All of John Litborn's Comments + Replies

sure, I was mostly just disagreeing with "90% loss of a major coin" - but I suppose you can read that sentence more charitably. But focusing on the inherent value of FTT as the avenue of affecting customers I think is misguided.

6
EddSH1994
1y
People affected aren't just FTT investors but anyone who used the FTX platform. This is I believe $16B? And, to make matters worse, this money was meant to be held 1:1 but looks like it was loaned out to SBFs trading firm (using FTT) in order to trade. They appear to have minted more FTT in order to make up lost funds (possibly in Q2 when other firms went down). This thread explains a pretty plausible version of events:  https://twitter.com/LucasNuzzi/status/1590122590206824448?t=ZMpzX12eJCqMhXxJgrdLiA

that seems reasonable, you're not throwing around as many and complex data types - and (strictly) typed programs that read from xml/json/etc are often very clunky as it more or less requires you make the data reader fully robust against malformed data

you could probably find some stats on what % of [recent] packages on PIP are typed

though python is quite often being typed nowadays too :P

2
JP Addison
1y
TypeScript is being listed on its own, not being lumped in with JS (makes sense). But pythons types are an extension of the core language itself, and so don't warrant a separate entry. I wonder what would happen if "python with types" got listed as a separate entry. Relatedly, when I was programming python, I was using it for ~data analysis. I feel like types are less useful there than they are in my current world of web dev. Is it the case that python types are less used by the data community?

in a related vein, just putting up air quality/CO2 monitors (and maybe noise while you're on it) could be a quite cheap & scaleable intervention that might offer some valuable/interesting data. If attendees are getting unnecessarily fatigued from a bad environment it might cancel out a bunch of the value from the conference.

For doing this at an EAG, I think it could make sense to start doing this in a single (or a few) rooms as a trial. Should at least be much easier to convince venue & organizers that it's not gonna be a major burden.

Especially fitting if it's rooms used for biorisk discussions!

Since eag's are already volunteer-heavy (I just volunteered at EAGxBerlin), it feels relatively plausible for you/somebody to take ownership of this idea:

  • contact IAQ organizers and ask for more details & retrospective (this feels worthwhile on it's own regardless! Very good
... (read more)

Yeah not a perfect fit for my current niche, but I have no problem picking up new techs and even coded some C# in school, so I'll definitely apply!

Not the author, but this is my understanding assuming the idea holds:

OpenPhil/FTX/etc currently spend a lot of time & effort on evaluating grants. The idea here is that it's easier to evaluate a project after it's finished, e.g. "the area where bednets were given out had X% lower mortality, lives are valued at Y$, so this bednet intervention was worth Z$" - but current status quo is that you have to predict the value of X when evaluating the grant, and make a prediction on the likelihood that it works at all. (technically you'd predict a probability di... (read more)

Beautiful sketches! Images certainly don't have to be professional to be informative~

feels possible to establish a decent base rate by looking at previous ballot initiatives by the mentioned firms and other similar ballot campaigns. I think it will vary a lot between licensing for a doctor vs hair braiding, and 50% might be reasonable for the latter.

2
ColdButtonIssues
2y
Maybe I could get a more precise rate. The 50% assumption is close to the average success rate over the last 20 years. There weren't sufficiently similar ballot initiatives, IMO, to make me want to use a more specific reference class.

Location: Linköping, Sweden Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes Skills:

  • Programming: deep knowledge of Python, C & C++, some experience with two dozen other languages. Git, linters, command-line debuggers.
  • Linux: hardcore user for 15 years, experience with configuring pretty much the whole OS stack. Résumé: https://github.com/jakkdl/resume/raw/main/john_litborn_resume.pdf Email: firstname [dot] lastname [at] pm.me Notes: Followed the EA space intently for a long time - took GWWC pledge in 2017, but mostly by reading blogs & listening to podcasts
4
Sjlver
2y
Hi, would you be interested in AMF's software engineer positions? We have Python-based data analysis tasks that you might find fun, and I bet you could pick up the rest of the tech stack quickly. I came to AMF from a similar background as you (Python/C++ @ Google) and found that many of the skills translated well into the new environment.

Doesn't the leverage go both directions? Donating causes earlier people to pay more, but also adds leverage for later people? Such that you don't know if later people would've donated unless you also did.

Though maybe that depends on some factors of the system, whether the leverage grows or shrinks with more donations. I think this might hit your worry that it incentivizes donating later cause that makes you pay less, but if actors are proper EV-maximizers won't they scale up their donation such that the expected payment/leverage is the same?

Seems like ther... (read more)

2
Filip Sondej
2y
You're right, the leverage definitely goes two ways. The thing it, this later leverage will tend to be smaller than the one you get immediately. At least, this is how the system behaves in my naive simulations. The exception is, when you expect some very big contributors to join later on - then the later leverage is bigger. So yeah, it's a complicated situation and I didn't want to go into that in the post, because it would get too bloated. And yeah, humans and TAI may have different strategies which complicates it further. This is why I'm not yet fully satisfied with this mechanism, and I will try to simplify it, so that we don't have to care for all those strategies.

If the lateral-flow test can be cheaply produced, distributed and stored at smaller clinics - then you might be able to then quickly drive patients to larger clinics once positively diagnosed and might not then have to worry as much about the larger costs of the anti-venom. Will depend a lot on the time/distance to nearest larger clinics though.