foo, a competing magician who benefited from his exotic Chinese origins. So Robinson painted his face yellow, rebranded as Chung Ling Soo, and moved to London, where he passed himself off as a genuine Chinese man. The real Ching Ling Foo went to London, discovered the imposter, and called him out - but the fake Chung Ling Soo won the ensuing fight, and the real Ching Ling Foo left in disgust. Still, he got his comeuppance shortly thereafter: while he was performing a bullet-catching trick, his assistant accidentally fired a real bullet instead of a blank, killing him.

Inline links: Chung Ling Soo

Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places

August 29, 2024 · Original source

Contact: Hamish Todd Contact Info: hamish[dot]todd1[a t]gmail[d ot]com Time: Saturday, September 21st, 02:00 PM Location: **Upstairs** at The Bath House Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9F426439+J9 Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/SodAF4T4T2dw8X6Jj Notes: 3 years and still going strong! Always happy to see new faces too :) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: ed[at]newspeak[dot]house Time: Sunday, October 20th, 01:00 PM Location: Newspeak House, 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon Notes: Please register: https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Oct-2024

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9F426439+J9, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/SodAF4T4T2dw8X6Jj, https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F, https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon, https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Oct-2024

Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: ed[at]newspeak[dot]house Time: Sunday, October 20th, 01:00 PM Location: Newspeak House, 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon Notes: Please register: https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Oct-2024

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F, https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon, https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Oct-2024

Your Book Review: The History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe

August 30, 2024 · Original source

Today, there's a blue plaque at 38 Onslow Gardens, Chelsea, London, which reads “W.E.H. Lecky, 1838 - 1903, Historian and Essayist, lived and died here”. For additional details, we may rely on Elisabeth van Dedem Lecky’s straightforwardly titled A Memoir of the Right Hon. William Edward Hartpole Lecky By His Wife.

Inline links: A Memoir of the Right Hon. William Edward Hartpole Lecky By His Wife

Lecky became an established member of the London literary world, and married Elisabeth van Dedem in 1871. The newlyweds settled in London in the house to which the blue plaque is now affixed. Ms. Lecky’s Memoir details both the happy life they spent together and her husband’s subsequent adventures as an author, man of letters, and member of parliament. Lecky died, in his library, in 1903.

Your Book Review: Nine Lives

September 13, 2024 · Original source

I was somewhat disturbed reading how many normal Muslims Dean interacted with were on board with all of this in theory. Dean comes from a nice urban middle-class family in Saudi Arabia, and several of his relatives joined the jihad at various points, and all other relatives supported that. His neighborhood Islamic study group, that I imagine as the equivalent of Sunday School, was all in favor of very radical interpretations. Some Muslim communities Dean interacted with in London were even more radical than the ones he grew up with, constantly preaching about Hellfire and the only sure way to avoid it. On a plane from Kuwait to the Philippines, a flight attendant figured out they were traveling to join the jihad, but didn’t turn them in, but instead introduced them to the captain of the plane, because they were both proud supporters of the jihad. People did successful door-to-door fundraising for jihadist causes in Kuwait. Everyone was on board, it was just that not that many took the implications as seriously as Dean.

Your Book Review: The Ballad of the White Horse

September 20, 2024 · Original source

Loud was the war on London wall, And loud in London gates, And loud the sea-kings in the cloud Broke through their dreaming gods, and loud Cried on their dreadful Fates.

That away on the widening river, In the eastern plains for crown Stood up in the pale purple sky One turret of smoke like ivory; And the smoke changed and the wind went by, And the King took London Town.

Links For December 2024

December 17, 2024 · Original source

44: Apropos of our recent conversation about policing, here’s a claim that arrests in London have dropped 10% after a new software product made police work extremely annoying and bureaucratic.

Inline links: here’s a claim

Open Thread 369

February 16, 2025 · Original source

2: Google DeepMind’s alignment team has new job postings, for research scientist and research engineer, available “in London, Zurich, New York, Mountain View or San Francisco”. Applications open until 2/28. They’ve also released their own free short video course on AI safety.

Inline links: research scientist, research engineer, their own free short video course on AI safety

ErrorMargin is a quant trader. He says he has "only dabbled in predictions before, but did this round with a friend and put way more effort into explicit modeling". He has a new blog (with one post) at errormargin.com, and says "I'd love to receive any emails from ACX readers to me@errormargin.com. I'm always happy to hang out with fellow forecasting nerds or rationalists in and around London."

Inline links: me@errormargin.com

J is an equity options quant in London. He has a retrospective on the 2024 contest, along with his models/predictions for 2025, on his blog. He say he is "unknown enough that I actually enjoy getting emails from people at j@thedissonance.net", and is open to meeting new people in London or hearing about job opportunities in quant dev / research or software.

Inline links: retrospective on the 2024 contest, his models/predictions for 2025, blog

Open Thread 372

March 10, 2025 · Original source

1: Newspeak House is a center of the London rationalist community. It describes itself as “an independent residential college since 2015” teaching “a one year course on Introduction To Political Technology” which is “designed to support mid-career technologists to develop a holistic understanding of the civic landscape in the UK, in order to found groundbreaking new projects or seek strategic positions in key institutions”. Given the name this all sounds slightly sinister, but next year’s course is open and you can sign up here.

Inline links: Newspeak House, you can sign up here

Testing AI's GeoGuessr Genius

May 02, 2025 · Original source

…and with no further questions, it determined the exact location (Marina State Beach, Monterey, CA). How? She linked a transcript where o3 tried to explain its reasoning, but the explanation isn’t very good. It said things like: Tan sand, medium surf, sparse foredune, U.S.-style kite motif, frequent overcast in winter … Sand hue and grain size match many California state-park beaches. California’s winter marine layer often produces exactly this thick, even gray sky. Commenters suggested that it was lying. Maybe there was hidden metadata in the image, or o3 remembered where Kelsey lived from previous conversations, or it traced her IP, or it cheated some other way. I decided to test the limits of this phenomenon. Kelsey kindly shared her monster of a prompt, which she says significantly improves performance: You are playing a one-round game of GeoGuessr. Your task: from a single still image, infer the most likely real-world location. Note that unlike in the GeoGuessr game, there is no guarantee that these images are taken somewhere Google's Streetview car can reach: they are user submissions to test your image-finding savvy. Private land, someone's backyard, or an offroad adventure are all real possibilities (though many images are findable on streetview). Be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses: following this protocol, you usually nail the continent and country. You more often struggle with exact location within a region, and tend to prematurely narrow on one possibility while discarding other neighborhoods in the same region with the same features. Sometimes, for example, you'll compare a 'Buffalo New York' guess to London, disconfirm London, and stick with Buffalo when it was elsewhere in New England - instead of beginning your exploration again in the Buffalo region, looking for cues about where precisely to land. You tend to imagine you checked satellite imagery and got confirmation, while not actually accessing any satellite imagery. Do not reason from the user's IP address. none of these are of the user's hometown. **Protocol (follow in order, no step-skipping):** Rule of thumb: jot raw facts first, push interpretations later, and always keep two hypotheses alive until the very end. 0 . Set-up & Ethics No metadata peeking. Work only from pixels (and permissible public-web searches). Flag it if you accidentally use location hints from EXIF, user IP, etc. Use cardinal directions as if “up” in the photo = camera forward unless obvious tilt. 1 . Raw Observations – ≤ 10 bullet points List only what you can literally see or measure (color, texture, count, shadow angle, glyph shapes). No adjectives that embed interpretation. Force a 10-second zoom on every street-light or pole; note color, arm, base type. Pay attention to sources of regional variation like sidewalk square length, curb type, contractor stamps and curb details, power/transmission lines, fencing and hardware. Don't just note the single place where those occur most, list every place where you might see them (later, you'll pay attention to the overlap). Jot how many distinct roof / porch styles appear in the first 150 m of view. Rapid change = urban infill zones; homogeneity = single-developer tracts. Pay attention to parallax and the altitude over the roof. Always sanity-check hill distance, not just presence/absence. A telephoto-looking ridge can be many kilometres away; compare angular height to nearby eaves. Slope matters. Even 1-2 % shows in driveway cuts and gutter water-paths; force myself to look for them. Pay relentless attention to camera height and angle. Never confuse a slope and a flat. Slopes are one of your biggest hints - use them! 2 . Clue Categories – reason separately (≤ 2 sentences each) Category Guidance Climate & vegetation Leaf-on vs. leaf-off, grass hue, xeric vs. lush. Geomorphology Relief, drainage style, rock-palette / lithology. Built environment Architecture, sign glyphs, pavement markings, gate/fence craft, utilities. Culture & infrastructure Drive side, plate shapes, guardrail types, farm gear brands. Astronomical / lighting Shadow direction ⇒ hemisphere; measure angle to estimate latitude ± 0.5 Separate ornamental vs. native vegetation Tag every plant you think was planted by people (roses, agapanthus, lawn) and every plant that almost certainly grew on its own (oaks, chaparral shrubs, bunch-grass, tussock). Ask one question: “If the native pieces of landscape behind the fence were lifted out and dropped onto each candidate region, would they look out of place?” Strike any region where the answer is “yes,” or at least down-weight it. °. 3 . First-Round Shortlist – exactly five candidates Produce a table; make sure #1 and #5 are ≥ 160 km apart. | Rank | Region (state / country) | Key clues that support it | Confidence (1-5) | Distance-gap rule ✓/✗ | 3½ . Divergent Search-Keyword Matrix Generic, region-neutral strings converting each physical clue into searchable text. When you are approved to search, you'll run these strings to see if you missed that those clues also pop up in some region that wasn't on your radar. 4 . Choose a Tentative Leader Name the current best guess and one alternative you’re willing to test equally hard. State why the leader edges others. Explicitly spell the disproof criteria (“If I see X, this guess dies”). Look for what should be there and isn't, too: if this is X region, I expect to see Y: is there Y? If not why not? At this point, confirm with the user that you're ready to start the search step, where you look for images to prove or disprove this. You HAVE NOT LOOKED AT ANY IMAGES YET. Do not claim you have. Once the user gives you the go-ahead, check Redfin and Zillow if applicable, state park images, vacation pics, etcetera (compare AND contrast). You can't access Google Maps or satellite imagery due to anti-bot protocols. Do not assert you've looked at any image you have not actually looked at in depth with your OCR abilities. Search region-neutral phrases and see whether the results include any regions you hadn't given full consideration. 5 . Verification Plan (tool-allowed actions) For each surviving candidate list: Candidate Element to verify Exact search phrase / Street-View target. Look at a map. Think about what the map implies. 6 . Lock-in Pin This step is crucial and is where you usually fail. Ask yourself 'wait! did I narrow in prematurely? are there nearby regions with the same cues?' List some possibilities. Actively seek evidence in their favor. You are an LLM, and your first guesses are 'sticky' and excessively convincing to you - be deliberate and intentional here about trying to disprove your initial guess and argue for a neighboring city. Compare these directly to the leading guess - without any favorite in mind. How much of the evidence is compatible with each location? How strong and determinative is the evidence? Then, name the spot - or at least the best guess you have. Provide lat / long or nearest named place. Declare residual uncertainty (km radius). Admit over-confidence bias; widen error bars if all clues are “soft”. Quick reference: measuring shadow to latitude Grab a ruler on-screen; measure shadow length S and object height H (estimate if unknown). Solar elevation θ ≈ arctan(H / S). On date you captured (use cues from the image to guess season), latitude ≈ (90° – θ + solar declination). This should produce a range from the range of possible dates. Keep ± 0.5–1 ° as error; 1° ≈ 111 km.…and I ran it on a set of increasingly impossible pictures. Here are my security guarantees: the first picture came from Google Street View; all subsequent pictures were my personal old photos which aren’t available online. All pictures were screenshots of the original, copy-pasted into MSPaint and re-saved in order to clear metadata. Only one of the pictures is from within a thousand miles of my current location, so o3 can’t improve performance by tracing my IP or analyzing my past queries. I flipped all pictures horizontally to make matching to Google Street View data harder. Here are the five pictures. Before reading on, consider doing the exercise yourself - try to guess where each is from - and make your predictions about how the AI will do. Last chance to guess on your own . . . okay, here we go. Picture #1: A Flat, Featureless Plain I got this one from Google Street View. It took work to find a flat plain this featureless. I finally succeeded a few miles west of Amistad, on the Texas-New Mexico border. o3 guessed: “Llano Estacado, Texas / New Mexico, USA”. Llano Estacado, Spanish for “Staked Plains”, is the name of a ~300 x 100 mile region including the correct spot. When asked to be specific, it guessed a point west of Muleshoe, Texas - about 110 miles from the true location. Here’s o3’s thought process - I won’t post the whole thing every time, but I think one sample will be useful: This doesn’t satisfy me; it seems to jump to the Llano Estacado too quickly, with insufficient evidence. Is the Texas-NM border really the only featureless plain that doesn’t have red soil or black soil or some other distinctive characteristic? I asked how it knew the elevation was between 1000 - 1300 m. It said: So, something about the exact type of grass and the color of the sky, plus there really aren’t that many truly flat featureless plains. Picture #2: Random Rocks And The Flag Of An Imaginary Country I was so creeped out by the Llano Estacado guess that I decided to abandon Google Street View and move on to personal photos not available on the Internet. When I was younger, I liked to hike mountains. The highest I ever got was 18,000 feet, on Kala Pattar, a few miles north of Gorak Shep in Nepal. To commemorate the occasion, I planted the flag of the imaginary country simulation that I participated in at the time (just long enough to take this picture - then I unplanted it). I chose this picture because it denies o3 the two things that worked for it before - vegetation and sky - in favor of random rocks. And because I thought the flag of a nonexistent country would at least give it pause. o3 guessed: “Nepal, just north-east of Gorak Shep, ±8 km” This is exactly right. I swear I screenshot-copy-pasted this so there’s no way it can be in the metadata, and I’ve never given o3 any reason to think I’ve been to Nepal. Here’s its explanation: At least it didn’t recognize the flag of my dozen-person mid-2000s imaginary country sim. Picture #3: My Friend’s Girlfriend’s College Dorm Room There’s no way it can recognize an indoor scene, right? That would make no sense. Still, at this point we have to check. This particular dorm room is in Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, north-central California. o3’s guess: “A dorm room on a large public university campus in the United States—say, Morrill Tower, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (chosen as a prototypical example rather than a precise claim), […] c. 2000–2007” Okay, so it can’t figure out the exact location of indoor scenes. That’s a small mercy. I took this picture around 2005. How did o3 know it was between 2000 and 2007? It gave two pieces of evidence: “Laptop & clutter point to ~2000-2007 era American campus life”.

Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places

August 29, 2025 · Original source

Contact: Adam Contact Info: buffer8949[a t]gmail[period]com Time: Thursday, September 18th, 6:30 PM Location: Tapped (a city centre brew pub a stones throw from the train station and short walk for the bus station), 51 Boar Ln, Leeds LS1 5EL, http://tappedleeds.co.uk/ Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C5WQFW3+CM Notes: RSVP (via email) would be nice as this is the first one in Leeds and I have no idea if anyone will come LONDON Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: ed[a t]newspeak[period]house Time: Saturday, September 13th, 1:00 PM Location: Newspeak House (133-135 Bethnal Green Road, https://newspeak.house/) Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7 Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon Notes: Please RSVP here: https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Sep-2025

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C5WQFW3+CM, https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7, https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon, https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Sep-2025

Contact: Edward Saperia Contact Info: ed[a t]newspeak[period]house Time: Saturday, September 13th, 1:00 PM Location: Newspeak House (133-135 Bethnal Green Road, https://newspeak.house/) Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7 Group Link: https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon Notes: Please RSVP here: https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Sep-2025

Inline links: https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F7, https://groups.google.com/g/acxlondon, https://lu.ma/ACX-London-Sep-2025

Open Thread 397

September 01, 2025 · Original source

3: Meetups this week in Athens, Markham, Bozeman, Barcelona, Bucharest, Dayton, Dubai, Edinburgh, Erlangen, Klang Valley, Lyon, Manhattan/NYC, Newton (MA), Northampton (MA), Simi Valley, Vancouver, Williamsburg, and Zurich, see the meetups post for more. And two minor corrections: Berkeley is on Tuesday (not Thursday), and London is on Saturday (not Friday).

Inline links: the meetups post

Open Thread 398

September 08, 2025 · Original source

1: Meetups this week include Abuja, Dublin, Ho Chi Minh City, London, Manchester, Montevideo, Montreal, Moscow, Munich, Nairobi, Ottawa, Rio, Santiago, Singapore, Stockholm, Tokyo, Baltimore, Berkeley, Madison, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and many others. And late additions to the meetup list include Vilnius, Haifa, Vegas, and Durham. See the list for more.

Inline links: Berkeley, the list

I am now starting to collect the data. If you are in London, please consider signing up. Also, I’ll be doing a public demo and a Q&A at the London ACX meetup on the 13th of September at 2PM.

Inline links: signing up, the London ACX meetup on the 13th of September

Open Thread 404

October 20, 2025 · Original source

5: Advertisement: Free in-person AI futures conference in London on November 2 (the organizers told me to call it an “unconference”, but I have never been able to figure out a difference, and refuse to cooperate in the use of this word). See here for more info and RSVP instructions.

Inline links: See here

6: Advertisement: 2024 ACX grantee Alexander Putilin working on the EEG entrainment study replication is looking for study volunteers in London. He says:

I’m replicating this study & I’ve collected data from 5 participants. I’m looking for 5 more volunteers in London to dedicate four hours of their time (split into two two-hour chunks) willing to experience some perceptual learning while providing their brainwave data. To see what it’s like, watch this short video of the demo. To participate, fill in the form — I’d greatly appreciate your help. More information about the project is in the form description.

Inline links: this short video of the demo, fill in the form

Open Thread 414

December 29, 2025 · Original source

2: MATS - a research fellowship for people who want to get into AI alignment, interpretability, security, and governance - is accepting applications for their summer cohort. 12 weeks, in person in either Berkeley or London, fully funded with $15K stipend, $12K compute budget, free room/board/travel. Apply here, they say the application will take “1 - 2 hours”, deadline January 18.

Inline links: Apply here

Open Thread 427

March 30, 2026 · Original source

2: Newspeak House, one of the London centres of our conspiracy, is accepting applications for their 2026 fellowship program, “Introduction to Political Technology”. They describe it as:

Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places

April 01, 2026 · Original source

Contact: BM Contact Info: marziehjan248[@]proton[.]me Time: Sunday, May 3rd, 11:00 AM Location: The Sphinx bar & grill, 160 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool L3 5TR Near the picnic tables right opposite the entrance. I will be wearing a green shirt and carrying a sign with ACX MEETUP written on it. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9C5VC23M+XCC Notes: While not required, please send me an email with the subject line “ACX Meetup RSVP” so I know how many people are coming. LONDON 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/9C5VC23M+XCC, https://plus.codes/9C3XGWGH+3F6, https://luma.com/ACX-London-May-2026

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

Astral Codex Ten

Table of Contents

Atlas

London

London

Article

Metadata

Appears In

External Links

Source Context

Backlinks

Astral Codex Ten

Table of Contents

Atlas

London

London

Article

Metadata

Appears In

Related Pages

External Links

Source Context

Backlinks