Dust specks (of a certain kind) are known to cause mesothelioma

actually I found this ancient text online that helps explain everything:

Eliezer Monogatari, chapter 69:

On his mighty steed Oververbosity, Eliezer is fast approaching the cliff edge overlooking the dreaded Chasm of Unreadability. His desire to cram more words and IQfulness into his text has deafened him to the wails of the Ghost of Editors Past, begging him to at least paste into Google Docs and fix a few squigglies.

In a moment of rational brilliance, he casts Bayesian Reasoning and epiphanisationalises that he can Just Add Metainfo to every line, exponentially increasing his QLAWPW (quality of life adjusted words per word), making him The Greatest Author. His loyal mount leaps into the air over the abyss, buoyed by clouds of self-delusion.

Of course, he crashes and falls into the chasm. But what's this? The miasma of unreadability... it's more clouds of self-delusion generated by the cult of TREACLES! He rises, unscathed, head three sizes bigger than before.^1^

1: Scholars are divided on whether this is because the toxic miasma mutated his sense of self-worth or if he hit his head on the chasm floor and it swelled. We will never know.

I suspect a large portion of people in EA leadership were already on the latter train and posturing as the former. The former is actually kinda problematic in its own way! If a problem was solvable purely by throwing money at it, then what is the need for a charity at all?

I hate this phrase but this is “saying the quiet part out loud” in action.

Read the whole damn thing. Near the end:

One of the last times I spoke to Scott, before the Turkey-Shoot Clusterfuck began, his mother had been in the hospital half a dozen times in recent weeks. She is in her seventies and has a thyroid condition, but on a recent visit to the E.R. she waited nearly seven hours, and left without being seen by a doctor. “The right Copilot could have diagnosed the whole thing, and written her a prescription within minutes,” he said. But that is something for the future. Scott understands that these kinds of delays and frustrations are currently the price of considered progress—of long-term optimism that honestly contends with the worries of skeptics.

Either Scott is swimming in an olympic sized pool of AI kool-aid and constantly thinking about how else AI can invade aspects of his personal life or just a normal exec that is willing to cynically spin every aspect of his personal life in service of the grift. It’s probably just the latter.

For my research, the primary speedups from AI come from using chatGPT to speed up coding a bit and helping to write bureaucratic applications.

Lmfao

I just read the post about 0 and 1 being invalid probabilities. Here’s my best attempt at interpreting it as a joke: This is clearly yud’s attempt at creating a mathematical trollpost using only words.

But yeah as someone with a (honestly atrophied) degree in mathematics I am struggling to figure out the post. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not performing mathematics; at best it is sophistry. Honestly it makes me sad that he wrote it at all and that people read it and agreed with it.

Reading it is like going to a restaurant, seeing “bowl of plain rice” on the menu, ordering it, and getting served an old boot full of glitter and sawdust. Seeing the comment section and seeing people that think yud is smart or correct about anything is reading the yelp reviews later for the restaurant and seeing people talk about how they’ve never tried rice before having it at the restaurant, and that it was really good and that now when they go to other restaurants with rice it’s never the real thing and they shouldn’t be trusted.

For actually interesting contrarian maths, go watch some Norman Wildberger videos or something.

countercounterpoint: I did my best. Had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get through the content barriers. Here's the result:

Cause Prioritization Analysis: "Kid Meat" as a Sustainable Choice Empowering Lower-Income Irish Families

Scale:

• Community Impact: Empowers lower-income Irish families by creating a market for their "kid meat," contributing indirectly to controlled populations.
• Potential Reach: Niche market initially with opportunities for growth due to the appeal of supporting marginalized communities and sustainable products.

Neglectedness:

• Empowerment Approach: Offers an avenue for economic empowerment to lower-income families through sustainable production.
• Market Demand: Addresses the growing consumer interest in supporting marginalized communities and sustainable food choices.

Tractability:

• Producer Collaboration: Involves collaboration with lower-income families for sustainable sourcing and processing.
• Ethical Marketing: Crafting a narrative to highlight the ethical and community-based benefits of consuming "kid meat."
• Consumer Awareness: Educating consumers about the positive impact of supporting marginalized communities through sustainable food choices.

Conclusion:

Strengths:

• Empowers lower-income Irish families through market access and recognition for their "kid meat" produce.
• Aligns with growing consumer interest in supporting marginalized communities and sustainable food choices.

Challenges:

• Effective communication to ensure consumer understanding and embrace of the community-driven initiative.
• Balancing pricing for consumer affordability while ensuring fair returns to producing families.

Overall Assessment:

• Scale: Niche market initially with potential for expansion.
• Neglectedness: Addresses economic empowerment indirectly through sustainable consumption and support for marginalized communities.
• Tractability: Feasible with challenges in effective community-driven communication and pricing strategy.

Next Steps:

• Producer Collaboration: Engage lower-income families for sustainable sourcing and processing.
• Ethical Marketing: Craft a narrative highlighting the community-based benefits of consuming "kid meat."
• Consumer Education: Create awareness about the positive impact of supporting marginalized communities through sustainable food choices.
• Pricing Strategy: Balance pricing for consumer affordability and fair returns to producing families.

By navigating these challenges and leveraging the strengths of the initiative, "Kid Meat" aims to create a sustainable market opportunity that not only supports ethical consumption but also directly contributes to the economic empowerment of lower-income Irish families, aligning with consumers' interests in supporting marginalized communities.

Is it just me or does the author just… not really spend any time trying to defend forced birth? Like, other than quoting counterarguments to abortion defences. It’s like he’s sort of assuming everyone already has ideas about why abortion itself is bad, but find it permissible for whatever reason. Is this a correct characterisation of the EA community? That they all harbour anti-abortion sentiment but for whatever reason permit abortion?

Overall it reads like a business proposal. Is this how you’re supposed to talk to an EA person? Instead of saying “here is why you should care about x”, you have to pitch them on the potential ROI of caring about something? If so, that’s a fucking frustrating way to think about the world, and this was a fucking awful article to read, just like every other treacles-y long form logorrhoea you get from these people.

Ok I figured out how to salvage it. People come on and pitch sensible business ideas that get shot down. We’d also get quotes like:

Aella: “If I take on an advisory role, will I be required to shower?”

Pinker: draws line up and to the right on graph “This problem is already as good as solved. I don’t see why any action on my part is necessary.”

EY: “You do not think in sufficient detail, and for that reason, I’m out.”

I had 100% certainty that 53 was prime when I was 12. Does that mean I was smarter than Yud back then? (I may have become more stupid since learning about LW)

Learning diplomacy is like, early adulthood stuff. People lie and shit, you learn that in kid’s shows. This is just another case of a LWer re-litigating something under the guise of inventing new brain jutsu.

That is, sure, you can assume good faith when talking to someone for the first time. But one shouldn’t hold onto that assumption tightly; I think LWers tend to hold onto their assumptions way too hard. Much harder than people who are supposed to be uPdAtInG tHeIr PrIoRs should. Otherwise, why would anyone spend time writing this article?