Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Astral Codex Ten Podcast episodes:

• 04.12.2024

  Links For April 2024

  [I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight...

  
• 04.12.2024

  Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024

  Many cities have regular Astral Codex Ten meetup groups. Twice a year, I try to advertise their upcoming meetups and make a bigger deal of it than usual so that irregular attendees can attend. This is one...

  
• 04.12.2024

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

  Saar Wilf is an ex-Israeli entrepreneur. Since 2016, he’s been developing a new form of reasoning, meant to transcend normal human bias. His method - called Rootclaim - uses Bayesian reasoning, a branch of math that explains the right way...

  
• 04.05.2024

  In Continued Defense Of Non-Frequentist Probabilities

  It’s every blogger’s curse to return to the same arguments again and again. Matt Yglesias has to keep writing “maybe we should do popular things instead of unpopular ones”, Freddie de Boer has to keep writing “the way culture depicts...

  
• 03.20.2024

  The Mystery Of Internet Survey IQs

  I have data from two big Internet surveys, Less Wrong 2014 and Clearer Thinking 2023. Both asked questions about IQ: The average LessWronger reported their IQ as 138. The average ClearerThinking user reported their IQ as...

  
• 03.20.2024

  In Partial Grudging Defense Of Some Aspects Of Therapy Culture

  Both the Atlantic’s critique of polyamory and my defense of it shared the same villain - “therapy culture”, the idea that you should prioritize “finding your true self” and make drastic changes if your current role doesn’t seem “authentically you”....

  
• 03.20.2024

  Verses On Five People Being Killed By A Falling Package Of Foreign Aid

  (inspired by Aid Airdrop Kills Five People In Gaza After Parachute Fails) https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/verses-on-five-people-being-killed 

  
• 03.20.2024

  Mantic Monday 3/11/24

  Robots of prediction, predictions of robots https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-31124 

  
• 03.20.2024

  Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024 - Call For Organizers

  There are ACX meetup groups all over the world. Lots of people are vaguely interested, but don't try them out until I make a big deal about it on the blog. Since learning that, I've tried to make a big...

  
• 03.15.2024

  How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?

  The consensus says "biological race doesn't exist". But if race doesn't exist, how do we justify affirmative action, cultural appropriation, and all our other race-related practices? The consensus says that, although race doesn't exist biologically, it exists as a series...

  
• 03.15.2024

  ACX Grants Followup Impact Market

  I. What’s Going On We got 351 proposals for ACX Grants, but were only able to fund 34 of them. I’m not a professional grant evaluator and can’t guarantee there aren’t some jewels hidden among the remaining 317. The plan...

  
• 03.15.2024

  Who Predicted 2023?

  Winners and takeaways from last year's prediction contest I. The Annual Forecasting Contest …is one of my favorite parts of this blog. I get a spreadsheet with what are basically takes - “Russia is...

  
• 03.15.2024

  Book Review Contest Rules 2024

  All right, let’s do this again. Write a review of a book. There’s no official word count requirement, but previous finalists and winners were often between 2,000 and 10,000 words. There’s no official recommended style, but check the style of...

  
• 03.10.2024

  Links For February 2024

  [I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight...

  
• 03.10.2024

  Less Utilitarian Than Thou

  https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/less-utilitarian-than-thou 

  
• 03.10.2024

  Who Does Polygenic Selection Help?

  https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/who-does-polygenic-selection-help 

  
• 03.01.2024

  Highlights From The Comments On Polyamory

  [Original posts: Contra The Atlantic On Polyamory (subscriber only), You Don’t Hate Polyamory, You Hate People Who Write Books] 1: Comments I Can Respond To With Something Resembling Actual Statistics 2: Comments I Will Argue Against Despite...

  
• 03.01.2024

  Mantic Monday 2/19/24

  AI forecasters come of age / Prediction market reality TV dating show? / OpenAI's Sora https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-21924   

  
• 03.01.2024

  X Fact Check: Does Gender Integration Moderate Politics?

  https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/x-fact-check-does-gender-integration 

  
• 02.16.2024

  Love And Liberty

  Libertarians don’t really have their own holiday. Communists have May Day. The woke have MLK’s birthday. Nationalists have July 4th or their local equivalent. But libertarians have nothing. I propose Valentine’s Day. The way people think about love is the...

  
• 02.16.2024

  Sam Altman Wants $7 Trillion

  I. Sam Altman wants $7 trillion. In one sense, this isn’t news. Everyone wants $7 trillion. I want $7 trillion. I’m not going to get it, and Sam Altman probably won’t either. Still, the media treats this as worthy of...

  
• 02.16.2024

  ACX Grants Results 2024

  Thanks to everyone who participated in ACX Grants, whether as an applicant, an evaluator, or a funder. The best part of ACX Grants is telling the winners they won, which I’ll do in a moment. The worst...

  
• 02.09.2024

  Evolution Explains Polygenic Structure

  We’ve been gradually working our way through the conversation around E. Fuller Torrey’s concerns about schizophrenia genetics - last week we had It’s Fair To Describe Schizophrenia As Probably Mostly Genetic, the week before Unintuitive Properties Of Polygenic Disorders. Here...

  
• 02.09.2024

  You Don't Hate Polyamory, You Hate People Who Write Books

  I. Yesterday I criticized The Atlantic’s recent invective against polyamory (subscriber-only post, sorry). Today I want to zoom away from the specific bad arguments and examine the overall form of the article. The overall form was: “I read a memoir...

  
• 02.09.2024

  It's Fair To Describe Schizophrenia As Probably Mostly Genetic

  Famous schizophrenia researcher E. Fuller Torrey recently wrote a paper trying to cast doubt on whether schizophrenia is really genetic. His exact argument is complicated, but I feel like it sort of equivocates between “the studies showing that schizophrenia are...

  
• 02.09.2024

  Seems Like Targeting

  I. Recently Claudine Gay resigned as President of Harvard over plagiarism accusations and a fumbled Congressional testimony on anti-Semitism. The plagiarism was discovered by conservative journalists Chris Rufo and Chris Brunet. It would be quite a coincidence for them to...

  
• 02.09.2024

  Mantic Monday 1/29/24

  Election problems // Trump odds // AI worlds https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-12924 

  
• 01.27.2024

  The Psychopolitics Of Trauma

  I. Everyone knows politics makes people crazy. But what kind of crazy? Which page of the DSM is it on? I’m only half joking. Psychiatrists have spent decades developing a whole catalog of ways brains can go wrong. Politics makes...

  
• 01.27.2024

  Some Unintuitive Properties Of Polygenic Disorders

  E. Fuller Torrey recently published a journal article trying to cast doubt on the commonly-accepted claim that schizophrenia is mostly genetic. Most of his points were the usual “if we can’t name all of the exact genes, it must not...

  
• 01.27.2024

  Should The Future Be Human?

  Machine Alignment Monday 1/22/24 Business Insider: Larry Page Once Called Elon Musk A “Specieist”: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Google cofounder Larry Page disagree so severely about the dangers of AI it apparently ended their friendship. At Musk's 44th...

  
• 01.27.2024

  Subscrive Drive 2024 + Free Unlocked Posts

  Astral Codex Ten has a paid subscription option. You pay $10 (or $2.50 if you can’t afford the regular price) per month, and get: Extra articles (usually 1-2 per month) A Hidden Open Thread per week...

  
• 01.22.2024

  Links For January 2024

  [Remember, I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will...

  
• 01.22.2024

  Against Learning From Dramatic Events

  Does it matter if COVID was a lab leak? Here’s an argument against: not many people still argue that lab leaks are impossible. People were definitely doing dangerous work with viruses; Chinese biosafety protocols were definitely mediocre. Maybe the Wuhan...

  
• 01.20.2024

  AI Sleeper Agents

  Machine Alignment Monday 1/15/24 A sleeper agent is an AI that acts innocuous until it gets some trigger, then goes rogue. People might make these on purpose. For example, the CIA might “encourage” big AI labs to make sleeper agents....

  
• 01.14.2024

  Highlights From The Comments On Capitalism & Charity

  [original post: Does Capitalism Beat Charity?] 1: Comments Where I Want To Reiterate That I’m In Near Mode 2: Comments Directly Arguing Against My Main Point, Thank You 3: Comments Promoting Specific Interesting Capitalist Charities 4: Other Interesting Comments 5:...

  
• 01.14.2024

  The Road To Honest AI

  Can blob fish dance ballet under diagonally fried cucumbers made of dust storms? AIs sometimes lie. They might lie because their creator told them to lie. For example, a scammer might train an AI to help dupe victims. Or they...

  
• 01.07.2024

  Singing The Blues

  [epistemic status: speculative] I. Millgram et al (2015) find that depressed people prefer to listen to sad rather than happy music. This matches personal experience; when I'm feeling down, I also prefer sad music. But why? Try setting aside all...

  
• 01.07.2024

  Does Capitalism Beat Charity?

  "You can't write a check to capitalism directly" This question comes up whenever I discuss philanthropy. It would seem that capitalism is better than charity. The countries that became permanently rich, like America and...

  
• 01.02.2024

  In The Long Run, We're All Dad

  I. In February 2023 I found myself sitting in the waiting room of a San Francisco fertility clinic, holding a cup of my own semen. The Bible tells the story of Onan, son of Judah. Onan’s brother died. Tradition dictated...

  
• 12.18.2023

  Son Of Bride Of Bay Area House Party

  [previously in series: 1, 2, 3, 4] It has been three weeks since Sam Altman was fired, but the conversation won’t move on. “What did Ilya see?” asks your Uber driver, on the way to the airport. “What wasn’t he...

  
• 12.18.2023

  Apply For An ACX Grant (2024)

  I’m running another ACX Grants round. If you already know what this is and want to apply, use the form here to apply, deadline December 29. Otherwise see below for more information. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/apply-for-an-acx-grant-2024 

  
• 12.18.2023

  Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ

  Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay. Their product is a genetically modified bacterium which infects your mouth, outcompetes all the tooth-decay-causing bacteria, and doesn’t cause tooth decay itself. If it works, it could make cavities a...

  
• 12.13.2023

  Beyond "Abolish The FDA"

  “Abolish the FDA” has become a popular slogan in libertarian circles. I’m sympathetic to the spirit of the demand. But a slogan isn’t a plan, and this one is even less of a plan than usual. I used to think...

  
• 12.13.2023

  Mantic Monday 12/4/23

  Sam Altman || Dating site strategy || Metaculus updates || Wars and rumors of wars https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-12423 

  
• 12.04.2023

  Links For November 2023

  [Remember, I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will...

  
• 12.04.2023

  Contra DeBoer On Movement Shell Games

  "Lots of alcoholics want to quit in principle, but only some join AA" Followup to: In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism Freddie deBoer says effective altruism is “a shell game”: Who could argue with that! But this summary also...

  
• 12.01.2023

  In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism

  "All you do is cause boardroom drama, and maybe some other things I’m forgetting..." I. Search “effective altruism” on social media right now, and it’s pretty grim. Socialists think we’re sociopathic Randroid money-obsessed Silicon Valley hypercapitalists. But Silicon Valley thinks...

  
• 12.01.2023

  God Help Us, Let's Try To Understand AI Monosemanticity

  Inside every AI is a bigger AI, trying to get out You’ve probably heard AI is a “black box”. No one knows how it works. Researchers simulate a weird type of pseudo-neural-tissue, “reward” it a little every time it becomes...

  
• 11.23.2023

  Book Review: I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

  The phrase “I see Satan fall like lightning” comes from Luke 10:18. I’d previously encountered it on insane right-wing conspiracy theory websites. You can rephrase it as “I see Satan descend to earth in the form of lightning.” But “lightning”...

  
• 11.20.2023

  Does Anaesthesia Prove Ketamine Placebo?

  The psychiatric study everyone’s talking about this month is ”Randomized trial of ketamine masked by surgical anesthesia in patients with depression”. Ketamine is a dissociative drug - it produces weird drug effects like feelings of bodylessness and ego death. Recent...