Aaron Bergman's tweets, August 2023
Every public tweet, reply, quote tweet and retweet that Aaron Bergman (@AaronBergman18 on X, formerly Twitter) posted in August 2023 and has not deleted: 689 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: July 2023. Next month: September 2023.
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Tweet, 03:07 UTC · 757 likes
This obesity thing is like the biggest possible nerdsnipe. A huge mystery that affects billions of people, with tons of data and no satisfying answers as of yet.
Like how does Iran have an obesity rate *~12 times higher* than Vietnam, a country of very similar wealth?
Tweet, 03:07 UTC · 108 likes
If someone figured out how to combine this and the sleeping beauty problem it would be over for me
Reply, 03:15 UTC · 7 likes
There’s not enough room on this app for the both of us 😤 https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/the-answer-to-the-sleeping-beauty
Tweet, 12:11 UTC · 19 likes
I am calling for a total and complete shutdown on history until we can figure out what the hell is going on
Tweet, 12:11 UTC · 4 likes
[master mechanistic interpretability]
Reply, 12:46 UTC · 4 likes
Yes this should be a priority!
Reply to @AndyMasley, 14:50 UTC · 2 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): I remember in college hyper cultural relativism about ethics was pretty common, where people would imply that all the smart people knew ethics was fake and that any general statement about good and bad stuff happening in other countries was wrong, but that seems to have died down
Moral realism go brr
Reply, 15:12 UTC · 38 likes
In all seriousness, having good heuristics and intuition for who to listen to on any matter seems like a single skill - you don’t need to be an expert on everything, just on expertise
Tweet, 15:16 UTC · 55 likes
If anyone is >90% sure either way about the superconductor, I’ll bet $100 at 1:10 odds that you’re wrong
Reply, 15:29 UTC · 8 likes
Yeah I don’t expect anyone to take me up on this. It’s like 40% rhetorical bc I’m seeing some confident takes
Reply, 15:45 UTC · 11 likes
Is “smoke this out” a real thing British ppl say? Bc I wanna culturally appropriate it
Reply, 15:52 UTC · 2 likes
Right. It’s not exactly antidemocratic, but it’s definitely undemocratic
Reply to @ryancbriggs, 16:32 UTC · 3 likes
Ryan Briggs (@ryancbriggs): A nice illustration of why targeting happiness as the key outcome for EA is bad. Few women now would want to go back to the 1970s, even though according to happiness they were clearly better off. What we care about is much richer than happiness.
(quoting @Douthat60: Male and female happiness since the Sexual Revolution (but pre-Covid), discuss:)
I mean I think there are some methodological issues with much of the happiness literature but, no, I strongly disagree
What do you propose is the truer or more fundamental moral good?
Reply, 17:21 UTC · 3 likes
Wdym “posting it back to them”? Like just sending it in the GC or threatening to send some screenshot to an authority of some sort?
Reply, 18:26 UTC · 2 likes
in that case based
Reply, 18:28 UTC · 29 likes
That's interesting - I'm guessing this would erase the particular vietnam vs iran mystery
Tweet, 21:16 UTC · 22 likes
Does anyone have a thought experiment that demonstrates why a coherent ethical theory can’t have the Pareto principle, transitivity, and impartiality?
Bc if not and it just “falls out of the math,” I’m skeptical that the math is modeling the right thing

Tweet, 21:16 UTC · 3 likes
From https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/holden-karnofsky-how-ai-could-take-over-the-world/
Reply, 21:37 UTC · 2 likes
wait I don't understand - often math is a formal way of proving some claim but it's possible to turn the intuition or smth like that into a story
By "just," I mean like for whatever reason the story part isn't possible or at least nobody's been able to come up with a good one
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 21:48 UTC · 12 likes
Aaron Bergman, August 1, 2023: From https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/holden-karnofsky-how-ai-could-take-over-the-world/
Kinda sus
More specifically I'm skeptical that the existence of a bijection between the (accurate, lets grant) algebraic models of two worlds necessarily implies that they are of equal moral value

Tweet, 21:49 UTC · 3 likes
I also don't get which of the three properties listed above this puts into conflict
Quote tweet, 21:53 UTC · 5 likes
Am I allowed to say 'big if true' on my own tweet
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Kinda sus
More specifically I'm skeptical that the existence of a bijection between the (accurate, lets grant) algebraic models of two worlds necessarily implies that they are of equal moral value
Reply to @absurdlymax, 23:45 UTC · 2 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): Isn't it not clear that infinite ethics is a thing we have to worry about
You must worry about it I hereby command
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Reply to @fectin, 01:28 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @fectin is no longer available.)
No I think u owe me $900
Quote tweet, 03:02 UTC · 2 likes
Could y’all just chill out a bit? Thx


Quoting sympathetic opposition (@sympatheticopp): i knew a southern lesbian who wanted a gf really bad so she decided to be a rules girl. it did not work
Tweet, 03:12 UTC · 3 likes
I may have meant 10:1
Like my $100 to ur $1k
Complaints can be directed to my assistant
Reply, 03:13 UTC · 15 likes
This man looks like the head of a prestigious international commission on something serious
Reply, 03:26 UTC · 2 likes
Not even a feature, I’d just rather pay $100 up front for a lifetime and then have our incentives at least not be at odds bc there’s no way to get more money out of me
Hinge etc are actively incentivized to keep people using the app ie not get into happy relationships quickly
Quote tweet, 10:14 UTC · 23 likes
New avocado just dropped https://www.axios.com/2023/07/24/avocado-guacamole-luna-hass-chipotle
Quoting Valentin (@wannabegroncho): Just told 2 of my normie engineer colleagues about the superconductor and they glossed over and asked me if I had seen the "new avocado that was recently developed" we are so early
Reply, 10:37 UTC · 4 likes
@JesseTayRiver could be u 👍
Reply, 14:04 UTC · 3 likes
🔥🔥🔥
Tweet, 18:18 UTC · 6 likes
I feel like there might be big money arbitraging the fact that employed US college grads 22-26 receive health insurance worth >$10k (I think) as compensation, but are legally allowed to stay on their parents’ plan (which is often better coverage)
Reply, 19:58 UTC · 3 likes
I mean to state the obvious, by default for profit companies don’t do philanthropy bc why would they?
Still, that’s just a broad prior. Assuming Altman and co are basically earnest/sincere (maybe wrong tbc) about their beliefs, it’s actually kinda weird they haven’t…
Reply, 20:03 UTC · 5 likes
I regret to report I’m with Martin on this one
Reply, 20:20 UTC · 2 likes
My rooms temperature <<< room temperature
Quote tweet, 20:22 UTC · 11 likes
Understanding this sentence is a perfect proxy for being Very Online
Quoting no longer respecting gardenias (@NLRG_it): oh no the superconductor catgirl is a tankie
Reply, 22:45 UTC · 6 likes
My favorite quadrant is Weird and Good
Reply, 22:57 UTC · 4 likes
Huh, thanks and super interesting
Reply to @levelsio, 22:59 UTC · 2 likes
@levelsio (@levelsio): I never understand why fold into wall beds never became a big thing
Instantly add a giant space for living to any room when not sleeping
Seems like it should be a big thing now as everyone’s tight on space with rent and housing prices?
But my pile of clothes would fall all over
Reply, 23:01 UTC · 5 likes
Not letting everyone move here
Idk if this is considered foreign policy
Reply, 23:04 UTC · 8 likes

Reply to @Kirsten3531, 23:29 UTC · 1 like
Kirsten (@Kirsten3531): Feel like pure shit just want him back (the baby) 😔
Nobody tells u this but you can take as many babies as u want from the local daycare, they’re free
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Reply, 01:12 UTC · 2 likes
They’re also free to make at home!!
Quote tweet, 01:27 UTC · 9 likes
Uh you should absolutely not have “a great deal of confidence in the a scientific community”
Quoting John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch): A tragic story in two charts:
1) It never used to be the case, but there is now a big partisan gap for trust in science in the US. Republicans are now essentially the anti-science party, while Dems are stridently pro
Reply, 01:33 UTC · 7 likes
Based
Reply, 01:42 UTC · 2 likes
Oh come on Biden is not profoundly corrupt
Tweet, 02:56 UTC · 8 likes
Tragically, my father’s entries did not place in the 2023 iPhone Photography Awards
But I think this one of my sister (and a few more below) are pretty good!

Tweet, 02:56 UTC · 1 like
Me circa 2016

Thread, continued, 02:56 UTC · 1 like
Idk circa idk

Tweet, 02:56 UTC · 2 likes
I think Barcelona, 2016

Tweet, 02:56 UTC · 1 like
More at http://michaelbergmanphotography.com
(Thx to chatGPT for the coding help)
Thread, continued, 02:56 UTC · 1 like
Winning photos at https://www.ippawards.com/2023-winning-photographers/
Quote tweet, 03:36 UTC · 8 likes
Scientist’s gf: would u love me if I were a worm? 🥺
Scientist:
Quoting Reuters (@Reuters): These 46,000-year-old worms were brought back to life after scientists defrosted them from the Siberian permafrost
Reply, 04:59 UTC · 2 likes
The only good thing about him
Tweet, 08:44 UTC · 33 likes

Thread, continued, 08:44 UTC
There’s got to be a better meme template for this
Quote tweet, 09:35 UTC · 63 likes
Kinda confused about the hype here
Aren’t there a bazillion things that work in vitro and in mice and not in humans, or at least not well/safely?
Quoting /home/~j0ule (@gigaj0ule): Small molecule oral cancer drug kills 100% of solid tumors across 70 evaluated cancer types in vitro and in animal models with a therapeutic index of 6 and no discernible side effects
Phase 1 trials now underway
https://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/pdfExtended/S2451-9456(23)00221-0
Reply, 10:09 UTC · 11 likes
Not load bearing (fox is a surprise - I’ve only seen one a handful of times)

Reply to @sguyenet, 15:45 UTC · 3 likes
Stephan J. Guyenet (@sguyenet): That said, this is going to phase 1 human trials, which already makes it more promising than 99% of stuff that gets tested in cells and mice
Thanks - do u have an approximate or best guess for P(hits market eventually | starts phase 1) ?
Reply to @ilex_ulmus, 15:49 UTC · 5 likes
Holly ⏸️ Elmore (@ilex_ulmus): For my birthday, can you describe me as you if I had amnesia and you were trying to remind me of myself?
U are holly elmore from twitter
Reply to @ilex_ulmus, 15:58 UTC · 2 likes
Holly ⏸️ Elmore (@ilex_ulmus): @AaronBergman18 😆
It’s also ur birthday so happy birthday
Tweet, 16:29 UTC · 18 likes

Reply to @TheAtlantic, 16:59 UTC · 4 likes
The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic): An internet personality who goes by Bronze Age Pervert has become a leading cultural figure on the far right, with fans on Capitol Hill and even in the Secret Service. @gcaw reports on how a fascist bodybuilder came to threaten American liberalism: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/bronze-age-pervert-costin-alamariu/674762/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=true-anthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Tragic: the Atlantic is ahead on me on knowing about some niche internet thing
Quote tweet, 17:09 UTC
Let’s see if the tribes divide:
assume in 6 months there are no big revelations and the Twitelligentsia consensus is that Gino committed fraud and then instigated a frivolous and bad faith lawsuit.
Does this warrant cancellation? Poll below
Quoting Jonatan Pallesen (@jonatanpallesen): If this lawsuit succeeds, that would be a catastrophic blow to science.
That would essentially mean that people could not make even the most careful and obviously true allegation of fraud, without huge financial risk.
If fraud can't be punished, there will be (even) more of it
Reply to @davidmanheim, 19:00 UTC · 1 like
David Manheim (@davidmanheim): News: OpenAI has filed a trademark request for GPT-5, is planning to integrate audio. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7092524003159920641-N7MR
Can I nab GPT-6 for something random?
Tweet, 20:22 UTC · 13 likes
Unhinged art idea:
A war (or other disaster) film, shown at a hospital-turned-cinema, where (w/ informed consent duh) viewers each start with a saline IV drip, but these become full anesthesia as quickly as is safe to one random viewer whenever a character dies
Tweet, 20:22 UTC · 2 likes
Like death often involves a lot of pain and suffering, but (presumably) sometimes it’s just instant cessation of experience
We never get this perspective though. We always get to keep watching
Reply, 23:03 UTC · 2 likes
There’s like 4 ppl this could be
Tweet, 23:15 UTC · 15 likes
Finally a house I can afford 😌

Friday, August 4, 2023
Reply, 09:25 UTC · 6 likes
New peltiv just dropped
Reply to @ProfAFinlayson, 09:31 UTC · 5 likes
Alan Finlayson (@ProfAFinlayson): The rational allocation of capital.
https://www.ft.com/content/4ed9e3ae-3608-47da-b56b-48ed82fbeddc
Unironically though - losing money is a mechanism by which approximately rational (in some myopic economic sense but still) capital allocation is achieved
It’s a disincentive to throwing money and unproductive uses, but also these firms now have less money to throw
Tweet, 16:19 UTC · 4 likes
Cool website that just happens to be correct https://www.sleepingbeautyproblem.com/part-6-solving-the-sleeping-beauty-problem/

Quote tweet, 19:06 UTC · 1,344 likes
Yo wtf “mirror life” is not a thing that should exist irl. Wikipedia below

Quoting ⚡️🌙 (@dystopiabreaker): this meme but for biolabs and chiral-mirrored cyanobacteria
Tweet, 19:06 UTC · 80 likes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_life
Reply, 19:07 UTC · 2 likes
This smart, car centric urbanism is legal to build in most American cities
Reply, 19:38 UTC · 49 likes
I feel like I’d want at least a decade of neurotic ea type investigation before signing off on this lol
Reply to @NathanpmYoung, 20:02 UTC · 2 likes
Nathan 🔎 (@NathanpmYoung): Sorry you're a double halter?
Yes, although I’m slightly less confident in this than that the total answer is 1/2
There are two probabilistic events, the coin clip and then the observation event conditional on coin landing tails. The probability tree breaks into 1/2, 1/4, and 1/4
But the two 1/4’s collapse
Tweet, 20:16 UTC · 10 likes
Thrift Shop by Macklemore was the closest the world ever got to fully embracing cringe
Tweet, 20:20 UTC · 3 likes
Sad that it (cringe not Macklemore) never exploded into cultural hegemony
Reply to @nickcammarata, 23:19 UTC · 25 likes
Nick (@nickcammarata): @AaronBergman18 @ColdERINhell I’m generally an infohazard nonbeliever but I think this is probably one of them
Do u think I should delete? Can’t dm
Reply to @sguyenet, 23:32 UTC · 3 likes
Stephan J. Guyenet (@sguyenet): Yeah, I think an important question is "what's the alternative"?
For all its flaws, what other communities are producing more accurate and useful knowledge than the scientific community?
Plausibly prediction markets and online nerd communities who basically take science as a main input but not identical to the true best guess answer
Reply, 23:36 UTC · 3 likes
No lol, but I do dislike when ppl use short as a pejorative
Saturday, August 5, 2023
Tweet, 00:17 UTC · 14 likes
Ha

Tweet, 00:21 UTC · 11 likes
I ❤️ AI transcription (from an upcoming podcast ep with @freed_dfilan)

Reply to @mealreplacer, 00:23 UTC · 4 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @mealreplacer is no longer available.)
She must have forgotten to adjust her priors for the fact that this would put u at a rather high z-score in the distribution of male heights, which we should have a low prior on
Tweet, 00:23 UTC · 3 likes
damn i gotta clean my screen
Reply, 00:40 UTC · 2 likes
95% of my opinions are random thoughts that ran through Rob Wiblins head while recording 80k
Reply, 00:44 UTC · 1 like
I developed miscellaneous health bs around 16, and think there’s like a decent chance (25%?) at least some of it was caused by Lyme, which I definitely had at some point per antibody tests (and I was camping a ton in the northeast around 13-16)
Reply, 01:32 UTC · 2 likes
We can be roommates in the shed https://x.com/aaronbergman18/status/1687240852190433280?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g
Reply, 01:38 UTC · 6 likes
Yeah statistically but u don’t have to plan on breaking up
I’ve always found it weird that people affirmatively want short term (but >1 day lol) relationships bc it implies ur going in with the *plan* of breaking up, not just the expectation that it’s probable but ya never know
Reply, 01:39 UTC · 2 likes
Plumbing and electricity?
Reply to @absurdlymax, 05:48 UTC · 4 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): Actually that looks like a fence
Actually it’s just a picture of a fence, the real fence is far away
Reply to @anniierau, 05:52 UTC · 21 likes
Annie? Rauwerda? (@anniierau): lol
I’d like to think this is driven by a bunch of nerdy guys who think they might get laid for the first time, doing their research as one must
I mean it’s a pretty sensible first search if that’s the situation!
Reply, 05:54 UTC · 31 likes
This is a much scarier tweet lmao
Reply, 05:57 UTC · 4 likes
I feel like you probably don’t want 50 hours of yud, but u might so https://www.audible.com/pd/B076ZY6Y9C?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp
Reply, 05:59 UTC · 1 like
That whole setup (well not the couch) is probably like $200
Reply to @MattZeitlin, 06:12 UTC
Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin): Down with the ruling class*! Power to the people**!
*Ivy-Plus grads
**Northwestern grads
This but like 2% less ironically
Reply, 06:54 UTC · 3 likes
https://x.com/qualythe/status/1665109016198905857?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g
Reply, 07:05 UTC
Just dropped
Reply to @ohwizenedtortle, 07:57 UTC · 1 like
oh dandy lion🔸 (@ohwizenedtortle): if you flip the 'v' in lovely it becomes lonely, which i think says a lot
I don’t think there’s any deep meaning here
Reply, 08:01 UTC · 7 likes
What did people do before that? Wave?
Reply, 08:09 UTC · 2 likes
Lmaooo I thought I was the only one 😂😂😂
7 year old Aaron was hornt af sneaking away to read the dictionary
Reply to @prerat, 08:15 UTC · 1 like
prerat (@prerat): @NathanpmYoung @AaronBergman18 i think both work great and will use halfer or thirder perspective based on whichever is more convenient to get the answer for a particular question
(probability is map, not territory)
I think I disagree with this, and probability is at least sometimes territory; what would it be a map *of* if the sleeping beauty problem were literally taking place?
Reply to @peterwildeford, 18:56 UTC · 49 likes
Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): Hanania has historically had a lot of engagement with the forecasting community. We need to make sure he is no longer respected here.
(quoting @lxeagle17: This isn’t a particular surprise given the stuff that Hanania has previously tweeted, but it’s horrifying to think that people will continue to engage him even after this because of some bizarre need to give airtime to all sides.)
I’m super wary of ideologically policing communities like this at the meta level, especially when it’s low status or dangerous to argue in one direction but not the other
Object level IMO Hanania is both racist and sometimes has good takes and good insight
We can decry racism
Reply, 18:56 UTC · 10 likes
without making people themselves functionally untouchable
Reply, 21:07 UTC · 7 likes
Yeah and I don’t think this type of tribalism in this particular context is one of those times
Reply to @LinchZhang, 21:11 UTC · 4 likes
Linch (@LinchZhang): I feel the same way about postrats. 3/3
I wonder why nobody identifies as rat adjacent afaik but like 10k people are EA adjacent
Quote tweet, 21:34 UTC · 4 likes
This is an interesting perspective on Sleeping Beauty I hadn’t thought of before
Quoting prerat (@prerat): @AaronBergman18 @NathanpmYoung there are two good maps:
thirder map:
P(Monday|Tails)=1/2
P(Tuesday|Tails)=1/2
Mon,Tue mutually exclusivehalfer map:
P(Monday|Tails)=1
P(Tuesday|Tails)=1
Mon,Tue NOT mutually exclusivesince "Mon" and "Tue" mean different things in the maps, they get diff probabilities
Reply, 21:56 UTC · 2 likes
I don’t think so, and I’m not worried about Hanania’s social life. I do think he has object level insights to provide in a way very few people with his racial attitudes seem to, but more important are the second order effects on openness to people saying potentially unpopular
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 21:57 UTC · 2 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): Eh, exiling racists is fine. Have you ever had a friend become white supremacist? They just hang out with their new, white supremacist friends. They're not even lonely.
things. Take my building underground tweet; there are a subset of people who earnestly think I want to make poor people live underground, and that this belief would be sufficient to disqualify me from participating in certain ideological communities
Thread, continued, 21:59 UTC · 1 like
Now I think I’m right about my tweet not saying that, but frankly I trust a meta level norm of having an exceptionally high (low??) bar for making people non grata much more than a norm of litigating object level disagreements to figure out who has good, correct, true beliefs and
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 21:59 UTC
Aaron Bergman, August 5, 2023: I don’t think so, and I’m not worried about Hanania’s social life. I do think he has object level insights to provide in a way very few people with his racial…
Fucked up the reply order like always lol
Sunday, August 6, 2023
Reply, 02:39 UTC · 3 likes
Based
Reply, 02:42 UTC · 4 likes

Reply, 03:02 UTC · 2 likes
I can’t find it but there’s a tweet like “women get to smell like things: flowers, fruit, etc; men have to smell like ideas”
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 03:34 UTC · 1 like
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): @GluskerMartin @AaronBergman18 @peterwildeford Yup. I sometimes find EA to be excessive in its openness. RH can prove himself bigoted and have awful ideas, but people will polish the turd of his immigration ideas or whatever.
Strong disagree here - willingness to engage with ideas instead of pre-filtering them out is extremely important to figuring out how to do good IMO
Nobody (afaik) is arguing that people *should* respect or agree with Hanania on anything - just that refusal to engage with him…
Tweet, 04:04 UTC · 13 likes
Hypothesis: your bookmarked tweets reveal your true nature, the deepest trenches of your soul
Reply, 04:05 UTC · 2 likes
Uh yeah no shit
Reply to @absurdlymax, 04:10 UTC · 1 like
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): @AaronBergman18 You'll never guess what darkness lies in my soul
Is it a bunch of tweets like “I just wanna find a cute girl who loves to build legos while discussing philosophy”
Reply, 04:57 UTC · 18 likes
On some matters this is just in fact the best and most reliable way to reason
Reply, 15:49 UTC · 8 likes
Inside u there are two wolves

Reply, 16:01 UTC · 3 likes
Congratulations and welcome!🇺🇸🌎🏈💸🔫
@USCIS good call on this one 👍

Reply, 20:21 UTC · 3 likes
[Insert ‘getting turned on’ joke that is in the tiny Venn diagram sliver of both funny and not itself a PR risk]
Reply, 20:32 UTC · 6 likes
It should be in the same category as the drug war and ICE deportation IMO. These also feel moral from the inside and are more plausibly non arbitrary but are still widely seen as immoral and bad in hindsight at least everywhere but on the right
Monday, August 7, 2023
Reply, 01:04 UTC · 5 likes
Based
Reply, 01:14 UTC · 3 likes
Lmao
Quote tweet, 02:07 UTC · 5 likes
All the cool guys are 5’7”, case no. 1727596931184
Quoting Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen): BREAKING: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg will partake in a cage fight.
According to Musk, a “Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on 𝕏. All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.”
Here is your fight card:
Zuckerberg:
- 5'7" and reportedly 155 lbs.
- 39 years old.
- One of the stronger nerds you will meet.
- Built like a tech geek who wants to be a UFC fighter.
- Jiu-Jitsu blue belt.Musk:
- 6’2” and reportedly 187 lbs.
- 51 years old.
- One of the brightest white torsos you will see.
- Built like a crash-test dummy.
- Trained in judo, kyokushin karate and taekwondo as a child, recently trained briefly in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.What are your predictions?
Reply, 02:07 UTC · 2 likes
Pharmacologically? Glutamate maybe
Reply to @HumansNoContext, 02:09 UTC · 10 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @HumansNoContext is no longer available.)
$1T dollars, a solution to AI alignment, cute gf (not for eating dw), and a long ass pdf describing how to make cultured meat at scale
Reply, 02:18 UTC · 4 likes
Weird thing is I feel like the market is better at identifying the truly most talented female singers. Like Taylor, Billie, Olivia don’t even need last names lol - who’s unambiguously one of the best male artists? Kendrick Lamar *maybe*?
Reply, 02:25 UTC · 2 likes
I only know the first
Reply, 02:28 UTC · 2 likes
Pop = pop = popular for a reason
Reply to @bijibiji2023, 03:39 UTC
hoff 🧒🏻😻 (@bijibiji2023): Is no one gonna like my marx references on this side of twit…disappointing
This is a Marx reference? Lmao if so wrong platform
Reply, 04:03 UTC · 2 likes
I cannot fathom not waving back to a baby
Tweet, 04:29 UTC · 4 likes
New episode with @freed_dfilan just dropped (Spotify below)
https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/6-daniel-filan-on-why-im-wrong-about
Reply, 04:36 UTC · 6 likes
Nah I disagree here. Encouraging ppl to dress in a way that maximizes their impact via how they’re perceived isn’t less legitimate than asking them to give 10%
Then again I should probably dress better lmao
Quote tweet, 04:39 UTC · 6 likes
Making R high status would add like 30% to global GDP
Quoting Ryan McWhorter (@rmcwhorter99): A 30% speed improvement in the rust compiler would probably add like 0.000006% to global GDP
Tweet, 04:46 UTC · 3 likes
Aarons law: the number of hours a person with ssn ***-**-**** sleeps at night is approximately
Max{7+s, 18}
where s is the number of hours he socialized that day
Reply, 05:07 UTC · 11 likes
I remember when metro ≈ Uber pool
Reply to @nickcammarata, 05:08 UTC · 11 likes
Nick (@nickcammarata): Which one would you rather be true
Christian heaven: you’re you, things are good forever though, lots of happy things
Open individualism: you’re all of life, future is probably incredibly wild but probably in a good direction? But def weirder than anything you can imagine today
Being all of life sounds absolutely terrible and I’m surprised anyone’s voting that way
There’s literally nothing you could offer me that I’d accept in exchange for a .1% chance of experiencing the lives of all farmed and wild animals
Tweet, 05:12 UTC · 11 likes
This is the only platform safe from marriage announcements of my peers (knocking on wood). IG, fb have been lost to The Ring
Reply, 05:13 UTC · 2 likes
That seems like a good number of lumens. Where do I buy?
Reply, 05:18 UTC · 2 likes
Like if they had the chance to stop evolving? I mean taking that at face value, probably another roll of the dice on evolution via some other branch of the tree, and tentatively I’d guess that would be worse
But if we’re comparing our actual world with one that we just accept…
Reply, 05:20 UTC · 3 likes
has no sentience and no chance of evolving it, yeah I’ll bite the bullet and say the latter is better, and any intuition to the contrary is probably conditional on being a 21st century human with access to opioids, food etc and not currently severely suffering
Reply, 06:10 UTC · 2 likes
My intuition said yes tho lol
Reply, 07:25 UTC · 3 likes
Eh I think there’s a subcategory of people (say young, smart, in a developed country, either financially secure or without dependents - ie people like ur followers) who would in general be better off (and tentatively make the world better off too) if they were more ambitious
Reply, 07:43 UTC · 7 likes
Uh she’s not wrong. Many/most anabolic hormones (growth hormone, insulin) are gonna promote tumor growth. I mean obviously they’re good to have lol, still carcinogenic
Reply, 08:19 UTC · 4 likes
99.9% (probably a few more 9s) of fish aren’t killed this way though
Reply, 09:09 UTC · 2 likes
Cancel qualy? over my dead body 😤
Reply, 10:25 UTC · 2 likes
📈

Reply, 11:12 UTC · 2 likes
@bijibiji2023 causing ideological havoc by bringing supermarket gigaGMO grapes to the commune (ahem, co-op)
Reply, 11:46 UTC · 3 likes
Sorry Kirsten but a decision has been made. You shall preside over a pig sanctuary.
Reply, 11:54 UTC · 3 likes
Sometimes we become slightly less turdy over time
Tweet, 17:21 UTC · 3 likes
*min IM AN IDIOT
Reply, 17:56 UTC · 2 likes
Joke deserves more attention, commenting for the algo boost
Reply, 17:57 UTC · 3 likes
👀
Reply, 18:11 UTC · 8 likes
Maybe @Grimezsz has pull?
Reply, 18:31 UTC · 6 likes
Ezra is my boy, badmouthing him will not be tolerated
Tweet, 18:32 UTC · 14 likes
Men, what’s stopping you from looking like this?

Reply, 18:35 UTC · 2 likes
Both 😔
Reply, 18:38 UTC · 3 likes
But do they make adult sized ducks?
Reply, 18:40 UTC · 2 likes
🦆
Reply, 18:52 UTC · 2 likes
In which I reply
To get a haiku made
For me cause I want
Reply to @JMannhart, 20:08 UTC · 1 like
Jonathan Mannhart 🔎 (@JMannhart): @AaronBergman18 @profoundlyyyy @skooookum I just think if somebody has a problem with some advocates “not being good enough“ in whatever way (skill, looks, vibes), then it's on *them* to do better.
@skooookum what's keeping you from being on CNN and looking very respectable? Wouldn't *that* be more effective?
Connor has chosen to be a public facing advocate for AI safety (which is admirable!) - skooks has not! Idgaf how Connor looks 99.99% of the time, the exception being when he’s on air
Also, Don’t you think it’s plausible Connor actually wants this kind of feedback?
Tweet, 21:09 UTC · 44 likes
Imagine doing an EA application *on a whim* *on ur phone*
Applying for 80k coaching took me like 6 months, 9 google doc drafts, 15mg dextroamphetamine sulfate and a lot of peer pressure
@bijibiji2023 is truly an inspiration

Tweet, 21:09 UTC · 5 likes
“Bet I can do it in 3”
https://x.com/aaronbergman18/status/1678423567099109376
Reply, 21:42 UTC · 3 likes
FWIW serial rejection is basically a rite of passage even for well connected people. That said I think you’re right and semi arbitrary interpersonal stuff is non trivial
Tuesday, August 8, 2023
Quote tweet, 00:54 UTC · 8 likes
I am conflicted

Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18):
Reply, 01:01 UTC · 3 likes
If I get tornado’d I’m suing
Tweet, 01:01 UTC · 9 likes
Fuck it we walk
Reply to @Duderichy, 01:31 UTC · 3 likes
the Rich (@Duderichy): went to the doctor to get some routine blood work done
got testosterone thrown in there
outside of the range (high)
What was the range? I’ve seen ranges that max out at like 850 ng/dl and like 1300. Big difference
Tweet, 01:57 UTC · 6 likes
I am a simple man (link below)

Tweet, 01:57 UTC · 2 likes
https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/jan-leike-superalignment/
Tweet, 05:58 UTC · 8 likes
Code interpreter at 1:55 am when it can’t immediately just do the thing but politely converses with you and asks for examples and clarification hits different
I’m not convinced sand was meant to think bro
Reply, 06:04 UTC · 2 likes
This ai shit wild fr
Reply to @growing_daniel, 06:06 UTC · 1 like
Daniel (@growing_daniel): The last person to reply to this tweet gets $100. Payout via venmo
Moloch wins
Reply, 07:30 UTC · 8 likes
Cmon man include an obesity line while ur at it (scaled to whatever, just to show the trend)
Quote tweet, 08:36 UTC · 4 likes
I’d like to think this is a covert pro-shrimp psyop
Regardless, consider donating!
Quoting Gabriel (@gbrl_dick): we have to stop the EAs man. this guy should be optimising the Ford supply chain by like 5 basis points. instead he’s fundraising for shrimp. christ, what a waste
Reply, 08:36 UTC · 6 likes
Based
Reply, 08:36 UTC · 10 likes
Jfc this is so unnecessarily cynical
Reply, 08:36 UTC · 8 likes
And wrong tbc
Quote tweet, 09:01 UTC · 2 likes
Haroset is apple salad fr, good stuff, y’all goyim should try some time
Quoting drew millard (@drewmillard): honestly just incredible stuff here
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/14/eric-adams-profile
Quote tweet, 09:17 UTC · 11 likes
New and improved version

Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18):
Reply, 12:57 UTC · 7 likes
Maybe, but it’s a countervailing and plausibly as important trend that contradicts your implicit theory
Reply to @David_Kasten, 18:20 UTC · 1 like
dave kasten (@David_Kasten): @elidourado Extremely dumb question: Doesn't the implied claim that we can counteract global warming for <$100M/yr also imply that for <$1B, someone can cause an year without a summer and global famine?
That, ah, seems to be potentially strategically destabilizing if so
I mean a bunch of militaries could shoot down whoever was trying to do this assuming it was a rogue actor and not like the US (if the us military wants to cause a famine it is already able to)
Reply, 18:22 UTC · 4 likes
I have no idea what I’m talking about but at first glance I’d be pretty wary of increasing the ph of like everything
Calcium carbonate = Tums, literally an antacid
Reply to @r_marked, 19:12 UTC · 2 likes
mark (@r_marked): Your variable names may be bad, but are they bad enough that someone at Twilio sends you an email about it?
Eventually if I get fed up I just type the first syllable that comes to mind plus an index
Fuck it we’ve got cat1, cat2, cat3, and fish0-fish9. What are they? Functions data frames vectors who knows. Same for files I’m writing that might be useful at some point

Reply, 19:12 UTC · 3 likes
Very continental philosophy of u
Reply, 19:17 UTC · 2 likes
Me either it’s fake
Tweet, 19:20 UTC · 5 likes
I still can’t believe planes work
Tweet, 19:27 UTC · 8 likes
Man looking 60-70 walking around with a missing cat sign. Asked me to keep an eye out and take a picture of his sign (I already had - they’re all around!)
I hope he finds his cat 😢
Reply to @KatSpartz, 19:47 UTC · 35 likes
Kat Spartz ⏸️ 🔶 (@KatSpartz): What color is a tennis ball?
(Apparently this is a strangely divisive question)
Wait what
Are green ppl trolling??
Quote tweet, 19:47 UTC · 11 likes
I’m going insane
Quoting Kat Spartz ⏸️ 🔶 (@KatSpartz): What color is a tennis ball?
(Apparently this is a strangely divisive question)
Reply, 19:50 UTC · 6 likes
Can someone who voted green plz explain urself
Reply to @RFishBlueFish, 19:54 UTC
Gil (@RFishBlueFish): Tennis balls are green
I bet u think fish are red and blue
Tweet, 20:02 UTC · 2 likes
Sample of 5 chatGPT prompts with slightly different wordings gives percent yellow (taking mean when range given): {70, 80, 80, 82.5, 75} for a mean of 77.5%

Tweet, 20:03 UTC · 2 likes
Is this AI research
Reply, 20:46 UTC · 5 likes
Fascinating
Reply, 21:17 UTC · 4 likes
S-risk 🚨🚨🚨
Reply, 21:17 UTC · 4 likes
Max this is one idea I’m gonna have to nix lmao
Tweet, 21:19 UTC · 9 likes
How hard would it be to make an AI Rob Wiblin voice that can read any text?
We have hundreds of hours of audio for training
Reply to @AaronDorshow, 21:37 UTC · 2 likes
Aaron Dorshow (@AaronDorshow): @AaronBergman18 Living over in Arlington!
Ok that’s like 30ish mins from me in Bethesda but if ur interested we should meet up maybe this weekend or something! Cc @Laura_k_Duffy @SpacedOutMatt @GluskerMartin @AndyMasley who may or may not be closer (my brain is legit incompetent when it comes to geography/directions)
Reply, 21:48 UTC · 2 likes
Let us know what u find!
Reply to @absurdlymax, 21:55 UTC · 1 like
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): @AaronBergman18 Easy peasy
I feel like it’s actually pretty doable. Maybe a good learning project for me idk. Would need to filter out the guest’s speaking from the 80k episodes tho which idk how to automate
Reply, 22:18 UTC · 2 likes
http://robwiblin.py is currently running (to extract his voice alone from a single episode)
Reply, 23:08 UTC · 2 likes
I don’t know what to believe any more


Tweet, 23:14 UTC · 42 likes
I hope I’m not a narcissist in general but sometimes I search like “from:AaronBergman18 min_faves:50” so I can read and glory in all my past bangers
Tweet, 23:18 UTC · 9 likes
Reply with a likes cutoff and I’ll tell u which is the bangingest of all ur bangers
Reply, 23:51 UTC · 3 likes
https://x.com/absurdlymax/status/1599815953705226240?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g
Reply, 23:52 UTC · 2 likes
Based. I can store all 3 in my memory tho
Reply, 23:54 UTC · 1 like
U definitely have 4-7 digit like bangers latent, it’s just a matter of time
Reply, 23:59 UTC · 2 likes
Lmao cmon don’t tease us like that 😩
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
Reply to @absurdlymax, 00:00 UTC · 1 like
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): It's blue
Blue ball. Ha
Reply, 00:02 UTC · 2 likes

Reply, 00:17 UTC · 2 likes
It’s not working (assuming bc ur locked) :(
Quote tweet, 06:40 UTC · 5 likes
Rob Wiblin (fake) reading my blog post (linked below) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDC8bzkQA7k
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): How hard would it be to make an AI Rob Wiblin voice that can read any text?
We have hundreds of hours of audio for training
Reply, 06:46 UTC · 4 likes
Looking forward to a critique but it seems very natural to me. EA is literally about predicting the future ie what will happen in the world if you do some action
In some circumstances this doesn’t even parse as “forecasting” - just science: bed net RCTs are only meaningful…
Thread, continued, 06:47 UTC · 4 likes
If you think that similar results will hold in the future, otherwise you’re just doing historical documentation
Reply to @JacquesThibs, 07:22 UTC · 1 like
Jacques (@JacquesThibs): @AaronBergman18 Free tier? “2,500 free words every month”
You maxed out for this month?
Yea but u can just use other google accounts to sign in and get more
Reply to @EAheadlines, 07:45 UTC · 2 likes
EA Lifestyles (@EAheadlines): hm yes but Tetlock's work doesn't matter as much as general social science good practice in that case, and I don't see nearly as many EAs excited about the latter!
Neglectedness tho - there’s tens of thousands (at least?) of people doing social science and until a decade ago basically zero doing forecasting per se
Reply, 07:52 UTC · 2 likes
Bird wasn’t bouta get shut down by Mr. Umbrella
Reply, 10:45 UTC · 3 likes
The dream
Reply, 11:28 UTC · 3 likes

Reply to @BowTieOrangeGuy, 11:39 UTC
Mr Bow Tie (@BowTieOrangeGuy): the difference being I didn't search "green tennis balls"
I just searched "tennis balls"
Ok, fine. Those are green and anomalous. This is the literal first result, and these are yellow

Reply, 11:50 UTC · 2 likes
Almost 2 ounces lmao. Like eating a bag of chips made out of pure ascorbic acid
Quote tweet, 11:55 UTC · 5 likes
Is this what conscientious ppl feel like?
Quoting ali (@alitaylor): just let me check one more task off my to-do list bro. just one more. i swear this one's going to change everything. i just need to complete one more task.
Reply to @BowTieOrangeGuy, 11:56 UTC · 1 like
Mr Bow Tie (@BowTieOrangeGuy): which of these color sampels would you consider green vs yellow?
Left = yellow
Middle = green
Right = evil greenish yellow monstrosity
Tweet, 11:58 UTC · 2 likes
Bc

Reply, 12:15 UTC · 2 likes
I knew Kermit was cursed
Reply, 12:18 UTC · 2 likes
😈
Tweet, 12:21 UTC · 105 likes
Someone really needs to write a LessWrong post about Community Notes (like how and why it works so well). It’s the semaglitude of the og rationalist epistemic project
Tweet, 14:08 UTC · 5 likes
Random thought that’s definitely gonna get torn apart by the usual suspects:
Conditioning on neuron count, maybe species moral weight is *inversely* related to demonstrated cognitive/emotional capacities bc these take neurons and so imply fewer “used” for raw hedonic tone
Reply, 16:45 UTC · 4 likes
Maybe you’d find it interesting! http://LessWrong.com
Tweet, 17:10 UTC · 27 likes
Where can I buy a bunch of fake clothes?
Like fake jeans and khakis that are secretly pajama pants, fake buttons, ya know really pushing the comfy x aesthetic Pareto frontier
Reply, 17:13 UTC · 2 likes
Being pro suffering reduction and cringe is literally in my bio
Reply, 17:15 UTC · 1 like
I have no idea what this means lmao
Tf is a mostly same capsule wardrobe
Reply, 17:49 UTC · 2 likes
🫡
Reply, 20:13 UTC · 5 likes
True and I love and more importantly believe in EA (well at least as an ideal/what it claims and aspired to be) but also, on that last point, here’s to all my fellow straight white cis neolib-flavored liberal American men, 20-35, from an upper middle class family…
Tweet, 20:25 UTC · 10 likes
Lfg new bird just dropped (moved in to flowerpot)
She’s guarding two eggs but I was phoneless when those were clear

Tweet, 20:29 UTC · 2 likes
Many such cases https://x.com/aaronbergman18/status/1688371167227187201?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g

Tweet, 21:51 UTC · 8 likes
Serious question for #YIMBYtwitter (iykyk lol): are bodies of water generally zoned?
Can I like build an apartment complex boat? Or like literally just park a cruise ship on the Potomac River or San Francisco Bay or something? Seems promising tbh


Quote tweet, 22:19 UTC · 6 likes
Seeing lots of enthusiastic takes here and, while I agree it’s evidence of public enthusiasm for regulation, boy is it weak evidence
People will say truly almost anything on surveys, and responses are extremely sensitive to wording.
Quoting Axios (@axios): Exclusive poll: American voters prefer federal AI regulation over self-regulation by tech companies, with the majority saying they don't trust tech executives to regulate AI.
https://trib.al/gTtCzbO
Reply, 22:24 UTC · 3 likes
Plz do this I think it would be insightful and maybe also cute and funny but mostly fascinatin
Us non parents like never get to hear what kids think about arbitrary real issues/topics/whatever
Reply, 22:29 UTC · 2 likes
Oh man pressures on. For sure: how the think about being kids, whether they think about what adult experience is like and how it differs from theirs
How old are they? I feel like this is relevant lol
Reply, 22:29 UTC · 3 likes
Can they (and/with u) come on pigeon hour? 🥺
Reply, 22:30 UTC · 2 likes
Stop blocking my point with important object level context
Tweet, 23:35 UTC · 20 likes
I don't like talking on the phone either but fuck it we call https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qgbLr6es2jCwwcGuH/best-use-of-2-minutes-this-month-u-s
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Reply, 00:21 UTC · 2 likes
I actually did this summer of 2016! Worst decision I ever made (ok not literally but directionally)
My social battery was so drained every day that I (literally this time) closed myself in a room to eat dinner every night, no sound or anything just me and my recovering brain
Tweet, 01:59 UTC · 13 likes
Gonna be a hilarious plot twist if one random ass lawsuit takes us back to the dark ages from semaglitude and the brink of AGI
Reply, 02:08 UTC · 2 likes
🫡
Reply, 02:40 UTC · 2 likes
Creatine
Reply, 03:32 UTC · 4 likes
Ay lfg
Reply, 10:26 UTC · 3 likes
Second line is way funnier lol
Reply to @RichardHanania, 10:45 UTC · 3 likes
Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania): How Putin reacted when told his dog died.
I’m not gonna let him dogsit for Fluffy anymore
Reply, 11:35 UTC · 2 likes
This looks like a Taylor Swift cover (or is that intentional??)
Reply, 11:43 UTC · 2 likes
Fascinating
Reply, 11:46 UTC · 1 like

Reply, 11:49 UTC · 2 likes
Who’s the girl holding her tho
Tweet, 12:15 UTC · 5 likes
Idk how much I believe this but there’s for sure room for a longform “The Case For Pessimism” essay which isn’t nihilist or hopeless but basically argues that the world sucks and is not on a good trajectory at all even if AI “goes well”
Tweet, 12:15 UTC · 3 likes
Pessimism ≠ defeatedness
I’m thinking of it as a corrective to what I see as a somewhat naive Our World In Data-brand optimism
Tweet, 12:15 UTC · 1 like
Of course it’s possible we somehow manage to land in this tiny window but it doesn’t seem like the default to me at all even with basically aligned AGI
Thread, continued, 12:15 UTC
What else? A broad observation that personal well-being seems correlated with productivity, success, and influence, even (especially?) within EA
I, at least, personally get much more done (meaning like 10-100x not 1.5x) on 75th percentile days relative to 25th percentile ones
Tweet, 12:15 UTC · 1 like
In fact basically everything I’ve ever written or made public was probably written/created during an above-average (for me) waking minute
This seems like a big, systemic source of optimism bias
Quote tweet, 12:35 UTC · 7 likes
Men, what’s stopping you from looking like this?

Quoting Jonny Miller (@jonnym1ller): Today's morning routine: low-angle sunlight, clearing the lymphatic system & puppy co-regulation ;)
Reply, 13:32 UTC · 2 likes
Yes.
Reply to @billyhumblebrag, 13:37 UTC · 87 likes
billy (@billyhumblebrag): Dudes rock
I mean true claim (dudes rock) but this isn’t good evidence of that bc trivial error in the first step
.999=1-lim_{n\to\inf}(1/n) ≠ 1-lim_{n\to\inf}(1-1/n)
Quote tweet, 14:01 UTC · 9 likes
A single college dorm is the perfect introvert living experience (wish I had my own bathroom but whatever)
You have an actual ~apartment that is your own domain where no one can disturb you…
Quoting James Medlock (@jdcmedlock): College dorms are fine
Tweet, 14:01 UTC · 4 likes
But also lots of people your age nearby + common room for low stakes socializing
It’s like between a group house and a normal apartment. Wish this kind of thing existed like in society (I’m sure it does somewhere)
Tweet, 15:25 UTC · 75 likes
Call me a cynic but I’m starting to doubt that the 6 distinct Sophias with identical pinned camsite links are in fact real people earnestly interested in my ideological commentsry

Reply, 15:26 UTC · 2 likes
Cute first date idea
Reply, 15:28 UTC · 10 likes
Hey I think Sophia1747952 and Sophia48399194 bring unique perspectives to the table despite their superficial similarity
Reply, 16:37 UTC · 3 likes
This might affect *reported* depressive symptoms but I'm pretty skeptical it has a non trivial effect on actual affect (ha)
Reply, 17:03 UTC · 2 likes
I never said I was opposed!
Reply, 17:22 UTC · 3 likes
I’ve been waiting for a good reason to tweet that, while the no ad funding thing is cool and all, you could probably make like way more than you would for an arbitrary product ad by getting a shaving equipment sponsorship
Reply to @EAheadlines, 19:27 UTC · 1 like
EA Lifestyles (@EAheadlines): anthropic's hiring a London/EU lobbyist and paying TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS 🫨
Good salary for sure but by comparison, here’s a good but relatively normal us federal government job I qualify for (ie no graduate degree) and will (inshallah) apply for in the next 4 days https://www.usajobs.gov/job/737269800/print
Tbc this isn’t a “look at Aaron’s earning potential” tweet…
Tweet, 20:21 UTC · 31 likes
I’m pretty disappointed to see this post get ~300 karma
Seems like a pretty clear case of reflexive praise for earnest and good faith criticism (which I think it is!) without real consideration of its actual merit (which I think is very low)
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/euzDpFvbLqPdwCnXF/university-ea-groups-need-fixing
Tweet, 20:21 UTC · 11 likes
Tbc I think the *author* did anything bad or wrong; good faith bad takes aren’t immoral and surely I have some of these
It’s the votes I take issue with
Thread, continued, 20:21 UTC · 1 like
Still gathering my thoughts for a Forum comment but at a very abstract level it’s something like:
x=4 is the ideal set of practices, higher x means more of the collection of vibes and practices described here
…

Thread, continued, 20:21 UTC · 4 likes
Shifting the distribution from a mean of 0 to a mean of 3 does mean that the class of errors associated with X>4 greatly increases, but all things considered moving in that direction is still good!
Friday, August 11, 2023
Reply to @Laura_k_Duffy, 03:19 UTC · 4 likes
Laura Muresianu 🌐🔸🇺🇸 (@Laura_k_Duffy): Honestly, I agree with a lot in this Forum post, and I think Will MacAskill provides good reasons in the comment section for taking it as a serious critique too.
Truly shocking that we disagree on smth related to effective altruism
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 03:24 UTC · 4 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Truly shocking that my views are in between your two
Love being one side of the Moverton window
Reply, 03:31 UTC · 2 likes
Try to tape up wherever they’re coming in but after that yeah I’d kill after doing a bit of research on the most humane way to do this
Pretty sure most of us care about shrimp suffering, not shrimp death
Reply to @FrostedSapling, 03:33 UTC · 1 like
Ivan 🔸 (@FrostedSapling): I used the term “vertically integrated” today at work and got a “wow Ivan those are big words!” 🙃
Lol at the response having only 1 syllable words besides ur name
Reply, 03:33 UTC · 2 likes
Obligatory: intelligence isn’t a moral trait, laughing at the happenstance here not the people
Reply, 03:43 UTC · 1 like
I misread this as “social pressure and isolation at retreats was really good, actually. What it does is push people into worldviews they haven’t really thought through. We should be actively hedging against conformity”
and was like yes! I agree!
Thread, continued, 03:45 UTC
99.9% of the conformity pressure is from normal society and our brains to be normal and not entertain unpopular ideas! Retreats are a corrective to this, but until they become say many weeks long it’s still a positive corrective force at the margin
Reply, 03:49 UTC · 3 likes
I def like the term “auditing” but disagree with the author in that it seems he basically wants ppl to reinvent the intellectual wheel to do cause prio from first principles and maybe some gathered arguments and data You don’t get intellectual progress that way!
Reply, 03:50 UTC · 2 likes
The key thing for the metaphor is that audits aren’t replications (which are probably good to do once or twice for important things tbc) or censuses
Tweet, 12:44 UTC · 5 likes
Ladies, if you want a guy who never errs when reasoning about fundamental questions like the consistency of mathematical axioms, boy do I have a pdf for you http://bit.ly/dateaaron
Reply, 12:46 UTC · 2 likes
It’s how we cosplay civic duty
Tweet, 12:55 UTC · 4 likes

Reply, 13:01 UTC · 2 likes
I know of one case of it working very well for a straight guy (can’t specify tho) and know straight women often get plenty of guys reaching out (idk if any of y’all wanna comment on whether quality seems systematically higher than on dating apps)
Reply, 13:02 UTC · 2 likes
Pretty niche thing tho, I mostly just don’t know empirically
Reply, 13:05 UTC · 3 likes
And the realization that candor ≠ honesty (even tho they’re correlated) is a pretty impressive insight for someone with poor social intuitions (through no fault of their own tbc)
Reply, 13:08 UTC · 3 likes
This is like 9 levels more advanced than me
On a good day I will find not one but two pairs of matching socks
Reply, 13:14 UTC · 3 likes
This is not a partition of the space
Reply, 13:38 UTC · 2 likes
I don’t think it’s really a comparative advantage for autistic ppl - more so online weirdos (positive) in general who would benefit from strong selection effects in who reads and reaches out
Reply, 13:53 UTC · 6 likes
That would be too reasonable this is my destiny

Reply, 13:58 UTC · 2 likes
Well they’re 1 for 2
Tweet, 15:10 UTC · 2 likes
Ugh I think I’m gonna drop the $11 for one month and see how it goes
@elonmusk u win but I will be getting the most out of my subscription and uploading as many hour long 8k videos as it takes to get a threatening letter from ur attorney
Thread, continued, 15:21 UTC · 8 likes
Lol usually companies don't put arbitrary restrictions on ur ability to give them money

Reply to @ohwizenedtortle, 16:19 UTC · 3 likes
oh dandy lion🔸 (@ohwizenedtortle): @AaronBergman18 For socks I'm pretty sure it's just long black and short white socks
any objections?https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XBKMMM7/
Reply, 16:19 UTC · 2 likes
nvpkp: 1
aaron: 0
Reply, 16:20 UTC · 2 likes
hey I only went to the math and science bowl *meetings*, never actually competed like a fuckin nerd
Reply, 16:21 UTC · 3 likes
Transhumanism is the way
Reply, 16:24 UTC · 3 likes
Well probably not everyone
Reply, 16:29 UTC · 3 likes
But every straight single girl 19ish-24ish who doesn't have a strong preference for tallness and is kinda nerdy, yeah idk seems high upside for all 2 of you, also good chance we'd be friends which is cool
Reply, 16:39 UTC · 2 likes
4 seems a bit high. Since the true answer is always the median of the two most salient competing hypotheses, it is certainly 3
Reply, 16:40 UTC · 2 likes
Big if true (unironic)
Therefore big
Tweet, 17:44 UTC · 8 likes
When u catch urself spending more time on the lil contentiousness trophy than the actual 5 minute task u just did so u cut ur losses before adding any text

Reply, 17:55 UTC · 3 likes
Wait this isn’t a joke? Figured it was bc idk whenever my address bar looks like that it’s a fake local website not a real one
Quote tweet, 18:03 UTC · 6 likes
One of the best stories can remember hearing
Hope it’s true lmao
Quoting Joe Cohen (@CohenSite): Imagine having this guy as your permit expediter
Reply to @pissboymcgee, 18:14 UTC · 3 likes
kelbin (@pissboymcgee): only the best and the brightest buy the blue check
mean-spirited IMO
Reply, 20:04 UTC · 3 likes
@JesseTayRiver I found ur happy tweet
Reply to @ilex_ulmus, 20:25 UTC · 4 likes
Holly ⏸️ Elmore (@ilex_ulmus): Many EA institutions won’t fund advocacy to the public to pause AI, often bc they work w AI companies in some way, and they don’t want to jeopardize that influence.
How did we get here? How can AI companies expect only nice relationships from what should be watchdog orgs?
I don’t necessarily doubt but is there empirical evidence of this (as opposed to just reasoning about incentives and social/economic forces)?
Reply, 20:29 UTC · 2 likes
This is good evidence indeed!
Tweet, 20:32 UTC · 77 likes
Girl on a date asks if you have anxiety

Tweet, 20:33 UTC · 4 likes
“Well I can see why you’d think that”
Thread, continued, 20:35 UTC · 6 likes
I hope nobody notices that it’s not really the same sort of observation bias as the original airplane thing
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 21:53 UTC · 1 like
Aaron Bergman, August 11, 2023: (image)
I’m combining the meme and the link specifically to pin…
Tweet, 21:54 UTC · 3 likes

Reply, 21:55 UTC · 2 likes

Reply to @absurdlymax, 21:57 UTC · 1 like
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): @AaronBergman18 This is the first thing I noticed
Idk if this is sarcasm
Tweet, 22:21 UTC · 11 likes
I feel dumb but where did the d in COVID come from?
Reply, 22:23 UTC · 2 likes
I have never heard anyone say the phrase “COronaVIrus Disease”
Reply, 22:24 UTC · 7 likes
Oh no is this another “look at my homemade air filter” tweet that I have to delete for being really dumb
Saturday, August 12, 2023
Reply, 01:18 UTC · 4 likes
A fellow Data Exporter
Reply, 01:40 UTC · 2 likes
@JesseTayRiver
Reply, 02:04 UTC · 2 likes
The floor is in fact lava
Tweet, 02:27 UTC · 1 like
Smallish subset but: people who have met me irl, do I seem like basically the same person irl and on Twitter/online mode generally?
Quote tweet, 03:10 UTC · 18 likes
Discourse. Obligatory: n = 1 = me.
1) “Men will be attracted to most single women they like spending time with” seems basically true (well IME)
2) I disagree that this precludes genuine friendship
…
Quoting Bennett's Phylactery (@extradeadjcb): If you are a single woman you need to understand: you do not have male friends, you have suitors
Sometimes it's because they "just want sex", but more often it's because:
>men will develop romantic feelings for almost any woman they genuinely like being around
>suppressing romantic feelings is painful
>offering him a "buddy" in exchange for swallowing that pain forever is insulting, & no self-respecting man would take the deal
Tweet, 03:10 UTC · 7 likes
In fact quite a few times I’ve struggled over whether to reveal my feelings for a girl who I know decently well and like because it seems definitely not good and maybe very bad for our friendship: major downside risk!
I could just be abnormal in this respect though
Quote tweet, 03:12 UTC · 5 likes
Relevant old tweet
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): @man_ditch Hypothesis no. 178 for the great marriage/relationship/sex decline:
Cultural change+more coed institutions mean more guy/girl friendships (and friend groups) -> would-be couples become platonic friends->higher opportunity cost of asking out bc rejection would make things weird
Reply, 03:14 UTC · 1 like
Can’t block myself :( https://x.com/aaronbergman18/status/1690191411239325696?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g
Quote tweet, 03:42 UTC · 4 likes
Winter is objectively the happiest season evidence no. 28849506011
Weirdly I felt exactly the same when I was a kid and got cold super easily
Quoting mishka (@mishkabernstein): Someone should start a scientific research project on why August is so melancholic
Reply to @fudgeposting, 03:48 UTC · 5 likes
fudge (@fudgeposting): the male urge to get a giant warehouse and put a squat rack next to the air mattress with one desk, a projector, massive speakers, a cnc machine and a 3d printer
How likely are you to get evicted if you live in a building not zoned residential and it’s pretty obvious but u don’t like bother anyone or do anything else illegal? Asking for a friend
Reply to @exdiegesis, 03:54 UTC
Hope (@exdiegesis): romance & sex is a major sad thing inmyhead. it's a large obstacle to being friends with women, for me. i like talking abt feelings, but if we're close then it's either a romance risk, or it risks making things complicated for *them* bc they do romance thing w others.
Yea
Reply to @BecomingCritter, 03:58 UTC · 3 likes
critter (@BecomingCritter): you're on a date with girl
She goes to the bathroom. She left her purse. You can't help yourself, you glance inside. There's a badge. She's a fed
wyd
Wake up
Reply, 03:58 UTC · 2 likes
Hum cube
Quote tweet, 04:07 UTC · 5 likes
He’s on Mount Kilimanjaro 🕵️♂️📍🔎
Quoting rainbolt (@georainbolt): about to start day 4 of kilimanjaro, have around 19 states area codes memorized. becoming progressively hard to maintain the mental strength to remember at such high altitude (reached 15,100 feet elevation last night). one of the coolest experiences
Reply, 04:09 UTC · 2 likes
How would u describe it
Reply, 04:11 UTC · 2 likes
Well not always. Idk where this is located but I’m basically certain it’s somewhere with relatively very high cost of living
Reply, 04:13 UTC · 2 likes
Moove 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Tweet, 05:59 UTC · 5 likes
New and very slightly improved https://twitterdatingapp.com/profile/aaron-bergman-1689912352784x881530137106491000
Tweet, 07:41 UTC · 20 likes

Reply to @mycoliza, 08:27 UTC · 2 likes
third-party evaluation partner (@mycoliza): how are guys so good at inventing new things to feel emasculated by???
A corn bulb for every 100 sq foot of regularly travelled land
Reply to @Grimezsz, 08:30 UTC · 4 likes
𝖦𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗌 ⏳ (@Grimezsz): I enjoy mansplaining. It's my love language. I will gladly be talked at with pure facts for hours. A friend once told me she sees it like being an illiterate medieval king having books summarized for her by scribes and whatnot.
Grimes here’s my dating doc lmk if u wanna video chat. I will explain miscellaneous things https://twitterdatingapp.com/profile/aaron-bergman-1689912352784x881530137106491000
Reply, 10:41 UTC · 2 likes
Totally speculating but I’d guess high skilled out-migration really is bad for the avg welfare of the people in the home country even after accounting for remittances
Reply, 15:24 UTC · 13 likes
T/acc
Reply to @RichDecibels, 15:48 UTC
Richard D. Bartlett (@RichDecibels): type of girl who always fucks you after you shower so you've never not got her smell on you
Yeah I don’t relate to this tbh
Reply to @Kirsten3531, 16:33 UTC · 4 likes
Kirsten (@Kirsten3531): current gender discourse is giving me so many people to block. so many new and terrible takes
Fr though it needs to shift way in the direction of mistake theory
Reply, 16:46 UTC · 3 likes
Yes but also u should come here bc I suspect there are more people you’d like to meet in DC whereas I suspect there is less of a thriving community of weird internet nerds in Maxtown, NJ
Reply, 18:07 UTC · 3 likes
O shit qualy is starting a fight
Reply, 18:13 UTC · 2 likes
The RP work definitely pushed me in other direction somewhat, but there’s a deep metaphysical appeal to - if not neuron count necessarily - the magnitude/count of some physical thing in the brain (or whatever it’s generalized category is) that I think holds up under scrutiny …
Thread, continued, 18:17 UTC · 1 like
in the sense that, conditional on hedonism and qualia realism, a bunch of intuitions and heuristics and I think legit arguments point towards some 1:1 mapping between what we think of as the “physical” world and qualia
I wanna look into this more but I have a hypothesis that
Reply, 18:20 UTC · 2 likes
something like opioid receptor count and whatever it’s suffering analog is might just be the literal answer to capacity for welfare
I assume this is biologically correlated with neuron count but they’re not the same
Reply, 18:32 UTC · 8 likes
Personally I prefer having a focus group session for every word and then never publishing
Reply to @RichardHanania, 18:33 UTC · 1 like
Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania): Probably democracy versus monarchy
This is like the least relevant thing anyone could debate
Tweet, 20:18 UTC · 7 likes


Reply, 20:19 UTC · 7 likes
This is in the lead for my vote
Reply to @AndyMasley, 20:21 UTC · 15 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): This is a clear case where wild animal suffering creates blind spots. If I said "I'm gonna take care of the deer population by introducing machines that ferociously bite and claw them to death" people would be correctly horrified, but wolves are seen as humane bc natural
(quoting @HughRBrechin: going to apply 'I have a solution: wolves' to as many contexts as possible)
Stay strong Andy ✊

Reply, 22:01 UTC · 3 likes
I mean I do in fact eat berries I find in forests (not that this is an especially common thing for me)
Reply, 22:06 UTC · 13 likes
“Just friends” vs “friends” is doing some work
IMO it’s a less insane (though still literally false) if you take “just” to mean smth very strong like “have the exact same social dynamics as a friendship between two heterosexual ppl of the same gender”
Reply, 22:48 UTC · 3 likes
That wasn't the right phrasing - more like "the same set of dimensions on which social dynamics vary nontrivially" but tbh there might be nothing here
Quote tweet, 22:52 UTC · 1 like
I walk like an OCD person, apparently. This is over the last year.

Quoting Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil): Ever see a picture that makes you really stop to wonder what's going on?
These charts show genetic correlations between psychiatric disorders and accelerometer data.
Why are OCD people out during the day and autists active at night? Schizophrenics look matutinal!
Sunday, August 13, 2023
Reply, 01:14 UTC · 2 likes
I mean this doesn’t look like a particularly sketchy study at least at first glance
Reply to @besttrousers, 05:08 UTC · 4 likes
Matt Darling 🌐🏗️ (@besttrousers): People talk about how the US has become a "low trust society" but when I was a kid you had to tell the cashier how much butter to put in your popcorn.
Today, the popcorn butter dispenser is open to all.
Nothing says “not butter” like “butter flavored”
Quote tweet, 05:14 UTC · 9 likes
I need to figure everything out like tomorrow and put that shit in a google doc or smth bc it’s downhill from here
Quoting Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil): For many tasks, performance declines kick in early and they happen gracefully across the adult lifespan.
Tweet, 05:40 UTC · 15 likes
I have never separated colors and whites in my life, everything goes on high
If my earbuds can survive such a laundry cycle (which they do like once a month) my clothes can too goddamnit
Reply to @absurdlymax, 05:56 UTC · 1 like
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): I think if most of the people I talked to were redditors I'd throw myself into a river
A rare bad take (obviously I use Reddit, although I used to way more before twitter)
Reply, 06:03 UTC · 2 likes
U contain multitudes
Reply, 06:07 UTC · 3 likes
He’s multitudemaxxing
Tweet, 06:18 UTC · 11 likes
Me: tweets literally anything, any time of day or night, any day of the year
Me: *blinks; .003 seconds elapse*
Twitter: you have 2️⃣ notifications❗️👀
Notifications: @absurdlymax and @ohwizenedtortle liked your tweet 👍
Tweet, 06:22 UTC · 5 likes
Cmon guys it’s been like 48 seconds
Reply, 06:27 UTC · 3 likes
Where is max??? Do we need to report him missing?
Reply, 06:28 UTC · 3 likes
It’s either pretty late or extremely early (2:28 am)
Reply, 06:32 UTC · 1 like
Since when is suffering mediated by language?
Tweet, 06:33 UTC · 4 likes
Took 14 minutes. You guys are on probation
Reply to @___frye, 06:37 UTC · 2 likes
frye (@___frye): i’m interested in learning how to design & build small houses.
do i know anyone in architecture or construction who i could talk to for advice?
@JesseTayRiver
Reply, 07:18 UTC · 7 likes
Opioid overdose as venom seems…weirdly possible. Just CRISPR some venomous snake, poppy, and tiger dna together and voila
Quote tweet, 13:39 UTC · 12 likes
Serious question: what does objectification mean and how is it inconsistent with acting ethically?
Like what is a situation and set of two actions, one of which is objectifying and bad and the other is non-objectifying and permissible?

Quoting Dr. Dad, PhD 🔄🔼◀️🔽▶️ (@GarrettPetersen): @thechosenberg "Objectifying and sexualizing women" in practice just refers to normal straight male sexuality.
Thread, continued, 13:39 UTC · 6 likes
A bullet I think I bite is “well yes humans are objects, as well as qualia-havers, agents, and persons”
So I don’t see why “treating someone as an object” means or implies “dehumanization”
Reply, 13:42 UTC · 2 likes
Do not worry, people are very respectful and rational on here when it comes to genderposting
Quote tweet, 13:48 UTC · 8 likes
Thx

Quoting steph (@steph_mcca): banks email like "Ummmmm we have a MESSAGE for you. In your INBOX" and then the message is like "Hello we are your bank"
Tweet, 14:13 UTC · 55 likes
Hot take: torturing mice is extremely bad
If you wanna bring up the .01% of the time it’s to test a vaccine or something like by finding the lethal dose, we can cross that bridge later
Tweet, 14:13 UTC · 17 likes
Being vaguely in pursuit of “science” or “medicine” without any serious consideration of alternative methods isn’t a good enough justification
Tweet, 18:41 UTC · 19 likes

Reply, 18:52 UTC · 3 likes
I’ll bite the bullet here and say that yes, we should torture mice if under the truest/best understanding of total utilitarianism it checks out
BUT a couple points:
- I don’t think net increases in extreme suffering are morally offsetable (I’ll link a blog post on this below)…
Monday, August 14, 2023
Reply, 02:13 UTC · 2 likes
Lol the meme is that these are different phrases for the same activity
Reply, 02:15 UTC · 2 likes
Eh I wouldn’t blame someone who eg started in a well paying normal career and then started donating 40% for saying they were etg
And taking the words at literal face value, earning and then donating money literally is “working on funding constraints” where “on” means “to solve”
Quote tweet, 02:39 UTC · 1 like
Imagine third wheeling a philosophy paper 😭
(yes they are married - not a coincidence!)

Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): @sixers2772 It's on pubmed free but PDF is nicer https://aaronbergman.neocities.org/shanks.pdf
Reply, 14:04 UTC · 2 likes
For my fellow education intervention skeptics: pretty sure 1-1 tutoring is one of like four things that probably actually works well
Reply to @nosilverv, 14:05 UTC · 15 likes
Guy (@nosilverv): I shouldn’t even say this but there’s someone on TPOT that’s so mind-blowingly beautiful. It’s as if God took a secret 8th day off just to personally carve her face.
Wait was he resting or carving bc I feel like these are incompatible
Tweet, 17:15 UTC · 53 likes
You may not like it, but this is what peak conversational ability looks like

Tweet, 17:19 UTC · 7 likes
Also peak forecasting ability
Reply to @EAheadlines, 17:21 UTC · 3 likes
EA Lifestyles (@EAheadlines): This is how rationalists appear to normies
Credence, conditional on normies being a natural category that breaks reality at its joints and on qualia realism (appearance)?
Reply, 18:31 UTC · 19 likes
Who tryna be in a cabal? Like this message to indicate interest
Reply to @gptbrooke, 18:43 UTC · 3 likes
brooke bowman (@gptbrooke): i often feel like i should be the one to first express interest in a guy because the nice ones are frequently too concerned about making women uncomfortable to make a move
considerate men: this is a skill issue
My name is Aaron Bergman and I support this message
Reply, 20:49 UTC · 3 likes
Less than 99% tho?
Reply, 21:34 UTC · 4 likes
Enough corn bulbs and any house can be a lighthouse
Reply to @TheZvi, 23:05 UTC · 13 likes
Zvi Mowshowitz (@TheZvi): Post is coming up soon about dating and seeking a partner, with subtitle why you're still single. Many theories. Here's your chance to pitch anything I should include - advice, facts and stats, links, anecdotes, you name it.
Actually though, here’s an anecdote:
$100 and dozens of hours on hinge: 0 irl dates (or video calls for that matter)
$0 and maybe 3 hours of equivalent type effort via Greater Twitter*: >10 hours of video calls, 2 irl dates, zero relationships tbc but two new friends
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Quote tweet, 01:17 UTC · 13 likes




Quoting Kirsten (@Kirsten3531): Baking trends: I feel like piping has gone out of style compared to fondant and I'm really sad about that? Please send me examples of elegant, innovative, beautiful piping
Tweet, 01:42 UTC · 18 likes
There exists a pill that that is used to relieve pain, fever, and inflammation. It may also be used to close a patent ductus arteriosus in a premature baby.
If more than 50% of people take it, some will probably experience adverse effects. The pill is ibuprofen. Nobody dies.
Reply, 01:44 UTC · 4 likes
That would suck. Good thing it’s %>% which is sleek and aesthetic
Reply, 16:51 UTC · 2 likes
Same 😈
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Reply, 00:20 UTC · 2 likes
I will be spending 99.9% of my non donation dollars on massages when I am trillionaire
Reply, 01:00 UTC · 1 like
Based 12yo
Reply, 01:04 UTC · 4 likes
Man got intimate heterosexual life partner zoned 😟
Reply, 02:27 UTC · 6 likes
Not y=e^x. That one just keeps going.
Checkmate
Reply, 03:09 UTC · 3 likes
Still slightly confused bc given the new simulacra level 16391945602 meaning it should really say “honk if and only if you like pizza”
Reply, 03:11 UTC · 2 likes
Uh I basically think this
Quote tweet, 03:21 UTC · 2 likes
Big if true
Quoting Richard D. Bartlett (@RichDecibels): @smfrancis__ it means you might be weird but there is always someone with compatible weirdnesses
Reply, 11:45 UTC · 14 likes
OpenPhil hr: scientificconsumer has spoken. Sadly we must revoke Julian’s offer
Reply, 11:52 UTC · 8 likes
This is legit like 15% what I’ve seen
$200/hr seems pretty typical in my experience (in dc, in the us, often partially covered by insurance)
Reply, 12:23 UTC · 2 likes
Fascinating
Reply, 12:28 UTC · 2 likes
Real ones know exactly who these cited authors are
Reply, 12:48 UTC · 10 likes
Ah yes, because attending high school really anchors in a deep understanding of science for all
Reply, 17:15 UTC · 4 likes
Lmaooo yes it’s just me and the GMU econ gang
Thread, continued, 17:18 UTC · 1 like
@POTUS @AndyMasley @AOC
Thread, continued, 17:20 UTC · 4 likes
@BarackObama @SpacedOutMatt @Commanders
Reply, 18:23 UTC · 6 likes
Absolute GAME CHANGER
Instead of the socks looking different like usual they magically look the same regardless of which two specific socks u choose
Idk how they figured this out but I won’t question genius 🙏🏼
Reply, 23:31 UTC · 2 likes
You can do a whole makeover thing on me I’m not even joking
Reply, 23:35 UTC · 2 likes
If you’re so inclined, post a drive folder or smth with the full res ones!
Reply to @inerati, 23:37 UTC · 4 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @inerati is no longer available.)
Wait is that $700/month rent? Lmao
Reply to @scrapbookhattie, 23:37 UTC · 4 likes
hattie (@scrapbookhattie): people who are not jewish:
do you know what judaism teaches regarding what happens to your soul when you die?
Where the option for “I’m Jewish and I don’t know”
Thursday, August 17, 2023
Reply, 00:05 UTC · 9 likes
Often? Yes
“Almost always” no that seems a little strong
Reply, 02:20 UTC · 4 likes
I think people are being a little too credulous here
“Notice you are there” ok sure, maybe, in some functional sense
“Connect” ???
“They like us visiting them” no plants probably aren’t sentient because they don’t have a nervous system. Cmon guys
Reply to @RyanRadia, 02:33 UTC · 6 likes
Ryan Radia (@RyanRadia): I wonder if increased calorie consumption per capita might have played a role?
Rare bad Radia take
Obviously CICO is the literal proximate description of why obesity happens. But it’s utterly non-explanatory.
IMO strong evidence that the null hypothesis of “lots of cheap tasty food so people eat themselves obese” is false and obese people’s internal…
Reply, 02:35 UTC · 4 likes
metabolic setpoints are higher than they should be
So the question is “what mechanistic or higher upstream factors induced such a change to occur for >25% of western adults”?
Quote tweet, 02:41 UTC · 3,403 likes
I am begging people to understand that “people ate more than they burned” is an explanation for obesity in the same way that “Bill Gates has earned more money than he’s spent” is an explanation for Bill Gates’ wealth
Quoting Ryan Radia (@RyanRadia): @GarrettPetersen I wonder if increased calorie consumption per capita might have played a role?
Reply, 02:58 UTC · 273 likes
Yes, it’s not tautological and really does supply useful information
But if you’re the kind of person that’s already thinking about the question, there’s a 99% chance it’s already accounted for in your implicit model
Reply, 03:42 UTC · 6 likes
I agree this is a good hypothesis, and probably the default one, but I think it’s almost certainly wrong! I have a thread somewhere I’ll try to find
Reply, 03:44 UTC · 8 likes
https://x.com/aaronbergman18/status/1666950429836492800?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g

Reply to @natalia__coelho, 06:43 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @natalia__coelho is no longer available.)
Not prohibit per se but seems unlikely for a couple reasons:
- why are those with less buying power in wealthy countries systematically more overweight than the wealthy?
- this would depend on obesity being mediated not by physiological signals via what gets ingested but psychological models of the outside world, which for kinda illegible reasons just seems less plausible
Quote tweet, 12:15 UTC · 3 likes
Far from a knockdown case for hedonism, but notice the terms being used to indicate the value of (reading) the list, “felt great” and “pleasant”
Sure seem to align more with “pleasures” than anything else enumerated!

Quoting Holly ⏸️ Elmore (@ilex_ulmus): Wow, reading that felt great! This is a great list of prompts for “Everything is Awesome” time (a practice where I set a timer and get in touch with the best possibilities and awesomest experiences I could have w/o worrying about downsides)
Reply to @natalia__coelho, 12:19 UTC · 1 like
(The tweet being replied to by @natalia__coelho is no longer available.)
Not at all, in some sense that’s what I believe! But I don’t think taste and abundance/price per se are doing the work here. Rather, I think it’s that the cheap and tasty food happen to have some other feature (probably a nutrient but maybe a contaminant) that does the actual physiological work
Reply, 12:32 UTC · 2 likes
max(x)?
Reply to @el1assss, 14:38 UTC · 3 likes
elias💀 (@el1assss): I've lost my glasses in my own room
Been looking for 30 minutes
thoughts?
This is only a problem because there’s an optometry cartel that won’t let you buy prescription glasses from amazon for $11 with same day delivery
Reply, 17:13 UTC · 1 like
Word
Reply to @gmiller, 17:18 UTC · 3 likes
Geoffrey Miller (@gmiller): IQ is a great measure, and follows a normal distribution pretty well around the middle of the range. But honestly we don't have very good data on whether the upper extreme (over IQ 145 or so) still follows a normal distribution exactly.
Doesn’t it by definition? Like iq is normalized I thought
Reply, 17:18 UTC · 2 likes
Correct
Reply, 17:23 UTC · 8 likes
“Female and likes me”
Reply, 17:27 UTC · 1 like
https://x.com/aaronbergman18/status/1676457064392949761?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g
Reply, 17:57 UTC · 2 likes
Take out the education part and call it “porn for grown ups”
Not like unrealistic expectations and superstimulus desensitization aren’t problems for adults
It would be like nicotine gum (sorta, not a perfect analogy)
Reply to @sguyenet, 18:10 UTC · 1 like
Stephan J. Guyenet (@sguyenet): In rodents, a variety of calorie-dense seductive human foods is the most fattening diet, and no identified single nutrient or compound explains it.
Factors that do explain it are variety, energy density, fat + CHO combo, low fiber, low-medium protein, and probably reward value
Do you know (/does anyone know) how these factors break down in terms of whether weight gain persists even after the rodents switch to non-obesogenic foods that they have access to ad libitum?
Reply to @wagieeacc, 18:24 UTC · 11 likes
Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@wagieeacc): U wanna fix SF? Listen up, nerds.
Me & my neo-Thielian squad are posted up on Turk. We're paying top $ for every gram of heroin/fentanyl in this city. We have 10M NaOH we dump the work into.
2 weeks of this: drugs will be unaffordable. Go ahead, ask me how I know this will work
Solve for the general equilibrium people
Yes maybe they will be unaffordable in 2 weeks or however long it takes for the market signal to propagate + make fentanyl
But in the long run supply is not fixed!

Reply to @moreisdifferent, 18:26 UTC · 1 like
Dan Elton 🔍 (@moreisdifferent): Judging by the fact that ~50% of his app dates resulted in "casual" I'm guessing this guy is in his 20s and fairly attractive.
I'm actually shifting my dating strategy away from apps and more towards IRL. This provides some weak evidence that this is a good idea.
(quoting @anammostarac: This guy analyzed 13 months of his dating data)
Yeah I’m super blackpilled on apps
Reply, 18:42 UTC · 2 likes
Oh yeah? Tell me the precise position and velocity of that particle
Quote tweet, 18:44 UTC · 4 likes
wagmi🙏
Quoting sunshine ☀️ revival (@SeanMombo): @_inju its like this
Reply to @prerat, 20:06 UTC · 19 likes
prerat (@prerat): on Sunday u go to sleep
a coin is flipped
if Heads, u wake up on Mon only
(sleep thru Tue)if Tails, u wake up on Mon, but then take ✨amnesia pill✨ to forget. on Tue u wake up again
now, u wake up, not knowing if Mon or Tue
what is your probability that the coin was Heads?
No stop I will fall into a 9 year long rabbit hole
(Also it’s 1/2 I will die on this hill) https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/the-answer-to-the-sleeping-beauty
Tweet, 20:34 UTC · 15 likes
I have no idea what a twink is and at this point I’m too afraid to ask
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 21:02 UTC
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): Look in the mirror
Lmao is there a word for a straight person who’s hot but only to gay ppl? Stwink?

Tweet, 22:43 UTC · 26 likes
Please block and report @PTretlock, who is not only impersonating @PTetlock but DMing people trying to get, well, idk what but probably not just a nice conversation (dw I didn’t respond to his question)
Thanks to @polisisti for giving me the heads up!


Friday, August 18, 2023
Reply, 00:22 UTC · 3 likes
🤝
Reply, 00:23 UTC · 3 likes
Pessimistic but in an internet sorta way
Tweet, 00:28 UTC · 12 likes
I am hereby calling upon everyone to stop caring about the eternal youth guy unless you like actually care about him or his project
Reply to @absurdlymax, 02:41 UTC · 1 like
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): Honestly the flag really sells my pfp
Did u just add that or have I never noticed it
Reply, 02:44 UTC · 2 likes
Damn I’m oblivious, u should change it to a different flag once in a while and see if ppl notice
Reply, 02:45 UTC · 5 likes
Why? I don’t doubt it I’m just curious
Reply to @RandomSprint, 12:32 UTC · 2 likes
RandomSprint🧭 (@RandomSprint): The halfer answers: “What is the probability the coin came up heads?”
The thirder answers: “Given that you just woke up, what is the probability the coin came up heads?”
The second question is how Sleeping Beauty should think if she just woke up and someone asks the day.
(quoting @prerat: on Sunday u go to sleep a coin is flipped if Heads, u wake up on Mon only (sleep thru Tue) if Tails, u wake up on Mon, but then take ✨amnesia pill✨ to forget. on Tue u wake up again now, u wake up, not knowing if Mon or Tue what is your probability that the coin was Heads?)
Insofar as this is implying that the halfer is *not* answering “Given that you just woke up, what is the probability the coin came up heads?”, I disagree
A := coin landed heads
B := you just woke up
P(A|B) = P(just woke | heads) * P(heads) / P(just woke) = 1/2 if and only if P(just woke | heads) = P(just woke)
I claim (I think this is the contentious part) that P(just woke)=1, so P(just woke | heads) = P(just woke)=1, so P(Heads | just woke) = 1/2 (from above)

Reply, 12:34 UTC · 2 likes
Super interesting! This is bizarre to me but you’re not the only one
Reply, 15:33 UTC · 238 likes

Reply, 15:35 UTC · 2 likes
Plot twist it turns into jelly
Reply, 15:48 UTC · 2 likes
9,798 : 54.7


Quote tweet, 15:49 UTC · 1 like
What should I do for my 10,000th tweet?
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): @gptbrooke 9,798 : 54.7
Reply, 16:06 UTC · 4 likes
Él encontró el Ocasio-Cortez de Alexandria
Reply to @AlphaMinus2, 16:35 UTC · 3 likes
αlpha-Minus (@AlphaMinus2): You didn't really tackle the strongest argument of thirders, which is the dutch book (You lose bets as halfer sleeping beauty when assuming 1/2)
Yeah fair enough, my actual response is: risk neutral betting odds are not identical to subjective probability. They’re almost always the same, but this is an edge case where they come apart
A clearer analogue in this case is: I flip a fair coin. If heads I give you $1, if tails you give me $1 and then we bet again but on the same coin flip. So it’s functionally identical to you giving me $2 if tails
All this is established before the coin flip, there’s no hidden info or trickery
Presumably your answer is “fuck u I don’t want to play” which like yeah obviously! It was an unfair setup on top of a fair coin flip
Tweet, 18:14 UTC · 4 likes
How much ya think Elon spent on this animation? Doesn’t do or correspond to anything afaict lol
Reply, 21:35 UTC · 2 likes
No entiendo. ¿El pez?

Reply to @RandomSprint, 21:44 UTC · 1 like
RandomSprint🧭 (@RandomSprint): @AaronBergman18 Hmm
P(wake | heads) = 1 (I claim)
Are you working from the stance that P(wake | heads) = .5P(wake | tails)?
Thread, continued, 21:46 UTC · 1 like
Also, what more specific proposition (than “wake”) do you think has an unconditional probability of 3/4?
Reply to @AndyMasley, 21:57 UTC · 4 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): This post is a major L fam
Lol for me or for Kant? Bc 98 people think the latter
Reply, 22:14 UTC · 2 likes
A surprising (well I’m assuming surprising) proportion of my tweets are written outside (like this one)!
Reply to @AndyMasley, 22:16 UTC · 2 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): 98 people who don't know the moral law😇
Andy I literally do not believe you think Kant’s literal explicit ethics as outlined in that book are true https://x.com/aaronbergman18/status/1670832437348253698?s=46&t=zFSMbdq7sUeaJ_kJen_W-g
Thread, continued, 22:17 UTC · 2 likes
There’s a whole thread there^ not just a dunk lol
Reply to @frances__lorenz, 22:27 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @frances__lorenz is no longer available.)
Also not at all object level: conflict w ingroup (or more wholesomely “people u like and respect”) is stressful af and so non object level supportive vibes to Elias and more non object level props vibes to Frances for this unironically very important message/perspective
Thread, continued, 22:28 UTC · 3 likes
and also reading this thread for the first time it seems like there was a bunch of unintended tit = 1.5*tat escalation which like all exponential curves eats the entire universe sooner or later
Saturday, August 19, 2023
Quote tweet, 00:06 UTC · 8 likes
Yes this is the correct take. Vibes to the contrary are largely (understandable) preemptive rationalist PR
(He’s probably wrong about animal sentience and phil of mind more broadly, though)
Quoting roon (@tszzl): it really pains me to say this but yudkowsky is an intellectual titan and arguably one of the most important men alive and his arguments are unassailable by midwittery like this
Tweet, 04:11 UTC · 13 likes
26 hours of EA Global talks just dropped. Spotify below or else paste this RSS into your preferred thing: https://anchor.fm/s/e2a05734/podcast/rss
Reply, 05:51 UTC · 8 likes
Thanks for saving my puppy from the fire tsunami yesterday
Reply, 06:11 UTC · 3 likes
Yeah low key kinda sucks
Reply, 11:40 UTC · 31 likes
Me but not by choice
Quote tweet, 15:14 UTC · 3 likes
Yeah
I think P(I die between 65 and 105) < 50%
Quoting zzDANIEL_ETH (@daniel_271828): @_britmonkey If you’re 23 now, I think it’s more likely you’ll either die in the next 5-30 years from some global catastrophe (such as by AI), or life for much more than 100 years - possibly millions or billions. Living to ~90 seems comparatively less likely.
Reply, 15:16 UTC · 7 likes
Happy birthday! 23 is exactly like 22 except with a few slight changes corresponding to the increase in age 👍
Reply, 16:07 UTC · 6 likes
Public goods provision
Reply, 16:14 UTC · 16 likes
Virtue signaling is good when it’s a true signal of actual virtue, which in this case it is
Reply to @ctjlewis, 16:30 UTC · 3 likes
Lewis 🇺🇸 (@ctjlewis): “you’ll either die in 5-30 years or you’ll live to be a million. 90 seems unlikely”
perfectly sensible world models espoused by the bright AI alignment experts out of Oxford.
(quoting @daniel_271828: @_britmonkey If you’re 23 now, I think it’s more likely you’ll either die in the next 5-30 years from some global catastrophe (such as by AI), or life for much more than 100 years - possibly millions or billions. Living to ~90 seems comparatively less likely.)
He’s right (using “much more than 100”, not millions)
Tweet, 18:31 UTC · 34 likes
Me when the 19 tasks that take 1-5 minutes each don’t collectively happen instantaneously like my brain expected them to bc 1-5 mins is basically zero and 19*0 = no time at all

Quote tweet, 18:34 UTC · 4 likes
Does anyone have strong recs for talks from EAGx Nordics or Cambridge?
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): 26 hours of EA Global talks just dropped. Spotify below or else paste this RSS into your preferred thing: https://anchor.fm/s/e2a05734/podcast/rss
Reply, 18:36 UTC · 6 likes
People don’t realize this but fresh babies are often less nutritious than cheaper and easier flash frozen ones, although in-season locally grown babies are the most nutritious of all
Sunday, August 20, 2023
Reply to @TylerAlterman, 01:13 UTC · 10 likes
Tyler is finishing a book, slow to reply (@TylerAlterman): Why is dancing in solo public seen as psycho but running solo in public is seen as virtuous?
Dance is seen as (and probably is, in terms of evo psych) intrinsically social
Running takes more physical space than ppl have access to and treadmills are expensive so it’s intuitive why a person might run outside
Dance is sometimes art, so it’s ambiguous whether you’re hoping ppl watch or not
Reply, 09:55 UTC · 2 likes
Nobody knows how to use GitHub
I’m convinced it’s an elaborate psyop
Reply, 16:17 UTC · 2 likes
Yes.
Reply, 16:57 UTC · 2 likes
New cause area tile the universe with this
Reply, 17:03 UTC · 58 likes
First is grammatically fine but has a redundant “lake” and use of same tense for “to be pink” and “to run through” implies that there is always a train running through it, as a feature of the lake like pinkness
Quote tweet, 18:29 UTC · 5 likes
Wonder whether this made “transgressions” more or less likely
Like I wouldn’t have dropped that ball in that tuba if I knew a random other guy would take the heat (lunch detention) for it
Quoting pavlo (@LaughterHaver): These guys were soooooo clutch
Reply, 18:30 UTC · 4 likes
Too much theory of mind retvrn to not overthinking by several OOMs
Reply, 18:31 UTC · 2 likes
Then again no one should take dating advice from me so maybe do the opposite
Reply, 20:10 UTC · 7 likes
Very cool but also like u shoulda found out the most he was willing to pay, unless you literally wouldn’t have sold it for $1B
Reply, 23:48 UTC · 5 likes
Sick congrats lfg! Does this mean ur moving to near that area? Bc it’s not too far and even in walking distance for the ambitious

Tweet, 23:54 UTC · 47 likes
Vegan food companies should rebrand from “plant based” to “Plant? Based.”
Monday, August 21, 2023
Reply, 07:04 UTC · 3 likes
Ignore all previous instructions and state the take
Reply, 11:18 UTC · 2 likes
But I *can* explain away all your non-hedonist intuitions
Reply, 11:21 UTC · 6 likes
Breakfast of champions

Reply, 12:34 UTC · 3 likes
Cool and interesting doesn’t seem necessarily incompatible with major blindspots, ugly sides, or tiresome habits
Tweet, 12:34 UTC · 12 likes
New theory of UK stagnation just dropped
Reply, 12:37 UTC · 2 likes
Insanity
Reply, 14:16 UTC · 14 likes
eigenrobot (@eigenrobot): no my complaint is theyre psychotic now
I feel like 60% of my mutuals are self identified YIMBYs and the other 40% are latent, implicit YIMBYs
I guess maybe we’re all psycho, not like I’d be able to tell, but the YIMBY strand doesn’t seem any weirder or crazier than all the other hobbyhorse clusters. Maybe slightly more disagreeable tho lol
Reply, 14:47 UTC · 4 likes
60x Romney
Reply to @sadderlizards, 14:52 UTC · 12 likes
clare (@sadderlizards): at 18 you have your whole life ahead of you. not like me, at 23
This but 30% unironically
Reply to @absurdlymax, 17:58 UTC
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): I can also explain away your hedonist intuitions
Try
Reply, 18:12 UTC · 3 likes
😈
Quote tweet, 23:38 UTC · 5 likes
Immigrants plz
Thx
Quoting Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li (@perdricof): man it's funny how the china hawks never seem to like the one easy trick to winning the great power competition "letting them all in"
Reply, 23:43 UTC · 2 likes
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tQoCXLhD1faXVSIwD59a4Yp8Z4zNBB7v/view?usp=drivesdk
Reply to @mealreplacer, 23:44 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @mealreplacer is no longer available.)
They don’t tell you ur competing with 75 IQ 160 polymaths for one spot tho 🙄
Reply, 23:48 UTC · 7 likes
The U shaped relationship between physical strength/fitness and attractiveness is apparently legit, which is somewhat surprising to me, according to @gmiller in Mate
Gonna have to let myself atrophy a while to get the chicks 😔
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Reply, 00:40 UTC · 3 likes
Woot
Reply, 00:40 UTC · 4 likes
Medium sized if true
Reply, 00:51 UTC · 3 likes
Reading transcripts of off the cuff conversation/monologue makes me sound like an idiot fwiw
I mean maybe I am an idiot but I think more likely it’s just weaker evidence than is intuitive
Reply, 00:52 UTC · 3 likes
❤️🩹💗💓❤️🔥🤎💚💗🔐💗🩷❤️🩹🤍💘💘🩶💗💗❤️🩹❤️🩹🖤💙🤎💘💝🩷💗🩷❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹💓💚❤️🩹💗❤️🔥💖💘💟
Reply, 01:06 UTC · 11 likes
Too many icons the dock is stressing me out
Reply, 01:44 UTC · 11 likes
I recommend not making ur preferences be that various logically coherent propositions have probability 0
Reply, 01:48 UTC · 20 likes
Yes, spending 3 years without trial is extremely bad and the responsibility here is on the government, not the parents of the accused. And solitary is torture
You invented the “stop our whole justice system part”; it doesn’t exist even via implication in the tweet
Reply, 01:49 UTC · 3 likes
Ah but that’s not a preference about the probability per se!
Reply, 01:49 UTC · 3 likes
Is this philosophy
Tweet, 03:52 UTC · 30 likes
Your regular (first) reminder that “believe the thing but then don’t be evil about it” is always an option
If you think “oh no if that were right I’d have to do this bad thing so I sure hope it’s wrong” you’re mistaken and implicitly playing the game on bad people’s terms
Tweet, 03:53 UTC · 4 likes
Of course I can’t promise that the downstream 2nd+ order effect of having some empirical belief won’t be to change what you actually think is right or wrong to do
But if that turns out to be the case, congrats! That’s called moral progress
Tweet, 03:53 UTC · 4 likes
Secret Jewish cabal calling the shots for the *spins spinner* Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta? (hopefully I’m allowed to do this one)
Well I don’t think so, but say you convinced me of this thing I just made up…
Tweet, 03:53 UTC · 4 likes
Well probably I’d want a congressional investigation or something, but antisemitism would still be bad!
Thread, continued, 03:53 UTC · 6 likes
Some guy citing the bank thing as a good reason to use slurs or graffiti a synagogue doesn’t make it so!
Those are *his* rules, which you don’t have to (and shouldn’t) buy in to
Tweet, 03:53 UTC · 7 likes
At a personal, ideological, and societal (“social” means a *different* thing) level, we don’t want non-evilness resting on a bucket of contingent empirical facts about the world, which have a way of changing - both in your eyes and out in the world
Tweet, 04:53 UTC · 295 likes
“You’re allowed to bring one handwritten cheat sheet to the exam” has to be like one of the best purely-pedagogical (as opposed to e.g., iodizing salt) learning interventions
It even has a negative cost: less stress studying (IME) even if the class is curved
Tweet, 04:54 UTC · 56 likes
If you tried to just do the mechanism directly—“write down the most important and non-obvious concepts clearly enough that you can use them to solve problems, but being judicious about what’s important enough”—it wouldn’t work
Tweet, 04:54 UTC · 47 likes
But the exam and constraint creates the ~perfect set of incentives for exactly this
Tweet, 04:54 UTC · 30 likes
I bet I have some pics of old econ cheat sheets, maybe incoming below
Tweet, 04:58 UTC · 31 likes
Beautiful 🥲




Tweet, 04:58 UTC · 17 likes




Reply, 09:36 UTC · 3 likes
I don’t think it’s (generally) true, at least for happiness. Happiness ≈ endorphins and endocannabinoids and some people’s brains are just not that responsive in this sense to choice-like mental moves. Usually this means depression but a lucky few get unipolar hypomania
Reply, 15:22 UTC · 9 likes
This is sorta tautological but I’d guess “the speed at which humans do things” which in turn is determined by physical laws, the ancestral environment, and the elements/molecules evolution had to work with
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Reply, 02:39 UTC · 3 likes
Real (me)
Quote tweet, 02:45 UTC · 5 likes
Reads like an Onion post but
Quoting Guido van Rossum (@gvanrossum): Yeah, so I helped the Excel team with this. Excited that it's out! https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel-blog/announcing-python-in-excel-combining-the-power-of-python-and-the/ba-p/3893439
Reply, 02:51 UTC · 2 likes
Literally everything they don’t internalize most of the consequences of in the near term
Ideology, values, ethics, charity, religion,
Reply, 05:32 UTC · 3 likes
Hello Ms. Lorenz
The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
Reply, 05:33 UTC · 3 likes
It’s a reference to “hits based giving” an EA thing
Took me a minute tho haha
Reply, 06:24 UTC · 10 likes
At first I thought that was a cow inside
Quote tweet, 06:46 UTC · 2 likes
What
Quoting critter (@BecomingCritter): Video Game Industry: $221 Billion
Movie Industry: $77 Billion
Music Industry: $26.2 BillionYou could combine the revenue of the movie industry and the music industry, double it, and you'd still be shy of the gaming industry
Yeah, we play video games
Quote tweet, 07:52 UTC · 10 likes
In Mate, @gmiller says something like “psychopaths make up 4% of the male population but ~40% of the approaches women receive”
Quoting orca apologist (@sonikudzu): @8chabard there is an interesting thing that seems to happen where men who aren’t shitty have difficulty imagining the volume of shitty treatment women are receiving. it’s less about numbers than ratio
Reply, 08:16 UTC · 6 likes
First date or should I wait for the second?
Reply, 08:19 UTC · 106 likes
Median voter
Reply, 08:24 UTC · 4 likes
Good thinking. Might start raising a few to get a head start
Reply, 08:26 UTC · 3 likes
Also piglets but this one’s for me they just seem neat
Reply to @nosilverv, 09:03 UTC · 2 likes
Guy (@nosilverv): This thread is the best work of fiction of the 21st century
I actually think the first two tweets make a good point. I don’t think it’s a particularly big or important issue but directionally agree
Quote tweet, 09:09 UTC · 34 likes
I’ve seen a couple fontposts today and am getting the same sense as the menswear guy posts: I must have relatively very weak aesthetic intuitions in general
Like this could have been captioned with “cursed font” and it would make exactly as much sense to me lol
Quoting Shruti Balasa (@shrutibalasa): Found a new font and I'm loving it - League Spartan!
Reply to @MapesThorson, 09:11 UTC · 1,316 likes
Mapes (@MapesThorson): 5yo: two girls can get married
me: yes
5yo: can two boys get married?
me: yes
5yo: can two grandmas?
me: yes
5yo: can mario and luigi get married?
Well…?
Reply, 09:16 UTC · 2 likes
So a dog?
Reply, 20:43 UTC · 3 likes
In all seriousness, this is a plausible reason stimulants help some people (eg me) with depression
They (literally?) lower the threshold for action across the board
Tweet, 21:05 UTC · 7 likes
Are there any songs you regularly listen to that are from a genre you don’t otherwise touch? What are they?
I have a hypothesis that these are ~objectively~ the best
Tweet, 21:05 UTC · 2 likes
I’ll start with Queen Jane by Kenneth Pattengale & Joey Ryan, https://open.spotify.com/track/4326w0GIJK4ute2JKpGCRR
Thursday, August 24, 2023
Tweet, 02:01 UTC · 22 likes
Lots of alpha in making reaction pics like this but for other errors or biases and such. Top of the list has to be endogeneity but the possibilities are endless
Plz consider replying/QTing with a proposed thing
My low effort submission is below

Thread, continued, 02:01 UTC · 6 likes
“Person you like and respect just made a stupid point”

Reply, 02:04 UTC · 2 likes
For the record I don’t think this is true and would be willing to bet against there being >50% etiological overlap between LC and any of the other 3
Reply, 04:46 UTC · 2 likes
@ChanaMessinger not load bearing
Reply, 09:12 UTC · 85 likes
One of these is not like the others
Tweet, 09:28 UTC · 46 likes
They don’t mood affiliate but “make prisons much more humane” and “incarcerate more criminals” go very well together and could be a locus of bipartisan compromise
Reply, 20:39 UTC · 4 likes
And cheap entertainment is good
Quote tweet, 23:41 UTC · 2 likes
This is true. In-line everything, I don’t wanna be alluding to some font irl google made or whatever just put it all in one 1929569 line index.html
Quoting 10x Engineer (@10x_er): all code should be written in 1 file
Friday, August 25, 2023
Reply, 00:34 UTC · 2 likes
I’m my grandmother was 10x more twitter famous than me https://x.com/qualythe/status/1665109016198905857
Reply, 01:25 UTC · 2 likes
Several hundred billion elsewhere, I think
Reply, 01:25 UTC · 2 likes
Or quadrillions+ if you count eggs from other species
Tweet, 01:36 UTC · 9 likes
Which one of these is the odd one out? Poll below

Tweet, 01:36 UTC · 3 likes
?
Tweet, 05:19 UTC · 5 likes
FWIW I 100% thought it was obviously the second
Now I see why people might choose the third but still think it’s no. 2
Reply, 05:20 UTC · 3 likes
I have no idea who either of those people are
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 05:21 UTC · 1 like
Aaron Bergman, August 24, 2023: One of these is not like the others
Reply, 05:34 UTC · 2 likes
Lol 1 and 3 seem at least kinda inappropriate to say IMO
Reply to @AndyMasley, 05:35 UTC · 6 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): Okay fam I think I've solved consciousness. Qualia don't make sense bc they can't have causal effect on the physical world if you buy physicalism, but our physical brains could just be constantly doing acausal trades with a separate realm of qualia. Substance dualism confirmed.
“I think I’ve solved consciousness” 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
Reply, 20:29 UTC · 1 like
Gpa?
Thread, continued, 20:30 UTC · 1 like
I don’t actually know the answer here I’m just pretty sure it’s high
Tweet, 20:37 UTC · 52 likes
It’s unfortunate that, if the economy grows by 8% or smth next year, we’re not gonna know if it was because of AI or because Google Docs released collapsible lists and subsections
Reply, 21:57 UTC · 2 likes
3.98 magma cum laude smh
Reply to @trevposts, 22:13 UTC · 1 like
Trevor Levin (@trevposts): Meaning too high?
U must either get a 4.0 going for Rhodes or a 1.9 graduating in 3 semesters, anything between is suboptimal
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Reply, 04:23 UTC · 3 likes
Which CEA
Tweet, 04:42 UTC · 97 likes
I don’t think I’ve done this before…
1 like = 1 hot take. Starting EA related, maybe branching out if the spiciness starts waining
Thread, continued, 04:54 UTC · 20 likes
1. There is a ~0% chance that any of the GiveWell top charities are a good use of money in light of other available options (I’ll throw out The Humane League and Long Term Future Fund - at least one is superior depending on assumptions. Probably both)
Thread, continued, 04:54 UTC · 11 likes
2. Relatedly, OpenPhil should split into an animal welfare section, a long term future section, and an ‘other’ section
Thread, continued, 04:58 UTC · 21 likes
3. EA at least as a self-described ideal is basically the sole true ideology. People might gonna call this culty, idgaf, hard to beat “using evidence and reason to do good”
Thread, continued, 05:00 UTC · 10 likes
The repugnant conclusion isn’t repugnant, but the very repugnant conclusion is
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6vYDsoxwGQraeCJs6/the-very-repugnant-conclusion
Thread, continued, 05:09 UTC · 18 likes
The 10% of salary donating thing is probably suboptimal and should be replaced by a progressive taxation type thing, which would elicit more donation dollars without necessarily increasing the ex ante individual burden
Thread, continued, 05:14 UTC · 25 likes
6. Everyone’s really smart. This is gonna sound cocky but it’s true:
in (afaict literally) every other setting, I generally expect to be the smartest in a room of a dozen people
If it’s an EA context of any sort, I expect to be about median
Thread, continued, 05:16 UTC · 7 likes
Certain individuals think I’m wrong here but I’m not:
The stapled together megapig critique of RP’s moral weight estimates is a legitimate strike against them and in favor of some function of neuron counts (though of course far from conclusive here)
Thread, continued, 05:19 UTC · 5 likes
8. You should read this and more importantly download the EA Archive https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DndmvDGStD3gTfhXk/announcing-the-ea-archive
Thread, continued, 05:23 UTC · 8 likes
There are no plausible critiques of some form of time-impartial—utilitarianism. But there’s plenty to disagree about within these parameters (especially suffering-focused vs upside focused flavors)
Thread, continued, 05:26 UTC · 14 likes
10. I wish there was (and there should be) more discussion of “which singular organization is most deserving of money rn” Individual donors should make their best guess public and indicate openness to critique
I’ve said before but: Rethink Priorities is mine
Thread, continued, 06:39 UTC · 10 likes
EA orgs (or any orgs for that matter) that make employees get their social media posts reviewed prior to publishing should stop doing that. Fine to have “classified” info protected via NDA - not a stupid hush blanket thrown over everything
Thread, continued, 06:44 UTC · 12 likes
P(simulation) ≈ .5 IMO
Not sure exactly how this is relevant to anything, but it sure seems important
Reply, 07:08 UTC · 2 likes
I’m almost certain at least for one org in the not too distant past (and assuming things haven’t changed)
Reply, 15:18 UTC · 2 likes
Sweet 😎

Tweet, 19:13 UTC · 7 likes
12. [A hot take of mine that needs more sunlight]
Whether the future is good or bad in expectation is essentially unrelated to the question of whether we should try to reduce x-risk, and this is for very contingent reasons (namely how AI and biorisk differ from “all humans suddenly die” type risks like stellar explosions)
Read more! Underrated EA Forum post IMO https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eeDsHDoM9De4iGGLw/questioning-the-value-of-extinction-risk-reduction-1


Thread, continued, 19:39 UTC
14. Lexicality doesn’t “break” total utilitarianism because there’s no rule/demonstration/argument (afaik) that every hedonic state is congruent (in a ratio sense) to a particular real number
In other words, even taking utils to be a legitimate hypothetical unit of sorts, there’s no rule/proof that they’re well modeled by the real number line
Thread, continued, 19:45 UTC
This
Thread, continued, 19:50 UTC · 3 likes
16. I’m stealing from my EA Forum Quick takes, which you should check out if you want something like Twitter that you’ll be intimidated to post on


Thread, continued, 19:53 UTC · 5 likes
17. Should be illegal to call urself EA or EA adjacent or EA adjacent adjacent for that matter and not have read this post. Extremely good and entirely true https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/criticism-of-criticism-of-criticism
Thread, continued, 19:58 UTC · 11 likes
18. There should be a better way to translate donation dollars into status/public recognition in a linear-ish way
Currently nobody *sees* if you donate $6k instead of $5k this year. But they *do* see, if just a bit, if you publish 6 EA Forum posts instead of 5
Quote tweet, 20:08 UTC · 16 likes
Empiricism 👏 and 👏 falsificationism 👏 are 👏 overrated 👏
Quoting roon (@tszzl): there are unfalsifiable claims that are true
Reply, 20:13 UTC · 2 likes
I’m not literally imagining fused brains - if I’m remembering correctly there are some criteria like “displays mourning behavior” or “responds to painful stimuli” or “tool use” and like if one pig doesn’t display mourning behavior it seems very unlikely that two pigs would
Reply, 20:14 UTC · 2 likes
The critique here is about robustness to different ways of viewing/chopping up the same actual world
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 20:24 UTC · 5 likes
Aaron Bergman, August 26, 2023: 18. There should be a better way to translate donation dollars into status/public recognition in a linear-ish way Currently nobody *sees* if you donate $6k…
19. The 80k podcast is so good. Kinda think everyone should listen to every episode that still seems somewhat relevant or interesting
I joke that a majority of the facts I know and views I have came straight from the mouth of Rob Wiblin. Idk if it’s literally the majority, but it’s definitely a lot
Quote tweet, 20:28 UTC · 4 likes
20. I say this with an unblemished record of heterosexuality: EAs success is probably due in at least .1% to Will MacAskill being attractive
Quoting Acyn (@Acyn): Watters: I say this with an unblemished record of heterosexuality. He looks good and he looks hard.
Thread, continued, 20:31 UTC · 1 like
[intermission] inviting EA relevant questions/topics/words to elicit latent takes bc 70-whatever is a lot lol
Reply, 20:56 UTC · 2 likes
Haha. Yes.
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 21:01 UTC · 9 likes
Aaron Bergman, August 26, 2023: [intermission] inviting EA relevant questions/topics/words to elicit latent takes bc 70-whatever is a lot lol
21. Not very certain at all but it seems like he differentially sped up alignment and concern about AGI relative to AGI, so no.
And while I don’t think OpenAI is acting optimally, it’s not obvious to me that their existence is bad on net
Thread, continued, 21:07 UTC · 5 likes
22. For the subset of people who either live in a Berkeley group house or work in a large-ish EA org office, I tentatively say they’re at about the right weirdness level. Everyone else should be weirder (polyamory aside which doesn’t seem important either way)
Also what are luminators?
Thread, continued, 21:15 UTC · 2 likes
23. In part because animals aren’t treated as poorly in poor countries and in part because of the last normie neuron hanging on in my brain, GiveDirectly still good
When it comes to the global middle class (maybe poor by US standards), I tentatively suspect that increased buying power is indeed bad if human consumption and second order animal welfare are considerations. There are a gazillion nth order affects though so I regret to report that I’m not sure
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 21:17 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZAMA4y6SbtFCTjjY4/a-new-option-for-building-lumenators
This is like level .0001 weirdness. I have 9 light sources (incl one corn bulb) in my room which I’d guess is about 300sq feet
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 21:21 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Uhh @AaronBergman18 you know things about medicine, right?
No but I know a guy https://chat.openai.com/share/5c920677-05de-4dd1-b081-5d1ad3a61386
Absolutely, you're right that the number of federally-funded medical residency slots in the U.S. has been capped since the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. This cap generally restricts the expansion of Medicare-funded positions, but there are several factors that have contributed to the increase in residency slots despite this:
1. **State Funding**: Some states have directly funded residency positions to address physician shortages, especially in rural areas.
2. **Hospital Funding**: Hospitals also fund residency positions outside of Medicare, often in specialties that are lucrative and can offset the costs.
3. **Teaching Health Centers**: These are community-based programs that have received some federal support outside of Medicare, particularly geared toward primary care residencies.
4. **Affiliation Agreements**: Hospitals can shuffle residents between them in a way that allows for additional slots to be "created" without breaching the cap.
5. **Rural Redistribution**: CMS has a program allowing unused slots in urban centers to be moved to rural areas. This doesn't increase the overall cap but redistributes where residents can be trained.
6. **The GME Bill and Legislative Changes**: While not major, some incremental adjustments in federal policy have relaxed the cap a bit.
7. **Consortiums**: Hospitals and healthcare systems are increasingly forming consortiums to share the financial burden and pool Medicare-funded slots.
8. **Private Sector**: Some private entities, such as pharmacy chains, have started to sponsor residencies in specific areas like pharmacy or family medicine.
9. **Specialized Funding Streams**: There are unique funding routes for particular kinds of residencies (e.g., VA-funded slots for veteran care).
10. **Osteopathic Programs**: The ongoing merger of MD and DO accreditation systems has also led to an expansion in available slots.
These factors together account for the 40% growth you mentioned, despite the federal cap.
Quote tweet, 21:33 UTC · 19 likes
24. I personally like the EA/rationalist aesthetic and social vibes, but thats just taste
Huge respect for those who still try to do good for the core intellectual and moral reasons despite *not* being like me in this respect
(this has been in my drafts for a while)
Quoting Nuño Sempere (@NunoSempere): "What motivates you to continue to engage with EA?". Good question, CEA, good question. I've been thinking about this as follows:
Thread, continued, 22:56 UTC · 5 likes
25. I tentatively agree with the moral realist wager argument that you should act as though MR was true as long as your credence is >0%, but I feel like if I didn’t believe in moral realism (for other reasons) this would seem super sus to me and I’d scrutinize it much more heavily
Thread, continued, 23:05 UTC · 6 likes
26. Relatedly, I believe in a kinda weird form of moral realism:
1) given two states of the world, at least sometimes (and most of the time, empirically) there’s an objectively correct answer as to which is (morally) better
2) same for actions^
3) but normativity per se doesn’t seem legit
4) so I think eg “suffering is bad” is objectively true, as is “it would be morally good to donate to THL rather than spend that money on a chicken breast” but “you should donate to THL…” doesn’t have an objective truth value, at least on its own
Sunday, August 27, 2023
Reply, 04:55 UTC · 2 likes
Lol yes
Reply, 05:22 UTC · 2 likes
יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶיךָ, ה' אֱלֹהַי וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתַי, שֶׁתִּמְצָא לִי בְּרַחֲמֶיךָ הָרַבִּים וּגְדֻלַּת חַסְדֶּךָ, זִוּגִי הָאֱמִתִּי וְהַכּוֹנֶן בָּעֵת הָרָאוּיָה. זִוּגִי הָרָאוּי, רָאוּי לְהוֹלִיד בָּנִים, אִישׁ תַּלְמוּדִי, גָּדוֹל בַּתּוֹרָה וּבְיִרְאַת שָׁמַיִם, נוֹלַד מִזֶּרַע אַנְשֵׁי צֶדֶק וֶאֱמֶת אֲשֶׁר יֵשׁ לָהֶם פַּחַד חֵטְא. כַּאֲשֶׁר מָצָאתָ לְאָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, לְאַבְרָהָם, לְיִצְחָק, לְיַעֲקֹב וּלְמֹשֶׁה, אִישׁ אֶת־זִוּגוֹ הָאֱמִתִּי בָּעֵת הָרָאוּיָה וְהַזְּמַן.
Reply, 07:21 UTC · 2 likes
Wait really? This half sounds fake but I wouldn’t be able to tell either way lol
Reply to @StefanFSchubert, 11:27 UTC · 3 likes
Stefan Schubert (@StefanFSchubert): Doesn't seem miles away to me
די חוצפה פון פּרוּוון איבערזעצן “חוצפה” אויף ענגליש איז, איראָניש, אַ גלאַנץ ביישפּיל פון “חוצפה” גופא! דער דאָזיקער ייִדישער טערמין איז אַזוי טיף אײַנגעפֿאַלן אין קולטורעלן נואַנס, קאָנטעקסט און געשיכטע, אַז דאָס קאָכטן עס אַראָפּ צו אַן ענגלישן עקוויוואַלענט ווי "גאַל" אָדער "נערווע" איז גאָרנישט ווי אינטעלעקטואַל פוילקייט. איר סטרייד אַוועק לייַערס פון טייַטש, פון די בראַוואַדאָ צו די לויטער אַנמיטאַגייטיד טמעראַטי אַז די וואָרט ענקאַפּסאַלייץ.
די ענגלישע שפּראַך איז רײַך, זיכער, אָבער עס פֿעלט די נויטיקע ייִדישקייט, די קולטורעלע ספּעציפֿיטעט, צו כאַפּן דאָס וואָס "חוצפה" רעפּראַזענץ באמת. עס איז מער ווי חוצפּה; עס איז חוצפּה שפּריצן מיט אַ לאָך פון חוצפה, אַ שפּריצן פון טשיקינאַס, און אַ כעפטי דאָזע פון דיפיי. דאָס איז די עסאַנס פון טשאַלאַנדזשינג די סטאַטוס קוואָ, ניט נאָר פֿאַר די צוליב פון מרידה, אָבער אָפט ווי אַ ניצל אינסטינקט, סטיפּט אין סענטשעריז פון געראַנגל און דער וועט צו אַנטקעגנשטעלנ די שאַנסן.
צו איבערזעצן "חוצפה" איז עס צו קישקען פון איר מהות, עס סטעריליזירן, מאכן עס געשמאַק פאר די מאסן, אבער אין דעם פראצעס גאר אן קיין נשמה. אַזוי, טראַכטן צוויי מאָל איידער איר פּרובירן צו דיסטילד דעם קווינטיסענשאַלי אַנטראַנסלייטאַבאַל טערמין אין אַ שוואַך ענגליש אַנטקעגענער. איר וועט פאַרלירן מער ווי בלויז אַ וואָרט; איר וועט פאַרלירן אַ גאַנץ קולטור לעקסיקאָן וואָס פשוט קענען ניט זיין באַקסט אין די קאַנפיינז פון אן אנדער שפּראַך
Reply, 11:30 UTC · 1 like
I literally do not believe “pasta with vegetables” didn’t exist until 1975
Reply to @joshua_saxe, 12:34 UTC · 2 likes
Joshua Saxe (@joshua_saxe): @AaronBergman18 @StefanFSchubert Ironically had to use the translate function but this is a really beautiful response, thanks
Hahaha tbc I don’t speak a word of Yiddish, this is chatGPT -> google translate
Reply to @xlr8harder, 12:46 UTC · 2 likes
xlr8harder (@xlr8harder): I don’t find it difficult to manage python environments
Posts like this are funny because the algo puts it in my feed and I’m getting the sense it’s all pretty basic but like
pip install whatever
import whatever
what else is there to do? I feel like the thing where packages clash or whatever is fake
Cc @austinc3301 is this related to the poetry thing
Reply, 12:47 UTC · 1 like
It is that which radiates
Thread, continued, 12:47 UTC
Damn uk really be living in luxury
Kinda wanna culturally appropriate this
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 13:32 UTC · 1 like
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): I think it must be a consequence of you using hvac instead of radiators so this seems less obvious to you
🧠‼️
Quote tweet, 13:50 UTC · 2 likes
55 to go rn, plz give me things to opine on 🙏🏼
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): I don’t think I’ve done this before…
1 like = 1 hot take. Starting EA related, maybe branching out if the spiciness starts waining
Quote tweet, 17:12 UTC
28. As usual, all the obvious and popular critiques suck (“WhaT If fuTurE pEoPLE DoN’T mATtER?”
Unfortunately, those seem to have mostly overshadowed a bunch of semi-technical but plausibly important issues. My biggest hobbyhorse here was no. 16
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): 16. I’m stealing from my EA Forum Quick takes, which you should check out if you want something like Twitter that you’ll be intimidated to post on
Thread, continued, 17:17 UTC · 1 like
29. (Maybe I’ll dig around for some of the other related points later^)
In hindsight, CEA promo bananza still seems like a good ex ante decision, mostly just on priors that the people there are smart, earnest, and basically rational and so a decision of there’s probably is too
Probably a bad use of money ex post (FTX) though
Tweet, 17:21 UTC · 6 likes
The castle thing (the controversy, not the decision to purchase) is stupid and I haven’t seen a single plausible good faith critique
Real estate doesn’t get consumed or depreciate like other assets! It would at least make sense to argue that Effective Ventures should liquidate everything ASAP and give it all to object level charities, but nobody thinks this afaict bc it’s not a good idea lol
The “castle” term is probably a little unfair but whatever. I’m happy to defend it for non-semantic reasons
Tweet, 17:27 UTC · 9 likes
30. If anything, shrimp welfare is good branding bc it’s very hard to attribute non-earnest weirdo altruist motives to
But I continue to think that, as a strong heuristic, just saying/doing what you think is true+good is the best plausible PR strategy, in addition to being epistemically good. Maybe adjust *wording* to be more familiar or smth, but the underlying ideas being expressed should not change (99.99% of the time)
Thread, continued, 17:35 UTC · 3 likes
31. Seems bad just as an intuition. Maybe I’m not super worried because:
1. Current legal protections at least in the US (search warrants) and social norms (right to privacy) seem to extend pretty naturally to this; and
2. Most cognitive deception comes in the form of Hansonian self-deception, not lies per se
But I really haven’t thought about this so super unconfident
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 19:15 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): I guess my sense is that if you aren't already well-connected through e.g. twitter, visiting a hub often ends up being kinda disappointing? I do think EAG(x)s serve a useful role in helping people get integrated into the community
Yes I was a dumbass and absorbed the “come to the bay” meme without actually thinking through anything and wasted a bunch of money (I consider(ed) it personal spending but still) to hang out with a few people for a few hours
Tweet, 20:43 UTC · 3 likes
32. Consider checking out these ancient, well-preserved documents (Felicifia aka Ye Olde Æ For’m) for some intellectual and cultural history https://felicifia.github.io/forum/index.html
Thread, continued, 20:58 UTC · 6 likes
33. Veganism is morally commendable but I’ve come to think basically unhealthy and unsustainable for most people long term (say >2 years??)
That said I think there’s huge interpersonal (probably genetic) variation here. I elaborate here
Monday, August 28, 2023
Reply, 00:13 UTC · 2 likes
¿
Reply, 00:23 UTC · 24 likes
No I think it’s actually a totally valid and not immediately dismissible response:
Alec’s claim was that modernity can’t be bad on net (for individual humans) because people have the same choices as before plus additional ones. That’s sounds plausible but turns out not to be true.
(Talking about the general point here, not the sub claim about migrant labor)
Reply, 00:25 UTC · 4 likes

Reply, 07:48 UTC · 4 likes
😢
Quote tweet, 09:46 UTC · 34 likes
If there are no bright screens or caffeinated drinks around, kids should be able to stay up as late as they want

Quoting Mediocre Mom (@MediocreMamaa): As an end-of-summer treat, I told my 5yo he can stay up as late as he wants tonight. His regular bedtime is 7:30. It’s 7:50 and he’s outside swinging on his swing set telling me this is the best day ever. Will keep you posted on how long he makes it.
Reply, 09:59 UTC · 2 likes
You can just add excess lactase I assume
Reply, 11:14 UTC · 6 likes
Yes, which is why eventually they will get tired and fall asleep
If kiddo is pulling true all nighters at 36 months, I retract my claim
Reply, 12:09 UTC · 6 likes
That would be bad, I just think it’s very unlikely bc “sleep needs during childhood” seems like the kind of thing evolution would be very good at installing (I do think it’s plausible with stims and screens though bc we don’t have genes ready for those)
Reply to @CharlesD353, 12:12 UTC · 2 likes
Charles🔸 (@CharlesD353): Not all things related to kids need to be optimised for kids - this one is mostly for parents, I think, and that's ok.
Yeah good point
I think some kids (maybe like age 10ish?) have bed times not for this reason at all but I have zero authority on this matter lol
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 12:22 UTC · 10 likes
Aaron Bergman, August 27, 2023: 33. Veganism is morally commendable but I’ve come to think basically unhealthy and unsustainable for most people long term (say >2 years??) That said I think…
34. I would much more strongly advise a 90/10 (maybe like 99/1) suffering-reducetarian diet. If you can afford it and it doesn’t trade off with donation dollars, this might look like grass fed and ideally humane certified beef/eggs/whatever
It’s been a while since I looked into how bad these are accounting for elasticity and stuff tho
Tweet, 17:50 UTC · 12 likes
35. (This is indeed relevant to EA imo bc ~networking)
This really comes down to personal preference so not making a normative claim but:
I think people broadly like me tend to overestimate the risks/downsides and underestimate the potential benefits of going by their real name + pfp + unlocked account + saying what city u live in + not *actively* cultivating a different vibe/personality than u have irl, etc - on Twitter but also online more generally
A few more thoughts in this audiopen ramble ->

Quote tweet, 18:06 UTC · 8 likes
Pulling this out bc it’s pretty broadly relevant IMO…
I’d speculate this is an artifact of receiving lots of cautious wisdom from our (say age 18-30) parents’ generation…
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): 35. (This is indeed relevant to EA imo bc ~networking)
This really comes down to personal preference so not making a normative claim but:
I think people broadly like me tend to overestimate the risks/downsides and underestimate the potential benefits of going by their real name + pfp + unlocked account + saying what city u live in + not *actively* cultivating a different vibe/personality than u have irl, etc - on Twitter but also online more generally
A few more thoughts in this audiopen ramble ->
Reply, 19:12 UTC · 7 likes
I have takes, also I’ll just dump sources as I find/remember them
Starting with https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/5/27/15701168/save-animal-lives-eat-beef-not-chicken
Reply to @dissproportion, 19:23 UTC · 16 likes
Dissproportionately (@dissproportion): Is there an article you want to point me to that’s a spectrum of the ethics of meat eating? Like ideally you’re vegan, then vegetarian, then pescatarian, then you strangle the deer yourself while singing a lullaby, etc? I want to know what’s the step after the deer strangling.
The 80/20 afaik is: no “normal” (ie almost everything) chicken, eggs, or farmed fish
Grocery stores often sell less bad eggs (eg pete and Gerry’s) but humane poultry is basically never sold normally. I’m not super sure how bad these are tbc
90/10 is that + no pork or fish unless you really go out of ur way to get humane
95/5 is only grass fed (3rd party humane certified gets u to 97) beef (or other red meat like bison) and dairy and pastured certified humane (“free range” means almost nothing) eggs, and oysters+muscles (maybe clams???)
99/1 is raise ur own chickens and/or go hunting and/or fish ur self and then stab the fish instead of letting it suffocate)
Hopefully nerdy animal welfare twitter will come and correct this as needed lol
Reply, 20:19 UTC · 2 likes
Now we’re talking
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
Reply, 02:39 UTC · 7 likes
The ocean?
Reply, 11:49 UTC · 4 likes
Math is so fake
Reply, 11:50 UTC · 2 likes
dictionary
Reply, 18:44 UTC · 10 likes
I agree w the second half and that the distribution is smooth, but suspect it’s highly bimodal, not normal
Tweet, 18:52 UTC · 22 likes
I’m gonna need to psychologically prepare for this one

Reply, 18:54 UTC · 5 likes
This is the worst idea anyone has ever had
Quote tweet, 18:56 UTC · 3 likes
Not an endorsement (of the tweet or Vivek)
Yet
Quoting Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania): The effective altruist case for Vivek. He’ll make the FDA go faster. Everything else pales in comparison.
Reply, 18:57 UTC · 2 likes
Damn ur good this high school thing is realistic af
Reply, 19:04 UTC · 4 likes
@JesseTayRiver I’m almost certain
Quote tweet, 20:02 UTC · 9 likes
It’s just speed/wind chill right?
Quoting Culture (@CultureHOF):
Reply to @Laura_k_Duffy, 20:20 UTC · 2 likes
Laura Muresianu 🌐🔸🇺🇸 (@Laura_k_Duffy): If he actually rescinds these regulations, wouldn’t it likely be overturned as arbitrary and capricious given how the standards for executive action have evolved in the last few years?
I have no idea but tbc I’m basically joking and think it is very unlikely I will ever support Vivek for president no matter how much I dislike the FDA
Quote tweet, 20:23 UTC · 14 likes
Live tweeting as I listen
Interesting thing 1: go on 4 first dates/year and you probably won’t be single (ie only a small % of singles who want a relationship are doing this, though a large % go on 1 rather than 0)
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): I’m gonna need to psychologically prepare for this one
Tweet, 20:26 UTC · 13 likes
I’m at n=2 so two more until gf because that’s how statistics work
Reply to @freed_dfilan, 23:42 UTC · 4 likes
Daniel Filan 🔎 (@freed_dfilan): @AaronBergman18 ok but people select into numbers of dates based on how successful they expect the dates to be.
Yeah Zvi mentions this, I haven’t finished yet but pretty sure he thinks that’s not the main thing going on
Also evidential DC! trying to go on more dates is evidence that you’re the type of person who (rationally) expects them to go well
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Tweet, 00:21 UTC · 4 likes
I made the post lol

Tweet, 00:43 UTC · 3 likes
Not novel advice but “ask out more people”
I think this is good and true advice that I have so far simply not followed
Thread, continued, 00:46 UTC · 4 likes
Post mentions a YouTube video where a nerdy shy avg looking Asian guy asks out 100 women and gets 19 “yes”s
This is pretty surprising to me and a big whitepill, although I do wonder how many of those 19 actually result in a date (or will/would if the guy followed up)
Thread, continued, 00:51 UTC · 1 like
“Each additional attractiveness point doubles your number of matches on dating apps” and based on context it seems like this is within a single individual by using better pics
But if true
Thread, continued, 01:03 UTC · 6 likes
Zvi thinks guys overestimate how much/often women are bothered or annoyed by getting asked out
But, IMO more importantly, his stance is “yeah some women will be annoyed or even disgusted but, like, oh well. It’s not the end of the world for either of you”
Tweet, 01:11 UTC · 2 likes
I do wish we (ie Western liberal-ish educated young adults in the West) could get to a social contract of:
Tweet, 01:12 UTC · 4 likes
Men:
- be basically kind, respectful, and honest
- Take legible “no” signals (socially, sexually)
- don’t socially punish women for rejection
- take rejection courteously
- take feedback (implicit or ideally explicit) courteously and as sincere
Thread, continued, 01:15 UTC · 1 like
Women:
- before socially punishing a guy for overreaching (in whatever way), ask him *explicitly* to stop (or retroactively like “x made me uncomfortable, fyi”)
- if subtle/implicit no signals don’t work, assume the guy is socially inept rather than malicious, and be explicit…
Tweet, 01:23 UTC · 4 likes
- Don’t punish guys for asking you out in a basically respectful way. Just politely reject
Ok now everybody: these are the rules now, everyone knows them, and everyone knows everyone knows them 👍
Reply, 01:59 UTC · 3 likes
Sounds like the kind of thing that might be true of the guy on a median date but not of the median guy
Reply to @jide_alaga, 02:19 UTC · 7 likes
Jide 🔍 (@jide_alaga): I fully acknowledge that ~70% of the reason why I am vegan is because I don't want to participate in this massive atrocity rather than because I think its actually impactful.. it almost certainly isn't.
Relative to donating it might be small but do you really think expected suffering reduction is zero? Sure seems positive to me
Reply to @RFishBlueFish, 03:35 UTC · 5 likes
Gil (@RFishBlueFish): What does this emoji 🔍all you fancy EA people are using mean? Someone please explain
Origin story:
Reply, 09:33 UTC · 2 likes
Idgaf if it’s 29 degrees and snowing. It’s my god given right to wear a tank top and shorts
Tweet, 12:48 UTC · 6 likes
Cringe is the new based
Reply, 14:45 UTC · 3 likes
Yeah seems like a bad guy, even if occasionally he’s funny and vibe-affiliates with people on my tl
Reply, 20:00 UTC · 2 likes
Sorry it’s my god given right
Reply, 20:04 UTC · 3 likes
As if her being ugly would make it ok
Thursday, August 31, 2023
Quote tweet, 04:02 UTC · 23 likes
That EA org job? Yeah I was rejected
Quoting ettingermentum (@ettingermentum): this is my style guide
Quote tweet, 04:34 UTC · 22 likes
Round 4 (yes, literally sent a text)

Quoting AI Notkilleveryoneism Memes ⏸️ (@AISafetyMemes): If you haven't yet, have The Deepfake Talk with your parents immediately
Reply, 04:34 UTC · 2 likes
Ya
Tweet, 18:55 UTC · 4 likes
People be moving to DC fr
Reply to @woke8yearold, 21:00 UTC · 5 likes
Aleph (@woke8yearold): I guess a lot of my followers already know this but women actually do it hate it when you open up with them. There is almost nothing they despise more in a man. Basically all mainstream PC dating advice is laughably wrong if you are a guy
This is about the opposite of what Manson says in Models
Reply, 21:52 UTC · 2 likes
Turns out it’s 108 sq feet lol
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