@chronos Sounds like a rough experience; hopefully others can benefit from your story.

What do you think about #AstralCodexTen ? Too adjacent to the rationalists?

The whole of #SlateStarCodex (#AstralCodexTen) summarised down to one paragraph by a redditor:

“Science is hard. Coordination is hard. Change is coming. Be kind to each other.”

#SSC #ASX #ScottAlexander

The whole of #SlateStarCodex (#AstralCodexTen) summarised down to one paragraph by a redditor:

“Science is hard. Coordination is hard. Change is coming. Be kind to each other.”

#SSC #ASX #ScottAlexander

Good news everyone! My favorite blog is now crossposted to the fediverse (unofficially) #AstralCodexTen

@astralcodexten

The quote is of course from #GKChesteron ; I see it in a discussion about Columbus Day over at #AstralCodexTen .

"The third big controversy in the comments was whether Santa Claus was justified in punching Arius."

#StNicholas #StAthanasius
#Arianism #Trinitarianism #Christianity

On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class
https://www.residentcontrarian.com/p/on-being-rich-ish-lessons-i-learned

Let us who are middle class be grateful for our many blessings.

Via #AstralCodexTen

"PRASA mismanagement led to the loss of R2.65 billion, through the acquisition of Spanish Afro 4000 trains which were unsuitable for South African rails. The Afro 4000 requires 4.14 meters of clearance, too high for SA rail infrastructure at 3.965 m."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Rail_Agency_of_South_Africa

Ah, well at least the trains had the correct gauge (3'6" in #SouthAfrica ).

I learned about the fiasco at https://www.awanderingmind.blog/posts/2022-07-30-state-of-south-africa.html , via #AstralCodexTen

Alex Wellerstein on Twitter: "The next day, he got a memo from General Groves saying they'd have another bomb ready in a week or so. Truman's reply was immediate: no further bombs were to be dropped without his express authority. He told his cabinet he couldn't bear to kill "all those kids."

https://t.co/NvthB4Ymvd" / Twitter
https://twitter.com/wellerstein/status/1159801491064008705

Via #AstralCodexTen

#HarryTruman #AtomicBomb #WWII

"Before the spectacle, your models, mentors, and rivals were real people you knew in real life.  Now we have an acronym for that - IRL - because reality is everywhere in retreat."

Your Book Review: The Society Of The Spectacle
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-society-of-the

#AstralCodexTen

Are people generally aware of the spike in murders in the US following the #BLM protests in Spring 2020? Or is it surprising to learn this? Black Americans were disproportionately the victims.

There's a discussion at https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-caused-the-2020-homicide-spike

"Most of these points have already been made in right-wing sources, but have gone unnoticed because respectable people don’t read right-wing sources."

#AstralCodexTen

I'll also quote from one of the commenters, BronxZooCobra:

"“ it's never worked out like the techno-optimists have promised us it was going to work out.”
He says via a system of electrical impulses that are converted to pulses of light that flash along hair thin strands of glass under the ocean to propagate his thoughts to thousands of people around the world."

#progress #technology
#AstralCodexTen

There's another book review at https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-gervais-principle?s=r

#AstralCodexTen

@julm @ArneBab

"The Pax Americana playbook for international norm violations is: the US slaps sanctions on the offender. The EU expresses “concern”. The UN proposes a resolution condemning it, which gets vetoed by whichever Security Council member is most complicit. And the CIA secretly gives Stinger missiles to everyone involved."

#AstralCodexTen
#PaxAmericana
#ForeignPolicy

Ukraine Thoughts And Links - by Scott Alexander
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ukraine-thoughts-and-links?s=r

#Ukraine
#AstralCodexTen

@copacetic I'm a fan. Have a look at my #AstralCodexTen posts.

#JohnMaynardKeynes was a brilliant investor, making himself rich before he was 40. #FriedrichHayek managed his money so poorly that he had to sell his own library to the University of Freiburg to support his old age.

https://www.politico.com/story/2012/04/keynes-made-fortune-from-playing-market-well-075365

Via #AstralCodexTen

#economists #investors
#politico

"It turned out atomic bombs could initiate lithium-7 fusion after all! As Ord puts it, “of the two major thermonuclear calculations made that summer at Berkeley, they got one right and one wrong”. This doesn’t really seem like the kind of crazy anecdote you could tell in a civilization that was taking existential risk seriously enough."

#ExistentialRisk
#SlateStarCodex #AstralCodexTen

Here is the "Alexander Cube", an image showing the properties of #PredictionMarkets in early 2022.

Via https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-ukraine-cube-manifold

#AstralCodexTen

"He opposes euthanasia, which I interpret as demanding state-sponsored coercive violence to prevent torture victims from escaping, but I know other people interpret it differently."

(I am one of those other people, but that was nicely put.)

Book Review: Which Country Has The World's Best Health Care?
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-which-country-has-the

#euthanasia
#AstralCodexTen

"One day someone is mean to you on Twitter, and it’s cyberbullying and abuse and infliction of mental trauma. The next day you’re mean to someone else on Twitter, and did you know that tone policing via weaponized demands for civility entrenches the power of the already-privileged?"

Movie Review: Don't Look Up - by Scott Alexander
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/movie-review-dont-look-up

#AstralCodexTen