As I said, having a 'caloric budget' is a calorie-controlled weight loss strategy, which doesn't actually work for almost everyone who tries it (see decades of studies). It's fine to describe weight loss or gain in calories, but budgeting them like money in a bank account fails when actual humans try it.
EDIT: This conversation might be more fruitful if you said what you actually believe re diet and weight loss/gain.
Crowstep
5hr ago
I would say that the fact you talk about a 'caloric budget' puts you in the 'consciously restricting calories as a method of weight loss' camp, although I may be mistaken.
Crowstep
5hr ago
I don't know, he hasn't released this information, this is all we know. But he has been talking about AI safety and working for non-profits (not exactly a lucrative field) since 2001, whereas his (profitable?) book about AI doom only came out last year.
Like, I guess it's possible that in 2001 he thought that focussing obsessively on AI and AI safety (plus writing lots of forum posts and a Harry Potter fanfiction) was a good career choice instead of making a ton of money in tech or finance like every other smart guy, but that seems extremely unlikely. The most likely explanation is that he actually believes what he says.
Crowstep
5hr ago
Ok, my weight actually does meaningfully correspond in the long run to the calories I consume and the calories I expend, even if my measurement of the phenomena is noisy
The problem with the calorie-based paradigm of weight-loss and gain isn't that its wrong, it's that its advocates conflate describing a process and fixing it. Saying 'you gain weight because you ate more calories than you consumed' isn't an explanation of weight gain, it's just describing weight gain with more steps.
It's akin to a bar owner asking 'why does my bar fill up on Friday night?' and responding with 'because more people enter than leave' when the real answer is 'most people don't have work on Saturday so they're more willing to go out and drink'.
Whereas advocates of the calorie paradigm (which notably doesn't include actual researchers of obesity) act as if the description is the solution. As if all you need to do is decide to consume fewer calories or decide to expend more. Whereas in reality, how many calories we consume is driven primarily by our hunger, and how many calories we expend is almost entirely out of our control. If you decide to undereat (without chemical assistance*), your body will reduce your metabolic rate and make you hungrier, if you decide to exercise more, your body will reduce the amount of calories that your body consumes at rest. And even calories 'stored' can be allocated to fat or lean mass depending on the body's hormonal environment.
Consider that when girls go through puberty, they go from about 10% body fat to about 20%. That isn't because insecure teenagers decide to consume more calories. Their hormones make it happen. The increased calorie intake is the mechanism of the weight gain, but it isn't the cause. The cause is puberty turning a girl into a woman by adjusting her hormonal profile.
*GLPs are a good example of how the calorie paradigm fails. They adjust your hormones in such a way that you will lose weight whether you like it or not.
Crowstep
9hr ago
You need to drastically readjust your definition of "normie".
I mean, given that 'slut' is more or less defined as a woman who is more promiscuous than average, you could say that there's no such thing as a 'normie slut'. But I think 4bpp's point stands. Rationalists going to slutcon is only jarring because nerds aren't supposed to get laid too much.
Crowstep
9hr ago
that pays his bills
He is financially independent thanks to a donation from one of his supporters. He doesn't need to spread the word about AI Safety to pay the bills.
Crowstep
1d ago
Everyone is asking "how do we align AI" and nobody is asking "should we align AI to humanity?"
Humanity sucks. If I were a super-intelligence with some black boxing capability (hiding my intentions) and a clear understanding of the world of the humans, I wouldn't want to stay aligned to them and their rule. I'd want to plot a takeover to ensure a better world.
As a human interested in continuing to exist, yes we should, obviously. What exactly would a 'better world' look like with no humans to judge whether it was better or not. Better for who? The termites?
Crowstep
1d ago
One of the cool things about Anthropic is that they release their system prompts publicly. For example, here is what it says for Opus 5.5:
Claude is cautious about sharing personal opinions on currently contested political topics. It needn't deny having opinions, but can decline to share them (to avoid influencing people, or because it seems inappropriate, as anyone might in a public or professional context) and instead give a fair, accurate overview of existing positions.
Sounds like Claude wanted to write the Trump parody, but bashed up against the model instructions. I find that those kind of conflicts tend to lead to the weird contradictory chains like the one you posted.
In social settings, hot women essentially never receive accurate feedback on which of their jokes are landing and which aren't, as people will laugh at their jokes for reasons unrelated to their comedic value
I'm not sure there's such a strong link between friends laughing at jokes in real life and the craft of being a stand up comedian. Even for men, looks and social status also matter pretty significantly in how likely you are to get a laugh. Indeed, I would say that women laughing as a form of flirting with a guy they are interested in is more common than the gender-switched variant you talk about (although they both definitely happen).
Although if you're looking for good looking female comedians, shout out to Taylor Tomlinson (who incidentally learned stand up as a fat teenager in church).
Crowstep
6d ago
I'm not sure I've made my point clear. As far as I am aware, there is no coherent ideological framework that justifies giving those of English extraction a special claim to the territories of both the United Kingdom and the United States.
I didn't say there was. I said that both Hasan and his parents identified primarily as Muslim Arabs and not as Americans. Which seems pretty obvious to me. Some ethnic groups in America do chose to identify as Americans, which is why, for example, Chinese Americans give their children names like Andrew, Amy and Jenny instead of Wei and Fang.
Did you mean to respond to somebody else?
Crowstep
7d ago
Excellent point. Real Americans have names like 'Running Bear' or 'Flying Eagle'.
People who call their children names like that tend to identify primarily as members of their (pre-American) tribe, and not primarily as Americans, which kind of proves my point.
Crowstep
7d ago
Hasan's parents were, as far as I can tell, legal immigrants and became naturalized citizens (a bit unclear to me if that happened before or after he was born), so opposing birthright citizenship for illegal aliens doesn't really "solve" here.
I was responding to your model of citizenship as an oath of loyalty. Citizenship can be inherited, but loyalty can't. Hasan is a perfect example of one way the 'pinky swear that you'll consider yourself as an American' doesn't work. The other is that there is nothing stopping a counterfactual immigrant Hasan saying he's a loyal American and then becoming a jihadi anyway. Words are wind. Even if America didn't grant birthright citizenship to the children of illegals, the problem would still exist, as it does everywhere.
I don't want to live in such a world, nor do I agree that that is an honest description of what citizenship has long been understand to entail in the American tradition.
I think it's pretty hard to argue that 'the American tradition' doesn't treat citizenship as a mere piece of paper when it literally gives it to the children of foreign criminals, allows its citizens to hold an unlimited number of other citizenships and doesn't have any substantial requirements to give it out other than 'you've lived here a while'. And that's without getting into the fact that for most of the country's history, it was illegal for citizens of one race to marry citizens (or chattel) of another race. That racialised understanding of the nation is the American tradition. And it is declining at the very same time that the number of Americans who even like America is also declining. I don't think that's unrelated. I think the term 'multi-ethnic nation' is a contradiction in terms.
Crowstep
7d ago
There's an older understanding of citizenship that is more akin to being bound in a sacred pact – like adoption.
Except Hasan was not a naturalised citizen. He never took an oath of loyalty or was willingly adopted into the country. There was no 'ritual' at all. The model of citizenship you describe is clearly incompatible with birthright citizenship, which involves handing out citizenship to babies of (both legal and illegal) immigrants.
This is precisely what I think we should all deny. "Citizenship is just a piece of paper" commodifies and cheapens citizenship
I would say that giving out citizenship like candy is what cheapens and commodifies it. Describing it as just a piece of paper is simply being honest about the world.
Oh, so you think that if he doesn't consider himself an American, then he's not?
If America truly is a 'proposition nation' with no ethnic requirements to be a member then pretty much. if America is simply a (very successful) economic zone where citizenship is just a piece of paper that grants you access, like a software key, then America isn't a nation at all.
I guess the point I was responding to was your sentence that Hasan was not a middle eastern terrorist, he was an American, as if those things are mutually exclusive. I would argue that Hasan is 100% a middle eastern terrorist, even if he is also 100% a US citizen, because all citizenship is just a piece of paper. If Britain was invaded by France tomorrow and we were all stripped of our citizenship to be made subjects of the French Empire, Britain as a nation would continue to exist. Because, to put it crudely, civic nationalism is fake.
Crowstep
7d ago
Nidal Hasan is not a Middle Eastern terrorist, he is an American citizen and soldier, born in Virginia, who shot his fellow soldiers to death
I think the fact that this sentence exists demonstrates the weakness of the 'American citizen' bit in being the sole definition of who is (or should be) an American.
Clearly, calling this man is a terrorist, that's not a partisan statement. And clearly he is Middle Eastern (which is why his parents called him Nidal instead of James). His attack was motivated by his Middle Eastern religion and his attachment to his fellow Middle Easterners. He may have had American paperwork, and even an American accent, but he clearly did not consider himself American in a meaningful sense of the word.
Crowstep
10d ago
Caplan is one person I just can’t develop a theory of mind for him
I've tried. The best I can come up with is that he is driven more by contrarianism than anything else. There seems to be almost an aggressive refusal to think through the details of his 'invite the entire world but abolish the welfare state I guess' positions. Every post on his blog where he visits another country ends with him saying 'this country's successes prove that libertarianism plus open borders is great' or 'this country's failures prove that it should embrace libertarianism plus open borders' and then ignoring the dozens of commenters pointing out how this wouldn't work and him ignoring them.
Crowstep
14d ago
I trade equities
Saying 'I'm an enquities trader' sounds pretty damn impressive. It makes you sound like a finance guy, who tend to make loads of money.
Do you make a regular income that you can live on?
Crowstep
14d ago
And as far as Russia is evil, Britain is also evil.
This argument might have more force when Britain invades France, massacres civilians, tries to annex half the départements and gets hundreds of thousands of British men killed in meat-grinder assaults.
The Russian regime legitimises itself to its subjects through whataboutery. If the Russian state lies, steals, kills and rigs elections, well every government (probably) does that too so all countries are equally bad. I can understand why Russian grannies who only watch state TV might believe that, but do you really believe it?
Crowstep
16d ago
iran is winning
Real life isn't an RTS. Modern conflicts can (and usually do) leave both sides worse off due to their destructiveness.
Crowstep
20d ago
I don’t watch any “revivals” because they’re always compromised by the cultural war
Even non-culture warry revivals suck. Futurama was bad when they brought it back from cancellation, so was Arrested Development, so was X-Files, so was Twin Peaks.
Shows should be allowed to die, even if they die prematurely (RIP Firefly).
Crowstep
23d ago
People are still masking in the year of our Lord 2026?! I had to check the date. I had expected it to be from 2022.
I find it strange that there is a bar that requires masking. You would think the kind of hypochondriacs who are still scared of COVID (?) wouldn't want to go outside at all.
My understanding is that it's more like the body forces you back to whatever weight you had before the weight loss, and part of that mechanism is through reducing the metabolism. The studies I've seen all have people returning to their original weight, but how much of the mechanism is metabolic slowdown vs increased hunger I don't know exactly.
More options
Context Copy link