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Calling all Lurkers: Share your Dreams of Effortposting

It’s been pointed out recently that the topics discussed in the Culture War thread have gotten a bit repetitive. While I do think the Motte has a good spread on intellectual discussion, I’m always pushing for a wider range (dare I say diversity?) of viewpoints and topics in the CW thread.

I was a lurker for years, and I know that the barrier between having a thought and writing a top level comment in the CW thread can loom large indeed. Luckily I’m fresh out of inspiration, and would love to hear thoughts from folks about effortposts they want to write but haven’t gotten around to.

This of course applies to regulars who post frequently as well - share any and all topics you wish were discussed in the CW thread!

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Here are some drafts I have, though not particularly CW.

  • Acetylcysteine as the first treatment for a cold/mucus in Spain but not in Britain

  • Ze Dreadful German In Ze Writings of Curtis Yarvin. I would respect the guy if he was a gentleman and a scholar, actually knew German and used it to better capture the Zeitgeist and express his Weltanschauung, but instead we get a Blitzkrieg of stilted phrases which annoy me.

  • Comparison of The Driver (1978), Driver (2011), Baby Driver (2017). Same plot, different decades.

  • Base rates of success dating docs.

  • Tetlock forecasting approach vs Subjective Bayesianism

  • My ideal prediction market playbook

  • Optimize hard or GTFO

  • A retelling of El Mio Cid, an Spanish epic poem where a recurring theme is that the hero would be a good and loyal knight if only he had a good king as lord.

  • A lot of shit on OpenPhilanthropy, FTX and EA.

  • Utilitarianism for Democrats

  • Utilitarianism for Republicans

  • Why are we not better, harder, faster, stronger

  • Updating in the face of anthropic effects is possible

  • Betting and consent

  • How to host an autarkic/uncensorable site.

  • Tetlock vs subjective bayesianism

  • Something on the limits of Bayesianism

  • I want to nerd out a bit on infrabayesianism / what one should do if one expects that one's hypothesis may not be able to represent future events.

  • Bounties, things I would pay for

  • My consulting rates

  • Criticism as a demand side problem

  • My preferred deviations from common English

  • Some observations on the speed of qalia

  • People's choices determine a pseudo ordering over people's desirability

This is more than what I would have though, typing this out.

I've been posting a stream of similar ideas on my blog (https://nunosempere.com/blog/), with an eye to those that I think could be more valuable. But if this community is particularly interested in any of these, I'll probably be happy to re-prioritize.

I'd be interested in any or all of these, and would pay for some of them if not for my desire to be anonymous. No strong preferences on topic though, which might be surprising, but the content of a post matters more than the topic - I've enjoyed review articles about something as trivial as the chemistry of paint drying before, while the average post on any topic is dull due to lack of inspiration and competence.

would pay for some of them if not for my desire to be anonymous

Happy to be paid in monero. You can reach out to me at nuno.semperelh@protonmail.com with a burner account.