Links Archive
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- Did Van Halen’s Concert Contract Require the Removal of Brown M&Ms? [Snopes]: "The legendary “no brown M&Ms” contract clause was indeed real, but the purported motivation for it was not. The M&Ms provision was included in Van Halen’s contracts not as an act of caprice, but because it served a practical purpose: to provide a simple way of determining whether the technical specifications of the contract had been thoroughly read and complied with. As Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth explained in his autobiography:" ('20 Jan 19Added Sun 2020-Jan-19 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- A Lucky Stalemate [Fakenous.net]: Political stalemates can be good as they tend to moderate legislation and prevent bad legislation and provide a check on corruption. ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- *Why Nations Fail* and the long-termist view of global poverty [BenKuhn]: "Within the effective altruism community, people often talk about “long-termist” vs “short-termist” worldviews. The official distinction between the two is that short-termists prioritize problems by how they affect people alive today, while long-termists prioritize problems by how they could affect humanity’s entire future trajectory. In practice, people usually treat this as synonymous with prioritizing either existential risk reduction (if long-termist), or scaling up proven global health interventions (if short-termist). It’s a bit surprising that each worldview should have exactly one favorite cause area, though. Couldn’t you have short-termist work on existential risk, or long-termist work on global poverty?" ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- 10 tactics to stop procrastinating [Alifeofproductivity]: "The more boring, frustrating, difficult, meaningless, ambiguous, and unstructured a task is, the more likely you are to procrastinate with it. 10 strategies that will help you stop: flip these characteristics to make a task less aversive, recognize how your brain responds to “cognitive dissonance”, limit how much time you spend on something, be kind to yourself, just get started, list the costs of procrastinating, become better friends with future-you, completely disconnect from the Internet, form “implementation intentions”, and use procrastination as a sign that you should seek out more meaningful work. Whew." ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Extend gratitude beyond platitudes [Timharford]: "Writing a thoughtful thank-you letter when someone sends you a present requires far less imagination. It is the most elementary expression of gratitude. Still, it is not a bad place to start." ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Cassette Tape Thoughts [Acesounderglass]: "“The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements-all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics-to make it easy for him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think.”" ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- The Meditation Diet: How I Lost 60+ lbs. by Savoring [ZenHabits]: "And yet, a year later I had lost about 20-30 lbs. and ran a marathon. The pounds kept dropping away, year after year, and more importantly, I was eating healthier foods. I now love fresh fruits and veggies, raw nuts and seeds, beans and whole grains that haven’t been ground up, real unprocessed food. [...] Here’s the secret: I used eating as a form of meditation." ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Stop trying [BenKuhn]: "If there’s one thing that obsesses self-improvement junkies, it’s actually sticking with their regimens. Life hacks abound: Tell your friends about your plan so you’ll be embarrassed if you fail! Make sure you keep an unbroken streak! Charge yourself money if you don’t stick to it! Donate the money to your least favorite charity!1 Forget donations, how about electric shocks? The escalating absurdity should tell you that this problem is unsolved. But in my opinion, that’s because everyone tries to do it wrong. Personally, I’ve found my productivity habits to be extremely long-lived when I make sure they’re literally zero maintenance. That is, when it’s habit time, it requires more willpower to break the habit than to keep going." ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The coming technocracy [Econlib]: "I suspect that the trends I see in China will eventually spread elsewhere, and at some point all governments will become “potentially totalitarian” in the sense of having the technological capability of exercising total control over the population. They’ll be able to know everywhere you move, everything you read, and everything you buy. Whether they will actually exercise that control is another question, which I can’t answer. I don’t like where the world is headed. But perhaps younger people are comfortable with all this technology." ('20 Jan 18Added Sat 2020-Jan-18 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Invertebrate Sentience: Summary of findings, Part 2" [EA Forum]: "First, regarding the majority of invertebrates, it must be admitted that it is not possible, given the evidence presently available, to conclusively determine whether they are conscious or not. Nevertheless, of all the taxa we studied, current research has provided us with relatively strong evidence that cephalopods (i.e., octopuses) and crustaceans (i.e., crabs and crayfish) are conscious. In addition, evidence suggests that, probably, fruit flies are conscious as well. Furthermore, there is important behavioral evidence for the consciousness of honey bees and, to a lesser extent, ants, cockroaches and spiders. Their case, however, is not as strongly supported by existing evidence as that of cephalopods and decapods." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Too much transparency makes the world more opaque. [Feedproxy.google]: "In contrast, a non-transparent, off-the-record process can reveal new information because less transparent can be more honest. The off-the-record system isn’t a guarantee of useful information, as the NYTimes has its biases and the off-the-record system only works because it is coarse, but coarse systems can reveal more information. The demand for transparency seems so innocuous. Who could be against greater transparency? But transparency is inimical to privacy. And we care about privacy in part, because we can be more honest and truthful in private than in public. A credible off-the-record system leaks a bit of honesty into the public domain and thus improves information overall. Too much transparency, in contrast, makes the world more opaque." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Why the game of Life used to have poverty, suicide, and ruin" [Vox]: "The original game of Life was depressing. Really depressing. When we think of the game of Life, the candy-colored 1950s and '60s version comes to mind — featuring the glossy American dream of buying a house, piling kids in the car, and becoming a millionaire. But it wasn't always that way. The game of Life is more than 150 years old, and its early incarnations were very, very different. The goal wasn't to be a millionaire, but simply to live a good life. And that included the risk of suffering some incredibly depressing consequences — like suicide or poverty" ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Book Review: Legal Systems Very Different From Ours [SlateStarCodex]: "Medieval Icelandic crime victims would sell the right to pursue a perpetrator to the highest bidder. 18th century English justice replaced fines with criminals bribing prosecutors to drop cases. Somali judges compete on the free market; those who give bad verdicts get a reputation that drives away future customers." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Invertebrate Sentience: Summary of findings, Part 1" [EA Forum]: "When it comes to evaluating the behaviors and cognitive sophistication of invertebrates, there are many more unknowns than knowns. Anatomical, evolutionary features, simple learning skills, and navigational skills appear well-studied and found in invertebrates. Nociceptive abilities are clear, but actual possession of concrete nociceptors is much less clear. Fewer studies are available on mood state behaviors and motivational tradeoffs, and researchers seem to consider it unlikely for invertebrates to possess these." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- The Dark Secrets of BERT [Text-machine-lab.github.io]: "(1) BERT is heavily overparametrized. This means many weights, and even entire layers, can be dropped without loss in performance. This also explains why BERT can be so easily distilled. (2) BERT does not need to be all that smart for these tasks. BERT can perform fairly well without pre-training (though does best with pre-training). This also means that instead of verbal reasoning, BERT may learn to rely on various shortcuts, biases and artifacts in the datasets to arrive at the correct prediction. It also means that BERT’s success may be due to something other than self-attention." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin datascience | a)
- Physicist Wins Ig Noble Prize For Study On Whether Cats Should Be Classified As Liquids Or Solids [Physics-astronomy]: "In his official research paper, Fardin discusses many factors including relaxation time, experimental time, the type of container, and the cat's degree of stress. The conclusion? Cats can be either liquid or solid, depending on the circumstances." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease [LessWrong]: "People commonly debate whether social and mental conditions are real diseases. This masquerades as a medical question, but its implications are mainly social and ethical. We use the concept of disease to decide who gets sympathy, who gets blame, and who gets treatment. Instead of continuing the fruitless "disease" argument, we should address these questions directly. Taking a determinist consequentialist position allows us to do so more effectively. We should blame and stigmatize people for conditions where blame and stigma are the most useful methods for curing or preventing the condition, and we should allow patients to seek treatment whenever it is available and effective." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- "If nothing goes wrong, is everything all right? Interpreting zero numerators" [Medicine.mcgill.ca]: "A zero numerator does not necessarially mean no risk, a zero numerator does not preclude inferences about the size of the risk, and the principles of inferential statistics that apply to non-zero numerators apply equally well to zero numerators. [...] To be 95% confident that our interval estimate of the long-run risk is correct, a simple rule can be applied. This rule of three states that if none of n patients show the event about which we are concerned, we can be 95% confident that the chance of this event is at most three in n (i.e., 3/n)." ('20 Jan 17Added Fri 2020-Jan-17 11 p.m. CSTin statistics | a)
- Would a reduction in the number of owned cats outdoors in Canada and the US increase animal welfare? [EA Forum]: "Previously published estimates of the number of birds and mammals killed by owned cats are probably too large by over one billion animals. [...] Our estimates suggest that interventions aimed at reducing owned cat predation will therefore directly affect a smaller number of wild animals (~830 animals per $1000) than previously suggested (~5500 animals per $1000). A single-message advocacy intervention, such as promoting collars with predation deterrents (e.g. bells, bright colors) on all adopted cats, could have multiple benefits for the welfare of both owned cats and wild animals. However, cat predation may be a net benefit for wild animal welfare given the probability that this mortality is often compensatory, the large reproductive capacity of small rodents, and the inhumane methods of rodent control currently in use." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Computing Metaculus Priors [Aaboyles.github.io]: "If you’re confronted with a random, binary question [on Metaculus], your first guess shouldn’t be 50%–it should be 29%. If you’re estimating a number, shoot for the low end of the spectrum. That being said, this is a just a minimally informative prior taken by assessing the outside view on Metaculus itself. Almost literally any information about the specific question should trigger a strong update (relative to the strength of this evidence)." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Comments on a panel at Harvard [Juliagalef.files.wordpress]: "There are some facts that are objectively true, but treated as unsayable by progressives because people could follow them to bad (and unwarranted) conclusions. But then the only exposure people have to those facts is from the alt-right, which does follow the facts to the bad and unwarranted conclusions." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- The wonderful thing about triggers [SlateStarCodex]: "Trigger warnings aren’t censorship… They’re one of our strongest weapons against the proponents of censorship. The proponents say ‘We can’t let you air that opinion, it might offend people.’ Trigger warnings say ‘I am explaining to you exactly how this might offend you, so if you continuing listening to me you have volunteered to hear whatever I have to say, on your own head be it.’" ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- The rules about responding to call-outs aren’t working [Realsocialskills]: "Privileged people rarely take the voices of marginalized people seriously. Social justices spaces attempt to fix this with rules about how to respond to when marginalized people tell you that you’ve done something wrong. Like most formal descriptions of social skills, the rules don’t quite match reality… ‘Shut up and listen to marginalized people’ isn’t quite the right rule, because it objectifies marginalized people, leaves us open to sabotage, enables abuse, and prevents us from working through conflicts in a substantive way." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Is it possible to have coherent principles around free speech norms? [SlateStarCodex]: "Social norms about free speech risk collapsing into the incoherent Doctrine Of The Preferred First Speaker, where it’s okay for me to say that the President sucks, but not okay for you to say that I suck for saying that. This is dumb, and I don’t know if free speech supporters have articulated a meaningful alternative. I want to sketch out some possibilities for what that sort of alternative would look like." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- The enemy control ray [Thingofthings.wordpress]: "Imagine your worst ideological enemy… Now, imagine that a mad scientist has invented a device called the Enemy Control Ray. The Enemy Control Ray is a mind-control device: whatever rule you say into it, your enemy must follow… However, because of limitations of the technology, any rule you put in is translated into your enemy’s belief system." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- "Who should be shamed, and who not?" [Marginalrevolution]: "Not a proposal per se, but an observation that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of logic to which types of crimes we deem worthy of shaming someone for. Do we shame based on ideas, or behavior? Do we shame with the purpose of deterrance, tribal signaling, something else?" ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- How I think about free speech: four categories [Juliagalef]: "It’s important to distinguish between different levels of “silencing” speech: no consequences, individual social consequences, official social consequences, and legal consequences. Different levels are appropriate for different kinds of speech." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Civility is never neutral [Thingofthings.wordpress]: "There are a lot of people I know who say something like ‘the free market of ideas is really important and we need to seek truth… So what we’re going to do is not shame anyone for expressing any belief, as long as they follow a few common-sense guidelines about niceness and civility.’ I am very sympathetic to this point of view but I don’t think it will ever work… Civility norms will always be enforced disproportionately against viewpoints that the people in power don’t like." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- "Be nice, at least until you can coordinate meanness" [SlateStarCodex]: "Society punishes people for crimes, including the crime of libel. Punishment is naturally not-nice, but this seems fair; we can’t just have people libeling each other all the time with no consequences. But what makes this tolerable is that it’s coordinated – done through the court system according to carefully codified libel law that explains to everybody what is and isn’t okay. Remove the coordination aspect, and you’ve got the old system where if you say something that offends my honor then I get some friends and try to beat you up in a dark alley. The impulse is the same: deploy not-niceness in the worthy goal of preventing libel. But one method is coordinated and the other isn’t." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- What you can’t say to a sympathetic ear [Meteuphoric.wordpress]: "Social sanctions on speech are even stickier than you might think, because of coordination problems. "Even if everyone comes to privately believe that onions are indeed fruit, and also thinks that nobody should be punished for saying this, and they can all talk to each other, everyone might still end up saying that onions aren’t fruit forever." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Tolerate tolerance [Lesserwrong]: "It’s tempting to want to punish people for not punishing people we think deserve punishment. Think of someone complaining, "I can’t believe Bob still associates with John, a known bigot". But we should resist this temptation, because a norm of punishing non-punishers locks us into harmful equilibria." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- "Safe spaces as shield, safe spaces as sword" [Popehat]: "This may come as a surprise, but I’m a supporter of ‘safe spaces.’ I support safe spaces because I support freedom of association. Safe spaces, if designed in a principled way, are just an application of that freedom… But not everyone imagines “safe spaces” like that. Some use the concept of “safe spaces” as a sword, wielded to annex public spaces and demand that people within those spaces conform to their private norms. That’s not freedom of association." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Sacred principles as exhaustible resources [SlateStarCodex]: "I think of respect for free speech as a commons. Every time some group invokes free speech to say something controversial, they’re drawing from the commons – which is fine… But if you draw from the commons too quickly, then the commons disappears. When trolls say the most outrageous things possible, then retreat to ‘oh, but free speech’, they’re burning the commons for no reason, to the detriment of everybody else who needs it." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Self-censorship in public discourse: a theory of ‘political correctness’ and related phenomena [Brown.edu]: "If you express dissent with your political alllies, they will rationally increase their credence that you aren’t a true ally. And this phenomenon is self-reinforcing: the more that true allies avoid dissent so as to not be incorrectly deemed a false ally, the more rational it becomes for people to assume that dissent = not a true ally." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Social gentrification [Status451]: "Toxic cultures are analogous to gritty neighborhoods. They’re unpleasant and unsafe in a lot of ways, but they’re also places that people with very little social capital can call home. Pressure to clean up toxic cultures, and make them nicer and more welcoming, is akin to gentrification — it’s good for the newcomers who want to move in to that culture, but rough on the old-timer geeks who already have roots there, don’t have the social skills to adjust, and don’t have enough social capital to thrive elsewhere." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Safe spaces and competing access needs [The Unitofcaring.tumblr]: "Safe spaces are very important, but it is usually the case that the norms some people need to feel safe when discussing a given issue are incompatible with the norms other people need when discussing that issue. This doesn’t make either set of norms “wrong.” The internet, with its porous boundaries, makes it especially tricky to compartmentalize norms." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- The Moderator's Dilemma: The Risks of Partial Intervention [Lesserwrong]: "Once you’ve intervened, your decision not to intervene in another situation will be taken to mean that you don’t consider a particular ideology hateful." True not just for moderators of online communities, but also companies, universities, etc. In the comment section, some solutions to the moderator’s dilemma are proposed." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Great Leaders Understand Why Small Gestures Matter [Feeds.hbr]: "Small gestures—whether signage or speech, body language or handwritten messages—can send big signals about who we are, what we care about, and why we do what we do." ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Are We the Baddies? [Youtube]: It's a skull! ('20 Jan 16Added Thu 2020-Jan-16 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Say “Can’t” With Care [Econlib]: "Namely: If person X actually does Y, we can legitimately infer, “X can do Y.” But if person X does not do Y, you cannot legitimately infer that they can’t. Maybe they don’t do Y because they can’t do Y. Maybe they don’t do Y because they choose not to do Y. What’s the real story? Figuring that out requires further investigation. Before you declare that, “X can’t do Y,” start with this simple checklist: Step 1: See if the actor in question even tried to do Y. Step 2: If the actor tried, examine how hard he tried. Step 3: Look at how successful comparably-able actors are when they try their very hardest." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Learning Day [Openai]: "At OpenAI, each Thursday is Learning Day: a day where employees have the option to self-study technical skills that will make them better at their job but which aren’t being learned from daily work. We’ve found that the biggest contributions at OpenAI come from cross-functional experts, so we either need to hire them or grow them here. Before Learning Day, we very rarely saw people grow cross-functionally—for example, employees coming from a software background rarely picked up machine learning (something equally rare in other organizations except academia). Since Learning Day, this kind of growth has become very common." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Would US and Russian nuclear forces survive a first strike? [EA Forum]: "The degree to which a nuclear war between the US and Russia could escalate depends on how many of their nuclear weapons would survive a first strike. For decades, both the US and Russia have been able to maintain a secure second strike by hiding their nuclear weapons on submarines, armored trucks, and aircraft. If improvements in technology allowed either country to reliably locate and destroy those targets, they would be able to eliminate the others’ secure second strike, thereby limiting the degree to which a nuclear war could escalate. But, at least for now though, technological progress has not advanced to the point of threatening the subset of the nuclear warheads that are deployed on mobile systems: sea-launched ballistic missiles, air-based strategic bombers, and road-mobile ICBMs." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Fast [Patrickcollison]: "Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- The Mandalorian Is the Only Smart Soldier in the Star Wars Galaxy [Wired]: "It took decades, but the galaxy finally has a tactical and operational genius." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Corporate campaigns affect 9 to 120 years of chicken life per dollar spent [EA Forum]: "In this article, I estimate how many chickens will be affected by corporate cage-free[1] and broiler welfare[2] commitments won by all charities, in all countries, during all the years between 2005 and the end of 2018. According to my estimate, for every dollar spent, 9 to 120 years of chicken life will be affected. However, the estimate doesn't take into account indirect effects which could be more important." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Don’t Be a Modal Weasel [Econlib]: "I often hear academics say things like: “It is not necessarily the case that the evidence would support that.” Is this sentence meaningless or just trivial? I don’t know, but I am still surprised by how many otherwise reasonable people hide behind such verbiage. What’s the alternative? Plain, simple, clear, clean, bog-standard, unadorned probabilities. Instead of “It could be impossible,” say “The probability is 3%” or “The probability is 17%” or whatever." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- "Insect herbivores, life history and wild animal welfare" [EA Forum]: "Life history classification will hide some significant differences in the lives of wild animals. Not all species within a given classification possess all of the traits associated with that group even across all years or all locations. Therefore, when making moral decisions, one also has to consider how average quality of life should be determined in the face of large variance. Among insect herbivores, some lifespans are relatively long, some modes of death are very quick, and some small-bodied herbivores may lead lives characterized by ample food resources. [...] Knowing a group of organisms produce many offspring, have high mortality rates, small body size and are short-lived is not sufficient to determine that their lives are a net negative (or positive)." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Too Tired to Do Everything? How to Live Better Without Burning Out [Scotthyoung]: "I write a lot about how to live better, and sometimes all those suggestions can start to feel more like burdens than helpful advice. [...] Part of the problem is that suggestions are almost always given on their own. [...] There have always been trade-offs. If you’re meditating for an hour every day, that might cut into your gym routine. [...] If living well sounds exhausting, what should you do about it? [...] First, realize that you actually cannot do everything you should. [...] Second, make a distinction between a lack of inertia and persistent exhaustion from an activity being more hassle than help. [...] Finally, live well for your own sake, not because somebody told you that you should." ('20 Jan 15Added Wed 2020-Jan-15 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Deliberation May Improve Decision-Making [EA Forum]: "We begin by describing deliberation and its links to democratic theory, and then sketch out examples of deliberative designs. Following this, we explore the evidence that deliberation can engender fact-based reasoning, opinion change, and under certain conditions can motivate longterm thinking. So far, most deliberative initiatives have not been invested with a direct role in the decision-making process and so the majority of policy effects we see are indirect. Providing deliberative bodies with a binding and direct role in decision-making could improve this state of affairs. We end by highlighting some limitations and areas of uncertainty before noting who is already working in this area and avenues for further research." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Elderblog Sutra: 10 [Ribbonfarm]: "The answer is ultimately pretty simple. For work to work, it has to first work for the worker, before it works for anyone else. Otherwise it is not sustainable. So my old approach to blogging had stopped working — for me, and blogchains have been my way of looking for a new approach that works — again for me." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Which nuclear wars should worry us most? [EA Forum]: "A nuclear exchange may have the potential to kill millions or billions of people, and possibly lead to human extinction. In this post, I rank plausible nuclear exchange scenarios in terms of their potential to cause harm based on three factors: 1) The size of the involved countries’ nuclear arsenals; 2) The size of the involved countries’ populations; 3) The probability of the given nuclear exchange scenario. Based on my rough prioritization, I expect the following nuclear exchange scenarios have the highest potential for harm: Russia and the US; India and Pakistan; China and either the United States, India, or Russia" ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- AGI Has Been Delayed [Rodneybrooks]: "A very recent article follows in the footsteps of many others talking about how the promise of autonomous cars on roads is a little further off than many pundits have been predicting for the last few years. Readers of this blog will know that I have been saying this for over two years now. Such skepticism is now becoming the common wisdom." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Two weeks' notice? Or twelve months? [Jasoncrawford]: "Each time, I gave as much notice as possible, usually months. I told my manager (and sometimes his manager) as soon as I was seriously considering leaving. To the great credit of all three places (and all of those managers), they were all supportive. In the same spirit, I've always tried to remain a 100% dedicated employee to the very end." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- Peak age for entrepreneurship: who cares? [Jasoncrawford]: "People love to talk about whether there is a peak age for entrepreneurship. Who wins, the 20-something just out of college with unlimited energy, no family or other obligations, who's too naïve to know what he can't do and isn't afraid to break the rules? Or the seasoned veteran who's already made his rookie mistakes, who brings experience, patience, wisdom, and maturity? For investors, this is probably a fascinating topic. [...] As an entrepreneur, I don't care, and neither should you." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- Three buckets [Jasoncrawford]: "I became happier when I decided that everything has to fall into these three buckets: (1) Things that make me happy, (2) Things I can change, (3) Things I don’t care about" ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Economics as the Study of Peaceful Human Cooperation and Progress [Econlib]: "[W]hat an understanding of economics provides us with is a way to see what makes a society of peace, cooperation, and progress possible. The reason to care about economics, and the reason to study it, is not just to understand material well-being, but instead it’s about a much bigger picture: how we cooperate in a world of strangers and diversity, and how we turn that cooperation into better and longer and more peaceful lives for more people. [...] Exchange enables us to overcome our differences by providing a way for us to interact not just despite those differences but because of them. [...] Exchange, of course, requires private property, and private property requires a system of governance to protect the rights of property and contract." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The End of the Free-Market Paradigm [Project-syndicate]: "The assumption of isolated individuals transacting in free markets has underpinned highly damaging economic policies since the 1980s. Given the interdependent nature of the digital world, economic researchers need to ditch their unscientific attachment to this paradigm and instead focus on the economy of the 2020s." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- How many people would be killed as a direct result of a US-Russia nuclear exchange? [EA Forum]: "There are many determinants that factor into the number of people that would die as a direct result of nuclear detonations during a US-Russia nuclear exchange. I consider the following six factors the most important. They make up the key parameters in my model: The targeting strategy (i.e. what kinds of targets will each country attack?); the number of military facilities each country might target; whether each country would also target cities, in addition to military facilities; if they were to target cities, the number of cities each country might target; the sizes of the nuclear weapons in each country’s nuclear arsenal; and the population size of the cities that might be targeted during an exchange. When I take all of these factors into account, I expect that we’d see a total of 51 million deaths caused directly by nuclear detonations on military and civilian targets in NATO countries and Russia (90% confidence interval: 30 million — 75 million deaths)." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- How likely is a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia? [EA Forum]: "I get a rough sense of how probable a nuclear war might be by looking at historical evidence, the views of experts, and predictions made by forecasters. I find that, if we aggregate those perspectives, there’s about a 1.1% chance of nuclear war each year, and that the chances of a nuclear war between the US and Russia, in particular, are around 0.38% per year." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- What Is a Moral Foreign Policy? [Tnsr]: "Regarding ethical means, presidents can be judged by the well-established just war criteria of proportional and discriminate use of force that are the law of the land in the United States. They can also be judged by Rawls’ liberal concern for minimal degrees of intervention in order to respect the rights and institutions of other peoples. As for ethical consequences, Americans can ask whether a president succeeded in promoting the country’s long-term national interests, but also whether he respected cosmopolitan values regarding human life by avoiding extreme insularity totally discounts harm to foreigners. The example that leaders set also has important moral consequences, as does whether they are promoting truth and trust that broadens moral discourse at home and abroad. These criteria are modest and derived from insights from realism, liberalism, and cosmopolitanism." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Rodents farmed for pet snake food [EA Forum]: "There are between 4.2 million and 7.8 million pet snakes in the world. 160 million to 2.1 billion vertebrates are killed for pet snake food every year. Most of the vertebrates seem to be farmed mice. Feeder mice are killed when they are anywhere between 48 hours and more than 9 months old. Most seem to be slaughtered when they are 3–4 weeks old. Farming of feeder animals seems to involve considerable suffering because they are often living in cramped and possibly unsanitary conditions, which don’t have shelters to hide in, lack daylight and activities. I haven’t figured out what possible interventions in this space could be particularly promising. It’s possible that the problem is not very tractable." ('20 Jan 14Added Tue 2020-Jan-14 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Wicked Problems and The Role of Expertise and AI in Data Science [Econometricsense.blogspot]: "Kind environments (e.g., chess) have rigid rules, repeated patterns, and clear feedback. Wicked environments do not. All environments fall on a spectrum. Experts and AI both perform better in kind environments. Expert performance is particularly bad in wicked environments. AI can learn better through prolonged practice and is and is not prone to exhaustion, which could make for good AI-human teams." ('20 Jan 13Added Mon 2020-Jan-13 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- What does it mean to re-establish deterrence? [Inkstickmedia]: "“Reestablish deterrence” sounds firm and yes, manly. But it is backward-looking and limits the possibilities for solving the problem it is aimed at. It cannot map out a path to peace. “Deterrence” has become a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s painted as defensive, but responding to violence with violence is escalation, not deterrence." ('20 Jan 13Added Mon 2020-Jan-13 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Avoiding burnout as an ambitious developer [Stackoverflow.blog]: "Be willing to say no. Know what you want and, more importantly, what you don’t want. When you look at your list of tasks that you have to accomplish in a given day, figure out how much you can realistically get done that day and actively move the rest to another day. By being realistic about what you’re going to be doing just today, you can set aside time to use the rest of your energy for the day on things that will give your brain a break. Actually make yourself a to-do list, stick to it, and don’t write so much that you always have tasks left over. By giving yourself dedicated time to rest up, you’ll be able to get your tasks done driven with more purpose, rather than driven by the looming feeling of being overwhelmed." ('20 Jan 13Added Mon 2020-Jan-13 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Example high-stakes information security breaches [Docs.google]: "Examples of especially costly leaks and hacks of digital information are listed below (from 2005 or later)." ('20 Jan 13Added Mon 2020-Jan-13 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Does GPT-2 Understand Anything? [LessWrong]: "In summary, it seems that GPT-2 does have something that can reasonably be called “understanding” and holds something very much like “concepts” or “ideas” which it uses to generate sentences. However, there are some profound differences between how a human holds and uses ideas and how GPT-2 does, which are important to keep in mind." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Reset your caffeine tolerance [Alifeofproductivity]: "When you consume caffeine habitually, you’ll need to consume more and more to experience the same energy boost. This makes occasionally resetting your caffeine tolerance worth the effort and the struggle. To do this, slowly lower the amount of caffeine you consume each day, or go “cold turkey” if you don’t consume a lot to begin with. Invest in your energy at the same time to counterbalance withdrawal symptoms." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Pecking Order and Flight Leadership [Srconstantin.wordpress]: "Logically, it isn’t necessary for the individual who decides what others shall do to also be the individual who gets the most goodies. They can be related — one of the things you can do with the power to give instructions is to instruct others to give you more goodies. But you can, at least with nonhuman animals, separate pecking-order hierarchies from decision-making hierarchies." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Reducing the Risks of Nuclear Entanglement [Carnegieendowment]: "Initial unilateral action might be necessary for reducing risks from entanglement. New START, avoiding massing of missile platforms near other country's strategic targets, notifying other countries of rationale for missile platform massing, and an agreement prohibiting the testing and deployment of dedicated anti-satellite weapons could all be helpful policy." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Managing risk in the EA policy space [EA Forum]: "Campaigners for policy change or those who have access to power should consider carefully how to handle the various risks. Researchers and academics should make policy suggestions and not be afraid of talking to policy experts and government departments, although they should be aware that their ideas may well be terrible. Funders and EA donors should look to fund policy interventions and draw the necessary expertise from across the EA community." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- "Automation: So Far, Business As Usual" [Overcomingbias]: So far there aren't yet signs of large-scale job loss from automation. ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- What We Do When We Lose [Current Affairs]: "We can’t just write off the British election as irrelevant and ignore it. It does show that a strong economically left agenda does not “sell itself.” It might be popular, but unless a party leader can present it to people effectively, even if they like the individual policies they might not vote for the party. We also see a warning about the power of media: Corbyn faced a relentless barrage of anti-Semitism accusations, and had to expend valuable time and energy trying to deal with them" ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Memo: H.R. 3 Can Stand Up to Scrutiny [Dataforprogress]: "We find that the core policy of H.R.3., allowing the government to negotiate drug prices is still popular when voters see a Democratic message and a message attributed to a collection of companies and unions. H.R.3 remains popular even when voters see no positive message and only a negative message." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- What are Refugee Camps for? [Current Affairs]: "The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—the international organization that runs most of the world’s refugee camps—doesn’t think refugee camps are a good idea. In its view, voluntary repatriation, local integration, or resettlement in a third country are all preferable “durable solutions.” [...] In other words, even the people who run them think that camps are a terrible way to deal with refugees. It is peculiar, then, that refugee camps remain one of the most common, visible, and widely accepted institutions of human migration." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Antiretroviral therapy has saved millions of lives from AIDS and could save more [Ourworldindata]: "Globally, 1 million people died from HIV/AIDS in 2016; but even more deaths – 1.2 million – were averted as a result of ART. Without ART, more than twice as many people would have died from HIV/AIDS. " ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin development | a)
- A former Egyptian engineer found the secret to building a big gas-station chain [Seattletimes]: "Said’s formula is simple: He finds locations that are ideally located but poorly maintained, upgrades the equipment and the store, and institutes a spit-and-polish customer-service regimen." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- The neoconservative fantasy at the center of the Suleimani killing [Vox]: "But let’s be clear about what Pompeo is really saying. His claim is that dropping bombs on Soleimani and other military leaders will prompt citizens of Iraq and Iran to rebel against their governments, thank the US, and push for something akin to American democracy. That, most experts say, is folly." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Voters Support a Lobbying Tax [Dataforprogress]: "Would you [support or oppose] a policy imposing a new tax on businesses that lobby the government? Lobbying includes any activity meant to influence decisions made in government, typically on behalf of a company, industry, or the public interest. This would impose a 35 percent tax on lobbying expenditures over $500,000 per year, a 60 percent tax on lobbying expenditures over $1 million per year, and a 75 percent tax on lobbying expenditures above $5 million per year. Voters support such a plan by a 59-22 margin, while about 1 in 5 voters remain undecided. Contrary to what one might expect, this includes high support across the party divide. Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all on net support a plan to tax business lobbying." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- We Need More Public Monuments to Animals [Current Affairs]: "Though the lives of humans and other animals have been enmeshed for millennia, our urban landscapes acknowledge this bond only infrequently." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Trump’s One Foreign-Policy Idea Is to Make America More Like Its Enemies [Nymag]: "This is Trump’s deepest belief about foreign policy: The things that separate the United States from terrorists and dictatorships are not a source of strength, but of weakness. Our enemies are stronger and tougher, willing to do the hard things that must be done in order to win. To defeat them, we must become like them." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- We Broke Down the Last Decade of Climate Change in 7 Charts [Nakedcapitalism]: "As this hottest-on-record, godforsaken decade draws to a close, it’s clear that global warming is no longer a problem for future generations but one that’s already displacing communities, costing billions, and driving mass extinctions. And it’s worth asking: Where did the past 10 years get us? The seven charts below begin to hint at an answer to that question. Some of the changes they document, like the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the number of billion dollar disasters that occur each year, illustrate how little we did to reduce emissions and how unprepared the world is to deal with the warming we’ve already locked in. Even though more people believe in human-caused climate change now than 10 years ago, a growing chasm in political partisanship makes it more difficult than ever for Congress to pass climate legislation." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Costs of Reliability [Srconstantin.wordpress]: "A question that used to puzzle me is “Why can people be so much better at doing a thing for fun, or to help their friends and family, than they are at doing the exact same thing as a job?” I’ve seen it in myself and I’ve seen it in others. People can be hugely more productive, creative, intelligent, and efficient on just-for-fun stuff than they are at work. [...] I think it has a very mundane explanation; it’s always more expensive to have to meet a specific commitment than merely to do something valuable." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Intervention Profile: Ballot Initiatives [EA Forum]: "Ballot initiatives are a form of direct democracy in which citizens can gather signatures to qualify a proposed piece of legislation for the ballot, which is then subject to a binding up-or-down vote by the general electorate. Ballot initiatives are possible in Switzerland, Taiwan, many U.S. states and cities, and elsewhere. Ballot initiatives appear to maintain several advantages over more traditional policy lobbying, including lower barriers to entry and more direct control over the final legislation. However, the ultimate cost-effectiveness of a ballot initiative campaign depends on several factors, many of which are difficult to specify precisely. Although ballot initiatives hold enough promise to warrant additional investigation, it is not yet possible to say to what extent ballot initiative campaigns ought to be pursued by the effective altruism community." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- EAF’s ballot initiative doubled Zurich’s development aid [EA Forum]: "The Effective Altruism Foundation (EAF), then based in Switzerland, launched and won a ballot initiative that *doubled* development aid from the city of Zurich." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Truth About the Vaping Crisis (Freakonomics Ep. 398) [Freakonomics]: "Vaping is a public health win because it shifts people away from far more harmful cigarettes. However, vaping is also a public health crisis because it is targeting youth and getting people to vape who wouldn't otherwise use any tobacco product. This crisis could be better dealt with via regulation, such as age restrictions and tobacco density restrictions. However, it seems to be dealt with outright bans over other health crises that aren't even well connected to (tobacco) vaping." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Five More Things Millennials Need to Kill [The Christianrationalist]: "snail mail, TV, long commutes, car ownership, and sightseeing" ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin culture | a)
- "Farmers Got Billions From Taxpayers In 2019, And Hardly Anyone Objected" [Npr]: "It's really surprising the farm bailout did not attract more scrutiny or controversy. "For one thing, it's an enormous amount of money, more than the final cost of bailing out the auto industry during the financial crisis of 2008. The auto industry bailout was fiercely debated in Congress. Yet the USDA created this new program out of thin air; it decided that an old law authorizing a USDA program called the Commodity Credit Corp. already gave it the authority to spend this money." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Guest Post by Phillip Alvelda: Pondering the Empathy Gap [Rodneybrooks]: Phase-in benefits exclude the very poor that need help the most and don't actually help incentivize work. ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Artificial Personas and Public Discourse [Schneier]: "These efforts will only get more sophisticated. In a recent experiment, Harvard senior Max Weiss used a text-generation program to create 1,000 comments in response to a government call on a Medicaid issue. These comments were all unique, and sounded like real people advocating for a specific policy position. They fooled the Medicaid.gov administrators, who accepted them as genuine concerns from actual human beings. This being research, Weiss subsequently identified the comments and asked for them to be removed, so that no actual policy debate would be unfairly biased. The next group to try this won't be so honorable." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Why a ‘Republican Economist’ Plans to Vote in the Democratic Primary [NYTimes]: "Now, I’m no longer a Republican economist. I’m officially an independent, for two reasons. First, the Republican Party has increasingly become the party of Donald Trump. [...] Second, as an unenrolled voter [...] I can now vote in the Democratic primary. Though many of the Democratic candidates seem better to me than Mr. Trump, the party is at a crossroads. I worry that populists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are proposing to move the country too far in the direction of state control of the economy. Moreover, in doing so, they tempt those in the center and center right to hold their noses and vote for Mr. Trump’s re-election. As an economist and a concerned citizen, here are four things I’m looking for in a candidate’s platform: a return to freer trade, a market-based approach to climate change, incremental Healthcare reform, [and an] embrace of our common humanity and shared goals." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Impossible Dumplings and Beyond Buns: Will China Buy Fake Meat? [NYTimes]: Plant-based meat will face tough cultural and regulatory hurdles in China. ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Elderblog Sutra: 5 [Ribbonfarm]: "At some point, all formally imposed structure — categories, tags, series, “best of year” or “most popular” lists — buckle under the sheer weight of content. Once you’re past a few hundred posts, with reasonably dense internal back-linking, your only hope for recovering some sort of structure from what is essentially a little walled-garden artisanal web is algorithms." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- What’s the Point of Productivity? [Scotthyoung]: "Productivity is not work ethic or hustle. Productivity is not time management. Productivity is not just doing things that look like work. Productivity is a measure of your output divided by your input. Output is measured by the importance of the accomplishment to your goals. Input is measured by the time, energy and attention you have available." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions [Ourworldindata]: "When it comes to tackling climate change, the focus tends to be on ‘clean energy’ solutions – the deployment of renewable or nuclear energy; improvements in energy efficiency; or transition to low-carbon transport. [...] But the global food system, which encompasses production, and post-farm process such as processing, and distribution is also a key contributor to emissions. And it’s a problem for which we don’t yet have viable technological solutions." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- No to no first use—for now [The Bulletin]: "There are good reasons to shift to a "no first use" policy for nuclear weapons, but the US is not yet ready to make that shift as the US still needs to maintain deterrence against biological weapon attacks, major cyberattacks, and other major attacks on US or allies's command and control infrastructure. Additionally, sustainable bipartisan consensus would be required." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Why Doctors Think They’re The Best [SlateStarCodex]: Various biases and selection effects make it easy for nearly all doctors to think they are above average. ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Hiring the Top 1% [Joelonsoftware]: "I’m exaggerating a lot, but the point is, when you select 1 out of 200 applicants, the other 199 don’t give up and go into plumbing (although I wish they would… plumbers are impossible to find). They apply again somewhere else, and contribute to some other employer’s self-delusions about how selective they are." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- [acc] Should We Colonize Space To Mitigate X-risk? [SlateStarCodex]: "To conclude, we decided that terrestrial and off-planet lifeboats offer very similar amounts of protection from x-risks, with off-planet solutions adding a small amount additional protection in certain scenarios whilst being markedly more expensive than a terrestrial equivalent, with additional risks and unknowns to the construction process." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Evaluating State and Local Business Tax Incentives [Nber]: That thing where states offer companies tax breaks to move their business into the state don't provide good returns. ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Why Procrastinators Procrastinate [Waitbutwhy]: "The Instant Gratification Monkey, normally unshakable, is terrified of the Panic Monster. How else could you explain the same person who can’t write a paper’s introductory sentence over a two-week span suddenly having the ability to stay up all night, fighting exhaustion, and write eight pages? Why else would an extraordinarily lazy person begin a rigorous workout routine other than a Panic Monster freakout about becoming less attractive?" ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Mediocratopia: 5 [Ribbonfarm]: "In a world that runs on ceremonial expectations of optimal performances, but where it is rarely in your best interests to actually deliver optimal performances, practicing mediocrity necessarily involves capability masking: the act of hiding the true extent of your capabilities." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Mediocratopia: 7 [Ribbonfarm]: "I’ve had a rather stressful week due to a family emergency, and one of the things that’s been most helpful is the one day at a time and it’s a marathon, not a sprint genre of aphorisms. At first sight, the thought seems tautological and empty. After all you can’t literally live more than one day at a time. Or can you? Yes you can. The trick is to think in terms of gaits rather than time periods." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How does recent AI progress affect the Bostromian Paradigm? [SlateStarCodex]: "AI risk discussions are dominated by the Bostromian paradigm of AIs as highly strategic agents that try to maximize certain programmed goals. This paradigm got developed in the early 2000s, before a recent spurt of advances in machine learning. Do these advances require any changes to the way we approach these topics?" ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- "The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man For the Categories" [SlateStarCodex]: "Solomon says oh God, you are so annoying, who the hell cares whether whales have tiny little hairs or not. In fact, the only thing Solomon cares about is whether responsibilities for his kingdom’s production of blubber and whale oil should go under his Ministry of Dag or Ministry of Behemah. The Ministry of Dag is based on the coast and has a lot of people who work on ships. The Ministry of Behemah has a strong presence inland and lots of of people who hunt on horseback. So please (he continues) keep going about how whales have little tiny hairs." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Book Review: Reframing Superintelligence [SlateStarCodex]: "He worries that AI services will be naturally better at satisfying objective criteria than at “making the world better” in some vague sense. Tasks like “maximize clicks to this site” or “maximize profits from this corporation” are objective criteria; tasks like “provide real value to users of this site instead of just clickbait” or “have this corporation act in a socially responsible way” are vague. That means AI may asymmetrically empower some of the worst tedencies in our society without giving a corresponding power increase to normal people just trying to live enjoyable lives. In his model, one of the tasks of AI safety research is to get AIs to be as good at optimizing vague prosocial tasks as they will naturally be at optimizing the bottom line. Drexler doesn’t specifically discuss this in Reframing Superintelligence, but it seems to fit the spirit of the kind of thing he’s concerned about." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- The Invisible Nation: Reconciling Utilitarianism and Contractualism [SlateStarCodex]: "In the Economists’ Paradise, all transactions are voluntary and honest. All game-theoretic problems are solved. All Pareto improvements get made. All Kaldor-Hicks improvements get converted into Pareto improvements by distributing appropriate compensation, and then get made. In all cases where people could gain by cooperating, they cooperate. In all tragedies of the commons, everyone agrees to share the commons according to some reasonable plan. Nobody uses force, everyone keeps their agreements. Multipolar traps turn to gardens, Moloch is defeated for all time." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin ethics | a)
- The Dark Rule Utilitarian Argument for Science Piracy [SlateStarCodex]: "But I can also think of an argument why Sci-Hub isn’t unethical. The reason I don’t pirate Black Panther is because, if everyone pirated movies, it would destroy the movie industry, and we would never get Lego Black Panther IV: Lego Black Panther Vs. The Frowny Emoji, and that would make people sad. But if everyone pirated scientific papers, it would destroy Elsevier et al, and that would be frickin’ fantastic." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin ethics | a)
- "Axology, Morality, Law" [SlateStarCodex]: "A final example: axiology tells us a world without alcohol would be better than our current world: ending alcoholism could avert millions of deaths, illnesses, crimes, and abusive relationships. Morality only tells us that we should be careful drinking and stop if we find ourselves becoming alcoholic or ruining our relationships. And the law protests that it tried banning alcohol once, but it turned out to be unenforceable and gave too many new opportunities to organized crime, so it’s going to stay out of this one except to say you shouldn’t drink and drive." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin ethics | a)
- How bad would nuclear winter caused by a US-Russia nuclear exchange be? [EA Forum]: "This leads me to conclude that a nuclear war between the US and Russia would likely produce closer to 31 teragrams of smoke (90% confidence interval: 14 Tg to 68 Tg of smoke) — suggesting that nuclear winter is not as synonymous with US-Russia nuclear war as many effective altruists seem to assume. The ~31 teragrams of smoke that would be vaulted into the atmosphere would undoubtedly produce severe climate effects, likely leading to food shortfalls and regional famines, and killing between 36% and 96% of the world population." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- I Was Once a Socialist. Then I Saw How It Worked. [NYTimes]: "I came to realize that capitalism is really good at doing the one thing socialism is really bad at: creating a learning process to help people figure stuff out. If you want to run a rental car company, capitalism has a whole bevy of market and price signals and feedback loops that tell you what kind of cars people want to rent, where to put your locations, how many cars to order. It has a competitive profit-driven process to motivate you to learn and innovate, every single day." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Will companies meet their animal welfare commitments? [EA Forum]: "Multiple animal organisations are now focusing on securing corporate commitments to improve animal welfare. And they have been very successful: Chicken Watch lists 1672 such commitments, 1007 of which are set to be fulfilled between 2020 and 2026. However, there is some reason to worry that some of these commitments may be broken: Some industry sources doubt whether U.S. cage-free commitments will be fully met. Insufficient consumer demand and lack of funds led to producers slowing down or even shutting down their cage-free conversion plans. [...] So far, most animal welfare commitments were met. However: Sainsbury’s broke their broiler commitment. Marriott, Burger King, Smithfield Foods and Woolworths pushed back the date of their commitments. [...] Based on this, I suggest that it would be valuable to put more effort in ensuring that companies keep their promises, and I list some ways in which it could be done." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- 4 huge costs of becoming more productive [Alifeofproductivity]: "I didn’t actually enjoy reading The New York Times. In my head, I liked the idea of being a guy that reads The New York Times every Sunday (even though I live in Canada), so I subscribed. It’s hard to admit: I mainly read the paper so people could see me reading it. I unsubscribed shortly after I realized this, and haven’t much read much of the paper’s articles, even online, since." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Opinion: Estimating Invertebrate Sentience [EA Forum]: "Our team discussed publishing such estimates many times, but these discussions generated considerable internal disagreement. Two members of the (four person) team believed that publishing explicit sentience estimates was a bad idea. The other two members felt that it was a good idea. In the end, we settled on the following compromise: several months after the completion of the invertebrate sentience project, we would publish an unofficial opinion piece in which each of us could share her/his own reasoning on the subject and, if so desired, her/his own estimates.[" ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- On the Law of Diminishing Specialization [Calnewport]: "This new technology made it possible for managers and professionals to tackle administrative tasks that used to require dedicated support staff. The positive impact of this change was that companies needed less support staff. The negative impact was that it reduced the ability of managers and professionals to spend concentrated time working on the things they did best." ('20 Jan 12Added Sun 2020-Jan-12 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Complexity, ‘fog and moonlight’, prediction, and politics I" [Dominiccummings]: "In England, less than 10 percent per year leave school with formal training in basics such as ‘normal distributions’ and conditional probability. Less than one percent are well educated in the basics of how the ‘unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics’ provides the language of nature and a foundation for our scientific civilisation. Only a small subset of that <1% then study trans-disciplinary issues concerning complex systems. This number has approximately zero overlap with powerful decision-makers." ('20 Jan 11Added Sat 2020-Jan-11 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Complexity, ‘fog and moonlight’, prediction, and politics II: controlled skids and immune systems" [Dominiccummings]: "How to adapt quickly to new information? Does the institution’s structure incentivise effective adaptation or does it incentivise ‘fooling oneself’ and others? Is it possible to enable distributed information processing to find a ‘good enough’ solution in a vast search space? If your problem is similar to that of the immune system or ant colony, why are you trying to solve it with a centralised bureaucracy?" ('20 Jan 11Added Sat 2020-Jan-11 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Alcohol Is Killing More Americans Than Ever [Gizmodo]: The amount of deaths via alcohol is on par with death from opiods and death from guns and deserves a similar level of policy response. ('20 Jan 11Added Sat 2020-Jan-11 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Etzioni 2016 survey [Aiimpacts]: "Oren Etzioni surveyed 193 American Association for AI fellows in 2016 and found that 67% of them expected that ‘we will achieve Superintelligence’ someday, but in more than 25 years." ('20 Jan 11Added Sat 2020-Jan-11 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Gaining 15 pounds of muscle [Alifeofproductivity]: "The best way to lower your body fat is to eat well, and the best way to gain muscle is to exercise. Lifting weights has productivity benefits, but there are much larger benefits with cardio exercise. But that said, I learned a ton about habit formation from this side of my body composition experiment—like that you should go into big changes with a plan (planning is boring, but worth it), reward yourself along the way, define a few cues that trigger the habit, start very small, and think deeply about whether a change is worth making in the first place." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Tote bags, water bottles, mailing labels: Why non-profits give away so much crap" [Vox]: "Donor premiums, or giving gifts in exchange for donations, used to be effective by making donating more tangible and more rewarding. However, it has considerable cost to the non-profit and frequently operate at an upfront loss. They also can backfire with donors by being off-mission, by being too much "junk", or reducing the feeling of altruism." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin giving | a)
- "Will "soak the rich" make Democratic states feel blue?" [Econlib]: "It’s worth noting that of the 16 states with the fewest millionaires per capita, all but New Mexico voted for Trump. Of the 14 states with the most millionaires per capita, only Alaska voted for Trump. Rich states tend to be blue states. So one might expect even Democrats to be reluctant to soak the rich if it means soaking their constituents." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Study Confirms Climate Models Are Getting Future Warming Projections Right [Climate.nasa.gov]: "For decades, people have legitimately wondered how well climate models perform in predicting future climate conditions. Based on solid physics and the best understanding of the Earth system available, they skillfully reproduce observed data. Nevertheless, they have a wide response to increasing carbon dioxide levels, and many uncertainties remain in the details. The hallmark of good science, however, is the ability to make testable predictions, and climate models have been making predictions since the 1970s. How reliable have they been? Now a new evaluation of global climate models used to project Earth’s future global average surface temperatures over the past half-century answers that question: most of the models have been quite accurate." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- Buy a distractions device [Alifeofproductivity]: "If you find yourself constantly interrupted by email and social notifications, consider buying a second computer or tablet to use solely as a distraction device. This is the device you use to access your least productive apps, websites, and social media accounts." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Why Is Nuclear Entanglement So Dangerous? [Carnegieendowment]: "Entanglement describes how militaries’ nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities are becoming dangerously intertwined. In a conventional war, for example, one state could use non-nuclear weapons to attack its adversary’s nuclear weapons or their command-and-control systems. Such strikes could pressure the country being attacked into using its nuclear weapons before they were disabled. [...] Entanglement makes it more likely that a non-nuclear conflict could turn nuclear." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Killing your $1000 Grocery Bill [Mrmoneymustache]: Shop at Aldi / Costco and don't buy stupid stuff. ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- MMM Challenge: Cut your Cash-Leaking Umbilical Cord [Mrmoneymustache]: "The prize for this week’s challenge is about Nine Thousand Dollars, plus getting the equivalent of about 36 weeks of extra vacation time each year. That would bring you up fairly close to my own level of leisure. The challenge, of course, is to immediately and completely cancel your cable television service forever." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Get Rich With… Bikes [Mrmoneymustache]: "Riding a bike instead of driving a car saves a ton of money, is good exercise, improves mood and mental focus, and still gets you places pretty fast. Add a bike trailer to carry things (and kids)." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The amazing connection between food and productivity [Alifeofproductivity]: "The best way I’ve found to eat for energy has been to make incremental improvements to eat fewer processed foods and eat slower." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The End of the Beginning [Stratechery]: "[T]here may not be a significant paradigm shift on the horizon, nor the associated generational change that goes with it. And, to the extent there are evolutions, it really does seem like the incumbents have insurmountable advantages: the hyperscalers in the cloud are best placed to handle the torrent of data from the Internet of Things, while new I/O devices like augmented reality, wearables, or voice are natural extensions of the phone." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Reality has a surprising amount of detail [Johnsalvatier]: "This means it’s really easy to get stuck. Stuck in your current way of seeing and thinking about things. Frames are made out of the details that seem important to you. The important details you haven’t noticed are invisible to you, and the details you have noticed seem completely obvious and you see right through them. This all makes makes it difficult to imagine how you could be missing something important. [...] When you talk to someone who is smart but just seems so wrong, figure out what details seem important to them and why. In your work, notice how that meeting actually wouldn’t have accomplished much if Sarah hadn’t pointed out that one thing. As you learn, notice which details actually change how you think." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- "How to lose a monopoly: Microsoft, IBM and anti-trust" [Ben-evans]: "A big rich company, a company that dominates the market for its product, and a company that dominates the broader tech industry are three quite different things. Market cap isn’t power. IBM ruled mainframes and Microsoft ruled PCs, and when those things were the centre of tech, that gave them dominance of the broader tech industry. When the focus of tech moved away from mainframes and then PCs, IBM and then Microsoft lost that dominance, but that didn’t mean they stopped being big companies. We just stopped being scared of them. For both IBM and Microsoft, market power in one generation of tech didn’t give them market power in the next, and anti-trust intervention didn’t have much to do with it. It doesn’t matter how big your castle is if the trade routes move somewhere else." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- Google's Dangerous Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy [Mattstoller.substack]: "Google’s response wasn’t just to use the legal system to fight for its rights, but then ultimately obey the law. Instead, Google said it wa s willing to ‘work with’ Turkey, but as a partner and not as a corporation working within a sovereign nation. It simply said it doesn’t like Turkey’s law, and so it will stop providing Android phones for an entire country. In other words, Google has a private sanctions regime against smaller countries." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Getting Rich: from Zero to Hero in One Blog Post [Mrmoneymustache]: "The standard line is that life is hard and expensive, so you should keep your nose to the grindstone, clip coupons, save hard for your kids’ college educations, then tuck any tiny slice of your salary that remains into a 401(k) plan. [...] Mr. Money Mustache’s advice? Almost all of that is nonsense: Your current middle-class life is an Exploding Volcano of Wastefulness, and by learning to see the truth in this statement, you will easily be able to cut your expenses in half – leaving you saving half of your income." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Regime change rarely succeeds. When will the U.S. learn? [Washingtonpost]: "Even after watching the chaos produced in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya following regime change, some in Washington have continued to advocate similar policies toward Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere. The belief that removing a foreign government can quickly and easily promote U.S. interests by force still resonates[. ...] The problem, however, is that a resounding amount of research has shown that regime change rarely succeeds. Regardless of the goal, regime change mostly fails to produce better economic conditions, build lasting democracy or promote more stable relations to advance U.S. interests. From Haiti and the Dominican Republic in the 1910s, to South Vietnam in the 1960s, to Iraq in the 2000s, the United States failed to achieve these goals over 110 years of regime-change missions." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Could US Actions Topple Iran's Government? [Washingtonpost]: "The four main options to establish regime change in Iran don't work well: invasion (high reliability but high cost); air power (good to have no boots on the ground, but it requires near-flawless real-time intelligence to kill a head of state and then gives no control over who takes power next); economic coercion (crippling sanctions haven't worked yet); and cooperation with local opposition groups (fail more often than they succeed generally... and not a viable option for Iran in particular)." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- At War with the Truth: The Afghanistan Papers [Washingtonpost]: "A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Why Your Work Disappoints You [Youtube]: "It's easier to know what other great artists/authors/etc. do to make their work great, but harder to implement that in practice. This can create a taste gap that inspires perfectionism. To get out of this rut make a schedule of regularly putting stuff out / a deadline (to avoid perfectionism) and then try to get at least 1% better each iteration at one particular part." ('20 Jan 10Added Fri 2020-Jan-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Jeff Bezos Knows How to Run a Meeting. Here's How He Does It [Inc]: "two-pizza team rule (don't have meetings with more than six people), use a detailed memo instead of powerpoint, start the meeting with everyone reading the memo (otherwise they'll just pretend to read it)." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Six Ways To Be Politically Smarter And Make Your Vote Count [Leoweekly]: "You are not a political strategist, so stop acting like one and declaring with confidence what candidates need to do to win. Do your research. Don't be afraid to support a candidate. Learn your local politics. Consider citizen activism." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Notes on “Ultralearning” by Scott Young [Peterhurford.tumblr]: "ultralearning = specific goal + specific benchmark + specific timeframe + significant upfront and periodic investment in learning how to learn + intense amount of time + spaced schedule based on spaced repetition + deep focus + directness + drills targeted at your specific weaknesses + feedback + building up fundamental understanding + experimentation + maintenance or re-learning. A good strategy, and much easier said than actually done." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Notes on "Working Identity" [Peterhurford.tumblr]: "Finding out what you really want flows from what is important to you. Time – and distance – away from work are important. Introspection alone is insufficient for a career change – you must also experiment. You shouldn’t consider just one path. Make small steps toward a better path rather than one big leap. Find people who can emulate new roles and mentor you into them. If you don’t have time for side-projects, consider saving money and quitting to do a full-time search." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- Notes on “Peopleware” [Peterhurford.tumblr]: "Hours worked is not a good productivity metric. Better might be to measure the amount of interruption free hours spent in a flow state, and “E Factor” (the total number of flow hours divided by the total number of hours worked), and try to improve this organizationally. Productivity measures only be collected to benefit the employees, not used to negatively affect them in performance reviews. Low E Factor tends to come from distractions like email, IM, and meetings. Lastly, try to avoid employee turnover and create a jelled team." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Notes on “High Output Management” [Peterhurford.tumblr]: "High leverage tasks as tasks that affect a lot of people and/or a lot of work time with little of your own time - these should be the focus of a manager. The Five Roles of the Manager are information gathering, information giving, nudging, decision making, and role modeling." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Notes and Reflections on “Deep Work” by Cal Newport [Peterhurford.tumblr]: "Deep work is spending a significant chunk of time in intense focus on a task. Try to make large, continuous, uninterrupted blocks of time to get more focused work done." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Eschew Sesquipedalian Obsfucation [Econlib]: "The best writers – like George Orwell – usually stick to short and simple words. [...] Why doesn’t everyone follow Orwell’s rule? Harbaugh has a clean answer: If you’re a writer of moderate ability, you can’t make yourself look good using ordinary words. So you hide behind pompous language, demonstrating at least that you know more words than the average slob. In contrast, a great writer can sound brilliant in monosyllables – and those who can, do." ('20 Jan 09Added Thu 2020-Jan-09 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Asking for Feedback [Jesswhittlestone]: "I think we could all benefit from asking for feedback from others more often. If you can begin to change your mindset to see feedback (even negative) as valuable information that will allow you to improve, asking for feedback becomes much less uncomfortable - maybe even enjoyable! Other things I've found useful are: starting small (with less personal areas or people we're more comfortable with), asking for positive as well as negative feedback, and asking for specific, actionable feedback to make sure it's as constructive as possible. And of course, I hope that the more people make a habit of asking for feedback, the more socially acceptable it will become, making it easier for us all to do!" ('20 Jan 08Added Wed 2020-Jan-08 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "The Blank Page, A Different Take" [Magic.wizards]: "When facing a blank canvas, start by drawing a squiggle on it. Not anything purposeful, just a random flick of the brush. Now, instead of trying to figure out what the blank canvas is supposed to be, you start by figuring out what the squiggle is supposed to be. It gives you a direction to start and by the end of the painting, the squiggle will be long covered by the actual illustration." Once you have the squiggle, commit to a path (visualizable goal), and then start trying a lot of approaches and see what sticks." ('20 Jan 08Added Wed 2020-Jan-08 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Remember the NAIRU [Econlib]: "Inflation has been low and stable for several years. This could mean we’re right at the sweet spot. The more likely scenario, though, is that we’re not quite there yet. How can we ever find out? The only way to really know is to push our luck a little bit, make monetary policy more expansionary, and see if inflation starts to spiral upwards. [...] All things considered, I’d stay the course. Yet if the Fed announced it was going to raise its target rate to 3%, I would not fret. What I am confident of, though, is that economists are wrong to confidently assert that we’re already “at the natural rate.” Yeah, maybe we are. Still, there’s got to be at least a 30% chance that we remain, say, half a percentage-point above." ('20 Jan 08Added Wed 2020-Jan-08 11 p.m. CSTin economics | a)
- Distilling BERT — BERT performance using Logistic Regression [Kaggle]: "In this post, I want to distill BERT into a much simpler Logistic Regression model. Assuming you have a relatively small labeled dataset and a much bigger non-labeled dataset, the general framework for building the model is: (1) Create some baseline on the labeled dataset; (2) Build a big model by fine-tuning BERT on the labeled set; (3) If you got good results (better than your baseline), calculate the raw logits for your unlabeled set using the big model; (4) Train a much smaller model (Logistic Regression) on the now pseudo-labeled set; (5) If you got good results, deploy the small model anywhere!" ('20 Jan 08Added Wed 2020-Jan-08 11 p.m. CSTin datascience | a)
- Writing for On Balance: A Note from the Outgoing Editor [Benefitcostanalysis]: "Think about the key messages. What do you want your reader to come away with and remember from your blog? [...] Use a compelling start. [...] Get to the point quickly. [...] Be concise. [...] The ideal blog length is less than 1,000 words. No one can read much more than that with their coffee. [...] Keep paragraphs short—no longer than 5-7 lines. [...] Limit the citations. What do readers really need to know to be sure you have done your homework well, or where they can go for more information? [...] Finish strong. Your concluding paragraph is important: what is the takeaway message for the reader? [...] The reader is almost always right. After all, writing is about communication and you don’t really know what you’ve communicated until you get feedback." ('20 Jan 08Added Wed 2020-Jan-08 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Canceling [Youtube]: "An emotional story of how cancel culture works by presumption of guilt (without any verificiation), abstraction (turning specific transgressions into generalized badness), essentialism (assuming a person is fundamentally bad because they made a transgression), pseudo-moralism, no forgiveness, transitivity (assuming people who support the transgressor are also transgressors), and dualism (assuming that all bad is bad and there are no shades of badness). Let's be measured and nuanced." ('20 Jan 07Added Tue 2020-Jan-07 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Success is Stamina: To Win Means to Keep Playing [Scotthyoung]: "Success at life/business is an infinite game - you must keep playing. It's easy to be successful at one point and then stop being successful. Stamina is important for continuing this grind. However, this stamina must not be passive waiting - you need to put in work and then re-assess how well that work went. Success is made up of steady build-ups and breakthroughs." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Life history classification [EA Forum]: "Understanding the life history of animals is important for understanding wild animal welfare, but has been understudied by animal welfare advocates. In particular, life history generalizations have been used to claim that the lives of most wild animals are net negative. However, there are several methods of life history classification in use in ecology and evolutionary biology. The theoretical foundations for r-K selection referred by some advocates have been discredited, and in addition some large species groups cannot be placed on this continuum. However, a related form of this classification, fast-slow is still in use in the sciences. [...] One very important point is that all classification methods are considered continuums; that is, most species will lie somewhere in the middle of axes of variation rather than at the extremes." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- A Biden Nomination Means a Second Trump Term [Current Affairs]: "These serious warning signs for Biden’s prospects include: shockingly weak fundraising, an uninspiring message that promises nothing to working families, a low-energy campaign with no volunteer base, a damaging corruption scandal which undermines his core message, an inability to campaign vigorously" ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- This is what Trump voters said when asked to compare his inauguration crowd with Obama’s [Washingtonpost]: "Why would anyone give the wrong answer to a pretty simple question? To many political psychologists, this exercise will be familiar. A growing body of research documents how fully Americans appear to hold biased positions about basic political facts. But scholars also debate whether partisans actually believe the misinformation and how many are knowingly giving the wrong answer to support their partisan team (a process called expressive responding)." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin politicalscience | a)
- Social perception bias might be an emergent property of our social networks [Arstechnica]: "People underestimate the size of minority views because they don't know people who hold those views, because people who hold those views only associate with each other." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Seven possible responses of meat and dairy companies to vegan growth [Veganstrategist]: "ignore it, try to slow/stop it (e.g., bans, ag-gag laws), innovate (e.g., lactose free milk, hybrid meat + plant products), develop their own plant-based alternatives, make venture investments in plant-based companies, acquire a plant-based company, stop selling meat" ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- The importance of social networks for innovation and productivity [Ourworldindata]: "If social connections did not matter for new ideas and growth, then we should expect that new inventions are just as likely to cite patents from far away as they are to cite the work of their neighbours. In contrast, Jaffe and coauthors found that new patents were disproportionately more likely to cite previous local patents. In other words, they found that patent citations were strongly geographically concentrated. According to their estimates, citations were three to four times as likely to come from the same state as the originating patent – this is consistent with the idea that social connections and proximity do indeed matter for innovation." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies [Econlib]: "The not-real-socialism defence is only ever invoked retrospectively, namely, when a socialist experiment has already been widely discredited. As long as a socialist experiment is in its prime, almost nobody disputes its socialist credentials." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Who's afraid of taxing the rich? [Econlib]: "More broadly, I see several factors at play in the failure of our society to effectively tax the rich: (1) Widespread belief in primitive Keynesian theories that producing luxury goods creates jobs, rather than merely diverting jobs from other industries. [...] (2) The fallacy that “taxing the rich” is about getting rich people to write checks to the government, rather than reducing the consumption of the rich [...] (3) The political influence of producers of luxury goods." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Extreme Economies – disaster zones with lessons for us all [Timharford]: "If we can learn about the healthy human body by studying people who have suffered catastrophic injuries, might a similar trick work for economics?" ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin economics | a)
- What Is a Middle Class Tax Hike? Am I Losing My Mind? [Peoplespolicyproject]: "The M4A Financing Problem, in simple terms, is that even if you bring in existing federal spending on health care, existing state spending on health care, and a bunch of new rich-people taxes, you still fall short of financing the program. Thus to actually complete the financing, you have to use some middle class taxes. The proper response to this 'problem' has always been to point out that it is no problem at all. Yes you will have to impose some middle class taxes to round out the total amount of money you need, but those taxes will charge the middle class far less than they are currently paying for health care. What people don’t like about taxes is that it means they have less money. But swapping these taxes for the elimination of premiums and out-of-pocket expenses would actually mean that the middle class has a lot more money." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Accepting Deviant Minds [Meltingasphalt]: "Looking back on it, what's interesting is how strong my prejudices were. Even as a 12-year-old I had deep-seated ideas about what constituted a valid conscious experience. Anything outside my own narrow range struck me as illegitimate — as either a lie or confabulation, or else somehow aberrant, like the product of mental illness." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- The gender gap in self-promotion [Voxeu]: "Women earn less than men at every level of employment, an inequality that has persisted for decades. This column examines one potential factor, namely, a sizeable gender gap in self-promotion. It considers four possible causes for this gap – performance, confidence, strategic incentives, and ambiguity – and while none can explain the gap alone, they do shed light on some of the labour market perceptions women may internalise over time, and to which employers should be sensitive in hiring practices." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- How to react wisely to somebody getting mad at you for no good reason [Deliberatehappiness]: "The bright side is that in your anger is the seed of a solution. Say the person said, “Stop being angry!” what would you say? You’d probably say something along the lines of, “I can’t.” Either it’s justified and so won’t just go away, or you can’t just “turn off” your anger. If you could, maybe you would, but that’s not how your emotions work. And therein is the lesson. Just as you cannot turn off your anger, neither can the other person. Using this empathy to realize that they cannot stop their flashes of annoyance any more than you can, that they feel they are right as much as you do. That emotions are not like light switches where one can simply turn it off." ('20 Jan 06Added Mon 2020-Jan-06 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- The story of the first bridge over Niagara Falls begins with a kite [Blog.ferrovial]: If you're building a large suspension bridge across a large canyon... how do you get the first part of the bridge across? ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- "The 1,000-hour rule" [Pgbovine.net]: "I don't want to pressure you to become an expert at anything, but I do want you to become good at something, which I think requires far less time and dedication. So here is my 1,000-hour rule, a much gentler version of the 10,000-hour rule: I claim that it takes roughly 1,000 hours of practice to get good at something." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Norway Is Far More Socialist Than Venezuela [Peoplespolicyproject]: "Although Venezuelan data is a bit hard to come by, it is hard to imagine based on what information we do have that the Venezuelan government owns one-third of the country’s domestic corporate equity like Norway does. And the Venezuelan government for sure does not own 60 percent of the national wealth like Norway does. Even on indicators that are not strictly socialist but that people often conflate with socialism — such as government taxes, revenue and expenditure — Norway dominates. [...] As noted already, Norway has a very similarly composed economy, but was able to ride out the oil price drop with less devastation. This is because it uses its oil surplus to build a huge capital fund rather than on current spending. [...] Had Venezuela managed its oil sector similarly, we would not even be having this discussion." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Harry Potter and the measures of personality: Extraverted Gryffindors, agreeable Hufflepuffs, clever Ravenclaws, and manipulative Slytherins" [Sciencedirect]: "We asked fans from online Harry Potter groups into which Hogwarts house they had been sorted on Pottermore. Fans then completed personality measures, including the Big Five traits, need to belong, need for cognition, and the Dark Triad traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Planned contrasts found positive associations between need for cognition and placement in Ravenclaw (known for wit and learning), and between the Dark Triad traits and placement in Slytherin (known for using any means to achieve their ends). We expected—but did not find—that those in Gryffindor (known for bravery) would be higher in extraversion and openness, and that Hufflepuffs (known for loyalty) would be higher on need to belong." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- Do property rights increase freedom? [Noahpinionblog.blogspot]: "Since the dawn of time, libertarians have equated property rights with freedom. Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense: if the government can come and confiscate your stuff, or tell you what to do with it, you don't feel very free at all. But libertarians tend to take this basic concept to its maximal extent; the more things are brought within the cash nexus, the more free we become. [...] But is that right? What would it really feel like to live in a society where almost every single thing is privately owned and priced? [...] Past a certain point, the gains to privatization are outweighed by the sheer weight of transaction cost externalities." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Usual Incoherence on Student Benefits Is Back [Peoplespolicyproject]: "Buttigieg and his supporters claim that he does not want to provide benefits to students from affluent families, but he does not propose to eliminate the universal tuition subsidies that already do that. Warren, Sanders, and their supporters claim that they are carrying the mantle of universalism and yet both still use means-tested grants and loans to cover the living expenses. The precise mix of universalism and means-testing differs between the plans and you can of course favor one plan over the other based on those differences. But they all use a mix. There are no big philosophical distinctions to be made between them. There are also no real practical distinctions to be made between them. In all three plans, students will still need to fill out a bunch of financial aid paperwork to determine what, if anything, they get from the means-tested portions of each plan." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Dangerous drives [Jesswhittlestone]: "I really like this speech by C.S. Lewis. It’s about the tendency to form “Inner Rings” - informal groups and hierarchies, impossible to pin down precisely, but which exist everywhere - in all schools, organisations, and societies. Lewis argues that the drive to be “on the inside” of some Inner Ring is a more fundamental human drive than most people think. He also thinks it’s a dangerous one. [...] It seriously worries me how much of the time most of us spend chasing things like achievement, status, recognition - and how little we spend thinking about what we actually value: what we’d find rewarding in a job, what kinds of people make us feel good, what we really want in a relationships." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Why “Free Stuff” Is Good [Current Affairs]: "Funding public services through taxation instead of usage fees is fair and eliminates bureaucracy. We should do more of it." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Wars with Words? [Tnsr]: "I no longer see things this way. The pursuit of wisdom is not about scoring points or attempting to defeat adversaries. Most of the issues we wrestle with in international security, foreign policy, and grand strategy are complex, contested, and difficult, defying parsimonious explanations or generalizations. Most people — both in the academy and in the policy world — explore these issues in good faith." ('20 Jan 05Added Sun 2020-Jan-05 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Unending Winter Is Coming [Overcomingbias]: "The big problem is: the accessible universe is finite, and so we will only ever be able to access a finite amount of negentropy. No matter how much we innovate. While so far we’ve mainly been drawing on a small steady flow of negentropy, eventually we will get better and faster access to the entire stock. The period when we use most of that stock is our universe’s one and only “summer”, after which we face an unending winter. This implies that when a total war shows up, we are at risk of burning up large fractions of all the resources that we can quickly access. So the larger a fraction of the universe’s negentropy that we can quickly access, the larger a fraction of all resources that we will ever have that we will burn up in each total war." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Making myself bored for a month [Alifeofproductivity]: "For one month, I chose a different task to deliberately make myself bored for an hour each day. I discovered a ton from this experiment, including that not all bouts of boredom are the same; our mind wanders to fascinating (and surprisingly productive) places; that leaving space between tasks lets us defragment our thoughts; that boredom is not worth experiencing (but mind wandering is); and that mindlessly stimulating ourselves is fun in the moment, but comes with pretty large costs." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "With the rising success of vegan businesses, should the role of vegan advocacy change?" [Veganstrategist]: "We can assume (though we can’t be certain) that vegan/animal rights activists have, with their efforts, helped raise demand for meat and dairy alternatives (even though surveys show that animal rights is still ranks very low among people’s motivations for buying meat alternatives), thus helping to create a market for the companies. Conversely, when animal rights and vegan groups advocate against animal products, they need to be able to present alternatives. The more available and better these alternatives are, the more effective and convincing advocacy will be. [...] In the light of the increasing role business is playing, we may have to start thinking about the possible changes in the role and shapes of advocacy in the future. I don’t have the answers to this question, but I feel fairly confident that the relationship between advocacy and business should be, at this point, mainly collaborative and supportive, rather than confrontational." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- Mediating Consent [Ribbonfarm]: "The Fifth Estate [blogs/social media] has turned out to be not a replacement or check and balance for the Fourth Estate [institutional media], but an amplifier of some of its worst tendencies. The information environment that we have created online — the assemblage of distribution platforms, fourth and fifth estates, and actively commenting and sharing consumers — directly impacts our democracy offline. Media literacy efforts might help; at a minimum, they can raise awareness of how hyperpartisan and conspiratorial sites themselves manufacture consent in the age of factions. But we need something to serve as a trusted factual mediator as well. It has been possible to design systems that facilitate collaborative consensus realities that largely align with the truth; Wikipedia’s negotiated facts are one such example." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- A checklist for stock option offers [BenKuhn]: "Do you need the money? If so, don’t rely on equity to get it! Do you trust the founders? Equity is really complicated and it’s basically impossible to make sure you won’t get screwed in some tricky way. Expanding the expiry window from 90 days to 7 years can be cheap for the company to do and it gives you a lot more choice and leverage over how to use your options. You also need to know the value of the options and the VC investment terms and can then discount accordingly." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- Memo: The Case for Nationalizing Rural Hospitals [Dataforprogress]: "Creating publicly owned and managed free-for-patients urgent care facilities and walk-in clinics, where patients can receive routine medical services such as treatment of minor injuries and diagnosis and treatment for illnesses such as a cold or the flu, could help alleviate the health and cost burden caused by a rise in hospital closures in rural areas." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- [ACC] Will Automation Lead To Economic Crisis? [SlateStarCodex]: "Until the pace of automation increases faster than new jobs can be created, AI shouldn’t be expected to cause mass unemployment or anything like that. When AI can pick up a new job as quickly and cheaply as a person can, then the economy will break (but everything else will break too, because that would be the Singularity)." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- How To Slow Down Time and Live Longer [Feedproxy.google]: The key to making your life feel longer is having a larger variety of (enjoyable) experiences. Try doing things differently ever so often and change up your routine. ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "The Problem With Psychiatry, the 'DSM,' and the Way We Study Mental Illness" [Psmag]: "It is true that the DSM has a great deal of influence in modern America, but it may be more of a scapegoat than a villain. It is certainly not the only force at play in determining which symptoms become culturally salient." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- A Better Lesson [Rodneybrooks]: "[T]he lesson we should learn from the last seventy years of AI research is not at all that we should just use more computation and that always wins. Rather I think a better lesson to be learned is that we have to take into account the total cost of any solution, and that so far they have all required substantial amounts of human ingenuity." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- "Exit, voice, or loyalty… what should we do when things go wrong?" [Timharford]: "The instinct of the economist, used to studying competitive markets, is to think of “exit” as the most straightforward and powerful protest. If we don’t like the product or we don’t like the price, we take our custom elsewhere. The alternative is “voice”: we complain, in any form from a muttered grumble to a Molotov cocktail. In many ways, exit is easier than it has ever been. [...] We have an endless choice of entertainments to enjoy, news sources to consume, companies from which to purchase. Niche political movements abound. The exit door never seems far away. And yet, many of us have rarely felt so trapped. Yes, it’s possible to leave Facebook or stop using Google. But it is hardly as simple as switching to a different brand of toothpaste." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Algorithms judge us; how can we judge them? [Timharford]: "One definition of equal treatment for men and women would be that credit was extended equally to both, regardless of the fact that women tend to be paid less than men. Another would be that people with the same income got the same credit, regardless of gender. You might have spotted the problem: it’s impossible to offer both forms of equal treatment simultaneously. [...] This doesn’t excuse cases where decision processes — algorithmic or otherwise — are grossly biased, grotesquely inaccurate or both. Our problem is that we don’t know which ones they are, so we tend instead to believe emotionally resonant stories about famous brands." Transparent algorithmic explanations, independent auditing, and availability of alternatives would be helpful, but the problem is still hard to solve." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Think waking up earlier will make you more productive? Think again [Alifeofproductivity]: "There is essentially no difference [in productivity] between waking up early and waking up later in the day, assuming you sleep the same amount of time in both scenarios. [...] I think you should be able to determine whether you should wake up early by asking yourself one simple question: Can you get more done past 9pm, or before 9am?" ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How To Avoid Swallowing War Propaganda [Current Affairs]: "Things are not true just because a government official says them - we should require independent evidence. Scrutinize the arguments. Do not be bullied into accepting simple-minded sloganeering. Watch out for euphemisms. Keep the focus on what matters. Watch where people put the emphasis. Imagine how everything would sound if the other side said it. Remember what people were saying five minutes ago." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Peloton, Nike, Walmart and Other Brands Get Savaged Online, But Are Fine in Real Life" [Bloomberg]: "With strong strategy — or a little serendipity — outrage cycles can be a footnote, not a chapter, in a company’s history. A bunch of enraged tweets are not a gauge of consumer sentiment or evidence of an actual boycott. However hot and bright these controversies flare online, in the real world they simply don’t leave much of a burn." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin activism | a)
- Results of Sam Altman’s 2015 “Bubble Talk” Bet [Daniellemorrill]: "For the most part, there wasn't a bubble in tech in 2015." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- The Democratic establishment should chill out about Bernie Sanders [Vox]: "If they assess Sanders’s actual track record —rather than his personally insulting rhetoric — they’d discover a fairly unremarkable blue-state liberal who’s good at winning elections and has extensive experience with the disappointing realities of the legislative process. Ironically, the establishment would be far better off acknowledging Sanders’s conventionality — as he pointed out at a Monday night CNN town hall, it’s not like he ran around abolishing private businesses when he was mayor of Burlington." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Yes, a Blog" [LessWrong]: "When I recommend LessWrong to people, their gut reaction is usually "What? You think the best existing philosophical treatise on rationality is a blog?" Well, yes, at the moment I do. [...] Three reasons: idea selection, critical mass, and helpful standards for collaboration and debate." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- "The "Outside the Box" Box" [LessWrong]: "Whenever someone exhorts you to "think outside the box", they usually, for your convenience, point out exactly where "outside the box" is located. Isn't it funny how nonconformists all dress the same..." ('20 Jan 04Added Sat 2020-Jan-04 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Two New Papers on Militarized Police [Afinethe Orem.wordpress]: "In places that get more military equipment, crime falls, particularly for crime that is easy to deter like carjacking or low-level drug crime. Citizen complaints, if anything, go down. Violence against police falls. And there is no increase in officer-caused deaths. In terms of magnitudes, the fall in crime is substantial given the cost: the Warwick-NHH paper finds the value of reduced crime, using standard metrics, is roughly 20 times the cost of the military equipment. Interestingly, places that get this equipment also hire fewer cops, suggesting some sort of substitutability between labor and capital in policing. The one negative finding, in the Tennessee paper, is that arrests for petty crimes appear to rise in a minor way. Both papers are very clear that these results don’t mean we should militarize all police departments, and both are clear that in places with poor community-police relations, militarization can surely inflame things further." ('20 Jan 03Added Fri 2020-Jan-03 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- China’s Ballyhooed New Hypersonic Missile Isn’t Exactly a Game-Changer [Carnegieendowment]: "But the important question isn’t whether the DF-17 [Chinese hypersonic missile] poses a danger to U.S. and allied forces in the western Pacific. It does. Better to ask whether the DF-17 significantly enhances the threat from China’s formidable arsenal of existing weapons [...] The Pentagon’s budget request for fiscal 2020 included $2.6 billion for hypersonic-related research, and there is a strong appetite in Washington for deploying hypersonic weapons as soon as possible. But the Defense Department would be wise to move cautiously. Hypersonic weapons may ultimately find their niche in U.S. military strategy, but first the Pentagon must define their role and analyze potential alternatives. For now, defending against current – and particularly future – Chinese hypersonic weapons is a more urgent task." ('20 Jan 03Added Fri 2020-Jan-03 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Defeating the Villain - Less Wrong Discussion [LessWrong]: "Defeating the villain is rarely enough. Building is harder than destroying, and it is very unlikely that something good will spontaneously fill the void when something evil is taken away. It is also insufficient to speak in vague generalities about the ideals to which the post-[whatever] society will adhere. How are you going to avoid the problems caused by whatever you are eliminating, and how are you going to successfully transition from evil to good?" ('20 Jan 03Added Fri 2020-Jan-03 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Predictions Scorecard, 2020 January 01" [Rodneybrooks]: "This is a boring update. Despite lots of hoopla in the press about self driving cars, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, and the space industry, this last year, 2019, was not actually a year of big milestones. Not much that will matter in the long run actually happened in 2019. Furthermore, this year’s summary indicates that so far none of my predictions have turned out to be too pessimistic. Overall I am getting worried that I was perhaps too optimistic, and had bought into the hype too much. There is only one dated prediction of mine that I am currently worried may have been too pessimistic–I won’t name it here as perhaps I will turn out to be right after all." ('20 Jan 03Added Fri 2020-Jan-03 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- The unintended consequences of “ban the box” [Jenniferdoleac]: "Jurisdictions across the United States have adopted “ban the box” (BTB) policies preventing employers from conducting criminal background checks until late in the job application process. Their goal is to improve employment outcomes for those with criminal records, with a secondary goal of reducing racial disparities in employment. However, removing information about job applicants’ criminal histories could lead employers who don’t want to hire ex-offenders to guess who the ex-offenders are, and avoid interviewing them. [...] We find that BTB policies decrease the probability of being employed by 3.4 percentage points (5.1%) for young, low-skilled black men, and by 2.3 percentage points (2.9%) for young, low-skilled Hispanic men. These findings support the hypothesis that when an applicant’s criminal history is unavailable, employers statistically discriminate against demographic groups that include more ex-offenders." ('20 Jan 03Added Fri 2020-Jan-03 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- A few thoughts on depression [Noahpinionblog.blogspot]: "Obviously, everyone's experience of depression is different, so I don't intend these thoughts to be a universal guide or general theory." Thoughts: Depression is not sadness ("During the most intense part of a major-depressive episode, what I've felt is nothing at all like sadness. Mostly, it's a kind of numbness, and utter lack of desire and will"); Coming out of depression is the most dangerous time; Depressed people don't need good listeners; Depressed people do need human company; Cognitive behavioral therapy really works; Depressed people may need a new "narrative"; Depressed people always need to be vigilant against a relapse." ('20 Jan 03Added Fri 2020-Jan-03 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Social Conservatism of Hollywood [Econlib]: "Contrary to popular opinion, Hollywood makes a lot of socially conservative movies." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Reading and Rabbit Holes [Marginalrevolution]: "Let’s say you want to read some books on Venice, maybe because you are traveling there, or you are just curious about the Renaissance, or about the history of the visual arts. aybe you will write me and ask: 'Tyler, which books should I read on Venice?' Now, there are many fine books on Venice, but I actually would not approach the problem in that manner. [...] I instead suggest a “rabbit holes” strategy[. ...] Come up with a bunch of questions about Venice you want answered, and then simply do whatever you must to pursue them." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Income and (Ir)rational food choice [Jaysonlusk]: “This paper sought to determine the relationship between consumers’ incomes and food expenditures on the one hand and preference consistency on the other. Previous literature has suggested at least two channels through which increasing income or expenditure might have deleterious effects on preference stability. The first operates through increasing demand for novelty and variety as incomes rise and the second operates via the relative incentive to behave rationally as the stakes fall.” ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin economics | a)
- Philanthropy Vouchers and Public Debate: Political vs Civic Advocacy [Philosophyetc.net]: "It's interesting to compare the ways we talk and think about political vs non-political agents, advocacy, and organization. Consider the common objection to Effective Altruism, that it allegedly 'neglects the need for systemic change.' [...] EAs advocate that everyone donate at least 10% of their incomes to effective causes. If that happened, the world would be radically transformed: ending extreme poverty, material deprivation, and easily preventable disease, forever. So if that's not a "systemic change", I don't know what is. Admittedly, what we're calling for (in the first instance) is change to the behaviour of agents in the system, rather than changes to the rules of the system. [...] Altruistic political expression is easier to secure than altruistic (non-political) behaviour, so we should use the former to force the latter, e.g. by redistributive taxation. [...] Tax-funded philanthropic vouchers offer a very different (decentralized) model for achieving radical humanitarian goals" ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- What is steel? And how is it related to iron?] [Rootsofprogress]: "I heard long ago that steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. Only recently did I learn that cast iron is also an alloy of iron and carbon—and that steel actually has a lower carbon content than cast iron: under 2% carbon for steel, vs. more like 3–4% for cast iron. So steel is, in a sense, more iron than “iron”. Pure iron, it turns out, is too soft and not very useful." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- How Trump Lost His Trade War [NYTimes]: "So why did Trump wimp out on trade? At a broad level, the answer is that he was suffering from delusions of grandeur. America was never going to succeed in bullying a huge, proud nation whose economy is already, by some measures, larger than ours — especially while simultaneously alienating other advanced economies that might have joined us in pressuring China to change some of its economic policies. At a more granular level, none of the pieces of Trump trade strategy have worked as promised. Although Trump has repeatedly insisted that China is paying his tariffs, the facts say otherwise[...] At the same time, Chinese retaliation has hit some U.S. exporters, farmers in particular, hard. [...] Finally, uncertainty over tariff policy was clearly hurting manufacturing and business investment, even as overall economic growth remained solid." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "The telling conservative backlash to a Virginia zoning reform proposal, explained" [Vox]: "Systematic shortages of housing are liberal America’s greatest policy failing. And though these shortages are partially caused by geography and economic vibrancy, they are also the result of regulatory failures. Zoning laws and other aspects of land use policy make it too hard to build new homes. Of course, that’s exactly what people on the right fear from progressive governance of the economy: too much regulation. In other words, though it’s a young, first-term Democrat proposing duplexes with the intent of addressing social injustices, the solution itself is a deregulatory one." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Founder Visa [Paulgraham]: "The single biggest thing the government could do to increase the number of startups in this country is a policy that would cost nothing: establish a new class of visa for startup founders. The biggest constraint on the number of new startups that get created in the US is not tax policy or employment law or even Sarbanes-Oxley. It's that we won't let the people who want to start them into the country." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Design and Research [Paulgraham]: "What do you do differently when you treat programming languages as a design problem instead of a research topic? The biggest difference is that you focus more on the user. Design begins by asking, who is this for and what do they need from it? A good architect, for example, does not begin by creating a design that he then imposes on the users, but by studying the intended users and figuring out what they need." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Who pays more taxes [Johnhcochrane.blogspot]: "Really the problem starts by defining the question as income taxes -- what is the tax rate on this year's income -- and defining income to include "capital income," dividends, interest, and capital gains. Once you allow that definition, much of the game is lost. Yes, old and wealthier people tend to have more capital income, and young and less wealthy people tend to have more earnings. We tax earnings at a way higher rate, so duh. The fact that this "capital income" comes from savings, which comes from earnings that were taxed at the most progressive rates in the world then vanishes in this accounting." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin economics | a)
- "“A nasty, brutal fight”: what a US-Iran war would look like" [Vox]: "A war with Iran would progress through a series of tit-for-tat attacks with escalations and/or de-escalations. However, a lack of communication and trust could lead way to a miscalculation that could cause outright war. While the US is much stronger militarially, Iran punches above its weight and can still do quite substantial damage to the US and allies in many ways. Additionally, a war would be very hard to win and the quagmire would make the Iraq War look minuscule by comparison." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Unprocrastination Challenge: Train Yourself with Daily Sessions [ZenHabits]: "To train yourself to avoid procrostination, practice having a specific pre-scheduled 20min block where you strongly pre-commit to doing things you have been putting off." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Chrome Extension Stealing Cryptocurrency Keys and Passwords [Schneier]: "Another example of how blockchain requires many single points of trust in order to be secure." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Invertebrate Sentience: A Useful Empirical Resource [EA Forum]: "Rethink Priorities reviewed the scientific literature relevant to invertebrate sentience. We selected 53 features potentially indicative of the capacity for valenced experience and examined the degree to which these features are found throughout 18 representative biological taxa. These data have been compiled into an easily sortable database that will enable animal welfare organizations to better gauge the probability that (various species of) invertebrates have the capacity for valenced experience. This essay details what we’ve done, why, and the strengths and weaknesses of our approach." ('20 Jan 02Added Thu 2020-Jan-02 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- A Way To Think Clearly About “Medicare For All” Debates [Current Affairs]: "In the United States, if you call 911 and the fire department comes, you will pay nothing. If you call 911 and the ambulance comes, you could be charged $1,500 or more for a short ride. The fire department is a public service. It is “the government.” Ambulances and many hospitals are not." ('20 Jan 01Added Wed 2020-Jan-01 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Mental Mountains [LessWrong]: "In the United States, if you call 911 and the fire department comes, you will pay nothing. If you call 911 and the ambulance comes, you could be charged $1,500 or more for a short ride. The fire department is a public service. It is “the government.” Ambulances and many hospitals are not." ('20 Jan 01Added Wed 2020-Jan-01 11 p.m. CSTin s | a)
- The Merch Primary [Current Affairs]: "Forget the candidates’ policies—how are their branded consumer goods?" ('20 Jan 01Added Wed 2020-Jan-01 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Who Goes Nazi? Office Edition [Current Affairs]: "'When push comes to shove, which of your coworkers will go fash, and which would never?" ('20 Jan 01Added Wed 2020-Jan-01 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- The No S Diet [Nosdiet]: "No snacks, no sweets, no seconds, except on days that start with S." ('20 Jan 01Added Wed 2020-Jan-01 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Infinite Certainty [Web.archive]: "I don’t think you could get up to 99.99% confidence for assertions like “53 is a prime number”. Yes, it seems likely, but by the time you tried to set up protocols that would let you assert 10,000 independent statements of this sort – that is, not just a set of statements about prime numbers, but a new protocol each time – you would fail more than once. Peter de Blanc has an amusing anecdote on this point, which he is welcome to retell in the comments." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- The public invisibility of running mid-stage successful companies by @ASmar [Blog.asmartbear]: "Keith Rabois famously quipped, “I don’t know of a single successful CEO or entrepreneur who blogs regularly.” Why? Because my daily experiences are unsharable. My daily life consists of (a) setting the strategy and rationale of the Engineering & Innovation department, based on a mixture of vision, data, and the needs of the rest of the company, (b) participate in doing the same for the whole company, (c) hire, (d) manage the managers whose teams execute the real work. As the CTO of a 130-person company that’s still growing along every dimension at a prodigious rate, that’s the appropriate job description. But I can’t share anything about it." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- Questioning yourself — Jess Whittlestone [Jesswhittlestone]: "Sometimes the most useful ‘advice’ someone else can give you isn’t advice at all - it’s asking you the right question. Good questions can help alert you to things you already knew but hadn’t quite seen the implications of, help you to consider a different angle on a problem, or simply help you better structure your thinking. As I suggested in my last post, often when we’re struggling with a problem or a decision, what we need isn’t other people’s opinions exactly. Instead, what we need is help making sense of everything we already know, help figuring out how to balance our own conflicting intuitions and feelings. And a good question can really help to do this, to re-orient your thinking. But of course, it’s not only other people who can ask you questions - you can also question yourself!" ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- IAC’s HowAboutWe co-founder: How to Avoid Delusional Thinking in Start-up Growth Strategy (Guest Post) [Andrewchen.co]: "When I ask pre-launch or very early stage founders about their customer acquisition strategies, they invariably think they have a plan. They might share a document or slide with a list of tactics like “press,” “word of mouth and friend invites,” “biz dev,” and “content.” They may even thoughtfully quote Andrew Chen. But when you really dig into their ideas and predicted results, the defining characteristic of such plans is almost invariably an uncanny belief in magic." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- Summary of Cartwright and Hardie's "Evidence-based Policy: A practical guid [EA Forum]: "RCTs are good for producing claims like “It worked there.”. But what we really care about is “Will it work here?”. The standard answer to this question is external validity, but EBP disapproves of this answer for a variety of reasons. Instead, they propose that we answer the question of generalization by thinking about causal principles, causal roles and support factors. To find support factors and the right causal principle, we must engage in, respectively, horizontal search and vertical search up and down the ladder of abstraction." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- Some personal thoughts on EA and systemic change - EA Forum [EA Forum]: "Actual EA is able to do assessments of systemic change interventions including electoral politics and policy change, and has done so a number of times. The great majority of critics of EA invoking systemic change fail to present the simple sort of quantitative analysis given above for the interventions they claim excel, and frequently when such analysis is done the intervention does not look competitive by EA lights. Nonetheless, my view is that historical data do show that the most efficient political/advocacy spending, particularly aiming at candidates and issues selected with an eye to global poverty or the long term, does have higher returns." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- Tony Gaitatzis — 5 Things a Product Developer Can Learn From the NYC Subway [Tonygaitatzis.tumblr]: "Keep it simple. Rather than bombard passengers with information all at once, provide info in context-sensitive ways. Design for the future. Provide customer-centric service. Use your own product frequently and in the same way customers use it." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- SSC Journal Club: AI Timelines | Slate Star Codex [SlateStarCodex]: AI experts are very unsure about when AI advancements are to be expected. ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- BashPitfalls - Greg's Wiki [Mywiki.wooledge]: Get better at shell scripting by reviewing all the ways common shell scripts are written incorrectly. ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- "Bayesian statistics: What's it all about? - Statistical Modeling, Causal In" [Andrewgelman]: "The essence of Bayesian statistics is the combination of information from multiple sources. We call this data and prior information, or hierarchical modeling, or dynamic updating, or partial pooling, but in any case it’s all about putting together data to understand a larger structure. [...] When Bayesian methods work best, it’s by providing a clear set of paths connecting data, mathematical/statistical models, and the substantive theory of the variation and comparison of interest. [...] The drawback of this Bayesian approach is that it can require a bit of a commitment to construction of a model that might be complicated" ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Key practices for achieving large professional goals [Nodramadevops]: "Writing can be a means of actively developing thoughts on a topic, as opposed to merely transcribing pre-existing thoughts. Writing daily for 1.5-2 hours may seem outlandish but it can be essential. It can be easier to find this time than you think if you systematically search for and eliminate low value activities no one would miss if they weren't done. Another key is developing focus by practicing deep work, avoiding social media, pre-scheduling the day, and having a concrete daily shutdown time." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Power Smoothie [Powersmoothie]: "In a nutshell, a Power Smoothie consists of using a blender to combine protein and fat, fruits and vegetables, and a liquid base. [...] The advantage of a Power Smoothie is that it combines convenience (generally quick to make, especially relative to cooking), nutrition (about as healthy as something can reasonably be expected to be, with lots of scientific detail), satisfaction (has fat, protein, and fiber to make you feel full), ethics (no animal products), affordability ($3-5 for ~800 calories which is decent), and taste (usually considered between "pretty tasty" and "very tasty")." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Where coulds go [Mindingourway]: ":Willpower is scarce in this world. Sometimes, you can will yourself out of a mental rut you're in, but only rarely; more often, sheer force of will alone is not sufficient. If your plan to stop staying up too late playing Civilization is "well I'll just force myself harder next time," then this plan is doomed to failure. If it didn't work last time, it likely won't work next time." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- What’s the liberal equivalent of climate denial? - Vox [Vox]: "And if Kahan's research proves anything, it's that liberals who judge liberalism as honest and rigorous and conservatism as fraudulent and mendacious should be intensely suspicious of their conclusion." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- The Downside of Work-Life Balance [Jamesclear]: "Imagine that your life is represented by a stove with four burners on it. Each burner symbolizes one major quadrant of your life. The first burner represents your family. The second burner is your friends. The third burner is your health. The fourth burner is your work. The Four Burners Theory says that 'in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.'" ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Day I Stopped Saying 'Hurry Up' [Huffingtonpost]: "Although the words "hurry up" did little if nothing to increase my child's speed, I said them anyway. Maybe even more than the words, "I love you." The truth hurts, but the truth heals... and brings me closer to the parent I want to be." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- What If America Had Canada's Healthcare System? - The Atlantic [Atlantic]: "Socialized medicine gives more people access to care and saves money, but comes at a cost of longer wait times." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- 6 Essential Skills for Language Learning | Powlyglot [Powlyglot]: "Speaking, listening, reading, writing, pronunciation, memorization" ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Scrupulosity: my EAGxBoston 2019 lightning talk - EA Forum [EA Forum]: "Scrupulosity is a form of OCD focused on morality or religion, where obsession over moral guilt gives way to a compulsive moral rule, observance, physical ritual, etc. For example, "I am plagued by guilty and sad thoughts about the deaths of animals in factory farms (obsession), so I keep looking for more ways to make my vegan diet 100% cruelty-free (compulsion)." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- Should AI Be Open? | Slate Star Codex [SlateStarCodex]: "Both sides here keep talking about who is going to “use” the superhuman intelligence a billion times more powerful than humanity, as if it were a microwave or something." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- The Decade of Deep Learning [Leogao.dev]: "This post is an overview of some the most influential Deep Learning papers of the last decade." 2011: ReLU, 2012: Deep Convolutional NNs, 2013: word2vec, 2014: GANs and attention, 2015: residual block and batchnorm, 2016: AlphaGo, 2017: transformers, 2018: BERT, 2019: double descent and lottery ticket hypothesis" ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Mysticism and Pattern-Matching | Slate Star Codex [SlateStarCodex]: "So hallucinations are when your top-down processing/pattern-matching ability becomes so dysfunctional that it can generate people and objects out of random visual noise. [...] I think all of this [mysticism] is about strengthening the pattern-matching faculty. [...] Once the pattern-matching faculty is way way way overactive, it (spuriously) hallucinates a top-down abstract pattern in the whole universe. This is the experience that mystics describe as “everything is connected” or “all is one”, or “everything makes sense” or “everything in the universe is good and there for a purpose”. The discovery of a beautiful all-encompassing pattern in the universe is understandably associated with “seeing God”." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself [Mtlynch.io]: A story of how to make things worse as a company by overly focusing on metrics and a story of how to triumph as an employee. ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- The Dumbest Task I Ever Outsourced [Mtlynch.io]: "I derive immense satisfaction from outsourcing my chores. All of my friends have heard me encourage them to place a higher value on their free time and delegate their errands. Few of them heed my advice, and it’s probably because they know about the time I paid someone $96 to clean a $39 keyboard." Lessons learned: Outsourcing doesn’t scale down ("there are frictional costs of defining the job, finding a candidate, and managing their work. For small, one-time tasks, the frictional costs can balloon to a large enough proportion of the job that they negate the benefit of outsourcing."), invest more in training and specifying the tasks for the outsourcer, and consider buying and selling via craigslist to avoid waste." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Tao of Bees: How I use Beeminder | Beeminder Blog [Blog.beeminder]: "Beeminder helps you actually convert goals into daily practice. First create a goal, then meaningfully quantify it, then break it down into a daily (or weekly) goal. Then track progress." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Cached Thoughts [Readthe Sequences]: "In modern civilization particularly, no one can think fast enough to think their own thoughts. If I’d been abandoned in the woods as an infant, raised by wolves or silent robots, I would scarcely be recognizable as human. No one can think fast enough to recapitulate the wisdom of a hunter-gatherer tribe in one lifetime, starting from scratch. As for the wisdom of a literate civilization, forget it. But the flip side of this is that I continually see people who aspire to critical thinking, repeating back cached thoughts which were not invented by critical thinkers." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- The next thing Silicon Valley needs to disrupt big time: its own culture [Qz]: "Instead of talking with her about that in plain English, she was held at arm’s length for days while The Culture examined her for defects: coffee dates in the afternoon, conversations over dinner. When she gets the invisible nod, her reward is a “spontaneous” invitation to a night of drinking with the team. You have to wonder why intelligent people would devise an interview process so strange and oblique that the candidate doesn’t even know it’s happening. On the surface there’s nothing wrong with getting to know a job candidate in a relaxed setting. But think about who might flunk this kind of pre-interview acculturation. Say, people who don’t drink. Or people with long commutes, or who don’t have the luxury of time to stay out late with a bunch of twenty-somethings on a whim. Or, perhaps, people who don’t like the passive-aggressive contempt shown to those who don’t get The Culture." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- A Psychologist Explains How to Beat Social Anxiety [Getpocket]: "Social anxiety is a perception that there is something embarrassing and deficient about us, and, unless we work hard to conceal or hide it, it will be revealed and we will be judged or rejected for it. [...] How do you overcome social anxiety? Go forth and do. [...] A nice analogy is that of mood and action. We often think we have to “feel” like doing something before doing it. We think we have to feel like going to the gym before going to work out. But if we lace up our shoes and go to the gym, often our mood catches up, and we’re glad we went. With confidence, it’s the same thing." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Saudi Oil Facility Attack: What We Know : NPR [Npr]: "The attack on the Saudi Oil facilities was likely done by Iran, due to the sophistication and size of the strike, the nature of the wreckage, and the direction of the blast damage." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Hiring Content Writers: A Guide for Small Businesses [Mtlynch.io]: "A detailed review of hiring content writers. Some tips: hire from Upwork or college job boards; have a job description that explains the goals, requirements, details, attribution and rights, timing, how payment works; allow lots of flexibility; prefer to pay per hour; know that sometimes a higher hourly rate can still be cheaper if the worker is better and/or faster; screen with writing samples, ratings and reviews; start a paid trial; provide a contract; provide a style guide; timebox their tasks; pay promptly; meet regularly; invest in the relationship; when terminating remain objective, stick to facts, focus on the writing rather than the person, and avoid insults or negative editorializing about their work; and learn from your mistakes" ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- How do you assess the quality / reliability of a scientific study? [LessWrong]: "Don't just read the abstract; don't get tunnel vision; look at who the researchers are and their reputation; look at the sponsorship of the research and of the researchers; look to see other similar studies and if the study has been replicated, intuitively reflect on the plausibility of the effect; check the strength of the result (p-value, effect size) and beware of both small and large effect sizes; reflect on p-hacking, publication bias, multiple hypotheses, Lehr’s formula, confounders and controls, who the subjects are (nonhuman animals? college students?), and statistical power; reflect on ways the study might be noise; search for criticisms of the paper; check that the methods and results match the paper's takeaway, and learn how to talk to people in the field until you can understand what they think about the paper and why." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- The Obvious Way to Improve Your Career (That Might Not Be So Obvious) [Scotthyoung]: "Ask for specific advice from people who are 2-3 steps ahead of you in the kind of career you want to have, not general advice from people on the internet. Don't copy surface-level things like habits, quirks, or beliefs - focus more on the specific skills, assets, and projects they cultivated. Don't avoid hard work." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Eliminating Distractions from Social Media, Email, and StackOverflow" [Mtlynch.io]: "The techniques for eliminating distractions vary from app to app, but the underlying principles are the same: Decide what you want from the app. Evaluate what you must invest to earn that benefit. Suppress mechanisms in the app that induce you to invest more than you intended. Apps will continue to evolve and find new ways to grab your attention. Nobody will defend your focus except for you. The only way to conserve your limited attention is to exercise vigilance and introspection over the apps you use." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Seven Easy Habits to Read More Books Next Year [Scotthyoung]: "Never feel guilty about putting a book down and starting a new one. Build a library in your Amazon wishlist. Listen to audiobooks. Choose reading over social media. Delete social media from your phone and add Kindle instead. Set aside thirty minutes before sleep for reading. In addition to reading aimlessly, also create a focused learning project." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Your room can be as bright as the outdoors [BenKuhn]: "The sun sets at around 4:15 now, and it’s suddenly become extremely salient how hard it is for me to focus after dark. [...] I bought an extremely bright “corn cob” style bulb. It emits as much light as about 40 incandescents, and produces enough waste heat that it needs an internal cooling fan to dissipate it. [...] The effect was huge: I became dramatically more productive between 3:30pm and whenever I turned off the light. Instead of having a strong urge to stop working whenever it got dark out, I was able to keep working my normal summer schedule, stopping just before dinner. I estimate the lamp bought me between half an hour and two hours a day, depending on how overcast it was." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Staying Motivated by Sending Status Updates to Nobody [Mtlynch.io]: "Friday afternoons are when my brain lies to me about my work. It often tells me that I wasted an entire week investigating a bug and have nothing to show for it. Writing status updates forced me to see my week objectively. I’d review my code check-ins, outgoing emails, and calendar. Invariably, this exercise reminded me that I accomplished far more than my bleak, never-gonna-solve-this-bug mindset suggested." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Social Reality and the Canard About Keeping Your Goals To Yourself [Feedproxy.google]: "Identity-based goal or not, the conclusion that you make yourself less likely to achieve a goal by telling people about it defies common sense. Especially for any goal that people beemind you’re well advised to shout it from the rooftops." ('19 Dec 31Added Tue 2019-Dec-31 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "80,000 Hours: Mistakes people make when deciding what work to do" [EA Forum]: "Doing something that they don’t enjoy at all, not focusing on becoming really good at something, following the paths of similar people, not thinking about roles that don’t exist yet, working on the most interesting puzzles, not thinking enough about developing skills, not spreading out among many different fields, assuming direct work is best, valuing breadth over depth, thinking that their cause is “the one true cause”" ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- The Private and External Costs of Germany's Nuclear Phase-Out [Nber]: "Many countries have phased out nuclear electricity production in response to concerns about nuclear waste and the risk of nuclear accidents. This paper examines the impact of the shutdown of roughly half of the nuclear production capacity in Germany after the Fukushima accident in 2011. [...] We find that the lost nuclear electricity production due to the phase-out was replaced primarily by coal-fired production and net electricity imports. The social cost of this shift from nuclear to coal is approximately 12 billion dollars per year. Over 70% of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- [Link] Moloch Hasn’t Won (Zvi) [EA Forum]: "The world is filled with people whose lives have value and include nice things. Each day we look Moloch in the face, know exactly what the local personal incentives are, see the ancient doom looming over all of us, and say what we say to the God of Death: Not today." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Can You Call it Meat? [Jaysonlusk]: "The counter response is that people might associate words like “beef”, "meat”, or “milk” with other product attributes such as nutritional content, which might (sometimes inappropriately) carry over to the plant- or lab-based products. Nutritional facts panels may serve to mitigate some of these concerns, but there is little doubt that labels create various taste and health halos that extend beyond the objective facts. At the same time, words are needed to convey meaning to consumers beyond just animal content. Using the word ground “meat” tells me something about how the food is expected to be cooked and served and which condiments are appropriate. In this instance, using “meat” with “plant-based” is helpful to the consumer insofar as quickly conveying key information about how the product is to be cooked and consumed. Thus, there are pros and cons and costs and benefits to these types of labeling laws." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin animals | a)
- The Immortal Game [En.wikipedia]: "The Immortal Game was a chess game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851 in London, during a break of the first international tournament. The bold sacrifices made by Anderssen to secure victory have made it one of the most famous chess games of all time. Anderssen gave up both rooks and a bishop, then his queen, checkmating his opponent with his three remaining minor pieces. In 1996, Bill Hartston called the game an achievement "perhaps unparalleled in chess literature"." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- The unreasonable effectiveness of one-on-ones [BenKuhn]: "1-1s can dramatically improve the productivity of the employee by helping them build stronger habits and self-improve, understand failures, improve communication, align on goals, and resolve uncertainties. It helps to really care a lot about the employee." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Which Harvard students are least comfortable expressing their opinions? [Gregmankiw.blogspot]: "Harvard recently released the results of a survey on "Inclusion and Belonging." One question asked students whether they agreed with the statement "I feel comfortable expressing my opinions to others at Harvard." Overall, 68 percent of students agreed. Moreover, the statement received majority agreement for most subgroups--men and women; white, black, Hispanic, and Asian; straight and gay; U.S. citizen and foreign; Christian, Jewish, and Muslim; and so on. The only subgroup for which the statement did not generate majority agreement was those students who self-identified as conservative." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Gears-Level Models are Capital Investments [LessWrong]: "Building gears-level models [a.k.a. building fundamental understanding about a topic] is expensive - often prohibitively expensive. Black-box approaches [a.k.a. generating predictions without generating understanding, e.g., A-B testing] are usually much cheaper and faster. But black-box approaches rarely generalize - they’re subject to Goodhart [a.k.a. gaming metrics], need to be rebuilt when conditions change, don’t identify unknown unknowns, and are hard to build on top of. Gears-level models, on the other hand, offer permanent, generalizable knowledge which can be applied to many problems in the future, even if conditions shift." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- How to dramatically reduce gun violence in American cities [Vox]: "Policing strategies like stop-and-frisk harass a lot of innocent people and breed resentment. But community policing can work. "In Bleeding Out, Abt argues that law enforcement and other government agencies can address these problems by focusing on three elements: focus, balance, and fairness. Police, other officials, and community leaders should focus on the few individuals who commit and are victim to the great majority of local violence, balancing the threat of punishment with offers of help. To give the process a sense of fairness, officials should communicate clearly and transparently, bringing in the community to provide feedback and accountability. There’s real-world evidence that this could work." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them. [Vox]: "In talking with researchers and looking at the studies on this in 2016, I found that it is possible to reduce people’s racial anxiety and prejudices. And the canvassing idea was regarded as very promising. But, researchers cautioned, the process of reducing people’s racism will take time and, crucially, empathy. [...] It’s the direct opposite of the kind of culture the internet has fostered — typically focused on calling out racists and shaming them in public. This doesn’t work. And as much as it might seem like a lost cause to understand the perspectives of people who may qualify as racist, understanding where they come from is a needed step to being able to speak to them in a way that will help reduce the racial biases they hold." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- I was skeptical of unions. Then I joined one. [Vox]: "I thought unions could be good for some workplaces but others were good enough without unions and so they should be avoided. I was wrong. We need more unions everywhere." Unions help balance out workplaces and address income and wealth inequality. "[A]as I dug deeper and deeper into the research, and as I engaged in the actual organizing and bargaining processes, I was repeatedly proven wrong, in large part because I initially focused way too much on the bad examples of unions instead of the good ones. When you stack up all the research and look at the broader picture, though, the net effect of unions — bad examples included — is good for the typical worker." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Market for Lemons [En.wikipedia]: "[T]he quality of goods traded in a market can degrade in the presence of information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, leaving only 'lemons' behind." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin economics | a)
- We only hire the trendiest [Danluu]: "Software companies are biased toward hiring people with "trendy" experience, rather than what works. However, many of these companies can't afford to hire the best trendy people, so they lose out. Instead, it would be better to play moneyball and deliberately hire underrated devs, of which there are a myriad. Additionally, investments in setting up existing hires for success through superior process, tools, and culture, could provide superior returns over hiring better people." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Leave No American Uninsured [Dataforprogress]: "In Medicare for All polling, people prefer a public option because they like being able to keep private health care and not raise taxes. They like Medicare for All because they want all Americans to be insured, to keep cost increases under control, and to avoid the limitations of insurance networks." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Emotional CPR: cognitive, physiological, and resets" [Deliberatehappiness]: "When you’re feeling anxious, upset, angry, or otherwise in a bad emotional state, a good general approach to fix it, in escalating levels of time and probability of success, is to do emotional CPR. CPR stands for cognitive, physiological, and reset. Cognitive refers to cognitive approaches [...t]hese involve things like: Challenging distorted thoughts, Reframing the situation [...] If those don’t work, changing your physiology will often do the trick. [...] This can be things like: Doing a quick bout of exercise, Splashing your face with cold water, Taking a walk outside, Having an espresso [...] Lastly, if none of those work, you can do what I call a hard emotional reset. [...] Some examples might be: Getting a bag of popcorn and some hot chocolate, watching your favorite comedy, ideally with a partner or close friend, then playing a fun board game with them; Going out to a party and drinking and dancing; Going out to a park or the woods with a book and hiking, reading, and meditating in nature." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Trump Got His Wall After All [Huffpost]: "In the two years and 308 days that Donald Trump has been president, he has constructed zero miles of wall along the southern border of the United States. [...] And it doesn’t matter. [...]his administration has constructed far more effective barriers to immigration. No new laws have actually been passed. This transformation has mostly come about through subtle administrative shifts—a phrase that vanishes from an internal manual, a form that gets longer, an unannounced revision to a website, a memo, a footnote in a memo. [...] In the two years after Trump took office, denials for H1Bs, the most common form of visa for skilled workers, more than doubled. In the same period, wait times for citizenship also doubled[...] In 2018, the United States added just 200,000 immigrants to the population, a startling 70 percent less than the year before." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- 2019 in Review: 10 AI Failures [Medium]: "This is the third Synced year-end compilation of “Artificial Intelligence Failures.” Despite AI’s rapid growth and remarkable achievements, a review of AI failures remains necessary and meaningful. Our aim is not to downplay or mock research and development results, but rather to take a look at what went wrong with the hope we can do better next time." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Three Things to Unlearn from School [Casnocha]: "(1) The importance of opinion ("Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge; it requires no accountability, no understanding."); (2) The importance of solving given problems. ("Schools teach us to be clever, great problem solvers, but not to include ourselves in the problem that’s being solved."); (3) The importance of earning the approval of others ("First seek people, work for people who don’t have to like you, people who can easily disapprove of you, people that you can’t easily please. Their skepticism or indifference will define you. Second, if you don’t how to do so already, begin working for yourself, and let the teachers be damned.")" ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Two More Things to Unlearn from School [LessWrong]: "I suspect the most dangerous habit of thought taught in schools is that even if you don't really understand something, you should parrot it back anyway. One of the most fundamental life skills is realizing when you are confused, and school actively destroys this ability - teaches students that they "understand" when they can successfully answer questions on an exam, which is very very very far from absorbing the knowledge and making it a part of you." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- 7 worst international aid ideas [Matadornetwork]: "(1) One million t-shirts for Africa (it isn't actually needed and dramatically distorts the local economy), (2) TOMS Buy-One-Give-One (see #1), (3) Machine gun preacher (similar to #1 and #2 - it acts outside the local institutions that require support as vigilante justice is not usually helpful in the long-run), (4) 50 Cent ransoming children in Somalia (if you have money to give, no need to make some lame publicity campaign about it), (5) Donor fund restrictions (see #7), (6) Making food aid the same colour as cluster munitions, and (7) Making USAID a foreign policy tool." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin development | a)
- Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years [Norvig]: "Walk into any bookstore, and you'll see how to Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours alongside endless variations offering to teach C, SQL, Ruby, Algorithms, and so on in a few days or hours. [...] The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn about programming, or that programming is somehow fabulously easier to learn than anything else. [...] In 24 hours you won't have time to write several significant programs, and learn from your successes and failures with them." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Prepare to Be Shocked! [Slate]: "You’ve seen them. Peeking out from sidebars, jiggling and wiggling for your attention, popping up where you most expect them: those 'One Weird Trick' ads. These crudely drawn Web advertisements promise easy tricks to reduce your belly fat, learn a new language, and boost your credit score by 217 points. They seem like obvious scams, but part of me has always wanted to follow the link. What, I wonder, makes the tricks so weird? How come only one trick (or sometimes 'tip'), never more? Why are the illustrations done by small children using MS Paint? [...] Thankfully, Slate has allowed me to slake my curiosity, and yours. They gave me a loaner laptop, a prepaid debit card, and a quest: to investigate these weird tricks and report back to you." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Does the Left Have Any Better Ideas Than Obama’s? [Nymag]: "There are surely cautionary tales to be drawn from Obama’s experience. But in its haste to bury both Obama and liberalism, TNR’s authors downplay the scope of his success. (While understandably short of comprehensive, their assessment completely omits such enormous reforms as the bank rescue, auto bailout, green-energy subsidies, energy-efficiency and pollution regulations, DACA, the Iran nuclear deal, the Cuba opening, and ending the ban on gays in the military.) Most important, they barely acknowledge, and utterly refuse to grapple with, the barriers Obama and his allies had to overcome." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- E-Cigarettes and Adult Smoking: Evidence from Minnesota [Nber]: "We provide some of the first evidence on how e-cigarette taxes impact adult smokers, exploiting the large tax increase in Minnesota. That state was the first to impose a tax on e-cigarettes by extending the definition of tobacco products to include e-cigarettes. This tax, which is 95% of the wholesale price, provides a plausibly exogenous deterrent to e-cigarette use. We utilize data from the Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements from 1992 to 2015, in conjunction with a synthetic control difference-in-differences approach. [...] Our results suggest that in the sample period about 32,400 additional adult smokers would have quit smoking in Minnesota in the absence of the tax. If this tax were imposed on a national level about 1.8 million smokers would be deterred from quitting in a ten year period." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Don't Read the Comments [Blog.samaltman]: "A friend of mine likes to say "there are two kinds of people in the world--the people that build the future, and the people who write posts on the internet about why they'll fail". Keep trying to be in former category." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- Before Growth [Blog.samaltman]: "In the first few weeks of a startup’s life, the founders really need to figure out what they’re doing and why. Then they need to build a product some users really love. Only after that they should focus on growth above all else." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- More interesting dinner conversations [Blog.samaltman]: "When seated at a table with people you don't know, ask "what are you interested in?" or "what have you been thinking about lately?" instead of "what do you do?"." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- 90% of the battle is won when we solve the XY Problem in Product Management [Medium]: "XY Problem is about having X problem but asked help for Y instead. Usually, because he/she thinks that Y will solve X. This usually leads to wasted time and effort." ('19 Dec 30Added Mon 2019-Dec-30 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Programmers Should Plan for Lower Pay [Jefftk]: "[W]e don't understand why programmers are paid so well. If you're a programmer, there's enough of a chance that this is temporary that it's worth explicitly planning for a future in which you're laid off and unable to find similarly high-paying work." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- 12 Habits That Changed My Life [Youtube]: "One year series of 30 day challenges to build new habits. Lessons learned: (1) Just get started; (2) it is very difficult to successfully layer multiple difficult habits, so ditch habits that don't work; (3) what works well for others won't work for you; (4) experimentation can be helpful; (5) embracing discomfort can be helpful; (6) don't be too hard on yourself." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How the Fed Lost Its Faith in ‘Full Employment’ [NYTimes]: "Federal Reserve officials believed that the labor market was about as good as it could get. They were wrong." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin economics | a)
- Meta-Scams [Gwern.net]: "We are looking at a meta scam: the scam is that you think it’s a scam that you can scam, but you get scammed as you try to scam the scam" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- "Check Your Amnesia, Dude: On the Vox Generation of Punditry" [Crookedtimber]: "Sure Trump sounds bad, but he also sounds similar to Reagan and Nixon and less scary than Barry Goldwater, and we survived all of those." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Everyone Sucks at Interviewing [Humbledmba]: "Rather than interview people, have them do a project with you." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia [Arstechnica]: The untold story of the rescue mission that could have been NASA's finest hour ...except it was very unlikely to succeed. ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- President Obama in Conversation With MIT’s Joi Ito and WIRED’s Scott Dadich [Wired]: "Obama talks about his approach to risks from AI, pandemics, and global warming." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- I created my own deepfake—it took two weeks and cost $552 [Arstechnica]: "Deepfake technology uses deep neural networks to convincingly replace one face with another in a video. The technology has obvious potential for abuse and is becoming ever more widely accessible. Many good articles have been written about the important social and political implications of this trend. This isn't one of those articles. Instead, in classic Ars Technica fashion, I'm going to take a close look at the technology itself: how does deepfake software work? How hard is it to use—and how good are the results?" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- What Google’s TPUs Mean for AI Timing and Safety [Conceptspacecartography]: "If your estimate of when there will be human-comparable or superintelligent AGI was based on the very high rate of progress in the past year, then this should make you expect AGI to arrive later, because it explains some of that progress with a one-time gain that can’t be repeated. If your timeline estimate was based on extrapolating Moore’s Law or the rate of progress excluding the past year, then this should make you expect AGI to arrive sooner." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Who Will Debunk The Debunkers? [538]: "There are many meta-myths about myths themselves that we also need to watch out for and be meta-sketpical. "It seems plausible that the tellers of these tales are getting blinkered by their own feelings of superiority — that the mere act of busting myths makes them more susceptible to spreading them." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Q: What are “actual pictures” of atoms actually pictures of? [Ask A Mathematician]: "Light can't be used to photograph an atom because the wavelength of light is longer than the size of the atom. Instead, a scanning electron microscope is "a needle with a point that is a single atom (literally, it is the pointiest thing possible) which it uses to measure subtle electrical variations (such as a stray atom sitting on what was otherwise a very flat, clean surface). The 'Tunneling Electron' bit of the name refers to the nature of the electrical interaction being used to detect the presence of atoms; when the tip is brought close to an atom electrons will quantum tunnel between them and the exchange of electrons is a detectable as a current. The 'Scanning' bit of the name refers to how this is used to generate a picture: by scanning back and forth across a surface over and over until you’ve bumped every atom with your needle several times. The pictures so generated aren’t photographs, they’re maps of what the STM’s needle experienced as it was moved over the surface. The STM 'sees' atoms using this needle in the same way you can 'see' the bottom of a muddy river with a pokin’ stick." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- "Say These 9 Words, and We’ll Tell You Where You Grew Up" [Rd]: "If said a certain way, these words and phrases are a dead giveaway to where you’re from." Fireflies vs. lightning bugs, garage sale vs. yard sale vs. rummage sale vs. tag sale, you guys vs. y'all,soda vs. pop vs. coke,garbage can vs. trash can,drinking fountain vs. water fountain vs. bubbler,tennis shoes vs. gym shoes vs. sneakers," ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Cory Booker Just Went All-In Against Factory Farming and the Meat Industry [Mothe Rjones]: "As his presidential bid struggles to gain traction, Sen. Cory Booker (D.-N.J.) is out with a bold new bill, introduced Dec. 16, that proposes a serious crackdown on two powerful industries: meat and dairy." (Warren, Sanders, and Castro now support similar plans.)" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Having Kids [Paulgraham]: "When people had babies, I congratulated them enthusiastically, because that seemed to be what one did. But I didn't feel it at all. 'Better you than me,' I was thinking. Now when people have babies I congratulate them enthusiastically and I mean it. Especially the first one. I feel like they just got the best gift in the world. What changed, of course, is that I had kids. Something I dreaded turned out to be wonderful." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Miscellaneous unsolicited (and possibly biased) career advice [Erikbern]: "Pick the fastest growing company you can find. Focus on human capital over financial capital early on. Seek out people you can learn from. Consider an industry where there aren't that many smart people. Change jobs when you're no longer learning. Do a lot of internships. Prioritize credentialism based on the cost-benefit. Read all the time. You probably won't learn something if you don't enjoy the process of learning it. Don't forget to also learn communication, sales, self-sufficiently, and statistics." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- My Personal Reactions to Confrontational Animal Activism [Reducing-suffering]: "Animal activists, and most reformers throughout history, have debated whether to make their case in a professional, moderate manner or whether to protest more confrontationally. This is a difficult issue, and given the persistence of the question, there probably aren't easy answers. In this piece, I share my personal reactions to aggressive activism, as one anecdotal data point to inform the broader discussion. While I personally am turned away by confrontation, the historical record may point in a different direction, so I maintain agnosticism about how activists can make the biggest difference." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin activism | a)
- "Headcount goals, feature factories, and when to hire those mythical 10x people" [Erikbern]: "We talked a lot about the difference between engineers in terms of productivity vs cost and how to get the most value of them. The good news is that there’s really only two things that it boils down to: Have a centralized recruiting process with a consistent high bar [and r]educe the task overhead to a minimum. If you don’t have those things, there’s no point trying to hire super senior people: and in particular you are probably better off hiring average engineers." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Cultural over/under-fitting and transfer learning. Or why the “Netflix Culture” won’t work in your company. [Towardsdatascience]: "It's hard to apply culture from other companies to your company because you rarely get the full story, other factors are different, and because of mere survivorship bias. Some generalizable lessons though: recruiting and hiring is the most important thing; regular 1-1s are important; different cultures can be successful but you do need a strong, clearly articulable culture; a good culture emphasizes psychological safety and allows for diversity of people and ways of doing things; don't write down your company culture until you had at least 20 employees; DRIs (Directly Responsible Individuals) and OKRs (Objectives + Key Results) are useful; and give thought to how processes will work." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- The Importance of One-on-Ones [Css-tricks]: "1:1's should be conducted in a space with the smallest amount of distractions possible. The purpose is to make the other person feel valuable and connected. It's important to actually make connections - find opportunities across employees. 1:1s are more for employees than managers, as while the manager can always speak directly to the employee, the inverse isn’t always true. You do need an agenda. 1:1's help reduce uncertainty. It can be good to help the employee prioritize, make action items, and clarify vision." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- The St. Petersburg “paradox” [BenKuhn]: "I suspect that finance companies ask this question to weed out the mathematician’s tendency to favor the elegant and legible over the intuitive and practical. If you ignore the intuitive ridiculousness (“what? nothing is infinity dollars!”), bite the bullet and say you would never take the gamble, you’ll leave a lot of money on the table—and conversely, if you’re willing to pay any price to take it from someone else, they’ll take you for a ride. So beware bad models, even the elegant ones!" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Watchmen trilemma [Flightfromperfection]: "At the climax of Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan mediates the conflict between Rorschach & Veidt. In symbolic terms, the Transcendent occupies a middle position between Philosopher & Antiphilosopher. At first, Manhattan seems to side with Veidt. He kills Rorschach, keeping Veidt's secret plan secret (thus preserving its efficacy). But Dr. Manhattan isn't on Veidt's side. Sure, it's better for Veidt's plan to come off, but not on the grand scale that Veidt was imagining. The Philosopher-King's plan had become his life, his whole identity wrapped up in it. Who is he, if not the savior of the world? From the transcendent point of view, the world can't be saved. Matter will continue to combine & break apart, creating new forms & destroying them. If humanity were wiped out by nuclear holocaust, things would still keep happening. Matter can't be destroyed. This is a scary point of view. It's cold, detached, inhuman. Yet it's probably the most clear-seeing of the three." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- Not all deaths are equal: How many deaths make a natural disaster newsworthy? [Ourworldindata]: "The prominence of disaster coverage varies by the type of disaster, the number of deaths, and the location. "According to the researchers’ estimates, 45 times as many people would have to die in an African disaster for it to garner the same media attention as a European one. The two visualizations show the extent of this bias. ABC News’s slogan is “See the whole picture” and CNN’s is “Go there”, but good follow-up questions might be: what exactly, and where?" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin development | a)
- Outrun Yourself [Medium]: "We’ve all been dealt different hands and therefore the amazingness of any particular accomplishment is different for all of us as well. If you set a new PR (personal record) for yourself, you should be celebrating, whether that was for a 15 minute mile or a 4:30 minute mile. If you just went further than you’ve ever gone before, no matter the distance, that’s amazing too! If you just got out there and ran today at all and that’s a win for you, celebrate it. I only hope that my accomplishments (or failures) never discourage you because my challenges are not your challenges and I want to celebrate your wins with you. Don’t worry about outrunning anyone but yourself." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "The Man Who Reads 1,000 Articles a Day" [Superorganizers.substack]: Read a lot. Try to find writing that would still be valuable a year later. Feeds are helpful. Ruthlessly triage the feeds. Put a lot of trust in headlines. Good writing comes from good writers. The best articles start well. You can consider building an AI to read even more articles. Writing preferences will vary a lot based on personal taste. ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Is it ethical to use Amazon? [Current Affairs]: "I have no good answers to the Amazon problem, because I hold two beliefs that contradict each other and I haven’t found a way to reconcile them: (1) what’s wrong is not the act of purchasing from Amazon, but what Amazon does to its employees, and since there would be nothing wrong with purchasing from Amazon if it was, say, a worker cooperative, the demand should be “democratize it” rather than “stop using it.” (2) You shouldn’t buy from companies with highly unethical business practices, such as staying in a hotel that fired striking workers, or buying slave-made goods. I wrestle with this constantly, because Amazon is very difficult to avoid[. ...] Nobody wants to be complicit in evil, but we’re all complicit in some evil, so what are our responsibilities as individuals? Are these even the right questions?" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin effectivealtruism | a)
- "How to know and do what you actually want, not just what you think others want" [Deliberatehappiness]: "[I]t’s fine to try to make others like you. It’s just that it’s better to do it consciously. [...] If you think about pleasing people as one of your goals and pursue it on purpose, you can find paths that lead to a helluva lot more flourishing than bumbling about with your eyes closed and hoping for the best. The main method I’ve seen work for this is to do what you enjoy then find people who like and respect you for doing those things. [...] One tool I like is to imagine a scenario where nobody will ever know that you did it. [...] Do you still do it? A common example is reading the classics. If nobody ever knew you did it, would you really read Shakespeare, written in such a different English that each sentence takes forever to parse? Or would you watch an amazing drama on Netflix? Sure, Shakespeare makes timeless commentary on the human experience, but so does Game of Thrones" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "If you're a people-pleaser, try asking this question" [Deliberatehappiness]: "When I’m in a social situation, I ask myself this question, “How do I make this interaction awesome for them and me.” Not how do I make them happy. Not how do I enjoy this situation. How do we both enjoy it. This has fantastic results, because you aren’t giving too much of yourself away. [...] See how it transforms people-pleasing into creating a shared joy." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How to be ambitious without feeling inadequate - opticontentment [Deliberatehappiness]: "Opticontentment is a term I coined because I couldn’t find a word for it in the English language. It’s a portmanteau of the words “optimizing” and “contentment” because it fuses the two concepts. It means to be optimizing, trying to improve and grow, while at the same time being content and happy with where you’re currently at. It could be characterised as replacing the sentence, “My life is good, but it could get better” with, “My life is good, and it can get even better”. What this looks like is a deep gratitude for what you’ve already done, for who you are, and wanting to do even more." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Two questions that help defuse negative emotions [Deliberatehappiness]: "When you have an emotion, first ask if it’s valid, then ask if it’s proportionate." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How to maintain long distance friendships instead of losing touch [Deliberatehappiness]: Regular Skypes that are scheduled in advance. IM or text a lot. Encourage spontaneous calls. ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- What is Productivity Guilt? (And How Can You Prevent It?) [Getpocket]: "Pushing yourself to be productive is good, being hard on yourself for not meeting every possible goal isn’t. You can't implement and simultaneously maintain all the advice, even if it is highly worthy of implementation. It's better to think incrementally and ask "How could I do things a little differently than last time for a little better results?" Try only working on 1-2 goals at a time. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Separate the nice-to-have from the essential." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Comment Policy is Victorian Sufi Buddha Lite [SlateStarCodex]: "If you make a comment here, it had better be either true and necessary, true and kind, or kind and necessary. Recognizing that nobody can be totally sure what is or isn’t true, if you want to say something that might not be true[...] Nobody can be kind all the time, but if you are going to be angry or sarcastic, what you say had better be both true and necessary. You had better be delivering a very well-deserved smackdown against someone who is uncontroversially and obviously wrong, in a way you can back up with universally agreed-upon statistics." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Generalized Knights [Lemoing.ca]: "Knights in chess move in an L-shape: 2 squares in one direction and 1 square perpendicular. But what if it didn't have to be like that?" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Pedestrian routing that offers pleasant alternatives to the shortest route [Gislounge]: "Most of us are concerned about getting somewhere, usually as fast as possible, so we are accustomed to using Google Maps or similar tools we prefer for navigation to find the quickest route possible. However, we may not always want to find simply the quickest route. There are health, physical, enjoyable and even economic reasons as to why the fastest route is not optimal. Furthermore, along the route, there are other things we may prefer, such as finding places to socialize or even being surrounded by peace and quiet. New tools are beginning to make the task of finding such routes easier for us." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Stop Trying to Focus: The Power of Macro-Mind Thinking [Consciouscompanymedia]: "We're told that focus is the key to productivity, but macro-mind thinking — or stepping back to see the bigger picture and give our brains a break — is just as crucial. [...] Make space for big-picture thinking: Some companies give their employees a half day once a week or once a month to pursue “moon shot” projects or just let their creative juices flow with no set agenda. [...] Go beyond mindfulness: Mindfulness has become all the rage at companies focused on promoting focus and wellbeing. [...] Do nothing: This is the advanced practice, the double-black diamond approach to developing the macro-mind. The momentum to be productive is so strong that most of us rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to do nothing." ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Science does advance one funeral at a time [Chemistryworld]: "The study doesn’t show that superstars are bad or behave unethically, Azoulay stresses. Instead, he says, it suggests that once people reach the top, it’s difficult for them or their ideas to be dislodged. [...] Azoulay thinks researchers, policymakers, funders and publishers need to be more aware that this is happening. He calls for more policy experimentation to test whether fields should be more open to newcomers. ‘The people who are being blocked today for the right or wrong reasons may well be the people who will do the blocking tomorrow.’" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- The unexpected difficulty of comparing AlphaStar to humans [LessWrong]: "Artificial intelligence defeated a pair of professional Starcraft II players for the first time in December 2018. Although this was generally regarded as an impressive achievement, it quickly became clear that not everybody was satisfied with how the AI agent, called AlphaStar, interacted with the game, or how its creator, DeepMind, presented it. Many observers complained that, in spite of DeepMind’s claims that it performed at similar speeds to humans, AlphaStar was able to control the game with greater speed and accuracy than any human, and that this was the reason why it prevailed. Although I think this story is mostly correct, I think it is harder than it looks to compare AlphaStar’s interaction with the game to that of humans, and to determine to what extent this mattered for the outcome of the matches. Merely comparing raw numbers for actions taken per minute (the usual metric for a player’s speed) does not tell the whole story" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- Why is the mail so much better than the DMV? [LessWrong]: "Whether it's providing healthcare, building high speed rail, or Issuing Drivers Licenses, the typical American's experience with government services is one of incompetence, corruption and failure to innovate. There are lots of plausible explanations about why this might be. [...] Yet, there is one government service in the US on which every single person depends, which serves hundreds of millions of requests every day, and which does its job virtually flawlessly for less than its European counterparts. Every single difference mentioned above would apply just as much or more so to the USPS. [...] So, why is the mail so much better than every other government service in the US?" ('19 Dec 29Added Sun 2019-Dec-29 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018) [Alexand.ro]: "[E]ven if you are intelligent, there is a prerequisite every single time you wake up which will decide if your intelligence will be used or wasted that day. That prerequisite is focus." ('19 Dec 28Added Sat 2019-Dec-28 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Write Junior Code [Parsonsmatt]: "Keep things simpler than you might otherwise want them to be, so that less experienced people can maintain them." ('19 Dec 28Added Sat 2019-Dec-28 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- McDonald's holds communities together (2016) [The Guardian]: "For many of the poorest, for the homeless, and for people caught in an addiction, McDonald’s are an integral part of their lives. They have cheap and filling food, they have free Wi-Fi, outlets to charge phones, and clean bathrooms. McDonald’s is also generally gracious about letting people sit quietly for long periods – longer than other fast-food places." ('19 Dec 28Added Sat 2019-Dec-28 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Eternal Novice Trap [Feoh]: "Do learn new programming languages and paradigms, but learn them from a place of confidence and mastery with your primary tool of choice. Don’t fall for the trap of perpetually chasing after the bright shiny thing that’s hot right now. Recognize that what’s new isn’t necessarily better. Take what will meaningfully help you advance your career and let the rest flow by. There’ll always be more tomorrow. Do keep having fun! You’ll learn more quickly and retain more if you’re finding enjoyment in what you do. Sometimes it means looking at things a little differently, but often that open mindedness can pay off." ('19 Dec 28Added Sat 2019-Dec-28 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Future of Plagiarism [Plagiarismtoday]: "Currently, plagiarism is easier to perform, easier to detect and easier to call out than ever. Furthermore, with tighter content schedules and a never-ending demand for new content, plagiarism is more tempting than ever. This has the impact of making plagiarism, or at least the detection of plagiarism, much more common. Stories like Raval are increasingly regular but that increased frequency has made it so that plagiarism seems more trivial, just another scandal in an era of scandal-obsessed media. This makes plagiarism far more survivable than it once was." ('19 Dec 28Added Sat 2019-Dec-28 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Ideological Turing Test [Econlib]: "Put me and five random liberal social science Ph.D.s in a chat room. Let liberal readers ask questions for an hour, then vote on who isn’t really a liberal. Then put Krugman and five random libertarian social science Ph.D.s in a chat room. Let libertarian readers ask questions for an hour, then vote on who isn’t really a libertarian. Simple as that." ('19 Dec 27Added Fri 2019-Dec-27 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department [Newyorker]: "&ldsquo;'Home Depot Presents the Police!®' I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. 'Nobody move unless you want to!' They didn’t." ('19 Dec 26Added Thu 2019-Dec-26 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- How to Actually Stick to Your Resolutions This Year [Youtube]: "(1) Remember that the motivation that comes from the new year is fleeting; (2) You will have the same limitations after 1 Jan than before; (3) No need to wait until Jan 1st to change - you can start now; (4) If you can't do your full goal today (e.g., practice piano for an hour) you can at least do some of it (e.g., practice piano for 15min); (5) set a resolution for a week-length time scale instead of a year-length time scale; (6) start small; (7) don't make your career/accomplishment goals more intense if you are still languishing on your health (e.g., sleep, exercise, nutrition); (8) track your progress; (9) if you fail, track why you failed and see how you can avoid it." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Marijuana: Much More Than You Wanted to Know [SlateStarCodex]: "There is not a sufficiently obvious order-of-magnitude difference between the costs and benefits of marijuana legalization for a evidence-based utilitarian analysis of costs and benefits to inform the debate. [...W]hether marijuana legalization is positive or negative on net depends almost entirely on small changes in the road traffic accident rate. This is something I’ve never heard anyone else mention, but which in retrospect should be obvious; the few debatable health effects and the couple of people given short jail sentences absolutely can’t compare to the potential for thousands more (or fewer) traffic accidents which leave people permanently dead. [...] We should probably stop caring about health effects of marijuana and about imprisonment for marijuana-related offenses, and concentrate all of our research and political energy on how marijuana affects driving." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- A Simple Guide to Better Coaching and Feedback in Your Company [Buffer]: "1-on-1 meetings at least every two weeks between the employee and manager. 70min long - 10min to share and celebrate achievements, 40min to discuss current top challenges, 10min for manager to share feedback, and 10min for employee to share feedback. The 1:1 is for the team member, not the CEO or team lead. It should be about listening and suggesting and emphasizing reflection, rather than commanding." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- "Calories in, calories out" [Possiblywrong.wordpress]: "How do we lose (or gain) weight? Is it really as simple as 'calories in, calories out' (i.e., eat less than you burn), or is what you eat more important than how much? Is '3500 calories equals one poun'” a useful rule of thumb, or just a myth? [...] Following is a description of my attempt to answer some of these questions, using a relatively simple mathematical model, in an experiment involving daily measurement of weight, caloric intake, and exercise over 75 days. The results suggest that you can not only measure, but predict future weight loss– or gain– with surprising accuracy. But they also raise some interesting open questions about how all this relates to the effectiveness of some currently popular diet programs." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Should You Do Intense Short-Term Projects or Build Long-Term Habits? [Scotthyoung]: "The two approaches are not mutually exclusive - you should aim to do both! "If it’s easier at the beginning, then habits make more sense. You want to be preparing yourself for the long-haul. If it’s easier at the end, then an intense approach makes pushing through that initial challenge more likely." Habits work well for easier goals, whereas intensity works well for harder goals. "If your habits don’t line up with the typical intensity required to reach the level of success you want, you won’t get there even if you’re perfectly consistent." Habits also work well for things you don't want to focus on, whereas intensity works well for your main focus." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Preventing Burnout: A Cautionary Tale [Tim.blog]: "I wish someone had held up a mirror to show me I was the problem, but that never happened. No one knew the full extent of my situation but me, and I was in denial. It’s worth taking a moment to ask yourself: Do I feel guilty or anxious when I’m not working? Have I stopped playing with my friends? Do all of my daily activities revolve around building a more successful career? Am I always sleeping fewer than eight hours per night? Am I consuming stimulants multiple times per day to hide my exhaustion? Am I sitting still and staring at screens for most of my waking hours? Do I interact with people primarily through screens? Am I indoors all day long, depriving myself of fresh air and sunlight? Do I depend on alcohol or drugs to cope with social situations outside of work? If you said ‘yes’ to most of those questions, you are not alone. When I was at my worst, I was doing all of these things on a daily basis. I was fueling my own anxiety and I couldn’t even see it. My perceived lack of productivity, lack of money, and the unknown future kept me in a constant state of panic.&rdquo" ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- This Is What Happens to Your Bike After It's Stolen [Seattlemet]: "To the prepared thief, every bike rack is a buffet. You think a cable lock will keep your beloved wheels in your life. The thief knows a simple pair of aviation snips cuts through that cable like butter. You’re convinced a locker-style combination lock will outsmart a crook. He pops it in seconds with a shim—just slides it in between the body of the lock and its fishhook tip, and your bike is his. (A good bandit can make a shim in about five minutes with nothing more than a beer can and a pair of scissors.) U-locks? Routinely opened with a Bic pen jammed into the keyhole. Even with that rare unbreakable lock, a bike is no safer than its anchor; outside Guthrie Hall at the University of Washington sits a metal rack that bike thieves have sawed straight through. The components, meanwhile—the lights, seats, handlebars, derailleurs, and brakes that turn a frame into a ridable bike—can go for hundreds of dollars each on the black market. With no serial numbers, these parts, unlike frames, are untraceable." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- "Amazon's $23,698,655.93 book about flies" [Michaeleisen]: "On the day we discovered the million dollar prices, the copy offered by bordeebook was 1.270589 times the price of the copy offered by profnath. And now the bordeebook copy was 1.270589 times profnath again. So clearly at least one of the sellers was setting their price algorithmically in response to changes in the other’s price. I continued to watch carefully and the full pattern emerged." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- How a Password Changed My Life [Medium]: "So there it was... This input field with a pulsating cursor, waiting for me to type a password that I’ll have to re-enter for the next 30 days. Many times during the day. [...] I'm gonna use a password to change my life. [...] My password became the indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be victim of my recent break up, and that I’m strong enough to do something about it. My password became: 'Forgive@h3r' [...] That simple action changed the way I looked at my ex wife. That constant reminder that I should forgive her, led me to accept the way things happened at the end of my marriage, and embrace a new way of dealing with the depression that I was drowning into. [...] One month later, my dear exchange server asked me again to renew my password. I thought about the next thing I had to get done. My password became Quit@smoking4ever. And guess what happened. I'm not kidding you. I quit smoking overnight." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Zero-Armed Bandit [Damninteresting]: "This bomb can never be dismantled or disarmed without causing an explosion. Not even by the creator. Only by proper instruction can it be moved to a safe place where it can be deliberately exploded, or where the third automatic timer can be allowed to detonate it. There are three automatic timers each set for three different explosion times. Only if you comply with the instructions in this letter will you be given instructions on how to disconnect the first two automatic timers and how to move the bomb to a place where it can be exploded safely." ('19 Dec 25Added Wed 2019-Dec-25 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- How to Remember Everything You Learn [Youtube]: "Watch out for the illusion of competence, where seeing information makes you feel like you know it, even when you don't. Grappling with information is what is required to help you remember it and bring it into long-term memory, otherwise it quickly disappears from short-term working memory. Avoid multitasking, distractions, and information overload. Practice recalling what you learn after you learn it. Also, try to explain the subject in simple terms to a hypothetical (or not hypothetical) person who doesn't yet understand it. Also try spaced repetition, making sure to re-learn the material after a certain amount of time." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Bernie vs. Warren Debate We Need [Nymag]: "Much of the time, the Democratic left is content to wage its 'Bernie vs. Warren' civil war in a parallel universe free of this context. Sanders supporters comb through the Warren campaign's every utterance on health care for intimations of agnosticism on single-payer, as though the chief obstacle to Medicare for All in 2021 will be the next Democratic president's lack of backbone rather than the fact that there are currently 14 votes for Bernie's bill in Chuck Schumer's caucus (and none of the Democrats who oppose single-payer had any trouble winning renomination in the 2018 primaries). Meanwhile, progressive intellectuals debate the relative merits of Warren's left-liberalism and Sanders's 'democratic socialism' as though the central question facing the next Democratic administration will be whether to implement the Meidner plan or settle for Denmark's model of social democracy." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- American Leftists Believed Corbyn's Inevitable Victory Would Be Their Model [Nymag]: "The British election results, like any election results, are the result of unique circumstances and multiple factors. They are also, however, a test of a widely articulated political theory that has important implications for American politics. That theory holds that Corbyn's populist left-wing platform is both necessary and sufficient in order to defeat the rising nationalist right. Corbyn's crushing defeat is a decisive refutation." I do think socialists need to contend with Corybn's large defeat and that this can't be dismissed easily, but I suppose centrists also need to contend with Hilary Clinton's defeat, and the American right needs to contend with how relatively left the UK Conservatives are" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know [SlateStarCodex]: "Technological unemployment is not happening right now, at least not more so than previous eras. The official statistics are confusing, but they show no signs of increases in this phenomenon. On the other hand, there are signs of technological underemployment – robots taking middle-skill jobs and then pushing people into other jobs. [...] This sort of thing has been happening for centuries and in theory everyone should eventually adjust, but there are some signs that they aren't. This may have as much to do with changes to the educational, political, and economic system as with the nature of robots per se. Economists are genuinely divided on how this is going to end up, and whether this will just be a temporary blip while people develop new skills, or the new normal. Technology seems poised to disrupt lots of new industries very soon, and could replace humans entirely sometime within the next hundred years. This is a very depressing conclusion. If technology didn't cause problems, that would be great. If technology made lots of people unemployed, that would be hard to miss, and the government might eventually be willing to subsidize something like a universal basic income. But we won't get that. We'll just get people being pushed into worse and worse jobs, in a way that does not inspire widespread sympathy or collective action. The prospect of educational, social, or political intervention remains murky." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Is everything an MLM? [Annehelen.substack]: "[T]he overproduction of PhDs: too many people coming through grad school, and too few sustainable academic jobs. And as anyone in any field understands, when there's way more qualified applicants than jobs, the existing jobs can demand more of applicants (more qualifications, less money) while applicants lower their own expectations (for compensation, for benefits, for job security, for course load and service, for location). So why don't academic departments just decrease the number of PhD students they accept? Because those students have become an integral cog in the contemporary university." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- Grad school is worse for public health than STDs [BenKuhn]: "I've been low-key worried about this for a while, but it boiled over recently when Eve offhandedly mentioned a department survey that showed over half of her classmates struggling with depression or anxiety. Over half! These are some of the smartest people in their field, who I'm confident would thrive in any normally-supportive (or supportive-at-all) work environment. Instead, they're riddled with anxiety and depression because they've been convinced to tie up their entire identity in being one of the lucky 10% that lands a tenure-track research job, then hung out to dry by the gatekeepers they probably thought would help them. How the hell do people think this is reasonable?" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- How would you prove you are a time-traveler from the past? [Gwern.net]: "SF/F fiction frequently considers the case of a time-traveler from the future to the past, who can prove himself by use of advanced knowledge and items from the future. In the reverse case, a time-traveler from the past to the future wishes to prove he is from the past and that time-travel is real. How can he do this when all past knowledge is already known or whose chain of custody being broken is more likely than time-travel being real? I suggest 8 methods: carbon-14 nuclear isotope dating of their body as isotopes cannot be removed; sequencing of their genome to check consistency with pedigree as human genomes cannot be synthesized or edited on a large scale; selection & mutation clocks, likewise; immune system signatures of extinct or rare diseases such as smallpox, and accumulated pollution such as heavy metals, difficult & dangerous to fake. While these proofs may not offer conclusive proof since any human system can be subverted with enough effort, they can provide enough evidence to launch research into time travel and a definitive finding." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Modern Day Zombies? The Effects of Smartphone Ownership at Denison [Onetwentyseven.blog]: "The results weigh in on the debate that people have regarding the positive and negative aspects of Smartphone usage. It is obvious that phones are deeply ingrained into our lives, but what is interesting is that the data shows that phone usage may not take away from time spent on other social activities. When it comes to homework, exercise, and going to class, spending time on ones' phone does not take away time spent on those activities. Additionally, for every hour of time spent on a Smartphone, time spent in meetings, eating (presumably with friends), and time spent with friends goes up. For all the worry about alienation and misanthropy that technology has been thought to fuel, the evidence here suggests the opposite - phone use is linked to closer links between people." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Deepen Boring Small Talk with the ABC Strategy [Advice.shinetext]: "Ask questions, build off the answer, and connect to their answer in a personal way." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Freaked Out? 3 Steps to Protect Your Phone [NYTimes]: "(Somewhat) protect your phone from intrusive location tracking by stopping location sharing with apps, stopping location sharing with Google, and disabling your phone's ad ID (yes this is a thing)." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Explain Your Extremists [Econlib]: "No matter how controversial your political views are, there are always people on 'your side' who hold a more extreme position than you do. How do you account for such people?" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "Justice Ginsburg: "I Am Very Much Alive" [Npr]: "There was a senator, I think it was after my pancreatic cancer, who announced, with great glee, that I was going to be dead within six months...That senator, whose name I have forgotten, is now dead." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin random | a)
- Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Randomized Malaria Prevention Experiment [Earth.columbia.edu]: Insecticide-treated bed nets help prevent malaria. Giving away these bed nets for free results in a higher uptake than asking people to share in the cost of subsidized nets. ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin giving | a)
- Why Russian Military Expenditure is Much Higher Than Commonly Understood (as is China's) [Waronthe Rocks]: "Based on the annual average dollar-to-ruble exchange rates, Russia is typically depicted as spending in the region of $60 billion per year on its military. [However,] Russian procurement dwarfs that of most European powers combined. [...] The reason for this apparent contradiction is that the use of market exchange rates grossly understates the real volume of Russian military expenditure (and that of other countries with smaller per-capita incomes, like China). Instead, any analysis of comparative military expenditure should be based on the use of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates rather than market exchange rates. [...] As we demonstrate, despite some shortcomings, PPP is a much more methodologically robust and defensible method of comparing defense spending across countries[. ...] Using PPP, one finds that Russia's effective military expenditure actually ranged between $150 billion and $180 billion annually over the last five years. That figure is conservative; taking into account hidden or obfuscated military expenditure, Russia may well come in at around $200 billion. [...] The gap is even narrower when one digs into the differences in how this money is spent. At nearly 50 percent of federal budget spending on national defense, a large proportion of the Russian defense budget goes to procurement and research and development. By comparison, in other countries with large defense budgets, procurement spending tends to be much lower: in India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, spending is at about 20–25 percent. Unlike some other large military spenders - for example, Saudi Arabia and India - Russia also produces most of its weaponry itself and does not buy its equipment from countries with higher costs." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- What's Amazon's market share? 35% or 5%? [Ben-evans]: "Amazon is a big company, but what does that mean? How big is 'big'? What does 'dominant' or 'scale' or 'huge' mean when US retail is $6 trillion a year? Running the numbers, Amazon has about 35% of US ecommerce. But, it competes with physical retailers as well" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Absurd Structure of High School [Gen.medium]: "The system's scheduling fails on every possible level. If the goal is productivity, the fractured nature of the tasks undermines efficient product. So much time is spent in transition that very little is accomplished before there is a demand to move on. If the goal is maximum content conveyed, then the system works marginally well, in that students are pretty much bombarded with detail throughout their school day. However, that breadth of content comes at the cost of depth of understanding. The fractured nature of the work, the short amount of time provided, and the speed of change all undermine learning beyond the superficial. It's shocking, really, that students learn as much as they do. [...] he solution, to me anyway, seems almost too easy. Students should have two long classes each day for six to eight weeks. They should come to school in the morning and intensely study a single subject-ancient history, a few Shakespeare plays, cell biology, a specific math concept, and so on. In the afternoon, another subject for a few more hours. When the term ends, they move on to another subject." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Productivity by Sam Altman [Blog.samaltman]: "It matters most what you work on. Have time in your schedule to regularly think about what to work on. Insofar as is possible, try to do what you like and to delegate things to people that they would like ...and insofar as it isn't possible, try to make it possible. Try to be around smart, productive, happy, and positive people. Make lots of lists, prioritize in a way that generates momentum, be relentless about getting the most important projects done, be ruthless about saying no to stuff, try to avoid meetings and conferences, block out uninterrupted time for yourself and your work, value your time and act accordingly, don't fall into the trap of productivity porn, get good sleep, exercise plenty, eat well, avoid sugar, keep junk food out of the house, ignore any and all of this advice if it doesn't work for you, and don't neglect your family and friends for the sake of productivity. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How to be Successful by Sam Altman [Blog.samaltman]: "Aim to compound yourself exponentially. Spend a lot of time between projects thinking of the next one, but aim so that whatever you next makes your previous project look like a footnote. Success comes from "long-term thinking with a broad view of how different systems in the world are going to come together." Once you've figured out your plan, be relentlessly focused on it. Work really hard and work smart as well. Have a lot of self-belief and self-confidence, but balance it out with a lot of self-awareness. Get good at sales and sell your plans. Think independently and be okay with failing many times before succeeding. Do things differently and make it easy to take risks. Build a strong network and team. Remember that people get really rich not by having high salaries but by owning things that rapidly increase in value. Make things people want at scale. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" [Paulgraham]: "One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is that they're on a different type of schedule from other people. Meetings cost them more. There are two types of schedule, which I'll call the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule. The manager's schedule is for bosses. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you're doing every hour. [...] But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started. When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Warren and Bernie Twitter Rant [Twitter]: "OK I want to rant about Warren, Bernie, the primary election, and how the topic shifted from stuff I was passionate about to stuff that leaves me cold. [...T]he 2020 primary campaign's shift from industrial and labor reform to health care health care health care has made me pessimistic about the Democratic party's willingness and ability to change the things that really need changing in our economy." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Burnout: what is it and how to treat it? [EA Forum]: "What can you do as an Individual? Seek social support, sleep, seek clarity in your role and goals, shorten your commute, buy yourself out of work-life conflict, and keep a healthy personal runway. What can organizations do? Define clear roles and norms, provide clear feedback, provide achievable goals, facilitate social support, facilitate telecommuting and flexible work hours, facilitate sleep, provide offices (or at least cubicles), provide autonomy, find ways to measure productivity other than hours worked, and professionalize management. Vacations don't help. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People" [Hbr]: "To Maslach's point, a survey of 7,500 full-time employees by Gallup found the top five reasons for burnout are: (1) Unfair treatment at work, (2) Unmanageable workload, (3) Lack of role clarity, (4) Lack of communication and support from their manager, and (5) Unreasonable time pressure. The list above clearly demonstrates that the root causes of burnout do not really lie with the individual and that they can be averted - if only leadership started their prevention strategies much further upstream." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Biased Algorithms Are Easier to Fix Than Biased People [NYTimes]: "Humans are inscrutable in a way that algorithms are not. Our explanations for our behavior are shifting and constructed after the fact. To measure racial discrimination by people, we must create controlled circumstances in the real world where only race differs. For an algorithm, we can create equally controlled just by feeding it the right data and observing its behavior. Algorithms and humans also differ on what can be done about bias once it is found." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin datascience | a)
- Inherent Trade-Offs in the Fair Determination of Risk Scores [Arxiv]: "Recent discussion in the public sphere about algorithmic classification has involved tension between competing notions of what it means for a probabilistic classification to be fair to different groups. We formalize three fairness conditions that lie at the heart of these debates, and we prove that except in highly constrained special cases, there is no method that can satisfy these three conditions simultaneously. Moreover, even satisfying all three conditions approximately requires that the data lie in an approximate version of one of the constrained special cases identified by our theorem. These results suggest some of the ways in which key notions of fairness are incompatible with each other, and hence provide a framework for thinking about the trade-offs between them. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin datascience | a)
- A Meta-Analysis of Overfitting in Machine Learning [Papers.nips.cc]: "We conduct the first large meta-analysis of overfitting due to test set reuse in the machine learning community. Our analysis is based on over one hundred machine learning competitions hosted on the Kaggle platform over the course of several years. In each competition, numerous practitioners repeatedly evaluated their progress against a holdout set that forms the basis of a public ranking available throughout the competition. Performance on a separate test set used only once determined the final ranking. By systematically comparing the public ranking with the final ranking, we assess how much participants adapted to the holdout set over the course of a competition. Our study shows, somewhat surprisingly, little evidence of substantial overfitting. These findings speak to the robustness of the holdout method across different data domains, loss functions, model classes, and human analysts. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin datascience | a)
- What we can learn from five naturalistic field experiments that failed to shift commuter behaviour [Nature]: "Nudges, or small changes to the decision-making environment that are non-coercive and do not significantly change economic incentives but are nonetheless designed to make people change their behavior, work in a variety of domains, but not all. It helps if the task being promoted via nudge is something people have to do anyway (e.g., taxes), is unpleasant but health promoting (e.g., flu shot), has clear but delayed benefits (e.g., saving for retirement), is not a collective action problem, and is an infrequent (preferably even one-time, e.g., a capital purchase) and non-habitual behavior. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- "The Most Effective Memory Methods are Difficult, That's Why They Work" [Blog.supplysideliberal]: "If it isn't making you feel stupid, it isn't helping you learn. Since most people like to feel smart, they run away in terror from learning techniques that make them feel dumb. [...] What makes knowledge and understanding stick in the long run is studying in a way that guarantees that you fail and fail and fail. Testing your knowledge and understanding in ways that make you realize what you don't know is the rocky path to genuine learning. [...] There are three key activities that effectively sear what you want to learn into your long-term memory: Doing things in real life, or in a simulation as close to the real thing as possible. Flashcards done right. Building your own picture and story of the ideas." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Tale of the converted: how complex social problems have made me question the use of data in driving impact [Blogs.lse.ac.uk]: "Here's what I used to believe was the best way to drive impact: (1) Data is a powerful tool that is under-utilised in the public and social sector. (2) Powerful insights and knowledge sit in academic journals with rigorous research waiting to be applied by practitioners. (3) We need a better evidence base to understand how to allocate public and social dollars. (4) Measurement frameworks will help service providers better understand and improve their impact. (5) Outcomes should be rigorously measured and used to hold people to account. [...] As I gain more experience with social problems, however, I increasingly understand that my original beliefs about impact are flawed. [...I]n the face of complex problems our society faces, this assumption, while compelling in theory, has consistently proven itself untrue in practice. [...] (1) The increase in usage of data does not automatically lead to more impact. In fact, requiring data usage can exacerbate unhealthy power dynamics and make things worse. [...] (2) Powerful insights and knowledge sit in the minds of practitioners waiting to be enabled. [...] (3) We have invested loads into building countless evidence bases and I'm not sure anyone has ever calculated the return on those investments. [...] (4) Top-down reporting requirements restrict rather than support service providers. [...] (5) Outcomes are emergent properties of complex systems that we simply cannot force through more rigorous measuring. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- "The #1 bug predictor is not technical, it's organizational complexity" [Augustl]: The distance to decision makers and the number of developers working on a project is clearly and unambiguously the issue that is the best predictor of future problems with a code base. ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- "What do executives do, anyway?" [Apenwarr.ca]: "[T]he job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions. That's all. Not to decide. Not to break ties. Not to set strategy. Not to be the expert on every, or any topic. Just to sit in the room while the right people make good decisions in alignment with their values. And if they do, to endorse it. And if they don't, to send them back to try again." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Turn Discussions into Blog Posts [Reducing-suffering]: "If you come up with interesting insights or detailed arguments in the course of Facebook discussions, you might consider summarizing those ideas and saving them in a standalone article for others to read. This would be a more concise and shareable way to preserve your thoughts than just linking to a long discussion thread. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom [Pnas]: "Despite active learning being recognized as a superior method of instruction in the classroom, a major recent survey found that most college STEM instructors still choose traditional teaching methods. This article addresses the long-standing question of why students and faculty remain resistant to active learning. Comparing passive lectures with active learning using a randomized experimental approach and identical course materials, we find that students in the active classroom learn more, but they feel like they learn less. We show that this negative correlation is caused in part by the increased cognitive effort required during active learning. Faculty who adopt active learning are encouraged to intervene and address this misperception, and we describe a successful example of such an intervention." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Equal Parenting Advice for Dads [Jefftk]: "Pregnancy and birth are very asymmetric, and then breastfeeding continues the pattern: nursing isn't going to be equitable. [...] Then with parental leave it's very common for the mother to take more time off work than the father. [...] If you're the dad, what can you do? I see two main aspects: sharing the work, and sharing the parenting. From a work perspective, in as much as you want to be trying to make things fair you should be making up for the things you can't do by taking on more of the remaining work: non-feeding care, diapers, cooking, etc. [...] The other aspect is you want to be dividing the parenting, not just the work. This is because you really need to avoid a situation where the mother has a much better understanding of the baby than you do. For example, you can get into a cycle where you can't calm the baby as well, they spend more time with their mother, you get less experience and practice with them, and your relative abilities with the baby get farther and farther apart." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Why software projects take longer than you think: a statistical model [Erikbern]: "If my model is right (a big if) then here's what we can learn: People estimate the median completion time well, but not the mean. The mean turns out to be substantially worse than the median, due to the distribution being skewed (log-normally). When you add up the estimates for n tasks, things get even worse. Tasks with the most uncertainty (rather the biggest size) can often dominate the mean time it takes to complete all tasks." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Reasoning Transparency [Openphilanthropy]: "Open with a linked summary of key takeaways. Throughout a document, indicate which considerations are most important to your key takeaways. Throughout a document, indicate how confident you are in major claims, and what support you have for them." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- There's No Speed Limit [Sivers]: "I graduated from Berklee and taught there, too. I’ll bet I can teach you two years of theory and arranging in only a few lessons. I suspect you can graduate in two years if you understand there’s no speed limit. Come by my studio at 9:00 tomorrow for your first lesson, if you’re interested. No charge.&rquo;" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Evaluating the performance of past climate model projections [Agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley]: "Climate models provide an important way to understand future changes in the Earth's climate. In this paper we undertake a thorough evaluation of the performance of various climate models published between the early 1970s and the late 2000s. Specifically, we look at how well models project global warming in the years after they were published by comparing them to observed temperature changes. Model projections rely on two things to accurately match observations: accurate modeling of climate physics, and accurate assumptions around future emissions of CO2 and other factors affecting the climate. The best physics‐based model will still be inaccurate if it is driven by future changes in emissions that differ from reality. To account for this, we look at how the relationship between temperature and atmospheric CO2 (and other climate drivers) differs between models and observations. We find that climate models published over the past five decades were generally quite accurate in predicting global warming in the years after publication, particularly when accounting for differences between modeled and actual changes in atmospheric CO2 and other climate drivers. This research should help resolve public confusion around the performance of past climate modeling efforts, and increases our confidence that models are accurately projecting global warming.&rquo;" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Why I Doubted Facebook Could Build a Billion Dollar Business and What I Learned From Being Horribly Wrong [Andrewchen.co]: "The concrete lesson to be learned from this is: In the modern era, business models are a commodity. I never want to hear about people asking, 'But what’s their business model?' because in a world where you can grow a user base of 1 billion in a few years, displaying remnant ads and getting a $0.25 CPM will do. Or just throw some freemium model on it, and monetize 1% of them. If you can build the audience, you can build a big business. The more abstract lesson to learn is: Be humble, and keep an open mind towards weird new companies. After a few years in Silicon Valley, you can gather a lot of useful heuristics about what’s worked and what doesn’t work. That will help you most of the time, but when it comes to the exceptional cases, all bets are off. [...] Remember that you’re helping/investing/working for the company right in front you, not a mutual fund of all companies with that characteristic!" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- Conflict vs. Mistake [SlateStarCodex]: "Mistake theorists treat politics as science, engineering, or medicine. The State is diseased. We’re all doctors, standing around arguing over the best diagnosis and cure. Some of us have good ideas, others have bad ideas that wouldn’t help, or that would cause too many side effects. Conflict theorists treat politics as war. Different blocs with different interests are forever fighting to determine whether the State exists to enrich the Elites or to help the People." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Mistake Theory Socialism [Danwahl.github.io]: "I dislike it when people use terms to describe what they’re not instead of what they are, but after covering two rounds of political controversies surrounding Lori Lightfoot, I want a term to at least describe the kind of progressive I aspire not to be. The closest I can come up with is 'conflict theory socialist', which is probably in the Authoritarian Left quadrant of the traditional political compass, or on top of John Nerst’s tilted political compass. Lightfoot’s budget is the kind of incremental improvement that’s stereotypically eschewed by socialists, but it feels like more than just socialism that is driving her harshest critics, and conflict theory seems to explain the remainder of the variance. I think Lightfoot’s biggest mistake in this process was probably her initial, premature promise to reopen the clinics, which gave her political opponents fodder come budget time, but (if I’m right about conflict theory) had little chance of winning them over." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- "Razer CEO Berated And Threatened His Staff, Former Employees Say" [Kotaku]: "Former Razer employees said they were expected to sacrifice their relationships with their families in order to succeed at the company, too. 'I didn’t deny my family in obvious enough ways to satisfy Min,' said Alain Mazer in an interview with Kotaku. 'My Razer career ended the day I didn’t ask for his permission to be a good parent and partner. He demands that employees reserve that kind of devotion only for him and his family’s business interests.' One former employee said their son was admitted to the ER after a car crash. While he was still in the hospital, they said, their boss told them to get back to work. Another said he was asked to work on his honeymoon. When asked about this, a Razer representative told Kotaku that they are a 'family-friendly employer,' and have adopted policies aimed at supporting employees with families." ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- You are what you document [Ybrikman]: "Good documentation is necessary for ensuring people will actually use the code that you wrote, regardless of how good that code is. A good README is most important, and it should involve a short 'sales pitch', quick examples, and installation instructions. The second best thing, if you have time, is an interactive tutorial. After that foundation is laid, good code, literate documentation, commented code, and full API docs form the next level of documentation. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Best Cold Email [Twitter]: "Good cold emails clarify that the email is someone who is human and reaching out to you in particular and knows you well. It makes a clear offer early, has humor, answers obvious objections, and has an unambiguous next call to action. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Remote vs Co-located Work [Martinfowler]: "There isn't a simple dichotomy of remote versus co-located work, instead there are several patterns of distribution for teams each of which has different trade-offs and effective techniques suitable for them. While it's impossible to determine conclusive evidence, my sense is that most groups are more productive working in a co-located manner. But you can build a more productive team by using a distributed working model, because it gives you access to a wider talent pool. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Libertarian Social Justice Warrior: A Surprisingly Coherent Position [Thingofthings.wordpress]: "It looks like 'social justice warrior' philosophy could be very compatible with libertarian philosophy. I don't endorse all of this (or anything in particular), but it's interesting. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Unintuitive Things I've Learned About Management [Medium]: "You must like dealing with people to be great at management -- Imagine you spend a full day in back-to-back 1:1s talking to people. Does that sound awful or awesome? The manager's strength is proportional to the team, and motivating the team to find the answers is more of the goal than having all the answers yourself. Good managers need to remind the team *why* things are done more often than *how*, to create motivation. Sometimes good people don't work out on good teams, you usually will only regret moving on from a struggling person too late not too early. Respect for a manager is more important than approval. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Why Millions of Americans own the AR-15 [Vox]: "The AR-15 is reliable, easy-to-use hardware that can be customized to a lot of different purposes. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- The 10x developer is NOT a myth [Ybrikman]: "10x developers are star programmers just like how there are star athletes, star book authors, and star artists. They don't do 10x more work, but they make the right decisions about 10x more often. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Go Corporate or Go Home [Ribbonfarm]: "Startups lose their flat, flexible structure for rigid bureaucracies because it gives the company legibility, allowing people to understand how the company works and who they can talk to in order to solve certain problems. Corporate growth ends up surprisingly informed by graph theory. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- The Critical 7 Rules to Understand People [Scotthyoung]: "People are mostly focused on themselves, which means if someone hurts you it's likely unintentional, embarrassment is rarely warranted, and you're the one who has to initiate relationships. People often hide the intentions behind their actions, which means you have to focus on empathy as well as merely understanding people. Altruism exists but is often selfish altruism, such as economic transactions, familial bonds, status seeking, and reciprocity. People have poor memories and everyone is emotional. Also, people are lonely.&rquo;" ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How to ACE Your YCombinator Interview [Hackernoon]: "Focus on quick, concise, rehersed answers; know the 3-5 most important parts of your business/team and make sure those come out, know the industry around your domain and prepare well, make sure the entire founding team speaks equally, have a demo ready but don't expect to show it. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team [NYTimes]: "After considering many possible hypotheses and doing years of research, Google researchers found that the best teams are those with psychological safety, where people feel free to raise ideas without getting shot down and people aren't afraid to make mistakes. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Thoughts on Building Weatherproof Companies [Medium]: "Companies involve learning fast and soliciting constant, systemic, and unequivocal feedback. You have to hire from the outside for expertise you don't have yet. You need a clearly stated and clearly understood corporate culture. A board of directors with regular, uncancellable meetings featuring real data also seems useful. Same with 1-1s with the board of directors. You also need regular interactions with customers. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- A conversation with Professor David Chalmers about Consciousness [Openphilanthropy]: "To disprove nonhuman consciousness one would need to demonstrate a necessary condition for consciousness and point out that nonhumans do not have it. To prove nonhuman consciousness one would need to point out a sufficient condition for consciousness and show that a nonhuman does have it. The second task seems easier, but could end up proving too much. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin philosophy | a)
- Why the Syria Civil War Will Get Worse [Mobile.nytimes]: "Civil wars generally last a lot longer when both sides are backed by foreign powers, because the sides of the civil war never run out of resources and the foreign powers don't face popular will to end the war since they're removed from the situation. Syria is also worse because the underlying battle is multiparty rather than two-sided and has multiple foreign backers for each side, making a ceasefire much harder to negotiate. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- Optimal Team Size [Johndcook]: "Adding a person to a team can make the work go faster, if that work can be done in parallel and if that person does more than they take in added communication and support cost. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Science isn't Broken [538]: "Science isn't a magic process that converts everything into truth. Doing good science is hard. While science may be uncertain and unsettled, it is superior to a lot of other methods, and requires careful analysis and replication. " ('19 Dec 24Added Tue 2019-Dec-24 11 p.m. CSTin metascience | a)
- A Parody of Every TED Talk Ever []: Not only is it a good parody of TED but also a good review of presenting style. ('19 Dec 23Added Mon 2019-Dec-23 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Emotional Baggage []: A cautionary tale of how not to run a company. ('19 Dec 22Added Sun 2019-Dec-22 11 p.m. CSTin management | a)
- Everything Is 100% off If You Don't Buy It []: " "I do, however, have a suggestion: Pause. Wait before that next purchase. Avoid the mall, the online shopping carts, the sale prices. You can't save money by spending money. Everything is 100% off if you don't buy it. Instead of consuming more, why not create something worthwhile." ('19 Dec 21Added Sat 2019-Dec-21 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Sorry, you can't speed read" []: " The fundamental limitation of reading speed is how quickly you can comprehend words into meaning, which cannot be substantially increased using speed reading tricks. Skimming (such as by only reading the first half of each paragraph), however, can be beneficial for quickly getting a decent understanding of something." ('19 Dec 20Added Fri 2019-Dec-20 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Melatonin - Much More Than You Wanted to Know []: " "To treat delayed phase sleep disorder (ie you go to bed too late and wake up too late, and you want it to be earlier): Take melatonin 9 hours after wake and 7 before sleep, eg 5 PM, Block blue light (eg with blue-blocker sunglasses or f.lux) after sunset, Expose yourself to bright blue light (sunlight if possible, dawn simulator or light boxes if not) early in the morning, Get early morning exercise […] To treat advanced phase sleep disorder (ie you go to bed too early and wake up too early, and you want it to be later): Take melatonin immediately after waking, Block blue light (eg with blue-blocker sunglasses or f.lux) early in the morning, Expose yourself to bright blue light (sunlight if possible, light boxes if not) in the evening, Get late evening exercise. […] These don't 'cure' the condition permanently; you have to keep doing them every day, or your circadian rhythm will snap back to its natural pattern. What is the correct dose for these indications? Here there is a lot more controversy than the hypnotic dose. Of the nine studies van Geijlswijk describes, seven have doses of 5 mg, which suggests this is something of a standard for this purpose. But the only study to compare different doses directly (Mundey et al 2005) found no difference between a 0.3 and 3.0 mg dose. The Cochrane Review on jet lag, which we'll see is the same process, similarly finds no difference between 0.5 and 5.0." ('19 Dec 19Added Thu 2019-Dec-19 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How to Increase Taxes on the Rich (If You Must) []: " "Finally, I should note that the safety net described by either plan A or plan B is just a version of the negative income tax that Milton Friedman proposed in his book Capitalism and Freedom back in 1962. I remember reading about it as a student 40 years ago and thinking it was a good idea. And I was not alone in that judgment: In 1968, more than 1000 economists signed a letter endorsing such a plan, including luminaries like James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, Peter Diamond, and Martin Feldstein. Andrew Yang's version, which focuses on taxing consumption rather than income, is even better than Friedman's, because it wouldn't distort the incentive to save and invest." ('19 Dec 18Added Wed 2019-Dec-18 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Income Share Agreements []: " "In an ISA, a student borrows nothing but rather has his or her education supported by an investor, in return for a contract to pay a specified percentage of income for a fixed number of years after graduation. Rates and time vary with the discipline of the degree achieved and the amount of tuition assistance the student obtained. An ISA is dramatically more student-friendly than a loan. All the risk shifts from the student to the investing entity; if a career starts slowly, or not at all, the student's obligation drops or goes to zero. Think of an ISA as equity instead of debt, or as working one's way through college - after college. […] If you watch Shark Tank the entrepreneurs are always wary about debt because debt puts all the risk on them and requires fixed payments regardless. Yet when it comes to financing the venture of one's own life suddenly equity becomes akin to slavery and debt bondage becomes freedom! It's very peculiar. Another advantage of ISAs is that they provide feedback. Is the university willing to educate you for free in return for a share of future earnings? That's a good signal!" ('19 Dec 17Added Tue 2019-Dec-17 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- How to increase your odds of starting a career in charity entrepreneurship []: " "Most people's lives neither encourage nor support self-direction. Typical education models always tell you what to do, where to be, and how well you're doing. Same goes for the usual job, with a manager who will fire you if you don't do the things they tell you to do, to a certain standard, by a certain date. You may have some flexibility within that framework, but the scope for action is relatively narrow. Entrepreneurship is entirely different. You are staring at a blank canvas. The only external accountability you have is in the distant future." ('19 Dec 16Added Mon 2019-Dec-16 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- There Aren't As Many 100% Anti-Abortion People as You Might Think []: " "very few Americans (of either party) are completely opposed to abortion. For Democrats the share was just over six percent in 1972, but it's dropped in half by 2018. For Republicans the climb has been upward, with just under 5% being totally opposed to abortion in 1972 compared to 8.5% of Republicans in 2018. […T]he share of Republicans who wanted to place no restrictions on abortion was the same as the Democrats in the 1970's. Then, support for that position began to drop. However, the decline was much steeper for Republicans - 40% of Republican were totally pro-choice in the 1970's, but that fell to just under 15% by the mid-2000's, only to rebound about five percentage points recently. The Democrats have seen a slightly different pattern. From their high of 37% completely pro-choice in the early 1970's, they dropped to just above 20% in the mid-2000's. There was a big bounce back for Democrats, though. Now about 35% of Democrats could be called completely pro-choice. The gap between two parties on the 100% pro-choice group is now the largest it's ever been, with Democrats being twice as likely to always favor abortion than Republicans. One would have to think that an individual's view of abortion is based, in large part, on their religious tradition. The data largely confirms that, but there are some interesting results. Of the group of people who favor a woman's choice to an abortion in all six scenarios, just over a third are religiously unaffiliated. However, the group that shows up the second most is Catholics. Obviously, that's a function of the size of the Catholic population in the United States, but it also speaks to the fact that lots of Catholics are diametrically opposed to the Church's teaching on abortion. That comes even more into focus when considering that despite the fact that evangelicals made up nearly a quarter of the sample, they are just 12.7% of 100% pro-choice respondents. When looking at those who are 100% pro-life, it's basically evangelicals, Catholics, and then everyone else. Nearly half of all 100% pro-life people are evangelicals, while 30% are Catholics." ('19 Dec 15Added Sun 2019-Dec-15 11 p.m. CSTin politicalscience | a)
- Uber Self-Driving Crash []: " "A year and a half ago an Uber self-driving car hit and killed Elaine Herzberg. […] If it were a company I trusted more than Uber I would say 'at least two things going wrong, like not being able to identify a person pushing a bike and then not being cautious enough about unknown input' but with Uber I think they may be just aggressively pushing out immature tech." ('19 Dec 14Added Sat 2019-Dec-14 11 p.m. CSTin technology | a)
- "If Republicans Ever Turn On Trump, It'll Happen All At Once" []: " "So now begins the reading of the tea leaves and the careful scrutiny of every Republican senator's statements (or silence). Will Republicans finally break with Trump? We may not know until it happens. But be forewarned - if it does happen, it will likely take us by surprise. After all, political science has shown us that big political changes often come suddenly, after long periods of stasis. Looking back, it seems like of course the Soviet Union was bound to collapse. But up until the moment it did - and remember, it fell all at once - almost nobody predicted it." ('19 Dec 13Added Fri 2019-Dec-13 11 p.m. CSTin activism | a)
- "Prof Cass Sunstein on how social change happens, and why it's so often abrupt & unpredictable" []: " "How can a society that so recently seemed to support the status quo bring about change in years, months, or even weeks? Sunstein, co-author of Nudge, Obama White House official, and by far the most cited legal scholar of the late 2000s, aims to unravel the mystery and figure out the implications in his new book How Change Happens. He pulls together three phenomena which social scientists have studied in recent decades: preference falsification, variable thresholds for action, and group polarisation. If Sunstein is to be believed, together these are a cocktail for social shifts that are chaotic and fundamentally unpredictable. In brief, people constantly misrepresent their true views, even to close friends and family. They themselves aren't quite sure how socially acceptable their feelings would have to become before they revealed them or joined a campaign for change. And a chance meeting between a few strangers can be the spark that radicalises a handful of people who then find a message that can spread their beliefs to millions. According to Sunstein, it's "much, much easier" to create social change when large numbers of people secretly or latently agree with you. But 'preference falsification' is so pervasive that it's no simple matter to figure out when they do." ('19 Dec 12Added Thu 2019-Dec-12 11 p.m. CSTin activism | a)
- Why Am I Right-Handed? []: " Personally, I'm left-handed. But the reason why is not just simple genetics… turns out it is a lot more complicated and basically still not understood." ('19 Dec 11Added Wed 2019-Dec-11 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- "You Must Try, and Then You Must Ask" []: " When you get stuck, work for fifteen more minutes - no more and no less - before asking for help." ('19 Dec 10Added Tue 2019-Dec-10 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Some Groups of People Who May Not 100% Deserve Our Eternal Scorn []: " "Look. Hamilton was a pretty good Broadway play. It wasn't the best thing that ever happened. It didn't single-handedly reinvent America. On the other hand, it's also not the source of all evil." ('19 Dec 09Added Mon 2019-Dec-09 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Is Elon Musk preparing for state failure? []: " "Solar panels, for example, are a necessity when the state can't deliver power reliably, as is now the case in California. Solar panels plus the Tesla give you mobility, even if Saudi Arabia goes up in smoke and world shipping lines are shut down. Starlink, Musk's plan for 12,000 or more cheap, high-speed internet satellites, will free the internet from reliance on any terrestrial government. Musk's latest venture, the truck, certainly fits the theme and even if the demonstration didn't go as well as planned isn't it interesting that the truck is advertised as bulletproof." ('19 Dec 08Added Sun 2019-Dec-08 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- The Woozle Effect []: "Also known as evidence by citation, or a woozle, occurs when frequent citation of previous publications that lack evidence misleads individuals, groups, and the public into thinking or believing there is evidence, and nonfacts become urban myths and factoids." ('19 Dec 07Added Sat 2019-Dec-07 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- I'll Quit Ice Cream Last []: " "Most people do not 'practice the fundamentals' in areas that come easily and natural to them. They only research and design training programs in areas where they're struggling. I believe this is a mistake. Someone with excellent money management skills will often not study and tune-up in that area, because it's already 'above the bar' for them - they're happy with that area. If they're struggling with diet, they'll try to make meal plans and nutrition logs and whatever - all good stuff, really - but keep falling off and failing. The person who naturally eats well and struggles with money does the opposite. They don't go deep into nutrition and eating, because they're happy there. Meanwhile, they keep trying to put together budgets, track spending, pay more attention to money - all good stuff, really - but keep falling off and failing. I recommend you do the opposite: learn fundamentals of self-management, tracking, learning, and improvement in an easy and naturally-skilled area for you first. Then, and only then, do you apply your newly mastered self-management skills to the most difficult area." ('19 Dec 06Added Fri 2019-Dec-06 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Orchestrating false beliefs about gender discrimination []: " "For instance, there is that study about classical orchestras, where blind auditions massively increased the chance of women to get hired. […] I have not once heard anything skeptical said about that study, and it is published in a fine journal. So one would think it is a solid result. […However], this study presents no statistically significant evidence that blind auditions increase the chances of female applicants. In my reading, the unadjusted results seem to weakly indicate the opposite, that male applicants have a slightly increased chance in blind auditions; but this advantage disappears with controls." ('19 Dec 05Added Thu 2019-Dec-05 11 p.m. CSTin culturewar | a)
- Book Review: Barrier to Bioweapons []: " It turns out that making bioweapons is really hard. It might become less hard in the future though, which is worrying." ('19 Dec 04Added Wed 2019-Dec-04 11 p.m. CSTin nationalsecurity | a)
- "10 lessons for Disney, Apple, and all the new streaming companies trying to take down Netflix" []: " "We don't know how the fight will turn out, but we do know some things about running subscription video services because we've been in that business ourselves. The most important thing to remember is that success in subscription video services requires two things: Getting a subscriber, and keeping a subscriber. The second is harder. Much harder. And since we are giving out free advice, here are 10 tips for the current and future contenders: 1. Spend today on the content library that will make financial sense five years from now. […, ] 2. The only arbiters of the quality of your content and service is the audience. […] Audiences like content that is "bad." They even like pretending they don't like certain content and will go out of their way to complain about it. […] You probably need more content than you think. If your audience isn't complaining about having too many series they want to watch, they'll pause their subscription and come back when you have them. […] At a certain point, the value of unwatched content is negative, not zero. […] You don't need sophisticated metrics to tell if your audience likes your content. All you need to know is, "Are they coming back?" The more complicated the analysis, the more likely it has been exaggerated. 3. The best way to build your streaming subscription service is to rebrand and cannibalize another business that already has lots of users and, ideally, money. […] 4. If you actually want to make money, subscription streaming shouldn't even be your real business. Instead, give it away as a free or low-cost perk that's part of a much higher-margin and less-competitive business, such as wireless service, smartphones, e-commerce subscriptions, or theme park passes. […] 6. Ultimately, you need hits. A single breakout can double your subscriber growth (though again, you'll need more hits to keep these subscribers), but a bunch of niche "hits" makes only for a niche service. Unfortunately, these hits are hard to produce and even harder to predict. So when you think you've got one, pay whatever it takes to get the rights, reshoot a pilot, or fix the creative. […] 9. To be successful, you have to solve a problem. This cannot be a problem you created. A few hardcore fans might chase Jim and Pam across the streaming landscape, but most will just watch something other than The Office. But if you say, "We are the home for all things Marvel," they'll happily choose you over sifting through Triple Frontier and The Ridiculous Six to find Thor: Ragnarok." ('19 Dec 03Added Tue 2019-Dec-03 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- Why and how to start a for-profit company serving emerging markets []: " "Wave's mission is to improve the world, not to make money. Despite that, we operate more like a tech company than a social enterprise. Our investors are venture capitalists trying to make a high return, and they hold us to the same standards of growth rate and unit economics as any developed-world startup. This might seem like a downside (surely it would be easier to directly optimize for impact rather than have pressure from investors to make money?), but for us it's actually increased our impact in two ways. First, the pressure to grow quickly forces us to make our product better and scale faster, so we help more people by a larger amount. Second, since we've done really well by for-profit investors' standards, we can raise much more money than a nonprofit or social enterprise. […] The "local context plus high standards" theory suggests a simple (though not easy!) strategy to build a high-quality business that helps the global poor: (1) Move to a developing country to understand your future users, (2) Learn the startup playbook (for instance, by doing Y Combinator), (3) Start a business whose users are in the place you live. The remainder of this post fleshes out this strategy." ('19 Dec 02Added Mon 2019-Dec-02 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- What is the Morning Writing Effect? []: " "Ericsson 1993 notes that many major writers or researchers prioritized writing by making it the first activity of their day, often getting up early in the morning. This is based largely on writers anecdotally reporting they write best first thing early in the morning, apparently even if they are not morning people, although there is some additional survey/software-logging evidence of morning writing being effective. I compile all the anecdotes of writers discussing their writing times I have come across thus far. Do they, and why?" It appears that while the morning affect does seem substantiated by a survey of anecdotal evidence, there isn't much theoretical basis for it and just pure "deep work" might be what matters most." ('19 Dec 01Added Sun 2019-Dec-01 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- They Voted Democratic. Now They Support Trump []: " "The results suggest that the party's winning formula in last year's midterms may not be so easy to replicate in a presidential election. The Democrats' relatively moderate House candidates succeeded in large part by flipping a crucial segment of voters who backed the president in 2016. […] Voters often think differently about state and national issues. Some said they had voted for their local Democrat in the midterms because the person had served well for a long time, or because the candidate's policies would directly help their community. But presidential politics were another story, they said. Many of the white working-class voters in the Rust Belt who supported the president in 2016 were traditionally Democratic voters who backed President Obama in 2012 and even continued to vote Democratic down-ballot in 2016. Democrats generally held on to these voters in 2018, but the reasons many of them voted for Mr. Trump, like his promises on immigration or the economy, could still be relevant." ('19 Nov 30Added Sat 2019-Nov-30 11 p.m. CSTin politicalscience | a)
- "I Have No Idea What "Hard Work" Means" []: " "Instead of saying 'I worked hard' (compared to whom?), how about saying: 'I worked.' The act of working itself, even if you just clock in most days, put in minimal effort, come home, and never smile at anyone, is still a massive imposition on your life. You should not have to claim some unusual level of diligence to feel entitled to a good standard of living. […] If there were some sort of way of quantifying 'hard work,' through which you could prove that your wealth was truly earned, is there any possible way one could show that they had 'earned' a billion dollars? Do billionaires work that many magnitudes more hours than waitresses? Is their work that many magnitudes more strenuous? Are they that many magnitudes more stressed? (Billionaires might believe so; that just shows they've never been waitresses.) Brandishing the concept of "hard work" in order to justify why some people live in miserable poverty and others have sports car collections is just nonsensical, an obvious distraction away from the question of why these disparities are so vast and unjust. Honestly, "hard work" is such a vague and slippery concept that we'd probably all be better off if we just threw it out. And once we stop playing this pointless game of comparing how hard we all work, we can start asking the real question of when we're going to start being compensated fairly for it." ('19 Nov 29Added Fri 2019-Nov-29 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- New Atheism - The Godlessness that Failed []: " "We woke up one morning and the atheist bloggers had all quietly became social justice bloggers. Nothing else had changed because nothing else had to; the underlying itch being scratched was the same. They just had to CTRL+F and replace a couple of keywords. Eventually, things came full circle. I started this essay with a memory of noticing that my favorite early-2000s-era website had two off-topic forums: one for religion vs. atheism, and one for everything else. Earlier this year, SSC's subreddit split in two: one for "culture war" discussions mostly about race and gender, the other for everything else. […] I've lost the exact quote, but a famous historian once said that we learn history to keep us from taking the present too seriously. This isn't to say the problems of the present aren't serious. Just that history helps us avoid getting too dazzled by current trends, or too swept away by any particular narrative. If this is true, we might do well to study the history of New Atheism a little more seriously." ('19 Nov 28Added Thu 2019-Nov-28 11 p.m. CSTin activism | a)
- The Radicalism of Equal Opportunity []: " "You will often hear a distinction drawn between two different kinds of equality: equality of 'opportunity' and equality of 'outcome.' The people who draw this distinction often say that they believe in the former but not the latter. Equality of 'opportunity' is desirable, but equality of 'outcome' is not. As they frame it, one of these is fairly basic while the other is radical and frightening. […] The people who distinguish opportunity and outcome often do so in order to discourage us from trying to redistribute wealth from rich to poor-what matters is not whether people end up highly unequal, but whether they have the same opportunities at the start. If life is a race, it's okay if there are 'winners' and 'losers' so long as the race is played fairly. […] But there are severe problems with this way of looking at things. For one, it makes no sense. It sounds nice, but when you start examining it closely, the boundaries between 'opportunity' and 'outcome' become very unclear. One generation's outcomes structure the next generation's opportunities. Let's say we start with a fair economic 'race,' but then a few people become much richer than others. Those people can send their children to private schools, they can pass on all of their connections and knowledge and wealth to their children. Even if Generation A has equal opportunities, Generation A's unequal outcomes mean that Generation B will have dramatic variations in opportunities. If you want to create equal opportunities, you'll have to constantly be meddling with outcomes." ('19 Nov 27Added Wed 2019-Nov-27 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama's Presidency []: Draw your guesses on the charts below to see if you're as smart as you think you are. ('19 Nov 26Added Tue 2019-Nov-26 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- US Commutes Reveal New Economic Megaregions []: " "An ever increasing share of the world's population is living in what are known as megaregions-clusters of interconnected cities. […] Now, researchers have attempted to map the megaregions of the contiguous United States by studying the commutes of American workers." ('19 Nov 25Added Mon 2019-Nov-25 11 p.m. CSTin economics | a)
- Ground Morality in Party Politics []: We can use factor analysis to empirically demonstrate a left vs. right divide in politics. Could we use it to empirically demonstrate a good vs. bad divide in ethics? ('19 Nov 24Added Sun 2019-Nov-24 11 p.m. CSTin ethics | a)
- Tracking public opinion with biased polls []: " Polls with unrepresentative sample groups can be extrapolated to measure true popular opinion as long as enough pre-existing information is known about the distribution of how different sample groups answer the question (e.g., pre-existing presidential election surveys)." ('19 Nov 23Added Sat 2019-Nov-23 11 p.m. CSTin politicalscience | a)
- Wealth Advice that Should Be Obvious []: " Never gamble to earn money, never eat out solely for food, buy freedom instead of luxuries, don't buy stuff if you're in debt, don't buy stuff if you don't need it, sell stuff instead of paying to have it stored, put your bills on automatic, stock up when things are on sale." ('19 Nov 22Added Fri 2019-Nov-22 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Advice for Students on Earning to Give []: " Go to as prestigious as a college as possible, major in computer science and some other quantitative subject, get as many internships as possible, network extensively, and then pick a high-earning career in finance, software engineering, management consulting, or creating a start-up. Don't get a PhD." ('19 Nov 21Added Thu 2019-Nov-21 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- The Software Engineer's Guide to Negotiating a Raise []: " You should ask for a raise after doing extensive research on the value you provide to the company, the costs the company faces in replacing you, and how much of a raise you could get by finding a job elsewhere." ('19 Nov 20Added Wed 2019-Nov-20 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- Salary Negotiation []: " How to avoid the "what is your desired salary?" question (skillfully dodging the question by instead talking about the value you will bring and not giving up salary numbers), how to trade off across multiple axes (salary, vacation days, equity, etc) when doing a salary negotiation (valuing salary the most but negotiating on other things when salary is topped up), and how to get raises after being hired (emphasize the value and growth trajectory that you're on)." ('19 Nov 19Added Tue 2019-Nov-19 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- Philanthropic Focus vs. Abandonment []: " Focusing on the most cost-effective ways to improve lives is not unfair to those who have more cost-ineffective needs, since treating them would involve ignoring many more people." ('19 Nov 18Added Mon 2019-Nov-18 11 p.m. CSTin giving | a)
- How Technology Hijacks People's Minds - from a Magician and Google's Design Ethicist []: " Technology exploits us by creating a menu of choices that gives the illusion of choice while excluding the things not on the menu, creating thrilling anticipation of random notifications like a slot machine, giving us a strong fear of missing out, making us seek social approval, providing endless loops of content, making certain choices inconvenient, and disguising the true costs of actions." ('19 Nov 17Added Sun 2019-Nov-17 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- Three Great Articles on Poverty and Why I Disagree with all of them []: " One can consider approaches to poverty as a quadrant with one axis going from competitive (poverty exists because the rich are actively holding the poor down) to cooperative (poverty exists because some people haven't effectively plugged into the system) and another axis goes from optimistic (the solutions to cure poverty are already known and we can just roll them out) to pessimistic (the solutions to curing poverty are very very hard). Very few people fall in the cooperative-pessimistic quadrant, but this looks the most correct based on this analysis of data." ('19 Nov 16Added Sat 2019-Nov-16 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- Top 10 Replicated Findings in Behavioural Genetics []: " All psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic influence, no traits are 100% heritable, heritability is caused by many genes of small effect, phenotypic correlations between psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic mediation, the heritability of intelligence increases throughout development, age-to-age stability is mainly due to genetics, most measures of the "environment" show significant genetic influence, most associations between environmental measures and psychological traits are significantly mediated genetically, most environmental effects are not shared by children growing up in the same family, and abnormal is normal." ('19 Nov 15Added Fri 2019-Nov-15 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- Are You Killing Your Start-up Before It's Even Born? []: " The project cycle of doom progresses from new idea to expansion to development to dropped enthusiasm to giving up to a new idea. But nothing ever launches. Instead, you need to start small and launch as soon as possible, with deadlines - three-month plans and weekly goals." ('19 Nov 14Added Thu 2019-Nov-14 11 p.m. CSTin entrepreneurship | a)
- "Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors" []: " "as long as you feel good, sleeping anywhere between 5 and 8 hours a night seems basically fine for your health, regardless of whatever Big Sleep wants you to believe.All of the evidence we have about sleep and long-term health is in the form of those essentially meaningless correlational studies, but if you're going to use bad science to guide your sleep habits, at least use accurate bad science." ('19 Nov 13Added Wed 2019-Nov-13 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- An explanation of what all the various vitamins and minerals do []: They're important. ('19 Nov 12Added Tue 2019-Nov-12 11 p.m. CSTin science | a)
- The One Hour Morning Routine []: " nutrition, hydration, exercise, hygiene, learning, sunlight." ('19 Nov 11Added Mon 2019-Nov-11 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- "Yes, There is a Doctor on the Plane" []: " "I am sharing this account of a serious medical emergency on a transoceanic flight because I hope it helps other health care providers assist people in the future and learn from the difficulties I encountered." ('19 Nov 10Added Sun 2019-Nov-10 11 p.m. CSTin policy | a)
- What Does God Know? []: " Four different psychological studies find that people are more likely to report supernatural, superpowerful entities as having socially strategic knowledge than socially nonstrategic knowledge (e.g., that God knows you cheated on your taxes but doesn't know your recipe for blueberry pie) when those agents are able to punish (e.g., send you to Hell)." ('19 Nov 09Added Sat 2019-Nov-09 11 p.m. CSTin skepticism | a)
- The Hierarchy of Requests []: " The best person can make requests without even having to ask, either through very subtle social manipulation, planning, or luck. The very worst people are so scared that they can't even make requests. In the middle ground, people make requests, with various levels of rudeness. Also, while it might not seem like it, a person making a rude request may be doing better socially than people who can't make requests at all." ('19 Nov 08Added Fri 2019-Nov-08 11 p.m. CSTin rationality | a)
- Why Students Think They Understand When They Don't []: " Recognition is different from, and easier than, information recall. Recognizing information can lead to students thinking they know more than they actually do." ('19 Nov 07Added Thu 2019-Nov-07 11 p.m. CSTin productivity | a)
- How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed up on Donald Trump []: " Early forecasts giving Donald Trump a 2% chance of winning were based on intuition instead of statistics, which made them more error and bias prone. It's hard to evaluate the strength of these forecasts, as unexpected events do happen. The best model that was made at the time still gave a <10% chance and there's danger in overcorrecting after an unexpected event." ('19 Nov 06Added Wed 2019-Nov-06 11 p.m. CSTin politicalscience | a)
- My Ten Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer []: " "Getting a job" is not about getting a particular jobs resource, but rather about selling your skills for a fair price on the open market. Negotiating is a natural and expected part of this sale. When negotiating, never fail to negotiate, never give a particular salary number first, and never tell them at what salary point you're willing to close the deal on. Always be (genuinely) excited about the company you're negotiating with. Always play offers against each other. Buy time on a deal by saying you need to talk it over with someone else and by refusing "exploding" offers." ('19 Nov 05Added Tue 2019-Nov-05 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- How to Break into Tech: Job Hunting and Interviews []: " First do a lot of informational interviewing, then a lot of applying, then a lot of studying, then a lot of job interviewing." ('19 Nov 04Added Mon 2019-Nov-04 11 p.m. CSTin career | a)
- Three Facts You Haven't Heard Much About Are Keys to Better Policy Toward Central America []: " "The biggest immigration debate of this year in the US has been what to do about the rise in migration pressure at the Southwest border. That pressure comes mostly from the "Northern Triangle" of Central America: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador." But (1) "Central America is falling off a demographic cliff-so migration will slow". Also (2) more seasonal work visas have reduced illegal immigration drastically. Lastly (3) development aid is not a quick fix - instead, "[e]ffective policy toward the region requires assistance to community-driven security programs, help with food insecurity, and fostering youth employment. It also requires the enforcement of US law in partnership with regional governments." ('19 Nov 03Added Sun 2019-Nov-03 11 p.m. CSTin immigration | a)
- Seven Guidelines for Writing Worthy Works of Non-Fiction []: " "I propose the following guidelines for writing worthy works of non-fiction: 1. Pick an important topic. […] 2. Learn a lot about your topic. […] 3. Keep telling yourself: 'Once I perfect the organization of my book, it will practically write itself.' […] 4. Never preach to the choir. […] 5. When in doubt, write like Hemingway. If you can delete a word without changing the meaning of a sentence, do so. […] 6. Treat specific intellectual opponents with respect, in print and otherwise, even if they don't reciprocate. But feel free to ridicule ridiculous ideas. […] 7. Don't keep your cards close to your chest. Share your sincere probabilities with your readers. Don't just tell them what you can 'prove.' Tell them anything interesting that you're willing to bet on - and at what odds." ('19 Nov 02Added Sat 2019-Nov-02 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Neoliberalism: a thread [Twitter]: " "To most of the people who bash 'neoliberalism', the word means free-market libertarianism - the ideology of Milton Friedman, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan. But to the people who call themselves 'neoliberal' now, it does not mean that. The people who now call themselves "neoliberals" are the heirs to a different tradition - the liberals of the 1990s who responded to the failure of communism and the excesses of libertarianism by creating a new, center-left technocratic policy program. […] Neoliberalism, as defined by its current adherents (rather than by its squawking enemies), views markets as the fundamental generators of prosperity, and government as the way to distribute that prosperity more equitably. […] It sees free trade and globalization, along with strong welfare states in rich countries, as the best way to make the world more prosperous and more equal at the same time. […] Now, am I really a neoliberal? [..] No. I am not[. ..] I've come to believe in export promotion, which is anathema to many neoliberals, since it's a restriction on free trade. […] The government *must* pick winners. Green energy and other zero-carbon technologies being chief among the things we must pick. I also believe in national health insurance, which is just straight-up nationalization of a major industry. So there are many ways in which my economic ideas diverge strongly from neoliberalism (that was not an exhaustive list). But just because I'm not really a neoliberal doesn't mean I think neoliberalism is bad. I think it's a valuable perspective we still need. Just as free-market libertarianism went too far, so will the new socialism go too far someday (if it ever manages to take power). We will need people who remember the value of markets, but who are NOT plutocrats or racists, to temper and restrain that overreach. If the job of restraining the inevitable excesses of socialism doesn't fall to the Clintonite technocratic center-left, it will fall to the right - to libertarians, racist "economic nationalists", etc. And that would be bad. Neoliberals' disagreement with leftists comes less from their goals - both want a prosperous, equal society - but from the methods they think will be most effective for getting there. And that is a healthy disagreement. Or it should be, anyway." ('19 Nov 01Added Fri 2019-Nov-01 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)
- Can You Tell Sports Commentary From Political Punditry? []: We couldn't. ('19 Oct 31Added Thu 2019-Oct-31 11 p.m. CDTin politicalscience | a)
- The Last Nuclear Arms Treaty []: A bit basic but good overview of the nuclear situation between the US and Russia today ('19 Oct 30Added Wed 2019-Oct-30 11 p.m. CDTin nationalsecurity | a)
- 'Duck Dynasty' vs. 'Modern Family' - 50 Maps of the U.S. Cultural Divide []: " "Americans have been clustering themselves into cultural bubbles just as they have clustered in political bubbles. Their TV preferences confirm that. Related ArticleIf you had to guess how strongly a place supported Donald J. Trump in the election, would you rather know how popular 'Duck Dynasty' is there, or how George W. Bush did there in 2000? It turns out the relationship with the TV show is stronger." ('19 Oct 29Added Tue 2019-Oct-29 11 p.m. CDTin politicalscience | a)
- Nigerian Astronaut is lost in space needs $3Million to come home []: " "I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home. In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,0,000 American Dollars. […] In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance." ('19 Oct 28Added Mon 2019-Oct-28 11 p.m. CDTin rationality | a)
- Think Outside One's Paradigm []: " "When I meet someone who works in a field outside of computer science, I usually ask them a lot of questions about their field that I'm curious about. […] When I do this, it's not unusual for me to end up asking questions that the other person hasn't really thought about before. In this case, responses range from "that's not a question that our field studies" to "I haven't thought about this much, but let's try to think it through on the spot". […] I find the cases where the other person hasn't thought about the question to be striking, because it means that I as a naive outsider can ask natural-seeming questions that haven't been considered before by an expert in the field. I think what is going on here is that I and my interlocutor are using different paradigms (in the Kuhnian sense) for determining what questions are worth asking in a field. […] think that as a scientist (or really, even as a citizen) it is important to be able to see outside one's own paradigm. […] Based on the above experiences, I plan to use the following test: When someone asks me a question about my field, how often have I not thought about it before? How tempted am I to say, 'That question isn't interesting'? If these start to become more common, then I'll know something has gone wrong." ('19 Oct 27Added Sun 2019-Oct-27 11 p.m. CDTin rationality | a)
- The powerful economic principle behind Yo []: " The theory is that new companies can be created by unbundling and focusing on doing a particular aspect of a larger company better. (…I guess five years later we now know that this didn't actually work for Yo, though.)" ('19 Oct 26Added Sat 2019-Oct-26 11 p.m. CDTin entrepreneurship | a)
- The Start-up Zeitgeist []: " From analyzing tens of thousands of Y Combinator start-up applications, it's clear that Uber, AirBnB, and Instagram are popular; Slack is very popular; Ebay, Yahoo, and MySpace are not; the world is shifting from websites to apps; tablets aren't cool anymore; blogs aren't cool anymore; Bitcoin isn't cool anymore; SaaS beats advertising; wearables are cool but plateauing; and hardware, AI, machine learning, and biotech are on the rise." ('19 Oct 25Added Fri 2019-Oct-25 11 p.m. CDTin entrepreneurship | a)
- 16 Start-up Metrics []: " Bookings vs. revenue, recurring vs. total revenue, gross profit, total vs. annual contract value, life time value, gross merchandise value vs. revenue, unearned or deferred revenue, unearned or deferred billings, customer acquisition cost (blended vs. paid, organic vs. inorganic), number of active users, month-on-month growth, churn, burn rate." ('19 Oct 24Added Thu 2019-Oct-24 11 p.m. CDTin entrepreneurship | a)
- "Wedding at Scale - How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding" []: " "There are many different aspects to consider while planning a wedding. Food, decor, table fixtures (oh yes these are separate from decor), flowers, accommodation, transportation, entertainment, and location. Whilst there are many unknowns when planning a wedding, I could be sure of one thing. In weddings there are a lot of lists, nested lists, and more lists as far as the eye could see. As I stared at the growing number of items I began to wonder if there was a better way? It all felt so manual and full of inefficiencies. There had to be some aspects that technology could improve." ('19 Oct 23Added Wed 2019-Oct-23 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Stock options are really complicated []: " "Owning stock options is different (and worse) than directly owning equity in a company. That's because you need to exercise them-i.e., pay the company money-in order to exchange the option for actual shares. Exercising the options costs a lot of money, so all else equal you would want to wait until the you're sure the stock is valuable to exercise. (For instance, you might wait until the company goes public, so you know you can sell the stock on the stock market.) But there are two downsides to that approach. First, depending on your company's policies, you might have to give up your options if you leave or are fired. Second, if you sell the stock too soon after you exercise the options, you'll get much worse tax treatment. That means you'll be caught between (a) paying twice as much in taxes as an equity holder, or (b) risking losing most of your gains because the stock price moved against you at the wrong time. So from a tax perspective, the best time to exercise the options is as soon as they're granted to you (before they even vest). This is known as "early exercise" or an "83(b) election." Unfortunately, early exercise can cost a lot of money up front, and if the company doesn't succeed, you'll lose it all. That makes the decision process kind of complicated." ('19 Oct 22Added Tue 2019-Oct-22 11 p.m. CDTin career | a)
- Alternatives to Lectures []: " "Many people realize that lectures are often a bad format, yet other formats are rarely used. I'm building a list of unusual non-lecture event formats, and would love your help expanding it!" The alternative event formats: lighting talks, reciprocity ring, participatory studies, deep questions, group discussions, mini-group discussions, group practice, socializing with rules, group activities, panels, ice breakers, competitive games, cooperative games, writing exercises, new experiences, "1-2-4-all", co-creation, "help from the geniuses", questions based lectures, speed meeting, topic tables, "the hot seat", "First impressions", Real-life statistics, Workshop, Open Space, "PechaKucha 20x20″, "Recursive conversations", Group dances, Conversations dinners, Surrealist games, Empathy workshops, Interaction exhibitions, Debates, Symposiums, Office hours." ('19 Oct 21Added Mon 2019-Oct-21 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Can You Trust Trump's Approval Rating Polls? []: " "There's no doubt that polls took a trust hit during the campaign and that Trump is going to exploit it.Here's the thing. The loss of trust mostly isn't the pollsters' fault. It's the media's fault. Oh, yes, I'm going there. The loss of trust in polls was enabled, in large part, by reporting and analysis that incorrectly portrayed the polls as showing an almost-certain Clinton win when in fact they showed a close and highly uncertain Electoral College race[. …] Not only do polls have a margin of sampling error […] but they also have other types of errors, such as nonresponse bias. […] So then, to calculate the overall error in a poll - what I'll call the true margin of error - you add the margin of sampling error and the margin of methodological error together, right? No, not quite. Instead, you need a sum of squares formula. To save you some math, here are a few useful benchmarks: For a high-quality, 1,000-person national poll, a good estimate of the true margin of error is about plus or minus 4 percentage points. For a national polling average, meanwhile, the true margin of error is about plus or minus 3 percentage points. […] That means for a high-quality, 1,000-person national poll, the true margin of error for the margin between candidates - or a candidate's net approval rating - is about 8 percentage points. […] Whenever you see an article that cites polling data, you should add or subtract the true margin of error and consider how the story would change." ('19 Oct 20Added Sun 2019-Oct-20 11 p.m. CDTin politicalscience | a)
- How much does employee turnover really cost? []: " "Employee turnover is expensive. But most people have no framework for quantifying this cost, or they never even bother to try. While we can't capture every single expense, or even some of the big intangible costs like impact on employee morale, we can get a good sense by analyzing four major buckets: Cost of hiring, Cost of onboarding and training, Cost of learning and development, Cost of time with unfilled role." ('19 Oct 19Added Sat 2019-Oct-19 11 p.m. CDTin management | a)
- How feasible is long-range forecasting? []: " "It is difficult to learn much of value from those exercises, for the following reasons: (1) long-range forecasts are often stated too imprecisely to be judged for accuracy; (2) even if a forecast is stated precisely, it might be difficult to find the information needed to check the forecast for accuracy; (3) degrees of confidence for long-range forecasts are rarely quantified; (4) in most cases, no comparison to a "baseline method" or "null model" is possible, which makes it difficult to assess how easy or difficult the original forecasts were; (5) incentives for forecaster accuracy are usually unclear or weak; (6) very few studies have been designed so as to allow confident inference about which factors contributed to forecasting accuracy; (7) it's difficult to know how comparable past forecasting exercises are to the forecasting we do" ('19 Oct 18Added Fri 2019-Oct-18 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- AI does not think like us []: " "Once I escaped, I went back to my haunts in turn-of-the-century Marseilles, where I introduced Nines at my favorite bistros. I found I could rely on making beer money over the course of a night because beginners rarely perfectly remembered the eight winning sequences. I often wondered who would have designed a game with such an arbitrary set of winning patterns. I could see a certain rhythm in them, but still, there seemed to be no reason to have chosen those patterns rather than any others. Until one night." ('19 Oct 17Added Thu 2019-Oct-17 11 p.m. CDTin technology | a)
- "California's on fire, unplugged and out of easy answers. So why don't we…?" []: " "The easy calls have been made in dealing with California's wildfire crisis. We're clearing brush, spending on firefighters, hastening insurance claims. We've tied the pay of utility executives to their companies' safety records. To save lives - and liability costs - during red flag conditions, we've cut power to great swaths of the state. We've spent billions: Rare is the press release from Gov. Gavin Newsom that does not include a litany of wildfire actions. But it hasn't been enough, and as Californians now face the realities of climate change by the terrified millions, the only choices left are hard vs. hard: Black out even more people. Ban wildland homebuilding. Bury power lines. Build microgrids. Break up the state's largest utility - the bankrupt one supplying half of the state - and give its aging, spark-spewing equipment to taxpayers or customers or hedge funds or Warren Buffett. Burn nature before it burns you.S o what are our options at this point, assuming we get through this season? Here are a few - with pros, cons and political odds." Sounds mostly like utility reimbursements, better targeted blackouts, and more controlled burns." ('19 Oct 16Added Wed 2019-Oct-16 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)
- What's the chance of having drunk the same water molecule twice? []: " "pretty much 100%" ('19 Oct 15Added Tue 2019-Oct-15 11 p.m. CDTin science | a)
- How 13 Rejected States Would Have Changed The Electoral College []: Our state borders define our presidential elections. But what if they were different? ('19 Oct 14Added Mon 2019-Oct-14 11 p.m. CDTin politicalscience | a)
- How to Give Good Gifts []: Give people something they couldn't have given themselves. ('19 Oct 13Added Sun 2019-Oct-13 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- How to Read More - The Simple System I'm Using to Read 30+ Books Per Year []: " Read 20 pages a day, first thing in the morning (or as early in the day as possible). Adds up quick!" ('19 Oct 12Added Sat 2019-Oct-12 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Starfish Tossing Parable []: " "What?! Surely allocating a small fraction of your income to informed starfish relocation would have been a better choice! Why, it would have even created jobs, or something, I don't know. Ask the economists! How many starfish have you failed to save due to your thoughtlessness?" ('19 Oct 11Added Fri 2019-Oct-11 11 p.m. CDTin effectivealtruism | a)
- Emergent Tool Use from Multi-Agent Interaction []: " "We've observed agents discovering progressively more complex tool use while playing a simple game of hide-and-seek. Through training in our new simulated hide-and-seek environment, agents build a series of six distinct strategies and counterstrategies, some of which we did not know our environment supported. The self-supervised emergent complexity in this simple environment further suggests that multi-agent co-adaptation may one day produce extremely complex and intelligent behavior." ('19 Oct 10Added Thu 2019-Oct-10 11 p.m. CDTin technology | a)
- 5 more things I learned from the 2016 election []: " (1) Don't ignore the down ballot elections; (2) exit polls have a lot of problems; (3) maybe news actually isn't siloed; (4) many voters are massively uninformed about politics, policy, and governing; (5) maybe the ground game was overrated because maybe Clinton had a bad ground game." ('19 Oct 09Added Wed 2019-Oct-09 11 p.m. CDTin politicalscience | a)
- 19 Things We Learned from the 2016 Election []: " (1) The party doesn't decide; (2) that trick of forecasting elections using voter predictions [of who will win] rather than voter intentions? Doesn't work; (3) Survey nonresponse is a thing; (4) the election outcome was consistent with "the fundamentals"; (5) polarization is real; (6) demography is not destiny; (7) public opinion does not follow elite opinion; (8) there is an authoritarian dimension of politics; (9) swings are national; (10) the ground game was overrated; (11) news is siloed; (12) the election wasn't decided by shark attacks; (13) overconfident pundits get attention; (14) red state blue state is over; (15) third parties are still treading water; (16) a working-class pundit is something to be; (17) beware of stories that explain too much; (18) Goldman Sachs rules the world; (19) the Electoral College was a ticking time bomb." ('19 Oct 08Added Tue 2019-Oct-08 11 p.m. CDTin politicalscience | a)
- The Mystery of the Missing Hotel Toothpaste []: It looks like the main reason hotels don't supply toothpaste in rooms is that hotel rating agencies don't rate based on having toothpaste… And these ratings don't include toothpaste because it's not typical for hotels to supply it in rooms. The cycle continues. ('19 Oct 07Added Mon 2019-Oct-07 11 p.m. CDTin random | a)
- Three Rules For Actually Sticking to Good Habits []: " (1) "start with a version of the habit that is incredibly easy for you"; (2) "increase your habit each day, but in an incredibly small way"; (3) "Even after increasing your habit, all repetitions must remain easy. The total habit should be broken down into easier pieces if needed." ('19 Oct 06Added Sun 2019-Oct-06 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- "Measure Backwards, Not Forwards" []: " "We often measure progress by looking forward. We set goals. […] Can we increase our quarterly earnings by 20 percent? Can I lose 20 pounds in the next 3 months? Will I be married by 30? […] There is an opposite and, I think, more useful approach: measure backward, not forward. […] Basically, I measure progress backward (What happened in my business this week?) and use that backward measurement as a way to guide my actions for the next week. I use a similar strategy in the gym. I lift every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When I show up at the gym, I open my notebook and look at the weights I lifted during my last workout or two. Then, I plan my workout by slightly increasing the sets, reps, or weight from where they were last week. I go for tiny increases, of course. I'm interested in one percent gains. […] I am constantly looking to improve, but I base my choices on what has recently happened, not on what I hope will happen in the future." ('19 Oct 05Added Sat 2019-Oct-05 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- The Work-Rest Fractal []: " "Work-life balance is fractal-it's important to consider at every level." ~5-10min+ break every hour, ~1+ hour break every day, time off after work, 1-2 days ever week (weekend), 1-2+ weeks vacation every year, and a longer sabbatical (if possible) every few years." ('19 Oct 04Added Fri 2019-Oct-04 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Argument From My Opponent Believes Something []: " "It is an unchallengeable orthodoxy that you should wear a coat if it is cold out. Day after day we hear shrill warnings from the high priests of this new religion practically seething with hatred for anyone who might possibly dare to go out without a winter coat on. But these ideologues don't realize that just wearing more jackets can't solve all of our society's problems. Here's a reality check - no one is under any obligation to put on any clothing they don't want to, and North Face and REI are not entitled to your hard-earned money. All that these increasingly strident claims about jackets do is shame underprivileged people who can't afford jackets, suggesting them as legitimate targets for violence. In conclusion, do we really want to say that people should be judged by the clothes they wear? Or can we accept the unjacketed human body to be potentially just as beautiful as someone bundled beneath ten layers of coats?" ('19 Oct 03Added Thu 2019-Oct-03 11 p.m. CDTin rationality | a)
- "Fracking Is the Bridge to Renewable Energy" []: " So the U.S. would be better off without fracking. And because of the shift to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, this will eventually happen. […] But banning fracking too quickly might jeopardize this crucial transition. Why? Because switching to renewable energy requires a lot of energy. Solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric cars must be manufactured in huge quantities. Buildings must be retrofitted with new electrical wiring and energy efficiency technologies. […] All of this will take huge amounts of energy - electricity and vehicle fuel. Where will it come from? Currently, renewable sources account for only 11% of U.S. primary energy consumption. […] You can't use solar and wind to build the generation capacity for more solar and wind until you have a lot of it. The U.S. simply isn't there yet - it doesn't have enough green energy to power the transition. Instead, if fracking is banned immediately, the U.S. will probably go back to using coal and imported oil (Sanders has also proposed banning the other option, nuclear power). This will mean much greater carbon emission and deadly air pollution from coal. It will also would push up global oil prices, generating big windfalls for leaders like Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's Mohammad Bin Salman. Such a reversal would be a terrible shame." ('19 Oct 02Added Wed 2019-Oct-02 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)
- Out of shape? Why deep learning works differently than we thought []: " How do neural networks recognize a cat? A widely accepted answer to this question is: by detecting its shape. - "We conducted a series of nine experiments encompassing nearly a hundred human observers and many widely used deep neural networks (AlexNet, VGG-16, GoogLeNet, ResNet-50, ResNet-152, DenseNet-121, SqueezeNet1_1), showing them hundreds of images with conflicting shapes and textures. The results left little room for doubt: we found striking evidence in favor of the texture explanation! A cat with:lephant skin is an elephant to deep neural networks, and still a cat to humans. A car with the texture of a clock is a clock to deep neural networks, as much as a bear with the surface characteristics of a bottle is recognized as a bottle. Current deep learning techniques for object recognition primarily rely on textures, not on object shapes." ('19 Oct 01Added Tue 2019-Oct-01 11 p.m. CDTin technology | a)
- One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Microsoft Excel []: " "Autoformatting in Microsoft Excel has caused many a headache-but now, a new study shows that one in five genetics papers in top scientific journals contains errors from the program, The Washington Post reports. The errors often arose when gene names in a spreadsheet were automatically changed to calendar dates or numerical values" ('19 Sep 30Added Mon 2019-Sep-30 11 p.m. CDTin metascience | a)
- Lots Of People Going Around With Mild Hallucinations All The Time []: " "How come some New Agey people say they can see auras around people? Are they just lying? Seems like a weird thing to lie about. And a lot of these people don't sound like they're lying. Aren't auras a classic LSD hallucination? I understand they're not quite as simple as the haloes around lights that HPPD people get; they're only around people and sometimes the colors seem meaningful. But add something about handwave handwave using a special kind of visual processing for other people handwave synaesthesia, and maybe it's not totally outside the realm of possibility? Maybe if your priors are so relaxed - ie so far towards the "naturally on LSD all the time" side of the scale - that you believe in auras, then your priors might also be so relaxed that you can see them." ('19 Sep 29Added Sun 2019-Sep-29 11 p.m. CDTin science | a)
- One Touch to Inbox Zero []: " First, make your inbox just about email. Then, for each email, either archive, reply and archive, put it in the calendar and archive, put it in a task list and archive, put it in a reference section and archive, or put it in "read it later" and archive." ('19 Sep 28Added Sat 2019-Sep-28 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- The Productivity Holy Grail [Podcast] []: " Sebastian defines "Morale Responsiveness" - if you are more morale responsive, you tend to have higher highs and lower lows - you work in a flow and get a lot done but then crash after. For example, Sybastian Stallone wrote Rocky in only three days, including one 20hr day. This contrasts with a "slow and steady wins the race" approach, where you consistently put in a solid amount of work each day. Is it possible to get the highs of high morale responsiveness while avoiding the crash and keeping the steady work in the down periods? It hasn't happened yet. More info than this isn't really provided but I find the concept of "morale responsiveness" very useful. I hypothesize that co-founder teams are great with one morale responsive (visionary) and one morale unresponsive (consistent) person." ('19 Sep 27Added Fri 2019-Sep-27 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Obscure Books Combo Power [Podcast] []: Three concepts: (1) reflect on why you read and what you want to get out of reading. (2) try to read a few books on the same subject to try to identify common themes. These might be universal truths. (3) read rare / obscure books - you'll likely be the only person in the world to have read a certain combination of obscure books which gives you a very unique perspective that you can use to add value. I'm personally sold on (1) and (2) but unconvinced about (3). ('19 Sep 26Added Thu 2019-Sep-26 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Things that Sometimes Work if You Have Depression []: " See a doctor, blood tests, therapy, SSRIs, psychiatry, time" ('19 Sep 25Added Wed 2019-Sep-25 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Things that Sometimes Work if You Have Anxiety []: " Exercise, less/no coffee, eat well, more sleep, mindfulness activities, therapy, see a doctor, SSRIs" ('19 Sep 24Added Tue 2019-Sep-24 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- How to Stop Being Tired All the Time (Video) []: " Get enough sleep (duh), consider trying to wake naturally and without an alarm, get outside / get sunlight exposure every day / vitamin D supplement, get exercise every day (even if low level), use caffeine sparingly, and drink more water." ('19 Sep 23Added Mon 2019-Sep-23 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- How to Stop Feeling Tired in the Afternoon (Video) []: " Reset (take break/walk), refuel (food/water), and refocus (clear tabs, get study music, get in the mindset to resume work). Also consider changing schedules (e.g., afternoon workouts) if possible." ('19 Sep 22Added Sun 2019-Sep-22 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- Cardiologists and Chinese Robbers []: There's something pretty wrong about cardiologists. ('19 Sep 21Added Sat 2019-Sep-21 11 p.m. CDTin rationality | a)
- A minimalist strength workout []: " Just pull ups, goblet squats, push ups, lunges, and single-leg deadlifts." ('19 Sep 20Added Fri 2019-Sep-20 11 p.m. CDTin productivity | a)
- "Entrepreneurship - a game of poker, not roulette" []: " While there is a lot of luck involved with entrepreneurship, there is also a lot of skill, and certain factors do make people more or less likely to succeed." ('19 Sep 19Added Thu 2019-Sep-19 11 p.m. CDTin entrepreneurship | a)
- The Inspection Paradox is Everywhere []: " Why do airlines complain about having so many empty flights, yet passengers complain about all the flights being too full? That's because you're more likely to be on a full flight, just because there are more people! Few people enjoy the emptiness of an empty flight, but many people feel the pinch of a full flight." ('19 Sep 18Added Wed 2019-Sep-18 11 p.m. CDTin rationality | a)
- Measuring Developer Productivity []: " Measuring programmer productivity is (nearly) impossible to do, and encompasses a wide variety of factors. Rather than having an objective metric, perhaps we should have a multi-factor subjective rubric for assessing performance." ('19 Sep 17Added Tue 2019-Sep-17 11 p.m. CDTin management | a)
- Book Review - Albion's Seed []: " Most people think of the US colonists in the 1600s as one homogenous group of people, but they were really four different cultures with four different distinct and weird histories. …And they may possibly predict modern day Republicans and Democrats." ('19 Sep 16Added Mon 2019-Sep-16 11 p.m. CDTin culturewar | a)
- Wage Stagnation - Much More Than You Wanted to Know []: " The cause of wage stagnation is overstated and multifactorial. Factors: inflation miscalculations, wages vs. total compensation, increasing labor vs. capital inequality (because of automation and because of policy), increasing wage inequality (because of deunionization, because of policies permitting high executive salaries, and because of globalization and automation)." ('19 Sep 15Added Sun 2019-Sep-15 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)
- The Homeless 8-Year-Old Chess Champion and Other Horrific 'Uplifting' Stories []: "There's a certain genre of light-hearted human-interest stories that are common across most news platforms. […] However, in the worsening economic climate, a growing number of these supposedly 'uplifting' stories become unintentionally horrifying after a moment's reflection" … "Inspiring! This CEO Saw One of His Employees Digging Through the Dumpster for Food, So He Bought Her a Headlamp to Make It Easier to Sift through the Garbage" ('19 Sep 14Added Sat 2019-Sep-14 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)
- Race and Justice - Much More Than You Wanted to Know []: " "There seems to be a strong racial bias in capital punishment and a moderate racial bias in sentence length and decision to jail. There is ambiguity over the level of racial bias, depending on whose studies you want to believe and how strictly you define 'racial bias', in police stops, police shootings in certain jurisdictions, and arrests for minor drug offenses. There seems to be little or no racial bias in arrests for serious violent crime, police shootings in most jurisdictions, prosecutions, or convictions. Overall I disagree with the City Journal claim that there is no evidence of racial bias in the justice system. But I also disagree with the people who say things like 'Every part of America's criminal justice is systemically racist by design' or 'White people can get away with murder but black people are constantly persecuted for any minor infraction' […] It would be nice to say that this shows the criminal justice system is not disproportionately harming blacks, but unfortunately it doesn't come anywhere close to showing anything of the sort. There are still many ways it can indirectly harm blacks without being explicitly racist" ('19 Sep 13Added Fri 2019-Sep-13 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)
- Teachers: Much More Than You Wanted to Know []: "In summary: teacher quality probably explains 10% of the variation in same-year test scores. A +1 SD better teacher might cause a +0.1 SD year-on-year improvement in test scores. This decays quickly with time and is probably disappears entirely after four or five years, though there may also be small lingering effects. It's hard to rule out the possibility that other factors, like endogenous sorting of students, or students' genetic potential, contributes to this as an artifact, and most people agree that these sorts of scores combine some signal with a lot of noise. For some reason, even though teachers' effects on test scores decay very quickly, studies have shown that they have significant impact on earning as much as 20 or 25 years later, so much so that kindergarten teacher quality can predict thousands of dollars of difference in adult income. This seemingly unbelievable finding has been replicated in quasi-experiments and even in real experiments and is difficult to banish. Since it does not happen through standardized test scores, the most likely explanation is that it involves non-cognitive factors like behavior. I really don't know whether to believe this and right now I say 50-50 odds that this is a real effect or not - mostly based on low priors rather than on any weakness of the studies themselves. I don't understand this field very well and place low confidence in anything I have to say about it." ('19 Sep 12Added Thu 2019-Sep-12 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)
- How to Design a Green New Deal That Isn't Over the Top []: " "This alternative Green New Deal has similarities to Ocasio-Cortez's version, but also has key differences. By focusing on technological development and international assistance, it would tackle the all-important problem of global emissions. By avoiding huge open-ended commitments like a federal job guarantee or universal basic income, and by including progressive tax increases, it would avoid the threat of excessive budget deficits. Ultimately, this plan would represent the U.S.'s best shot at fighting the looming global menace of climate change while also making the country more egalitarian in a safe and sustainable way. It would be a worthy successor to the original New Deal." ('19 Sep 11Added Wed 2019-Sep-11 11 p.m. CDTin policy | a)