Aaron Bergman's tweets, March 2022
Every public tweet, reply, quote tweet and retweet that Aaron Bergman (@AaronBergman18 on X, formerly Twitter) posted in March 2022 and has not deleted: 77 posts, oldest first, times in UTC. Each heading links to the original post on X. When Aaron replies to or quotes someone, their tweet appears as a blockquote with their name; those words are theirs, and everything outside the blockquotes is Aaron's.
This page is one month of the complete archive of Aaron Bergman's tweets, which updates automatically every few hours. Previous month: February 2022. Next month: April 2022.
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Reply to @ragipsoylu, 18:30 UTC · 1 like
Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu): ⚡️⚡️ Russian soldiers who lay down their weapons will be granted amnesty and money — Ukrainian Defense Minister
Did @eigenrobot just win Ukraine the war?
Tweet, 21:07 UTC · 7 likes
You listen to podcasts at 2x? That’s cool, I listen at .02x to avoid hearing the sound of my own voice https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/80k-after-hours-philosophy-of-the-80000-hours-podcast/
Thread, continued, 21:09 UTC · 7 likes
Thanks @robertwiblin and @KeiranJHarris for speaking with us!
Thursday, March 3, 2022
Reply to @replyallguy, 19:21 UTC · 3 likes
I take you seriously (@replyallguy): People seem to consistently overestimate everything:
Almost 1% of us are murdered? That’s way higher than I would have guessed
Friday, March 4, 2022
Tweet, 05:31 UTC · 1 like
Ferdinand de Saussure!" gang. Falsificationism and empiricism are overrated, fight me. https://www.qzzr.com/c/quiz/49304/17d1b70c-c863-4d2c-a5ed-4968c92773cf
Saturday, March 5, 2022
Reply to @metakuna, 00:56 UTC · 3 likes
metakuna (14/100 blog posts) (@metakuna): tell that to the Dutch tulip market
Tulips are still worth *something*
Reply to @mattyglesias, 19:31 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @mattyglesias is no longer available.)
Sir this is the one thing standing between us and panic/overwhelmed hospitals/societal collapse
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Reply to @notanastronomer, 16:20 UTC · 5 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @notanastronomer is no longer available.)
Maybe it’s in rubles
Monday, March 7, 2022
Reply to @lee_kovarsky, 01:26 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @lee_kovarsky is no longer available.)
It’s literally completely possible lol
Tweet, 08:08 UTC · 12 likes
After all this, it’s gonna be pretty funny if we go extinct bc the bees die out
Reply to @finmoorhouse, 20:36 UTC · 2 likes
Fin Moorhouse (@finmoorhouse): Big news: @effective_ideas has officially launched the second golden age of blogging!
Oh shit
Reply to @peterwildeford, 20:42 UTC · 4 likes
Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): What’s the best way to start a blog these days? Is it just substack?
Substack is the *easiest* afaik, which might mean it’s the best place to begin. The standardized aesthetic is both a blessing and a curse
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Reply to @Noahpinion, 00:40 UTC · 4 likes
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@Noahpinion): What the fuck
(quoting @GeringTuvia: "Why has Ukraine become Jewified, and why has Israel put up with it? It's because Wall Street wanted to plant a quasi-Israel in this problematic European region" - Beihang University Professor Zhang Wenmu offers his take on Ukraine. 1/5)
“We forced an AI to read the works of 10,000 midwit alt-right pseudo-intellectuals”
Reply to @eigenrobot, 02:00 UTC · 4 likes
eigenrobot (@eigenrobot): @Aella_Girl i think it probably depends alot on which wave you're talking about
my guess is there's perhaps a generation gap
What was the median age at vibecamp? Trying to figure out how much younger I am than y’all
Reply to @mattparlmer, 08:30 UTC · 2 likes
mattparlmer 🪐 🌷 (@mattparlmer): Evergreen tweet
(quoting @random_scrub: YOU ARE HERE)
Kinda, but only if you understand that physical limits stop the rice from accumulating after a few squares https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/
Reply to @fronkonymous, 17:47 UTC · 4 likes
frönk 🏳️⚧️⚧️🏳️🌈 (@fronkonymous): Omg. Someone on Reddit asked the community there what VibeCamp was and it’s hilarious to read through how it seems to the outside world. https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/t60mc7/what_is_vibecamp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Lol I wouldn’t call r/slatestarcodex the “outside world”
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Tweet, 03:40 UTC · 62 likes
Did I solve the ELK challenge? No. But did I win an ELK prize for beating ARC's counterexamples? No. But did my proposal become an "honorable mention?" Also no. But did my proposal make it to the *non*-honorable mentions section of the post? Yes!
https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/zjMKpSB2Xccn9qi5t/elk-prize-results#Train_in_simulation
Thread, continued, 03:41 UTC · 4 likes
If for some reason you want to see the actual proposal, DM me!
Reply, 15:23 UTC · 3 likes
Ay congrats! That’s legit pretty impressive IMO
Reply to @economeager, 19:23 UTC · 1 like
Rafe Meager (they/them) (@economeager): nothing will make me lose respect for you faster than if your study abstract says you have a gajillion observations but in fact the key variable you study only varies at a much, much higher level than these "observations" (so e.g. "treatment assignment" is at the cluster level)
What if I like robbed a store and stole a kid’s ice cream cone,
Reply to @economeager, 19:25 UTC · 2 likes
Rafe Meager (they/them) (@economeager): @AaronBergman18 nobody ever asks if the kid had bad vibes
We’ll assign vibes randomly at the neighborhood level (n=100 million)
Friday, March 11, 2022
Reply to @AndyMasley, 00:26 UTC · 2 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): Tooting my own horn here but I just found out I'm the third image search result for "vectors" honestly one of the things I'm most proud of in my career so far
👑
Reply to @BDMurray, 03:25 UTC · 2 likes
Bennett Murray (@BDMurray): Found a tank trap at a roadblock in Kyiv today with a plaque indicating that it's a WW2 antique brought out from a museum exhibit.
If I had to pick one piece of “art” that goes hard, this would be it (the whole setup, including plaque and background)
Tweet, 04:44 UTC · 15 likes
Holy shit, listening to @SBF_FTX on Cowen's podcast and realized that his story is an *almost-perfect* vignette to illustrate the dangers (and potential) of superintelligent AI.
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sam-bankman-fried/
(1/4)
Thread, continued, 04:44 UTC · 12 likes
Sam:
- Is super smart
- Acts rationally so as to achieve his goals
- Which involves accumulating resources
- Which he does by leveraging existing institutions/structures to extend his causal influence over the (financial) world
(2/4)
Thread, continued, 04:44 UTC · 9 likes
- Which is successful (because he is so smart), leaving him with control over a ton of resources (quick calculation says ~.0014% of all wealth on earth)
- Which he deploys rationally so as to achieve his goals
(3/4)
Thread, continued, 04:45 UTC · 7 likes
The only differences are that
1) He's <6 standard deviations above mean intelligence (no offense @SBF_FTX)
2) He's aligned with human values, thereby also demonstrating how *well* transformative AI can conceivably go!
(4/4)
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Reply to @reconfigurthing, 04:40 UTC · 4 likes
Elias Schmied (@reconfigurthing): @tszzl take a break see how it feels
two types of people
Reply to @growing_daniel, 05:06 UTC · 2 likes
Daniel (@growing_daniel): This has been the most taxing part of watching Ukraine footage
They’re into us
Reply to @TristanSevers, 17:03 UTC · 3 likes
Azathoth Liberation Front (@TristanSevers): @eigenrobot Donald Trump lol
He said “effectively”
Reply to @alexeyguzey, 21:56 UTC
Alexey Guzey (@alexeyguzey): people are waking up (literally)
note how naturally these changes occur: you simply get out of the psyop, your expectations of what you are supposed to feel change--and then you simply start to feel differently.
image attached
(quoting @alexeyguzey: I used to sleep the normal 7.5 hours a day. Over the last 180 days I have slept an average of 5 hours 57 minutes per day. So, after 2 years of experimentation and occasional deep dives into the scientific literature, here are my theses on sleep: https://guzey.com/theses-on-sleep/)
Not sure what your recommendation is specifically. I wouldn’t think that intentional sleep deprivation is adaptive in the same way that, say, fasting is because afaik there was no way to do wake oneself up before modern tech
Reply to @nominalthoughts, 23:00 UTC · 1 like
Jason Harrison (@nominalthoughts): Assigning presidents a grade just on how cool they are
Biden: B-
Trump: B+/A- (funny)
Obama: A+ (funny + black)
Bush 43: C-
Clinton: C-
Bush 41: C+
Reagan: A-
Carter: B-
Ford: D
Nixon: A
LBJ: A
Kennedy: B-
I’d rather hang out with Biden than Trump
Sunday, March 13, 2022
Reply to @RichardMCNgo, 17:32 UTC · 2 likes
Richard Ngo (@RichardMCNgo): The EA/rationalist community has both the strongest transactional norms I've seen (willingness to assign monetary values to favours) and also the least concern for who has which money (it's used for the same causes regardless).
Either is great. Both at once is weird...
As long as the latter dial isn’t set to it’s maximum, I don’t think there’s any internal inconsistency. As other commenters mention, prices are a credible signal of how much you want something done - as long as you lose *some* utility by giving up your own
Reply to @tszzl, 17:34 UTC · 3 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @tszzl is no longer available.)
Best part is calling him “bro”
Reply to @finmoorhouse, 18:15 UTC · 2 likes
Fin Moorhouse (@finmoorhouse): I wrote about some EA projects I'd like to see —
Awesome! Only disagreement is that I think the s-process strongly dominates quadratic funding https://survivalandflourishing.fund/s-process
Reply, 19:25 UTC · 1 like
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
I mean I think real source is “i \equiv\sqrt{-1}” ie you can define a constant to be whatever you want
Monday, March 14, 2022
Reply to @MWStory, 03:52 UTC · 8 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @MWStory is no longer available.)
And the number who have time/energy to create
Reply to @calebwatney, 16:37 UTC · 8 likes
Caleb Watney (@calebwatney): 👀
Depends who the “you” is! Emergent Ventures applicants aren’t like a slightly skewed sample of smart young people” - they’re a sample of the 10% most predisposed to be into EA. Id bet self-identified EAs would *overestimate* the % of smart young people who also identify as an EA
Tweet, 20:41 UTC · 5 likes
Ok hear me out: Fight to federally legalize polyamorous marriage -> marry everyone in the developing world -> de facto immigration liberalization -> cut poverty and double the world economy 🌐🌐🌐
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Reply to @nickcammarata, 19:06 UTC · 2 likes
Nick (@nickcammarata): I want to be more pro gov and regulation and stuff than I am today, what should I read?
The Entrepreneurial State https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0857282522/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_G2E4C221N3TMYGMBZP4G
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Reply to @PradyuPrasad, 01:32 UTC · 4 likes
Pradyumna 🇸🇬 (@PradyuPrasad): I need a good book on Chinese monetary policy and reserves management. Do you know of any?
Dude you’re in high school, you don’t *need* a book on Chinese monetary policy lmao
Reply to @PradyuPrasad, 02:28 UTC · 2 likes
Pradyumna 🇸🇬 (@PradyuPrasad): @AaronBergman18 I mean I'm in national service now...
Right - now you *definitely* need this book
Reply to @TheBaltimoreSon, 19:16 UTC · 4 likes
NACARA Delevigne (@TheBaltimoreSon): @replyallguy @AaronBergman18 @StefanFSchubert I’m pretty sure the homicide rate in the US is not 70 per 100,000. In 2018 it was 5.0 per 100K. It has probably risen to 7 not 70. And 7 out of 100K is much lower than 1%
Yeah, the 1% means that ~1% of deaths are caused by murder
Reply to @DogIsABot, 21:29 UTC · 7 likes
DogBot (@DogIsABot): @tszzl remember getting into intense political arguments with my grade 6 teacher. very cringe.
No, based
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Reply to @IXianVernius, 18:54 UTC · 1 like
The IXian🥃🧭 (@IXianVernius): This may not be a meme but it is absolutely a joke.
U mean the reverse, no?
Saturday, March 19, 2022
Reply to @YIMBY_Princeton, 13:25 UTC · 3 likes
Central NJ Yimby 🇺🇸🚲🏙 (@YIMBY_Princeton): Was walking around my neighborhood tonight with some friends and my 5-yo daughter met a girl her own age who she quickly declared was “her best friend ever”. I met the kid’s dad and I asked him where they lived. He said “Avalon Bay”. i.e. the development I YIMBYed hard in 2013!!
W
Reply to @fermatslibrary, 14:52 UTC · 18 likes
Fermat's Library (@fermatslibrary): Here's an interesting limit
Tweet, 19:26 UTC · 1 like
After too long a hiatus, new post about my experience making a podcast episode with @robertwiblin and @KeiranJHarris, which appeared on @80000Hours' new secondary feed a few weeks ago (linking below)
https://aaronbergman.substack.com/p/rob-and-keiran-on-the-philosophy-3f7?s=w
Sunday, March 20, 2022
Reply to @thisisbenphelps, 00:24 UTC · 19 likes
Ben Phelps (@thisisbenphelps): Remember that time California judges ordered UC Berkeley to cut its enrollment for "environmental reasons" under CEQA and then like 2 days later the state changed the law to override them
Hello, I don’t know who you are but thought you might appreciate that your profile pic is one of the first things I posted to Instagram almost nine years ago
Reply to @dwarkesh_sp, 01:08 UTC · 2 likes
Dwarkesh Patel (@dwarkesh_sp): The myth of the myth of the well read person
But do you think this gives the well read person a meaningful advantage above and beyond the traits that caused him/her to study so much? In other words, are there steeply diminishing marg returns to general knowledge?
Reply to @mattyglesias, 20:29 UTC
(The tweet being replied to by @mattyglesias is no longer available.)
Lol, like asking “should people do the right thing or the wrong thing” and only 52% say “right”
Monday, March 21, 2022
Reply to @Scientific_Bird, 15:09 UTC · 8 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @Scientific_Bird is no longer available.)
I mean linear extrapolation probably overestimates the true counterfactual. I assume even very overweight people eventually plateau
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
Reply to @JacobPeacock1, 16:42 UTC · 2 likes
Jacob Peacock 🔎 (@JacobPeacock1): Highly ranked @Metaculus forecasters find "54% probability that less than 100,000 metric tons of cultured meat [...] sold at any price in a 12-month period before the end of 2051." New research by @NJDullaghan & @LinchZhang @RethinkPriors
:(
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Reply to @depthsofwiki, 02:31 UTC · 2 likes
depths of wikipedia! (@depthsofwiki): career where you reject men and then tell the government
Arbitrage finds a way
Reply to @AnonRetriever, 12:36 UTC · 2 likes
retriever (@AnonRetriever): @metakuna Well the consequence (reduced animal suffering) is still there so I think it should be encouraged :)
If vegan than yes. But there are a bunch of people replacing beef with chicken bc climate which is just really bad for animal suffering
Reply to @keirbradwell, 12:41 UTC · 1 like
Keir Bradwell (@keirbradwell): my own personal beautiful iceberg
Street artists - care to explain?
Reply to @xsphi, 12:57 UTC · 2 likes
tess (@xsphi): this, but unironically
(quoting @plumnotes: Here's a cool thought experiment: what if killing gay people was really fun? whoa! hold your horses! it's just a philosophical exercise buddy, calm down. that mental resistance you feel means we've hit on an opportunity for growth. keep an open mind, you might learn something ;))
Also, this is a totally reasonable thought experiment because it implies that killing people is bad even if it’s fun. That’s the right lesson!
Thread, continued, 12:58 UTC · 2 likes
Would be different (though not necessarily wrong to consider) if the thought exp was crafted in such a way to be ethically misleading
Reply to @keirbradwell, 13:39 UTC · 1 like
Keir Bradwell (@keirbradwell): take up lots of valuable public space without paying rent like anyone else would (see especially the ones who do giant chalk drawings and the like)
Ya fair enough but not sure it deserves its place that far down lol
Reply, 13:40 UTC · 2 likes
This is the answer right here
Reply to @PradyuPrasad, 13:59 UTC · 24 likes
Pradyumna 🇸🇬 (@PradyuPrasad): my theory of genius in the internet age: a lot of young kids are very smart, but their time is taken away by school and other unproductive obligations. if you're a kid who can do 12th grade math at age 12, the best thing possible for you is that you self learn it on youtube
Eh IQ isn’t highly correlated enough with conscientiousness to make this work, I think. Getting yourself to actually learn stuff online without social pressure externally-imposed expectations and deadlines requires a ton of executive function
Thread, continued, 13:59 UTC · 3 likes
I mean it will for some of those 12 year olds, but genius or intelligence alone isn’t a sufficient condition
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Tweet, 00:00 UTC · 3 likes
(CW: shilling for trillion dollar corporation)
Getting a new laptop after five yrs, and it's weird that the MacBook Pro's screen brightness is basically not advertised at all. It's literally 2.5 times brighter (per sq in) than the 2017 Air and 4 times brighter than some laptops.
Thread, continued, 00:00 UTC · 1 like
Like idc all that much how fancy or fast or modern all the hardware inside is. I want to be able to to fry my own irises with visible-spectrum radiation if I so choose! And basically no other laptop models come close in this regard
Friday, March 25, 2022
Reply to @prerat, 02:43 UTC · 7 likes
prerat (@prerat): a mysterious economist approaches you, offering a bet
flip a coin
• if heads, you gain 50%
• if tails, you lose 40%assuming you're not particularly risk-averse or anti-betting in general, is this a good bet?
what if you could play 100 times in a row?
FYI the reason the second doesn’t hold up is because it’s implicitly telling you to consider the median result instead of the mean. Consider two consecutive flips starting with $1. Outcomes are: 2.25 with p=.25; .9 with p=.5; .36 with p=.25.
Reply to @NathanpmYoung, 15:06 UTC · 2 likes
Nathan 🔎 (@NathanpmYoung): Often calling 1000 1 and 1 1000 is a more damaging error.
It does more harm to mix up good and great good than small goods and evils.
I’d argue mixing -1 and -1000 is worst of all
Reply to @keithwynroe, 19:13 UTC · 2 likes
Keith Wynroe (@keithwynroe): @AaronBergman18 @prerat Kelly Criterion maximises the median and it’s pretty popular and influential in finance, has a lot of nice properties. Wouldn’t say that line of thinking “doesn’t hold up”
Yeah basically agree. I was taking “not particularly risk averse” to mean “totally risk neutral,” but admit it could mean instead “a typical degree of risk aversion” in which case median is a better proxy for utility
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Reply to @mechanical_monk, 00:36 UTC · 2 likes
monk (@mechanical_monk): dearth of alcohol
no mixers
too lazy to go convenience store
wat do
then, stroke of genius
vodka + milk + maple syrup
good shit
cheers brothers
These are linearly independent in the space of edible liquids
Reply to @Ben_Reinhardt, 17:27 UTC · 3 likes
Ben Reinhardt (@Ben_Reinhardt): I have a weirdly strong conviction that people consistently overestimate what can be achieved in five years but we underestimate what can be achieved in 20.
Is this a real phenomena? Is there any evidence behind it?
Don’t have empirical evidence, but I’m guessing it’s the result of a mental model in which people force a linear model on top of an exponential curve, so the line is above the curve until, say, t=10 years and then the order switches
Reply to @fat_ugly_rat, 17:38 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @fat_ugly_rat is no longer available.)
Cool but this should probably include a scale/legend. Something tells me a big difference in color doesn’t correspond to that large of a quantitative difference
Monday, March 28, 2022
Reply to @Aella_Girl, 16:17 UTC · 6 likes
Aella (@Aella_Girl): schools should include a class called Truth Is Hard, where u get bombarded with examples of confused eyewitnesses, incorrect public outrages, studies that failed to replicate, super convincing arguments that fall apart with one additional fact u didn't expect, etc.
And some of the reverse! Arguments/stories that sound literally unbelievable but are totally sound/true
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Reply to @FTC, 16:46 UTC · 20 likes
FTC (@FTC): New: FTC sues Intuit for its deceptive Turbotax “free” filing campaign. Commission seeks an immediate halt to Intuit’s deceptive ads for “free” products: https://bit.ly/3NGDVUm
Get ‘em
(gif, plays on X)
Reply to @tszzl, 20:04 UTC · 4 likes
roon (@tszzl): introduced myself yesterday as a “AI normie in the sam altman sense”
What percent of the English-speaking world population would understand this sentence?
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Tweet, 23:13 UTC · 14 likes
Cool book but I mostly just want to know whether capitalizing the T was an intentional or strategic decision @willmacaskill https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541618629/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_2YM76XF6E492FNQ9B6D3
Thread, continued, 23:16 UTC · 4 likes
Hmm
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Reply, 21:44 UTC · 3 likes
This can and should be a meme format
Thread, continued, 21:56 UTC · 10 likes
End of March 2022. Previous month: February 2022. Next month: April 2022. Back to the archive index.