Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
There's an argument that we have to stop the slippery slope to banning real meat as soon as possible. I'm not sure how well it holds up.
Quantumfreakonomics
15d ago
EA had 46 billion dollars in committed funding in 2021, and was growing at 37% per year, according to 80000hrs.
Look at the date. How much of this "commitment" was from SBF?
Quantumfreakonomics
25d ago
They're trying to model it off of the Surgeon General's warning on cigarettes, which are obnoxious, but balanced out by the fact that smoking literally causes 5-20% of all deaths in the United States.
Quantumfreakonomics
25d ago
Massive L for our system of government. Who the hell wants to ban porn? And yet, it happened.
"TEXAS HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES WARNING: Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function."
"TEXAS HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES WARNING: Exposure to this content is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses."
"TEXAS HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES WARNING: Pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation, and child pornography."
Are these things even true?
Quantumfreakonomics
25d ago
People seem to be operating under the assumption that there is a set of deterministic “statuses”, and then there is a different set of non-deterministic free-will “choices”, but actually it’s all deterministic (modulo some weird quantum mechanical stuff).
Free will is essentially a legal fiction. It is incredibly useful, but it isn’t actually true. Yudkowsky’s decision theory paper uses the phrase “surgery on a world model” when describing how one considers counterfactuals. I think that is a good way to put it. In some sense it is impossible for someone who is homeless at any given time to have not been homeless, because in the physical universe that exists they are in fact homeless, but this isn’t very useful when designing a legal system that creates actual justice.
Quantumfreakonomics
26d ago
In theory, they could get Columbia to completely cave and put out a sufficiently groveling statement that it triggers a respectability cascade, causing all the other universities to cave and put out groveling statements. This would be followed by major media outlets, and finally the White House.
It's unlikely, but theoretically possible. It would be less crazy than the stuff that happened in 2020.
Quantumfreakonomics
22d ago
This seems like a textbook case of the law of undignified failure. The classical AI doom scenerios assumed that people would be smart enough not to build AI-powered killbots. If AI-powered killbots were floated as a load-bearing assumption of the classical AI doom case, then people would simply retort that we could just not build AI-powered killbots. The point of the classical AI doom case is that the problem is robust to minor implementation variance, not that AI-powered killbots are safe.
Quantumfreakonomics
18d ago
How bad is long-term use of ibuprofen really? Is taking 200mg twice a day going to wreck my GI tract or kidneys? What about only on workdays? What if I'm also on an ACE inhibitor?
Quantumfreakonomics
11d ago
That specific scenario may or may not be plausible. I don’t know how the federal government’s payroll software works, but that is the level that these things need to be analyzed on if you want a clear or definitive answer.
Quantumfreakonomics
21d ago
Middle-class Americans have enough disposable income that it isn't worth the inconvenience to scoop up minor discounts like these. People with higher marginal utility for money and less marginal utility for time will differ of course.
Quantumfreakonomics
27d ago
They got Starbucks locations to act as a public restroom for a few years. Not even that was able to stick.
Quantumfreakonomics
25d ago
You got me. My use of the word "justice" there was a poor choice. The word is used in a legal context as a colloquialism for "desirable outcomes". There's a fair bit of play in the joints of course, but you don't need a definition of justice that would satisfy Socrates to see that removing the idea of moral culpability from the legal system would result in a world much lower in ≈everybody's preference ordering than the one we have now.
“You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?'”
Indeed. Paul's answer falls short. As does everyone else's. Perhaps one day I will try my own hand on the question, though I suspect I lack the writing skill and attention span to make it coherent (not to mention the philosophical heft). I do have some ideas though.
Quantumfreakonomics
25d ago
especially Gorsuch reducing a professional to a stammering mess.
Kneedler is the government's third-string solicitor general. If they thought this case was important, they would have put Fletcher or Prelogar on it.
NBA Star Rudy Gobert misses game 2 of playoff series against the defending champs to attend the birth of his child.
Thoughts? Yeah, the birth of one's first child is a big moment, but this is also the biggest moment of the last 20 years for his team (who gave up quite a lot to get him I might add). Apparently, he was expected to just make it back in time for tip-off, but weather delays pushed his flight back. I'd be pretty pissed if I was a Timberwolves fan tbh.
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