All of Lakin's Comments + Replies

EA forum:

Lesswrong:

Now that's it been 10 years: What's your best guess for what this would've needed for impact certs to take off?

Someone DM'd me asking for more information. See https://www.mostly-fat.com/eat-meat-not-too-little-mostly-fat/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOQCKEoflPc 

I do this for health reasons. I feel significantly better and have much more energy when I do this.

Related: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tLb86DhrTYgkXw5Hf/apply-to-the-conceptual-boundaries-workshop-for-ai-safety 

oh cool!  (Also I'm glad you proactively acknowledge the eg saturated fat)

Also, are there risks to over-reduction in salt intake?

Hmmmm. I'm suspicious is because it doesn't make any sense for anyone to decide what's best for me. (Sure, educate me instead, whatever.) (I'm particularly suspicious of this because of the discourse I've seen around proposed 'meat taxes', typically pedaled by people who think the climate and nutritional (and ethical) effects are far worse than I think they are. So I'm worried about the same thing here.)

Couple things (I've only skimmed the post):

1. How certain are you that increased sodium consumption causes hypertension? (I'm skeptical of this personally)
   1. (Do prediction markets exist on this? Could you make one?)
2. How certain are you that decreasing increased sodium consumption causes not less hypertension, but also less mortality/more DALYs overall?  Some interventions are backwards like this. (E.g. Limiting sun exposure fairly certainly decreases skin cancer, but it also might fairly significantly increase mortality, on net)
3. Why specifically taxation, in

Are you thinking that the community should consider collectively insuring against the risk of a megadonor going underwater in the future?

Yeah something like that. Just trying to think of a way to make a market out of due-diligence. 

Is there an insurance product that covers clawbacks? 

Hm, how could this interact with hypothetical clawbacks?

E.g.

1. your org has $0
2. your org receives $100 from FTXF, now your org has $100
3. your org spends $50 of that money, and then decides to stop
4. your org receive $10 from Nonlinear, now your org has $60
5. the clawback effort comes to your org and says "hey we need $100". org say "I don't have $100, I only have $50"
6. Does the clawback effort then say "No actually you have $60, we're taking all $60" because of money fungibility?

The title of this made me think "ways to buy time [with money in your personal life]" rather than "ways to buy time [in AI safety]"

wow

Animals do this intuitively:

Pigeons were presented with two buttons in a Skinner box, each of which led to varying rates of food reward. The pigeons tended to peck the button that yielded the greater food reward more often than the other button, and the ratio of their rates to the two buttons matched the ratio of their rates of reward on the two buttons. 

Matching Law

I'm glad you wrote this! I was worried about your previous post, and was thinking about writing something on this dimension myself.

It's funny: this could've been mostly avoided by a consideration of Chesterton's Fence and the EMH? ("If AGENCY was so good, why wouldn't everyone do it?")

Anyways, I'm now worried about e.g. high school summer camp programs that prioritize the development of unbalanced agency.

Thank you for writing about what pushed me away from the EA community. The force to make all else instrumental. Best of luck

I've known many EAs. Many have been vegan and many have not (I'm not). I've never seen anyone "treat [someone] as non-serious (or even evil)" based on their diet.

I've had this happen fwiw.

I think #3 is the most important question and the most likely way that shelters fail

Should no overlap with FTX's project ideas competition be assumed? (Links: Announcement, Awards)

Hm… of 7.4% of students who are familiar with EA, only 17.6% of those students (1.3%/7.3%) are pro-EA and 82% are not. What fraction did we expect here?

There's a weird detail I see in this post that seems to overemphasize the campaign's success:

Yes, Carrick lost. But he came in second out of nine, despite several factors pushing pretty strongly against him. Had things shaken out differently on a few key factors, he could have won.

and

So the fact that Carrick came in second, despite several (in the future, mostly avoidable) factors strongly pushing against him, and no comparable unique factors pushing in his favor, makes me more optimistic about the prospects of any future EAs who decide to run. To be concr

Can confirm that other groups/subcultures have begun to see EA as a deceitful cult because of stuff like this

One of the best passive impact examples I know is Eneasz Brodski's recording of HPMoR. (Also, can we retroactively reward this?)

update: Eneasz has confirmed that there has not been

ah, yes, this is the obvious thing to do. Ty, I've messaged him over email and facebook.

update: he has confirmed that there has not been

have you tried starting first with having the schedule that's probably going to happen? Consider it a prediction rather than a schedule

My model of research seems like it happens in hours-long continuous threads, rather than 30 min blocks (let alone blocks that you can specific in advance)

It seems that your main work is research (correct me if wrong), so I'm surprised you work in 30 min blocks

Gee! Are there any other learnings you wish to add to this post?

I got this sense, but I could be wrong--

Does it need to start big to get big? Could you start small-- just you, just one or a few articles perhaps? I.e. https://sive.rs/infinity

e.g. https://dynomight.net/ started pretty recently and is well-known now

FYI when I read the title and skimmed the hover-preview (~first paragraph) of this essay, I didn't at all realize you meant psychological minimum

On the form linked it might be nice to ask for some kind of rough expiration date. I.e. how long is this opportunity relevant-- a few days, a few months, indefinitely? This way hopefully you can automate the upkeep a bit.

Also would be great to turn this into a newsletter

The 'Education status' part of the form linked seems vague to me. E.g. Does "Who is this opportunity open to?: Undergraduate" mean in undergrad or to hold a bachelors? Moreover, what does "Recent Grad" mean? 

ok, what's your call to action- collaborators? funding? any specific questions you're looking for insight into?

What edits have you (or anyone you know) made that seem to have been valuable?

Another point to add: It's possible that last-minute planning of a retreat might make some people (read: women) hesitant to suddenly spend a lot of time with people they don't know that well.

start small

These kinds of things seem like they happen incrementally-- they evolve, rather than coming into being as the result of a grand plan. What is the simplest, quickest way you could make Version 0 of this exist today?

see https://sive.rs/infinity 

That said, I'm not sure I'd trust that anyone who just did one if those was really well acquainted with the ideas or way of thinking.

Yeah I would probably have more experienced community builders fly in to help out.

I think it's pretty weird that Melatonin is #1 in your list. I think it's weird to suggest exogenous supplementation of something like that without an explanation of why melatonin is low to begin with. The efficient market hypothesis, but applied to your own biochemistry. Chesterton's fence, etc.

The body isn't a machine- as if you can just give it the right amounts of the right compounds and it  will perform optimally.

It took me 112 seconds start-to-writing-this-comment for what it's worth. (Update the title accordingly maybe lol? I would've been more likely to click if you said '112s' than '30s'.)

ty for the app! do you know of one for iOS?

On the vitamin D side: In I'm pretty skeptical of reductionist viewpoints in general such as here, ~"the single compound of 'vitamin D' placed into supplements has nearly the same effect as broad-spectrum UV on skin affects the body". I wouldn't be surprised if broad-spectrum UV had plenty of other effects that we have no idea how to look for, or for example if "UV → {this specific compound that is put in supplements}" is a poor approximation (maybe broad-spectrum UV causes the production of plenty of compounds that are also great, and we're only inclined ... (read more)

Another structure I've been considering is converting the fellowship into a class. (At CMU student-taught classes are part of the culture and pretty common.) But I'm less excited about this than the idea I outlined in my other comment.

Hey Ashley, I'm glad someone else is thinking about this too. Here at CMU I've been thinking about this too, particularly because CMU students are so busy. I think we miss people who would otherwise be engaged because of the current structure of the intro fellowship.

What I've been thinking about is running something like an 'EA Expo Day' in the beginning of the semester. It would be a full day with talks and workshops with plenty of capacity. At the same time it would be early in the semester before students get busy. I have a hunch that more people would ... (read more)

Yeah, time constraints as expected. I think I found the title of this post a bit strong then.

Also, I would be surprised if light exposure + Vitamin D approximates daytime sunlight at more than 50% effect.