Sam Tobin-Hochstadt

One week with an e-bike and I'm definitely an "e-bike guy" now.

If anyone at @OpenAIDevs follows me (maybe @tszzl?), this is incredibly annoying. I apparently can't get the sponsored open source plan except by cancelling and then waiting a month? Seems like a terrible approach.

@MattZeitlin Similar story to the Strait of Hormuz being why you can't attack Iran.

it used to be political conventional wisdom that "mass deportation" was untenable because there would be such a strong public (and business community) backlash. trump thought he had a mandate to do it because of biden's border policy, turned out he was wrong

@SashaGusevPosts @allTheYud @PDoomOrder1 I think the most interesting question right now is what happens if the performance specifically of autoregressive language models trained on ~all digitized English text keeps improving, since that has some distinctive properties.

@allTheYud @PDoomOrder1 Totally agree it is good to be surprised and recognize surprising outcomes. But what's the update? Do you now think ASI will follow the LLM path and not the Yudkowsky-2011 path? Or that true ASI is on a parallel Y2011 track in a basement somewhere and we should ignore LLMs?

Stumbled upon an interesting debate on AI super-intelligence from 2011. Yudkowsky makes three core claims/predictions, all of which are (to date) wrong: 1) That human intelligence is relatively simple and ASI can be achieved with a few small innovations; ...

@AndyMasley As an intellectual trend I understand why it happened. But it's just true that (a) it's a big change and that (b) many people who were on board for the original ideas are not for the new ones.

@samth On this one I might disagree. I think there's just a lot of consistency in EAs wanting to prioritize what they think is actually the very most important, and we should just kind of expect deep schisms over that empirical question

EA ideas suffer from a particular problem where many people who've been significantly influenced by them still feel like endorsing any part of the worldview means endorsing all the people and orgs who are currently operating under the EA umbrella. But the ideas are general enough that this seems like saying you can't identify with capitalism without vouching for every self-described capitalist. I think this is an underrated reason more people aren't vocal about the EA ideas they've found valuable. And I'd like to see that change. I don't really care whether someone calls themselves "an EA" or want them to endorse any one thing that's happening or make the brand high status. It's because it's a real deep loss when people can't even point their audience toward the ideas that shaped how they think about the world. The ideas deserve guideposts pointing new people toward them. There are plenty of influential people who I know have been shaped by the basic EA framework who could serve their audiences well by just saying what they liked and what they didn't, but that influence stays mostly invisible unless you already know to look for it. I think it's on people into EA to show that in promoting specific ideas we're not just trying to make the brand or people high status, but it's also on people who have been influenced a lot by these ideas to take a bit of a leap for the sake of the ideas themselves.

@AndyMasley Also, and maybe more importantly, Adam Smith did not follow up The Wealth of Nations with pivoting into advocacy for a different set of ideas with quite different implications, social and political valence, and conclusions. This is, at least, why I feel uncomfortable as an "EA".

@AndyMasley The people who created capitalism, or who argued for it early on, did not try to set up the Center for Capitalism that would host a Capitalism Conference where everyone who was in the capitalism community would talk about what the whole community should prioritize.

@xenocryptsite But the forces that have led to massive retail sq footage haven't caught up -- mall design, urban planning, cargo-cult 5-over-1 retail rules, commercial property preference for big spaces, etc.

@xenocryptsite I think here again the issue of online shopping/drive through/delivery is paramount. You have a structural decrease in demand for in person shopping/dining (which was supercharged by the pandemic) plus an increase in the wage in-person service workers can earn elsewhere.

This is interesting but logically, if you think there's "widespread under-staffing" despite the prime-age employment rate being near historic highs, then you need to reallocate the "missing workers" from somewhere else (or have an even higher employment rate, longer hours...).

Monster, Requiem for a Dream

@xenocryptsite This is part of my general view that everyone is mad about lack of service productivity growth until it happens, at which point people are mad about that instead.

@xenocryptsite Basically all the examples are of in-person service work. Lots of people across the economy are mad that this work is now less productive than supporting less in person services (Amazon warehouses, AI annotating, etc) and that thus labor moves in that direction.

@xenocryptsite Right but how much have the revenue of those areas grown? We're spending a lot more on restaurants over time, for example.

That's plausible but HAS labor moved away from such fields? There's a lot of employment growth in food services and drinking places. x.com/i/status/20346…

@1ncent1ve @dilanesper He's from Tennessee but lives in Seattle I think.

@dilanesper His bio says he has a wife, two kids and lives in Tennessee. That makes his stances even more inexplicable

I just wonder if Roberts has any kids or even likes sports. Look-- right wing strategy is clearly PART of this. Like any movement, they looked for areas where their position had support, and sports was one of them. But that support was preexisting, from parents and sports fans.

@mattyglesias It's a great take, just like your "bombing Iran is a bad idea" take which the comment section also didn't like. Reflects the difference between those of us who have been reading your work for a long time and the newer subscribers, I think.

Sometimes you need to cork off a take that you think your subscribers won’t like slowboring.com/p/the-obama-of…

@RanjitJhala @awsTO It's also notable that the thing that made DeMillo et al wrong was formal proof, which eliminates the need for the social process they describe.

@awsTO I find it interesting, and ironic of course, that a large part of the buzz around formal proof -- in the math world at least -- is precisely because of how it has upended the "social process" :-)

@seanluomdphd @JamesLNuzzo @CJFerguson1111 Nobody believes these studies because we can all see with our own eyes what our own relationship to social media is like.

@JamesLNuzzo @CJFerguson1111 There are existing RCTs on this topic. The aggregate result is that if you aren't severely impaired, removing socials really doesn't help. If you are severely impaired, it helps some, but I'm sure that's not enough on its own. Not sure if this is consistent with Haidt or not.

Interesting. There is no evidence that time spent on social media is correlated with adolescent mental health problems: Findings from a meta-analysis. @CJFerguson1111

@gabrielwinant Also Jewish chauvinism isn't at all the same as Zionism in the American context. Mike Huckabee isn't a Jewish chauvinist; many American Jews are regardless of their relationship to Zionism.

@Aria_Babu @binarybits @theaichbee I agreed with Tim's tweets; I read the whole post; now my views are 50% that Tim is entirely correct and 50% that the zoomers are cooked.

@binarybits @theaichbee At this point, you should read the post. Large breasts and classy makeup on a classy lady are better than a flat chest and no makeup on a classy lady.

Most women underrate how much men care about looks. And when they do try to get more attractive they waste time and effort on tanning, contouring their face, getting their nails done. Instead, almost everyone could be considered attractive if they lost weight, grew their hair long, and cleared up their skin. All these things are within your control. There's other basic advice that should be obvious. Wear makeup everyday and go for a youthful, dewy look. Remove your body hair. Ditch your glasses. For the extreme looksmaxxers, focus on your body. Your face is probably fine and hard to change. Get a boob job, precisely control your weight, and do hourglass-enhancing exercises. You are no longer stuck with the looks God gave you. ariababu.co.uk/p/get-sexier